National Security and Defence

Iain Wright Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We are extraordinarily grateful to the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) for his chunter from a sedentary position.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

As the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) said, there is a close link between our defence and security capability and our research, innovation and manufacturing capability. Yet the Prime Minister will know of the problems in the UK steel industry which show how vulnerable we are to losing for ever large chunks of our manufacturing supply chains—chains that could be used for defence and security purposes. Will the Prime Minister outline to the House how he expects the defence growth partnership to evolve with the SDSR, and what steps he is taking to ensure we can maintain the skills, capability and competitiveness in our industrial supply chain so that we can meet our future security and defence requirements with British industry and British innovation?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that the partnerships that we formed with the defence industry and the aerospace industry are the basis of a long-term plan to work with them, and they can now see our long-term commitments on defence spending. We want to see more British steel procured for Government expenditure such as this. Almost all of the 82,000 tonnes involved in the carrier programme was sourced from British steel, and I very much hope that that can be the case with these future procurements as well.

Businesses (North of England)

Iain Wright Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

What a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship again, Mrs Main, and I agree with what the hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) was saying: it is not grim up north—it’s great. It is a fantastic place and I think it has been really interesting in this debate to see how hon. Members can come together and really want to champion the north as an area.

I particularly thank the hon. Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley). We have discussed economic development matters before, and he has always provided consistent support for businesses in wanting to champion them in the House. I commend him for that, and he has done it again this afternoon. He said that Macclesfield is famous for silk, but for my generation, Macclesfield is famous for Joy Division and Ian Curtis. I would be more than happy to talk about them for the next 10 minutes, but I think economic development in the north is equally important.

Our past and our industrial legacy have been mentioned time and again. It is certainly true that industrialisation—the industrial revolution—started in the north. Just to keep hon. Members onside, let us be frank: it started in the north-east. The north-east, the north-west and Yorkshire and the Humber were drivers of innovation, entrepreneurialism and prosperity, and they offered a real counterpoint to the capital of London. Do not forget that London was the capital of the empire—the biggest city in the world—but it was not dominating or eclipsing the fantastic powerhouses of the north. We need to have the model that we had in the 19th century back in a modern, innovative 21st century economy, and this is about working together to make sure that happens. We want to see the north thrive and see the creation and expansion of highly skilled, well-paid jobs in businesses and industries that are innovative, highly productive and selling their goods and services to the rest of the world. I hope that the whole House can share that vision.

The hon. Gentleman and others have talked about devolution and governance of the north. All credit to the Minister; he is very knowledgeable and passionate about this matter. A key offer, which has been mentioned several times in the debate, is to ensure that the north can shape its own destiny. Why should we, as hon. Members, be going cap in hand to Whitehall officials—it is usually officials—who have no knowledge, frankly, of the north and no awareness of the nuances of how the dynamics of local economies work? Why can we not have the tools and powers to realise our potential and shape our own destiny?

Successive Governments have moved in that direction. This Government are continuing to do so, and the next Labour Government, in about 113 days, will be continuing it as well. The Leader of the Opposition has said that he wishes to devolve £4 billion of Whitehall spend directly to city and, crucially for the hon. Member for Macclesfield, to county regions, too. That is about double the sum proposed by the present Government. I am interested in what the Minister has to say about further devolution and further governance arrangements.

In many respects, governance can be a very theoretical issue. Something I admire about the hon. Member for Macclesfield and other hon. Members in this Chamber is their practicality. When we consider Government support for businesses, we have to think about practicalities. If I run a company in Macclesfield or Hartlepool, what does Government support actually do? How does it help me to grow my business? Where do I go? We have heard today about 636 different initiatives from the Government. The situation is far too complex. It is difficult to navigate and it changes far too often. All Governments are guilty of rebranding, of initiative-itis, of wanting to announce something. I can understand that, but we have to recognise that we need continuity, stability and long-termism in business policy to ensure that businesses know where to go, how they access support of different types and how they make sure that support grows and thrives.

Let me put my party political hat on now. The Government are particularly bad at tinkering. We have heard about the abolition of the regional development agencies early on in this Parliament, and a number of reasons were given for that abolition. Chiefly, one of them seemed to be, “The last lot brought them in. We have to get rid of them to effect change.” I do not think that is right, and it has been detrimental to the northern economy. There could be some great debate here, but I think it is recognised that the three RDAs of the north—One North East, Yorkshire Forward and the Northwest Regional Development Agency—worked pretty effectively in trying to regenerate their areas and provide economic development and support to businesses in the regions. The setting-up of their replacements—the LEPs—took a couple of years, and businesses were uncertain about what to do. A gap was left in support, so we have lost two or three years in which we could have really chased ahead in respect of economic growth in the regions.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

It is really unfair to say that the reason why the RDAs were abolished was that they were not invented by this Government. They were abolished because they were not focused enough on the north. We have heard that there was one in the south-east and one in London—that is not very regional. The fact remains that the Centre for Cities report states that between 1997 and 2008, for every 10 jobs generated in London, one was generated in the north. That is why the RDAs had to go.

[Mr Wright]

But why outright abolition rather than reform? I certainly could not justify the idea of a south-east regional development agency, but making sure that there could be reform while trying to have as much continuity as possible would have been best for business and providing Government support.

[Andrew Percy]

I have to correct the hon. Gentleman on the idea of a consensus that the RDAs were performing well. In the Humber, we felt strongly that the Yorkshire regional development agency was very much Leeds-focused, and it is fair to say that since the introduction of the Humber LEP, we have a real vision of what we want for our economy in terms of new renewable energies and a real drive to get to that. We did not have that under Yorkshire Forward.

[Mr Wright]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. If we are going to have true devolution to the north and a recognition that city regions can really power local economies, how do we ensure that areas that are peripheral to the centre of cities—[Interruption.] Let me finish, because this is an important point that affects my constituency, too. How do we ensure that those areas can really have change as well? For example, Newcastle will help to drive forward the north-east economy, and Middlesbrough, to some extent, will drive forward the north-east economy when it comes to Teesside. In Hartlepool, we have fantastic areas of specialism in respect of high-value manufacturing. The idea that we could be left behind is absolutely ridiculous, and other areas—other towns and rural villages—will have the same approach. Will the Minister respond to that? Given the city region model, how do we ensure that places such as Rochdale, Hartlepool and areas in the Peak district are not left behind? That is very important.

I want to mention a number of other things briefly in the time I have available. The hon. Member for Macclesfield and other hon. Members have mentioned connectivity, which is a really pressing point for the north. A couple of years ago, a report by the Institute for Public Policy Research showed that the gap in spending on transport in particular is very acute. On a per-capita basis, the spend in London is 500 times as much as for the north-east, 20 times as much as for the north-west and over 16 times as much as in Yorkshire and the Humber. If we are talking about the link between city regions and other outlying areas, connectivity—being able to get to the jobs and businesses of the future—is absolutely crucial. How will the Minister deal with that?

My hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) mentioned business rates, which is a really important matter that disproportionately affects businesses in the north. The situation needs to change. We welcome the Chancellor’s review of business rates and hope that recommendations will be brought forward. I hope that the Minister, in turn, will support what the Labour party has been doing in calling for a cut to business rates in 2015 and a freeze on them in 2016 to ensure that there is an absolute requirement and a recognition that business rates are a major cost for businesses and detracting from further growth and prosperity.

Access to finance was also mentioned and the attitude of the banks when it came to my hon. Friend. There is still a problem with access to finance, in having that transactional, often confrontational relationship between a bank and a business. Is the British Business Bank doing as much as it should? Do we have proper local knowledge to ensure that regional banks have the understanding and recognition of what a local economy requires? That is very important, and I hope that the Minister will have time to say something about how we ensure that we have responsive banking systems and financial arrangements in local areas.

I want to mention some hon. Members’ favourite subject—Europe. Is the Minister concerned about—

[Mr Nigel Evans]

Did we mention it?

[Mr Wright]

No, but it is hon. Members’ interest in certain areas. There is a concern that because the Commission does not recognise the governance arrangements of LEPs, millions of pounds are being lost or certainly delayed on their way to the regions. My own area of the north-east has the potential to be delayed to the tune of £724 million, and for the north-west the figure is £895 million.

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. I ask Mr Wright to let the Minister respond.

[Mr Wright]

Will the Minister respond—

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Mr Wright]

And does he appreciate that the north is a fantastic place that has the potential to grow further?

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order.

[The Minister for Universities, Science and Cities (Greg Clark)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main, in what has been an excellent debate. Some of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) were excellent, but some were not. Let me pick up the point about RDAs. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) was right. The RDAs were not abolished because they were not invented by us; they were abolished because they did not work. During their existence, the north’s share—I am talking about the north-east, the north-west and the administrative region of Yorkshire and the Humber—shrank as a percentage of the national economy. The hon. Member for Hartlepool will know, having grown up on Teesside, as I did, that there was an accurate perception during all the years of the 1970s and into the ’80s that the strength of the Tees valley was often under the shadow of Newcastle, to the north. One of the great successes in the north-east has been the revival of the identity of the Tees valley through its very successful LEP, which is making great progress.

I join colleagues in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) on giving us the opportunity to have the debate, on his excellent speech and on his very kind words to me at the beginning.

The Government are committed to the creation of a northern powerhouse, and we have had an expression of the northern powerhouse in the number of Members at this debate: 17 Conservative Members with constituencies or affiliations with the north. I speak as a proud northerner, born and bred in Middlesbrough. I sometimes carry around with me a medallion that was struck in 1881 to commemorate the unveiling of a statue in Middlesbrough, erected by public subscription, to the first mayor of Middlesbrough and first Member of Parliament for Middlesbrough. He was an industrialist, an ironmaster; Bolckow was his name.

The reason why I often refer, as the hon. Member for Hartlepool did, to those times is that, as he will agree, there was no distinction then between industrial leadership and local leadership. There was an expectation that the people who would drive forward the local economy through their businesses would give of themselves, their time and their investments in helping to make those places successful. I hope that we will get back to the time when mayors of Middlesbrough and other great towns and cities around the country had statues erected to them by public subscription to thank them for their achievements. Certainly, that is the direction in which we are going; we need to give more power to the north.

What are the elements of what we need to do? One element is raising the long-term growth rate of the constituencies and communities in the north. As the hon. Gentleman and many other hon. Members said, the north drove the British economy at various times in our history. There is no reason why its growth rate should be below the national average. Our ambition must be to have it pulling the national average up, rather than being below it.

We need to continue the progress on raising the employment rate. We need to continue to address the need for investment in long-term transport infrastructure. One thing that has excited colleagues and constituents and representatives of all parties across the north is the vision for transport improvements, whether through the HS2 or HS3 connections that are being made.

The north-west is already, as my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield said, a global centre for outstanding scientific innovation. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) made that point as well. It is also, as many hon. Members mentioned, a good place to live in, to work in and to visit. We need to celebrate and build on the quality of life in the north.

We need to ensure that the voices of people in the north acquire greater power and influence. It seems to me that the influence and the ability that Teesside has, and Middlesbrough in particular, to shape its own destiny was rather greater when decisions were made on the banks of the River Tees than when they came to be made on the banks of the Thames. I think that we need to revive that tradition.

Let me deal with some of the points that hon. Members made. Both Cheshire Members referred to the Square Kilometre Array. We are very proud of this asset. The heritage of Jodrell Bank in being at the leading edge of science is very important to us. I am due to meet the review panel for the SKA next month, and I will signal our wholehearted commitment to the project and to promoting Jodrell Bank as the rightful location for the SKA’s headquarters. I will take up with my ministerial colleagues the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton.

In the few minutes that I have in which to speak, I want to pay tribute to the leadership that my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield has given on the Alderley Park taskforce, which has been a phenomenal success. He will, I know, share the credit with the many local leaders, both in industry and in the local authority, who have worked together in just the way that he has described to create a prospering park with a great future. I am informed that, to date, the BioHub has attracted more than 70 biopharmaceutical companies, employing 281 staff. It is home to businesses that have been supported by some of the initiatives that many hon. Members have mentioned today. I place on the record my thanks to my hon. Friend and to all the other members of the Alderley Park taskforce for their efforts in building on this opportunity.

The common denominator of the remarks that have been made by hon. Members from right across the area —the 17 Conservative colleagues and our two Labour colleagues, who made important contributions, is that—

[Mr Iain Wright]

What about the Lib Dems?

[Greg Clark]

Well, at least two parties were represented here. We need to recognise that the prosperity of the country requires every part of the country to be firing on all cylinders. That is the common denominator of all the points that were made.

Local rivalries were on display in some of the remarks. Some rivalries are more friendly than others. I dare say that Middlesbrough and Hartlepool have also had their moments over the years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wright]

And still do.

[Greg Clark]

Indeed. That just underlines the point that no two places are alike. They may be close geographically, but they have different histories, different traditions, often different industries and different politics. If we try to subsume them all into an approach that gets them to fit in with a central Government view of how the world should be, we will suppress the very individuality and difference that gives them their energy and creative spark, so one thing that we have tried to do—with success, I think—is to work through, first, the city deals and then the growth deals, and we have replaced the regional development agencies, in which great cities such as Manchester and Liverpool lost their identity, as did counties such as Cumbria and Lancashire. By taking the RDAs away and giving voice to representatives of real places rather than administratively concocted places, we have begun to empower those places and, in addition, the various deals that we have done have all been proposed and made in the areas that they represent, and they gather strength from that.

This is the beginning of a process that will continue. My hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) has displayed his tenacity in the number of Ministers he has lured to his constituency. I need to declare in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests that a pint of Pride of Pendle might be waiting for me when I make—

Deregulation Bill

Iain Wright Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

We have had a series of bombshells during this debate. As became increasingly evident would be the case, no Lib Dems whatever have spoken in this Second Reading debate or even intervened, which I thought was very telling.

There were also a series of bookended bombshells. At the end of the debate we heard from the hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace), who I was not aware had qualified as an Austrian ski instructor. I will certainly take that on board next time I am on the piste.

The Minister who opened the debate mentioned in his second or third sentence the fact that regulation was, to use his phrase, often sensible and necessary, which also came as a bombshell. That was welcome and—to be sensible for a moment—set the tone of the debate throughout: that we should try to have a regulatory regime that is proportionate and appropriate, but that any unnecessary legislation should be removed from the statute book. We on the Labour Benches would certainly agree with that.

The Minister also mentioned—this was the biggest bombshell of all—that Charlie Chaplin can be now be rehabilitated. Chaplin, who was seen as a communist in the United States in the 1950s, has now been fully rehabilitated into the Conservative party of the 21st century. That is welcome. The Minister said that village halls up and down the country are happy to be able to screen Chaplin. I have to ask him: has he seen “A Woman of Paris”, which highlights illicit sex encounters between an unmarried young woman and her boyfriend, who shoots himself at the end of the film? Is this the type of film that the Minister wants to deregulate, to ensure that it is available to the village halls and the spinsters of old England? I do not think it should be.

This is a somewhat ad hoc Bill. The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) called it a hotch-potch, while my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) called it a mishmash. The Minister has scouted and hawked round Whitehall for the best part of a year, asking for any ideas for a deregulatory Bill. In many respects, that is not necessarily a bad thing. It is good, as we have heard several times, to have a spring clean. However, I disagree with a lot of what the Minister said. He opened the debate by saying that health and safety legislation was “wretched stuff”. I hope he will use this opportunity to say that not all health and safety legislation is wretched.

[Mr Letwin]

I never said any such thing. What I was referring to was ludicrously overburdensome guidance that is verbose and unclear. That is the bit that is wretched stuff. Of course health and safety legislation is necessary and desirable; it is a question of trying to make sure that is straightforward, clear and to the point.

[Mr Wright]

The phrase that the Minister has just used—straightforward, clear and to the point—is very important, because I am not entirely certain that clause 1 is. My hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck said that it serves no purpose other than to confuse, and I have to agree with him. The Health and Safety Executive consulted on the proposals. To be fair, clause 1 was the preferred option, but the majority of those responding to the consultation opposed the idea.

As has been said several times in the debate, the Opposition are concerned that clause 1 does not really have any tangible impact, but introduces more confusion for self-employed people, who may wrongly think that they are exempt from health and safety laws. No self-employed person has ever been prosecuted or threatened with prosecution for risking only their own health. Given that only people who pose no risk to anybody will be exempt, I cannot see how there will be a practical impact on business or individuals. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which we have heard about, can already be used only in circumstances where a person puts another person at risk anyway.

We have heard about the construction sector on a number of occasions. There is an awful lot of bogus self-employment in the construction industry. Does clause 1 deal with that? I thought that the Minister was very precise, in a vague sort of way, in his use of language, because he said that by the time the Bill reached Committee, “activities” would be prescribed. Is that activities or professions and jobs? It would useful to have an idea about that, because we are extremely concerned about clause 1. We would like clarification, both this evening and in Committee, about which jobs will be excluded and reassurances that protections will be in place.

[Mr Letwin]

Of course I am happy to provide that clarification. When the shadow Minister sees the prescribed list, he will see that it largely concerns activities, but also certain sectors in which so many of the activities cause dangers to other people involved in them that they are completely exempted from the provision.

[Mr Wright]

That is helpful.

I thought the hon. Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) made a great speech, which was quite literally Churchillian in its approach. Let us not forget that the second Churchill Government produced the Mines and Quarries Act 1954, because Churchill recognised the importance of improved regulation and health and safety in things such as welfare and employment, especially for women and young people. In terms of domestic legislation, the Churchill Administration of 1951 to ’55 were very progressive.

The hon. Gentleman talked about first-time entrepreneurs and first-time exporters. He talked about realising dreams and achieving objectives. I have to agree with him: that is exactly what we want to see. However, there is nothing in this Bill that allows that to happen. Not one jot of what he mentioned in his rhetoric would be allowed under this Bill.

[David Rutley]

Has the hon. Gentleman not taken any notice at all of the debate about clause 1? There are plenty of businesses that would like overburdensome health and safety regulation removed from them, as is clear from the Federation of Small Businesses and the British Chambers of Commerce.

[Mr Wright]

I will come to the precise benefits for business in a moment, but I want first to refer to the hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), whom I cannot see in her place at the moment. She used her knowledge from the Joint Committee and her experience in business. I have to disagree with a lot of what she said. I respect her experience in business, but she says that Government just have to get out of the way of business. I do not think that is necessarily the case in a modern, innovative economy. What we need is a Government who will work with business on a long-term vision and an industrial strategy that will enable us to pay our way in the world.

I agree with everything that the hon. Lady said about business start-ups and the need to enhance our competitiveness, but there is nothing in the Bill—no single clause or schedule—that would facilitate start-ups: if only there were such provisions. One of the things that worry us most is the fact that the United Kingdom is slipping down in the world rankings for start-ups. According to figures from the OECD, it has fallen from 18th in the world last year to 28th this year. When it comes to obtaining electricity for a business, our ranking has slipped from 64th to 74th. Surely we should be doing something about that. The Bill could have helped us to do so, but unfortunately it does not.

Several Members mentioned the Bill’s impact on business. One could be forgiven for thinking that it would facilitate an enormous start-up of entrepreneurial activity, but its provisions are so insubstantial and so insignificant to British business that they are almost meaningless. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) in her excellent opening speech, the statement of impact for the draft Bill estimated that it would save businesses £10 million over 10 years: £1 million a year.

[Richard Fuller]

rose—

[Mr Wright]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, who I know is very knowledgeable about business. Those savings to business would equate to a full 20p a year for each and every business in the country. Does he not think that our ambitions should be greater?

[Richard Fuller]

Amen to the hon. Gentleman’s apparent call for the Government to take further action to deregulate and to reduce the burdens on business. He has told us several times how small the changes are. Will he, on behalf of the Opposition, table further deregulatory measures in Committee that will reduce the burden of regulation on business?

[Mr Wright]

When I speak to businesses, which I do every day, they tell me that the main factor affecting their long-term growth perspective is access to finance. Nothing in the Bill enables us to take a long-term view when it comes to where businesses can obtain the finance they need to grow.

It takes four fifths of a second for the British economy—for the hard work and effort of millions of people and enterprises—to generate that potential saving of £1 million a year. I say this to Ministers, and to other Members who have spoken today: do not insult the intelligence of Britain by describing the Bill as a substantial piece of reforming legislation. It will not really help businesses; it will certainly not give them as much help as they need. For the purposes of businesses that want extra orders or secure access to finance, or want the Government to be on their side, this Bill is sadly lacking.

Families are experiencing a cost of living crisis, and have lost £1,600 a year since the general election. Just a few days ago, the Office for National Statistics confirmed that since the Government took office in 2010, Britain has faced the largest continuous fall in real wages since records began half a century ago. However, there is absolutely nothing in the Bill to deal with that situation. The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr mentioned a 4% drop in wages in his community in Wales. One would think that the Government would want to do something about that in a deregulation Bill whose aim was to free up the inspiring innovation of businesses and individuals, but not a bit of it. The net benefits to individuals as a result of the Bill will amount to 0.18p for every single man, woman or child in this country. I really do think that the Government should do better than that.

The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) made a characteristically intelligent speech. She observed that some regulation could be good. She also mentioned clause 21, about which I am particularly concerned. The clause reduces the eligibility criteria relating to the purchase of social housing, which will have an adverse impact on the supply of such housing. Any local authority that wants to plan for the long term will need to spend capital, and will need to borrow as a result. The reduction of the qualifying period from five years to three will make it much more difficult for authorities to borrow on the back of a sustained rental stream. We need only look at the evidence that we have already seen: in the last year 10,600 council houses have been sold, but only 1,600 starts have been made.

Let me return to the hon. Member for Macclesfield and his Churchillian “action this day” rhetoric. What Macmillan did as Churchill’s housing Minister, and what Churchill did in the Housing Repairs and Rents Act 1954, was truly inspiring. It is what the present Government should be doing, but unfortunately they are not.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) conveyed the powerful message that regulation is an essential part of a functioning market economy, ensuring that we are sufficiently competitive. She also said that the Bill paid insufficient regard to the Government’s supposed goal to be the greenest Government ever. There is no environmental concern and no environmental impact, and in fact there is an attack on sustainable development here. This is where the Government have got it wrong. It is not mutually exclusive to think about green and growth, although Ministers often think it is. Actually, if we think about how we are going to pay our way in the world in the 21st century, we realise that the real emphasis should be on the industries of the future—those of the green economy. As the CBI and others have said, this is what the modern face of British industry should look like.

Unfortunately I cannot see the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) in the Chamber. I consider him to be part of the sensible wing of the Tory party, but his speech tonight disabused me of that idea. He served on the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill Committee with me. I do not want to rehash the arguments we had in that Committee, but there was no evidence whatever for some of the stuff that was coming through in respect of Beecroft. What was said was, “I’ve met a bloke down the pub and he said ‘wouldn’t this be a good idea?’” That was the empirical evidence the Government brought forward on that Bill.

The hon. Gentleman will recall that in that legislation the Government abolished the Agricultural Wages Board without a single discussion of it on the Floor of the House or in Committee. It was brought in at such a late stage. What businesses want is certainty. Having uncertainty in terms of feed-in tariffs and other things is anti-business.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) mentioned a lack of clarity with regard to clause 23. He also mentioned individual term time dates for schools in respect of clause 37 and here I declare an interest. My youngest son attends a primary school in Hartlepool and my daughter attends a secondary school in Hartlepool. If those schools do not co-ordinate and instead have different term times, it will cause enormous hassle and pressure for our family and millions like us.

My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) gave a knowledgeable speech and my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck made a key point: the Bill is very wide-ranging—the mishmash that he mentioned—and that variety will potentially create problems. I agree.

There is nothing really troubling about this Bill, although there are individual clauses, such as clauses 1 and 2 on the tribunal powers to make recommendations, that are concerning and we would certainly like to see clause 2 deleted in Committee. The actions in this Bill do not match the rhetoric, however. We do not want to obstruct the Bill’s progress tonight, but we do have concerns on specific issues and we will need to look closely at them in Committee. When businesses are crying out for certainty and greater access to finance in order for us to be more competitive in the world, the Government’s ambitions could have been better with regard to the Deregulation Bill.

Apprenticeships and Skills (Public Procurement Contracts) Bill

Iain Wright Excerpts

Friday 1st November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) for his passionate and compelling argument. I fully support the Bill and believe that we should give it a fair wind and take it to Committee. I hope that the Minister agrees.

It is vital that the British economy succeeds, thrives and grows. That success should be based not on making a fast buck, cutting corners, thinking of the short term or cutting employment rights and training opportunities in a race to the bottom, but on well-paid, secure and skilled jobs. That is how Britain can pay its way in the world in the 21st century—with an emphasis on a high-skilled, well trained work force. To help achieve that objective, we need a skills system that meets the needs of our country, our society, the economy, employers and young people. My hon. Friend’s Bill would provide that and be central to having a good, resilient, productive and efficient work force for the future.

My hon. Friend rightly said that in many ways, the previous Government helped to revalue apprenticeships. There were something like 65,000 apprenticeships when the Government came into office in 1997, and when we left office in 2010—I was the Minister responsible for apprenticeships at that time—there were 240,000. The current Government have carried on that good work to some extent, and I want one characteristic of apprenticeships to be that they transcend party politics and Parliaments and work in the long-term interests of what this country needs. It is clear that we need good, strong apprenticeships.

As my hon. Friend said, even in these financially straitened times, it makes common sense, economic sense and social sense, when both central and local government spend money—often billions of pounds—for skills and training opportunities to be provided when contracts are granted. He mentioned the 50:50 scheme in his constituency, which particularly interested me, and other hon. Members have mentioned similar schemes. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) said that 926 apprenticeships had been put in place through Liverpool city council, and we heard about other initiatives. In an excellent speech, my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) talked about what is going on in London. Of course, in programmes such as Crossrail, Building Schools for the Future and so on, Labour established the idea of procurement as a lever to bring in additional training opportunities.

There remains a huge issue to consider. Although the number of apprenticeships has gone up, I am particularly concerned about the statistics on under-19-year-olds. In 2011-12, there were 129,900 apprenticeship starts by those aged under 19, but that represented a 1.4% decrease year on year. There were 95,400 intermediate-level apprenticeship starts, which was a 2% decrease. We fail our young people if we do not get them a good first step on the career ladder, and we all know about the crisis of youth unemployment that this country still has. In the quarter June to August 2013, 958,000 young people aged 16 to 24 were unemployed, making an unemployment rate of 20%—up by 0.1% on the previous quarter and 0.5% on the same period last year. The unemployment rate for 18 to 24-year-olds is 19.1%, but what really concerns me—it is linked with the decline in apprenticeship starts for under-19s—is that the unemployment rate for 16 to 17-year-olds is 36.3%. That should be a national scandal.

We are failing our young people and not giving them the employment and training opportunities they need. We will suffer the consequences of that for decades to come. If we do not get our 16 to 19-year-olds on to a career ladder and thinking about skills and training, and if they cannot get employment, the chances are that they will suffer low-paid, low-skilled jobs for the rest of their careers.

Not only will the careers of those people and the prospects for their families suffer for decades, but the long-term economic potential of the country and how we compete in the modern, fiercely competitive world, will be compromised. We need to address that. I suggest that ensuring we can link training opportunities and apprenticeship places with public procurement is an exceptional way to go.

[Barbara Keeley]

I want to tie in my hon. Friend’s point with the wage benefits of completing an advanced apprenticeship, which I have mentioned. Does he agree that, in areas such as Salford, where we have such a lot of long-term unemployment and unemployed young people, wage benefits are the important factor? If we can get people in to apprenticeships, particularly advanced apprenticeships, we can ensure that they can earn 22% more than similar young people.

[Mr Wright]

I am glad my hon. Friend has contributed to the debate. I know how much she is passionately committed to giving young people a chance, particularly with apprenticeships. I have fond memories of going to Salford as Minister with responsibility for apprenticeships. We had launched the apprenticeships grant for employers. I met a tree surgeons firm in her constituency—I do not know whether she remembers. It could not afford to take on a young person, but we provided a £2,500 grant. I thought it was to help to pay the wages of that young apprentice, but it provided the equipment to allow them to scale up the tree and do the work required. That small firm wanted to help to bring on young people and to ensure that it gave young people a chance, making a difference—as I recall, it took on a 17-year-old. The Bill can do exactly the same.

My hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish was right to highlight the importance of driving up quality. However, he also mentioned the need to expand opportunity. Often, we do not tell young people of the difference apprenticeships can make. People will be paid more over the lifetime of their career if they become apprentices. I am therefore baffled by the debate on clause 2, which is on the advertisement of work force vacancies. When there are opportunities, we should communicate them as much as possible. That is a no-brainer. Where better to do so than in the jobcentre? Clause 2 is essential. I want the Bill to pass on Second Reading, but, in Committee, we need to widen and expand it to ensure that schools, colleges, teachers and others are aware of apprenticeship opportunities.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is right that we could go further. I struggle to see what the problem is if Stockport, Tameside, Newham, Hull or Salford councils promote public procurement and apprentices through public procurement in their areas. Why should they not advertise those opportunities to young people in those areas?

[Mr Wright]

My hon. Friend is right. We have an enormous opportunity in my patch in the north-east. In Hartlepool, we have the makings of a great renewable energy and offshore wind supply chain. I know that the area my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) represents is in the same position.

We have had public procurement tenders, including for the Teesside offshore wind farm, in which no local firm got the work, meaning no local apprenticeship opportunities. What a scandalous waste of potential. I fail to understand why we should not use the opportunities from the public purse to give young people those chances and why those opportunities should not be advertised locally so that people in Hartlepool, Hull, Stockport and elsewhere can know about them. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham made an eloquent and passionate contribution about the impact of the Olympics, a major project that should have benefited east London. It did benefit east London, but not as much as it could have. Those benefits should have been maximised.

I was very interested in the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). I always knew he wanted to take us back to the ’50s, but I did not realise he meant the 1550s and the Elizabethan age. He made an important point. He said that the Bill would undermine best value for the taxpayer because the additional apprenticeship opportunities would make procurement contracts more expensive. I disagree. One of our problems—with the Government, with the country—is this short-term, silo-driven approach. If we spend or save £1 in one area, no consideration is given to the impact elsewhere on the public purse. For example, no one considers the long-term consequences of cuts to local government for access to A and E or social care. We need to take a longer-term view. If, using the public procurement route, we can help to train our work force of the future, we will create many more opportunities and our economic potential will be greatly increased.

[Andrew Gwynne]

In terms of total spend, does not public procurement often make one of the largest contributions, if not the largest contribution, to the local economy, and is it not baffling, therefore, that Statler and Waldorf on the Tory Benches seem to think it falls outside the remit of the public domain to expect more training and skills opportunities?

[Mr Wright]

I found it astonishing too. I was particularly concerned by the 55-minute speech of the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall). I am sure that those 555 18 to 24-year-olds in his constituency will be surprised to hear that he did not want apprenticeship opportunities advertised in his local jobcentre.

[Mr Nuttall]

With the greatest of respect, I never said that I did not want job opportunities advertised in the Bury jobcentre—incidentally, my office is just around the corner from it. I just think it should be left to employers to decide where they advertise their jobs.

[Mr Wright]

But does the hon. Gentleman not agree that, in order for the opportunities to be cast as wide as possible, young people should be made aware of them. There could be teachers, schools and colleges who are not aware of what is on offer. As I just said, I am keen to see these opportunities advertised in jobcentres, but I am also keen to table amendments in Committee to ensure that schools, colleges and others in the community are made aware of them.

[Lyn Brown]

I find it remarkable that some Government Members do not seem to understand that the taxpayer’s pound should be made to go further. Normally, we hear quite a different argument from them. Why can they not see that taxpayers’ money should be enabling young people to get the skills they need to find work?

[Mr Wright]

Absolutely. In these straitened financial times, why are we not squeezing the taxpayer’s pound still further, for the long term, to ensure that young people have a good career decades into the future? I cannot understand it either. I share my hon. Friend’s disbelief.

[Philip Davies]

I wonder why Labour Front Benchers have so little faith in employers that they feel that they cannot be trusted to advertise in a jobcentre, and must be mandated to do so by the Labour party. The hon. Gentleman talks of value for money, and says that we should look at the bigger picture rather than seeing things simply in terms of pounds, shillings and pence. Can he explain what was the great benefit to the country of his Government’s leaving it with an annual deficit of £150 billion?

[Mr Wright]

Oh dear me. I think that the Bill describes exactly what we need to do in order to secure the country’s economic success. When those in government—centrally or locally—spend money, they should look to the long term, and ensure that they can provide the skills and training opportunities that are needed for the future by giving young people a chance. I believe that that is central to what we need to be doing.

I fully support what my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish is trying to do, and I hope that the Minister does as well.

Debate on the Address

Iain Wright Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

It is an honour to follow the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) who, as ever, made a thoughtful and considered contribution. Speaking of thoughtful and considered contributions, let me pay tribute to the proposer and to the seconder of the motion.

The hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff) mentioned engineering, and I agree with his point that Britain should regain its ambition to be a truly great engineering nation. I commend his efforts to bring more women into engineering and into the study of STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—subjects. It is shameful that, in relation to encouraging women into engineering, this country is bottom of the league, so his efforts should have cross-party support. It is disappointing that the word “engineering” was not mentioned in the Queen’s Speech, but I hope that a long-term view will be taken on the importance of engineering to the competitive position of this country.

The hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) made a thoughtful, considered and moving contribution. I was shocked and disgusted to hear that he prefers Duran Duran to the Smiths. While he was speaking I thought about the fact that Duran Duran’s first hit was “Planet Earth”, and it would be nice if Ministers sometimes came back to planet Earth and saw the effects of their policies in the real world and in constituencies such as mine.

Her Majesty stated that her Government would bring forward legislation

“to ensure sufferers of a certain asbestos-related cancer receive payments where no liable employer or insurer can be traced.”

The details of the proposed piece of legislation will need to be examined closely, but I warmly welcome the inclusion of the issue in the Queen’s Speech. My constituency of Hartlepool is the 16th worst affected constituency in the country for asbestos-related diseases. Incidence of mesothelioma, a legacy of our heavy industry past—especially in shipbuilding—is particularly high. Victims and their families have been denied compensation and suitable justice for far too long, often because the industry in the area has closed down, or successive firms either no longer exist or are impossible to trace. I have had tragic cases in my constituency of families not having the money to bury their husbands or fathers, because the insurance industry refused to pay out. During the passage of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, the Government did themselves no credit by requiring victims of asbestos-related diseases to surrender a quarter of the damages awarded for their pain, suffering and life-shortening illnesses to pay for legal costs. I hope that the announcement made today will help to make amends.

[Mark Tami]

Many of the people to whom my hon. Friend refers worked for sub-contractors, who have gone bust over the years. The process has been a very cruel one, and all previous Governments have something to stand up and defend, because we have let these people down. Let us hope that the legislation is of a proper nature and that we can end the misery.

[Mr Wright]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The devil will be in the detail, but I hope that we can make amends. It is only 10 days or so since we commemorated workers memorial day, when we resolved to remember the dead and fight for the living. The proposed legislation is an important part of that, and I hope that compensation, fairness and justice will be provided.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I agree with my hon. Friend that the issue is of great importance, and it is good to see the Government bringing forward such legislation. Not long ago, I received a letter from AXA trumpeting the work that it and the Association of British Insurers have done. Will my hon. Friend join me in impressing on the Government that the approach of the ABI will be incredibly important, and that the Government must not listen just to the insurers when dealing with this very important issue?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wright]

I agree with my hon. Friend that, over the past few years, the stance of the insurance industry in general has not helped sufferers of asbestos-related diseases. We have to be sure that the proposed legislation, welcome though it is, provides justice and fairness for asbestos sufferers.

The areas of legislation and priorities that the Government did not include in the Queen’s Speech were deeply revealing. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden, who is, I think, about to leave the Chamber, mentioned the purpose of a Queen’s Speech, which is to provide not only the legislative programme for the next Session but a strategic direction, outlining the priorities of the Government. As I said, there was no mention of engineering, there was no mention of manufacturing and there was not a word about an industrial strategy. There was no mention of the world-beating sectors that this country has and needs to enhance, such as aerospace, automotives, pharmaceuticals or the creative industries.

Tellingly, there was no mention in the Queen’s Speech of the national health service. Listening to it, I was reminded of the comments made by the then Leader of the Opposition, now the Prime Minister, in his contribution to the debate on the Address on 18 November 2009. He said:

“What about the three letters that should be in any Queen's Speech: NHS? Not a mention. It is clear that the national health service is not this Government's priority.”—[Official Report, 18 November 2009; Vol. 501, c. 15.]

If he was saying that in 2009, why is he not saying it in 2013? In his 2009 remarks, I think he was pre-empting his own lamentable record on the NHS. There was an opportunity in this Queen’s Speech for the Government to right the wrongs of the appalling Health and Social Care Act 2012 and announce its repeal, but they have failed to do that.

Her Majesty also stated in the Gracious Speech that her

“Government's first priority is to strengthen Britain’s economic competitiveness.”

I would welcome measures that would do that, but on the basis of the Government’s record and of the announcements made today, I remain unconvinced. If we are to address Britain’s competitiveness with the rest of the world, the Government will have to tackle the country’s growing lack of productivity relative to our economic rivals, but there was not a single mention in the Queen’s Speech of our declining productivity. In the decade from 1997 to 2007, this country was second only to the US in the list of rich nations in terms of the growth of GDP per hour. Now, we are second bottom, behind only Japan. UK productivity is now 16 percentage points lower than the G7 average—the widest productivity gap between ourselves and other leading nations for 20 years.

Output and economic growth have flatlined for the past two and a half years, while manufacturing output, for all the talk of a Government reportedly determined to rebalance the economy, has declined by a tenth from its 2008 peak and has today fallen by 1.4% from 12 months ago. Productivity across the UK economy has fallen by 2.3% in the past year, and measures of output per hour in manufacturing fell by 5.2% between quarter four in 2011 and quarter four in 2012, the largest fall since records began. We will not address our competitiveness as a nation, and be able to compete with developed, fast-growing and ambitious rising nations in the globalised economy, if we do not address our productivity problem, yet the Queen’s Speech does not even see fit to mention it.

The single biggest social and economic issue facing Hartlepool is unemployment. The notion that some growth in private sector employment is cutting the jobless queue is ludicrous, bears no resemblance to the reality on the ground in my constituency and is deeply insulting for those proud men and women in Hartlepool who are struggling to find a job. Hartlepool wants to work, but Government policies are making it harder, not easier, for decent aspirational people to find a job.

The Gracious Speech talks of

“helping people move from welfare to work.”

The Government are cutting welfare but they are also cutting work. They are moving people in Hartlepool from welfare to poverty and destitution, and moving the prospect of work ever further away from my constituents.

Let me illustrate that with some statistics. The number of jobseeker’s allowance claimants in Hartlepool has increased by 25% since this Government came to power, and it now stands at about 4,700. For long-term unemployment, the situation is even bleaker. The number of people in Hartlepool who have claimed JSA for more than a year is up by 155% since the Government came to office. The number who have claimed JSA for more than two years has increased in the same period by a staggering 560%. One in four young men in my constituency is without a job or a training place, and the House will appreciate that the longer a person is out of work the more difficult it is for them to find any sort of work, let alone well-paid, meaningful employment.

Skills, experience, talent and potential are being lost in Hartlepool and elsewhere, possibly forever, as a result of this Government’s misguided and short-term views on skills and employment. It is economic ignorance at best, and indifference to the economic plight of people in constituencies such as mine at worst, to suggest that the Government agenda is helping communities such as the one in Hartlepool. The worst-hit region anywhere in the country for reductions in public expenditure per head is mine—the north-east—with an average loss of £566 per capita. Hartlepool has lost an average of £724 a head, making it the most badly affected town in a region that in turn is the most badly affected anywhere in the country.

In that context, it is just common sense that enterprise and the private sector will be hit hard. As Mike Cherry of the Federation of Small Businesses told the Financial Times in March:

“Taking more money out of already struggling local economies may well exacerbate the problem”.

I agree. That money is spent in local businesses. Take it away and the private sector in Hartlepool suffers enormously. It suffers disproportionately, with negative consequences for private sector employment and competitiveness, but the measures in the Queen’s Speech seem only to promise more of the same. That means that areas such as Hartlepool and other parts of the north-east will see still-higher unemployment, further contraction in economic activity and falling living standards and opportunities for my constituents.

If the Government were serious about aspiration and tackling welfare dependency, they would have included in the Queen’s Speech a jobs and training Bill, committing the Administration to helping people into work and providing a boost to families’ living standards and quality of life by providing meaningful and decently paid employment, as well as improving the competitiveness and size of our economy by increasing demand in all areas of the country, not just within the M25. If they were serious, they would also have announced a house building and modernisation of housing stock Bill, designed to provide the homes that we need in the 21st century. Yes, more homes would be built, but cold, leaky and inefficient existing homes could also be refurbished, which would provide a much-needed short-term boost and a long-term boost to the construction sector and employment for tens of thousands of people.

That brings me on to infrastructure. The Gracious Speech stated that the Government

“will continue to invest in infrastructure to deliver jobs and growth for the economy.”

However, businesses do not believe that the Government are making a difference. In a report by the CBI and KPMG last September, just 35% of businesses surveyed believed that coalition policies will have a positive impact on infrastructure investment, which was eight percentage points lower than in the previous year’s survey. Today’s announcement of more of the same—of no change when it comes to infrastructure—will not fill business with confidence.

In the past few days, the Public Accounts Committee has rightly criticised the Government’s policy on infrastructure, declaring that the national infrastructure plan is

“simply a long list of projects requiring huge amounts of money, not a real plan with a strategic vision and clear priorities.”

It is the lack of such a clear “strategic vision”—instead, the emphasis is on the short term and policies often change sharply and without consultation with industry—that means that businesses are not provided with the confidence they need to invest for the long term to improve our infrastructure and enhance our productivity and competitiveness for the long term. Short-termism is undermining our competitiveness and innovation, which is the true driver of competitiveness in the modern world. It is also compromising the modernisation of our energy and transport systems.

Again, the Queen’s Speech could have announced firm plans to tackle that issue. It could have announced a British investment bank Bill, which would create the real conditions for patient capital and for lending to new and to small and medium-sized businesses that have the ideas and the innovation to grow our economy. It could also have provided an infrastructure commission Bill, to give a long-term, independent and clear set of priorities for the infrastructure that is needed in this country to allow the economy to function better. It did not do so.

I started my speech by welcoming a measure in the Queen’s Speech and I will end in the same way. One of this country’s competitive advantages, which sets us apart from some of our rivals, is our rule of law, and within that is the long-established and stable framework for intellectual property. Investors and creators come to this country, providing jobs and new, innovative business models, in the knowledge that their ideas—their designs and other creations—will be protected in law. There is a link between design, innovation and competitiveness in manufacturing that is much-needed in the 21st century.

The Government have had a tendency to consider intellectual property as somewhat about red tape or bureaucracy, rather than what it is—legal protection. In the previous Session, we saw the incoherent and ill-thought-through changes to copyright in the Bill that became the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 on which—thankfully—the Government had to back down. The intellectual property Bill announced today, with its proposals to reform design law, can be cautiously welcomed as a means of protecting design rights. I hope that no amendments will be made to it at a late stage without their being discussed with industry or being thought through properly by Ministers, which happened with copyright during the passage of the 2013 Act. However, the general direction of the intellectual property Bill announced today seems to be sensible.

For all that, for all my talk of welcoming certain measures and for all its rhetoric about improving competitiveness, the Queen’s Speech seems to do very little to encourage enterprise, innovation or entrepreneurialism. Given the fact that our competitors are doing more in that field, not less, the Queen’s Speech is a huge lost opportunity, which in the fierce global economic race we can ill afford to miss.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hughes]

There are all sorts of reasons. The hon. Gentleman must know that the last quarter has just been on the right side of zero. Growth has been small but positive. We avoided the triple-dip recession that people were saying was likely, given the terrible winter and the dreadful weather we had. The answer is that there has been a combination of failure.

The banks failed the economy at the end of the last Labour Administration. They were not sufficiently dealt with or regulated by that Administration, and they still have not got into a position where they are lending our constituents and small businesses in the right places the money to enable them to invest. Every single colleague around the House tells tales, rightly, of how difficult it is; people come to see us and tell us that they do not get the investment.

We have not been selling enough around the world, which is one of the avenues by which we must earn our way. That is why the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Business Secretary and others have been out and about, going not just to our traditional trading partners but to the large, developing partners—Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, India, China—to develop our trade. That is why we are working very hard to get an EU-USA free trade agreement, to deliver growth.

The answer to the question is that the economy has been faulty as a result of a combination of historic and more recent factors, but the Government are seeking to do as many things as they can. Last year, the green investment bank was another initiative to get growth going in an economy in which the Energy Bill this year is likely to assist in the creation of up to 250,000 new jobs in green energy. That is really valuable and important. The hon. Member for Hartlepool called for a Bill to set up another form of investment bank. The Government have, as he knows, a plan for further investment lending to companies as well as the green investment bank, and that is welcome.

So jobs are up; apprenticeships are hugely up. The state pension is significantly up—higher than at any stage since Lloyd George introduced it. The income tax threshold is significantly up, from £6,500 more or less when we started, to nearly £9,500 this year, and next year to £10,000 before anyone pays any tax. Inflation is still low. Interest rates are very low, and that is hugely important for people with mortgages and businesses borrowing. Crime is at its lowest level for many years. Those are significant achievements, and I think we should be proud of that. It shows that many of the things that the Government have done over three years are working.

[Mr Iain Wright]

Given what the right hon. Gentleman has said about those “significant achievements”, do people in his constituency think they are better off now than three years ago? Does he think that living standards are rising?

[Simon Hughes]

No; many people’s living standards are not better than they were three years ago, but we have been dealing with what my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary calls the greatest economic heart attack we have had in his lifetime and mine. My constituents have seen, over several months, unemployment come down—not consistently, but there have been months when it has come down and youth unemployment has come down. They have seen an economy that is picking up. The construction industry in my patch is powering ahead; although I appreciate that it is not the same around the country.

But what my constituents have not yet seen, and what the Government are trying to deal with, is the inequitable opportunity and an inequitable distribution of the available wealth. One thing that the Liberal Democrats need to continue to argue for in the coalition, and which I hope the coalition will buy, is that we need to deal with the inequity in Britain whereby there are still people a mile and half from this building, in the City, and in Canary Wharf a bit further away, who have bonuses that are completely without justification, while there are many people on the minimum wage and struggling to get work. We need a redistribution of wealth—I am not ashamed to call for that—and a redistribution of the profits, and we need the banking industry to understand that it has to pay itself reasonable wages. The European Union has the right idea, in my view—not a view shared by the Chancellor—in seeking to make sure that we limit the bonuses given to people across the financial sector so that they do not, in effect, take far more than they deserve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Iain Wright Excerpts

Wednesday 7th November 2012 Commons Chamber

The Prime Minister was asked—

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 7 November.

[The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)]

I have been asked to reply. As the House will know, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is on an official overseas visit to the middle east.

The whole House will wish to join me in paying tribute to the two British soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan last week: Lieutenant Edward Drummond-Baxter and Lance Corporal Siddhanta Kunwar of 1st Battalion the Royal Gurkha Rifles. Our heartfelt condolences are of course with the families and friends of these brave servicemen. In a particularly poignant week for us all, with Remembrance day on Sunday, we are once again reminded of the remarkable job that our armed forces do to ensure our safety and security.

Furthermore, the House will wish to join me in paying tribute to David Black, the Northern Ireland Prison Service officer who was shot and killed last Thursday. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said in the House on Friday, we utterly condemn this cowardly crime. Our thoughts are with David’s wife and children at this distressing time.

I am sure that the House will also want to join me in congratulating President Obama on his election victory last night. [Hon. Members: “Hooray!”] I suspect that that is the only point at which I will be cheered today by Labour Members. We look forward to continuing the Government’s work with him in building a more prosperous, more free and more stable world.

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Mr Wright]

May I fully associate myself with the sincere tribute paid to the two fallen servicemen and to David Black? It is right that this House pays tribute to those who have fallen in the service of our country, never more so than in the week of Remembrance Sunday.

May I also say that President Obama will be relieved to get the support of the Deputy Prime Minister?

The former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Lord Stevens, has said that police morale is at national crisis levels. Is he right, and why is that the case?

Debate on the Address

Iain Wright Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes]

No, because other colleagues wish to speak and I am bringing my comments to a close.

The new President of France said after he was elected on Sunday that his two priorities were a fairer country and support for the next generation, the young people of France. I think that those are good things for us to champion for our country from these Benches. We need a redistribution of wealth and of work, an end to the obscenity of top pay and a closing of the gap between rich and poor. We need to make sure that work always pays, to create more apprenticeships and a more skilled work force, to give more opportunities for employment and self-employment and to build the largest opportunity for infrastructure investment that we can manage, in all countries and regions of the UK, and the largest affordable programme for housing that we can deliver, particularly social rented housing, which is desperately needed in my constituency and elsewhere. I guess that there is not a single colleague who does not have constituents coming to their surgery every week pleading with them to find somewhere where they and their partner, or they and their parents, or they and their children can live. Young people need a decent careers and youth service, decent work experience, decent mentoring, good apprenticeships and good further and higher education.

To the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, I say, “You were right, of course, to take as many poor people out of tax as you have, but please do not again reduce tax rates for the well-off.” Whatever the balance of equity, it came across very badly, it did not look as if we are all in this together and the evidence does not show that any further reduction will do any greater good for the economy. We have had one Budget which does this and we know the outcome, but no more please. Let us take the poorer out of tax, not the people at the top.

To colleagues here who sometimes have disagreements with the Government—we all do—I say that we have to remain strong, united, determined, liberal and radical. We have to be committed to the things we came here for: the spreading of wealth and power and a cleaner, greener, safer and, above all, fairer Britain.

To the people outside who wonder what we are doing in this difficult coalition, I say that we are clear that we cannot achieve everything we want because in a coalition, by definition, that is not possible, but it is better to be in government influencing a huge amount than in opposition influencing nothing. We are determined to use our influence not unfairly, disproportionately or unreasonably, but this is a partnership of two parties. That is the deal and that is what we will stick to.

We won 16% of the vote in the local elections the other day; we won 23% in the general election. It is not an impossible task over three years to build confidence, but it depends on whether we can get the economy going, help growth, make sure that we are seen to be economically competent and deliver a fairer Britain.

I think that we can do it, and Asquith gave us something 100 years ago this year as an encouragement on our way. In his speech in Nottingham to our party conference, at a time when he was leading one of the greatest Governments in British history, he said this—

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Were you there?

[Simon Hughes]

I was not there, no—not even in my previous life!

Asquith said:

“If we have—and I believe you will see that we have—concentration of purpose, unity of spirit, and unshaken firmness of resolve, then, long and stormy though the voyage may have been before it comes to an end, the ship will find her way with a full cargo into the desired haven.”

Liberal Democrats are determined to deliver us safely on the other side and, much more importantly, to deliver our constituents to a better Britain, with better prospects, higher employment, lower unemployment and a much more secure economy for the five years following 2015 than the one we inherited when we took over in 2010.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), who I know takes a great interest in Hartlepool—largely because he spent most of the 2004 by-election there trying to stop me becoming a Member.

In his opening and closing remarks, the right hon. Gentleman mentioned elections both general and local, and I have to tell him that after Thursday’s local elections, on Hartlepool borough council the Liberal Democrats now have no representation whatever, which shows the scale of the challenge that he and his party face in terms of getting into bed with the Conservatives.

[Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I am confused by this continuing slur of “getting into bed with the Conservatives”, because in Scotland we now have coalitions of every possible hue, including Labour and Tory coalitions. Does the hon. Gentleman attack those coalitions with the same vigour that he attacks this one here?

[Mr Wright]

I use the phrase “getting into bed with the Tories” not because it is of my own making, but after speaking to my constituents and people elsewhere who were thinking about voting Liberal Democrat, who might have fallen out of love with Labour following the 2005 general election and who wanted to consider something else in 2010, but who now feel let down and betrayed. That is the scale of the challenge that the hon. Gentleman’s party faces with regard to reinvigorating the trust of the people.

Almost the first words that Her Majesty said in her speech today were:

“My Ministers’ first priority will be to reduce the deficit and restore economic stability.”

Those words were almost identical to the ones that the Queen uttered in the first Session of this Parliament, two years ago, when she stated:

“The first priority is to reduce the deficit and restore economic growth.”

In the intervening two years, the Government have done little that they set themselves on both counts. They have had to borrow about £150 billion more than they originally forecast back in 2010, and they have failed to deal effectively with the deficit and to restore economic growth, because they have focused exclusively—some might say almost obsessively—on the former, reducing the deficit, instead of giving sufficient priority to the latter, economic growth. It should not be an either/or game. Tax revenues are lower because of weak demand and reduced consumer spending, while expenditure is rising because of the need to pay out more in unemployment benefits. The British economy is now in a more perilous state than when the Government took office two years ago.

The Prime Minister and the Chancellor will trot out the excuse of the difficulties experienced in the eurozone, and there is some truth in that, but they cannot escape the fact that the retreat into recession has been caused almost directly by their actions and policies. We are experiencing this country’s longest downturn since the 1920s. Britain is emerging from the deep global recession of 2008-09 more slowly than from previous recessions and, crucially, more slowly than our main economic competitors, meaning that our rivals in the global marketplace are stealing a march on us. The actions of this Government today are compromising our competitiveness in the global economy of tomorrow.

The US economy grew by 3% in the last quarter of 2011 and by 2.2% in the first quarter of this year. Alongside Greece and Italy, Spain is generally—almost universally—acknowledged to be one of the economic basket cases of the eurozone, but even the Spanish economy grew more in 2011 than Britain’s. Today’s publication of UK retail figures, which show a 3.3% fall year on year—the largest fall in more than a year—demonstrates the general weakness of the economy, the lack of demand and the fragility of consumer confidence.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman congratulate the Government on maintaining our triple A credit rating status and acknowledge the fact that we have among the lowest long-term interest rates in the world at the moment? That is a major achievement.

[Mr Wright]

We do have those things, but we have no growth. I fear that the rehashing of phrases in the Gracious Speech today—often word-for-word repeats of what was said in 2010—will mean that the Government will continue to insist on economic policies that consign the country to a decade of stagnation, anaemic growth, mass unemployment and rising social division.

[Dr Murrison]

Will the hon. Gentleman explain how high interest rates will stimulate growth?

[Mr Wright]

High interest rates do not stimulate growth, but, equally, low interest rates indicate that there is no economic stimulus whatever. We need a rounder, more holistic approach to economic policy that focuses not solely on reducing the deficit, but on making sure that we can stimulate the economy to embark on jobs and growth.

[Meg Hillier]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the challenges is the issue of businesses not being able to get loans? The Prime Minister spoke with enthusiasm about Project Merlin and the loan guarantee scheme, but that is not delivering to businesses. There is no contradiction between cutting a deficit and getting banks to lend. It is in the Government’s power to do so, but they are not acting.

[Mr Wright]

I absolutely agree. Later, I want to mention that we need more investment and to unlock investor confidence and provide more business investment. That is at terminally low rates at the moment.

Emphasis should have been given to a new finance Bill with measures to boost demand in the economy and put more money in the pockets of millions, rather than prioritising tax cuts for millionaires and tax rises for pensioners. Communities such as mine in Hartlepool and the wider north-east see a Government presiding over unprecedented cuts to income, living standards and public services, huge rises in unemployment and matters being made worse by Government measures such as the rise in VAT, hikes in student fees, cuts to tax credits and increased taxes for pensioners.

At the same time, the Chancellor is insisting that the country can afford to give those earning more than £150,000 a year a tax cut and that, in the current climate, millionaires should be given priority and pay about £40,000 a year less in tax. A new finance Bill could have set about repairing some of the damage from the previous Finance Bill, which has been carried over into this Session; it could have put us on the path to economic recovery, jobs and growth.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Wright]

I hope that the hon. Lady will agree.

[Andrea Leadsom]

It seems rather astonishing that the hon. Gentleman should be suggesting that the Government should be spending more money. Does he run a household budget as I do? When people are trying to feed a family, it is clear that if they borrow lots of money and pay extremely high interest rates—because their intention is to borrow even more money—that will not get them into any position to balance their budget or move on from the parlous state in which they find themselves. Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that we are already paying £200 million a day in interest, just to service the debt that his Government incurred?

[Mr Wright]

What I am suggesting is that if the Government were serious about economic growth and promoting the conditions for competitiveness and enterprise, they would be doing a lot more to stimulate growth and job creation. For example, they could have announced a British investment bank Bill, which would have provided a clear and welcome acknowledgement that active partnership between Government and productive businesses will allow the state to ensure that growth capital is provided to the small and medium-sized businesses that need it, for which the market has failed.

Active partnership between Government and businesses can work. Successful modern economies such as Singapore and Germany do it, and their economies will see long-term, sustainable business success and economic growth as a result. Even the US, supposedly the most free market economy on earth, does it; we saw the likes of fast-growing young companies such as Apple and Intel receive growth funding through the US Government’s small business investment company programme. On the subject of active government in the US, why did not the Gracious Speech include the British equivalent of President Obama’s Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, which is designed to increase the number of jobs and to kick-start initial public offerings for companies and ensure that they have access to finance for growth? We should be doing the same here.

[Mel Stride]

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that according to Companies House there were more new business start-ups in the last quarter than at any time since this Government came to office?

[Mr Wright]

You will never hear from me, Mr Deputy Speaker, any criticism of trying to get as many start-ups as possible. I would welcome a culture of enterprise and allowing businesses to grow, but firms that are starting up are being penalised by not being given access to finance and capital to allow them to do so.

The Gracious Speech referred to the introduction of

“legislation to reform competition law to promote enterprise and fair markets.”

I hope that the Government will confirm that that Bill will contain measures to curb excessive executive remuneration and encourage increased shareholder activism, as that was not specifically mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. I also hope that they will legislate to implement all—I emphasise all—the sensible and widely accepted recommendations of the High Pay Commission earlier this year on matters such as simplification of executive remuneration, standardisation of reporting to ensure that meaningful comparisons can take place, and, importantly, the inclusion of employee representation on remuneration committees. Recent events at the likes of UBS, Trinity Mirror, Barclays, AstraZeneca and Aviva have shown that there is shareholder appetite for ensuring that poor performance is not rewarded through excessive pay. I hope that the High Pay Commission’s recommendations will be implemented in full.

I hope that the reference in the Queen’s Speech to “repealing unnecessary legislation” will not mean stripping away workers’ rights. Making it easier to fire people does not create jobs, employment or economic growth; instead, such an environment creates a Victorian-mill-owner culture of bad bosses being accepted and enshrined in legislation. It will do nothing to stimulate consumer confidence or growth in demand, which are so very vital. It is also wrong to suggest that the level of employment protection and rises in unemployment are closely correlated, as David Blanchflower points out in his article in The Independent today. He argues that Germany and the Netherlands have much higher levels of employment protection than the UK but experienced a much smaller rise in unemployment during the recession and its aftermath.

[Andrea Leadsom]

rose—

[Mr Wright]

I hope that the Government will recognise that point in taking forward legislation, and that the hon. Lady will recognise it as well.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I agree that we have got into a position in this country whereby certain big businesses have behaved extremely badly towards their employees, and towards capitalism itself. That has not been about true entrepreneurism but just money for old rope. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the answer to that is to change the way in which we do corporate governance by introducing new powers for shareholders to ensure that they can hold to account the chief executives and boards of such companies?

[Mr Wright]

I would certainly agree with making improvements to this country’s corporate governance model. Germany has a good model, and although it cannot be replicated exactly, it is something that we should consider. I have mentioned the recommendations of the High Pay Commission, which referred to employee involvement in remuneration. I hope that that approach will continue. By having a responsible capitalist agenda, we can make improvements to secure long-term sustainable growth in this country. Perhaps the hon. Lady and I can agree on that.

[Mrs Grant]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that extreme and unreasonable levels of employment protection can be a disincentive to enterprise?

[Mr Wright]

I speak to businesses in my constituency and elsewhere virtually every day, and they are not telling me that they are hindered in that way. This goes to a wider point about the Queen’s Speech and about the Government’s having the wrong priorities and the wrong values in this respect. I am arguing that we should be concentrating on increasing employment and having a system whereby we can secure long-term sustainable business growth for this country. We should be making it easier for people to hire workers, not fire them.

I hope, too, that the reference in the Queen’s Speech to the limiting of state inspection of businesses will not serve as a cover for further cuts to the Health and Safety Executive’s budget or an undermining of the safety regime in the workplace. On 28 April we commemorated workers memorial day and were reminded that 20,000 people would die prematurely this year from injuries sustained or diseases contracted as a result of unsatisfactory health and safety in the workplace. Fatalities in the construction industry have risen in the past year, and responsible Governments and businesses recognise that a comprehensive safety regime, suitably audited, actually enhances productivity and efficiency and ultimately has a beneficial effect on the bottom line. I therefore hope that workers’ health and safety rights will not be stripped away.

The Queen’s Speech referred to the Government’s commitment to

“improve the lives of children and families”,

with which the whole House would agree. However, today’s report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation forecasts that child poverty will increase in the next decade. It concludes by stating that the Government should take a more targeted approach to employment programmes and aim them at families in my constituency and elsewhere who often have not seen meaningful or sustained work for three generations or so. That could break the cycle of unemployment, poverty, deprivation and the loss of ambition and aspiration. There was nothing in the Queen’s Speech to allow that to take place.

The most serious issue facing Hartlepool both socially and economically is the level of unemployment, which is higher now than it was at the height of the global recession in 2008. Youth unemployment is a particular concern. One in four young men in my constituency are out of work, which will cause immense social and economic problems in the next 20, 30 or 40 years. The Government really need to deal with that, and measures such as the abolition of the future jobs fund, the cancellation of education maintenance allowance and the hike in tuition fees do not help young people in my constituency. I wanted to see in the Gracious Speech something like a future jobs fund or a skills and retraining Bill, to ensure that my constituency and others were best placed to come out of their economic difficulties in a better position than when they went into them. Sadly, the Queen’s Speech was lacking in that regard.

[Mrs Grant]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree, though, that policies on flexible working and shared parental leave will have the effect of keeping people in work?

[Mr Wright]

I believe the balance that the Labour Government struck was probably about right. There will always be different emphases, but I reiterate the point that I made in answer to a previous intervention. Businesses say to me, “We want to have the conditions for growth. We want to be able to hire workers. The issue is not about being able to fire workers more easily—that is not what we are about.” The emphasis and priorities that the Government have set out in the Gracious Speech and elsewhere are completely wrong.

It astonishes me that after only two years, the Government seem to have run out of steam. The rehashing of words and phrases in the Queen’s Speech is evidence of that. It is difficult to think of the big reforming Governments of the past century—the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark mentioned Asquith, and we can think about Attlee, Thatcher or Blair—being devoid of policy areas only 24 months after being elected. Governments used to talk about relaunches after two terms of office, not after two years. The Government have no sense of national mission and have not set out the values that are really needed or what they want the British economy to look like in 2020 or 2030. They lack, in the eloquent words of the Business Secretary, a “compelling vision” of where they want to take the economy.

As The Sunday Times stated this weekend:

“People now regard this as a government that fails on the three i’s: it is incoherent, incompetent and has run out of ideas.”

Today’s Queen’s Speech provided the opportunity for a true and meaningful relaunch, which could have ensured that the Government reassessed their values and priorities and tried again. They failed to do that. This country and my constituency, particularly its young people, will suffer the consequences of that missed opportunity for decades to come.

Public Bodies Bill [Lords]

Iain Wright Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I wish to confine my remarks to the issue of the office of chief coroner. Successive reviews and inquiries over many years have highlighted the need for a chief coroner to oversee standards and handle appeals to deal with unsatisfactory decisions. There are currently no performance management procedures and no appraisals of the performance of individual coroners. There is no culture of mandatory continuing professional development, as there is in the medical, legal or accountancy professions; some coroners may choose simply not to undergo further training and development, and no one is there to pull them up about it. There seems to have been, certainly over the past couple of years, almost universal consensus that having the post of chief coroner would bring about real progress in raising standards, and would provide leadership, direction and a degree of accountability. It is disappointing that we do not have that consensus now.

The truth of the matter is that in my part of the world, the Teesside area, we need the coroner to improve and we need a much better service for families. For the best part of a decade, performance measures for the Teesside coroner have been significantly below the average for England and Wales. Eight years ago, the Teesside coroner, Mr Michael Sheffield, had a backlog of about 200 cases, and bereaved families had a wait of about 35 weeks—double the national average at the time—for an inquest to be completed. The then Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, responded to calls from local MPs of the time, such as Dari Taylor, the late and great Ashok Kumar, and Vera Baird, as well as from my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Sir Stuart Bell), by launching an inquiry. Mr Sheffield claimed at the time that he welcomed an inquiry, stating, somewhat bizarrely:

“I hope that the terms of the inquiry will enable the cause of the backlog of inquests to be inquired into.”

That raises the question: if the coroner himself did not know the reasons for the delays, why did he not know and how could others hold him accountable for that?

In the aftermath of the inquiry, performance measures for the Teesside coroner improved, but over the past few years they have grown steadily worse again. Last year, the average time taken in England and Wales to complete inquests was 27 weeks—just over six months—whereas the equivalent figure for the Teesside coroner’s district was 43 weeks. The coroner’s office took more than 12 months to complete inquests into 76 deaths—a quarter of all the deaths it investigated in 2010—and three quarters of all cases it investigated took more than six months to conclude.

By contrast, the coroner for my Hartlepool constituency —Hartlepool and Teesside have traditionally had separate judicial administrative arrangements, and long may that continue—was able to conclude inquests in a significantly better time scale than the national average. The average time that the Hartlepool coroner took to investigate deaths in 2010 was only 20 weeks, and no investigation took more than 12 months to conclude. The Hartlepool coroner has consistently over-performed in terms of the time taken to conclude inquests. Why is there such a difference? Why is the difference in performance so striking? Why does Hartlepool do so well compared with the national average, whereas the Teesside district lags so far behind?

[Robert Flello]

Does my hon. Friend think that taking such matters in-house in the Ministry of Justice, hiding them away so that they are the responsibility of some civil servant one week and of some department the next, will improve things and make them better?

[Mr Wright]

No, I think it will make them much worse. That sense of accountability, which we do not have at the moment, would arguably be lost for ever.

Is the contrast I just mentioned a question of resources, particularly at a time of local authority cuts? Is it a question of competency? Is it a question of needing additional training? We do not know, because the whole process is opaque and shrouded in mystery. In the modern age, that is not good enough. Why can families in Teesside who have suffered through the death of a loved one not have some help and support and see the efficient and swift conclusion of the inquest? That is the very least that they deserve.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my hon. Friend agree that because we will not have a chief coroner who can improve standards, we will get more appeals? The only way to go forward at the moment is a judicial review, so will the cost of dealing with such cases not increase rather than decrease?

[Mr Wright]

I absolutely agree. It will not be value for money for the public purse. There will be additional costs, and one of the virtues of a chief coroner’s office would be to help provide an overview of work allocation. I think the establishment of a chief coroner could provide a more rational and therefore more efficient allocation of work, perhaps through the creation of specialist coroners who could provide specific expertise. We could save money and provide a better service for bereaved families.

It is impossible, or difficult at the very least, for Members of this House to hold coroners to account for their performance. I recently asked a parliamentary question to the Lord Chancellor about the grounds on which an individual holding the post of coroner can be removed from that office, only to be told by the Minister that the only ground for removal was personal misconduct or behaviour, but the Minister could not provide a definitive list of possible offences. The Lord Chancellor can remove a coroner only with the agreement of the Lord Chief Justice. There is simply no transparency in the matter and no criteria by which the House or the public can hold a local coroner to account and determine whether he or she is providing an unsatisfactory service and should be removed. In this day and age—particularly when, as we have heard from the Royal British Legion, servicemen and women are falling for our country—bereaved families in Teesside and elsewhere deserve better. They deserve greater clarity and transparency.

I have written to the Lord Chancellor about the matter of poor time scales in the Teesside district and I am awaiting a response, but let me reiterate in conclusion that families in Teesside deserve to see inquests into the deaths of loved ones concluded with sympathy, professionalism and swiftness. They are not getting that at the moment and are not being provided with an adequate explanation on why and how matters will be improved. The Bill does not help; in fact, it makes things worse.

Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill

Iain Wright Excerpts

Friday 11th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) on introducing the Bill. As we have heard, the question it addresses has excited people throughout history. I will not add to the exchange about history between the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), but in its current guise the question has been around since the late 1970s, when Tam Dalyell, the former Member for West Lothian, posed it during deliberations on the Scotland Bill in 1977, although I believe it was Enoch Powell who coined the phrase “the West Lothian question” during those debates.

Like the Barnett formula, this question is one of the perennial issues in respect of devolution. I often ask myself why that is the case. Should we simply not ask the question any more, as Lord Irvine has suggested? Is this just a constitutional nicety that we should ignore? The answer to that is that if left answered, the question would gnaw away at the bonds that hold the Union together. I am a Unionist and the last thing I ever want to see is the Union of our United Kingdom being ripped up. That is why we must turn our minds to finding an answer to this question. My hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire rightly said that Members representing English constituencies get lobbied by our constituents on why some Scottish Members vote on matters that apply only to England. I am not saying that that is the primary topic of conversation down the “Nut and Squirrel” every Friday night, but it does come up sometimes.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I know that you have been in the Chair since the business of the House started this morning so you may not be aware that the High Court has just ruled in favour of the six local authorities who took the Secretary of State for Education to court over his Building Schools for the Future announcement. You will be aware, Mr Speaker, of the extent of the feeling on both sides of the House about this decision, and you will also appreciate the grave implications it will have for the policy of the Department for Education. It also calls into question the competence of the Secretary of State. Mr Speaker, have you received any notification that the Secretary of State will come to the House and explain the botched decision he made and say how he will move forward to make sure capital programmes for schools, including in my own constituency, will now be reinstated?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I have received no indication from any Minister at the Department for Education of an intention or desire to make a statement in the House today. It would, of course, be open to a Minister to do so however, and the hon. Gentleman has put his point on the record. It will have been heard by Members sitting on the Treasury Bench, including the Leader of the House, and I am sure there will be other opportunities fully to explore these matters in the days and weeks ahead.