Child Poverty in the UK (Target for Reduction) Bill

Debate between Jo Churchill and Kevin Foster

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 3rd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

Given the time, I did debate whether to get up to speak, but I understand that the Minister would have had quite a few remarks to make anyway, which would have taken us through the remaining time.

I want to respond from the Government Benches to what was a dignified and excellent speech from the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis). As a Conservative Member, perhaps the best compliment that I can pay him is that it is pleasing to hear that sort of quality of performance from the Labour Benches at this time on a Friday. It would be nice to hear it just after 12 o’clock on a Wednesday in the six questions to pursue Labour’s agenda.

It is welcome that there is a Bill before the House looking at targets for the reduction of child poverty. There are extremes in Torbay. Parts of Watcombe have high levels of child poverty, for example. I have an area that is a bit like a poor man’s Sandbanks, where large numbers of wealthy retirees live, and then on the other side of the hill there is a large number of working families, particularly those who work in lower- paid industries such as tourism and the care sector. I therefore welcome this debate and some of the ideas in the Bill.

I have always thought that we should not just consider relative incomes. As the hon. Gentleman will probably agree, the situation for those on the lowest incomes may not change, but if other incomes come down, relative poverty disappears in theory. I want to ensure that those on the lowest incomes are coming up, getting more opportunities and more abilities.

[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

This is an important matter that affects all of us in our constituencies. For me, rural poverty is the big problem. We lack services, such as buses, and children do not get the life chances to lift themselves out of poverty. I agree with the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) that the issue is complex, because house prices and rents play an acute role in the problem.

[Kevin Foster]

I fully agree. A family in poverty in a wealthy rural community will feel a sense of social isolation, and children at school will see their friends get certain things and so on. I was going to say when I tried to intervene on the hon. Member for Barnsley Central—I understand why the intervention was not taken—that this sort of Bill could be developed, potentially in future debates, to include provisions about educational attainment. Poverty can almost be a double hit. Someone may grow up in a deprived family, but many pupils on free school meals also do not do well in our education system. I remember a speech by the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) in which he pointed out that fewer pupils in the entire free school meals cohort attained three grade As—the passport to a top university—than the pupils at Eton did in the same year. That is why, for me—[Interruption.] I am aware of the time, but the Minister would have spoken to the mark anyway. I felt it was appropriate for there to be a speech on why it is not only Labour Members and Scottish National party Members who are pleased to see the Bill. A number of Conservative Back Benchers are pleased to see it, and I hope that these ideas can be taken forward at another time.

Broadcasting (Radio Multiplex Services) Bill

Debate between Jo Churchill and Kevin Foster

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 3rd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jo Churchill]

I thank my hon. Friend for adding weight to my desire to probe further and to ensure that local community radio can take its place, rightfully and vibrantly, at the centre of the community. Ofcom, which trialled this, is also keen to deliver the provision.

The purpose of the amendment is to establish what access there will be to multiplexes specifically. Forces radio is hugely important to a certain sector of the community. Universities run radio stations that reach out to the student cohorts. Churches and cathedrals have their own stations. However, there are also new forms of media—groups and enterprises that want to reach out to and inform their local communities. They all have minimal budgets, and most have charitable status. If they cannot secure the space that will give them access to a cohort of listeners, what is the point? Surely we can ring-fence a little bit of that space for the people who need it.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

I urge my hon. Friends the Members for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) and for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) not to press their amendments.

I understand the purpose of amendment 1, and I also noted the comments of the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown). I realise that the amendment is intended to ensure that the views of local communities can be heard when a licence application is made. However, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills will consider withdrawing it, given that the aim of the Bill is to create a lighter-touch regulatory regime for the smallest radio stations.

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[Kevin Foster]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting the whole purpose of the Bill, and we can discuss the current regulatory system further on Third Reading. If the Bill does not survive today, or if it gets talked out, the national and local multiplexes will continue, which is fine for the largest radio operators because it suits their needs. The small community radio stations would take the hit and ultimately have fewer users. There would be less choice and diversity, and we would have a regulatory system that just does not reflect advancing technology.

I made the point on Second Reading that in the 1960s the outcome of an outdated attitude to broadcasting regulation was ships sitting just off our shores. The reality of not passing the Bill would be more community radio stations moving on to the internet. If we wanted to, my hon. Friend and I could set up an internet radio station in our office and start broadcasting. I am not sure how many people would want to listen—I see some nods of assent—but that is how technology is moving.

We can broadcast over the internet, but it does not have the ease of access of traditional radio broadcasting mediums. Yes, it is there and, yes, it is growing—the tech-savvy probably have apps on their phones so that they can listen—but it is not as easy as carrying around a simple, portable digital radio that is possibly smaller than a laptop, an iPad or a smartphone. That is why it is so important that we look to progress and look to pass the Bill unamended. There needs to be flexibility for the future. I would not want to set up restrictions in the Bill for well-intentioned reasons and find that, in a year or two’s time, we are stunting growth and development in a rapidly moving technology.

Let me be blunt. If we told our forefathers 30 or 40 years ago that a radio broadcasting system could be run off a laptop this big, they would have sat there in amazement. A broadcasting station then was a large room with a whacking great tower on it.

[Jo Churchill]

They might also have asked what a laptop is.

[Kevin Foster]

Yes, and that is the way technology is moving on. The Bill needs to be flexible, but it also needs to be adaptable because there are so many different locations. The Bill does not replicate the BBC’s guarantee of carriage on local and national multiplexes. The guarantee was relevant for the time and for the scale of those operations. I am loth to set a specific requirement in every single licence to guarantee community access, but it is almost certain that Ofcom, when looking at licence applications, will want to consider how it keeps diversity on a particular multiplex or how it gives opportunity. The evidence is that community radio stations have benefited fairly well from the small-scale trials. If we start to have a reservation or price controls—that is another thing we could consider—Parliament would get into odd arguments about exactly where we set those price controls in particular areas. The nature of small-scale multiplexes means that there will be lots more of them, which will inevitably bring down some broadcast costs.

Parking Places (Variation of Charges) Bill

Debate between Jo Churchill and Kevin Foster

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 3rd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

No. I think it is clear that if a local authority decided that raising charges was appropriate, it would be able to do so under the existing procedures, although consultation would be necessary, and, obviously, the authority would be answerable to its electors. Any authority considering increasing car parking charges must carefully consider the overall impact, not just whether it will get a couple of thousand pounds extra from a car park. The Local Government Finance Bill Committee this week heard evidence—the Minister was present—from the Federation of Small Businesses about the impact that increasing car park charges can have on town centres and on businesses. Local authorities will in future have 100% retention of business rates, and if a town centre is not regenerating and does not have people shopping in it, that will hit the bottom line as much as not getting an extra 10p from each car that parks in the car park.

[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is talking about giving councils the flexibility to lower prices in order to stimulate high streets, yet areas that are highly stimulated by an event—a celebration of Shakespeare’s 400th birthday, perhaps, this year—might wish to direct drivers to a park-and-ride, for instance, to avoid an absolute blockage in the town centre. Many of us have great events in our towns. May we have a temporary uplift, deterring people from parking in the town centre while an event is going on, and reduce it afterwards? This amendment sounds a little heavy-handed, if my hon. Friend does not mind my saying so.

[Kevin Foster]

I do not think my hon. Friend’s intervention is heavy-handed at all; it is right that we discuss probing amendments to Bills robustly on the Floor of the House. There is already some provision in this regard. My own authority, Torbay, held the Torbay airshow last year. It was clear that one of its car parks would be very congested, so to avoid undue congestion it closed the car park for the day of the airshow but arranged for to be booked via a separate means. The solution met the need on the day, but if it was put in place more widely and challenged there would be a question about whether it was the right way to proceed. It was just a fix for the day.

If a council is going to look to take money out of large events in the manner suggested—for a market day-style event—it should go through a proper consultation process. One way of ensuring that large crowds do not come to events is for people to attend, park in a car park and feel they have been ripped off for parking; traffic congestion reduces the following year, because no one comes back. There is clearly a balance to be struck. It is great to have events that draw people into town centres. I am the Member for Torquay and Paignton, and most days of the week my town centre has problems with lots people wanting to park and shop, causing congestion; that is quite a pleasant problem to deal with, compared with the issues of the decline of the town centre that we have seen over the last 30 to 40 years.

I believe in local democracy. Councils do need to have the ability to decide to increase parking charges, and ultimately be accountable to voters for that. We can all think of instances of a council controlled by our party deciding to make a quick buck out of car parking, but paying the price for it at the ballot box shortly afterwards.

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[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), I have a slight problem with the intention behind this new clause because it strikes me as a bit of a blunt tool, as I will explain. In my constituency there is The Dog at Norton. I am not sure whether I have a Dog and Duck, but Bury St Edmunds is the home of Greene King and I have the Dog and Partridge. I have quite a lot of pubs, and I am racking my brain.

In Bury St Edmunds I have a vibrant town that bucks the trend, and in that I see a problem with the bluntness of this amendment. The amendment would be perfect in Stowmarket, Needham Market and my other market towns, where we must do everything we can to increase the vibrancy of the high street—we need that flexibility—but I assume that the whole point of the Bill is to give us flexibility. It strikes me that the amendment is trying to do what we do so well in this House, which is to pin our arm behind our back and write legislation that does not do what we first intended and is less flexible than we want.

[Kevin Foster]

I respect my hon. Friend’s comments about the strength of Bury St Edmunds, but in other parts of the country, and certainly in England, we have councils that view their town centre as a bit of a cash cow, which is really hurting the economy. That is why we need to be clear and make sure that a council’s arm is behind its back. This is about reducing parking charges, not varying them upwards.

[Jo Churchill]

Surely my hon. Friend takes my point that local councils are, in the main, the people who should be deciding this. We have a very confused landscape. In Stratford-on-Avon, as he mentioned, the town council owns the car park. In two-tier authorities, the county council often owns car parks in towns that do not have the ability to flex the charges and use the money for their locality, as happens in ours. In such a situation, variation might happen, but because somebody else is setting the rules, it is not driven by the people in the locality who want the outcomes that he seeks.

I would welcome the creation of local accountability that gives people within borough councils or district councils in two-tier authorities the ability to set the rates and collect the revenue. At the moment, it is a longwinded process, in that it takes two years to apply for various changes in legislation, and so on. In Bury St Edmunds, a town of 40,000 people, there were 550 long- stay car park uses and 1.387 million short-stay car park uses last year.

We have problems in the medieval grid, and I was pleased to see the masterplan come out this week. It says that we will have a policy of using varying procedures to stop the off-street parking that blights so many people’s lives, particularly in the medieval quarter of the town. We must provide solutions and give local councils the ability to set the right solutions, and the masterplan encourages a blend of “pedestrian first” measures to restore and keep the medieval grid for pedestrians, tourists, shoppers and residents. The small grid, which is not only beautiful but historic, needs attention to make sure that it is not blighted by parking. I agree with my hon. Friend that we have a vibrant economic environment and that people need to park for work. Luckily, we have a wonderful tourist attraction that draws people to the town, but other market towns very much need the flexibility to vary parking charges.

What concerns me is that, with this amendment, we might be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. As my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) said, the amendment seeks to do what is already in the Bill.

[Kevin Foster]

There are already provisions for local authorities to increase parking charges if they wish to do so, and my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) said that councils have done that. All I am seeking to do with the amendment is to limit the new powers in the Bill to reducing parking charges. The existing powers to increase car park prices via the normal consultation processes will still be there.

[Jo Churchill]

Fine, but that takes me back to my earlier point, which is that that is already in the Bill. Are we not just adding a bit of jam to the cake?

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[Jo Churchill]

No, I do not. The beauty of this Bill is its simplicity, and that is why I would like it to go through today. However, as with most things in this place, we live in a fast-moving environment, where things constantly change around us.

My point to the Minister is that, where we have a complexity of local government, with different authorities having responsibility for car parking, we should perhaps look to address that as we go forward.

[Kevin Foster]

Does my hon. Friend recall, like me, that the Bill had its Report stage earlier today? That would have been an opportunity for anyone who had objections to the wording of the Bill to make some changes, and I suggested a new clause myself.

[Jo Churchill]

Indeed. I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. A plethora of people have spoken to the Bill today, but there has been somewhat of a dearth of Opposition Members not only saying what benefits a simple Bill such as this could bring but challenging it, as it would be appropriate to.

Broadcasting (Radio Multiplex Services) Bill

Debate between Jo Churchill and Kevin Foster

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 13th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for that intervention. Hospital radio absolutely provides an opportunity for volunteers to be part of delivering something to patients, and it also develops skills and talents that may well sustain them in a future paid career. There will be stories of people who have started off presenting a hospital or community radio show as a volunteer, but displayed talent that they could take much further. My hon. Friend will know Torbay Hospital Radio, which regularly provides the outside broadcast system for community events and fairs. The image of hospital radio is just someone sat in a broom cupboard at the bottom of the hospital, playing requests, but they actually get out in the community and do interviews, and they look to be more than just a station that people listen to in their hospital beds; they really want to make a contribution.

[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

In my office, I have a young lady who volunteers at her local hospital radio station. She said that it gives volunteers the chance to go round and befriend patients. They are a conduit between the radio station and the patients. It makes patients feel befriended, and the shows are tailored to their needs. It makes them feel like someone is taking their views seriously, and they can listen to the things that they want to listen to. Does my hon. Friend agree that although we hear so much negativity about hospitals, hospital radio provides so much and can help with the loneliness that we often discuss?

[Kevin Foster]

I thank my hon. Friend for such a passionate intervention on behalf of hospital radio stations. I totally agree that it is about providing not only a song to listen to but a sense of community in the hospital. Why would we want to maintain a licensing system that effectively bars such stations from any possibility of transmitting digitally? Why would we want to say to them, “You can go digital, but you’ll have to do so on the same basis as fairly large regional radio stations, or radio stations owned by fairly large media conglomerates”? Why would we want to send that message by not giving the Bill its Second Reading and thereby not allowing the development of a small-scale DAB transmission system? We want to do that not only for the technical reason that it would be nice to have a slightly better sound system, but because we think it is right to give stations the opportunity, if that is the direction they want to go in.

The whole point of the Bill is to provide options. It provides the option if stations want to go to DAB. It does not make any requirements on anyone, and nor does it require any of the existing multiplex operators to do anything to allow smaller stations to go to DAB. It simply gives those stations the opportunity to do it themselves, in a practical and affordable way. Without a licensing system of this nature and without the framework in the Bill, they would not be able to do it. Those are all reasons why giving this opportunity to the community radio sector is the right thing to do.

There are lots of examples of how the Bill could help to drive a local service, creating news and information from South Uist to the Isles of Scilly. As I keep saying, the point is to give people a chance and take the legislative opportunity to form infrastructure for that growth. I am not asking the taxpayer suddenly to fund a whole load of small-scale multiplexes and broadcasting equipment throughout the country, and I am not asking existing multiplex owners to provide space for these services on their broadcast systems. The Bill is about providing an opportunity.

Although it is not the main thrust of the Bill, I have given a little thought to whether services of the type I have described might in future provide an opportunity to help to sustain local newsrooms. Throughout the country, many local newspapers are struggling to maintain the capacity for investigative journalism at a local level. In the past, Parliament rightly ensured that there were strong restrictions in place to prevent a potentially dominant local newspaper owner from also owning one of the handful of local FM licences. The coming of the internet and the growth of other news sources means that in future a wider platform may be needed to sustain some level of professional journalism in a local area, or, bluntly, to avoid it being reduced to only the BBC having a pool of paid local journalists available. That is not something I wish to dwell on in discussing the Bill, but it is perhaps worth considering the role of smaller-scale digital radio operations when it comes to future policy development.

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[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst) for her speech. I concur with many of her points, particularly on connectivity. I also add my voice to those who rightly paid tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) for presenting such a pertinent Bill that will not only enable businesses to grow but will start allowing us to pull down barriers and reduce regulation, which is what we are about. The Bill is also about showing that we are a flexible and adaptable Parliament. In these modern times we all work differently to how we worked in the past, so we must be about enabling more effective modern communications.

I declare myself a radio nut. My DAB radio is on top of my kitchen cupboard, where nobody can reach it. It was originally put there so I could get a better signal, and now it stops my children changing the channel—it seems to work well on both fronts. I do a lot of radio listening through my phone, and I echo the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) about whether we could use mobile phone connectivity in a more beneficial way. I am no technical buff, but I ask the Minister to look into that. In previous debates on mobile phones and notspots, we heard that churches, as often the tallest buildings in rural communities, have said that they are happy to help facilitate masts, and so on, to drive greater connectivity in communities.

My hon. Friends the Members for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) and for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) spoke about loneliness and connectivity. It is vital that people can hear about what is going on in and around their local area, and in and around their life. I would welcome an answer on that.

Radio is brilliant, and it brings comfort. The Minister and I share not only Radio Suffolk but West Suffolk hospital. Radio West Suffolk brings real support to the hospital’s patients. I will give a shout-out to Ian Norris at this point. He volunteers and we have heard so much about that today: how people running these radio stations give of their own time so selflessly. Given that 87% of all local radio stations support young people volunteering, we see that this is a hugely important area of our life, as this grows skills as people move into the workplace. I do not know whether I am right, and perhaps the Minister would like to respond on this, but I believe I read that he had some time on a local radio station. I think it was called radio Oxygen—I hope he does not run out of that when he is responding positively to this afternoon’s debate!

I had the great privilege of visiting the British forces radio in Canada last summer. It, too, is hugely important for connecting people’s lives and driving information into places that would not normally have that accessibility. We are talking about giving little personal bits of information that make people feel so much better at a time when they cannot always get out of their hospital bed or across parts of the world to put their arms around a loved one.

We are taking things slowly, and my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay explained eloquently in opening this debate how things would proceed. As I said, I am not a technical person, but this Bill is a good idea that we should all be supporting. Today in particular, when snow is falling outside, local radio travel news, which has been spoken about by other Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) and for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris), acts as a vital conduit. These stations also tell us when our schools are open. As I said, we are dealing today with flooding issues along the east coast, and people who are not using the Environment Agency’s buzz to find out about what is going on with flooding locally are going to be listening to local radio. That shows its huge importance in our community. Public information is disseminated brilliantly in this way, so we need to enable this sector of our creative economy—an economy that drives an awful lot of money into this country—so that it can help with volunteers and with skills and build on those.

It is now 1.22 pm, so Lesley Dolphin will be entertaining people across Suffolk. I have had the pleasure of being on her show and chatting to her. Earlier in the day on Radio Suffolk we have Mark Murphy, and he is leading a great campaign on people not using mobile phones when they are driving. That is another great thing community radio stations can do: they can start that campaigning zeal which we all appreciate in this place. The use of a mobile phone in the car is one of the top four causes of death, along with not putting a seatbelt on, drink-driving—[Interruption.] Somebody might have to help me out with the last one.

[Kevin Foster]

Excessive speed.