Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Bill

Debate between Oliver Dowden and Clive Lewis

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 3rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I do not think anyone is suggesting that police officers are actively seeking to treat mental health patients in an incorrect fashion, but there is a need for training so that they understand the correct way to behave.

[Clive Lewis]

We on the Opposition Benches do not think that this is only about the money that is going in now. If we look at the figures, we can see that there has been an increase in recent years, but the fact is that the years of cuts that went before have had an impact on staffing levels. In my trust, the Norfolk and Suffolk mental health trust, we have seen a 20% drop in the number of doctors and nurses on the payroll in the past five years. We can train up a lower number of doctors and nurses in restraint techniques, but the fewer there are, the more risk there will be of a need to restrain. We cannot get away from that fact.

[Oliver Dowden]

I am not sure that I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Of course there have been historical problems with the funding of mental health. I hope that Opposition Members will recognise, as we do on the Government Benches, that over the decades there has not been enough funding going into that area. On the question of the NHS, however, despite this Government inheriting the largest budget deficit in our peacetime history and an appalling fiscal situation in which we were spending £4 for every £3 we earned, we made a decision to prioritise health. Health spending has risen every year under this Government and we are committed to implementing Simon Stevens’ recommendations. He, after all, was a Labour special adviser who advised this Government, and he recommended £8 billion of additional funding. I am very pleased that we have been able to do that.

Energy BILL [ Lords ] (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Oliver Dowden and Clive Lewis

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

rose—

[Clive Lewis]

I will make some progress through the list before giving way. The Government are attempting to sell off the Green Investment Bank and have baled out of their manifesto commitment by cutting £1 billion from carbon capture and storage. The list goes on. The early closure of the renewables obligations is the next chapter in the long, sorry list that I have just read out.

[Oliver Dowden]

The hon. Gentleman missed out a few things from his list—for example, the fact that 98% of solar panels were introduced under this Government; or that wind power, which has trebled under this Government, is set to increase by another 50%; or that we are on course to meet our 30% renewables target; or that we have doubled investment in renewables. Perhaps the next time he reads out his list he can add those further points to provide some balance.

[Clive Lewis]

I will come back to that point. Let us have a look at the renewable energy country attractiveness index, which saw a major reshuffling of the 10 most attractive countries for renewable energy potential and growth. One of the biggest losers was the United Kingdom, which dropped out of the top 10 for the first time since the information was published back in 20013. It was specifically because

“a wave of policy announcements reducing or removing various forms of support for renewable energy projects has left investors and consumers baffled”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Clive Lewis]

I will come back to that. I am informed that it relates to climate change commitments, not the renewables that this Government and the previous coalition Government have invested in, or as my list just demonstrated, have been cutting left, right and centre. But let me give you a counter-quote from Neil Woodford, head of Equity Income, one of the best performing funds. In December 2014, he said:

“The electricity industry has for too long been the victim of a misguided, short-term and politically inspired policy mess. The Government has to be held to account for its policy decisions. As long as it (and its predecessors) believes that it can arbitrarily move goal posts in this way, without appropriate economic justification, the more likely it will be that the industry will continue to shun the necessary investment in electricity generation infrastructure that the economy so clearly needs.”

[Oliver Dowden]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Clive Lewis]

I will push on. I have a few more of those chocolate sweets I might give away. If successful, the Government will be going back on their own legislation and closing the renewables obligation for onshore wind a year earlier on 1 April 2016, a date that will not be lost on any hon. Members here. If successful, the Government will have adversely singled out the most cost-effective, low-carbon technology available to us, at a time when the Secretary of State herself admits that the UK is on track to miss its legally blinding EU obligation on renewable energy by an estimated 50 TWh hours, a shortfall of almost 25%.

The Government’s answer is ever more reliance on the EU emissions trading scheme—a scheme, as we have already heard while discussing clause 80, we need less reliance on in coming years, if we are to attain the most cost-effective pathway to our carbon budget commitments. So why is there an almost obsessive compulsion to attack one of the country’s most successful renewable forms of energy?

The only answer I can glean from the debate so far is that it boils down to a few ambiguous lines in the Tory party manifesto which it is fair to question. It says:

“We will end any new public subsidy for onshore wind.”

First, these are not public subsidies. Strictly speaking, the payments come out of bills, not the public purse. While the word “new” is also open to a broad interpretation, let us not forget that this is an existing, not a new subsidy—a subsidy that was already closing as part of the Energy Act 2013.

The Minister will also be aware of the huge amount of consensus and engagement with industry, proper consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny, that arrived at the 2017 wind-up day for the renewables obligation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Clive Lewis]

I will come to the point about the cost to billpayers later in my speech. Even with the retrospective grace period the Government have announced, many renewables companies will be adversely affected. Michael Rieley, senior policy manager for Scottish Renewables, said:

“However, many of our members will be bitterly disappointed that ministers are not going to allow projects which have submitted planning applications to be given a grace period.”

More importantly, as I have mentioned already, this retrospective chop-and-change approach by Government is damaging investor confidence in the wider energy sector.

[Oliver Dowden]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way to another East Anglian MP? [Interruption.] I do not agree with the designation but people at a higher pay grade have determined that.

[Clive Lewis]

I will give way.

[Oliver Dowden]

The hon. Gentleman talks about the poor investment record, and says that companies are being put off investment. Can he confirm that nearly £52 billion has been invested in renewables since 2010 when the Conservatives first came to power?