Independent School Fees: VAT

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Lewer]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question, which is indeed the major thrust of what I have to say. As chair of the all-party group, I am delighted every year to sponsor the Independent Schools Council’s annual “Celebrating Partnerships” report, which gives parliamentarians and stakeholders from across the sector the opportunity to come together to celebrate the fantastic work that the independent sector does in partnership. Three quarters of independent schools are now in partnerships with state schools. That is not the old swimming pool every other Tuesday afternoon for an hour or two; they are embedded, mutually beneficial partnerships.

Given how influential and impactful the sector is for wider society, it is in disappointment that I stand in opposition to the Labour party’s policy position on independent education—the introduction of a 20% VAT fee on independent school fees. I urge the current Government and my Conservative party colleagues to be robust in their stance of not imposing VAT on school fees. I look forward to the Minister’s analysis of that, but given that the Opposition are currently well ahead in the polls, and it is at least possible that they could form a Government in the next Parliament, it is important that this debate has been granted. It is important that we take the time to scrutinise what I believe is an ill-thought-out policy. Although I welcome the fact that Labour’s plans for independent education under the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) are not as draconian, undemocratic and questionable in law as they were when he served in the shadow Cabinet of the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn)—when it looked like the party was trying to abolish the sector entirely—they are still very worrying indeed.

The principle of parental choice is supported by article 2 of the first protocol of the European convention on human rights, which was incorporated into domestic law by the Human Rights Act 1998. It says that

“the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.”

However, is that right to choose being assisted, if said choice is made increasingly difficult by a huge tax rise? I do not think it is. It is also a fundamental principle that we do not tax the supply of education, and the Value Added Tax Act 1994 exempts education, including nurseries and universities, alongside independent schools. That principle is international in scope and the UK would be an outlier if Labour abandoned that policy. For example, EU nations, Australia and the USA do not apply sales taxes to education.

Beyond the core principles, there are many reasons why the policy could be harmful and doomed to fail. First, parents residing in the UK who make the decision to send their children to independent schools already contribute to the state education sector by paying their fair share of taxes. I have made that very clear in the Main Chamber when debating this subject, and the repeated use of terms such as “tax breaks” and “tax reliefs” should be avoided. Independent schools are taxed in the same way as other education providers and charities, and they provide more than £5 billion in tax annually, which is more than three times what Labour thinks it will raise from VAT. UK parents who pay school fees do so from already taxed income.

Now that the Labour party has put this policy forward, I am sure we will hear today that it has done so because it believes in educational excellence for everyone and not a reserved few. However, by introducing the policy a Labour Government would simply make independent schools even more elite than Labour already perceives them to be by pricing out hard-working parents who can just about afford to pay the fees to invest in their children’s futures. Those who can easily absorb the 20% will do so, and perhaps that is what the Labour party wants: to make private schools more elite so that it is more difficult for politicians like me to make the case for them.

I will use the jacuzzi and private jet analogy to demonstrate my point. Many of us will never have a jacuzzi in our gardens, but could probably afford to install one if we chose to do so. On the other hand, a private jet is, for virtually everyone, an unobtainable fantasy for a distant elite with no connection to our lives. That is what Labour wants independent education to be—the private jet, not the jacuzzi. Of course, that is purely figurative as a parallel and not related to the crucial importance of educational choice.

It has been said that these are not issues we should worry about, and that independent schools can simply absorb the VAT increase so that they do not pass it on to parents. That is a naive view, with many independent schools up and down the country being very small, operating on tight margins and unable to do that. A quarter of all schools in the Independent Schools Council have fewer than 155 pupils. They are not wealthy institutions that are able to absorb VAT.

[Mr Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Several headteachers of independent schools in my constituency of Woking have come to me and said that they are worried that many parents will not able to afford to keep their children at their schools with the VAT increase, and one or two are worried about the future of their schools. My hon. Friend has had conversations with the independent sector and the groups representing it; has Labour taken into account that there might be a massive increase in students having to go to the state sector due to schools closing, which would completely kibosh any potential financial gains it is claiming?

[Andrew Lewer]

It would. My hon. Friend’s point leads me nicely into my belief that the naivety of Labour’s position is underlined by a hidden agenda to have smaller schools in the midlands and the north closed and absorbed by the state. Underlining that is perhaps the fact that the shadow Education Secretary, since taking up her post in 2021, has not visited an independent school with at least the aim or willingness to discuss the impact of her policy. My hon. Friend has spoken to people in the sector, as have I and many other people here.

The unwillingness to engage speaks volumes. Who would propose massive changes to the chemical industry or the high street retail industry without taking the trouble to speak to people involved in that sector to assess the impact? It is quite unthinkable. I also question why the policy is aimed only at taxing the supply of children’s education, which is arguably the most pivotal, and not at education for adults via universities, for example, or other forms of education such as private tutoring, which is the alternative private education leg-up provision of extra advantage that many on the left as well as not on the left utilise. There are no plans for VAT there; I wonder why.

Perhaps most important of all is the effect that the policy would have on independent schools’ ability to operate. If independent schools cannot absorb the VAT increase or parents cannot afford the fees, many of them would have to close. That would be disastrous for two important reasons. First, we would see the children go into the state sector, increasing the burden on other children and teachers. The Opposition believe that that can be offset by funds raised by the policy, but we are yet to see any consensus on the true impact.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies states that the policy will raise half a billion pounds less than Labour has committed in spending pledges. The education specialist think-tank EDSK puts the likely revenue even lower, leaving Labour more than £1 billion overdrawn on its spending plans. Most worrying is the IFS finding that the evidence of impact on children and families is “quite thin”—alongside 30-year-old data, it relied on the experience of Catholic schools in America—so it is tax first and repent later.

I am sure we will hear that this is a bogus claim and that there might not be a mass exodus, and that might be evidenced by the fact that as inflation has risen and independent school fees have gone up, we have not seen many children leave the sector. However, the ISC has found that 20% of parents who currently send their children to independent schools say they will be priced out and have to educate their children in the state sector. Those are the parents who will be making a difficult choice and might be forced into pulling their children out of the schools they have been educated in, and when they are at a key stage in their education. Perhaps most strikingly, the Baines Cutler report has calculated, using real data from schools and parents, that the predicted income-related drop-off if the policy is enacted would be nearly 100,000 children—one sixth of all the children educated in the sector who need somewhere to be educated.

Even more crucial is the impact on independent schools that provide specialist provision where the state sector does not go—independent specialist schools with small budgets that educate children with particular needs. Department for Education data shows that there are more than 100,000 pupils receiving special educational needs support in independent schools, some with education, health and care plans and some without. Moreover, many independent schools provide specialist faith schooling or provision for military families—something I saw the benefit of in my own education.

When it comes specifically to special educational needs and disabilities provision, what we will see is that parents who can no longer afford to pay the fees will seek out an EHCP if they do not have one, which will lead to more pressure on families, on local authorities at tribunal and on local authority budgets. I am interested to know whether there has been any realistic impact assessment of that.

If schools were to close as a result of the policy, the children would not have the provision they need. It will very much be the case that the schools will have to stop the excellent partnership work they do in order to cover their costs, or reduce their offer of bursaries to disadvantaged pupils, thereby reducing social mobility and making these institutions even more elite. That is the point. Such a regressive tax will seek to harm independent schools on the tightest of margins.

Even if the policy’s impacts are not seen immediately, I fear that the long-term negative consequences will be dire. It is the schools that Labour are not thinking about that will be hardest hit—small faith schools and special needs schools. That capacity sees some special needs support for 96,000 children who are not on an EHCP. Labour has exempted the EHCP pupils from VAT on fees, but not other students with special educational needs. That is 96,000 children facing disrupted education, with state provision further stretched and worse for all those who need it. Families are therefore incentivised to apply for EHCPs. Labour should exempt all pupils with special educational needs from VAT on fees. If it does not, the pressures will be laid at its door.

Similarly, small faith schools up and down the country could not be further from the stereotype that has been presented. They often charge low fees—often lower to the taxpayer than the cost of local state schools, because they are supported by local congregations and voluntary efforts. They are frequently very small, they cannot absorb VAT, and their families and supporters cannot find 20% more at a moment’s notice. They will face deficit and closure, and will be harder hit than the better-known schools that I am sure many have in their heads when proposing this.

There is a slow-burn issue as well, whereby parents perhaps persist for an extra year or two for a child who is in the middle, but then decide not to go ahead for a child who has not entered the system yet. There is also a danger of smaller schools becoming insolvent—having to assess that the increased risks of becoming technically insolvent prevent them from struggling on and pushing through. This needs to be considered in the round and not just as a standalone. Given that we have heard hardly anything else about supporting education from the Labour party, I am not sure voters are being presented with very much.

To conclude, independent schools play a vital role in educating our children. They provide specialist provision and excellent partnership work. The Labour party wants to pull all that up and put it at risk, for the sake of raising a questionable £1.5 billion, which is not enough to offset the damage it will inflict. I hope those listening who are in positions to influence this will take these points away. I look forward to the Treasury Minister’s further thoughts about the VAT details. We need to ensure that this ill-thought-out policy does not put unnecessary strain on hard-working families who want a better future for their children.

Unregulated Accommodation: 16 to 17-year-olds

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Michelle Donelan)]

Let me begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) on securing this important debate. I know that he is working particularly hard to highlight the concerns of his constituents and his local police force that some children and young people placed in independent and semi-independent provision are being put at risk.

I share his concerns and fears about the current state of affairs. As a recently appointed Minister, this is one of my key priorities, and I want to reassure my hon Friend that this Government are clear: it is completely unacceptable for a child to be in placed in a setting that does not meet their needs and keep them safe, and I am considering the checks and inspections needed.

[Mr Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

First, I wish to join the Minister in saying what a brilliant speech we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous). He talked about a wide range of local authorities putting these youngsters into such unregulated and unsatisfactory dwellings. Is the Minister able to tell us why we think that is happening? He came up with some brilliant solutions, but, as someone new to this debate, I want to know why this is going on, as it is completely unacceptable.

[Michelle Donelan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. This is a complex problem and we have a rising number of children in care, which we need to get to grips with. Those children are predominantly at an older age, which is resulting in such outcomes. So there are strains on the supply of accommodation. I will get on to the rest of what he raised within my speech, if he will just be patient with me.

As I said, a rising number of children are in care, and most of them live in registered children’s homes or foster care. However, the age of those children is rising; the demand on the system is increasing; and it is a somewhat unprecedented situation. We are not only taking steps to help local areas to manage the situation, but supporting local authorities to improve the work that they do with families to safely reduce the number of children who enter care in the first place—something I am particularly passionate about. Last week, I announced the investment of £84 million over five years to support 18 local authorities to do exactly that, as part of the strengthening families programme. We have already provided funding through our £200 million children’s social care innovation programme, and £5 million of that funding is specifically targeted at residential care.

For the most vulnerable children who need secure provision, we are working to increase the number of beds in secure homes through our £40 million capital grants programme. We are funding local authorities, with £110 million to date to implement “staying put” arrangements, under which care leavers remain with their foster carers while they are under 21. We are working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to help local authorities to develop more effective accommodation pathways for care leavers.

Currently, a small but growing number of children are placed in settings that are not registered with Ofsted. Some of these settings are not registered because they provide only accommodation and not care, although they may provide some support. They offer semi-independent living for older children and care leavers who are ready to live with some independence, and they can act as a stepping stone to adult life. Let me be clear, though: we set a high bar for the level of care that must be provided by registered children’s homes, and children who need this care should not be placed anywhere else.

I have visited some excellent examples of semi-independent living, even in my own constituency. There is a place for this type of provision when local authorities have taken the required steps to ensure that it is of high quality and is used appropriately.

Summer Adjournment

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

It is a true pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), who spoke so passionately and knowledgeably about her constituency. In my contribution, I wish to highlight two incredibly important services both for my constituency and for the wider area.

The National School Breakfast Programme provides free breakfasts to 1,775 schools in our country, feeding 280,000 children each school day. I am lucky enough to have 10 schools in my constituency in the scheme: Bond; Lonesome; Liberty; St Marks; William Morris; St Peter and Paul’s; Cricket Green: St Thomas of Canterbury; Melrose and the SMART Centre. Some 1,530 children benefit from this scheme each day in Mitcham and Morden, but thousands of others also benefit. An independent study suggests that every child in a school on the scheme gets two months’ extra learning in reading and maths. Not only are the children fed, which helps them to concentrate, but their behaviour, their punctuality and their attendance improves. Mrs Kennedy, headteacher at St Marks Primary School, says:

“We cannot imagine being without this initiative, having seen the impact it has on our pupils, their energy levels and consequently their ability to access morning lessons. We often have a number of pupils in our school who have no recourse to public funds as well as those who qualify for pupil premium and having something to eat in the morning has really made a difference. We’ve also seen a significant improvement in punctuality as well as overall attendance.”

This scheme is paid for from the sugar tax. There is currently £123 million of sugar tax money at the Treasury waiting to be spent. This scheme ends in March 2020. Would it not make so much sense to allocate some of the money that is already there to extend this brilliant scheme?

Shooting Star Chase children’s hospice is a hospice for babies, children and young adults with life-limiting conditions that works throughout the county of Surrey and 15 London boroughs. A few weeks ago I received a letter suggesting that the hospice would have to halve the number of families in my constituency who received respite care. I put the letter away and woke up in the middle of the night thinking, “How? Surely this is an easy thing to raise money for.” There are brilliant local people and businesses in my constituency who raise money for this hospice, including Paul and Irene Strank at Paul Strank Roofing. Even Simon Cowell raises money for Shooting Star. However, it will still have to halve the number of families who get respite support. That is because demand has increased by 38% this year alone. Costs are also up due to good things such as Agenda for Change, so more money has to be spent on staff.

The hospice is having a problem fundraising. Businesses do not want to commit to funding due to Brexit, and personal giving is down. The hospice needs £11 million a year, with only £690,000—or 5%—coming from the NHS. Adult hospices get around 30% of their funding from the NHS. Shooting Star has been spending its reserves year on year, and this is crunch year. It has had to deny 250 families access to respite care from November, and it has had to limit the children it can care for to those with a prognosis of 12 to 18 months; and that is happening right now.

[Mr Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making an excellent speech. I had a meeting with the chief executive officer of Shooting Star within the last few days. The situation is urgent and important. If the Government cannot give the money, surely all the clinical commissioning groups in the area could give £100,000 or a couple of hundred thousand pounds to put this charity back where it belongs, serving the young children of our counties.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, although I am highlighting and he has met with Shooting Star, funding is an issue for all children’s hospices. The only way in which those 250 families can get the respite care they need from the hospice is by receiving £400,000 from the £14 million that the NHS has identified for children’s hospices in 2023-24. I regret to say that these children will be long passed by that date.

This is not money that is going to be saved by the Government or the taxpayer if we do not give it to the hospice, because the next port of call for these 250 families will be the CCGs or our hard-pressed local authorities’ social services departments. These families need respite in order to care for their children, and they will get it from somewhere. The Government’s choice and our choice can be to use Shooting Star Chase to get great care at a subsidised cost, or it can be to put more pressure on more public services and spend more taxpayers’ money on poorer quality care.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is always a pleasure to speak in this debate before the forthcoming adjournment or in any Adjournment debate, but that is just by the way. I thank Mr Speaker for setting time aside for this debate, which means that I can discuss an issue that is very close to my heart: the worth of the land and its value to society.

I live on a farm, and rent out acreage to neighbours and working farmers. I am proud of the land that I inherited from my father and will pass on to my sons and grandchildren. I am also an Ulster Scot and I am very fond of the Ulster Scots language, culture and history, so I want to quote four lines of an Ulster Scots poem entitled “On Slaimish”:

“Whar nicht-wantherin Orr dreamed yit, for a’

The bitter wakkenin o ninety-echt:

This lan that cried the dreamers bak, for

This is hame.”

No matter how far in the world we may go, or wherever our talents and abilities may take us, for those of us who hail from Ulster one thing will always remain: our hame—our home—is the land.

I have been a member of the Ulster Farmers’ Union for approximately 35 years, and I agree with its assessment of agriculture in Northern Ireland. It has said:

“Agriculture is one of Northern Ireland’s most important industries. As a whole, the agri-food industry turns over more than £4.5 billion every year and supports one in eight jobs in the UK, making it a cornerstone of Northern Ireland’s economy and farmers play a key role in this. Currently, there are over 25,000 farm businesses in Northern Ireland producing the wide variety of raw materials needed by processors and retailers to meet the demands of consumers. Farming in Northern Ireland is not just a job but it is a way of life and we are extremely proud of our family farming structure. Rural communities here are extremely close knit and farmers and farming families are at the heart of these communities. When you compare Northern Ireland to the other UK regions, and in fact the rest Europe, we are definitely a region that punches above its weight when it comes to farming.”

For young farmers, farming is in their blood. While I greatly admire this, I have concern for their future, because the research is very clear. The Farm Safety Foundation suggests that 81% of young farmers believe that mental health issues are the biggest hidden problem facing farmers today. The foundation’s research also shows that a farmer takes his or her life every week across the United Kingdom. A 2012 UK study of psychological morbidity of farmers and their partners and spouses based on 784 face-to-face interviews at agricultural shows found a higher risk of psychiatric disorder compared with non-farmers. There have been other reports across the world. There were interviews with dairy farmers in New Zealand, and in 2015 a national survey of mental health in Canada told us that it is not just a Northern Ireland or a United Kingdom issue and problem but a global one. It is a lonely life, and it is certainly a calling, to be a farmer.

We should appreciate the industry that is the foundation of agrifood, with a turnover of some £4.5 billion in Northern Ireland alone, and the impact that farming has on the wider economy. For every £1 that a farmer puts into the economy, £7.40 is gained, so farming is clearly the engine room of the economy. About 75%, or 1 million hectares, of Northern Ireland’s countryside is farmed in some way. This industry is vital for the Northern Ireland economy, employing more than 3.5% of the total workforce—well above the UK average of 1.2%.

It is my belief that we must—please excuse the pun, Madam Deputy Speaker—plant our support firmly behind the farmers and the farming community. This truly is the lifeblood that runs through my constituency and, further, through the Province as a whole. It is also what helps to sustain the UK. We must be proud of our land, provide support for those who tend our land, and ensure that we are good stewards of our land through sensible farming. I love seeing the patchwork of fields as I drive into work daily, and I see the fallow fields as a nod to the fact that there must be sensible farming as well. I love seeing the nests in the farmers’ hedges flourishing as they encourage biodiversity and plant life. I stand as a proud Ulsterman in this Chamber—proud of my culture and heritage, proud of my belief system, and proud of the land that I so gratefully call “hame”. It is ours in trust for the next generations, and we must be good stewards of it. The decisions in this place must impact on that stewardship. I trust that it will be wise stewardship from here right down to the very soil in my constituency.

I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and your fellow Deputy Speakers, for your kindness, patience and understanding for me in this House—

[Mr Lord]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jim Shannon]

Yes, okay.

[Mr Lord]

I think the hon. Gentleman will find that it might buy him an extra minute. He is a great spokesman for the farmers of Northern Ireland and his constituency. We have enjoyed Westminster Hall debates together, including on this topic. Would he like to take this opportunity to thank the outgoing Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for all his fantastic work over the past couple of years and to wish our new Secretary of State well in that very important role for all our farming communities?

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and for giving me that wee bit of extra time, but I am very conscious that I want to be fair to everybody else as well. Yes, I would endorse that. I thank the outgoing Minister for all his work and commitment and wish the new one coming in every success and happiness.

I thank the security staff, those in the Tea Room, and all those who are committed to making our jobs and lives here just that wee bit better. I greatly appreciate the opportunity as a Back Bencher to be active in this place. I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I give a big thank you to the people of Strangford for the privilege of being their MP and serving them energetically and consistently in this wonderful seat of democracy, the House of Commons.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

It is always a pleasure to lead from the Front Bench for the SNP on what some people call the debate on the summer Adjournment but others call the whinge-fest. It was led superbly by the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess). I was pleased that his campaign to make sure that this debate took place was a success. However, it is the first time I have heard him make a speech that did not mention his complaints about the rail service in Southend. Perhaps his campaigning over the years has been a success, because that was notably absent from his address to the House.

I see the Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury, the hon. Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin), in his place. As he may recall, he responded to my maiden speech with his maiden speech four years ago. As he has the responsibility of ending this debate, perhaps he could do so Alice Cooper-style, by declaring that school’s out for summer. If he does not, that responsibility should lie with you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I want to make a serious point. As a number of Members have said, for too many of our citizens across these islands, the summer period is not one of joy; it is one of poverty. The Work and Pensions Committee and the Education Committee are conducting a joint inquiry into some of the issues around that. It troubles me to hear that there are supermarkets and stores in the UK that bin school uniforms. This is a one-off cost for many people in our society, and it can be very expensive, because some schools are very selective about where school uniforms can be purchased. It is a concern that some stores are doing that. I will meet some stores in the next few weeks, to ensure that they provide a service to those who are very much in need. I hope that all Members will take that up in our recess.

I want to mention other issues that are the responsibility of the Department for Work and Pensions, the most alarming of which is the figures published by the Independent Age charity on the lack of take-up of pension credit. In Glasgow South West, £9.6 million a year is being lost by people who are entitled to and should claim pension credit. I will be organising some events in my constituency, but I ask those on the Front Bench to engage with the Department for Work and Pensions to see what they can do to ensure that those entitled to pension credit take it up.

A number of Members have raised their concerns about universal credit. I ask the new Government to look positively at the Universal Credit Sanctions (Zero Hours Contracts) Bill. It is incredible that someone on universal credit who gives up a zero-hours contract or decides that it is not for them can be sanctioned, whereas those on legacy benefits would not be. Zero-hours contract work does not suit a lot of people, and it is ridiculous that people can be sanctioned as a result of giving up a zero-hours contract job.

It is time that the Government address the major injustice that affects 1950s-born women in accessing their pensions. I hope that the new Government will look positively at this issue, which has been going on for far too long. I pay tribute to all the campaigners who are looking for pensions justice.

I recall that in last year’s summer Adjournment debate I referred to the blond hero who walked out on his female leader. It looks like he has been successful. However, I do not believe he will be too successful if he carries on the way he has in the last 24 hours. We had the “red wedding 2”, or the Cabinet reshuffle. We had the Trumpesque performance this afternoon. There were a lot of questions—129, I think—and no answers.

There are a lot of things that the new Prime Minister needs to sort out, and one of the first is the Home Office’s visitor visa situation, which, as the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) pointed out, is ludicrous and unjust. The fact that religious workers and clergymen who are trying to come to the UK are being denied a visitor visa is an absolute disgrace.

What is also a disgrace is Home Office contractor Serco in Glasgow trying to evict 300 asylum seekers. Why? Because it is losing the contract at the end of September. Serco thinks it is perfectly reasonable to make 300 asylum seekers homeless and leave the local authority to pick that up. It is a concern of mine that some Members of this House had dinner in this building with those from Serco at a time when 300 asylum seekers could be thrown out on to the streets. I hope the Government will look positively at the Asylum Seekers (Accommodation Eviction Procedures) Bill, which was launched this week, and I hope hon. Members will look positively at signing early-day motion 2636 in that regard.

There has been an absence in the Prime Minister’s statements in the last 24 hours about workers’ rights and employment rights. That was perhaps no surprise given the industrial action taking place in various Departments at the moment. I hope that he will instruct the new Secretaries of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, as well as Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, to address these industrial disputes, which have been going on too long. It is quite clear that the outsourcing companies really need to be hauled in and told to behave themselves. We have a dispute in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where it is clear that people have to wait six weeks to be paid their wages—if they were on universal credit, they would be paid quicker. Why is the Department that is responsible for enforcing employment law allowing an agency to try to bust an industrial dispute? I hope the Lord Commissioner will take that up with those Departments.

I want to thank the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr), who is no longer in his place, for raising the issue of drugs deaths in Scotland. It really is a shame that no urgent question was taken on this and that there was no Government statement. This is a very serious issue, and one that needs to be debated calmly and maturely. It is a pity that hon. Members have been denied such an opportunity.

I want to thank all the staff, who on many occasions take impertinent questions from me, and I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the other Deputy Speakers. I also want to pay tribute to a group that has not yet been mentioned, which is our constituency office staff. In my experience the constituency office staff right across these islands are excellent and professional, and they help each other out. I want to pay tribute to the Glasgow South West constituency office staff: Roza Salih, Dominique Ucbas, Anthony McCue, Scott McFarlane, Mary Jane Douglas and Keith Gibb, and I wish a happy retirement to Dr Joe Murray. They have all done a fantastic job in the last year for Glasgow South West constituents.

[Mr Lord]

Will the hon. Gentleman join me in thanking our citizens advice bureaux for the work they do? I visited Citizens Advice Woking on Monday, and the staff and volunteers there do an absolutely amazing job, which is obviously supplemented by our own office and constituency office staff. As we go off on recess, most of our constituency staff and our citizens advice bureaux will carry on working hard on behalf of our constituents, and we owe them our thanks and support.

Electoral Participation (Media)

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Owen Thompson]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. That is certainly something we have all had to adapt to, because there is still an expectation of availability, accessibility and the opportunity to interact and exchange ideas with us. It puts a great responsibility on us, but all politicians should look to live up to that responsibility. After all, we in this place are the representatives of the people.

Voter turnout in the 2015 general election across the UK was 66.1%—a rise of 6.7%, which, on the face of it, is not too bad. At a regional level, voter turnout was 65.8% in England, 65.7% in Wales, 71.1% in Scotland and 58.1% in Northern Ireland. However, if Scotland is excluded from that overall figure, and we look across a number of years, turnout in elections has not changed very much. The average combined turnout in England, Wales and Northern Ireland was 62.9% in 2001, 62.2% in 2005, 62.6% in 2010 and 63.2% in 2015. That helps to demonstrate the difference in engagement we have seen in Scotland because of the referendum and the grassroots movement of people accessing information in different ways, and the ways that that has been taken forward.

It is clear to many—I suspect many of my colleagues from Scotland will agree—that we need to learn the lessons from the referendum and understand and encourage all types of media to engage with people politically. We must look to and support a host of platforms to enable that, from the arts and social media to self-gathering grassroots media, which was such a factor in the Scottish independence referendum. It was not simply traditional and social media; the arts got involved in the debate. There were theatre productions on all sides of the argument and on no side of the argument, allowing people to engage in politics in ways that were suited to them individually. It created a far better level of engagement than could otherwise have been hoped for.

It cannot be the case that people in the rest of the UK have any less desire to have a say in how their country is run or do not understand how politics affects them. I campaigned in the referendum and spoke to people who did understand, but many had either lost trust in politicians or political systems. During the referendum, those myths were blown out of the water. Politicians were replaced by neighbours, family, friends and colleagues. Trust in Scotland’s politicians—certainly those in some parties—has begun to be regained.

I actively encourage and celebrate campaigns such as those run by Bite the Ballot, Use Your Vote and Rock Enrol!, which have played a huge part in engaging and encouraging people up and down the country to register to vote. I draw particular attention to campaigns designed to capture people who are disfranchised and targeted media campaigns, such as those run by the National Union of Students, Gingerbread—a charity for single parents—and Crisis and Shelter, which give a political voice to homeless people. Those campaigns give a voice to those who most need to be engaged in politics.

I also recognise the role of other forms of media, including the recent efforts of TV programmes such as “Hollyoaks”, “Coronation Street” and “River City”. They have shown politics as an everyday thing affecting real people in their communities, with characters, certainly in “Coronation Street” and “River City”, becoming councillors and being directly involved in the political process.

I mentioned the TV debates earlier. This week in Scotland we have seen a very new approach to the debates, with a character from Scotland’s own “Gary: Tank Commander” interviewing each party leader in the run-up to the Scottish elections. That has, in a way, allowed party leaders to present their messages in a forum that is so different from anything that any of them would have ever experienced, and it has made politics relevant and accessible to people who might otherwise have thought that they had no interest in the subject. Suddenly, because it is a character that they enjoy, they look at things from that point of view and watch politics almost accidentally—much in the way that “Gogglebox”, another example of a great piece of innovation from Channel 4, manages to promote politics in what does not feel like a traditional way of accessing it.

Following the Scottish independence referendum, and because of the thirst of Scottish people to be engaged and to participate in political decision making, there has been a huge growth in peer-led, grassroots media. Initiatives such as Common Weal and CommonSpace have seen people from across the political spectrum unite in their desire to participate. That has been felt on a local level in my constituency, where media platforms such as Midlothian View and The Penicuik Cuckoo have become sources of information about what is happening as much as our local newspaper, the Midlothian Advertiser.

People are looking to access information in different ways. Those media that are on the ball and keeping up with things are listening and reacting, but we as politicians have a responsibility to encourage that and promote it across all levels of the media.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for securing this important debate. In my constituency we have two excellent local newspapers: the Surrey Advertiser, which is branded the Woking Advertiser in Woking, and the Woking News & Mail. They cover local and national politics in a very considered way. However, so many towns are now without a local newspaper—never mind two—and I wonder whether local radio stations should also be covering local and national politics more than they do to make up for the very unfortunate decline in our traditional local press.

[Owen Thompson]

I absolutely agree; this is a responsibility of all media platforms. My constituency is very fortunate to have two community radio stations—Black Diamond FM and Crystal FM—that take an active interest in politics locally and that do their bit when it comes to elections by hosting hustings and such. Coverage should absolutely be across all platforms.

Although the media, social media platforms and broadcasters must participate, politicians also have a part to play. They need to rebuild trust within their constituencies and communities and listen to how voters want to be engaged. Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook are helpful, but are not enough—after all, not everyone can be quite as popular as Nicola Sturgeon.

When we see huge swathes of the population disfranchised because their vote never influences election outcomes, we should be worried. When steps are taken to refuse votes at 16—even though, as a demographic, they are more engaged—we should be worried. As well as exploring how the media engage with politics, we should also consider how politics engages with people. Reforms are certainly needed.

The key message that I would like the Minister and others interested in the debate to take away is that we should all take steps—every step we possibly can—to engage all aspects of the media and encourage them to be involved in politics. The meaning of the word “politics” translates to “of, for, or relating to the citizens,” and it is high time that we all paid attention to that.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Penrose]

The temptation to restart by just saying “‘Gary: Tank Commander’ and” is very strong. However, I remind everybody that we had just finished talking about the effect of social media and the way it has changed our democratic discourse mostly for the better, but with some caveats. I was moving on to talk about broadcast media—national TV and radio, and local radio—and the arts. The hon. Member for Midlothian was rightly taking pains to emphasise their contribution.

I think we are all familiar with the national contribution of broadcasters in current affairs and news programmes, but there are many other aspects. The hon. Gentleman mentioned soap operas. Voter registration and political involvement have played into the plotlines of “Hollyoaks”, “River City” and various other programmes. Those are examples of drama portraying what should be normal life—normal political involvement, whether that is, for example, someone standing for the local council or getting involved in a campaign to save their local theatre.

Those examples bring home to people that political involvement is part of the normal way in which the world works—what ordinary, normal people do—and reduces the distance between politics and people. As the hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out, the two should be synonymous. The roots of the words are the same. Such examples stop politicians being seen, necessarily, as a slightly weird class of other people who have different interests and motivations from everybody else, and remind us all that politicians should be the same as everybody else. We should be the same as our next-door neighbours and live in the same world as everybody else. Drama can do that in a very powerful way.

Broadcast drama obviously has huge reach and theatre can also make a difference, as can other arts such as the visual arts. For example, Weston-super-Mare recently played host to a world-class, world-famous exhibition organised by the street artist Banksy at the Tropicana lido on the sea front. It was fascinating because much of the art produced by Banksy and some other artists featured had a political message. It was mainly the politics of protest, interestingly; none the less, it will have driven political involvement.

I was asked by a number of journalists whether I was comfortable with those politics of protest—in many cases, they were slightly left-wing political statements—as part of the art in the middle of Weston-super-Mare, to which my unhesitating answer was, “Yes. I’m very happy indeed, if only because it makes people think.” One of the things that art is supposed to do, of course, is to make people think. If it made people think and made them realise that such issues affect us all, not just politicians and a class of other people, it is all to the good.

Comedians can do the same. We have mentioned “Gary: Tank Commander”, and political comedy and satire has a long and respectable history, although it is probably wrong to call satire respectable. As politicians, we need to be careful because satire is partly, by its very nature, a distancing thing. It creates the distance that we need to collapse, so some forms of comedy can add to the problem, as well as subtract from it. We must acknowledge that comedy can be a double-edged sword.

Going back to national TV and radio, and local radio, we are all comfortable and familiar with news and current affairs programmes. More recently—this has been a huge adornment and improvement to our national political discussions—the leaders’ debates have made a great deal of difference. Although we are used to those, there is a broader approach in drama and things other than current affairs, which the broadcast media should use.

More broadly, there are other media, particularly the material used in schools. The hon. Gentleman mentioned, for example, the Rock Enrol! school materials, which are produced in the Cabinet Office by people in my team and used widely in schools across the country to teach pupils about democratic engagement as part of a broader programme of citizenship. All those materials and media are important for making democracy part of what everyone is brought up with. If people are brought up with democracy, and if it is explained to them even before they are of voting age, and certainly when they have just achieved voting age, it becomes part of their normal life in the same way as owning a tablet PC or phone might be nowadays. Like breathing, it becomes part of their life, which makes a huge difference.

There are two final groups. Civil society groups can make a huge difference, and many of them produce their own media, either written or, in many cases, online. Many civil society groups are tightly focused and deeply engaged with specific groups of voters, many of them the hard-to-reach, under-registered groups that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. Operation Black Vote, Bite the Ballot and many others, for example, are incredibly effective, and if they are not incredibly effective, they are more effective than anybody else. They are leaders in their field at persuading people in those groups that it is worth while getting involved in the democratic process.

As we were saying earlier, part of the difficulty is that some groups are under-represented or under-registered because registration is inconvenient. For example, the system may not keep up with people who move house frequently and ensure that their registration moves from one house to the next. There are also groups where that inconvenience or bureaucratic friction is not the whole story. In some cases there is a high degree of distrust in democracy, in the democratic process, in politics and in politicians of all kinds and of all political persuasions. All of us, as politicians and in these various groups, therefore need to develop a poetry of politics to persuade people that politics is something that can be effective in improving their lives, rather than something for other people.

Finally, no debate on the media would be complete without mentioning the print media. It is noticeable that the hon. Gentleman barely touched on the print media, perhaps partly because it is no secret that although many newspapers are still immensely powerful and widely read, many are suffering from declining circulations. Although it will always be a huge mistake to write off the newspaper industry, it has broader problems, even though it still carries an enormous amount of weight and heft. All our comments on the broadcast media, although with some differences due to the nature of the medium itself, also apply to the print media.

[Jonathan Lord]

The much maligned council newspaper or magazine can also help. We have an excellent council newspaper in Woking, and it always encourages registration and participation. It explains, in a grounded, proper way, how the electoral process works and when the elections are.

[John Penrose]

I could not put it better myself. Those final words are a good way to finish our debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Electoral Integrity and Absent Votes

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) on securing this important debate. I wish to expand on just a couple of points in the time allowed. First, I congratulate the Government on holding firm on individual electoral registration and the timescales in which that is to be introduced. That is an important step forward in combating potential fraud.

Secondly, I listened with great interest to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) who spoke about the steps that have been taken over time to secure the sanctity of the ballot in Northern Ireland. Yet we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough that there are troubles now in England, particularly in some of our major cities. It is time that the Government took seriously the fraud issues that are, unfortunately, taking place in some of our towns and cities and considered very carefully whether we should not be introducing some of the safeguards that were introduced in Northern Ireland some time ago.

I am personally coming around to the idea of showing some form of ID at the polling station. My hon. Friend talked at length about the postal ballot and I am interested in the Minister’s reply. In respect of potential impersonation at the polling station, nothing can be more frustrating for a resident citizen of our country than to turn up at the polling station and be told, as happens in a few cases in every election, “I’m sorry—supposedly you’ve already voted.” Requiring no form of ID to be shown at a polling station remains a loophole for those who want to commit fraud.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

What is the hon. Gentleman’s assessment of the level of impersonation at polling stations that would necessitate people’s bringing ID with them when they go to vote?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Lord]

We need to gather more data. After elections there is always anecdotal talk of people turning up at polling stations and being told that their vote has already been cast. We need to know the scale of that problem to know whether the remedy is worse than the disease.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough that British democracy should be sacrosanct. People should know that the result of a ballot, whether it be in local, national or European elections—or indeed in elections to our devolved Parliaments—is absolutely correct. That becomes even more important on those occasions when the margin is four votes or one vote. Any fraud can change the result of our elections under a first-past-the-post system.

[Jim Shannon]

This intervention will be swift. We took those steps on identification in Northern Ireland, and the steps were sometimes hard. There are many forms of identification—driving licences, bus passes, passports, firearms certificates and benefits cards—and so long as they contain a photograph, they prove who people are. Yes, it might sometimes be an inconvenience, but it is a good idea because it works.

[Jonathan Lord]

The hon. Gentleman makes that point extremely powerfully. All that someone needs to commit electoral fraud under our system is a really good telling regime at the polling station; to knock out the postal voters; then, in the dying hours of polling, they can send people along to impersonate those people who the system shows have not already voted. That is exactly what used to happen in too many towns in Northern Ireland, I am afraid. We do not know for sure to what extent it might be happening here.

[Nick Smith]

The hon. Gentleman is making a serious accusation that vote rigging might be taking place in some parts of the country. Does he have any concrete examples to back up his case?

[Jonathan Lord]

As I said earlier, after every single election, whether it is a nationwide election or a large set of local elections, there are always people who go to their local paper—the hon. Gentleman can look through the cuttings—or who complain to the returning officer, “I went to the polling station to vote, but I was told that my vote had already been cast.”

The evidence is not strong in the way that perhaps it was in Northern Ireland, but it is a loophole in our system. As the hon. Member for Strangford says, it does not have to be a passport or driving licence, but requiring any picture ID, at the very least, would make it incredibly difficult to perpetrate a major fraud, because people who wanted to do so would have to forge lots of bus passes or similar items. I would be interested if the Minister gave us some feedback on that issue, as well as on postal voting, which was comprehensively covered by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Lord]

The Minister makes a good point about another way of doing things. Of course, we sign for our postal votes, and that is checked. There are 9 million postal voters, with 15% to 20% of the electorate now choosing to vote by post. If that 20% is being checked, why should the signature and validity of the ballot at the polling station not be checked?

[John Penrose]

We should take that as a further submission to the proposals of my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar.

Outsourcing of Public Services

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Chris White]

Absolutely. Naming and shaming is always a useful tool in such circumstances. Our commissioners should be encouraged to have a greater sense of urgency in dealing with such matters.

The Government have rightly championed the cause of transparency, and public sector commissioners should take a closer look and a closer interest in the corporate structure of the organisations they are commissioning from. Traditional large multinational companies may have some advantages, but the social enterprise model may also have the potential to deliver better outcomes for our communities. At a time when we are seeking to spend every penny possible on better outcomes, there is concern that traditional private sector models that seek to deliver large returns for shareholders may lead to money seeping out of our public services that might otherwise be spent on improvements to those services.

Social enterprise combines the need to deliver profitability, to innovate and to deliver better outcomes with a sense of community purpose. Not only that, but most social enterprises reinvest their profits either back into the services they provide, or into the communities where they are based. Moreover, through the structure of community interest companies, which are a model that many social enterprises are adopting for public service delivery, communities are directly involved in the governance of the organisation. That gives communities greater levels of accountability than if those services are provided by larger organisations with less accessible governance structures such as multinational corporations. Sometimes that will not be possible, but the Government should encourage commissioners to be creative and to experiment with differing governance needs.

Thirdly, the Treasury can help directly by ensuring that small businesses, social enterprises and charities can have access to the finance they need to bid for these contracts directly. The creation of Big Society Capital has been an excellent example of the Government taking a direct approach to stimulate the social investment market, and social impact bonds also have great potential. However, those methods do not resolve all the issues that are in the way of civil society organisations, which is why the Treasury’s internal review of social investment is so important.

We must ensure that we create a new climate of confidence in the social investment market, so that mainstream lenders and institutional investors feel that they can participate. Big Society Capital is an important step forward, but on its own it will not be able rapidly to expand the social investment market. That will take place only when our banks, pension funds and venture capitalists take a full part in the market, so I hope that the Minister will give us an update on the progress of that internal review, and the main policy areas that the Government seek to address. Broadening community investment tax relief into social investment tax relief that gives incentives for direct investment into social enterprises and their intermediaries could be transformational, and relatively inexpensive.

The report—“The Shadow State”— highlights a number of key policy areas, such as child care, prison, welfare to work, and adult social care, which need to be addressed. The report is constructive and proposes solutions. I hope the Minister will take the time to read the report, and I am happy to give him a copy if he has not already read it.

As we embark on a change in how we deliver our public services, it is vital that we do so in the right way so that the public feel engaged in the process and we deliver services not only with the best outcomes, but in the right manner. Confidence in our public services is important because, without confidence, there is a danger that people will not access the services they need, leading to more expensive interventions down the line. Communities need to feel a strong relationship with the provision of those services, and that is why social enterprises, charities and small businesses are often better placed to deliver them.

The Government have rightly identified a problem in our banking sector about institutions that are too big to fail, yet there is a danger that by relying on a small clique of large multinational organisations to deliver our public services, we end up creating the same problem in public service delivery. The way to combat that is through changing the contract process so that we make contracts more winnable for smaller organisations, helping to build supply chains that are resilient and have a plethora of providers. That will not only reduce costs in the long term through proper competition on costs, but will spur forward innovation and enable greater personalisation and localisation of services.

The White Paper, “Open Public Services”, was a step in the right direction, building on a set of principles that have wide-ranging consensus. All parties went into the election promising to open the door for delivery of our public services, particularly to social enterprises, mutuals and charities. We must now all work together to ensure that implementation matches the rhetoric.

“The Shadow State” report has been useful in helping to refocus minds in this debate, and we must consider the issues now, while we are in the process of reform. We have a fantastic opportunity to change our public services for the better, to realise a future in which people feel ownership of the services they are using, and to spur innovation and creativity. The Government have rightly seen the need to reform public services, despite a period of considerable economic difficulty, but we now need to deliver on the principles that we have outlined.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on an excellent speech, and on his leadership in this matter. This debate contrasts enormously with another on the same subject in which at least two Opposition Members were decrying any involvement of private companies in the public sector. My Surrey community health care contract has gone to Virgin Care, and even within the first six months of operation, using much the same staff, but lifting the bar and using new working methods, the average waiting time for referral for a first appointment has gone down from 31 days to 19 days, and the waiting time to see a community nurse has gone down from seven days to two days. Customer satisfaction has risen from 71% to 82%. Is that not the sort of improvement that, if it were across the whole public sector, would do enormous good for all our residents?

[Chris White]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and we should applaud such improvements. The same team is delivering the same products and achieving very different results. We should be able to see that across the sector.

To conclude, I hope that the Government will engage with all sides and work with our civil society organisations to help deliver our public services. We have a window of opportunity; let us use it.

GM Food Technologies

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[George Freeman]

I could not agree more. My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I was just about to turn to the extent of the global nature of the matter.

As chair of the all-party group on science and technology in agriculture, I recently had the great privilege of welcoming two people from around the world who are involved in biotechnology: a gentleman from Brazil who specialises in soya, and a gentleman from Uganda who specialises in bananas. No sooner had I given them the warmest of parliamentary welcomes—I confess, possibly with a sense of welcoming people from the Commonwealth to the mother of all Parliaments—than I ate my words, because they had not come to find out what we thought about the sector but to share how much progress and investment they were making, what extraordinary innovations they were driving, the local benefits in terms of food production and productivity, and the health benefits in their countries. In response to my hon. Friend’s point, that is happening around the world in any case, and the question for Britain and Europe is whether we want to participate and bring our expertise, insight and science to bear, or sit on our hands and become irrelevant, missing out on all the opportunities that we have touched on.

It is worth looking at some of the global data. I was very struck when I looked at which countries are the biggest adopters. One would expect to see the United States of America at the top of the list, but the next 10 are Brazil, Argentina, India, Canada, China, Paraguay, Pakistan, South Africa, Uruguay and Bolivia. The fact is that the technology is being adopted rapidly by some of the fastest-developing second world countries, not because they are threatened by global mega-corporations or because they are under compulsion but because the technology offers extraordinary benefits to their rapidly growing populations, their domestic economies and their ability to develop as nations.

Part of my argument is that the technology is being adopted globally whether we like it or not, and it is bizarre that in this country we are getting into a situation in which it is almost impossible to debate the technology, and in which the European Union appears to be encouraging a national framework that countries can opt into or out of purely on the basis of emotional and political rationales—I will come on to that in a minute. As the eurozone teeters on the brink of bankruptcy, it seems peculiarly bizarre not to be involved in this major area of global growth.

I want to look at some of the things that some of the organisations involved have said. I draw Members’ attention to the Food and Drink Federation, which has issued an excellent briefing on the subject. The federation believes that

“modern biotechnology, including GM, offers enormous potential to improve the quality and quantity of the food supply but the impact of this technology must be objectively assessed through scientific investigation. Robust controls are necessary to protect the consumer and the environment; and consumer education and information are fundamental to public acceptance.”

I could not agree more. It goes on to stress the importance of choice:

“However, we believe that the time has come when serious consideration should be given to reopening a free and unbiased debate about the environmental, safety and consumer benefits of GM. FDF therefore welcomes”

the debate today. It also supports the foresight report’s conclusions that we need to produce more from less and with less impact. I am pleased that the report makes a call for the recognition of the role of GM.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

I am very taken with all my hon. Friend’s arguments, but I think it comes back to the key argument of the need for more food. He talked about some of the extremists who have caused problems, and I am drawn to the analogy of the nuclear industry. There were some extremist arguments about nuclear, but the most intelligent of the campaigners came to realise that we needed an energy-secure and carbon-neutral fuel. Surely there is a similar argument, based on scientific evidence, that can engage those who have campaigned against GM, because of the need to feed the world, particularly its poor.

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, not least because, as with the nuclear debate, people are now beginning to shift positions. George Monbiot has done so on nuclear, coming around to admitting that it has a very important part to play in the true green mix. Some early opponents of GM are now convinced by the evidence, and say, “After the number of years and the number of crops that have been grown around the world we really need to change our tune.” For that reason, it is particularly interesting to look at a briefing from the anti-GM campaign, which this weekend is staging a protest in Norfolk against the blight-resistant potato, about which I will say something in a moment. Interestingly, the briefing states:

“The campaign against GM crops ten years ago was so successful that GM almost completely vanished from our fields and supermarkets, and many people have forgotten the issues associated with the technology. But in many other parts of the world peasant farmers have been desperately fighting its spread”—

not very successfully, we might observe. It continues:

“With the renewed threat of GM on the horizon campaigners need to get together again to show the rest of the country…that we’re still here, and we’ve got an even better case than ever.”

In that language, one can hear the lack of rational debate. There is no discussion of the evidence or the latest science or findings. It is an emotional call to arms. I respect people who are concerned about the technology, but rather than ripping up plants, attacking and destroying experiments and hysterically screaming down those who want to discuss the issue, we must engage in an open and rational debate.

The blight-resistant potato is an important example of the potential involved. Many hon. Members will be aware of the groundbreaking work going on at the Norwich Research Park, led by Jonathan Jones and his team. Those who know their potato will know that the average potato crop receives more than 10 sprays of blight treatment chemicals, which are expensive and not terribly nice. That involves tractors, fuel, time and labour. It is high-energy, high-input agriculture. A blight-resistant potato would require none of that, and would have a huge impact on creating the low-input, low-energy agriculture that we all want. Sadly, campaigners will be coming to Norfolk this Saturday to try to stop that experiment. We need more science, we need a more rigorous and open debate and we need proper scientific and evidence-based policy making. I believe that we need political leadership from a generation in Parliament to stand up for this country’s potential around the world, educate the public and engage in an open debate.

With that, I will sit down and allow the ministerial spokesman to share his wisdom with us. I thank you for this opportunity, Mr Betts.