Oral Answers to Questions
Michael Fabricant Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. There is far too much noise in the Chamber and it would be good if it would quieten down. I encourage the Secretary of State, whom I am sure wants his answers to be heard, perhaps to speak up a little.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman is always heard; we do not need any more volume from him.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
8. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Education and Ministers of the Welsh Government on facilitating access by primary and secondary school students in Wales to schools in border areas in England.
The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)
Young people in border areas of Wales can apply to attend schools in England, provided they meet the admissions criteria. It is essential that all young people have access to the best possible education and training, regardless of where they live.
Michael Fabricant
We have already heard how the Welsh Labour Government have let people down with the health service, but they are also letting people down on education, with scores from the programme for international student assessment stating that education levels in Wales are lower than in rural areas of Romania. What can my right hon. Friend do to have any influence at all over the Welsh Government, to ensure that school children in Wales get as good an education as they do in England?
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend is entirely right to identify the PISA results, which have declined progressively over the past few years. Indeed, the First Minister acknowledged that he had taken his eye off the ball. We are concerned about that and hope the First Minister is too, and that he will address the situation as quickly as possible.
Oral Answers to Questions
Michael Fabricant Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Maude
One has to admire the gall of the hon. Gentleman, given that the Government of whom he was a supporter relentlessly stuffed public bodies full of Labour donors and Labour lickspittles. It was the most appalling abuse of power. We are running things in a substantially better way, as the statistic I have just disclosed illustrates. Further, I can inform the hon. Gentleman that the number of women appointed to public appointments is now up to 45% for the last period, which is significantly better than anything his Government ever even began to achieve.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
5. What assessment he has made of the level of savings resulting from procurement and commercial reform across central Government since May 2010; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister for Civil Society (Mr Nick Hurd)
Through a range of very overdue commercial and procurement reforms across central Government, the efficiency and reform group set up by the Minister for the Cabinet Office has delivered savings of £3.75 billion in 2010-11, a further £5.5 billion in 2011-12 and an additional £10 billion in 2012-13.
Michael Fabricant
What a shame the Labour party did not do that, and did not mend the roof while the sun was shining. Nevertheless, there are still things that we need to do. My hon. Friend will know that there have been problems at the Ministry of Justice with G4S and Serco. What lessons has he learned from that, to prevent such problems from happening again?
Mr Hurd
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. It is worth reminding the House that the Labour Front Bencher who had the opportunity to realise those savings but failed to deliver them now leads the party. In answer to my hon. Friend’s question, the review that we launched after the Ministry of Justice found irregularities with contracts let under the previous Labour Government underscored the need to strengthen the commercial capability of the civil service, which was long overdue.
Oral Answers to Questions
Michael Fabricant Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
5. If he will discuss with the First Minister the standards of education in Wales and of Welsh jobseekers in England; and if he will make a statement.
The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)
I am concerned that Wales risks being left behind in the employment market. All young people deserve an education system that provides them with the qualifications, skills and training needed to compete successfully in the global jobs market.
Michael Fabricant
You will know, Mr Speaker, that I served on the Committee that dealt with the Welsh Language Act 1993, that my mother is a Welsh language speaker and that I very much support bilingualism in Wales. However, does my right hon. Friend share my surprise that when I was debating the low standard of education in Wales with the Labour First Minister, he admitted that his Government took their “eye off the ball”? A whole generation of Welsh children was betrayed by the Labour Welsh Government.
Mr Jones
The First Minister clearly did take his eye off the ball. The recent programme for international student assessment—PISA—ratings show the extent to which the Welsh educational system is failing. That is because the Welsh Government are pursuing a course that does not mirror the improvements we are making in England, and I very much hope that the new Welsh Minister for Education and Skills will learn from the reforms we are implementing.
Oral Answers to Questions
Michael Fabricant Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Mr Jones
I make no apologies for ensuring that the proposal was properly scrutinised. The package we announced is good for Wales and I am glad that it was welcomed by the Welsh Government, who will have new borrowing powers. The borrowing limit that will apply to those powers will be commensurate with the Welsh Government’s access to independent streams of funding to repay the borrowing they incur. The details will be placed on the face of the draft Bill when it is published.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
If the National Assembly for Wales is going to have borrowing powers, and if it is going to smell like a Parliament and look like a Parliament, is it not time that it became the National Parliament of Wales?
Oral Answers to Questions
Michael Fabricant Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Mr Hurd
I am not going to take any lessons from the party opposite. What we inherited in terms of SMEs participating in public procurement was no ambition and no data. This Government are supplying the ambition and trying to ensure that the data are as good as they can be. We are not taking any lectures from the party that had no ambition and no data.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to support small businesses, but will he look at the systems in which small businesses are sometimes unable to bid? And may I see him after this Question Time to tell him precisely what I mean by that?
Oral Answers to Questions
Michael Fabricant Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Stephen Crabb
I suggest that the hon. Lady looks at the cumulative impact of the range of welfare reforms that we are bringing in. Under universal credit, 200,000 households in Wales will see their entitlement go up by about £140 a month, and a large proportion of the people currently receiving disability living allowance in Wales will also see their entitlement go up. She should not necessarily believe the scaremongering from Opposition Members.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
11. If he will consider proposing an alternative name for the National Assembly for Wales as part of the Government’s response to the Commission on Devolution in Wales; and if he will make a statement.
The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)
The Government have no plans to change the name of the National Assembly for Wales.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
In the light of the Silk review, which is likely to give fundraising powers to the National Assembly, does the Secretary of State not agree with me—and, more importantly, with the leader of the Welsh Conservatives, Andrew R. T. Davies—that now is the time to consider calling it the Welsh Parliament?
Mr Jones
Well, have I got news for my hon. Friend! The Silk commission has not yet completed its work; it will report in the spring of next year. The title “National Assembly” is used by the primary legislatures of countries such as France and South Africa, and also by the regional legislature of Quebec. The issue is what the legislature does, rather than what it is called.
Debate on the Address
Michael Fabricant Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Mrs Gillan
The devil will be in the detail. The truth of the matter is that until recently there was no talk of a paving Bill, yet the project has been on the stocks for four years. It is a little late to discover that we need a paving Bill. Also, some commentators have already been referring to it as a blank cheque, which is not something anybody on the Conservative Benches wants to see.
I, like you, Mr Speaker, and like colleagues and neighbours both inside and outside the Government, and particularly in Buckinghamshire, have serious misgivings about HS2. The project was produced like a rabbit from a hat by the previous Labour Government. It has already blighted the lives of my constituents and will cause irreparable environmental damage to the Chilterns. It does not represent good value for money and will not bring the exaggerated benefits claimed by its promoters. Increasingly, informed commentators and experts have started to cast doubts on the claim that it will heal the so-called north-south divide, and those doubts are growing.
For me, HS2 fails on many fronts. It fails on the business case, which is fundamentally flawed, with a cost-benefit ratio that is eroding so rapidly that it is getting to a level at which it would not be regarded as worth while by any normal criteria. The calculations are based on false assumptions, with the forecasting assuming that all time spent on trains is unproductive. It also fails to take into account modern communications and working practices.
HS2 fails to observe environmental protections. The current plans and route design for phase 1, and the business case, are so conditional on speed that they sweep everything else aside. The route does not even try to stick to existing transport corridors but drives a steel arrow into the heart of the Chiltern hills, which were deemed so precious before now as to have been designated an area of outstanding natural beauty.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will know that phase 1 ends in my constituency and phase 2 begins there. The irony is that although the route to Leeds attempts to use existing transport corridors, because the Government have at least accepted that, the route up to Manchester cannot do so because it ends in Lichfield and we inherited the phase 1 design. The original proposal that the Conservatives supported in opposition would have used existing transport corridors.
Mrs Gillan
My hon. Friend makes a long but valuable intervention, and I know how badly his constituency will be affected. I do not think that anybody in the House, on either side, would expect either him or me to take a different position. It is indeed true that these provisions have been railroaded through—excuse the pun—without looking at the detail or the alternatives.
Mrs Gillan
Yes, I am. Perhaps we will be able to explore that when we discuss the preparation Bill in more detail.
HS2 also fails the integrated transport test. As it currently stands, it does not connect effectively to HS1 or Heathrow, or indeed to any airport in the south-east. The idea that it should be fixed before we have the results of the Davies report on airport capacity in the south-east, which will be in 2015, is quite illogical.
HS2 fails the value-for-money test. The cost, with rolling stock, conservatively stands at £40 billion, and there is no guarantee that phase 2 will ever be built. It will be the largest peacetime spend on an infrastructure project, and let us not kid ourselves: it will run over budget. Each and every MP in this place should imagine just what that money could be spent on to improve their constituents’ lives: hospitals, medical research, schools, broadband, improving existing roads and railways—the list is simply endless.
HS2 fails the fair compensation test. Thousands of people, homes and businesses have already fallen victim to the proposals. In the recent High Court judgment the Government’s compensation consultation was deemed so unfair as to be unlawful. That is pretty shaming. If, despite all efforts, HS2 goes ahead, compensation must adequately—indeed, more than adequately—recompense people whose businesses and homes will be bulldozed along with their lives. I hope, at least, that the property bond will be taken up by the Government. The Department has grossly underestimated the blight that this project has caused and will cause, in order, I think, to reduce the final bill for the Treasury. The Government certainly should not be scrimping on the compensation aspects.
Michael Fabricant
As a brief intervention, I remind my right hon. Friend that the Prime Minister said specifically that compensation would be generous for HS2, and we must hold him to that.
Mrs Gillan
I agree entirely that we should hold him to that, and I hope that he will look even more closely at the proposals that are coming from his Department for Transport.
The seriously misconceived proposals for HS2 are a rail enthusiast’s charter that is attractive to officials in the Department and HS2 Ltd, who, let us face it, see it as guaranteeing their jobs at a time when the civil service is being reduced, and to the industries that expect to benefit from substantial Government funding over the next 25 to 30 years. Advisers are not going to identify other projects that will assist economic renewal because it is just too easy to run with this Labour project. Yet it proposes the highest pace in the smallest place, regardless of damage to the environment and without integration into other modes of transport. By the time it is completed, the business world will have changed dramatically, and this Government will have saddled the country’s taxpayers with another enormous debt and a white elephant. Having just inherited the results of a spendthrift Government, surely we must have learned something.
My constituency lies in metroland, as you well know, Mr Speaker, because it neighbours yours. After reading the history of the railways, one can see that many of the early proposals in the 1800s for constructing new railways suffered from an excess of enthusiasm that led to failure when the commercial realities became apparent. This proposal is no different.
While there is much to be welcomed in the programme announced today, I have to say, regretfully, that unless the preparation and hybrid Bills on HS2 are dropped, for the first time on a Queen’s Speech, I cannot support, with regard to these provisions a Conservative or, in this case, a Conservative-led Government.
The mover of the Loyal Address, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire, reminded us that even Brunel’s projects were late and over budget. However, he also said: “If it is important, and the Government are not listening, just keep trying.” You and I, Mr Speaker, our colleagues in Buckinghamshire, my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant), and many other MPs will just keep trying, and I sincerely hope that my right hon. Friends will rethink this project before it is too late.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin). I understand her point on skills, but I hope she recognises the work the Government have done to introduce so many apprenticeships in the past two years. I might be the only chartered engineer in the House of Commons. I built radio and television stations when I did a real job—I was tempted to say that, but it is perhaps unfair, because MPs work harder than I ever worked when I set up radio and TV stations—so I recognise the importance of skills and the need for engineers.
I applaud many items in the Queen’s Speech. The immigration Bill will provide a lot of satisfaction to many people who fear that this country is a soft touch, to quote the Foreign Secretary when he was leader of the Conservative party: this country should be a safe haven, and not a soft touch. Over the years, we have become a soft touch. Yes, we should be a safe haven for those who seek asylum, and those who are being persecuted. Yes, we lack the skills that we often need, and therefore need to encourage people to come to this country who can give us skills when we do not have them. However, others who come here are perhaps a net drain on our resources. Particularly at this time, we must think twice about that. I therefore welcome the immigration Bill.
As someone who ran a business, I believe that the national insurance contributions Bill will be a real boon. Around a third of all small businesses will find that they do not pay any national insurance, and I hope that will encourage firms to take on new employees.
I hope that the deregulation Bill will work. How many times have I heard Labour and Conservative Governments say that they will cut red tape? That is the point of the deregulation Bill—to reduce the burden of unnecessary legislation on firms by reducing or removing burdens. All I can say is, “Cheers to that”. I hope we succeed in doing just that.
The care Bill is an immensely important measure that will affect around 6 million carers in this country—old people looking after their spouses or youngsters looking after parents or grandparents, who might be disabled for whatever reason. I hope that the care Bill will make a major impact on those who care for others in the UK.
We will also have the antisocial behaviour, crime and policing Bill, and one of the issues that has concerned me and many other hon. Members is that of people who own dangerous dogs. We have had some terrible cases of late in which young children have been savaged by dogs that have not been properly trained, or have even been trained to be aggressive. The Bill is meant to tackle that problem.
I may not totally agree with some of my coalition colleagues, who have wisely escaped the Chamber at the moment, on the communication data Bill. There is no doubt that the use of BlackBerry messaging and other forms of cyber-communication has assisted terrorism and crime. Provided that the Government—as they intend—put in place safeguards to ensure that innocent people do not have all their e-mail traffic hacked, that has to be good news as it will protect the vulnerable and people who are honourable and honest.
I particularly welcome the mesothelioma Bill. So many people suffer from asbestos poisoning but are unable to claim from companies because it is unclear where they had the exposure to asbestos. The Bill will see that, at long last, justice will be done and the Government are to be applauded for that.
The Queen’s Speech also included the High Speed 2 Bill—in fact, there will be two Bills. I generally support the paving Bill, because it will make funds available to compensate people who are now suffering from blight. But the main Bill will be a hybrid Bill and I suspect it will reach Third Reading only after the next general election. That Bill will determine how and where HS2 will be constructed.
HS2, as formulated, is causing an unnatural disaster in Staffordshire, and terrible problems in other counties—such as yours, Mr Speaker. It almost seems that the route of HS2 has been deliberately designed to be as damaging as possible to rural England. That cannot be right. I am not one of those who oppose HS2 in principle, for the simple reason that the west coast main line—as anybody who uses it will know—is the most congested line in Europe. Anyone who has waited at Euston railway station knows that the slightest problem—whether it be signal failure, a fault on the line or a broken down train—will cause delays of three to five hours. At least at Euston station one is under cover. At Lichfield Trent Valley station we do not have cover, so unless one is under the railway bridge one is exposed to rain and everything else while waiting for a train. The west coast main line is working at 100% capacity. I therefore accept that we need two extra railway lines to connect north and south.
I have to say that the Government did themselves no favours in 2010 when they argued that the reason for HS2 was to shave five minutes off the journey from Birmingham to London. That is not the reason for HS2. They did themselves no favours when they argued that time on a train is dead time and valueless. A very senior person in the Department for Transport—I dare not mention his name—said to me two or three weeks ago, “Michael, I see people on trains working on computers. Myself, I just stare out of the window and look at the cows.” The point is that even that activity is valuable time. No, the reason for HS2 is the north-south capacity problem on the west coast main line. I therefore accept the principle that we need HS2, but boy could it have been done in a worse way than how it is now being done? No, it could not.
We have chosen a route that carves a devastating line through some of Britain’s most beautiful countryside. The biggest irony of all is that in opposition we opposed the Labour route, and the Labour route is the one we have adopted. In opposition we said that we should adopt the route that the consulting engineers Arup proposed, which would use an existing transport corridor as they do in Europe. It would go up either the M1 or the M40 and then follow the line of the M6 and go into central Birmingham that way and northwards. But no, we adopted the Adonis plan. By the most wonderful trick of irony that we sometimes see in politics in this place, I believe that it is now official Labour party policy to use that route we supported in opposition. The Opposition policy, whether Labour or Conservative, is the route that I support. Why? It is not because I am being a nimby, but simply because it will do far less damage to the environment. Thousands of homes are blighted by the route that HS2 is currently taking.
The Prime Minister has said—I mentioned it earlier when I intervened on my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan)—that the Government will be generous in their compensation. They have to be and they should be, and we must hold the Prime Minister to account.
Michael Fabricant
I am very happy to give way to my hon. Friend, my next-door neighbour from Tamworth.
Christopher Pincher
I am obliged to my hon. Friend, who is my next-door neighbour in Lichfield. He is right to say that the Prime Minister has said that the compensation scheme must be generous. Does he agree that it must also be swift? We both have constituents—as do you, Mr Speaker—whose homes and lives are blighted now. As much as the scheme needs to be generous, it needs to be swift to deliver fairness for them.
Michael Fabricant
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Their homes are not just blighted now—they have been blighted for three years, even since this God-forsaken route was published. I know elderly people who want to downsize, but cannot sell their homes. They are now, one might say, asset rich, but very cash poor. They cannot afford the homes they live in as they are retired, and they cannot sell them because they are blighted. It is essential that the Government are generous and swift in their compensation. I welcome the paving Bill, because it will, I hope, enable swift compensation. The Government are currently conducting a compensation consultation on phase 2. I do not know whether you responded to the phase 1 consultation, Mr Speaker, but I did. It was very tightly worded to such a degree that in the end I began to ignore the questions being asked, because I thought they were completely wrong. The phase 2 consultation has been formulated much more openly and satisfactorily.
I have been trying to find out from the Department for Transport whether, when it finally reaches a conclusion on the phase 1 and phase 2 compensation consultations, the compensation packages will be the same. I certainly hope that they will be, because it would be grossly unfair if people living south of Lichfield were treated differently. Incidentally, I am in a unique position because phase 1 ends in the Lichfield constituency and phase 2 begins there. A former chairman of the Conservative party, now chairman of the BBC, might have described that as a double whammy.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) pointed out, this route is blighting homes, it is blighting lives, and it is blighting the environment. The HS2 policy, as it stands, is not a Conservative policy in the pure, theoretical sense of what conservatism is all about. We need to think carefully not about whether we need HS2, but about how we should execute the project. Otherwise, many people will think that in adopting Labour’s route, proposed by Lord Adonis, the Government have betrayed the vote that they cast in 2010.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
It is always interesting to listen to the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant). I can only imagine what it would be like if he really disagreed with the Government: the vehemence of his attack would be something to behold. He made some good points about the impact of the HS2 project and the need to speed it up, as did his neighbour the hon. Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher). Speeding up the construction would help the economy, and the blight point was also well made. I live very near to the route of HS1, and that will drag on and on. One of the lessons of HS1 that should be applied to HS2 is the need to deal with blight as speedily as possible.
This feels a bit like speaking in an Adjournment debate. Indeed, I have seen more Members present in the Chamber during Adjournment debates. That may be an indication of the thinness of the fare before us, which may be more worthy of an Adjournment debate. Perhaps that says it all.
I want to discuss the way in which the Queen’s Speech will affect my constituents, and mention some of the proposals that it might have contained which would have affected them far more. Before I do so, however, let me say that I heard the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) come out with the usual Government line about politicians racking up debt around the world. He mentioned his business background and referred to the need for not just cost-cutting but top-line investment. However, he conveniently neglected to mention the role of the banks around the world in contributing to the financial crisis, and the fact that they lent money to people who could not repay it.
The business analogy illustrates the importance of investment. Without investment, business cannot succeed. Similarly, it is the Government’s role to invest in economies, because that is what Governments are there for. When things are tough and there is no one else to invest to stimulate the economy, Governments should step in. The Queen’s Speech did refer to the creation of jobs and growth, but there was precious little to back that up and explain how it would happen.
Let me say something about the Government-backed mortgage scheme, which, it is said, is designed to help people to own their own homes. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin) accurately described the current state of the housing market and the problems that exist not just in her constituency, but all over the country. She spoke of the lack of affordable housing, social housing to rent, and low-cost housing to part-rent-part-buy or to buy outright. Developers want to build the most expensive housing they can, because, of course, they want to make as much money as possible. It is no coincidence that over the years about 2 million houses have been sold under the right to buy and we have a shortage of about 2 million affordable homes. We unquestionably have a housing shortage, and according to the Homes and Communities Agency, affordable housing starts collapsed by 68% in the financial year 2011-12. We have seen an increase in homelessness and rough-sleeping, which is particularly affecting families and children.
A proposal that is designed to underwrite mortgages will help the wealthy because it is for new-builds and more expensive housing, but will it help the housing shortage? If it is designed to help the poorest and tackle the shortage of social housing by moving the market further up, is not that use of Government-backed mortgages one of the reasons why we ended up in a financial crisis in the first place? We all remember Northern Rock and 125% mortgages in this country. It is not just me who says this. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North quoted a number of sources, including the Treasury Committee, commenting on the danger of inflating the housing bubble again and the danger of leaving people, at all levels in the housing market, sooner or later unable to pay, with all the consequences of that, which are still going through the financial system now.
Rising prices are another consequence of having a limited supply of housing, which can put housing out of reach for many, or put people into a false, unaffordable state of ownership. On 20 March, The Daily Telegraph said:
“Given the over-dependence of the British economy on the housing market, it is hardly surprising that Mr Osborne has looked in this direction for salvation. But we question whether it is sensible for the state to enter into the mortgage market in this way. It will do nothing to rebalance the economy, and risks stoking another housing bubble. In addition, even though interest rates will probably remain low, it is dangerous to encourage people to buy who might be vulnerable to an increase in lending costs and negative equity.”
As my hon. Friends have said, there is a housing problem and we need to build affordable homes. We must consider the impact building homes would have on the construction sector, the economy and jobs. There is also a lack of investment in the existing stock of empty homes, which the construction industry is keen to see addressed, hence the calls for a cut in VAT on renovation of property to 5%.
The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy) mentioned the International Monetary Fund visit, and IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard said:
“We said that if things look bad at the beginning of 2013—which they do—then there should be a reassessment of fiscal policy. We still believe that. You have a budget coming in March and we think that would be a good time to take stock and make some adjustments.”
The Budget did not do that. We did not see the kind of moves on housing that I have just described, and we have not seen that in today’s announced measures either.
Sadly, the Chancellor chose to ignore the advice and plough on regardless, and no doubt he will stick to that when he meets the IMF this week. I heard calls for him to ignore any advice from the IMF and to carry on regardless, but for my constituents that would mean more austerity. It would mean more pain for hard-working families, for disabled people and for those desperately trying to find work where only zero-hour or part-time, low-paid jobs are on offer.
There was no vision in today’s announcements for the long-term either. There was no suggestion of how the economy might grow so that public borrowing could finally be reduced, and there was no answer to the question of why the Chancellor said the credit rating was the most important factor on which he should be judged. Many Government Members want deeper spending cuts, but just a few weeks ago thousands of people earning more than £150,000 a year, including many millionaires, were given what their friends in government had promised them, which amounted to £100,000 each year to anyone earning £1 million a year.
At the same time, our constituents paid for that through the bedroom tax and in cuts in support for those in work and those looking for work. While the wealthiest in our society have enjoyed the benefits of a handout from the Chancellor, millions of people are wondering how to pay the bills, put food on the table and heat their homes. It is no surprise that 350,000 people are using food banks, according to the latest figures from the Trussell Trust—and that is before the bedroom tax, the council tax localisation scheme and other attacks on the poorest have really started to bite. At least 30% of those in social housing will be affected by the bedroom tax, and offering discretionary payments is simply not good enough. The housing associations and local authorities in my area have already found that that money does not go anywhere near far enough. People are facing real hardship, and the measure has only just been introduced.
Two of my constituents have told me of their circumstances. A man who has been disabled for 12 years was recently declared fit for work in his work capability assessment, despite having a degenerative disease. He is appealing, but while he does so he loses £25 a week; at the same time, the bedroom tax on his spare room is £14.71 a week and he has to pay £34 in council tax that he has not had to find before, because the council tax benefit is not at the same level it was before last month’s reforms. It all adds up to more than £200 a month for a disabled man who is unable to work and his family. We have heard from other Members about the difficulty disabled people have in finding work—they genuinely want to work, but there are not the jobs for them, and when they go to interview people will not take them on.
The other constituent is a lady who has spina bifida. She passed her work capability assessment, but one question a medically trained member of the Atos staff asked was, “How long have you had this condition?” The idea that someone who is medically trained did not understand what spina bifida was, or its consequences, is deeply troubling for everyone. That sums up some of the problems that people face. My constituent also now has to pay council tax for the first time. She used to work, but when she goes for an interview now people take one look at her and say, “No, I’m sorry, we can’t employ you”, because they assume that it will be difficult for someone with spina bifida to do the work that she has applied for, although she is extremely well qualified. She has no choice but to pay the extra money in council tax, if she can find the money from somewhere. I keep meeting people who have been disadvantaged by the benefit changes. At the same time, we see people at the top doing very nicely out of some of the changes the Government have introduced. Nothing in today’s announcements was encouraging for people looking for work and people who are disabled—people who desperately want to work.
We have heard about the attacks on the people in most need, but a number of colleagues have also mentioned the necessity of support for business. Where is the support for manufacturing to help our flatlining economy and our businesses and to create the full-time, well-paid jobs that people need? Why was there not an announcement about a national investment bank and the regional banks to go alongside it—the kind of support that is needed, which we could have done with desperately many years ago?
Some measures have helped the economy in my constituency. When the Government took office in 2010, however, they scrapped Building Schools for the Future, and that had a profound effect up and down the country. With school building programmes not going ahead, the construction industry and the economy as a whole were hugely affected. One school in my constituency, Aintree Davenhill, was in the primary capital programme. The children at that school used to have lessons in disused aircraft hangars made of corrugated iron. As one can imagine, it was boiling hot in summer and freezing cold in winter, and it certainly was not an ideal teaching and learning environment. The previous Government had approved funding, but whereas phase 1—the infants part of the school—had been completed, phase 2 had not been. When the current Government came into office, they stopped the funding for phase 2. Fortunately, Sefton council, which had sufficient capital in reserve for a primary school, stepped in to fund the rest of the project. I was lucky enough to go to the opening two weeks ago of the brand new school, which is a fantastic tribute to everybody who has worked on the project.
Investment in a primary school, however, makes only a very small contribution to the economy. Much more investment was needed, because the construction industry has wound down, hundreds of thousands of construction workers have been laid off, and businesses have closed. It will take time for any announcements now about construction to build the industry back up.
Another project that I am pleased to see in my constituency is the building of the Thornton relief road. It is a £30 million project. It was first proposed in 1934, and I have mentioned it many times in this Chamber since being elected. The building of the road was finally achieved by a combination of Government and local government funding, but it should have been approved three years ago. The previous Government had given the green light to the scheme, but it was also cancelled, and three years of lack of investment and economic stimulus resulted, as with the cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future programme.
We need urgency from the Government, and we did not see that today. The hon. Member for Lichfield mentioned the High Speed 2 project, and he is right that it will make a huge contribution to the economy, but if it is delayed for many years, we will not see the economic benefits now when they are most needed.
Michael Fabricant
I forgot to mention that the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce Group has said that one good thing that can come out of HS2 is the construction of lines and carriages, providing that that work goes to British companies. I will be asking the Department for Transport to ensure that it does.
Bill Esterson
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for mentioning the importance of using British manufacturing companies for projects in this country. I will mention Bombardier, and the cancellation of the project at the Derby works—a project that went to Siemens—as an example of where our policy was wrong. We must get that sort of thing right—
Bill Esterson
I am glad that that the hon. Gentleman is nodding. German contracts are let to German companies—there are ways of writing contracts that favour them, and this country must get better at that in relation to our companies.
I mentioned the construction sector and two projects in my constituency. This country should ensure that the supply chain supports local subcontractors and local labour, and that should be written into contracts far more often.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant). I agree with my hon. Friend’s reservations about High Speed 2, and if just a fraction—even the tiniest fraction—of the investment in HS2 were invested in cycling infrastructure, it could transform the lives of millions of people across the UK. I am a south-west MP and in that region we feel that we could have benefited from a small percentage of that investment in HS2 being invested in electrification of the line down to the south-west, preventing it from being completely cut off every time that it rains heavily.
Dr Wollaston
Yes, indeed. They say in the south-west that if one can see across the valley, it is about to rain, and if one cannot see across the valley, it is raining already.
Having expressed those reservations about HS2, I welcome almost everything else within the Gracious Speech. My principal point is about the draft care and support Bill. To see that Bill finally being introduced in this Session of Parliament is very welcome. I remember well the shock and horror of many of my former patients when they realised that if they had assets above the threshold of £23,250, they would receive absolutely no support with their care needs. We know that one in 10 families face losing more than £100,000 of their income just to care for a relative, and that very many people end up having to sell their homes to pay for their care needs. So, such a massive increase in the asset threshold and a cap on lifetime costs is very welcome, particularly because those measures will encourage people to come forward at an earlier stage to seek the help that they need. In turn, that will help to reduce unnecessary admissions as well as helping people to remain as independent as possible for as long as possible.
Of course, the Bill will introduce support and proper assessments for carers, not only for adult and elderly carers but for child carers, who suffer and are robbed of so much of their youth as a result of their caring responsibilities. I am looking forward to seeing the detail in the Bill, and I very much enjoyed being part of the Joint Committee on the draft Bill that made recommendations to the Government; I hope that many of those recommendations will be included in the Bill when it is placed before Parliament.
I also particularly welcome the fact that there will be compensation for the victims of mesothelioma who cannot trace an employer and for those whose employer has gone out of business, or who do not have any insurance. It is particularly cruel that they receive no access to any compensation, despite mesothelioma being almost entirely attributable to asbestos exposure. But, and this is a big but, how ironic that while providing fairness and support for one type of lung cancer we are failing in this Queen’s Speech to address preventing a far more common type of lung cancer—failing to address how we are going to stop the next generation of smokers coming on stream. We should bear in mind that every year 200,000 children take up smoking. Those children will be at risk of going on to face a lifetime of problems. We know that 100,000 people a year at least are dying as a result of smoking-related problems. The failure to take forward plain packaging is a huge missed opportunity.
I want to clarify one thing: there is nothing plain about so-called plain packaging. I would encourage everyone to google what plain packaging looks like. Plain packaging sets out very clearly what is involved. It sets out the disease and suffering that people will face if they do not address their smoking. My experience as a doctor was not so much that people feared the thought of death, but that they most feared the process of dying. The process of dying from many smoking-related illnesses is hideous. We are not just talking about lung cancer. We are talking about, for many people, the years spent in a kind of living death, tied to an oxygen cylinder, suffering from end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and many other conditions; or the suffering that comes from needlessly losing a leg from arterial disease. Smoking is a leading cause of blindness. There are many effects of smoking—all entirely preventable. So-called plain packs spell that out graphically, and to anyone who hands around such a pack, it is quite beyond a simple public health message. It is a very graphic message.
Oral Answers to Questions
Michael Fabricant Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
1. What estimate he has made of the potential savings to the public purse from the digitisation of public services; and if he will make a statement.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
2. What estimate he has made of the potential savings to the public purse from the digitisation of public services; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Hurd)
By introducing new digital services and redesigning old ones, we expect to save the taxpayer and service users around £1.2 billion by 2015, and at least £1.7 billion a year thereafter. Of course, that is not just about saving money; it is also about the opportunity to change totally the way the public engage with the Government and radically improve that experience.
Michael Fabricant
What services does the Minister see being digitised in the near future, when does he think that will happen, and how will we get people who do not have experience of computers using those new services?
Mr Hurd
We are reviewing more than 600 central Government transactions. My hon. Friend will be aware that seven Departments are responsible for around 90% of those. Those Departments have committed to redesigning three significant series each, all the details of which are in their departmental digital strategies. This is a live process, and the Student Loans Company went live in October. He is entirely right to remind us that no one should be excluded from the process, which is why the Government remain committed to an assisted digital service.
Oral Answers to Questions
Michael Fabricant Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Stephen Crabb
I am aware that in certain parts of Wales there are specific issues concerning the reception of digital television, and that some communities cannot receive the full suite of digital channels that most people receive. I understand that most of those problems are relatively straightforward to sort out, but where there are persistent problems I will be more than happy to meet the hon. Lady and Digital UK, and possibly Ofcom, which may be more appropriate in that respect,
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
My hon. Friend will be aware that the reason for the digital switch-off was the sell-off of analogue frequencies for 4G. Does that mean that there will be adequate 4G coverage in north-east Wales—and elsewhere—when 3G services are superseded?
Mr Speaker
For the time being we need not preoccupy ourselves with elsewhere, merely with north-east Wales.
European Council
Michael Fabricant Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend asks a good question. Because of the success of the European Central Bank in calming the markets, there is perhaps less pressure on the eurozone countries to take the steps that many analysts believe they need to take. The reason why I think it will take time is that these are difficult issues for sovereign countries. As I have said, one issue that was discussed only in outline form at the Council was the idea of contracts between Governments and the European Commission. I do not know how such contracts will go down in other European countries, but I suspect that they would go down rather badly if we proposed them here. These are difficult issues that it will take time to discuss. We need to think about that as we calibrate our response.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
Anders Borg, the Swedish Finance Minister, said that when the financial transaction tax was introduced in Sweden,
“between 90%-99% of traders in bonds, equities and derivatives moved out of Stockholm to London”.
What steps has the Prime Minister taken to ensure that we do not find that such a tax is imposed in the UK, which is what the Labour party wants, and that our traders do not all go to New York and Zurich?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Anders Borg is an excellent Finance Minister. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and I work very closely with him. I believe that if a financial transactions tax is not introduced simultaneously around the world, the transactions will just go to the lowest-cost destinations. That is why it is totally self-defeating. The European Commission’s own piece of work on such a tax showed that it would cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and millions of pounds of revenue, not just in the UK, which has a large financial services industry, but in the rest of Europe.