Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Andrew Selous

Thursday 17th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s question. Like her, I am a great fan of family hubs. The families and households commission will be looking carefully at how family hubs can help families to flourish and how churches could be involved in this important work.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

What steps the Church of England is taking to promote rewilding in new tenancy agreements.

[Andrew Selous]

I commend the hon. Lady’s continued focus on this vital area. Our new farm business tenancies strongly encourage good environmental practice, such as ensuring that watercourses are kept clear, hedgerows are well maintained and topsoil is preserved. We are reviewing tenancy obligations as our new environmental strategy is developed.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank the hon. Member for his engagement with me on this issue—and his tolerance, in some cases. I am pleased to see that the commissioners will be carrying out a natural capital audit of their 105,000 acres of land. Can he say whether that is likely to result in recommendations on conservation and rewilding? If so, will he consider looking at the National Trust’s model tenancy agreements to see whether that is something that could be put in future tenancy agreements on the commissioners’ land?

[Andrew Selous]

I continue to be grateful to the hon. Lady. The Church wants to be an exemplar in this area. I can tell her that we expect the results of the natural capital audit shortly and will use it to see where we can enhance the environment of our rural land after we have listened to and collected the necessary data from our tenants.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Andrew Selous

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his warm welcome for the housing commission report—a sentiment I very much share. The new housing executive team, led by the Bishop of Chelmsford, will focus on implementing the commission’s recommendations wherever we are able to do so across England, hopefully including east London.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

What plans the Church of England has to make the recently commissioned map of the landholdings of the commissioners, dioceses and parishes publicly available.

[Andrew Selous]

I reassure the hon. Lady that the process initiated by the archbishops’ housing commission of mapping as much of the Church of England’s land as possible has begun. It includes not just the commissioners’ landholdings, but land owned by dioceses and parishes, as well as glebe land.

[Kerry McCarthy [V]]

I thank the hon. Member for that response—it feels like we are starting to get somewhere. As he knows, I am keen for there to be transparency, because it will help campaigners identify sites for rewilding, agroforestry, social housing and other public goods. Accessing maps of all the land held by the Church Commissioners from the Land Registry would cost £37,428. Will he commit to making that information publicly available and free of charge? Will that be on the agenda at the General Synod, which starts tomorrow?

[Andrew Selous]

The hon. Lady’s intervention is timely, as the housing commission report has been timetabled for debate at the General Synod’s July session. The Church Commissioners are in close contact with the housing executive team, who are implementing the housing commission’s recommendations, about their plans for the future ownership and use of this map.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Andrew Selous

Thursday 4th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

What steps the Church of England is taking to increase public transparency of its landholdings.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)]

The Church Commissioners have been working through the process of registering their land holdings with the Land Registry, which can be searched publicly. In addition, on page 81 of the Commissioners’ annual report there is a list of the 20 largest real estate holdings.

[Kerry McCarthy [V]]

When I met the Commissioners, I was told that they did not have comprehensive digital maps of their lands that they could publish. However, a recent report from the Archbishop of Canterbury recommended that the Church map all of its land holdings by using the Good Steward Mapping Tool. I note that its website features digital maps of the Church Commissioners’ lands. In the interests of transparency, will the Commissioner make those maps public?

[Andrew Selous]

As part of the work of the Archbishop’s housing commission, the Church has indeed commissioned a draft map of the land holdings of the Commissioners, dioceses and parishes, to improve planning and joined-up working between all parts of the Church. This is work in progress, which is currently being trialled by a number of dioceses.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Andrew Selous

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

What proportion of agricultural land owned by the Church of England is high-quality grade 1 and 2 farmland.

[Andrew Selous]

Approximately 35,000 acres of land owned by the Church Commissioners is high-quality grade 1 and 2 farmland, representing 39% of the overall agricultural portfolio. Information on diocesan land holdings is not held by the Church Commissioners.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank the hon. Member for that answer. At the last Church Commissioners questions, he said to me that he strongly wanted to see more trees planted on the Church estate, but that most of the rural estate is high-quality agricultural land and is therefore not suitable. He has just said that 39% is high-grade agricultural land. Does that not mean there is an awful lot of other land on which they could plant trees and help meet the Government’s commitment to increasing woodland cover?

[Andrew Selous]

As I think I said at the last questions, I commend the hon. Lady for raising this issue and, indeed, for returning to it today, and I genuinely welcome her scrutiny. More than 60% of our farmland is let on secure agricultural tenancies, with the rest on tenancies under the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995. Both of those limit our ability to intervene directly. However, we do encourage our tenants to farm sustainably and join environmental stewardship schemes to plant trees and hedgerows wherever possible. In addition, we are undertaking a natural capital assessment, which will provide a baseline and trajectory of progress towards achieving lower carbon outputs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Andrew Selous

Thursday 15th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

What proportion of the Church of England’s estate is covered with woodland.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)]

In December 2019, the Church Commissioners had 53% of their global land, 27.5% of their UK land and 4% of their English land in forestry, and we also own pooled timber funds in the United States.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The 4% English cover puts it at the very bottom of the list. As I understand it, there are 105,000 acres in England. Why is the figure so low? Is there not a strategy to increase that cover, given that we know how important the role of trees is in natural carbon sequestration? Could the Church of England not do an awful lot better when it comes to England?

[Andrew Selous]

Like the hon. Lady, I strongly want to see more trees planted, and can tell her that so far this year we have planted 1.1 million trees in the UK, on top of the 2.6 million last year. We are always looking to plant more trees, but most of our rural estate is high-quality agricultural land, and is held in long-term tenancies to produce food.

Unregulated Accommodation: 16 to 17-year-olds

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Andrew Selous

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Why should the duty of care fall only on the police and not on the sending local authority or on the home itself? She makes a pertinent point.

It is also completely unacceptable how little information is shared between sending and receiving local authorities, and between sending and receiving police forces. All local authorities have a statutory duty to check the standard of provision in which they are placing their vulnerable 16 and 17-year-olds.

Thirty-four locations in Bedfordshire are providing unregulated supported living for 16 and 17-year-olds. Central Bedfordshire Council has a quality assurance manager, Sharon Deacon, who will not place the council’s own children in many of those homes, and her role has been commended by the Howard League for Penal Reform.

It is extraordinary that other local authorities continue to use much of this provision when Central Bedfordshire Council will not place its own children in these unregulated homes. Those sending local authorities, in many cases, do not even bother to check whether the provision is suitable, which is vital. Sharon Deacon has conferred with her counterparts at Bedford Borough Council and Luton Borough Council, and sending authorities do not always notify the hosting local authority in Bedfordshire about the children they are sending to the county, as required by the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010, so the current law is not being adhered to and there are no checks or enforcement actions in respect of those breaches.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is being generous in giving way, and he raises some important points. For some time I have been pushing for a regulator of supported housing for people with addictions and the homeless. I have a high-profile property in my constituency where, again, the local council does not send people but outside local authorities do.

I have secured a meeting with the Minister soon, and I am working with my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Ruth George). I would appreciate it if we all worked together on this issue.

[Andrew Selous]

I look forward to working with Members of good will on both sides of the House to get this right. This is not a party political issue, and we just have to get it right for children, for police forces and, frankly, for the taxpayer.

Sending police forces do not notify Bedfordshire police of the criminal records of the children concerned. One young arsonist was sent to my constituency without any prior notification to Bedfordshire police, which is simply unacceptable. There should be a full exchange of information between both local authorities and police forces on the quality of provision and the children concerned.

The Select Committee on Education published a report on 16-plus care options in July 2014, and it made the following recommendation:

“There are measures to ensure the quality and safety of settings for children and young people right across provisions: childminders, foster carers, residential children’s homes, secure training centres, schools, sixth form colleges and further education colleges are all inspected. Yet accommodation that falls within the category of ‘other arrangements’ is not subject to individual regulatory oversight. What makes this distinction all the more illogical is that the 22% of looked after 16 and 17 year olds who live in such accommodation are among the most vulnerable young people in society. It is unacceptable for these young people, still legally defined as ‘children’ and in the care of their local authority, to be housed in unregulated settings.

We recommend that the DfE consult on a framework of individual regulatory oversight for all accommodation provision that falls within the category ‘other arrangements’ to ensure suitability while allowing for continuing diversity of provision.”

The Government of the time did not accept that recommendation, but I am hopeful that the current Government will because members of the Select Committee who wrote that report include the Foreign Secretary, the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation and the Under-Secretary of State for International Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart).

Five and a half years later, progress on this issue has been too slow. The Department for Education met Ofsted and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers on 13 December 2018, and I met the previous Children’s Minister, accompanied by the assistant chief constable of Bedfordshire police and officers from Central Bedfordshire Council, on 27 February 2019. I had a follow-up meeting with the Minister, accompanied again by the assistant chief constable, on 24 June, and I know that Sir Alan Wood hosted a roundtable to look at this issue on 11 September. It is now time to act, as we have all the evidence we need that local authorities are unwilling or unable to provide the necessary level of scrutiny of these unregulated homes.

Many providers of unregulated accommodation have been allowed to get away with unacceptably low standards, which have horrific consequences for some of the country’s most vulnerable children, because of a lack of scrutiny. Given that the current attempts to ensure standards have failed, it is now time for Ofsted to provide proper regulatory oversight. We also urgently need a fit and proper person test, so that the directors of the businesses that run these homes can be held to account personally. We need a duty on sending local authorities and police forces to notify receiving local authorities and police forces.

Of course, we need to work on providing more good- quality provision, especially for those with complex needs. The Local Government Association reports that the number of looked-after children reached a new high of 75,420 in 2017-18. That is an average of 88 children entering local authority care every day. A rising proportion are over 16—the figure was 23% in 2018, which was 17,330 children. The LGA also points out that only 28% of accommodation is local-authority-run, with 5% being run by the voluntary sector and two thirds provided by the private sector. This means that as the scale of need grows, it becomes even more urgent to rapidly improve the quality and quantity of provision.

We should mandate the implementation of the Philomena protocol brought in by Durham police to provide police forces with the very best information to help them quickly locate missing children. I am also grateful to Home for Good for its suggestions as to how we could encourage more fostering for these children, as exemplified by its own work, and to the Shared Lives movement for the example it provides. Of course, as always in these difficult matters of social policy, we need to think about what more we can do to slow down the demand and to provide greater support for families so that they can continue to be able to look after challenging children.

In that regard, I wish to single out the work of Wigan Council, which no longer places any of its children outside its own area. I am very grateful as well to the all-party group on runaway and missing children and adults for its report last month on children who go missing from out-of-area placements. The Children’s Society provided very valuable support for that inquiry, and I am grateful to it for its help with my preparation for this debate.

As a nation we need to do far more to support and strengthen families to help them keep children safely at home, and I am pleased that this Government have now appointed the Chief Secretary to the Treasury as the family champion across government. It is now high time to take decisive action to improve the standard of accommodation for 16 and 17-year-olds, as the Select Committee called for more than five years ago.

Junk Food Advertising and Childhood Obesity

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Andrew Selous

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I congratulate colleagues on their excellent speeches so far. As has been said, we have a childhood obesity epidemic in this country. One in three children is overweight or obese by the time they leave primary school. That makes them five times more likely to become obese adults, putting them at risk of the biggest preventable cause of cancer after smoking. This debate was triggered by calls from the Obesity Health Alliance in relation to the campaign linking obesity with cancer, but as we know, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and many other conditions are related to being overweight.

Some interesting research was done a while ago—I did not have time to dig it out—on what happened when young offenders in young offenders institutions were switched from junk food and fast food diets to healthy eating. The change that had for their mental health and behavioural conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and aggression certainly needs to be part of the Government’s considerations. A comprehensive 10-year study of children from 100 different countries looked at the links between fast food, asthma and allergies in childhood. I asked the Government whether the public health responsibility deal partners could be part of a discussion on that study, but I was told that the focus at that time was on salt. They were dealing with the low-hanging fruit; it is quite easy to address salty food, but addressing people’s addiction to fast food is far more difficult.

Marketing has a critical influence on children’s behaviour. As Public Health England has said, it constantly influences preference and food choice. Food companies promoting crisps, confectionary and sugary drinks spent £143 million on advertising in 2016. By comparison, the Government spent just over £5 million on their anti-obesity Change4Life social marketing campaign. Those figures show what we are up against and the power of the junk food advertising industry.

It is a decade since Ofcom’s broadcast restrictions on junk food advertising to children came into effect, and they do not go far enough. As has been said, children’s viewing habits have changed dramatically. They do not just watch children’s TV; they also watch family shows, particularly such things as “The Voice” or “Strictly”, or reality shows, where they are regularly exposed to junk food advertising. Research commissioned by the Obesity Health Alliance found that children see as many as 12 adverts for junk food an hour while watching family television shows. I support the calls for a ban on junk food advertising until after the 9 pm watershed. That is supported by 76% of the public and 71% of MPs according to the Obesity Health Alliance. The issue does not need legislation—the Health Secretary could instruct Ofcom to act now, and I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say on that.

As the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) flagged up in his excellent speech, it is not just advertising that creates an obesogenic environment for children. Walking past outlets selling high-fat, high-salt, high-sugar foods every day can set back efforts to encourage healthy eating. There is no point having all these programmes in schools to encourage children to be more active and to teach them what a healthy diet looks like if they are walking past a McDonald’s on their way to and from school and probably during lunchtime as well, if they are able to pop out.

[Andrew Selous]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech with some very good points. She has given credit to McDonald’s for the healthy food it produces. There is no reason why fast food cannot be fast, healthy, delicious and nutritious, is there?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I do not think that I did pay tribute to McDonald’s; I was highlighting McDonald’s as a cause for concern. I am sure that its representatives will be in touch after the debate to tell me that it offers salads, but I am not sure how many secondary school children pop into McDonald’s after school for a salad. I think there was an experiment in Hulme in Manchester where they thought that teaching people about cooking, buying local food and sourcing it in their local community was too large a first step. In a bid to encourage people to eat more healthily, they therefore set up a fast food outlet that was devoted to healthy food. I do not know how that has gone—I think it was a year or two ago—but it shows that it can be done.

Data provided to The Guardian by the Centre for Diet and Activity Research at the University of Cambridge showed that more than 400 schools across England have 20 or more fast food takeaways within a 400-metre radius, while a further 1,400 have between 10 and 19 outlets within the same distance. In my constituency—I apologise; I am going to have a bit of a go at McDonald’s again—we had an application for a new 24-hour drive-through McDonald’s within 800 metres of three schools, and only just over 400 metres from another. As a council, we tried to reject that planning application, partly because of the traffic, litter and noise concerns associated with a 24-hour drive-through. The application also went against advice issued by Public Health England in its March 2014 briefing, titled “Obesity and the environment: regulating the growth of fast food outlets”, which stated that an important function of local authorities is

“to modify the environment so that it does not promote sedentary behaviour or provide easy access to energy-dense food.”

Despite that, the Government’s Planning Inspectorate overruled the council and granted permission for the drive-through to go ahead.

About 20 English councils, including Bristol, have rules banning new fast food outlets from opening within 400 metres or 800 metres of schools—in Bristol it is 400 metres. The Mayor of London recently announced a total ban on new fast food outlets within 400 metres of schools across the capital. However, I agree with the likes of Brighton and Hove City Council that 800 metres, which I think is only a 10-minute walk or so, would be better. It is not in the childhood obesity plan, and the Government need to do more to encourage that.

The sugar tax has been discussed. Children in the UK consume up to three times the maximum amount of sugar that they should, and fizzy drinks are their No. 1 source. We know that there was a real battle to get the levy to where it is now, and it took a long time to get it introduced. It is good that it is forcing manufacturers to reformulate their drinks to come in below the sugar tax threshold, but I am concerned about what will happen to the £10 million that was pledged from the levy to fund school breakfast clubs. It is good that companies are responding, but it is really important that we support our breakfast clubs as well, and I would like to hear from the Minister on that.

I want to say a little about school food standards. For many children from low-income families, school meals provide their main source of nutrition for the day. I would not be surprised if the Labour spokesperson, my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), has something to say about that. She has recently run an excellent campaign about changes to universal credit that would have an impact on the number of children receiving free school meals—their main source of healthy food. Legislation introduced by the last Labour Government required all schools to comply with specific food-based and nutrient-based standards, which resulted in significant improvements in the nutritional quality of school food, as shown by research from the Children’s Food Trust.

The July 2013 school food plan sets out 17 actions to transform what children eat in schools and how they learn about food. That has helped, and the new school food standards were widely welcomed when they came into force in January 2015. I was concerned that those standards do not apply to academies and free schools that opened between September 2010 and June 2014, but I received a response to a written parliamentary question yesterday, which said that more than 1,400 academies founded during that period are voluntarily following the standards. I am not sure how many are therefore not following those standards, which I think should apply across all schools.

I would like to ask the Minister about something that I have been doing on an ongoing basis. The Government have the “eatwell plate”, which is meant to set out guidance for what a healthy diet looks like, with certain proportions according to dietary needs. Rather than just being a paper exercise which can be found on the Government’s website, that ought to be used as the norm for how we publicly provide food, in not just schools, but hospitals, prisons and other facilities. Now is neither the time nor the place to go into other issues about cancer-causing foods, but given the proven link between processed meat and cancers such as bowel cancer, for example, the fact that at the moment schools are told to provide red meat three times a week and processed meat once a week needs to be looked at.

In conclusion, it is all very well talking about trying to change people’s behaviour and responses to the stimuli around them, but the Government could do more to remove temptation from their path. The Government should extend existing regulations to ban junk food advertising until the 9 pm watershed. They should support local authorities, and ideally have a standard approach across the country to tackling the proliferation of fast food outlets near schools—ideally the enforcement of an 800-metre limit. They should also do more to encourage schools to provide healthy food to students.

Human Rights (North Korea)

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Andrew Selous

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. I just mentioned the food situation in North Korea—how do we influence a regime that does not seem to care whether its people starve? What sort of leverage do we have when the issue is not just the repression of people’s freedom of expression and religion and their right to challenge the regime, but the fact that North Korea’s leaders seem perfectly happy to sit back and let their people starve? Things have indeed become much worse. I will come to how, as a matter of absolute priority, we must look at what we can do to try to change the situation.

We also heard from the report about how discrimination against women and girls has resulted in their becoming increasingly vulnerable to trafficking and prostitution. The punishments associated with transgressions are severe and arbitrary, including summary executions, most notably that of Kim Jong-un’s uncle in December last year.

The prison camps are indicative of the North Korean state’s complete rejection of basic human rights and international law. We hear about people being disappeared because of their connection with the Republic of Korea or Christian Churches—they are taken off to political prison camps. It was, I suppose, a small sign that things were not quite as bad as they have been that the commission found that guilt by association is now less frequent, although that is more than compensated for by some of the other atrocities that occur. Nevertheless, although some relatives are still at risk, the commission found that guilt by association is not quite as prevalent as it was previously.

To use the commission’s words, “unspeakable atrocities” are being committed in the camps, including

“deliberate starvation, forced labour, executions, torture, rape and the denial of reproductive rights enforced through punishment, forced abortion and infanticide.”

It estimates that hundreds of thousands of people have died in the camps over the past 50 years, and that between 80,000 and 120,000 political prisoners are currently detained in four camps and being subjected to horrifying treatment.

The report leaves us in no doubt that action from the wider international community is imperative. As the commission stated,

“The fact that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as a State Member of the United Nations, has for decades pursued policies involving crimes that shock the conscience of humanity raises questions about the inadequacy of the response of the international community.”

It went on to stress:

“The international community must accept its responsibility to protect the people of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea from crimes against humanity, because the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has manifestly failed to do so.”

We know that that will continue.

The commission’s report must ensure not only that the world’s attention is on the plight of the people of North Korea, but that urgent action is taken. As has already been mentioned, action from China is key because it is one of the few countries that has some leverage on the situation. As the commission stated,

“China pursues a rigorous policy of forcibly repatriating”

North Korean citizens who have managed to flee their country, despite their being refugees in need of, and entitled to, international protection.

China not only fails to respect the principle of non-refoulement; the commission suggests that, in some cases, Chinese officials inform their North Korean counterparts about those they have apprehended. According to the commission, those repatriated are systematically subjected to

“persecution, torture, prolonged arbitrary detention and, in some cases, sexual violence, including during invasive body searches.”

As we have heard, repatriated pregnant women are subjected to forced abortions, while babies born to returned women are often killed. The risk of refoulement, and their fate in North Korea, prevents defectors who manage to get to China from registering their children’s birth in China, denying them access to health services and education. It is estimated that there are 20,000 children born to DPRK women in China. In failing such defectors, China is failing in its international responsibilities, so it is imperative that the international community challenges it.

[Andrew Selous]

Does the hon. Lady agree that China’s policy is particularly unfortunate given that South Korea would accept all the refugees? If China did not want them, they would not be left in China.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I entirely agree. China provides some humanitarian assistance to North Korea; one would therefore hope that it had some leverage over the Government there and could persuade them to change their ways.

The hon. Member for Congleton mentioned the fact that one action that could be considered is referral to the International Criminal Court and the adoption of targeted sanctions. Resolution 25/25, passed by the UN Human Rights Council in March, was a welcome first step in taking the report forward, in particular by extending the mandate of the special rapporteur and requesting increased support, including establishing a field-based structure to strengthen monitoring and improve engagement with all states.

However, it was disappointing that 11 countries at the Human Rights Council abstained on the resolution vote, while six—Russia, Cuba, Pakistan, Venezuela, Vietnam and China—voted against it. There is more general concern about the composition of the Human Rights Council. The UK is on the council, but many member states have, shall we say, rather poor human rights records. There is concern about such countries’ failure to respect the special procedure or country-specific mandate holders. It would help if the Minister set out more about what he thinks the Human Rights Council can actually achieve—beyond mere condemnation of the DPRK regime—and how that can be done.

Following the recent universal periodic review, it has been reported that North Korea has actually agreed to consider 185 of the 268 recommendations. However, it has rejected some of them outright, including that it should co-operate with the ICC, end guilt by association, implement the commission’s recommendations, close the prison camps and abolish the songbun system. Critically, the Human Rights Council resolution recommended that the General Assembly submit the report to the Security Council for further action. The Human Rights Council called for the consideration of a referral

“to the appropriate international criminal justice mechanism”,

which would presumably be the ICC. On top of that, it called for consideration of the

“scope for effective targeted sanctions against those who appear to be most responsible for crimes against humanity”.

Will the Minister update us on the Government’s discussions with Security Council members about formally putting the DPRK on the agenda? What sanctions does he think could possibly be effective in targeting the DPRK leadership? Bearing in mind Russia’s and China’s position on the Security Council, what are the prospects and time scales for action and any referral to the ICC?

Now that the commission has reported and the Human Rights Council has passed its resolution, it is crucial that we maintain the momentum and keep the spotlight and pressure on North Korea, to try to secure the co-operation of partners in key positions of influence. It would be so much easier to say that solutions are more easily at hand in other countries, where the UK operates more leverage and where we know that we can, perhaps, achieve more good in a shorter time, but to turn our back on what is happening in DPRK, just because it is a difficult case and the solutions do not immediately present themselves, would be morally wrong. We simply should not contemplate that.

Funding Formula

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Andrew Selous

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

As ever, Mr Dobbin, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. It is also a pleasure to see so many hon. Members present. Some have left to attend a Select Committee, but this has been a good debate in which a lot of people have had an opportunity to participate.

The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) is passionate about the issue and has raised it on a number of occasions in Parliament. I accept that the issue is complex and that it is worthy of debate. However, although it is easy to criticise the operation of existing mechanisms, it is more difficult to come up with an ideal solution. The hon. Gentleman stated that the Barnett formula is broken, and he has argued passionately for a needs-based formula. He is waving a hefty document at me. If he would like to pass me a copy, I will sit down and digest it with great enthusiasm at some point.

The Barnett formula has been criticised over the years and, as the hon. Gentleman has said, its inventor, Lord Barnett himself, has suggested that we might need to move towards a needs-based formula. The hon. Gentleman has highlighted arguments criticising the formula, but it is easy to conflate and confuse two issues: what happens in terms of spending within a devolved nation as a consequence of devolution, and what is a direct consequence of the Barnett formula. He highlighted the differences in devolved areas in relation to council tax, prescription charges, tuition fees, education maintenance allowances, hospital car parking and so on. However, I should like to question his comments on the differences in relation to bus travel. He said that it was not possible in England for the carer of a disabled person to travel for free with them, but that is certainly not the case in my local area. Perhaps it is up to local authorities to decide, but in my area people get free bus travel if they can show that they are in the company of someone for whom they are caring.

The issues raised by the hon. Gentleman remind us of the argument about whether devolution is about deciding the size of the cake or about allocating who gets which piece of the cake. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) said, Scotland misses out in other areas as a consequence of policies on prescription charges and tuition fees that differ from those in England. Moreover, the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns), who is no longer present, pointed out that waiting lists are far longer in Wales as a consequence of decisions taken, using devolutionary powers, to spend money elsewhere. He said that, as a consequence, there will be real-term cuts in the health service—in the cancer drugs fund, for example—in Wales.

We have to accept that our establishment of the devolved Parliament and Assemblies means that the basic principle of devolution will lead to differentials in spending. It may create a sense of unfairness, but I do not think that that is particularly germane to the issue of the Barnett formula and its grant.

[Andrew Selous]

I understand what the hon. Lady is saying and I do not disagree with her that how the Scottish Government and the Welsh Assembly Government spend the money they are given is up to them. I have no quarrel with that. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) has said, if Scotland is getting £4.5 billion more than a needs-based assessment might imply, does she not understand that that can fund additional services that are not available to her constituents and mine?

[Kerry McCarthy]

As I have said, the Barnett formula is not perfect. We have established the Calman commission and the Holtham commission to look at the more detailed issues of how devolution works and how we fund matters.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy]

I agree entirely. Statistics are thrown around about public spending, its impact and who gets the most. It is not just about Government block grants, but about things such as welfare spending and the impact of locally raised funding, such as council tax, which is a separate issue. I think that people sometimes forget that.

The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire argued that either a separate body or the Office for Budget Responsibility should administer and oversee the introduction of a needs-based allocations system. I agree that, if we are to move towards something like that, now is not the time to introduce radical change overnight. This is a difficult time economically, and the Scotland Bill, which is making its way through Parliament, will have a major impact on the tax-raising powers of the Scottish Parliament. There are decisions to be made about whether it will take up those tax-raising powers and the impact that would have on its spending. The impact of the comprehensive spending review settlements on the devolved nations is also an issue.

I accept—I think that there is cross-party consensus on this—that we need to examine the case for moving towards a needs-based formula. Some of my colleagues have said that, but it has to be done carefully. I do not want to return to line-by-line negotiations with the devolved nations whenever there is a spending round. There has to be a formula of some sort. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) said that a needs-based formula would be eminently contestable. It would be difficult to establish which needs should be taken into account and which needs should not.

[Andrew Selous]

Does the hon. Lady think that we are so much more pathetic than Australia? Queensland and New South Wales are at each other’s throats to get more funding, yet they have a settled procedure which they all respect. Does she really not think that we can aspire to and achieve that in this country?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am saying not that it is impossible to achieve, but that it is difficult. The Barnett formula was established in the 1970s and people have said that the implication was that it was intended to be in place for only a year. A Labour Government operated under the Barnett formula for 13 years, but a Conservative Government operated under the same formula for 18 years, so this applies to successive Governments. Although there were criticisms, they were unable to find the ideal solution to replace it. Devolution has bedded in and there has been a call from the devolved Assemblies for more powers, which is going to throw the issue into the spotlight again. It is time to revisit it.