Science and Research

Debate between Mark Field and Gregory Campbell

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on securing the debate; we have worked together on a number of university and immigration issues. He made slightly disparaging comments about some Government Members’ views on immigration, but I suspect that he was not including me among them. We have worked together in particular on the importance of being an outward-looking nation and attracting the brightest and best people. That applies not only to our universities, but to many other areas that are important to research in the corporate world.

The Government correctly aspire to make the UK the best place in the world to run an innovative business or service. Instinctively, we know that to achieve that requires a strong financial sector, a plentiful supply of highly skilled people from across the globe—ideally, of course, with significant numbers of the indigenous population being trained—and progress in creating intellectual property and a thriving science and research community. All those ingredients can be found in London, the part of the country that I represent in the House. The capital’s universities have put themselves at the heart of innovation and of the drive to bring finance and business together to commercialise that innovation.

My constituency is home to three of the capital’s—indeed, the world’s—top universities: Imperial College, King’s College London and the London School of Economics. Their relentless rise in the university league tables coincides with our city’s seemingly unstoppable growth as a premier destination for global talent, capital and ideas. Just as the metropolis has married financiers with start-ups to create a booming tech sector, our universities have become adept at collaborating with the city’s business, philanthropic, government and research communities, and that is beginning to reap huge dividends. I am not suggesting that we should in any way be complacent; I take on board the statistical concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Sheffield Central, who made valid points.

The hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) pointed out that there is a golden triangle, which is sadly some way south of the Pennines. The London-Oxford-Cambridge golden triangle has more science and tech workers and faster industry growth than California. In 2007, Imperial College integrated its medical faculty with St Mary’s and Hammersmith hospitals. Only eight years on, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust is a globally respected centre for medical research, with patients benefiting from cutting-edge care and academics able to trial state-of-the-art treatments on London’s uniquely diverse population.

Imperial is similarly collaborating with Aviva Investors on a new White City campus, Imperial West, to support science start-ups and ensure that the UK benefits commercially from breakthroughs made in its university labs. A problem going back to Victorian times is that we have cutting-edge research, but do not glean the commercial benefits once the research makes its way into general products. We clearly have to get that right. I am not suggesting that there are easy solutions, as this problem goes back 120 years. The Minister might have some bright ideas, but I would not blame him if he felt that this is a work in progress.

The plan for Imperial is that the university will soon be virtually independent of public funding. One of the spin-outs based on the campus, DNA Electronics, is already transforming academic discoveries into serious commercial propositions, offering affordable chip devices that can test for genetic diseases and drug intolerances within minutes.

Amid healthy rivalry between London’s top institutions, there are significant partnerships that we should applaud and relish. Imperial, King’s College and University College London, for example, have joined forces with the Government and others to build the groundbreaking Francis Crick Institute for biomedical research in King’s Cross. Once open, it will complement the arrival of Central Saint Martins in nearby Granary Square.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

The right hon. Gentleman refers to the friendly rivalry between universities in his constituency. We need to encourage such rivalry right across the United Kingdom, so that organisations such as Innovate UK can develop and progress. Does he agree that it is in all our interests for the progress he sees in London to be replicated across the entire nation.

[Mark Field]

I very much agree. Perhaps understandably, there was a certain amount of cynicism when the Chancellor of the Exchequer first talked about the northern powerhouse two years ago—he represents a northern seat, albeit in leafy Cheshire—but it is none the less important. I have battled with a number of colleagues in London on both sides of the divide on the issue. I think that we should be investing money in High Speed 3 well before we even consider putting money into High Speed 2. There is a strong case for building high-speed rail—indeed, high-speed transport—connections between our regional centres.

We could debate the broader issue of London’s dominance. I understand why there is a lot of hostility towards that dominance, but this country has a single global city of 8 million people and a cluster of cities with populations of about 1 million. In an ideal world, we would build another city from scratch with a population of about 3 million to be a global player, to try to counter London’s dominance within the UK.

A huge amount of the investment that comes into London, however, would not come to the UK if it did not come to London. It is not a zero-sum game between London and the rest of the UK. More importantly, a huge amount of the construction and contracting work that comes in for London-related projects often goes out to the regions, not only to the Oxfords and Cambridges of this world but to Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and many of the country’s second-tier cities—I do not mean that disparagingly—where huge amounts of work can be done.

House of Lords Reform

Debate between Mark Field and Gregory Campbell

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mark Field]

There is a danger of that. In many ways, much as I disapprove of what happened in 1999, from the point of view of the Blair Administration, they did the right thing in taking the view that they should partly sort out the hereditary issue. Of course, the risk of any reform is that a little flurry of it is followed by decades of nothing else being done—historically, that is what has happened with the upper House—with those who wanted some reform saying, “Well, listen, we’ve been able to achieve something.”

It is depressing that the House of Lords has become ever more a creature of the Executive, while House of Lords reform has ground to a halt. The truth behind what the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire said is that it is down to the numbers game. The Whips can get business through the House of Commons, so we have the utter discourtesy of Government amendments being tabled in the House of Lords simply because it is known that the legislation will not get through without amendments, which are rubber-stamped when it comes back to the Commons. Instinctively, that feels wrong. Ultimately, it is in our hands in the House of Commons. We are now only 16 or 17 weeks away from a general election, and if the result is indeterminate, we parliamentarians will have the opportunity to stand up, have our say and make a difference, particularly if we are in the realms of a minority Government.

I must confess that, although I was happy to support the underlying principle of electing the House of Lords on Second Reading and in the programme motion of the House of Lords Reform Bill, I believed ultimately that, in many of its particulars, it was a shoddy, poorly drafted piece of legislation. As the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) said, if we try to work towards perfection, we will achieve very little. That is a great shame, because in many ways the British constitution has hitherto been one of the great success stories of modern politics. It has kept the country together—up to and beyond 18 September last year—united under a common Crown and common Parliament for more than 300 years. Not for us the coups, revolutions and counter-revolutions that have plagued much of the European continent over that period. So successful has the British constitution been that we Britons have often stopped thinking about it.

Until 15 or so years ago, no one lost much time worrying about constitutional niceties. We knew instinctively that, messy as it was, the British constitution worked well and worked for the whole of the British isles. The Blair Administration changed everything. They part-reformed the House of Lords by removing the independent hereditary element, but successive Governments since have created literally hundreds of new life peers. In response to the demand of the people of Scotland and Wales—a demand that I acknowledge the Conservatives were perhaps too slow to understand, and certainly to accept—devolved Parliaments and Assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were created. It requires little cynicism to see that many of those changes were designed for Labour’s political advantage, and that they have not necessarily been properly carried through elsewhere. That has created many problems, especially in England, the neglected land in all those constitutional changes. England is a nation proud and undivided, but many of its people increasingly demand equal treatment with the other nations of the UK. Since last September’s Scottish referendum—lost, in case there is a doubt about it, by 10.6%—some Tory strategists feel that the time is ripe to play the English card.

There is a deep and increasing disquiet among many in England at the effects of devolution, and the most serious problems are the imbalances left by the somewhat partisan settlement of the late 1990s. Those are easily stated. MPs from Edinburgh and Cardiff can vote on health and education policies that affect my constituents and Manchester constituents, and those of the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), but not on health and education policies affecting their own constituents—but why? It does not seem just. Under the Barnett formula, residents of Edinburgh had £1,300 more spent on their public services last year than my constituents did. Again, that seems less than equitable. There was a disgraceful situation before Christmas in the Northern Ireland Assembly when the Democratic Unionist party and Sinn Fein worked together to put a gun to the head of the British Government, to try to ensure there would be more money on the basis that they wanted a Barnett formula for Northern Ireland. If there is an indeterminate general election result, we may go down that route, with a bidding war on similar grounds in May and June.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

The hon. Gentleman said political parties had put a gun to the head of the British Government. I understand his use of the phrase, but while he might well say that about Sinn Fein, the Democratic Unionists were applying pressure.

[Mark Field]

I am sorry—the hon. Gentleman will recognise that I did not mean that literally. I recognise that, within the context of Northern Ireland and Ulster politics, it might be seen as a loaded phrase. He is aware of what I was getting at. There was a sense that a lot of political pressure was being brought to bear by the political Assembly of one of the parts of the United Kingdom that has had a full constitutional change, which would have affected my constituents to a large extent.

There are great dangers for the Conservatives in promoting the prospect of English votes for English laws. The UK constitution is full of anomalies. Attacking Scottish MPs in that way comes across as partisan and negative. Our mission should be to maintain and strengthen the Union. It is all too easy for a negative-sounding solution to the West Lothian question to be portrayed by our opponents—

Londonderry and the City of London

Debate between Mark Field and Gregory Campbell

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to open this debate on the 400th anniversary of the start of the relationship between the City of London and County Londonderry. This debate provides an opportunity not only to mark the past but to discuss the future, as Londonderry faces the need for a renewed economic impetus as it continues to emerge from the decades of the troubles.

I suppose that my own experience and knowledge, having been born in the mid-1960s, was of Northern Ireland being the centre of all the troubles, and we are all very grateful that those terrible days—certainly the terrible death toll during the troubles—are behind us. I particularly recall the terrible death toll of 1972 when, as a young boy, Northern Ireland seemed to be a watchword only for these issues. Of course, we cannot be complacent. Only this morning, we hear news of certain issues—not in Londonderry, but in Belfast—that ensure that the security services and others must remain watchful and vigilant in Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, we can all be glad that the terrible days that scarred the Province and made such an impact on my own generation are now thankfully behind us.

This year—2013—is the 400th anniversary of the foundation of County Londonderry by a royal charter from King James I.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman from the very depths of my heart on securing this tremendously important and timely debate, and it is a very historic debate at that. He talked not only about the past but the future, and he is now moving on to discuss the events of 2013 and beyond. Does he agree that the recent event in the Guildhall in the City of London was a tremendous marker of the 400th anniversary and that we can build on the links between London and Londonderry to ensure that the economy becomes the driver, to ensure that young people who are deprived are given the opportunity for employment and to ensure that we really build on the history and legacy of the past 400 years?

[Mark Field]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and naturally I will come on to this issue later. I only hope that the coffers of the City of London will be strong enough to ensure that we will not have to wait another 400 years until there is another such glorious dinner in the Guildhall.

Of course, part and parcel of the creation of Londonderry was the creation of the Honourable the Irish Society, which was created by the same royal charter of 1613. I am sure that everyone here in Westminster Hall today is aware that the relationship between London and Londonderry is one that has had its fair ups and downs during the past four centuries. More importantly, however, the relationship between the City of London and Londonderry presents unique opportunities. In many ways, with the recent focus upon the Northern Ireland economy, the timing for this debate could not be more apt.

I am sure that hon. Members are conscious of the economic problems that we face in Northern Ireland today. The massive imbalance between the public and private sectors is the largest in any British region, and that has created a reliance on public funding that gives rise to some real challenges, particularly in the current economic climate. That imbalance, combined with below-average employment, means there is a strong and pressing need for increased private investment across the region.

I think that all parties in the House accept that urgent action is needed to help to remedy this problem, and I am pleased that the Government have assembled a working group to assess ways in which such investment can be achieved. Although I obviously do not represent a Northern Ireland constituency, I hope that I can play a small part in trying to ensure that that process bears some fruit. I have no doubt that the Treasury and the Northern Ireland Office, alongside their counterparts in the Northern Ireland Executive, are working very hard to find solutions to these problems. A growing, strong and resilient Northern Irish economy will benefit the whole UK.

As Northern Ireland looks for opportunities to boost its economy, this year presents County Londonderry with a distinctive position to begin to address some of the issues that I have mentioned, by utilising and building upon its historic connection with one of the centres of global business, finance and the arts. It is towards this purpose that the City of London, the Honourable the Irish Society, Derry city council and Coleraine borough council have been working together to mark the anniversary with a lasting economic and cultural impact.

Earlier this month, the City of London hosted a day of activities designed to boost County Derry’s visibility as a place to invest in among businesses and investors here in London. That day included an inward investment seminar, organised under the auspices of Derry city council and Coleraine borough council and their respective chambers of commerce, with valuable help from Invest Northern Ireland. The seminar was addressed by a series of business representatives, as well as by Arlene Foster, Northern Ireland’s Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, and the mayors of both Derry city council and Coleraine borough council. It highlighted the potential of the growing technological and digital sectors in the region, as represented by the dedicated digital development projects of Digital Derry and Digital Causeway in Coleraine.

We only need to look at the evidence. The completion of the Project Kelvin communications link will provide County Londonderry with the fastest data link with north America in the whole of Europe. Derry city council is committed to becoming the first city in the UK with 100% fibre-optic broadband availability, and of course the university of Ulster is an industry-focused university with world-class technology research facilities and a dedicated school of creative arts. The digital sector can act as a key selling point upon which to build a modern vibrant economy for Londonderry and for Northern Ireland as a whole.

As the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) mentioned, the seminar at the Guildhall was followed by an absolute first for the city of Londonderry: a dinner at the Guildhall hosted by the City of London corporation and facilitated by Invest NI, on the theme of inward investment. At that dinner, Northern Ireland’s First Minister, the Deputy First Minister, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the lord mayor of the City of London and the governor of the Honourable the Irish Society all spoke. As someone who was there, I was glad that the speeches were relatively short and the toasts commensurately long, which is the right way round. It was an occasion that should not be underplayed, and it signalled the intention of all those involved in the Northern Ireland Executive, the City of London and—I hope—here in Westminster to move forward and foster a strong working partnership between County Londonderry, Northern Ireland as a whole and the City of London at the highest possible levels.

Human Trafficking

Debate between Mark Field and Gregory Campbell

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Field]

I am not sure that I want to go too deeply into concerns about precisely where that legislation goes, not least given yesterday’s comments by the Deputy Prime Minister, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right. If one considers the populist element of electing police commissioners, I hope that everyone—not only MPs, but interested residents, constituents and citizens—will make it plain that the problem needs to be tackled; indeed, it might be part and parcel of the manifestos of would-be candidates for such a role.

The Government have declared human trafficking to be a coalition priority; I mentioned earlier that we await a new strategy that will shortly step up our efforts in that regard. We recently put our name to the EU directive on trafficking, so the UK has signed up to various obligations. Nevertheless, and without wishing to pre-empt the strategy, I want to put some of my thoughts to the Minister.

It is quite clear from my work on the subject that the current disparate, multi-agency approach has a multitude of fundamental flaws. I have alluded to some of those flaws, which others also recognise. Some are the result of the inherent difficulty in dealing with such a complex and varied problem. However, the Government should consider making a few reasonably small improvements.

The notion of a one-stop shop was put to me by Detective Superintendent Duthie as a means of improving the treatment of trafficked victims and the collection of intelligence. Victims tend to have a variety of needs, and at the moment they are dealt with by a huge range of organisations based in different places. A one-stop shop—a human trafficking centre, as it were—might assist in dealing with health, housing, legal aid, counselling, immigration, repatriation, family reunification and more. I wonder whether the Minister would let us know his thoughts on that idea.

When researching the subject in advance of this debate, I was struck by the poor information available on the internet of all places. If I were a trafficked victim, the first resource that I would use to find a way out of my situation would be the internet. Although a one-stop shop might be seen as too expensive, has the Home Office or any other body considered setting up a presence on the internet that would provide easy, comprehensive and readily available advice to trafficked victims on how to report their experience and, more importantly, how to escape? As things stand, information is dotted across a range of sites, which is incredibly confusing.

Earlier, I mentioned Paladin, the police unit tasked with identifying trafficked children at London’s ports. Concern has been raised by the recently ennobled Baroness Doocey about alternative trafficking routes. Her fear is that Paladin’s vigilance at Heathrow and other points of entry might persuade traffickers to use other routes; in particular, she is concerned that there are no specialist child protection officers working full time at St Pancras, even though that station is within Paladin’s remit.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. He has touched on routes into the UK. Does he agree that we also need to establish the source from which many of the unfortunate victims of trafficking come? If it includes the small number of nations that have recently joined the EU, we need comprehensive discussions and negotiations with those member states to ensure that the tap is switched off at source.

[Mr Field]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. It would be wrong to suggest that the entirety of the problem is caused by the 10 nations that joined the EU over the past seven years, particularly Romania and Bulgaria, to which I referred earlier. However, it is clearly a substantial problem, and the relatively open borders in much of the EU play a part.

I was discussing St Pancras. Eurostar has relatively lax controls, and children under the age of 12 can travel unaccompanied from Brussels and Paris, so long as they have a letter from the parents or guardians. Have the Government considered making points of entry more robust, not only at St Pancras but in those parts of the country not covered by Paladin?

Turning to the EU directive, one of its key requirements is to provide every trafficked child with a court-appointed guardian to look after their interests. That idea, which was championed by Anthony Steen, was referred to earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington. I note from last Monday’s debate that the Minister is not convinced of that route, believing that local authorities are best placed to fulfil the guardianship role. With local authorities under the most enormous budgetary pressure, how will the Minister ensure that that duty is being fulfilled, and can he convince all stakeholders that the Government are not merely absolving themselves of responsibility?

I am reminded of the problems encountered by my local authority, Westminster city council, where there was a marked increase in homelessness following EU enlargement in 2004 and 2008. It had terrible difficulty extracting additional funds from the Home Office to deal with the localised effects of a national policy. As a quick aside, I secured a debate here some four years ago and the Home Office—at that juncture we had a Labour Government—mysteriously arrived an hour before the debate with cheque in hand. I accept that these things can happen—