Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Jim Shannon and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Report stage
Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon]

It is a joy to follow the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson). He set out comprehensively what he hopes the Bill will achieve. He also outlined some things that need to be done, but on which we are perhaps not there yet. I put that on the record. I am pleased, as I always am, to see the Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food, the hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) in her place. I know that both she and the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) will respond to our concerns.

The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food has responded to a number of debates I have attended on puppy smuggling, an issue I feel incredibly strongly about. The steps the Government are taking tonight will be very helpful in tackling that issue. The intention is clearly to tighten the requirements of the pet travel scheme to tackle this very cruel trade. The hon. Gentleman and others referred to increasing the age at which a puppy can enter the country, as well as banning the importation of dogs with cropped ears and heavily pregnant dogs. Those measures are vital. However, I am aware that the Dogs Trust is calling on the Government and the Minister to introduce visual checks to ensure that that good work will not be in vain, and to put a stop to puppy smuggling once and for all. I seek reassurance from the Minister that the Bill will achieve that. I hope we can achieve that, but if we cannot, what will be done to ensure that it can be stopped and to ensure that the Bill contains the correct protocol for carrying out the law?

In conversations I have had with the Minister, through debates in Westminster Hall and in this Chamber, one of my concerns has been about working alongside the Republic of Ireland and its legislation. Northern Ireland, of course, has a border with the Republic of Ireland, so it is important to get that right in relation to puppy smuggling. In the past, the Minister has reassured me on that point. Perhaps she could confirm that on the record.

Northern Ireland has led the way on microchipping dogs and cats. Indeed, in Northern Ireland we are doing many things on animal sentience. Dogs are more than a cosmetic piece for show, whenever you go somewhere. Dogs have always been incredibly important to me—all my life, I have always had a dog. I see dogs mostly as hunting dogs. I am very pleased to be a fully involved member of the sporting community, as are many Conservative Members. In particular, I commend the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) for the hard work he has done with the Minister to deal with some of tonight’s issues. It is good to see that in place.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I use this intervention to inform the House that my constituent has brought 55 different databases to produce one horse database, with all the biological markings of horses on it. He is working—and I am working with him—with senior civil servants in DEFRA to produce a similar database for dogs and cats. As a further refinement, there are some rogues out there who remove microchips from dogs and put in a substitute microchip. I am working with the police to put the DNA that forces like my own collect into the database so that we can see when microchips have been removed and replaced.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and he is right in what he says. A lot of dogs have been stolen during the covid period and having microchips in place was one method of trying to find out where they had ended up. He has referred to one methodology to make sure we can improve the system, which is what he is committed to. I hope that tonight we can see more of that improvement happening.

This legislation is mostly UK-based and England-based. Like the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), and indeed the Minister, I am keen to see steps in the right direction on water quality. I very much welcome the stance we have taken in this House on fur and foie gras. Like others, I seek the Minister’s assurance that we have a duty to prevent the importation of fur and foie gras. Will she confirm whether that is something that could rightly be achieved in this Bill? If it is not, what forthcoming legislation could address it? I, for one, agree with the comments on this of the hon. Members for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), among others. I am probably a plain eater, but the general public out there are probably very much opposed to those two things.

The hon. Member for Penrith and The Border referred to the issue of food quality, and it is important to have that in place.

Business Rates: Small Retail Businesses

Debate between Jim Shannon and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My golly! I will give way to both hon. Members, but I will give way to the hon. Lady first.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Yes. The whole thrust of my speech is that we shall ultimately need to reform the rates system, but it will take time. The Government have to be very careful to guard the huge amount of revenue that they gain from the rates in any change that they make. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary will have something to say about my proposals in that respect.

I have a problem in the Cotswolds. The rents are very high, which influences the rateable value. It takes time to deal with that when there are a number of empty units, such as the ones in York that the hon. Lady mentioned. When the rents are lowered the rateable values follow, but the district valuers are, of course, reluctant to lower the rateable values, because they do not want to lose revenue. That problem is increasing, as I shall explain shortly. Offline businesses, IT businesses and so on, do not need premises as large as those required by some of the businesses in the hon. Lady’s constituency. For example, furniture shops, bed shops and cycle shops need large premises, which inevitably means large rateable values, but they do not necessarily have the turnover to match those rateable values. The ability to pay is not necessarily reflected in the rates that must be paid. However, I sympathise with the hon. Lady.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this issue, which is a problem in my constituency as well as others. He referred to a national decline, and the evidence of that is very clear: planning portals in local areas show a downturn in the number of businesses applying for extensions and renovations. Does he agree that that is because businesses cannot expand because of costs, and does he agree that a review of business rates might just allow some companies to take the plunge, upgrade their businesses, sow into them and, hopefully, reap the benefits, rather than continually treading water—as they often do—just to keep afloat?

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I entirely agree, and I will shortly demonstrate the way in which the current rates system is a disincentive for small businesses to expand. Surely what we should be doing, in the entire economy, is encouraging small businesses that will one day become medium-sized businesses, and will hopefully one day become large businesses, employing more people, selling more goods, and exporting more goods around the world. That is exactly what we want to see in a dynamic UK economy, particularly in the post-Brexit era. We need to look very carefully at the rates system, which is why I initiated this debate.

The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) Lady was talking about the relationship between the ability to pay and the rates payable. I do not want to knock the banks as I have great regard for them, but I was shocked to hear that HSBC has six banks in London alone that qualify for small business rate relief. I am sure that HSBC would not have those banks open unless they were making a good profit. That is an excellent demonstration of how the rates payable are not related to the profits a business makes.

I am not for one second questioning the importance of competition in the marketplace, but to reverse the decline of our high streets we must ensure that competition is fair in every respect, and if the rates system is making it unfair, we should look at reforming it. There is a stark example in my constituency in the beautiful town of Stow-on-the-Wold. The large edge-of-town Tesco store is excellent; I go there myself to shop. It is only a five-minute walk from the town centre and pays business rates of £220 per square metre. However, a small independent delicatessen, with much higher costs because it occupies a listed building and which, no doubt, as the hon. Member for York Central says, will have to pay considerably more rent per square metre than the Tesco store would pay if it were not the owner of the store, has to pay £500 per square metre as opposed to £220 for the out-of-town supermarket. I cannot believe that that system is fair, and that, of course, is what is leading to a decline of some shops in our high street. It is therefore imperative that we support our small businesses through these measures.

However, sadly, the Federation of Small Businesses small business index for quarter 3 of 2018 showed that small business confidence has fallen into the negative for only the third time since 2013. Small retailers continue to report the lowest confidence level of any sector. That has to be a worrying trend for all of us.

Another concerning consequence of the current business rates system is the penalties that businesses face when expanding under current rules, which is the point made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made. The majority of small businesses growing from one premises to a second will lose the existing small business rate relief, which has a negative effect on business growth. This quirk in the rules means that a business can receive full relief if it has a single property with a rateable value of £12,000 or less, but a business with two properties each with a value of £3,000 would not receive any relief. That is clearly unfair and discourages businesses from expanding to more than one site.

I have another constituency example. The beautiful village of Guiting Power contains two pubs: The Hollow Bottom and The Farmers Arms. You might like to come and sample them, Madam Deputy Speaker, to see whether what I am saying is true. The Farmers Arms recently invested a significant amount of capital into the business and is now a very nice gastropub. However, The Hollow Bottom remained a traditional Cotswolds pub, much loved by many of my constituents. Unfortunately, even though The Farmers Arms and The Hollow Bottom started as the same size and as roughly similar businesses, because they are both in the same village only The Hollow Bottom now receives business rates relief because it is not possible for two pubs in the same village to receive the relief whatever the circumstances, and The Hollow Bottom is regarded as the smaller of the two pubs and is therefore the pub designated for relief. It would be helpful to understand why this inequality exists and how business rates could be reformed to promote, rather than penalise, investment.

It is troubling that the current rates system in certain respects discourages, and even stifles, investment by penalising ratepayers who invest in their business, as I have just demonstrated with The Hollow Bottom pub. For example, if a business owner were to add an air conditioning unit or CCTV cameras to their business, their rates bill would increase. To tackle this, time-limited exemptions for new store developments should be provided. I am keen to understand from the Minister what steps the Government are taking in linking business rates more closely to a company’s turnover, not just its physical size. As I indicated to the hon. Member for York Central, I find the example of a large IT firm pertinent. Such a business requires, by turnover, much less space compared with a cycle shop, a furniture shop or a bed shop, which would inevitably have a lower turnover but require more space.

In the last revaluation announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, the Government did offer some help to smaller businesses by doubling the threshold from £6,000 to £12,000, and I want to make it absolutely clear to my right hon. Friend the Minister that I am not carping about the reliefs that are currently available. Many of the small businesses in my constituency, and in those of other hon. Members, benefit from small business rate relief. However, this does not help the majority of my retailers, who are above that level. The average rateable value in this country is £34,000.

To provide further detail, the new allowance proposals that I support—as opposed to the relief that businesses have to claim—would be based on the same principles as the personal allowance currently applied to income tax. This is a pragmatic, pro-business solution that would simplify the tax system and significantly cut the burdensome tax levels that small retailers are facing. A simple allowance, ahead of a full review of the system, would see a reduction in rates for the majority of those small businesses that qualify for the relief and that are struggling with their tax. All those below this allowance—for example, £12,000—would be out of the system entirely, because they would not have to claim the allowance. This would cut down on the resources required to process these claims. Perhaps my right hon. Friend the Minister has a figure in mind for the Government’s current compliance cost for processing small business rate relief claims. That compliance cost affects not only the Government; in percentage terms, it is even more burdensome for the small businesses that have to claim the relief, because they often need to employ specialist professional practitioners to enable them to claim the tax satisfactorily and not have their claim disallowed.

An additional benefit of introducing such an allowance, as opposed to a threshold, would be the simplification of the relief system. In other words, there would no longer be any need for small business rates relief as there would be a standard application for all small qualifying businesses across the country. Furthermore, the small business relief system currently costs the Government £2.6 billion. Introducing such an allowance and erasing the £2.6 billion in rates relief—even though we would be redeploying it as an allowance—would result in businesses reducing their compliance costs. Perhaps the Minister can tell me what the compliance cost is for the Government. If not, perhaps he could ask his officials to look it up. We could then redeploy the money involved in that compliance cost—and in the bureaucracy involved in administering the system—and perhaps consider raising the £12,000 threshold and introducing the allowance that I would prefer, so that even more small businesses could benefit.

I, and I am sure all hon. Members, want to see this country’s small businesses thriving in post-Brexit Britain, and we should be encouraging small enterprises, not penalising them for wanting to expand and grow further. We should cherish the fact that 500,000 new businesses have been created under this Conservative Government in the past five years and under their predecessor coalition Government. That shows the strength of the British economy. That is why we have such full employment rates, and we need to keep it that way. We need to keep employing as many of our constituents as possible, particularly the youngsters, and to encourage them to consider forming their own businesses. As I have said, from small businesses come medium-sized and large businesses. This country has always been full of entrepreneurs. I have great optimism for the future, post-Brexit, but we need my right hon. Friend the Minister and his team in the Treasury to consider the fairness of the current rating system. I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to say these few words tonight.

Debate on the Address

Debate between Jim Shannon and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Wednesday 27th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing me to catch your eye in this important Gracious Speech debate. May I welcome you back to your Chair, may I thank the people of The Cotswolds for electing me in ever greater numbers, and may I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on succeeding for the first time in almost 20 years in getting an overall majority? I suspect he will have to play his cards carefully, because although he will have a honeymoon period for a month, even a year, after that time impediments will no doubt get in his way. I suggest that he get on and do the controversial legislation first.

It is almost déjà vu for me, because in 1992 I was immediately pitched into the all-night Maastricht debates, and today we are likely to be pitched into debates on the European Union. I suspect it will be a very different experience from 1992, because one thing I have learned on the many thousands of doorsteps I stood on in the last five weeks is that there is a huge division of opinion on Europe. Some people are radically in favour of remaining in the EU, while others are violently opposed to remaining in the EU. For that reason I believe a referendum on Europe is absolutely essential, so that we can have the arguments and the debates and then a vote, and live with that verdict, whatever it happens to be—and I think at the moment it is very close.

I congratulate the Scottish nationalists but I hope that they, as good democrats, will respect the result of their referendum in Scotland. They are going to get major devolutionary powers over tax raising and a host of other matters in this Parliament. I hope they will equally respect my constituents who want some form of English votes for English laws. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg): whatever solution we put in place—and I quite like the Standing Order solution because it is simple to enact and simple to get rid of—I hope it will only be operated in sparse and few circumstances.

There are two parts to this Queen’s Speech in my view: constitutional and financial. I am absolutely delighted that we are building in this Queen’s Speech on the financial improvements we made to this country in the last Parliament. Members have not mentioned jobs much so far in this debate. For me, jobs and public services are the two things we were really elected here for. If we do not have a sound economy, we cannot keep creating new jobs. I am particularly pleased that we are creating ever more jobs for youngsters, and ever more apprenticeships—2.2 million in the last Parliament and 3 million in this Parliament—as that is an admirable route for those who do not want, or are not able for one reason or another, to go to university.

I do not want to dwell on domestic matters this evening, however, and I have cover in the Queen’s Speech as Her Gracious Majesty did refer to Ukraine and other matters foreign. It is to those matters that I wish to devote my remaining time in this speech. I want to talk about Ukraine, ISIS in Iraq, Syria and, above all, stabilisation of the African countries so that we begin to solve the real problems we have got with migration into this country.

About two months ago I went to Ukraine and met its Prime Minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. I discovered a very sad state of affairs: the country is bankrupt, almost devoid of all necessities, and certainly does not need a fighting war with Russia. I discussed this matter at a conference this weekend, and I met some very bitter Ukrainians who said to me in very stark terms, “The Americans, yourselves and the Russians signed the Budapest agreement in 1994.” That was not a military agreement, but it was an agreement that prevented aggression towards Ukraine in return for her giving up nuclear weapons. They felt very bitterly that we had not given them sufficient help to deter the Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine. There is no doubt that the Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine is going on at a pace. Every Minsk agreement has been broken almost to the day: the agreement in February was broken the day after by Russia reinforcing its troops within eastern Ukraine, and there have been instances of Russian artillery shelling Ukrainian positions from within Russia itself. We desperately need a strategy on Ukraine. We need, along with the EU and the Americans, to come up with a cohesive strategy that works and that deters the Russians. We have degraded their economy a bit through the sanctions, but we have not deterred their ambitions to take over the whole of eastern Ukraine. I put it to this House that if we do not deter the Russians in their ambitions in this respect, we will continue to have problems with Russian ambitions elsewhere.

[Jim Shannon]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I have very little time left and an awful lot to get through.

I want to move on to Iraq, and talk about ISIS. ISIS is one of the most vile terrorist organisations humanity has ever seen, yet, again, we do not have a concerted strategy to deal with it. We started with the Cyprus talks involving the Americans, the Germans, the French, ourselves, and the Russians. Wrongly, in my view, we did not include the Iranians, but that is another point. Unless we have a concerted strategy to deal with ISIS, it will undoubtedly take over more parts of the world than just Iraq. What worries me most about Iraq is that Iran, with its Shi’a militias, is doing our bidding against ISIS. If we are not careful we will come to a point where Iran—with its emerging nuclear ambitions, despite the agreement with the Americans—will simply take over Iraq. When I close my speech with the figures on oil production, the House will see how dangerous that is.

On Syria, I did a social action project in Gaziantep in south-east Turkey and was able to meet many Syrians in one of the refugee towns. They all—to a man, woman and child—told me they wanted to go back to a country that was at peace with itself. They wanted the international community to intervene and sort out the problems and restore their country to what it had been. It appears to me that the world does not have a concerted policy on Syria. It looks increasingly unlikely that the Free Syrian Army will be able to defeat the President’s regime, and it looks ever more likely that ISIS will play an ever bigger part—again, ISIS is only likely to be defeated by Iran in some form or another, probably backed by the Russians. The Syrian situation is extremely dangerous, and it is extremely bad for the poor people of Syria; 300,000 people have been killed in Syria, and over 2 million people have been displaced. What a human tragedy.

Finally, I want to talk about the Maghreb and the Sahel—north Africa. We are dealing with an unprecedented situation of migrants trying to leave Africa, mostly via Libya—the migrants are mostly not Libyans, but come from other countries—and to cross the Mediterranean to come to Europe. Ultimately this is unsustainable. However Europe decides to deal with the problem, we have to try to keep these people in their own countries, and in doing so we have to redirect our foreign aid. I was delighted to be able to argue during the election that we had kept to our 0.7% of GNI pledge, as that is absolutely right, and I am delighted to be saying this with the Minister of State, Department for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne), on the Front Bench. We need to redirect that aid now to north Africa, to try and stabilise some of those countries: give them the help they need; stabilise their Governments and civil service; stabilise, and make sure we have, the infrastructure so that companies want to go into those countries and invest and provide jobs, so that the people are content to remain in those countries and do not have a desperate desire to leave them and come to better climes. These are very important matters that my right hon. Friend needs to deal with.

The trouble with the world today is that where we have very weak Governments, the forces of evil tend to move in. We are seeing it in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we are certainly seeing it in some of the north African countries, in Libya, in Chad and in the Central African Republic. We are seeing it in those very weakly governed countries. We are seeing it in Nigeria, too, for goodness’ sake, with the activities of Boko Haram. I believe our aid must go towards trying to strengthen those countries, so that we can defeat and deter some of the dreadful human rights abuses.

I promised the House that I would give the world oil production figures: Iraq has 12% of the world’s oil reserves and Iran has 13%. If we allow Iran to take over Iraq, who would be happy with an emerging superpower, and a nuclear superpower at that, controlling a quarter—that is more than Saudi Arabia and more than Venezuela—of all the world’s oil reserves? I think that could lead to a very big danger for the world.

Meningitis B Vaccinations

Debate between Jim Shannon and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to raise the important matter of meningococcal B—or MenB—vaccines in this short debate. I also thank the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), for kindly responding on behalf of the Government. I appreciate that I have dragged her to these green Benches at a time when she might well be negotiating with the drugs companies and it might be difficult for her to respond to every one of my points. Nevertheless, she will understand that I must make them on behalf of my constituents and other members of the public.

There will be a number of hon. Members in this House with constituents whose lives have been affected by meningitis B. I have constituents who have had to deal with the suffering and loss caused by meningitis B, which is why I am here today further to raise the need for a national roll-out of the vaccination. My constituents, Dr and Mrs Turner, who are here today, tragically lost their 19-year-old granddaughter on new year’s day this year. As you are aware, Mr Speaker, their granddaughter, Emily, and her parents are constituents of yours. Emily’s uncle is a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray).

Meningitis B is a comparatively rare disease, with about 1,800 cases in the UK each year. According to the charity Meningitis UK, however, many thousands of people die as a result of contracting the illness. The infection progresses rapidly and can lead to permanent disability or death within 24 hours of the symptoms becoming evident. That is sadly what happened to Emily. One in 10 people who contract the infection will tragically die despite the treatment that is available today. Of those who survive, one in five will have devastating life-long disability such as brain damage, hearing loss or limb damage.

Infants under the age of one year are disproportionately affected by meningitis B, with the number of cases peaking at the age of about five to six months. However, there is unfortunately another peak during late adolescence when students mix at university. Those are the two age groups that are most likely to contract meningitis B and the fact that there is another peak later in life highlights the need for a vaccine during infancy to protect people from lifelong suffering from this potentially devastating disease.

Parents up and down the country were given a sense of hope when in January 2013 a vaccine was licensed in the UK as well as in Europe and the US. The Bexsero vaccine was developed by the drug company Novartis and protects against approximately 73% of the different strains of meningitis B with apparently limited side effects. That was obviously very welcome, but there have been extremely long and costly delays in implementing any vaccination programme. The vaccine was turned down by the NHS after being considered by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

The passion felt by many members of the public that the vaccination should have been implemented straightaway has resulted in various petitions urging the Government to do so. The charity Meningitis Now, which I heartily and sincerely congratulate on its constant campaigning, delivered a petition of 36,000 signatures to Downing street. My constituents organised a petition of around 5,000 signatures and I had great pleasure in presenting that petition to Parliament earlier this evening.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and for bringing this matter forward for consideration. Meningitis B numbers have halved in the past 25 years, but there is no room for complacency. Some of my constituents have experienced devastating effects from meningitis, so, as the MP for Strangford, my issue is whether the hon. Gentleman feels that the vaccine, when it becomes available, should be available to the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. As I shall discuss later, this is obviously a big and costly undertaking for the NHS. As I am sure the Minister will mention later, there are delicate negotiations to be had, but if we start with babies—preferably babies under the age of 12 months—and then roll it out to students, the whole population will eventually have been vaccinated. Perhaps that will take too long, and once we have vaccinated those cohorts of the population, we might be able to find the money later to vaccinate other cohorts, but let us start, for goodness’ sake. In particular, vaccinating young babies would be an important start.

In my view, and in the view of many others, the Bexsero vaccine should have been rolled out immediately. Doing so could have prevented around 600 cases of meningitis B, and the associated 200 deaths between January 2013 and now. Although there have been delays in rolling out this vaccine on a national scale in the UK, it has been available privately since December 2013 for parents able to pay the high price, and it has been used across several university campuses in the United States. I am sure the House would agree that it is unsatisfactory that where a vaccine has been licensed and is available for use, only those who can afford to pay can get it.

Human Rights (North Korea)

Debate between Jim Shannon and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Westminster Hall

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

There is no doubt about it; the increased interest by a number of Members of Parliament, which has been emphasised by the strong attendance at today’s debate, is in no small part attributable to the work that the Churches are doing. I have already referred to Christian Solidarity Worldwide and the work that it has done.

The second tool that we have in our armoury is the British Council, which my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire has referred to. The British Council had an excellent programme of training English teachers, but unfortunately when Kim Jong-un and his regime threatened the Foreign Office with the closure of our embassy last year, it had to stop its activities. I would be grateful if my right hon. Friend the Minister could, in his summing up, say something about the British Council and tell us if and when it is likely to be able to resume its activities.

The third tool in our locker is Kaesong. When I stood on the demilitarised zone and looked through the telescope into North Korea, I could see the industrial zone of Kaesong quite clearly. Working in the Kaesong industrial complex is one of the very few activities where both North Korean and South Korean workers can get together. The factories manufacture things that are needed in the south. The North Koreans who work there receive much-needed hard currency from the south, but, more than that, they are able to interact with South Koreans and encounter their ideas about what is going on in South Korea and the rest of the world. The hope is that they will spread those ideas by word of mouth into the rest of North Korea. That is an important tool in our armoury.

Another important tool in our armoury is the fact that there are an increasing number of electronic devices such as radios and mobile phones. Villages on either side of a valley that were previously unable to communicate with each other suddenly find that through the odd one or two people who have mobile phones, they can communicate with each other. That combined with the internet will probably bring down the regime more quickly than almost anything else.

Finally, in the very few minutes that I have left, I would like to say a word or two about China. As I said, I was in China last week with quite senior members of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Although they are not prepared at the moment to intervene in condemning the DPRK for its human rights record, it is quite clear that they do not want to see it becoming a nuclear state.

[Jim Shannon]

One of the things that China could do today, which would not be a big thing for them but would be a big thing for North Koreans, would be to give North Koreans who leave their country safe passage through China. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that would be a massive step forward?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I agree with my friend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I think that is a very valid point. We made the point to the Chinese that when people had gone to all the difficulties of escaping across the border—by golly, it is difficult, particularly with the number of soldiers now deployed on the rivers along which people escape in winter when they ice over—it is particularly unfortunate that China return those people to the DPRK where they face certain torture and probable death, as well as forced abortions and infanticide. We must continue to discuss those matters with China.

I end where I began. We are talking about one of the most terrible regimes in the world, which commits some of the worst human rights atrocities in the world. It starves its people, and it commits against them all sorts of crimes against humanity, as my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire has said. That is completely unacceptable. As my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton has demonstrated, increasing numbers of parliamentarians in both Houses of Parliament are paying attention to the issue, and I expect yet more to do so. Let us all work, wherever we can and in our individual ways, to shine a light on this dreadful situation in the hope that we can bring about an improvement in the standard of living and quality of life for the people of North Korea.

Firearms Controls

Debate between Jim Shannon and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Tuesday 3rd September 2013 Westminster Hall

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. I know a little about the subject, and I think it is often easier for police officers to grant or re-grant a firearms or shotgun certificate than risk the possibility of judicial review. In fact, they should be more robust and say no if they believe that someone should not be granted a shotgun or firearms certificate and should, if necessary, defend the case robustly at judicial review. In my experience that does not always happen and it is when it does not happen that there are problems such as the Atherton case. There was clear evidence, which I will come to later, that the police should have decided to revoke the certificate. In any case, I think the new guidance that was published at the end of 2012 will help. I have no doubt the Minister will mention it in his summing up and I look forward to hearing what he says.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I apologise, Mr Sheridan, for not being present at the beginning of the debate—I was in a Committee meeting that has just finished—but I am interested in this subject. Is the hon. Gentleman aware of many other incidents? I am aware of allegations in my constituency by ex-partners or ex-wives against their spouses that are then unsubstantiated.

The process that applicants for firearms certificates must go through is laborious, and they may be removed or reinstated. A balance must be struck. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that the legislation, which I understand the shooting bodies support, is balanced?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend—I call him that because I know he knows a great deal about the subject—is absolutely right. Of course, a balance must be struck and, as he said earlier, often a judgment must be made. If an experienced firearms-licensing officer, hopefully with the appropriate training, has made a judgment that a licence should never have been issued or should be revoked, they should stick to that judgment robustly, even if it leads to judicial review.

My hon. Friend is right, and there is always a process that must be gone through, inquiries to be made, and a judgment to be reached. The experience of firearms officers should ensure that a wise judgment is made. According to the guidelines, every new incident of domestic violence should automatically prompt a police review and police officers would not have to rely only on actual convictions of domestic violence in making their decision, allowing them to use their discretion on whether they believe an applicant is suitable to hold a firearms licence.

My second point is the lack of need for specific legislation on firearms licensing. I understand that the hon. Member for Easington wants consistent application of the rules throughout all 43 police forces and I strongly agree with him. It is critical that the guidance on firearms control is implemented fairly, equally and consistently throughout the country. I have spoken to the Minister about that and I believe that he has some sympathy with it.

I agree that it would be more rational to have a national licensing authority instead of licensing decisions being made separately by 43 different authorities. That would achieve much greater consistency in the application of the guidelines and gun licensing legislation, as well as being quicker and cheaper for applicants. It would ensure that all current shotgun or firearms licence holders are immediately entered on the police national database.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I will refer in a moment to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and licences. I envisage that many local police firearms officers would still be employed by the national agency to make the local inquiries, so there would still be an element of localism in a national firearms licensing organisation.

If the new guidelines are recognised and implemented consistently throughout the country, they will be able to protect against inappropriate decisions being made. The guidelines are there to be implemented, and it is crucial that they are used by police officers when making decisions on issuing firearms licences.

In line with that consistency, I also want to see an improved system of health checks for firearms licence holders, which the hon. Member for Easington also talked about. We need to have proper arrangements in place so that doctors are required to pass on any related health developments to the police. One way of achieving that may be to negotiate such an obligation into the GP contract. That duty must be done on a continuous basis, and not just at the application or renewal stage of a firearms licence. That is because a very small number of people’s medical circumstances can change dramatically; for example, if they become a severe depressive, or addicted to alcohol or drugs. That should be reported to the police by a medical professional and should lead to serious consideration of a revocation of a licence, which in normal circumstances, only occurs every five years. There should also be a robust check when a licence is granted or re-granted to assess whether any information is being withheld by the applicant from the doctor or police.

[Jim Shannon]

I just want to put this point on record. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that some police forces in England share data with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, for example. Because of that, and the fact that data can be used by other—well, we do not know what it can be used for, of course; that is the question we are all asking. However, does he feel that when it comes to the data that the police hold, they need to ensure that the data are for use within the control of the police and that they are not for use by any other organisations, whatever their motives might be?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Where I do agree with my hon. Friend is that there should not be a two-way share of information; I think the police should be able to gain their information from any source they like. However, I, too, read the reports that the police are sharing their information with the RSPCA and I wholly deprecate that. It is quite wrong for the police to share any information that they have with any other organisation. After all, it is of a confidential nature and it should remain confidential. Perhaps the Minister may care to say something about that when he winds up.

As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) after his intervention, a comparison is to be made with the issuing of a driver’s licence. Although there is no legal obligation on the medical profession, there is a strong public duty on a doctor to report a change in a driver’s medical condition. Doctors can report their concerns to the DVLA. GPs are able to do that at any point and are not expected to wait until a licence is due to be renewed. I understand that the DVLA follow up medical investigations that are reported to it. Indeed, it has its own medical team to carry out medical investigations and assessments. There should be a similar, although perhaps stronger, obligation on doctors in relation to firearms certificates.

I would also welcome a codification of the existing pieces of legislation. As the hon. Member for Easington said, there are 34 separate pieces of legislation relating to firearms. Bringing them into one document would provide clarity and understanding, and I would completely support that move. However, I am opposed to increasing the amount of legislation, as I do not think it will be any more effective in protecting vulnerable people against the consequences of putting guns into the wrong hands.

Terminal Illness (Access to Medicines)

Debate between Jim Shannon and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

Those are the sort of responses we hope to hear, because they show that the Government are working. The Minister, as we knew she would, has come up with a practical, physical response, and is doing the things that we have been hoping will come out of the debate. I thank her for initiating the process she outlined, and for moving things forward.

I am pleased to support the hon. Member for The Cotswolds in his cause of drawing attention to motor neurone disease, cancer and other illnesses, so that a treatment path will not be simply a step along the road to the end of life, but may enhance the quality of life. Perhaps a successful treatment path can be developed. According to Empower: Access to Medicine,

“Speeding up the development and availability of drugs that treat life-threatening diseases would benefit everyone in society.”

I believe that too. Everyone present will know people whom new drugs could help. The current testing and development process is long, cumbersome and expensive. In fact, a recent report by the Office of Health Economics found that it takes five years, on average, after the launch of a new drug, to win NICE approval. That time scale can be more than doubled when the time taken for a new drug to go from the development stage through to phase 3 and beyond is added. As an example, no new drug has been approved for motor neurone disease since riluzole was approved 20 years ago. Are we happy to sit back and rely on that one drug, or should there be more research? We need more research; we need to fund it, and we need it to be made possible.

Currently, pharmaceutical companies do not have a financial incentive to invest in developing new drugs for rare or “orphan” diseases—I am being careful in my terminology—because of the small number of the population who are affected and the high and uncertain costs of the drug development process. The drug regulatory regime is therefore clearly having a significant impact on those with life-threatening and rare diseases.

Just yesterday, the shadow Secretary of State held a meeting on special commissioning. Five speakers introduced the issues. The gentleman who spoke on cystic fibrosis said that drugs are available only in certain parts of the United Kingdom. He is worried that we are setting an imbalance, which I have taken up with my colleague back home, Edwin Poots, the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety, to ensure that cystic fibrosis drugs are available to sufferers when they need them not only in England, but in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

The panel hosted by the shadow Secretary of State outlined the need for drugs allocation. There was a guy representing HIV patients, and 100,000 people in the United Kingdom are receiving HIV drugs to prolong their life. The man who spoke yesterday has lived for 20 years with the drugs that are available, but are those drugs available across the whole United Kingdom?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making those extremely good points. The point he makes about cystic fibrosis crystallises the health service’s dilemma. A small drug company came to me the other day, and told me that it has developed an absolute cure for a certain type of cystic fibrosis if it is caught very early in life. The problem is that the drug will have to be administered for life, and the life cost of the drug for the very small number of people whom the drug will absolutely cure, and whose quality of life it will improve, is £180,000. That is why his remarks on the need to drive down the cost of developing drugs in this country are so important.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his constructive intervention. I take his comments on board, and I believe the Minister has a willing ear, too.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend the Minister reminds me sotto voce that I was corresponding with her, and I am extremely pleased to say that she has approved the drug I mentioned. So that small number of people will now have an absolute cure.

[Jim Shannon]

If this goes on much longer, I would want the Minister to reply to every Westminster Hall debate, because we have asked for two things and got them both, which is good news.

I will now illustrate the need for drugs for three categories of people. The first category is those with dementia. There has been debate in the House and in the papers over the past week on dementia treatment. In Northern Ireland, we do not have the highest diagnosis rate for dementia in the United Kingdom, but at 63% the diagnosis rate is high. The support services are perhaps not as equal to that as they should be, which we will take up with the Minister to see how we can improve.

The facts are that some 370,000 people have not yet been diagnosed for dementia treatment—first it is diagnosis, and then it is drugs—so there is a combination of how the health system works best. People are given drugs including Aricept, which reduces symptoms and slows progression. The drugs might not always cure the ailment or disease, but they certainly can improve life and make it a wee bit more amenable.

The second category is cancer, and there will not be a family in the whole country that has not been touched in some way by cancer. The Government have set up what they refer to as a “fast track” for cancer patients. There is some indication that the fast track is perhaps not working in the way that it should, but the Government have a £750 million cancer strategy, which plays a key role. As with dementia, the strategy is diagnosis, early intervention and prevention through all the surgeries and clinics across the United Kingdom.

The third category is breast cancer. A new breast cancer drug has had some coverage in the press over the past few weeks. The Minister has been tremendous in her response to our points, and perhaps she could give us some indication of how that drug will be made available to those with breast cancer. The drug has the potential to prolong life. The papers have said that, for some people, the drug can prolong life for 20 years. Such drugs must be available if that is the case. I am keen to hear how that will go.

It is long past time to take active steps to ensure that terminally ill patients or patients with life-threatening conditions are not simply given a form of end-of-life care—it has to be more than that—but are treated for their conditions. New drugs and medications should be actively sought, instead of accepting a diagnosis of illness as a death sentence.

The hon. Member for The Cotswolds mentioned hospice care. We are fortunate to have so many organisations, and if I name some, I will leave some out, so I am not going to name any. They all do tremendous work. The hospice care those organisations deliver to the person who is dying or recuperating and the help they give to families is tremendous. We owe them a lot.

I support the hon. Gentleman in this debate, and I am disappointed there are not more people here, because it is a debate that affects us all. Our constituents would be keen to ensure that we are involved in this debate.

We have been fortunate this morning to have very positive responses from the Minister, and I look for more. What steps are this Government, and our Government in Northern Ireland, taking to ensure that another five years are not lost and that we can make a change to bring hope, instead of despair, to those who refuse to accept a one-size-fits-all diagnosis and who wish to have access to the best drugs available at a price we can afford and that delivers more treatment and care for everyone?

High Speed 2 (Heathrow)

Debate between Jim Shannon and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this matter to the House. When the Civil Aviation Bill was discussed in Committee and on the Floor of the House, rail links were clearly important factors. The hon. Gentleman is outlining that case now. Does he believe that if a rail link is established along the lines that he is suggesting, that will provide an economic boost? I am thinking of, for instance, connections with the BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India and China—the world’s developing economies, where job opportunities come from and where contacts are made. Does he believe that there will be job creation in his constituency and other constituencies as a result?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

That is why I think that world-class infrastructure is vital—for job creation and economic prosperity—but it is also vital, when spending these very large sums, to ensure that we have the best solution. I will go on to explain why I believe that my proposal not only is cheaper, but could be delivered quicker and will produce a better result.

As there is no airport in the UK larger and more important than Heathrow, which alone accounts for 1% of the UK’s GDP, should we not do whatever we can to improve rail links, including with the HS2 project, as I was saying to the hon. Gentleman? The Government have repeatedly stated their wish to see Heathrow become a “better, not bigger” airport, but Heathrow continues to grow in terms of the numbers of passengers using the airport. That is something that we should celebrate, frankly. However, air quality, congestion and delays are already significant issues at Heathrow and, in the case of the air quality, it is illegal. Without an integrated approach to surface access, Heathrow’s challenges can only get worse.

How would a direct link between Heathrow and HS2 help? The answer can be found in the Conservative party’s rail review, published in opposition by the Minister. Although she will not thank me for quoting it, I will nevertheless. It clearly sets out the benefits of integrating air and rail infrastructure. It states:

“Good connections to major airports…also significantly enhance the benefits of high speed rail. So a Conservative Government will support proposals…for a new Heathrow rail hub. This would link Heathrow terminals directly into the main rail network and the lines to Reading, Oxford, Bristol, Plymouth, Cardiff, Swansea, Cheltenham and Southampton, greatly improving public transport links to the airport.”

It also stated:

“The plan would also include construction of a new high speed link connecting Heathrow…to the Channel Tunnel Rail link and the new route north, providing a viable alternative to thousands of short haul flights now clogging up the airport. By freeing up landing slots, our proposal would help tackle overcrowding problems and allow more space for long haul flights, making Heathrow a much better airport, but without the environmental damage that would be caused by a third runway.”

I could not have put it better myself.

It is potentially billions of pounds cheaper to route the high-speed line via a Heathrow interchange on the Great Western main line, compared with the current proposal for the development of a series of branch lines, loops and spurs. The current costs of building HS2 from London to Birmingham, followed by a spur from HS2 to Heathrow and then a loop to rejoin the HS2 main line at Old Oak Common, is projected to be in the region of £20.5 billion to £20.7 billion. However, a connection along the lines that I am suggesting, between HS1 and HS2, connected directly to Heathrow and then on to Birmingham and further north, is projected to cost £17.5 billion, which represents a significant saving on the current proposal. That route, I believe, would be quicker to build, and the passage of the hybrid Bill through Parliament might well be easier, as there would be fewer objections.

Shifting passengers from road to rail and making Heathrow operate more efficiently by reducing passenger and aircraft overcrowding mean that the environmental impacts will be reduced. Let me give an example. Unite the Union calculates that a B747 taxiing and holding for 40 minutes on the ground—a not uncommon occurrence at Heathrow—uses as much fuel as it does at cruise altitude from the UK to New York. Of course, that not only contributes to Heathrow’s air quality failing to comply with legal limits, but increases airlines’ costs. Additionally, the relocation—the point that the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) was making—of landside facilities outside the existing congested airport site will create more space for aircraft, allowing for more efficient operations. It is suggested that removing unnecessary ground facilities and streamlining the structures of the terminals at Heathrow could allow the creation of an additional 18% of air capacity in one fell swoop. Although that would not remove the demand for a third runway at Heathrow, it would certainly provide the breathing space necessary for the Government to undertake full consideration of the options available to them, as my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) suggested.

A high-speed route via Heathrow also avoids the major environmental impacts of the current proposals on the Chilterns and west London. It would follow the example of HS1 by following motorway corridors and the shortest route through an area of outstanding natural beauty, with tunnelling below existing rail corridors where the new line passes through urban areas. The proposed route of HS2 will pass underground from Euston to Old Oak Common before moving overground through large parts of densely populated west London. The line then goes through 20.8 km of an AONB, of which 7.6 km will be above ground and the remaining 13.2 km in a tunnel.

My alternative route via Heathrow would see the entire route through west London tunnelled underneath the Great Western main line before surfacing near Heathrow. Of course, that would involve significantly more tunnelling in London than the current proposals. However, the greatest costs of tunnelling are in the initial set-up. The cost per mile of tunnelling drops as we tunnel further. That approach would greatly reduce noise and air pollution during the construction phase for very large numbers of people. It would follow the precedent set by HS1: much of the line is tunnelled under London, with only a 1-mile section approaching St Pancras overground. It would then have far less surface impact than the current HS2 route, which will pass overground through vast swathes of west London.

The line would then proceed overground to Beaconsfield in the M40 corridor before entering a 12-km tunnel through the entire width of the Chilterns AONB at its narrowest point. In other words, the impact on the Chilterns would be minimised. This tunnel not only would be shorter, but would remove almost entirely the impact of HS2 on the AONB. That might assuage the extremely vocal and well funded local opposition groups that have been set up and that are heavily involved in the judicial review proceedings against the Government in relation to the current HS2 proposals.

Directly connecting Heathrow with the UK’s regions and Europe in the first phase of high speed rail allows rail to replace both domestic and European short-haul flights, releasing vital additional capacity and resilience while linking the UK’s regions to the country’s hub airport. Improving access from the UK regions to Heathrow, our only hub, means that business links with global markets are improved, giving passengers the choice of flying via Heathrow or from regional airports.

I am sure that the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington would agree with this. The UK is beginning to lose the aviation advantage that we have consistently had in the past by offering more flights to Asia. Heathrow is now losing out to airports such as Charles de Gaulle, Schiphol and Frankfurt, which are offering more flights to Asian destinations. The knock-on effect is that businesses—