G20 Summit
Mark Harper Excerpts(7 years, 8 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I think I can give the right hon. Gentleman the reassurance that there is still that commitment. The situation on the ground has, as he said, made it incredibly difficult for the delivery of that commitment. The issue of humanitarian aid getting into Aleppo was one that I raised directly with President Putin in my discussions with him.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to concern about the sort of weaponry that is being used, potentially, by the Syrian regime. We have been very clear, as he will know, about our opposition to what is happening in relation to that. We are very concerned about the reports that have come forward. Obviously, it is important that those reports be properly looked at. In the longer term, we remain committed to a political transition in Syria, and that will be a political transition to a Syria without President Assad.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
I am very pleased to hear the Prime Minister’s full support for free trade as underpinning our prosperity in Britain and across the world. I had thought, until I listened to the Leader of the Opposition, that that was widely shared on both sides of the House. Given that it is not, and given the worrying noises we are hearing from both candidates in the US presidential election—they both sound not terribly enthusiastic about free trade—will she make it a policy of her Government to campaign for free trade in the United Kingdom and to argue for its merits on the global stage?
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend expresses his surprise—I think there was surprise on this side of the House—when the Leader of the Opposition showed his hand in saying that he was not in favour of free trade. Indeed, I suspect many right hon. and hon. Members on the Labour Benches were surprised to hear that that was the policy of the Labour party. We will be advocates—strong advocates—of free trade, as my right hon. Friend suggested, and we will ensure that we send out that message. As he says, free trade underpins our prosperity.
UK's Nuclear Deterrent
Mark Harper Excerpts(7 years, 9 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman might have noticed that the Government have looked at the Government procurement arrangements in relation to steel. Obviously, where British steel is good value, we would want it to be used. For the hon. Gentleman’s confirmation, I have been in Wales this morning and one of the issues I discussed with the First Minister of Wales was the future of Tata and the work that the Government have done with the Welsh Government on that.
I will now turn to the specific question of whether building four submarines is the right approach, or whether there are cheaper and more effective ways of providing a similar effect to the Trident system. I think the facts are very clear. A review of alternatives to Trident, undertaken in 2013, found that no alternative system is as capable, resilient or cost-effective as a Trident-based deterrent. Submarines are less vulnerable to attack than aircraft, ships or silos, and they can maintain a continuous, round-the-clock cover in a way that aircraft cannot, while alternative delivery systems such as cruise missiles do not have the same reach or capability. Furthermore, we do not believe that submarines will be rendered obsolete by unmanned underwater vehicles or cyber-techniques, as some have suggested. Indeed, Admiral Lord Boyce, the former First Sea Lord and submarine commander, has said that we are more likely to put a man on Mars within six months than make the seas transparent within 30 years. With submarines operating in isolation when deployed, it is hard to think of a system less susceptible to cyber-attack. Other nations think the same. That is why America, Russia, China and France all continue to spend tens of billions on their own submarine-based weapons.
Delivering Britain’s continuous at-sea deterrence means that we need all four submarines to ensure that one is always on patrol, taking account of the cycle of deployment, training, and routine and unplanned maintenance. Three submarines cannot provide resilience against unplanned refits or breaks in serviceability, and neither can they deliver the cost savings that some suggest they would, since large fixed costs for infrastructure, training and maintenance are not reduced by any attempt to cut from four submarines to three. It is therefore right to replace our current four Vanguard submarines with four Successors. I will not seek false economies with the security of the nation, and I am not prepared to settle for something that does not do the job.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
I was listening carefully to the question from the leader of the Scottish National party about cost. Is it not clear that, whatever the cost, he and his party are against our nuclear deterrent? Scottish public opinion is clear that people in Scotland want the nuclear deterrent. When my right hon. Friend the Scottish Secretary votes to retain the nuclear deterrent tonight, he will be speaking for the people of Scotland, not the SNP.
The Prime Minister
I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend; he put that very well indeed.
Let me turn to the issue of whether we could simply rely on other nuclear armed allies such as America and France to provide our deterrent. The first question is how would America and France react if we suddenly announced that we were abandoning our nuclear capabilities but still expected them to put their cities at risk to protect us in a nuclear crisis. That is hardly standing shoulder to shoulder with our allies.
At last month’s NATO summit in Warsaw, our allies made it clear that by maintaining our independent nuclear deterrent alongside America and France we provide NATO with three separate centres of decision making. That complicates the calculations of potential adversaries, and prevents them from threatening the UK or our allies with impunity. Withdrawing from that arrangement would weaken us now and in future, undermine NATO, and embolden our adversaries. It might also allow potential adversaries to gamble that one day the US or France might not put itself at risk to deter an attack on the UK.
Crispin Blunt
My right hon. Friend is technically right, but it would be a triumph of hope over expectation that we are going to see more than 2% spent on defence any time soon. When that happens, and if this is taken in isolation, to be spent outside the defence budget, then I will accept that my arguments need to be re-evaluated, but as things are set now, the budget for this weapons system comes at the cost of the rest of our defence budget.
Britain’s independent possession of nuclear weapons has turned into a political touchstone for commitment to national defence, but this is an illusion. The truth is that this is a political weapon aimed, rather effectively, at the Labour party. Its justification rests on the defence economics, the politics, and the strategic situation of over three decades ago, but it is of less relevance to the United Kingdom today, and certainly surplus to the needs of NATO. It does not pass any rational cost-effectiveness test. Surely the failures in conventional terms, with the ignominious retreats from Basra and Helmand in the past decade, tell us that something is badly out of balance in our strategic posture.
Let us not forget the risks that this weapons system presents to the United Kingdom. Basing it in Scotland reinforces the nationalist narrative, and ironically, for a system justified on the basis that it protects the United Kingdom, it could prove instrumental in the Union’s undoing.
We were told last November that the capital cost for the replacement of the four Vanguard submarines would be £31 billion, with a contingency fund of £10 billion. We have been told that the running costs of the Successor programme will be 6% of the defence budget. Following the comments of the right hon. Member for Moray, my latest calculation is £179 billion for the whole programme.
Food Banks
Mark Harper Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Lisa Nandy
Indeed. My hon. Friend is right.
In the short time available to me, I want to talk about the solutions to these problems. The first solution, which tackles a long-term trend, is that work must pay. Far too many people have been forced into work that is low-wage and zero or small-hours. One of my constituents wrote to me before this debate and said that she was forced into a job where she was given, on average, only 15 minutes of work a day over the course of a week, and that £1.10 a day did not even cover the cost of her bus fare. When she left that job she was sanctioned, got into debt and ended up having to go to a food bank. The solutions are obvious: raise the minimum wage and encourage firms to pay the living wage.
When the Minister went to Tesco, did he ask that company why it does not pay all its staff a living wage? I would be interested to know. Those who claim to be part of the solution can also be part of the problem. It is the Government’s job to set the tone of what we expect from our major employers. In communities such as mine, there are real issues about the number of jobs available. If the Government do not invest to create jobs, it is no use telling people to get on their bike and go and get a job.
The second thing that Ministers must do is rebuild the safety net. I do not know whether the Minister understands how much damage the bedroom tax has done to people in communities such as mine. It must be scrapped immediately. The benefits delays that my hon. Friends have mentioned are so important. I have people in my constituency who are waiting six months just to get an assessment for employment support allowance. On top of that, the universal credit has been introduced. In principle I support it, but many people are now managing budgets that they never had to deal with before, and it has propelled many of them not just into debt, but into the arms of payday lenders—payday lenders that this Government refuse to do anything about.
If Ministers were at all interested in the experiences of my constituents, which they do not appear to be as they seem to be talking together, they would learn that the culture in the jobcentre—
Lisa Nandy
No, I will not give way. It is about time Ministers listened, rather than trying to tell us that there is no problem in this country.
The cultural change that is needed in the jobcentre, which routinely strips people of their rights and their dignity, will come from getting rid of the unofficial targets for sanctions and restoring adviser discretion so that organisations can work with people, not against people, in their search for work.
I will say this to the Minister, now that he is finally paying attention to what I am saying about the experience of my constituents: what a waste this all is! He talks about food banks. Well, I will tell him something. There is a growing recognition across all the political parties that in the current economic climate we desperately need to harness the talents, the passion and the energy of people in every community, to make this country fairer, stronger, better and more sustainable. Instead, we have charities—cancer charities and children’s charities. Instead of supporting people at the hardest time of their lives, we can do little more than feed and clothe the children in one of the richest countries in the world. What a tremendous waste it all is!
Oral Answers to Questions
Mark Harper Excerpts(9 years, 12 months ago)
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Stephen Crabb
I think that my hon. Friend is referring to an incident that took place only this weekend involving Cardiff Aviation. I have discussed the matter with the Welsh Minister for Economy, Science and Transport, Edwina Hart, and raised it with the Ministry of Defence. Clearly we have a shared interest with the Welsh Government in ensuring that commercial operations at St Athan are a success, and that is what we are working towards.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
8. What discussions he has had with his Cabinet colleagues and Ministers of the Welsh Government on patient choice in health care on the Wales-England border.
The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)
Access to high-quality health care is an important issue for people across the UK, and particularly for those in the border areas. Following last week’s discussions on the matter in this House, I have written to the Secretary of State for Health and the First Minister urging swift action be taken to find a solution to the current difficulties.
Mr Harper
The Secretary of State will know that a number of my constituents—thousands, in fact—are forced to use the NHS in Wales. They will therefore be very concerned by the report published yesterday, “Trusted to care”, which shows serious failings in the treatment of frail older people at two Welsh hospitals. Even the Labour Minister said he was shocked. Do not the people of Wales and my constituents deserve better?
The Prime Minister
In the Stockton North constituency, unemployment has fallen by 23% over the past year. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the unemployment figures, he will see that the number of people in part-time work who want full-time work has fallen as, increasingly, people are able to find the full-time work that they want. Of course there is an increase in the number of people who are in work and claiming housing benefit, because there is an increase in the number of people in work. That is what is happening in our country—we are getting the country back to work.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
The Prime Minister will know that thousands of my constituents in England are forced to use the NHS in Wales. They will be concerned about yesterday’s “Trusted to Care” report, which showed serious failings in the care of frail, older people at two NHS hospitals in Wales. Do not the people of Wales and my constituents deserve better?
The Prime Minister
Those are very concerning reports that need to be studied, because the NHS in Wales is not in a good state. We have seen an 8% cut to the NHS budget in Wales carried through by Labour. In Wales, the last time the A and E targets were met was in 2009 and the last time the urgent cancer treatment target was met was in 2008. We really do see problems in the NHS in Wales. Frankly, the Labour party, instead of chatting to each other on the Front Bench, should get a grip of this issue and sort out the NHS.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mark Harper Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Mr Maude
There are some central contracts and some scope for us to do this much better, although we need to be confident about quality. Through the Crown Commercial Service we can now aggregate demand to a much greater extent, but what we do not want to do is exclude smaller translation companies from this market as they can often provide a much more cost-effective service. The issue is kept under constant review, and there is definitely scope for further savings.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
9. Will the Minister tell the House what progress has been made on commercial reform in the civil service to make it more savvy in its dealings with the private sector, to get a better deal for the taxpayer?
Civil Service Reform
Mark Harper Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Jenkin
Touché, as they say. I am most grateful for that information. I am sure it would have been in the Government’s evidence to our Committee.
Before I continue, I draw the House’s attention to the names on motion 36 under “Remaining orders and notices” in today’s Order Book. Motion 36 would set a more limited remit than we originally proposed and determine the Commons membership of the commission on the civil service. The other place indicated last week that it would reciprocate and I can inform the House that the former Lord Justice General of Scotland and the former Deputy President of the Supreme Court, Lord Hope of Craighead, has indicated that he would chair this commission if invited to do so. The names of former Secretaries of State, former Ministers and the clear majority of chairs of Select Committees on our motion, along with the support of the other place, represent a real and powerful cross-party consensus that would give civil service reform the impetus and urgency it needs.
As we consider accountability, trust and leadership at the top of Government, it is important to understand what extraordinary demands we place on Ministers and senior officials. Ministers are accountable to Parliament for the performance of their Departments, like directors to their shareholders, but unlike in almost any other walk of life they have to rely on people they do not appoint and cannot easily remove. In addition, today’s Ministers feel accountable for a system that has become somewhat unaccountable.
PASC has watched the Government’s policy on the civil service evolve. To start with there was much talk about change in Government but no plan for how change would be led and implemented. In our 2011 report “Change in Government: the agenda for leadership”, PASC recommended that the Government should formulate a comprehensive change programme articulating what the civil service is for. The civil service reform plan of 2012 indicates that the experience of Ministers in Government has had an impact on their thinking about the civil service, but it does not meet our recommendation.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
On the urgency of the task, I note that the date for this commission to report is my birthday, which will be a lovely birthday present, and I also note the juxtaposition of that date with the timing of when this House will be dissolved ahead of a general election. Does having this commission reporting just before the House is dissolved meet my hon. Friend’s desire urgently to address this whole issue?
Mr Jenkin
The alternative is that we put it off. Perhaps the commission could finish more quickly, but these are very large and difficult subjects to deal with. The proposal one hears in the corridors of Westminster is that people want to put this off until after the general election. I suggest we cannot wait and I will come on to that point.
The civil service reform plan was published two years later and most Ministers past and present today still agree that getting things done takes far too long and what is often presented to Ministers or implemented is too late or not of sufficient quality. The Minister for the Cabinet Office himself told us there had even been examples of “deliberate obstruction” of ministerial decisions by officials. My right hon. Friend has also described civil servants as:
“Fabulous...Able, bright, energetic, ambitious to change the world.”
I am sure he would agree that no one joins the civil service to block Ministers or Government policy. People join it with the best of intentions and motivations, to serve the country, so why would Ministers feel that those same civil servants are blocking or frustrating their decisions, or not giving truth to power? Why would officials feel that that was the right or only way to act?
We do not need to rehearse examples of recent Whitehall failures, but we do need to ask why they occur and how Whitehall can learn from them. What are the common factors? We all agree that there is too much churn at the top in Whitehall, leading to discontinuity and loss of experience. How did it get like that? Problems such as a lack of key skills and competences are far from new, so we must also ask why, after repeated efforts to reform Whitehall in the conventional way over the past few decades, the same problems persist. The hardest thing to reform in any organisation is people’s attitudes and behaviour, yet there is little reference to attitudes or behaviour in the civil service reform plan, even though they should be the primary consideration.
There has been much attempted reform over the years, focusing on organisation and skills, but those leading change need to understand why people behave as they do. Unless they can change that, the job titles might change, but few will change how they work. Indeed, much of Whitehall is fatigued by reform. Many feel they have done all they can to embrace change but have become cynical and learned how to keep their heads down until the latest initiatives pass by. I think that Ministers refer to that as the “bias to inertia”—a prevalent attitude and a common behaviour that together militate against risk taking and undermine accountability.
When we speak of accountability, it is not simply a question of forcing obedience to ministerial orders so that instructions are carried out more directly, or finding who to blame when things go wrong. Accountability is much more about trust: not just about trusting people to take responsibility for carrying out their tasks and using their judgment, but about those people in turn trusting that the problems they face will be taken seriously, now and in the future, by those to whom they are accountable. Accountability and trust depend on shared understanding—it is a two-way street. Within that framework, people become willing to take responsibility and to be held to account. And when things get difficult and mistakes are made, as always happens, openness and trust become even more essential if there is to be learning and improvement.
This is the only way to improve accountability to Parliament and to citizens, and to avoid repeating mistakes. We need to analyse what accountability feels like in Whitehall today, given today’s intense pressures of the 24/7 media, freedom of information and more active Select Committees, and then to imagine what it should feel like. What, if any, change can be achieved unless we identify what attitudes and behaviour destroy trust? We need to identify those attitudes and develop a plan to change them. We do not have time to wait for attitudes to change. Far too many good people have got fed up with waiting, and they just leave. Also, far too much money is being wasted. As the Institute for Government pointed out this week, the spending challenge in the next Parliament will be much harder than in this one.
Another point on which all four signatories to today’s motion agree is that these challenges cannot be fixed by Whitehall from within. That is not to disparage the present Whitehall leadership. No organisation facing this kind of challenge can change without external analysis that is both independent and, in this case, democratically accountable. The lack of such analysis is the reason other reforms have failed. A sustained change in attitudes and behaviour has to be initiated by a renewed, united and determined leadership of Ministers and officials that encourages mutual understanding and co-operation and is enthusiastic to learn from external scrutiny and analysis.
This will mean Whitehall’s leaders listening and learning to develop new skills. Ministers and officials are so pressed by the immediate economic, political and international issues that they will surely need external support and scrutiny to achieve this. Of course, some will find this difficult to accept, but what is the alternative?
The remit proposed in motion 36, endorsed by the Public Administration Committee and the Liaison Committee, concentrates on the key issues: accountability, trust and leadership. I am pleased that the proposed parliamentary commission commands widespread and respected support. Professor Lord Norton of Louth, a leading constitutional academic, told my Committee that he supports a “full-scale proper review”. The Government’s lead non-executive director, Lord Browne of Madingley, said that such a review is “long overdue”. He also said that
“the biggest single obstacle to progress in government”—
was—
“the question of organisational learning, in particular from experiences of failure.”
He made the key point that
“stories of failure... are the only powerful mechanism for learning.”
Jonathan Powell, the former chief of staff to Tony Blair, told us that without a commission
“we will lose opportunities to be better governed and to get more stuff done”.
We understand why Ministers fear that it could be a distraction from implementing current policies and reform programmes, but without this wider review no civil service reform will be sustained.
Some fear that this review will become too vast a project, but this is not another Fulton committee. Not only was Fulton allowed to take far too long, but the committee was not based in Parliament and so it became divorced from the reality of government, lacked parliamentary authority and had a flawed remit. In a brilliant “Yes Minister” act of sabotage, its remit denied Fulton the right to consider any aspect of the relationship between Ministers and officials. There is no vote on the commission today, but I hope that colleagues on both sides will endorse the view that the proposed parliamentary commission is not just a good idea, but Parliament’s duty. I hope they will join all those already pressing for this to be brought to a vote in the Lobby as soon as possible.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) on bringing this matter forward so determinedly. Indeed, I am glad that the debate will be responded to by a Minister who I know to be a reforming Minister, but we still feel he needs to raise his reforming game from the specific and valuable things that he has been doing to deal with a wider concept of the future of the civil service. We have a civil service with excellent qualities, and I will refer to some of them in a moment, but as the Government themselves have said, we want a
“world-class, 21st Century Civil Service capable of delivering”
future
“Government’s priorities and the best public services.”
When the Public Administration Committee produced its report, the Liaison Committee wanted to support its conclusions but also to bring together several Select Committees’ experience of failings in the system. That led us to question the Prime Minister last September, at one of our thrice-yearly sessions with him, about the civil service. He responded well on specific matters, but I am still not at all convinced that he grasped the fundamental problem that the civil service is now facing very different circumstances, and we need to assess how far it can change the way it does things without losing some of its essential features.
We published a short report that highlighted some of the problem areas, such as the electronic monitoring of offenders, the west coast main line franchise and universal credit, where there had been serious implementation problems. We also gave praise where it was due, for example for the success of the Olympic and Paralympic games organisation. We concluded that there was significant evidence that the civil service is not equipped to support consistent contract management and tends to be driven by short-term pressures rather than long-term value for money for the taxpayer. We were unconvinced that the Government’s civil service reform plan for Whitehall is based on a strategic consideration of the future of the civil service. We gave our support to the idea of a parliamentary commission, jointly involving both Houses.
The Government responded to our report earlier this week and published their response in time for this debate. They deal with all our specific points, but still do not, I think, grasp the overall point. They say
“the Government does not agree that these examples indicate a wider failure, nor suggest that there is any systemic problem of trust and honesty in the critical relationship between Ministers and officials.”
However, the Institute for Government recently published a report saying that there is a “lack of collective leadership” at the centre and that “short-termism” is weakening Whitehall’s ability to plan ahead, while there is
“no co-ordinating…narrative for the Civil Service to lock into”,
and although:
“Leaders of reform report strong Prime Ministerial support for civil service reform in private...this has little visibility within Whitehall.”
The argument that the Prime Minister used was that a parliamentary commission could displace current reform efforts, which are urgently needed. If that view ever had any significance, it does not in the last year of this Parliament, when so many of the Government’s reform initiatives have already been introduced. We ought now to be considering what we can bequeath to the next Parliament. We in the Select Committees inherited a significant bequest as a result of the Wright Committee’s work and, in many ways, we would like the next Parliament to inherit some worthwhile things, including a clear concept of how to develop the civil service to meet modern needs. A joint commission would make that possible.
The other place has a ready supply of former Cabinet Secretaries, people who have run large private and public sector organisations and people who have political experience, who can join with those who have recent and immediate experience in this House in analysing what is needed and making proposals.
Mr Harper
I have studied the motion on the Commons Order Paper and the proposed names of Members of this House. On the point about membership, I was a little worried, given the right hon. Gentleman’s enthusiasm for reform, that he seemed to suggest that the Members of the House of Lords who should serve on the commission would be former Cabinet Secretaries. Is that a way to get reform or to ensure that reform does not happen?
Sir Alan Beith
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concern. My list was much longer than that. It included people with experience in the private sector and—as I was about to say but did not due to the shortage of time—in the armed forces.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mark Harper Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
2. What discussions he has had with the Department of Health and Ministers of the Welsh Government on facilitating access for patients from Wales and English border areas to hospital services in England.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
3. What discussions he has had with the Department of Health and Ministers of the Welsh Government on facilitating access for patients from Wales and English border areas to hospital services in England.
The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)
I recently met the public health Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), and my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) to discuss cross-border health issues. It is essential that we continue to work with the Welsh Government to ensure that patients on both sides of the border have access to the best health services possible.
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend will be keenly aware of this issue; as he says, many of his constituents rely on GPs from Wales. Similarly, Hereford hospital is an important hospital for patients from Wales. I entirely agree that the cross-border protocol needs to be made fit for purpose, and my office and the Department of Health are working closely together to that end.
Mr Harper
The Secretary of State will know—I am very grateful for his support at my recent meeting—that thousands of my constituents are forced to use the NHS in Wales rather than being able to access hospital services in England, as is their legal right. The Health Secretary has said he is going to fix that by the end of the year. In the meantime, is the Secretary of State as concerned as I am that some of the mortality statistics in Welsh hospitals are dangerously high? Has he discussed that in his discussions?
Immigration
Mark Harper Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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The Minister for Immigration (Mr Mark Harper)
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) for moving the motion, and his right hon. Friend—at least for the purposes of this debate—and co-sponsor, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field). I also thank my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green), for the many steps he took to start to put our immigration system in good order. I look forward to continuing that. My right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex referred to the cross-party group on balanced migration, and if I receive an invitation I will do my best to attend to discuss these matters.
This is a Back-Bench debate, so there is not a huge amount of time. I will not, therefore, be able to deal with every question, but I will consider the points made by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead and my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex, and I may well hold discussions with them at a later date.
The Government have been clear on their commitment to bring control to the immigration system. The rate of immigration over the past decade has led to great public anxiety about its impact on transport, jobs, employment, change within our communities and the provision of public services. We have promised to get a grip on the situation, and that is exactly what we will do.
I will reiterate the comments of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead and thank the Backbench Business Committee and those members of the public who signed a petition for giving me an opportunity—just 48 hours into the job—to listen to the concerns of hon. Members and set out some of the Government’s views.
In just over two years following the general election we have reformed every route of entry for non-EEA migrants to the UK. We have increased the level of skill required to come to the UK for work, tackled abuse in the student sector and stopped family migrants who cannot financially support themselves coming to the country. The hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) referred to family links, and our policy is designed to ensure that those who bring family members to the country do not require support from the taxpayer. People should be able to bring family members into the country, but I do not see why they should expect them to be supported by the taxpayer.
Fiona Mactaggart
My point was that the previous rules required people to provide evidence that they did not need support from the taxpayer. The new rules, however, state that they need an income of more than £22,400. Plenty of people in my constituency—about half my constituents—live on an income smaller than that, without recourse to the taxpayer.
Mr Harper
My understanding is that income limits are set because they are linked to qualification levels for various kinds of income-related benefits. That is why limits were introduced and I think that is perfectly sound.
We have also broken the link concerning migrants who come on temporary visas and stay in the country for ever. A work or study visa no longer acts as a route to settlement, and we have made it clear that those on temporary visas are expected to return home.
Many hon. Members have noted that immigration brings significant benefits to the UK—my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex made that clear in his remarks. There are cultural, social and economic benefits and, as the right hon. Member for Birkenhead pointed out, sporting benefits such as those we have seen recently.
The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), with whom I duelled across the Dispatch Box in my previous post, celebrated multicultural Britain and I am therefore confused why he and his party wish to break it up. As he will know, I campaigned strongly in a previous role to keep our United Kingdom together—a wish I believe is generally shared across the House. The United Kingdom is better together, and I fervently hope that the campaign will be successful and that as Immigration Minister I will never have to deploy the UK Border Force along the England-Scotland border. The Government will do their best to keep our country together. The United Kingdom is better together, which the hon. Gentleman suggested when he celebrated it in his contribution. That belief is shared by those in the Chamber, expect perhaps by the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir) sitting next to him. Other hon. Members will, I think, agree with my sentiment.
Pete Wishart
It is almost impossible to break up Britain; I live in the northern part of the island of Great Britain. The Minister knows that Scotland’s immigration requirements are entirely different from those of the rest of the United Kingdom. Will he, unlike previous Immigration Ministers, have a proper look at the issue and please give us a break?
Mr Harper
I will, of course, study the hon. Gentleman’s points carefully, but the conclusion he wishes to reach is different from mine. I want to keep our country together; he wants to break it up.
The public rightly expect the Government to have a robust immigration policy to prevent migrants from coming to the UK and relying on benefits, to stop abuse, and to enforce the removal of those who fail to comply with the rules. Controlling migration is an important factor in keeping the UK’s population growth at a sustainable level. The Government are clear that annual net migration to the UK of hundreds of thousands is not sustainable. With our reforms focused on the best and the brightest migrants to the UK, we anticipate and intend that net migration will fall to the tens of thousands by the end of this Parliament.
In his thoughtful and excellent speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) spoke of striking the right balance between economic growth and gross domestic product per head. We believe that our commitment, which he confirmed he supports, strikes that right balance. I continue to support that commitment, as did my predecessor.
Keith Vaz
I join other hon. Members in welcoming the Minister most warmly to his new post. We look forward to his appearing before the Home Affairs Committee. One point I hope he will take away from this excellent debate—it was made by the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith)—is on management. Will the Minister focus, laser-like, on the operation of the UK Border Agency? It is still troubled, but it is capable of improvement with proper ministerial guidance.
Mr Harper
I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s comments and look forward to appearing before his Committee—I am sure the invitation will be on its way shortly if it is not already. He was not in the Chamber for all of the debate because he was hearing evidence from my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, but I am grateful for his comments. His concerns about the UKBA are well known—I have heard him describe them on a number of occasions. I have already met the chief executive of the UKBA and the head of the UK Border Force, on which I intend to keep a close eye. I come from a private sector background in which I was involved in managing people and have experience of working in a large, complicated organisation. I mean to get immersed in the details and keep a very close track on the UKBA, as I am sure he would expect.
Things are starting to move in the right direction. Recent data from the Office for National Statistics show that net migration is falling—from 252,000 at the end of 2010 to 216,000 at the end of 2011. Visa indicators for the first half of 2012 show that the downward trend is likely to continue. That is a small step in starting to turn the ship around, but we need patience. We have always said that our policy will take the full course of a Parliament to have effect. There is no quick solution. The system we inherited was broken—even the Labour party has accepted that there was a large number of problems in the system the Government inherited—and we need to take some time to turn it around.
I should address a couple of specific points made in the debate. Several hon. Members commented on students and London Metropolitan university. It is important to say that we have taken tough action against the institution, but we have also set up a taskforce to work closely with and support the genuine students to find another institution where they can continue their studies in the UK. It is absolutely right that we support those legitimate students who are here legally, complying with the terms of the basis on which they are here. However, it is also right that we take firm action against institutions that fail to carry out the steps they are supposed to carry out if they are to be trusted sponsors. The public would expect that.
Mr Frank Field
Is there not a difference between the theory of saying that the taskforce will get students into other universities and what will actually happen? One of the great treasures of our system is that universities are so different. It is inconceivable that university B will do a similar course and allow students to pick up the pieces if they transfer to it from university A. Cannot the Minister grasp that being tough on institutions, on which the House agrees with him, is totally different from being tough on legitimate students? We know full well that the bogus students will have disappeared by now and will not be punished. The current policy will punish the innocent.
Mr Harper
I will not give way to the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) because he has not been in the Chamber for the debate. The right hon. Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) and my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) have been here, so I will take their interventions and then conclude, because a very important and well subscribed Backbench Business Committee debate will follow this one.
Mr Andrew Smith
Following the answer to my right hon. Friend’s question just now, will the Minister give an assurance that he will consider lifting the threat of deportation from the bona fide students at London Metropolitan university?
Mr Harper
We have not threatened anyone with anything yet. We have set out the steps we have taken and we will contact all the students involved. I have only been doing this job for 48 hours and I will look at that very closely. I have heard very clearly the points that have been made in the debate.
Mr Brazier
I very much welcome the assurances that my hon. Friend has given for the bona fide students, but does he agree that we could not go on as we were before, with the National Audit Office reporting that, in the first year in which the last Government’s tier 4 arrangements for students were introduced, between 40,000 and 50,000 so-called students came with the intention of working rather than studying?
Mr Harper
I agree with my hon. Friend. We could not go on as we were, and that is why the steps that my hon. Friend the former Minister took were welcome. We need to continue in that light.
I talked about a selective immigration policy. We want the brightest and the best to come to the UK to support economic growth, and we have consulted widely on our reforms with business and the higher education sector. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) referred to the fact that since we introduced the limit on visas, they have been undersubscribed, so we have not prevented a single highly skilled worker from coming to the UK, and we have made the investor and entrepreneur routes more attractive and accessible.
Our aim is to eliminate abuse and focus on high quality, high value sectors. There is no limit on the number of students who can enter the UK to study. Reducing net migration and tackling immigration abuse are completely compatible with continuing to attract the brightest and the best.
Immigration can be beneficial to Britain, but the unsustainable levels we have seen have been damaging. That is why we said that we would get a grip, and we are getting a grip, on immigration. If we complete our work to control net migration properly, we will have a system that is firm but fair, and we will have reassured the public that we have proper control over who comes to and stays in our country.
Individual Electoral Registration
Mark Harper Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
I am announcing today that the Government have placed the implementation plan for individual electoral registration (IER) in the House Library. The plan has also been published on the Cabinet Office website.
The aim of this plan is to explain how the new system will affect citizens and electoral administrators and how this change will be delivered. In particular, it outlines the timetable for the work and how this will be managed alongside other activities electoral administrators will have to carry out over that period. This plan has been developed in consultation with key delivery partners, the Association of Electoral Administrators (AEA), the Electoral Commission (EC) and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE).
We have been working with stakeholders throughout the process of developing our proposals for IER, and have already consulted on the overall policy and the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill, adapting our policy to reflect feedback from Parliament (notably the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, which carried out pre-legislative scrutiny on our proposals), the public, and other stakeholders. We piloted data matching last year with 22 local authorities. We will continue the approach of working with stakeholders throughout the delivery of this change, to ensure that we have assurance that the new service will work effectively on the ground before we go live in 2014.
“Introducing a Statutory Register of Lobbyists” (Summary of Responses)
Mark Harper Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
On 20 January 2012, the Government issued the Cabinet Office’s consultation document “Introducing a Statutory Register of Lobbyists”. The consultation closed on 20 April.
I am pleased to announce that a summary of responses to the Government’s consultation document “Introducing a Statutory Register of Lobbyists”, has been published today, which sets out our next steps in terms of policy development.
Taking into account the evidence—including the recently published report by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee on the Government’s proposals—we will now develop revised policy proposals with the intention of publishing a White Paper and draft Bill during this Session of Parliament. As part of this process, Government officials intend to meet with a number of respondents to make sure that their points have been fully understood and would be open to meeting any other respondents if they request to do so.
This document is available to download at: www.official-documents.gov.uk. Copies have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses and are available in the Vote Office.