Merchant Shipping (Homosexual Conduct) Bill

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Nuttall

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 20th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones), who reminded us that while this country has, I think it is fair to say, made enormous progress over recent years in removing discrimination, there are still many countries around the world where that is not true. There is much still to be done to ensure that individuals who live in those countries enjoy the same freedoms that we have established for our citizens in the United Kingdom.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) on promoting the Bill. It is his second go and he has proved that he has a good track record. The Bill seeks to secure acknowledgment of equality for people of different sexual orientation in the merchant navy.

We have already heard some excellent speeches. My hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) spoke of his links to the merchant navy through his father. I must declare an interest along those lines, in that my own brother is a member of the merchant navy. I suspect that, as we speak, he is on board his ship on the high seas.

My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) made a powerful speech, as other Members have said. He gave his personal view of the Bill and said how important such measures are for him and the gay community in general. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) gave a tour de force of how the legislation has developed over the years.

I am not sure whether my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury realises how lucky he is that his Bill was first in line for debate today, this far into the parliamentary year of private Members’ Bills. In most other years, a Bill this far down the list would not even have been debated, because other Bills would have been at Report stage. Even though my hon. Friend’s Bill was No. 18 in this year’s ballot for slots for private Members’ Bills, he has had good fortune in the way in which the Bills have fallen and, as luck would have it, his is the first Bill to be debated this morning.

Before I start, I want to mention briefly, in passing, that there is a curious link between both my and my hon. Friend’s constituencies and the merchant navy. It involves the merchant navy class No. 35009 Shaw Savill steam locomotive, which was named after a merchant navy company. Apparently the design drew on British merchant naval heritage. When it was built it was allocated to the Salisbury shed in my hon. Friend’s constituency, but at the end of its life it finished up at Riley and Son Ltd, the locomotive engineers in my constituency of Bury North. Of course, anybody who is expert or who takes an interest in these things—perhaps many have only a passing interest in them—may think that they have heard that name before. I never miss a chance to give a plug to a company from Bury, so this is a great opportunity to mention—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

It is if it is in scope.

[Mr Nuttall]

The reason that hon. Members may recall having heard the company’s name is that it has recently been in the news for having restored the Flying Scotsman, which is the most famous of all steam locomotives. Were it not for the merchant navy, that steam train would not have existed.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. Of course I always want to hear about the joys of Bury North and the steam engine, but I want to get you back on track to what we are meant to be discussing. If we can do that, I will have achieved something.

[Mr Nuttall]

I have finished talking about that, Mr Deputy Speaker. I said it just briefly in passing.

Any private Member’s Bill has to be assessed against several criteria, the first of which is: what is it designed to do, and is there a real purpose for it? Having looked at it, I think that this Bill is essentially about clarity. I would like to be clear about what the Bill is and is not designed to do. It is a short Bill that would omit sections 146(4) and 147(3) of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which allow the dismissal of a person from the merchant navy just because they have engaged in homosexual conduct. The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has said:

“It is shocking that this exemption from the equality laws remains on the statute books, after so many years of law reform for gay equality. Repeal is long overdue, and most welcome.”

Section 146(4) of the 1994 Act extends to England, Wales and Scotland. Section 147(3) is the equivalent provision in Northern Ireland. The 1994 Act repealed section 2 of the Sexual Offences Act 1967, which stated—in, I hasten to add, the language that was used at the time—that “buggery” and “gross indecency” by a member of crew on a merchant navy ship constituted an offence. However, the 1994 Act explicitly maintained that homosexual conduct could be used as a ground for dismissal. Section 146(4) states:

“Nothing contained in this section shall prevent a homosexual act (with or without other acts or circumstances) from constituting a ground for dismissing a member of the crew of a United Kingdom merchant ship from his ship.”

It is interesting to look back in Hansard at the objections that were raised against decriminalising the offences set out in section 2 of the 1967 Act. During the debate on the Bill in the other place on 10 May 1966, the Earl of Kilmuir quoted objections from seafarers’ organisations that believed that homosexual conduct could lead to “dissension” among the crew, and even to “violence”.

In the book “Hello Sailor! The Hidden History of Gay Life at Sea” by Jo Stanley and Paul Baker, which was published in 2003, the authors discussed the problem faced by gay crewmen in the merchant navy. They wrote:

“In the 1950s…all gay men were, to an extent, part of an anti-society, but this was even more apparent in the Merchant Navy, where being gay could result in dismissal or transfer.”

As I think my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South said in passing, this was a genuine fear of being dismissed. Homosexual crew men were so frightened of being discovered that they communicated in a slang code—a form of secret code—that they called Polari. Apparently, its name comes from the Italian word “parlare”, which translates as “to talk”. Those are snapshots of a different attitude from a different era. The provisions in the 1994 Act remind us of what things were like in the 1950s, and I suggest that that is evidence for why they have no place on the statute book in the 21st century.

The next factor I look at when considering a private Member’s Bill that comes before the House on a Friday is how big the problem is that the Bill seeks to address: having established that there is a problem, how big is it? For this Bill, the question is: how many merchant navy crewmen would it affect? In the book “Maritime History and Identity: The Sea and Culture in the Modern World” by Duncan Redford, published in 2013, it is observed that one of the practical obstacles for shipping lines wanting to dismiss homosexual crewmen was that demand for stewards exceeded supply, and a total dismissal of gay or bisexual workers

“would have decimated the workforce and made ships inoperable.”

The short answer to the question of how many have been dismissed even in recent times is, I suspect, either not many or perhaps no one.

The maritime news website Lloyd’s List stated in an article about the Bill we are now considering posted on 6 July:

“Both shipping employers and shipping unions said…they were unaware of anyone losing a job on such grounds, at least in recent decades.”

I must confess—I am pleased to say this—that it is not an issue that has been raised with me as a constituency MP. I would be interested to know whether other hon. Members in the Chamber have had constituents raising the problem with them. It is perhaps why repealing sections 146(4) and 147(3) of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 has not been seen as a particularly urgent matter.

National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Nuttall

Friday 4th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nuttall]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We do not want to hear too much on that, because the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) is coming to the conclusion of his speech. Do not worry: five other Members wish to speak. I want other Members to take part in the debate. I would not want to close the debate down too quickly.

[Mr Nuttall]

I am grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I shall deal with the intervention fairly briefly. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) raises an important point, and I apologise for not going into as much detail on it as I perhaps should have. I said in an intervention that the Bill nowhere refers to volunteers. It is silent on the issue of volunteers. When I pressed my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell on that, he rather bizarrely started talking about the exclusions—the people to whom the Bill does not apply—but it does not say “a volunteer” anywhere in the list of exclusions. I think that volunteers are included in the Bill by definition, unless they are covered by the catch-all, get-out-of-jail-free card in clause 3(1)(d), to which I referred earlier. It sets out that a person is excluded under the Bill if they meet

“the terms of a definition set out in regulations”.

It may be that, for some reason unknown to me, my hon. Friend thought, “I’ll leave this problem to the Minister to solve”—and there is a real problem in the Bill: what do we do with volunteers? I will not attempt to go down that path and sort out the thicket of problems that arise from the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset. There is a genuine problem with those who do a mix of things—who sometimes volunteer, and sometimes work in a shop, or a charity’s commercial arm. That point is not clear. It is quite likely that those sorts of issues will finish up in the courts and before the industrial tribunals. It will be a bun fight, and a money-making scheme for lawyers. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) is positively delighted by that.

I entirely accept that my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell is well intentioned in bringing forward the Bill. I have tried to draw out some of the genuine problems that I see with it, and I hope that on considering the arguments advanced against it, he will withdraw it. I will continue to oppose the Bill, and I urge the House to do the same.

National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Nuttall

Friday 4th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I am sure that you will be able to catch my eye, Mr Davies, subject to the length of Mr Nuttall’s speech.

[Mr Nuttall]

I have not started my speech yet, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I entirely agree with the brief point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). What I want to do in making the points that I will shortly make is to do all I can to try to increase the number of opportunities available to young people. My genuine fear is that, rather than enhancing those opportunities, the unintended consequence—I entirely appreciate that this is not the intention of my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell—is that what is likely to happen if the Bill reaches the statute book is that those opportunities will be reduced.

I accept that at first sight the purpose of the Bill—the idea that by passing legislation we can somehow ban unpaid internships—might superficially appear to be a good idea, but I am genuinely concerned that on closer scrutiny we will find that that is not the case.

My hon. Friend cited a number of examples as evidence to support his contention that young people are being taken advantage of—I think that is a fair summary of what he said—because the national minimum wage legislation apparently does not apply to young people undertaking internships.

My hon. Friend has been lucky not only because he came third in the ballot for private Members’ Bills, but because this debate has fallen during Living Wage Week, which was marked by a debate in this Chamber only yesterday. This House has therefore had two consecutive debates, sandwiched on either side of yesterday’s Adjournment debate, on the minimum wage. Living Wage Week, which runs until Saturday, is a nationwide celebration of 3,000 employers who have voluntarily committed to ensuring that employees and sub-contracted staff working on their premises earn a real living wage.

I draw the House’s attention to that because, as my speech will show, the whole problem with the Bill revolves around how we define contracts of employment and a minimum wage. I should say at the outset that, personally, I do not like the word “intern”. It is not a word with which I was familiar previously. I did not grow up with it and I do not like the word “internship” either. I think that it is an American import—I can see hon. Members nodding in approval. I will be honest about it: I have nothing against our friends on the other side of the Atlantic, but I grew up with the term “work experience”, which I think more accurately describes the issue under discussion.

When I was at school, there was a work experience scheme called Trident. I do not know whether any colleagues have been on a Trident course. I do not think that I was able to secure a Trident placement—I certainly do not recall having had the opportunity to go on one—but many people I was at school with did have such an opportunity. Under the scheme, someone approaching the end of their compulsory school life was given the chance to go on a three-week placement with a local employer, but it was work experience, not an internship.

I want to consider, much as my hon. Friend did in promoting the Bill, how we arrived at this problem. Last Friday, we considered a Bill that was 18 pages long. This Bill is just two pages long. Unfortunately, it does not contain the answers to the problem it seeks to address. Indeed, it raises more questions than it provides answers.

The whole problem with the Bill revolves around the definition of three key terms: “work”, “internship” and “work experience”. Someone who is deemed to be a worker will have the right to be paid the national minimum wage—that is already the position. The regulation of wages in this country can be traced back to the end of the 19th century and then to the Trades Board Act 1909. After the second world war, wages councils arrived on the scene, with the Wages Council Act 1945. At their peak, 3.5 million people were covered by those councils. After they were abolished in 1993, pressure began to build for a new national scheme of a minimum wage. Despite the view of the Confederation of British Industry, which said in 1995 that

“even a low minimum wage would reduce job opportunities and create major problems for wage structures in a wide range of companies”,

two years later the Labour party included in its manifesto ahead of the 1997 general election a commitment to introduce a national minimum wage. To be fair, immediately upon election, it set about putting that into law, and the national minimum wage that we have today is still governed in primary legislation by the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, while the most recent secondary legislation is the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015.

Section 54 of the 1998 Act gives the key definitions of employees, workers and contracts of employment. Subsection (2) states categorically that

“‘contract of employment’ means a contract of service or apprenticeship, whether express or implied, and (if it is express) whether oral or in writing.”

Subsection (3) defines a worker—again I quote so that we have it absolutely accurately—as someone

“who has entered into or works under…a contract of employment; or…any other contract, whether express or implied and (if it is express) whether oral or in writing, whereby the individual undertakes to do or perform personally any work or services for another party to the contract whose status is not by virtue of the contract that of a client or customer of any profession or business undertaking carried on by the individual”.

Workers are already, under the existing law, entitled to be paid the correct minimum wage if they are part-time, casual labourers, including even someone hired for one day, agency workers, workers and home workers who are paid by the number of items they make, trainees, workers who are on a probation period, disabled workers, agricultural workers, foreign workers, seafarers and offshore workers. Apprentices, who are separately provided for, are entitled to be paid a special apprentice rate, if they are either under 19 or 19 and over but in the first year of their apprenticeship. Apprentices over the age of 19 who have completed their first year are then entitled to be paid the actual minimum wage, depending on their age.

The Government set out the national minimum wage after considering the advice of the Low Pay Commission, an independent advisory, non-departmental body, sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The commission is comprised of a chairman—currently Sir David Norgrove, a former private secretary to Margaret Thatcher—and a further eight low pay commissioners, who are drawn from a range of employee, employer and academic backgrounds and who make recommendations to the Government on appropriate pay.

Failure by any employer to pay at least the national minimum wage to those whom I have listed as employees is an offence and in breach of the national minimum wage legislation. To secure compliance with the legislation, the Government have introduced a naming procedure. In August, they published a list of 197 companies that had failed to pay one or more entitled workers the national minimum wage. Between them, those companies owed a total of £465,291 in arrears, and the most significant example was £99,541.98 owed to 30 workers. The naming and shaming scheme was introduced by the coalition Government in October 2013.

Those companies, which have been publicly identified and will undoubtedly have received negative publicity, may suffer an impact on their future relationships with customers and suppliers. Some 687 employers have been publicly listed as having failed to pay the national minimum wage to workers, and the wage arrears owed to staff have exceeded £3.5 million. That appears to be—

Proceedings interrupted (Standing Order No. 11(4)).

Child Refugees: Age Checks

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Nuttall

Friday 21st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

If not, we will move on.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the information he has given the House this morning. When the child refugees are being admitted because they have family ties in the UK, are checks made with their families here if there are any doubts about their ages? Are the Government keeping a record of the ages of all the children being admitted, and will that be published?

Prayers

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Nuttall

Friday 21st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Before we begin today’s proceedings, may I place on the record that a few minutes ago, at 9.15 am, we observed one minute’s silence in remembrance of those who lost their lives in the Aberfan disaster 50 years ago?

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the House sit in private.

Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 163), and negatived.

Illegal Immigrants (Criminal Sanctions) Bill

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Nuttall

Friday 4th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am glad that Sir Edward has given his ruling, but I will give mine. He may think his intervention was pertinent to this debate, but I do not think it was. The EU has been mentioned and there has been a discussion around it, but I do not want this debate to be dominated by the EU. As has already been said, migration from the EU is legal, but this debate is about illegal immigration. I welcome Sir Edward’s rulings when he chairs Committees, but today I am in the Chair.

[Mr Nuttall]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank my hon. Friend for his anecdote.

In an earlier intervention, I referred to exit checks. I think that the point I made is a valid one. Although I accept that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch said, many illegal immigrants will not have the necessary papers and will therefore not be able to leave through the normal channels, there will be many who do have papers and are therefore able to leave the country. There must be some evidence. It may well be that the Minister is able to say, “There’s no problem. Every single person who has left and on whom we have done an exit check was here legally, and not a single person whom we have come across was not meant to be here.” That may be the finding, but I would be interested to know the figures.

When the Bill was debated the last time, one of the arguments against adopting the measures in the Bill, which I thought was a weak argument, was that it was too expensive to do anything and much easier to allow people to go about their business, and that when the Home Office could get around to it, it would deal with the problem. That re-emphasises the point that people will take a punt. They will come here on the basis that their chances of ever being detected are fairly low, and that if they just keep their heads down, they will not be locked up or deported.

The other argument put forward by the Minister at the Dispatch Box was that the Bill had no merit because it replicated measures that were already in statute, in particular the Immigration Act 1971, so there was no need for those in the Bill. That is all very well. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch mentioned that fewer than two people a week have been prosecuted under the 1971 Act. I think that he gave the figure of 72 in a year. Can the Minister confirm, as a matter of interest, that everyone who was prosecuted was deported? That would be an interesting fact to know.

We are in a similar situation today to that of two years ago when, as luck would have it for the Government, the 2014 Immigration Bill was going through Parliament. Another Immigration Bill is going through Parliament at present, which contains a provision to make it a criminal offence for an illegal immigrant to work in this country. If, apparently, the 1971 Act provides sufficient penalties to deter people from being here at all, it would presumably cover the situation of their working here illegally. Let me put that another way. Can the Minister think of any circumstances where someone who is prosecuted under the new Immigration Bill could not already be prosecuted for being here illegally under the provisions of the 1971 Act?

Most of our constituents would consider this Bill sensible. I accept that it is not easy to calculate the number of illegal immigrants in this country. It appears that no attempt has even been made for more than a decade. But to try and brush the issue under the carpet because it is too difficult is not the way forward. We have to tackle the matter. The Bill is a modest measure, but it is one that would be welcomed across the country, and I am pleased to be able to support it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nuttall]

I was cut short!

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

By himself.

Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Nuttall

Friday 20th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. That is a decision for the occupant of the Chair. I will decide what is in order and what is not in order. It is in order. I did see the Member come in. I did make a note. I do not have to explain myself and I will not be questioned again on the matter.

[Mr Nuttall]

To deal briefly with the intervention, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley said a moment or two ago—I do not know whether the right hon. Lady heard his comment—if there were 100 Members here who wanted to close the debate and the occupant of the Chair was in agreement, I would be happy for that to happen. However, my concerns cannot be dealt with in Committee because I am concerned about the principle of the Bill. I oppose it in principle—not just some minor details. I do not think that my concerns could be addressed simply by sitting down and letting the Bill go through to Committee.

I mentioned earlier that I had surveyed the secondary schools in my constituency. One reason why I felt it was important to do that is that, according to the records I keep in my office, about a dozen people have contacted me about the Bill. Most of the dozen—there are one or two exceptions—have simply sent me a standard letter, which is in identical form to all the other contacts I have had. Therefore, with over 67,000 constituents, 99.9-odd per cent. have not contacted me about the matter. I would therefore suggest that it is not an overwhelmingly pressing matter for my constituents, as some would have us believe.

I have concerns about the actual content of the Bill. It is not clear from the Bill how the training would be assessed or to what standard the training would be delivered. The impression has often been given in the debate that it is all about CPR and the use of defibrillators. However, in new section 85B(2)(d), introduced by clause 1(3), there is a long list of subjects that would have to be covered. I do not see how that could all be covered in half an hour in assembly. The reality is that the training will take quite a lot of planning. It will take several hours over a period of time. We have not been told what year the pupils will be in when they receive the training—is it the first, second, third, fourth or fifth year of secondary?

The Bill does say that there will be a consultation. Forgive me, but I would have thought that it was a good idea to have the consultation before we had the Bill. It seems to be a cart before the horse strategy. Rather than provide for a consultation in the Bill, surely it would have been a good idea to have had the consultation. We could then have had the debate on stronger ground.

I have rather slimmed down my comments because I want to hear from the Minister. In conclusion, I believe the idea of having a nation where everyone has the skills necessary to save someone else’s life in an emergency is a very worthy one indeed, but I am not convinced this Bill is the right starting place to achieve that aim. I believe in the current position where schools have the freedom to make their own arrangements and, as I have explained, teachers are doing that so well in my constituency. I thank them for their excellent work, and I think they should be allowed to get on with it unhindered by legislation and yet more bureaucracy. Many teachers are already worried about their workload, and we should ask ourselves whether this is the right time to add to their burdens.

Emergency first aid skills can already be taught and I certainly recommend that every pupil should seek out opportunities to learn those skills. I believe individuals should have the freedom to make their own decisions on first aid training. That is the better way to truly create a nation of life savers. For all these reasons, I oppose this Bill.

Hospital Parking Charges (Exemption for Carers) Bill

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Nuttall

Friday 30th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood), who gave us his take on the Bill, although I feel the matter is a little more complicated than he would have the House believe.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper) on coming fourth in the ballot for the right to bring in a private Member’s Bill—as a new Member entering the ballot for the first time, she has done very well indeed—and on choosing such an important topic. I do not know if she does the national lottery, but if she does—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Obviously, congratulating the hon. Lady is a good way of taking up time, but actually I did the draw, so if the hon. Gentleman is going to congratulate anybody, I think it should be me. However, I do not want us to get bogged down in that, because I know he wants to get straight into the Bill, on which I would welcome his comments. I know he would rather talk about the Bill.

[Mr Nuttall]

Of course, you were there, too, Mr Deputy Speaker, doing the draw, and very well you did it as well. As you know, however, because it is done in reverse, coming first actually means coming 20th.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. Let us leave it there for today.

[Mr Nuttall]

I will move on.

This is the first Bill to come before the House for its Second Reading since the new Standing Orders were introduced last week on what generally is referred to as “English votes for English laws” but what I prefer to call, more accurately, “English vetoes for English laws”. The new Standing Orders make it clear that the new procedures do not apply to private Member’s Bills, but it is worth noting—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. They do not apply to private Members’ Bills, so we do not need to discuss them. Seriously, a lot of Members still wish to speak, and I do not want any filibustering. I know that people are interested in the Bill and want to concentrate on it.

[Mr Nuttall]

I am grateful for the work carers do in my own constituency, particularly at the carers centre I visited recently, which provides a wide range of activities and support for those who undertake the often unsung job of caring for a loved on. I also pay tribute to the work that Carers UK does, as the principal national charity for carers. Of course, it very much supports the Bill, in this its golden jubilee year.

The aim of the hon. Lady’s Park the Charge campaign, which has resulted in the Bill, is to improve the financial position of carers who have to use hospital car parks by exempting them from car parking charges. Without doubt, the Bill is well intentioned, and no one from across the House would disagree with the proposition that helping those who selflessly care for others is a worthy aim. The first difficulty, however, facing anyone determining the size and nature of a group is that of definition, and that applies to carers as much as to any other. Carers UK says there are 6.5 million carers in the UK, with 5.4 million of them living in England. As I tried to mention earlier, the Bill only applies to England so that is the relevant figure.

Carers UK goes on to state that these people are providing unpaid care for their loved ones, saving the economy an enormous £119 billion each year, yet its research found that 48% of carers were struggling to make ends meet, and 45% said that financial worries were affecting their own health. It is no surprise, therefore, that Carers UK and the Bill seek to alleviate one of the financial pressures on carers—hospital car parking charges. However, I have several concerns, ranging from the Bill’s drafting to its financial implications and potential impact on other groups.

It is not clear to me how we can objectively determine who should and should not be expected to pay for car parking, as we would be doing if we started centrally exempting one particular group as being more deserving than another group. It would seem preferable to allow individual NHS trusts to continue making such decisions locally. Otherwise, on the face of it, we seem to have here a fair and reasonable proposal. Indeed, my initial thought was that it sounded like a good thing to do, and I suspect that most people’s instinct would be to support the Bill simply because of the title.

I know that the hon. Lady has campaigned on this issue with the best intentions, but I want to deal precisely with the exemptions she seeks to introduce. The Bill would exempt two groups of carers. The first is defined in clauses 1 to 3. Clause 2 states that beneficiaries of an exemption would either be in receipt of carer’s allowance or have an underlying entitlement to it. Carer’s allowance is a taxable benefit currently set at £62.10 a week to help a carer look after someone with substantial caring needs, and it is paid to the carer, not the recipient of the care. To qualify, the applicant must be over 16, spend at least 35 hours a week caring for someone, have been in England, Scotland or Wales for at least two of the last three years and not be in full-time education or studying for 21 hours a week or more. The person in receipt of care must receive qualifying benefits, such as the daily living component of the personal independence payment, the middle or highest care rate of the disability living allowance, attendance allowance or the armed forces independence payment.

That is the first group to which we can start to put a number. According to Department for Work and Pensions figures, as of February, 721,000 people were receiving carer’s allowance, so these people would be the first group that would clearly qualify under the criteria. However, the Bill would go further, by also including within the first group all those who have what is referred to as an underlying entitlement to carer’s allowance. The term “underlying entitlement” refers to the fact that a claimant cannot usually receive two income-replacement benefits together—for example, carer’s allowance and the state pension. This is called the overlapping benefit rule. If a person is not entitled to be paid carer’s allowance because of this rule, they are said to have an underlying entitlement to carer’s allowance instead. This might mean they could get the carer’s premium in jobseeker’s allowance and income support, the extra amount for carers in pension credit or the carer’s allowance element of universal credit. The importance of including those people is that the Bill would otherwise exclude carers in receipt of other benefits, such as the state pension, bereavement allowance, contribution-based employment and support allowance, contribution-based jobseeker’s allowance, incapacity benefit, industrial death benefit, maternity allowance, severe disablement allowance, universal credit, war widow’s or widower’s pension or widow’s pension.

Not surprisingly, the inclusion of these people significantly increases the number of those eligible under the Bill. DWP figures, as of February, estimate this group to number 409,000. Taken together, therefore, clauses 1 to 3 could exempt approximately 1.13 million people. These people are either receiving carer’s allowance or have an underlying entitlement to it. As the hon. Lady will be aware, in the north-west, where both our constituencies are located, there are 163,000 such people. To give some idea of the massive increase in the number of carers in recent years, I should add that the figure of 1.13 million is up from 451,000 in February 2000.

If, however, the definition of entitlement is applied in strict accordance with clause 2, the Bill would exclude, a university student caring for a disabled parent, for example. I suspect that the second group of potential beneficiaries was defined for people in such a position. The Bill therefore draws a distinction between a “qualifying carer”—someone caught by clause 2—and an “eligible carer”, as defined in clauses 4 to 6. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) touched on this, and I pointed out in an intervention that the figure of 1.13 million—the figure quoted by Opposition Members as being the total number involved—seemed to ignore completely those included under clauses 4 to 6.

Clause 5(1)(a) defines the eligible carer as someone who

“has been assessed for free hospital parking”

by virtue of an amendment to the Care Act 2014, which this Bill would insert. The Bill proposes to amend section 10 of the 2014 Act, which deals with carer’s assessments. A carer’s assessment is made by a trained person either from the council or another organisation that the council works with. The Bill will make it a mandatory requirement for the assessor to assess

“whether the carer should be eligible for free hospital…parking”.

This is in addition to assessing, as outlined in the rest of section 10—

“(a) whether the carer is able, and is likely to continue to be able, to provide care for the adult needing care,

(b) whether the carer is willing, and is likely to continue to be willing, to do so,

(c) the impact of the carer’s needs for support on the matters specified in section 1(2),

(d) the outcomes that the carer wishes to achieve in day-to-day life, and

(e) whether, and if so to what extent, the provision of support could contribute to the achievement of those outcomes.”

It is not clear at all on what basis the assessor is expected to make this decision. If only eligibility or underlying eligibility to carer’s allowance is going to be checked, this provision is superfluous, as such people would be covered in the first group. If some other criteria are to be applied, there is nothing in the Bill or in any guidance notes—no such notes have been issued—to suggest what that might be.

Returning to my example of the student who is caring for a parent but cannot get carer’s allowance because of their studies, clause 5(1)(b) perhaps comes to the rescue. It says an “eligible carer” is a person who

“provides or intends to provide substantial care on a regular basis, other than by virtue of a contract or as voluntary work and has been certified as such by an appropriate clinician.”

I believe that the meaning is ambiguous. What does “intend to provide” mean? How far into the future is it expected that the care will be delivered—within the next week, the next month, the next year, or what? The Bill does not say. Or is a fixed timescale not required; is consideration of caring enough? What constitutes “substantial care” in this provision? Is it the 35 hours a week required to be eligible for the carer’s allowance, or is it fewer than 35 hours a week? We need to know, because the Bill is asking an assessor to be the ultimate arbiter of whether someone is entitled to free hospital parking charges.

Suddenly, the number of people who might benefit from free hospital parking becomes a lot less certain. The first group gave us 1.13 million people. How many more of the 5.4 million carers estimated by Carers UK to be living in England would be included in the second group? We simply do not know.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I think we have heard this question before. Mr Davies was asked whether staff would be taken from the front line. We are going over ground that has already been covered. This is about a Bill, about car parking, and about the benefit of carers. What I do not want to do is become involved in speculation. We are not here to speculate about the future.

[Mr Nuttall]

I was about to say exactly the same thing, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I do not think that my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) was in the Chamber when someone made what I agree was a very similar point. I will merely say that, undoubtedly—I think that Members in all parts of the House will agree with this—the scheme will have to be administered somehow. It is not going to run itself. Someone, somewhere, will be required to run it, either someone new who has been brought in or someone who is currently doing another job in the hospital.

I do not know whether, as part of her preparation for the Bill, the hon. Member for Burnley ascertained how many national health service trusts in England might have to alter their price structures—that is, increase their parking charges to avoid falling foul of the income- generation principle—if the number of exempted carers were to be as significant as it appears. I do not know whether she proposes to scrap the principle of not running a scheme at a loss, as required by the 2006 guidance from the Department of Health. The NHS Confederation, which is the membership body for some 500 organisations that plan, commission and provide NHS services, says:

“NHS principles and Government policy are clear that healthcare is funded through taxation, not through patient charges. Surpluses from parking charges should only be a by-product of covering costs and managing space fairly.”

Most trusts make it clear that the income they receive from car parking charges goes towards covering the maintenance of the car park: for instance, the security, facilities and staff. To be specific, we are talking about the ongoing costs of anything from lighting to CCTV, footpath and cycle path maintenance, car park surfacing, and the employment of enforcement and security staff. If there is any money left over—and some trusts have no surplus from their car parking—it must, in accordance with the guidance, be used to improve local health services.

The Government have already been active in ensuring that information about parking is made very clear to members of the public, and I think it perfectly fair and reasonable to require trusts to ensure that that information is clearly visible on websites and in patient information in, for instance, letters. Patients are entitled to the reassurance of knowing that the purpose of the car park charge is not to provide the NHS with an additional, excessive income stream, but to provide for the car park in the first place. Charges, therefore, are used primarily to cover the running costs of the car park, and if there is a surplus, it cannot be used for other pet projects.

I referred earlier to the 2009 NHS car parking impact assessment. The then Labour Government commissioned the detailed, 61-page assessment of the costs of introducing free car parking. It concluded:

“On the available evidence there is scope for this policy to have both a positive and negative impact, both for older people and the disabled.”

Despite that rather mixed finding, Labour’s 2010 manifesto pledged to scrap hospital car parking charges. Five years later, however, at the time of this year’s May general election, Labour appeared to reverse its view, and to decide that the policy was unworkable. I look forward to hearing from the shadow Minister later whether that is still the position of the official Opposition. In fact, the Bill runs contrary to the principle that individual trusts feel that it is right to set parking charges according to their own financial situations. Only yesterday it was reported that the Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust was consulting on the introduction of parking charges at its community hospitals.

What are hospital car parking charges actually paying for? That is a perfectly legitimate question for people to ask. It is reasonable to say that visitors and patients do not generally have a great deal of choice when it comes to parking at a hospital. There is usually just one car park operator, and patients, staff and visitors are therefore a captive audience. In some town centres, one might be fortunate enough to have the choice of a cheaper place in which to park, but for hospitals there is no market incentive to keep costs under control.

In December 2010, the British Parking Association, which is the largest professional association in Europe representing parking and traffic management organisations, released a charter of best practice for parking in hospital car parks. Understandably, given the large number of disabled users, it set high standards. The Charter for Hospital Parking stated that hospital parking operators should provide

“good lighting, high standards of maintenance for structures and surfaces, payment systems and equipment that are easy to use and understand, signs that are clear and easy to understand”

and

“clearly marked parking bays.”

Patients and visitors will understandably want a safe and secure environment in which to park when they go to their local hospital, or, potentially, a hospital that is out of their immediate area if they are receiving specialist treatment. As Carers UK points out, attending hospital can be a stressful experience for patients and visitors. The last thing they want is to have their car broken into, or to spend 20 minutes driving round in circles because entrances and exits are not marked properly, or to be stuck facing a ticket machine that does not work with the threat of an unfair penalty charge looming. Patients, and their carers, visitors and staff, will quite reasonably expect a properly maintained car park with proper lighting and adequate security, along the lines of what is set out in the charter, whether the purpose is to guide a daytime visitor with proper and effective signage or to protect the doctor or nurse who gets into the car at 3 am in the dark after a long shift.

The charter also states:

“Parking charges can help to pay for maintenance and management services, and prevent these from becoming a drain on healthcare budgets. Therefore, we encourage NHS Trusts and car park operators who manage hospital car parks to sign up to this charter and to abide by its letter and spirit.”

So far, 24 hospital trusts have signed up to the charter.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. This is very worthy, and it is great to acquire this extra knowledge, but it is not really anything to do with carers. The hon. Gentleman has got on to nurses and lighting, and I understand all that, but, worthy as it is, it is not in the spirit of what we are meant to be discussing.

[Mr Nuttall]

Parking places are finite, Mr Deputy Speaker. If the Bill encouraged more carers to visit hospitals, which is what I think would happen, it would make it easier for them to gain access to car parks, and one consequence of that might be a knock-on effect on the income that would—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is trying to make, but it has already been well thumbed. As the hon. Gentleman knows, it was covered very thoroughly by Mr Davies, and I do not want him to repeat everything that Mr Davies covered. I think that, in his hour and a half, Mr Davies did not leave a lot of scope, but this is one point that he made sure we were well aware of.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Only in your opinion.

[Mr Nuttall]

The problem with selecting a group to exempt from parking charges is the necessity of considering other groups, and deciding which groups it is fair to charge and which groups should be exempt. Is it fair to exempt a particular visitor, albeit a carer, but to charge a clinical support worker who parks at the hospital every day? It could be someone with children or other dependants, working and acting as a carer but not in receipt of carer’s allowance.

Fairfield general hospital in my constituency comes under the Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. According to figures from the northern commissioning region for the latest available year, I understand it is one of the trusts that charges on average 11p per hour for staff to park. I have to say that the trust sets out very clearly what its charges are for hospital car parking, and it provides a range of concessions. I take note of your stricture, Mr Deputy Speaker, so I will not read them out, but it is fair to say that it has obviously looked at this question and considered the various groups that should be entitled to a concession. For example, it has picked out blue badge holders, patients and visitors who need to attend on a frequent or regular basis and those who need to visit because they have suffered the bereavement of a loved one.

Such a scheme would be put in danger, and the trust would have to revisit it, which would undoubtedly have an effect on the viability of that scheme. Is it fair to charge a spouse or partner of a cancer patient who is still working and does not get carer’s allowance if they are too busy to get certified as eligible for hospital parking charge exemption, as required under clause 5 of this Bill? The Bill would require them to be approved in advance, and there will be many other deserving cases not covered by the Bill. The Bill does not seek to exempt people because of their low incomes, which is one a weakness. Some of the carers may well be in straitened circumstances, but there may be others who would be able to pay the charge, whereas some members of other groups would not be in that position.

The conclusion may well be that the fairest answer is not to exempt any groups but to make car parking free for everyone, as has happened in Scotland and Wales. Aligning us with those countries would be a popular idea with many people, but we must not forget that it would mean taking hundreds of millions of pounds out of the healthcare budget. The 2009 impact assessment suggested that the cost then would be between £140 million and £180 million. In six years’ time, it is reasonable to assume that cost would have increased enough to pay for 13,000 band 1 clinical support workers or 9,000 band 5 nurses. We have to ask what we think it is right to spend the healthcare budget on: patient care or free or reduced car parking.

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend is right. The fact is that in September 2014 the then Health Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter), noted in a debate that 40% of hospitals now do not charge for hospital car parking. They are likely to be in rural areas where there is less demand for parking—where it is easier to provide parking and there is less pressure on it. I suspect the reality is that a hospital with a car park in a central location in a busy town or a major city centre has no choice but to have a car parking charge. That is the reality of life. If it were be free, there would just be chaos; essentially, it would mean that those who really needed to get close to the hospital would not be able to do so. There has to be some system in place to protect the spaces that are close to the hospital for those who need them. Whatever system we have, there is no simple answer to that.

What we do know is that the present system of having local decision making is working. Fairfield hospital allows 30 minutes of free parking for everyone; then it costs just £1 for up to one hour. In the constituency of the hon. Member for Burnley, by contrast, people would pay £1.90 for up to three hours’ parking. There is a huge disparity across the country. We heard earlier—in an intervention from the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), I think—about the costs in central London, which are understandably very much higher than in the provinces.

While the Bill does explain the generality of what is required, it does not explain how the system would work in practice. In the opening remarks of the hon. Member for Burnley, she mentioned that the system would work by way of having a badge in the car window. I am happy to be corrected if I misheard. That is the first time I had heard that. It would perhaps have helped all of us if that had been in an explanatory note saying this was how the scheme would work. She also mentioned that in some hospitals people have to pay on entry—I think the hon. Lady is nodding. That is all very well, but I am not quite sure how simply having a voucher in the car window would help in that scenario. It must be more complex than that, and some sort of token would be needed in order to get through the barrier.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The question is not how people get into a car park; it is whether there is free concessionary parking for carers. We are dealing with that, not the detail of how we get there. Obviously if the Bill were to go into Committee, these would be the areas that Members would want to cover there. I want to concentrate on where we are now and how we keep to where we want to be within the Bill.

[Mr Nuttall]

I will move on from that detail. I accept it is a detail, but it is an important detail.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I agree, but we have heard about all the different scenarios previously and in detail. That is what worries me. We can get bogged down in repeating details, and I know the hon. Gentleman does not want to do that.

[Mr Nuttall]

I want to move on to the devolution of healthcare. It was only very briefly touched on earlier, but it is of particular significance to my constituency, because, as Members will be aware, it is proposed to devolve healthcare to Greater Manchester. From April next year, it will be the first English region to get full control of its health spending. The situation in this regard is not at all clear. The Bill states that it will apply to the whole of England, but if healthcare is devolved, will Greater Manchester be exempt on the same basis that Scotland and Wales are exempt? Healthcare spending has been devolved to those countries and they are then excluded from this Bill.

Royal Bank of Scotland

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and David Nuttall

Thursday 11th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Mr Gardiner, you must come back and wait for the next Member to speak. You know the courtesies of the House. Members must not do that. It is all about respect, and we must have tolerance as well, on all sides.

If the Minister has finished her answer, I will call David Nuttall.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

The Minister experienced the singular disadvantage of being my Whip in the last Parliament. I am pleased to welcome her to her new position.

I regard this share sale as a tremendous opportunity for the Government to widen share ownership, just as the Government of the late Lady Thatcher did in the 1980s. May I urge the Minister to make as many shares as possible available to small investors, to make the application process as simple as possible, and to set the minimum level as low as reasonably possible?