Children’s Homes

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Gillan. First, I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) for securing this important debate this afternoon. She is probably the most knowledgeable MP in the House on this issue. As she said, she spoke on this issue in the House more than 21 years ago, and it could be quite frustrating for her that 21 years later she is still raising some of those same issues. It shows her tenacity that she has not given up and, hopefully, we might see some movement this afternoon. We live in hope.

We have heard thoughtful contributions this afternoon from the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), from my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk), and from the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) who is a Front-Bench spokesperson for the Scottish National party. We have had very thoughtful contributions. Debates are sometimes disappointing. I was in the debate on brain tumours yesterday and there was standing room only. I would not like to think that this debate is any less important than one that needs to have large numbers of people contributing, but let us hope that in our contributions today the quality will outweigh the quantity. I also thank the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) for her interventions.

What comes across very clearly is that we are sending a message to Sir Martin Narey—the hon. Member for Telford mentioned him—before the publication of his review that we hope to see reforms that will support and improve the lives of looked-after children in residential care. This debate has been on the wider aspects of the Narey review, but there are two areas that I wish to touch on this afternoon: out-of-area placements, as described by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, and the criminalisation of looked-after children.

Ever since the passing of the Children Act 1989, there has been a strong statutory duty on local authorities to place a child who enters the care system in the local authority area and ensure that their needs are met. However, guidance released by the Department last summer stated:

“There will be circumstances where a distant placement will be the most suitable for a child”.

Since then, there has been a clear trajectory in Government thinking that has raised the many concerns eloquently highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport. It is important that children receive the best care possible and, in certain circumstances, that may mean that an out-of-area placement is necessary to meet their needs. However, there is no conclusive evidence to support that strategy becoming wider practice. That is why the evidence that was used to come to the Government’s conclusion must be clarified.

Until out-of-area placements’ effectiveness is made clearer, it is important that they do not become the norm, yet when we see more and more children living more than 20 miles away from what they define as their home—their local area—it is not hard to believe that this is now becoming common practice. Recent Department for Education figures show that since 2010 we have seen an increase of over 20% in the number of children placed out of area, which now totals 17.9% of looked-after children. We need to unpick why that is happening, and I hope that the Minister will clarify what is going on in his response to this debate.

We know it is not the case that all local authorities have a children’s home within their boundaries. Many are based, as we have heard, in the west midlands, the south-east and north-west. This is an issue of infrastructure, and I hope that that will be addressed in Sir Martin Narey’s review.

One example of how care homes work, which I believe should be considered by the Government, is the Scandinavian and Germanic model of residential care, with smaller children’s homes with highly educated social pedagogues in charge. This idea of social pedagogy was backed by the “Care Matters” White Paper in 2007, which finally took it out of the confines of academic discourse and brought it into practical policy development. It included a recommendation to pilot a model in England to gather more evidence. A pilot was commissioned by the Social Education Trust and managed by the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care, a specialist unit under the watchful eye of the National Children’s Bureau.

Reviews of the pilots found that residential care staff welcomed the holistic and child-centred approach that social pedagogy could have on real change to the lives of children in residential care. The idea was backed as a valuable way to work in our residential care homes by the then Department for Children, Schools and Families in its looked-after children report in 2009. However, we have unfortunately seen this important step forward put on the back burner since the Government came to office in 2010. I am therefore interested to hear what assessment the DFE has made of how much this would cost and whether it is feasible for the UK. It is clear that the model is working in other countries, and it was welcomed here during the pilots, so an assurance by the Minister to look into this further, as the previous Labour Government had done, would be welcome.

For some children, residential care is the best option to meet their needs, but what is best for children is being in an environment that they know. To rip them away from some of the only constants in their life, including their school place and links to positive support from family—let us remember that not all family members of a looked-after child are irresponsible—can be damaging. In addition, reduced access to social workers and other support services that they have grown accustomed to can be damaging.

It is also concerning when the private sector gets involved and fails to market the services correctly. In a recent case, a looked-after child was moved from Oxfordshire to an expensive placement in Wales, and sadly committed suicide shortly after arriving. The serious case review investigation identified the fact that the quality of the provision on offer was not what had been marketed at all.

Although removing a child from influences such as gang violence or sexual exploitation is honourable and necessary, there is a need to support a child to manage risks and build personal resilience in their home area, especially when many of them return there once they have left a children’s home. Can we blame them? It is the place they know best, where friends and family are, and we all have that homing instinct within us, after all. The Challenging Behaviour Foundation recently came out strongly against out-of-area placements, and it has lobbied for more investment in local communities and areas. That included making the case for renting a home in a child’s local area and supplying staff for children on a one-to-one basis, which is not dissimilar to the Scandinavian model that I mentioned earlier.

Many serious questions about out-of-area placements arise, including the involvement of private companies in the system, which must be addressed urgently by the Government. There is no better time, especially with the review pending, for the Government to take the bull by the horns and make significant strides in reforming the provision on offer to looked-after children. I hope that the Government anticipate that all the issues I have mentioned will be addressed in Sir Martin’s review. However, I hope that another area, which has recently been brought into the public debate, will be considered: the criminalisation of children in residential care.

Recently, the Howard League for Penal Reform released data that showed there had been more than 10,000 police call-outs to residential settings. That is more than two for every child in residential care, and many of the call-outs concerned the most minor of incidents. An excellent report from the Standing Committee for Youth Justice, by Claire Sands, entitled “Growing Up, Moving On”, deals with the long-term effect of even minor offences becoming a criminal record that is never wiped clean. The criminalising of children in residential care is deeply concerning for children who are negatively labelled in many ways before they reach adulthood. If we add “criminal” to that list, we are burdening them further with a label that will impede any life chances that may come their way as they move into adulthood. There are some pertinent examples in “Growing Up, Moving On”, which I encourage hon. Members and the Minister to refer to. I hope that the Government are considering that issue seriously and that they will provide strong guidance to residential care homes to prevent further damage to the lives of children and young people by the very system that is trying to help and care for them.

We all want children, no matter what their background, to have the best start in life. That belief should be central to any reforms that affect the lives of children, and I hope that the Government will not squander the opportunity presented by Sir Martin’s review to take significant steps towards achieving that. I look forward to reading the review when it is published, and will continue to press the Government to keep the improvement of looked-after children’s lives at the heart of everything they do, ensuring that they are protected and nurtured and live a happy childhood, just like their peers.

Teenage Pregnancy: Regional Variations

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

It is an honour, as ever, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I thank the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) for securing this debate, which allows us to acknowledge the achievements made in addressing teenage pregnancy rates and to recognise that there is still a lot more to do, as she did so eloquently in her speech. I also want to acknowledge the excellent contributions of the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), who brought important perspectives from Northern Ireland and Scotland respectively.

Research shows that 61% of children born to teenage mothers are at a higher risk of infant mortality and that, by the age of 30, teenage mothers are 22% more likely to be living in poverty than those who gave birth at the age of 24 or over. I know that that is not universal, but those are the statistics. The fact that 21% of women aged between 16 and 18 who are not in education, employment or training are teenage mothers shows that teenage pregnancy is not only a cause but a consequence of the educational and health inequalities in our society. That is why we cannot sit by and ignore this situation, especially given that we still lag behind western Europe on our teenage pregnancy rate. Although it was welcome news that England last month achieved the long-held target of a 50% reduction—it actually achieved 51%—in the under-18 conception rate between 1998 and 2014, this is no time to be complacent. We must ensure that the positive work that has been done does not go to waste and that the trends do not flatline or worsen.

Although the overall rate has gone down for England, there are still wide-ranging variations—not just between regions but within them. For example, my own local authority, Sunderland City Council, has seen a 45% drop in the conception rate. However, just down the road, Stockton-on-Tees, in the same region, has seen only a 29% decrease between 1998 and 2014. That trend is replicated in all regions, with varying gaps and differences in the conception rate. A lot of that can be put down to local variations and the way in which the 10-year strategy, which was introduced by the previous Labour Government in 1999, was implemented by local authorities.

The strategy was informed by international evidence. A 30-point plan was launched to halve the under-18 conception rate and to improve the life chances not only of the teenagers who fall pregnant but of their children. The plan laid solid foundations for reducing teenage pregnancy by ensuring effective multi-agency work. In 2005, the plan was reviewed when it became apparent that the initial measures were not being implemented across the board. Instead, more prescriptive guidance was introduced. That review of the strategy’s actions was best described by Alison Hadley in a recent article in the Journal of Family Health. She said that the review was an understanding

“that high rates were not inevitable—even in deprived areas—if the right actions were put in place.”

That is the crux of the way that we should and must approach the issue of teenage pregnancy. It is not an inevitability of modern society, but it can be down to the inaction of those with the levers of power and their failure to implement the right interventions.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) on securing this debate. I do not know how many in the House have the experience that I had, but I was a mum at the age of 16. I come from a deprived background. Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the most important things we can do is to ensure that people have the opportunity to break that cycle and enable them to go back to education or to bring their child up? That is one of the things that I found really depressing when I watched the ITV programme “Long Lost Family”. It is one of the heartfelt things that made me burst into tears. My son is with me; I was able to raise him as a teenage mum because of the intervention and support that I got as a mum. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is vitally important that we do that?

[Mrs Hodgson]

I do, and I commend my hon. Friend for raising that matter. She talked about it in her maiden speech so movingly for those who were in the Chamber or who listened to it afterwards. It brings important insight into this House in debates such as this to hear someone speak from experience. She is right that we need to support teenage mums. This is not about stigmatising them. Obviously, sometimes it is about helping them to make different choices if they do not want to make a particular choice. We must support them and ensure that the statistics I just mentioned, which we are all aware of, do not become the reality for young mums and their children. My hon. Friend has obviously broken that cycle: she is here as a Member of Parliament. The cycle of deprivation does not have to be inevitable. As I said, it is not universal, but the statistics are not where we would like them to be. There are obviously exceptions that prove the rule.

In 2010, the Department for Education set out a bonfire of policies that saw specific budgets directed at local councils, such as for addressing teenage pregnancy, rolled into the early intervention grant, which has sadly been repeatedly cut year on year and is a shell of what it used to be. The Government have failed to build on the work set out by the last Labour Government, thereby threatening the success seen to date with their short-sighted strategy on early intervention.

Instead of the Government seeing local authorities as a problem, rather than a solution, we need a renewal of the thinking that we had between 1997 and 2010, which harnessed the co-operative relationship between local and central Government to address issues such as teenage pregnancy effectively. For instance, one of the key measures that followed through in both the initial strategy and the updated version, as the hon. Member for Telford discussed in her opening speech, was the necessity to improve sex and relationship education in our schools.

No one will be surprised to hear that I am a passionate advocate of age-appropriate sex and relationship education. I understand the real benefits that equipping children with the right knowledge and tools will have on their futures as they become adults. However, it is not just me who believes that; it is the young people themselves. As the Sex Education Forum found in a survey of more than 2,000 young people earlier this year on the sex and relationship education that they receive, one in five was reported as saying that it was bad or very bad, which is deeply concerning when young people still say that they are embarrassed to seek advice about sex or relationship issues and half of 15-year-olds do not know about the existence of local contraception and sexual health services in their area.

Many opponents of age-appropriate sex and relationship education say that it is the job of parents, not teachers, to teach their children about sex and relationships, which shows just how out of touch many people are with the lives of children and young people. The Sex Education Forum reports that 7% of 15-year-old boys and 9% of 15-year-old girls have no trusted adult in their life to whom they can go when they need advice on sex and relationships. Some of them are children in care, about whom hon. Members spoke in the earlier debate. It is for that very reason that I and other Labour Members support the introduction of age-appropriate SRE as part of statutory personal, social, health and economic education, and many Government Members are slowly coming round to that idea, too. The lack of sex and relationship education in our schools is a ticking time bomb that the Government must address, especially with their impending forced academisation of all schools, which will bring into question the survival of SRE in any form in our schools.

[Kevin Foster]

I am interested to hear some of the points that the hon. Lady has made so far. Does she agree that it is important that schools buy into any duties? It is important that we have SRE and that its delivery does not become like the requirement to hold an act of religious worship in the morning. It is nice that that is statutory, but it is far more honoured in its breach than in its observance.

[Mrs Hodgson]

That is a very good point, because where sex and relationship education is compulsory in maintained schools, unlike in academies and free schools, there tend to be two elements: the biology and HIV/AIDS awareness, and then the relationship side. That is exactly the hon. Gentleman’s point. It has to be good-quality sex and relationship education, rather than just ticking some boxes.

The ticking time bomb is paired with the increasing sexualisation of young people, with recent freedom of information requests to local police forces showing that reported incidents of children sexting has skyrocketed by more than 1,200% in the past two years due to increased access to social media such as Twitter and Facebook, and even to dating apps such as Tinder, which is why it is welcome that the Women and Equalities Committee has announced today an investigation into sexting as part of its inquiry on sexual harassment among pupils in schools. I look forward to seeing what comes out of that inquiry.

It is high time that the Government took action and issued an update of the sex and relationship education guidance, which was published before the smartphone generation was even born. I hope the Minister can update Members on the DFE’s plans. I will not hold my breath, however, as when the opportunity came for the Government to take bold steps in introducing statutory PSHE and age-appropriate SRE following the most recent report of the Select Committee on Education on this area, it was blocked by no less than the Prime Minister. That was despite it being reported that many women Cabinet Ministers, including the Education Secretary herself, were strongly in favour of introducing this measure and were dismayed at the Prime Minister’s inaction.

Not only disgruntled Cabinet Ministers but the Children’s Commissioner, the Chief Medical Officer, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 88% of teachers, 90% of parents and 92% of young people themselves are in favour of introducing both subjects to the curriculum as statutory subjects. Yet again, the Prime Minister is putting himself on the wrong side of the issue when it comes to teaching our young people about life and the resilience to deal with what is thrown at them.

In conclusion, it is undeniable that we have made great strides forward on teenage pregnancy and those achievements must be celebrated, but there is still a long way to go. The Government must make clear their vision about how they will build on the important multi-agency, co-operative intervention work of the last Labour Government, and about how they will finally bring forward plans for PSHE and SRE that will make them effective tools in the young person’s arsenal and enable them to make informed choices in their lives.

[Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Minister, I should point out that this debate has to finish at 5.52 pm.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Edward Timpson]

My hon. and learned Friend is right to highlight the importance of establishing as early as possible the underlying causes of a child’s ability or inability to learn in school, which can be a result of emotional and mental health issues. That is why some schools are being extremely innovative about how they access pupil premium money to offer individual support to those children so that they are able to be in the best space possible to learn to the best of their ability.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

We know that summer schools address educational inequalities among some of our most disadvantaged pupils, as well as helping to tackle holiday hunger, yet recent surveys show that 64% of schools are worried they will not be able to offer this vital intervention because of a Government cut sneaked out just before Christmas—that was perhaps not the kind of Christmas present that vulnerable pupils were hoping to receive from the Minister. With the attainment gap now wider than it was when the Prime Minister came to office, summer schools have proven very effective in helping to give disadvantaged children a good start at secondary school. Why are Ministers ignoring this evidence and scrapping funding for summer schools?

[Edward Timpson]

The hon. Lady raises an area of education of which I have seen some excellent examples. However, she must remember the backdrop against which we are taking the education system forward. We have protected funding, with more money going into primary and secondary education than ever before, as well as a protected pupil premium of £2.5 billion over the next year. We have a strong curriculum for primary school children so that they learn the basics and have the building blocks to ensure that they have a brighter future. It is for schools to decide how they can achieve that, but they have the money to make it happen.

Children in Care

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) for securing this debate. It has been a short, but very thoughtful one. Our attention has rightly been focused on how we can best help and support struggling families and prevent children from entering the care system.

This debate is timely, given the research published at the end of last year by the University of Lancaster. The research found that one in four women return to the family court after previously having a child removed by court order, and that the number of new-born babies subject to care proceedings has doubled during the past five years. Those findings are backed by the Department for Education’s own figures, which show that the number of children in care has reached its highest since 1985. The total population of children now in the care system is 69,450.

The significant increase in the number of children entering the care system is seen by many, including the Education Committee’s report on child protection in 2012, as a reaction to the tragic death of baby P in 2008. That is supported by figures showing that the majority of children enter care because of neglect or abuse. This tells us that more must be done to support parents at the earliest opportunity to avoid situations such as those of Daniel Pelka, baby P and the many other high- profile cases about which we have heard in recent years.

We must have a serious rethink about the current strategy to support families and about how the huge social, personal and economic costs of children going into care can be avoided. Although it cannot be denied that there are circumstances in which the best-case scenario for a child may be to be taken into care, based on the risks of remaining in the family home, that does not mean that we as a society should not feel ashamed of this failure to support all families.

There are two areas that the Government must consider when it comes to reducing the number of children entering the care system—a more comprehensive early intervention and prevention strategy, and improving the support on offer to kinship carers.

There is an old African proverb with which I am sure all hon. Members are familiar: it takes a whole village to raise a child. That reminds us of our collective duty to offer support and help to those families who need it the most. When abuse and neglect are cited as the main reasons for a child being taken into care, it is clear that comprehensive early intervention and prevention programmes are needed to reduce the threat of a child’s abuse or neglect in the family home and to avoid the eventuality of a child being taken into care.

Addressing issues about nurture and early family life is championed in “The 1001 Critical Days” manifesto. The all-party group of much the same name is steered passionately by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). He was in the Chamber earlier, but he is not in his place at the moment. The manifesto calls for more support to be given to families to help nurture and support a healthy family environment for children to grow up in. I hope that the Minister has had the chance to read this excellent manifesto. If not, I am sure his hon. Friend will send him a copy of it forthwith.

A National Audit Office report in 2014 cites one of the previous Labour Government’s greatest achievements, Sure Start children’s centres, as a key measure to help to reduce the number of children entering care. The family-focused vision of Sure Start centres brings together specialists, professionals and practitioners to provide parents with vital information on how to overcome the struggles of being new parents and how to cope with challenging family circumstances in order that they do not fall apart and descend into situations in which a child may be removed from the family home. However, according to an investigation last year by the Children’s Society and the National Children’s Bureau, cuts to Whitehall budgets have meant that overall spending on early intervention programmes has fallen by 55%, or £1.8 billion, since 2010.

The short-sightedness of cutting early intervention budgets is detrimental to the vision all hon. Members share, which was laid out full well in “Early Intervention: The Next Steps”, the seminal report from 2011 by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen). He highlighted the top 19 intervention programmes as a blueprint for government. The top of the list was the excellent family nurse partnership programme, which was piloted and which has since been rolled out a little—it needs to go much further to become universal.

Since 2010, almost 800 Sure Start children’s centres have closed. Many more are mere shells of their former selves—the “caretaker and bottle of bleach” model, as I like to call it, means that they are classed as open but not quite as we know it. The Government are sifting through the responses to their consultation on the future of Sure Start centres. In the light of the lack of progress since the my hon. Friend’s report, it is concerning that the hollowing out of Sure Start centres and the devastating cuts to intervention programmes that families rely on, such as parenting classes, drug and alcohol abuse support, and domestic violence services, have not been cited as causes when trying to understand the increase in children entering the care system.

Although a push for greater early intervention schemes is vital to addressing the increase in children entering the care system, there will still be situations when children must, sadly, be removed from the family home for their own safety. When a child is placed into care, all efforts must be made to ensure that they are safely placed with extended family members in a kinship care arrangement where possible, instead of within the care system.

It is estimated that 200,000 children are being raised by kinship carers across the UK. A significant number of children are being looked after by their grandparents or other relatives, but there has been little development in Government support for kinship carers that mirrors, for instance, recent announcements on adoption. Allowing a family member to care for a child instead of that child going into residential or foster care is important for the development of the child, but it can also help to reduce the strain on local children’s services, the budgets of which have been devastated by cuts. That does not mean that kinship carers should be seen as a cheaper option for providing care to children but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) made clear in his speech, kinship carers save the country millions upon millions of pounds by providing care to their kin.

Many kinship carers become so owing to emergency circumstances, which means that the costs of raising that child, such as the immediate cost of providing a bed for the child to sleep in, clothes to wear and uniform for school, are not factored into their household budgets. That is exacerbated when kinship carers must give up their jobs to look after their kin. The largest survey of kinship carers last year found that 49% of respondents had to give up work permanently. An analysis of the 2011 census found that 76% of children living in kinship care were living in deprived households.

The lack of joined-up thinking is laid bare when the same kinship carers who were told to give up their jobs are chased by the Department for Work and Pensions or ATOS and sanctioned for not looking for work, as my right hon. Friend said. I am gravely concerned about how both kinship and foster carers will fare when the Government’s proposed two-child policy comes into force. I echo what he said and plead with the Minister for exemptions for both kinship and foster carers if that policy goes ahead. That is why it is so important that the Government explore how the financial costs of being a kinship carer can be alleviated by allowing better access to funds and entitlements that are already available to adopted or foster children, who share similar adversities to children in kinship care, so that their development is not hindered or regressed.

The Government must also look at the process of placing a child with a kinship carer. Although new guidance for local authorities published last year is helpful in calling for more identification of potential family carers, there is still no statutory duty on local authorities to explore those options. That means that many local authorities look into kinship care only after a child is placed in the care system, causing avoidable upheaval for the child and the extended family.

There is a duty on all of us to ensure that every child, no matter what their circumstances, has a safe and nurturing home in which to spend their childhood. However, that is clearly not the case for tens of thousands of children who are currently in care, but who could have avoided entering the system in the first place. Continuing to fail those children is not an option. We cannot fail them; we are their village and we need to help raise them. I hope that the Minister realises that this is his moment to really make a difference to the lives of some of the most vulnerable children in our society. I hope that he makes it count.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Edward Timpson]

I have just come from a conference organised by the Nuffield Foundation, at which we heard that a new report on the educational attainment of children in care—the vast majority of whom have some form of special educational needs—was advocating exactly that. It proposed more training for the whole care workforce and all education staff. Through funding from the Department, the Autism Education Trust has trained more than 80,000 staff in schools, but we need to do more to ensure that there is consistency right across the country, so that all those children get their chance to thrive, irrespective of background.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

To improve the provision of special educational needs and disability support for young people, including those with autism, it is vital that the best quality data are collated and the results shared to establish best practice. As the Minister knows, I was successful in bringing forward a private Member’s Bill in 2008 to ensure that data on special educational needs were collated and published. However, that legislation has since been repealed by the Children and Families Act 2014, and many charities have told me that they now find it increasingly difficult to obtain that information. Will the Minister therefore give me an assurance that the data will continue to be published annually and to be made readily available to all bodies in the sector, including me, so that issues can be highlighted and improvements made?

[Edward Timpson]

I will look carefully at what the hon. Lady says. Another of my diary appointments is a meeting with her tomorrow to discuss this—and, I am sure, a whole range of other issues that cross my brief. I am conscious of the need to ensure, through the publication of the local offer that every local authority now has and through the increasingly rich data that are available on children with special educational needs, that we use those sources to inform our decision making on how we support children. I will use my meeting with the hon. Lady tomorrow to extrapolate the matter further and see what progress we can make.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend makes an important point that was also highlighted by the Minister for Skills. In countries such as Greece that did not take grown-up, difficult decisions, teachers’ pay has been cut by 30% and thousands of schools have closed. This Government are taking the right decisions for the country.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

As the Minister knows, free school meals are vital to ensure that many children have access to a hot and healthy meal every day. Recent reports from Kellogg’s and the Trussell Trust highlight that thousands of children who rely on free school meals in term time will go hungry during the current half-term holiday. Does the Minister agree that free school meals are a vital tool in combating child hunger, and will he promise to protect universal infant free school meals in the spending review, so that infant children from low-income working families do not go hungry?

[Mr Gyimah]

I am glad that the hon. Lady has brought up a policy that we in this Government introduced, and I am proud of the take-up and quality of school meals for all children. In our manifesto we committed to continuing with that—we are going through the spending review, but our manifesto commitments remain.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

Children already sleep and eat in many day care settings—the lot is provided to them. We are conducting a funding review, which will come up with exactly how the 30 hours will be delivered to parents.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

Removal of the childcare duty from children’s centres and savage early intervention cuts of 56% have stretched children’s services to breaking point. Holiday childcare costs have risen by 25% since 2010, and almost 90% of local authorities do not have enough space to meet summer demand. Will the Minister now commit to investing in children’s centres to help solve this problem as free entitlement is expanded?

[Mr Gyimah]

I am happy to compare our record on supporting young families with that of Labour any time. Let me remind the hon. Lady of what the National Audit Office said about Labour and Sure Start: it said it was unviable, underfunded and failing to reduce inequality. Under the Conservatives, two thirds of all disadvantaged children under the age of five are benefiting from Sure Start centres.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

As I said in answer to a previous question, 142 children’s centres have closed, not 700, but the most important thing is the number of families being reached, and record numbers of families are accessing children’s centres up and down the country.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

Notwithstanding what the Minister has just said, details of the Childcare Bill, which receives its Second Reading in the other place tomorrow, remain extremely thin on the ground and we still have little or no clarification of things such as funding or eligibility. Therefore, to help parents gain more clarity, will the Minister confirm that there are no provisions in the Bill to allow parents to spread the overall amount of free hours they receive over the full year, or perhaps even over 48 weeks, rather than just the 38 weeks as at present?

[Mr Gyimah]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her post. I think she is the third shadow childcare Minister I have faced in the nine months that I have been in post. She asked how the number of hours would be spread over the year. I would advise her not to pre-empt the consultation that we will carry out with parents and providers to find the most flexible way of implementing the scheme so that it works for them.

Equal Pay

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Emily Thornberry]

Perhaps I am not as much of an optimist as my hon. Friend. I was not at all surprised. Although the landscape is more complex, the effect is essentially the same: women and women’s work are still systematically undervalued in our country, and we have to be on our toes and be prepared to be imaginative and think laterally to tackle that. We have learnt, as was highlighted in the debate on my hon. Friend’s Bill, that we simply cannot leave it to good will; we need to be radical and brave and be prepared to tackle the situation head on. The change that the Government have agreed to, pushed for by my hon. Friend and many others, is a good start, but we need to go further. As I said, it is a shame that Ministers have dragged their feet, but I will not go any further than that. There is a lot that I could say, but I will be more generous.

As my noble Friend Baroness Thornton pointed out last week, of the 7,000 companies employing more than 250 people, just 270 have signed up to Think, Act, Report, but of those—this is what matters—only five have opted to publish data on their employees’ pay. It is clear, as she put it, that

“a voluntary approach on its own will not deliver the transparency needed to achieve a change in companies’ behaviour”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 March 2015; Vol. 760, c. 668.]

It will seem like an obvious point to make, but when only five out of 7,000 companies—that is 0.07%—opt for transparency, we have to change the law. It took the Government some time to drop their opposition to the idea, but nevertheless, things have moved to a certain extent. However, now we have that, we have to look at what we are going to get in detail, because pay transparency and pay audits are good as slogans, but we need to know what they really mean. We should be celebrating the victory, but we need to go further and get rid of some of the more ridiculous loopholes that I have pointed out.

The law has moved since the 1970s in many ways, including the fact that instead of it being reactive—in other words: “If you don’t do this, you will get sued or taken to court”—Acts of Parliament have taken a more proactive role, beginning with the Human Rights Act 1998. I will not spend time going on about it, but that Act is a living, breathing legal document that puts obligations on organisations to comply with it, and to see their obligations under it and act accordingly. It seems an entirely different type of legislation from the type we have had in the past—and an entirely good one.

We can read across from that to the Bribery Act 2010, which said that if an individual in a company bribed officials, either abroad or at home, unless that company could show that it had systems in place to manage those employees, and therefore the employee was acting wholly outside the way in which the company expected their employees to behave, the company could be liable. We could read across from that to doing the same thing in relation to fraud; so if an individual behaved dishonestly for the benefit of a company, then unless the company could show that it had good management structures in place, the company should be liable.

What has happened with bribery has been really interesting. Experts have been going into organisations and making sure that those organisations have the correct management structures in place and are behaving in a proper way. To use a quote from the leader of my party, it is “responsible capitalism” in action. We can have legislation that brings in responsible capitalism and says to companies, “We expect you to behave in this way. Use your initiative, and get on with it. Stop being complacent and stop saying, ‘Well, it’s not against the law,’ or ‘You can’t take us to a tribunal,’ or ‘You can’t take us to court as things currently stand, so we are not doing anything about it.’”

We could do the same with an equal pay Act, which we should begin with a positive obligation on us all to ensure that equal pay is brought in over the next few years. Women have been waiting for long enough; the obligation should not just be on individual women taking their individual complaints to a tribunal and chipping away at the system one by one, piecemeal by piecemeal. We should all be obliged to ensure that if these women take their cases to a tribunal, they are treated like whistleblowers. If they take a case to a tribunal and they can show that on the face of things, they are a whistleblower, and that, in fact, there is systemic discrimination in that company, action should be triggered by that case. We should then have a more proactive law to ensure that the tribunal can say, “We want a pay audit.”

I know that the Government have changed the law, so that at the end of a tribunal there could be a pay audit, but what does the pay audit mean? It is not sufficient for a pay audit simply to be: “We’ve got 15 women doing the typing, and we’ve got 10 women doing administration, and we’ve got six directors and they happen to be men, and we’re publishing that.” We do not want that. What we want—what I want—is a skills audit to be done under that, so that we look at what skills the women have, in what way they are doing those jobs and what skills they are using. We compare jobs and do a proper jobs and skills audit, so we get under the skin of the box-ticking and look at how there may be a difference between the way in which men and women are paid in organisations.

A tribunal could trigger that after an individual woman has taken out a case. It could be done at the end of a hearing as part of the tribunal’s decision making, or—perhaps even better—at the beginning, when legal action is contemplated. At that point, as part of pre-litigation negotiations, a company or organisation might say, “Yes, we’ll do a proper, profound skills audit.”

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a characteristically superb speech on the extremely important issue she has brought before Parliament today. What is her opinion on what we should do about tribunal fees? As she will be aware, they have had such a detrimental effect on the number of cases coming forward across all discrimination tribunals.

[Emily Thornberry]

If I may, I will answer that later—I have quite a lot to get through, but I will come to that in my speech. I want to pray in aid some more quotes from my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, who said—so I know I have a friend in this—

“Why should the burden be on women to investigate pay inequality and to ask their colleagues how much they earn?”

She went on say:

“We should not have to wait for whistleblowers”.—[Official Report, 16 December 2014; Vol. 589, c. 1301.]

That is absolutely right. It is not a rhetorical question, but is very apt in highlighting the unfairness of a system that puts the entire burden on individual women to root out discrimination. They are the victims; we should assist them, and our system should make sure that they are given proper assistance.

We need an equal pay Act that enshrines in law the principle that tackling the wage gap is a collective responsibility. Therefore, a company found guilty of discrimination should be ordered to do a proper, profound pay audit. One of the problems with the changes the Government have made so that a tribunal may have a pay audit done is, first, it is not profound enough, and secondly, it is silent on the issue of how it will be enforced, what the plan will be and how it will work. It is important that we have it as a complete package. It is not sufficient to pass legislation by way of gesture—although I am sure that that was not necessarily the entire motivation. We have to look at the situation carefully and see what is going to work. Without that basis, it will not be enough and it will not work.

Under the regulations, there are no guidelines on what constitutes an acceptable plan and the regulations are silent on enforcement and monitoring. What is more, tribunals are not obliged to order a full audit in all circumstances and may opt out of doing so if it is believed that—and listen to this, Mr Weir—

“the disadvantages of an audit would outweigh its benefits.”

So there we are: the audits may be too superficial, they may not be enforced, there may not be a plan, and in any event they can get out of it if the disadvantages outweigh the benefits. That is hardly the radical stuff that we need in the 21st century.

Given that the Government’s actions have demonstrated the inadequacies of a voluntary approach to tackling the pay gap, we need a new law that requires not only stringent monitoring but vigorous enforcement. In my view, audits should be overseen by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and carried out by experts. I am very pleased to have read the paper, which I believe is circulating today, from the EHRC. Although the commission might not agree with all my suggestions with huge enthusiasm, it seems to agree with at least some of them, so I believe that I am making progress. The resulting action plans should be subject to EHRC approval and continued monitoring, with the threat of referral back to the tribunal for non-compliance.

That is the stick, but I am not talking just about sticks. I am also talking about carrots, and the carrot is that we should actively encourage all companies to carry out regular pay audits and eliminate disparities wherever they arise, even if they are not ordered to do so by a tribunal. A voluntary profound audit and evidence of compliance with the recommendations of an approved plan would virtually insulate companies from any equal pay claims. Prima facie, if a company had done these voluntary audits, had a plan and was implementing it, that would be a defence to any claim of unfair pay. It seems to me that that would be a catalyst for a culture change that shifts the onus of rooting out pay inequality from the victims to the employers themselves.

As the changes took root, we could hope for a greatly reduced need for women to pursue claims against their employers via the traditional route set out in the 1970 Act, but inevitably it would be some time before the changes took effect, so, to answer the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), we would need measures to streamline procedures within the tribunals to make them more efficient.

We could begin by encouraging more negotiation as opposed to litigation. A number of high-profile cases in recent years have seen unions trying to come to agreements with employers and then finding themselves sued by claimants—disgruntled women who believe that the settlements are unfair. Obviously, that has had a chilling effect on the actions of many trade unions. Given that it is a risk, but we do need to ensure that there are more settlements, it seems to me that we need to take into account the limited financial resources of many employers. We also need to understand that they need to balance the sometimes competing interests of back pay for claimants with pay protection for existing male employees. A new equal pay Act should include codes of practice, which should have legal standing. Therefore, if a trade union and an employer came to an agreement, and that agreement complied with the code of practice attached to the new equal pay Act—a code requiring the parties to make sure that there was proper job evaluation that would result in a settlement—both the employer and the trade union, prima facie, should have a defence and should not be able to be sued. That in turn, hopefully, would release them to get back on the front foot and start negotiating some fairness and some equality in the workplace.

Let me now deal with the tribunals themselves. When we introduced the Equal Pay Act, there was a period of bedding in, and we should have the same with a new equal pay Act. I think that the whole Act should be jump-started with a period of five years during which there should not be fees for tribunals for equal pay claims. Also, we should consider carefully whether, if an equal pay claim is successful, there should be six years’ back pay, as there is under the current law, or whether we should change that back to two years, which was in the original Equal Pay Act.

I know that the European Court of Justice has said that, given that our old Equal Pay Act is based on contract law, we should give contract law remedies, which is six years, but I think that we have a very strong argument to make. If challenged, we could go back to the European Court of Justice and say, “This is a matter of public policy. We in Britain are doing something about ensuring that we get equal pay in our country, so during this five-year period, we wish to be able to bring in some more carrots and sticks and actually get some action.” We all know where we want to go. We need to make sure that we have a plan that works and will get us there.

It seems to me that that could reverse some of the damage that has been done. Let’s face it, employers fight absolutely everything, and one can understand why. The loss for them is so huge if they lose a case—they have to pay six years’ back pay, and if it is a collective action, that is a huge amount of money—but that is not to say that they should not be doing something. We have to find a compromise, a practical and pragmatic way through this. I suggest scrapping fees not for ever, but for five years, and there are other things that we should do.

I have no understanding of why the Government got rid of the short form questionnaire. Before an action began, employers had to fill in a questionnaire for a woman who wanted to make an equal pay claim, which would give some facts for the woman so that she could take out her case. The Government scrapped that, saying that it was red tape. That is clearly counter-productive, because if the individual woman employee does know the circumstances in which she is employed, sometimes she will have some grist to her mill—she will have some evidence enabling her to take her case to the tribunal properly—but quite often, surely, it will have the opposite effect and she will realise that actually she is not being discriminated against. What is the problem with transparency? Why should we not have people with equality of arms—equality of arms as best we can—going before a tribunal where we all know what we are talking about in advance of it happening?

A new equal pay Act needs to bring back a questionnaire. Two pages—it does not have to be 50, 100 or 200 pages —with some basic information, so that the woman knows where she stands. That seems to me to be very important. The questionnaire should include questions such as “Have actions been taken out against you in the past?” and “Have you had to pay compensation in the past?” That questionnaire would be a minimal burden on employers and a vital tool for women who are trying to embark on a challenge. We ought to be supporting those women, who in the end are our whistleblowers. In the recent equal opportunities review, Professor Bob Hepple wrote a case that, in my view, is unanswerable, saying how important it is to have a questionnaire brought back into law.

We should go further in streamlining the process. We should also bring in senior judges. Employment tribunals, if they are dealing with a large and complex case, should be able to bring in extra firepower—perhaps a High Court judge—who will manage the more complex cases and ensure that they move through the courts and do not get bogged down. It is extraordinary to hear it, but there is at the moment a case that is still trundling through the employment tribunal and is still going through preliminary issues—they have not even got to trial yet—and it is five years on. This is not Barbara Castle’s vision. We are so far away from it, and we need to look again.

I have been clear about my views on the inadequacy of the existing system of individual tribunal claims. We will still need to have a system in which individual claims can be brought, but much more support needs to be given to individual claimants and we need to streamline the process.

I have touched on the ridiculous loopholes. A new Act would need to clear away the fog that existing laws have created around questions about whom claimants can identify as valid comparators. It should simply state that comparators can be based on all operations of a single employer. There have been cases in which a woman has said, “I don’t get paid the same as the guy in the building around the corner,” and a serious argument has been put up, “Well, you’re not in the same building, so it isn’t a comparator.” That is just not right and we have to do something about it. It is not a realistic excuse for inequitable pay.

While we are at it, our new law should provide much greater clarity on the issue of succession. We should certainly get rid of the idea that a man succeeding a woman and getting more pay is not prima facie evidence that she has been discriminated against.

We also need to look at outsourcing. Oxford law professor Sandra Fredman has written that, under current legislation, a woman doing equal work at the same establishment as a better paid male comparator has no claim if she is employed by an agency or outside contractor. Given the massive rise in the use of outsourcing over the years, it is time that we gave statutory protection to victims of discrimination whose employers hide behind that anomaly. We should require that public bodies reach binding agreements with contractors, setting out and guaranteeing the terms and conditions for transferred employees. I have a number of ideas about how we can deal with other issues of fractured employment—for example, bogus self-employment. You may be pleased to hear, Mr Weir, that I do not intend to go into the details now, but I will publish them on my website for those who are keen to know more.

I do not suggest that my proposals will wipe away the lingering effects of centuries of discrimination and eliminate the wage gap completely and immediately. There are other things that we need to do, such as looking at flexible working. Some of the changes made by the Government have been good, but it is a curate’s egg: some of them have made life more difficult. If my mum falls over and goes to hospital, I will need to look after her while she is there and work out what support she will have when she comes out. If I ask my employer for flexible working and he says, “I’ll have a look at it, Emily, but I can’t get back to you for three months,” that is not flexible working, and it makes life very difficult indeed. We need to look at practical solutions for women’s real lives.

We need to tackle the continued problem of the clustering of women in low-paid occupations, which are related to traditional gender stereotypes. Two thirds of women are in 12 occupational groups, including catering, cleaning and personal care. Women may, as Annie Lennox and Aretha Franklin sang, be coming out of the kitchen, but unfortunately they have not got very far, and we need to make sure that they have the ability or the choice to go further. Even if they choose not to do so, we need to make sure that women’s work is properly valued.

We need better careers advice at the earliest possible stage in a girl’s education. We need to address the chronic shortage of women who take up STEM subjects. Some of the ideas that I have read from the CBI on that aspect of equality policy are welcome, but we need to do more. We should make efforts to increase the number of women who take up careers in those growth industries, but our work is not solely about putting more money in women’s pockets, important though that is. A much more fundamental principle is at stake: if, as a society, we do not make use of the extraordinary range of women’s talents, we are a poorer society in every sense of the word. Since the Government came into office in 2010, the wage gap has continued to shrink, but only by an average of 0.35% a year. By my calculation, if we continue on that trajectory, it will be another 55 years before the gap is finally closed. I hope hon. Members agree that women have been waiting quite long enough. We are no longer content to wait. We need to legislate, and we need to be bold. Let’s get radical. Let’s pass ourselves a new equal pay Act.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir, for what might be my last ever outing in Westminster Hall—that might be true of all of us here for today’s debate.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) on securing this timely and important debate and on the work she has done on the issue over the years. Like her and the other hon. Members taking part in the debate, I am passionate about the topic. My hon. Friend’s research and insights are a testament to her dedication to the cause. What she has proposed and the things she has highlighted show why we can never take a back seat and hope for the best. I am proud, as I am sure she is, that the Labour party and Labour movement have always been true to that belief and are committed to continuing that tradition long into the future.

I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) was able to attend part of the debate, because she introduced an excellent ten-minute rule Bill a few weeks ago on the section 78 transparency clause. I am pleased that that eventually spurred the Government to act on the matter, after five years of sitting on it, and I am pleased to say it went through in the House of Lords last week.

In government, Labour was a strong advocate of gender equality in all sectors of society. We closed the gender pay gap by a third when we were last in office, oversaw a rise in the number of young women going into higher education—when they overtook boys for the first time in history—legislated to protect women from abuse at home and in the workplace, and, in one of the last acts of a Labour Government, in 2010 we passed legislation that would have made huge strides in tackling the gender pay gap by making large companies publish their hourly pay rates by gender. We were also the party that 45 years ago passed the very Equal Pay Act that we are discussing today. Decades have come and gone since the Act became law, but the problem it attempted to solve is still, sadly, very much with us, and today’s debate is a timely reminder of that.

On average women earn 81p for every pound a man earns, and recent figures cited by the Equality and Human Rights Commission show that women in full-time employment in 2014 earned almost a full 10% less than their male equivalents. That is truly shocking. Things are even worse for women in part-time work, where they earned just under 38% less than male full-time employees. The overall gender pay gap for all employees was 19.1%. It seems ridiculous to think that after 45 years of work and 15 years into the 21st century women are still not on equal terms with their male counterparts.

Last year, thanks to the debate led by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, I was fortunate enough to meet some ladies who worked at the Ford plant in Dagenham. The Minister was also present—as was my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury. Anyone who cares about this issue was there. Those women famously went on strike to fight for equal pay, and their actions went a long way to bringing about the first Equal Pay Act, in 1970. Speaking to them it was fantastic to see women still so passionate, committed and hopeful of success, but it was also tragic that after so many years have gone by the imbalance has only been decreased, never destroyed.

Last week, my colleague, Baroness Thornton, highlighted contemporary examples during the debate in the House of Lords on gender and pay, such as the woman working in advertising whose end-of-year bonus was a £100 Liberty voucher, while her male counterpart received £2,000 cash; or the lawyer who was asked to take a pay cut to avoid redundancy, only to find out that none of her male colleagues had been asked to do the same; or the woman who worked in the media and, overhearing two male colleagues boasting about their salaries, realised that both were being paid an average of £10,000 more than she was, despite the fact that she had the same experience. Such gross inequalities are commonplace and things need to change.

Over the years women have had to contend not only with lower pay, but with the problems of glass ceilings, sexual discrimination and a tendency to be penalised in the work force for having children. We have made progress in those fields over the past decades, but too many women are still caught in a culture in which they are told that they have to choose between being carers or having a career, or they have had it drummed into them that they cannot achieve the same things as a man. That mentality holds back our society and all women. We know that companies with more women on their board routinely outperform their rivals, so any glass ceiling that limits a woman’s rise to the top also limits a company’s performance. Glass ceilings should be shattered for the good of everyone. As well as championing equal pay, Labour is committed to opening more boardrooms to women and will legislate to do that if companies do not understand the enormous benefits of doing it themselves. All those problems are linked, and none of them can be solved overnight. Only through dedicated and consistent hard work and pressure can we achieve meaningful and long-lasting success, so it is disappointing that over the past five years we have seen the cause slide down or, more accurately, slide off the political agenda, and it is no wonder that more problems have been caused as a consequence.

As I briefly alluded to, the Government’s record comes up extremely short on addressing inequality. Their record on the gender pay gap in particular can be described only as woeful. The coalition inherited a section of the Equality Act 2010 that would have made all large companies—companies with more than 250 employees—publish their hourly gender pay rates in their annual reports. That requirement was designed to build on existing equalities legislation, thereby boosting transparency and shining much needed light on the issue, which would have forced companies to look at themselves, see the extent of the problem and work towards addressing it. Sadly, the huge value of that section was either completely ignored or totally lost on the coalition Government, who refused to enact it. However, as I am sure all hon. Members present are aware, with two weeks to go before Dissolution, and facing a likely defeat in the House of Lords on Labour’s push for the enactment of section 78, the Government performed another policy U-turn and finally saw the light. I hate to question what may have been a truly Damascene experience for the coalition, but I fear it was a victory for political pragmatism more than for the ideals and values of gender equality. Although the outcome is extremely welcome, the last-gasp way in which it was achieved is sadly symptomatic of a Government who place no priority on equality legislation.

During the past five years, we have seen consistent inaction in the face of repeated calls from the Opposition to do more, or indeed to do anything. One has to wonder how much more we could have achieved on equality if that time had not been totally wasted by the Government. The recent victory only brings us back to where we were in 2010 and, sadly, we have regressed in some areas. The overall gender pay gap fell by a third under Labour, but that rate has slowed dramatically under this Government. The gap actually increased in 2013, partly because the so-called economic recovery saw a rise in low-paid jobs in sectors dominated by women, such as care, and a rise in insecure zero-hours jobs in which women also outnumber men.

Since 2010, the number of equal pay claims brought against employers has fallen from just over 37,000 a year to around 17,000, with the most dramatic fall happening since the coalition’s introduction of tribunal fees. That fall came as no surprise to many Opposition Members, who predicted that it would happen. We were not scaremongering, as we were accused, but it was utterly shocking, none the less. Women are now being put off fighting for equal pay, and the message that the introduction of tribunal fees sends out to women across the country is extremely damaging for the cause. I am interested in the proposals to address the situation suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury. As she knows, Labour fought against the introduction of tribunal fees and, when we are back in government, we will introduce reforms to ensure that cost is never a barrier to justice.

Equal pay should not have been something for which we had to fight for so long. In truth, more should have been done in the 45 years since the 1970 Act was passed to keep it fresh and doing what it needs to do. My hon. Friend expertly raised a number of issues, and they all need to be addressed. I am sure none of us believes that the Act cannot be improved to meet the new challenges of modern Britain. In her proposals, she made many points and cited many examples with which it is hard to disagree, and I would welcome a much deeper look at those issues. That is why I am pleased that Labour supports a review of the Equal Pay Act to see which areas are working, which areas need improvement and which areas are either redundant or need entirely new provisions to make them fit for our modern world.

The goal of the Equal Pay Act to deliver the promise of equal pay has not changed since 1970. We need to establish whether that means amending the Act or introducing something new, and we believe a comprehensive review is the best way to do that. The Equality and Human Rights Commission recently announced that it is also in favour of such a review, and the commission’s experience makes it perfectly placed to ascertain where best to take the Act from here. I am sure the commission will want to see my hon. Friend’s work when it undertakes that process.

Sadly, this debate is as necessary today as it was in the 1970s. The more momentum we can build for reaching the goal of equal pay, the better for every single person in our society. We may have lost five years to complacency and inaction, but we now have a chance to push on and complete the work for this generation and for generations yet to come. Labour is committed to that fight, and I look forward to a time when such debates are consigned to the realm of history, not politics.

Consumer Rights Bill

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point. The Minister argued that two years was very short. In two years’ time, the whole industry could have upped sticks and gone abroad. It may well be that my two-year sunset clause is too long. I will happily be chastised for that, but I thought it was important that we put a line in the sand. I thought that two years would give us a reasonable time to see how the legislation worked with different tournaments and different music events. It is ample time for people to consider the effects. If those people who are in favour of the Lords amendments are so confident in their arguments, they have nothing to fear from a sunset clause. If everything is fine and dandy and none of my fears comes to fruition, the Government will happily reintroduce the legislation and it will sail through because it has been shown to have worked. They do not like the sunset clause because they know that the point I am making is the real agenda behind this Bill, and they do not want to be rumbled.

Once the Bill is on the statute book, the Government think that that will be it and nobody will bother or have the courage to revisit it, and I suspect that they are right. That is why I have tabled my amendment. I understand that there may be some difficulty in having a vote on it, even though it is sensible, and I am sorry that the Government have refused to accept it. This is an unfair and unnecessary intrusion into the free market. Who knows what consequences will flow from this legislation? I shall urge my colleagues to do what they have done twice in recent times already, and vote down the Lords amendment. I shall be interested to see how many of my colleagues vote for something that they have happily voted against in recent weeks and how, as a general election is coming, they will justify their action to their constituents. I shall happily be able to tell my constituents that I stuck to my guns, that I did not change my mind and that that is why I do not want to be in coalition with these wishy-washy Liberal Democrats any more.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

As many in the House are aware, I have been interested in the secondary ticketing market for many years now, and, alongside the hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley), I have co-chaired the all-party parliamentary group on ticket abuse, the report of which spearheaded the former amendments to those we are debating today.

It is my long-standing belief that for a long time things have needed to change in the sector, as more and more fans are being ripped off and exploited by unscrupulous touts, and ordinary people are being priced out of seeing the artists, shows, or teams that they love. The full extent of the problem was clear last week when the Competition and Markets Authority, after consulting the major ticket re-sellers, published a new code of conduct—an agreement for which the CMA was happy to take all the credit, somewhat ignoring all the hard work and campaigning over many years of Members, peers and other industry bodies, and on which we are now legislating.

However, that small gripe aside, on the very same day that the new code of conduct was announced, a person could go on some of those companies’ websites and find tickets, guaranteed, for the upcoming boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas. On one site, the cheapest came in at just under £4,000, and the most expensive floor seats at more than £32,000. That was despite the fact that last week there were no official tickets yet on sale and original ticket prices had not even been agreed. That is a ludicrous situation which leaves the public totally misinformed about the marketplace and serves only further to inflate prices when the tickets become available.

[Mike Weatherley (Hove) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that it was bizarre that the CMA came out with guidance only days before Parliament was debating the issue and passing laws in this House? It seemed almost to usurp what we are doing.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I totally agree. As I have mentioned, I was surprised that in the press coverage the CMA was taking all the credit for the new measures given that Parliament has been pushing for this in both Houses. As the new authority, which is replacing the OFT, has now agreed with Parliament, the CMA should perhaps have mentioned that fact in some of its press coverage.

Sadly, the example I have given is one of many hundreds of thousands that routinely happen every day. It is only through measures such as the Lords amendment that we can hope to tackle the worst excesses of the industry and put the genuine fans first.

Let me be clear that the argument and the fight have never been about stopping the resale of tickets. The legitimate resale of tickets is not the problem and those who have claimed that clamping down on ticket touts and increasing transparency will harm true fans know very little about the problems and even less about what needs to be done to address them. Greater transparency is never a problem for a market operating properly and it is only in the interests of illegal ticket touts to sit back and do nothing to change the law. Others say that this is a licence for event organisers to cancel tickets, but the amendment clearly sets out that event organisers cannot cancel tickets simply because they have been resold, and can do so only in very specific circumstances. I am glad that that safeguard is in the Bill.

The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) has tabled a characteristically unhelpful amendment that would insert a sunset clause for the provision—an act that is as misguided as it is obstructive. I know that the Opposition will vote against it and I am sure that the Government will too, as it is our intention to work on behalf of the fans and not the touts. Any further debate on that point gives it merit that it simply does not deserve.

Before I consider the specifics of the amendments proposed in the other place, let me praise Lord Moynihan for his diligent cross-party work and for succeeding in achieving such an important step towards strengthening the regulations in the sector. As a former Sports Minister, he knew first hand how pernicious the practice is. It has been an extremely productive experience working with him, as it has been with many other colleagues in both Houses who care just as passionately about the rights of fans as he, the hon. Member for Hove as my co-chair on the all-party group, the members of the all-party group and I do. I know that Lord Moynihan worked tirelessly over the last recess to secure a compromise with Ministers across two Departments—a feat few could accomplish—and event goers and fans across the country owe him a debt of gratitude for the amendment.

As has been said, the amendment will do three key things to help stop the exploitation of fans. First, it will boost transparency, as from the time the Bill is enacted, ticket resellers will have to provide a seat number, any restrictions or limits on the ticket and the original face value of the ticket to all those they hope to sell it to. That will give fans far more knowledge about what they are buying and will give event managers more information about the tickets that are being resold.

Secondly, the amendment will place a duty on ticket resellers to report criminal activity if they suspect it, making the enforcement of the law much more proactive and effective and discouraging the secondary market platforms from turning a blind eye and letting the worst excesses of these practices continue.

Finally and crucially, the amendment compels the Secretary of State to review measures relating to the industry in a report to Parliament after 12 months, and that is what I would like to use the remaining time to speak about. The improvements in the amendment are a crucial first step, but they do not solve all the problems we can see in the sector. The review process will be absolutely vital in taking representations from the industry and making proposals that can build on the legislation and get to the heart of what is wrong with how things operate.

There is much that needs to be considered in the review, but I shall limit myself to a couple of key points that must be investigated if we are ever properly to understand why the problem is so persistent and deep-rooted. The first is the speed at which secondary ticketing sites get access to tickets in the first place. Secondary ticketing platforms can have hundreds if not thousands of tickets on their sites and ready to be sold within minutes of their first going on general release and in some cases even before they have gone on sale. How can that happen without sophisticated software, such as bots, harvesting them, without certain so-called power sellers working alongside the platforms to get tickets on their behalf or without inside trading, such as behind-the-scenes deals in which premium tickets are not sold on the primary market but given straight to the secondary market to be sold at huge mark-ups?

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that in some circumstances those people never have tickets in the first place but are chancing their arm to see whether they could get inflated prices?

[Mrs Hodgson]

I agree. Sometimes they are following through on a fraudulent transaction and sometimes the listing is speculative, as they might try to get a ticket later and want to see how much they can sell it for.

Given that there is no lawful way to harvest large numbers of tickets and that behind-the-scenes deals are at best duplicitous and immoral, we must ask just how the situation can take place and continue. Further to that point, if the tickets showing on the system have not been acquired, how can the sellers guarantee their sale on their sites? An investigation of those guarantees must be central to the review, because if that approach is found to be misleading, it would directly go against consumer rights, which are of course the entire purpose of the Bill. One way the all-party group on ticket abuse thought of to solve that would be to publish the seller’s identity when reselling tickets. I am sure that that will also be considered in the review.

The duty under the new amendment to report criminal activity is welcome, but we must also ask why past instances of criminality have been so largely unreported in the sector, even when the secondary platforms have been the victims and have had to pay out large sums in compensation. Has that been seen simply as collateral damage? It cannot be a continued coincidence and questions must be asked in the review.

In conclusion, the review is crucial and much needed and will have to be handled carefully and expertly so that we understand how best further to protect the public. That is why the choice of chair is so important. The marketplace is so complicated that it will need somebody who understands it but who is fair minded enough to listen and engage with all parties while keeping the rights of the fans at the heart of the entire process. If I may be so bold as to venture a suggestion, I think that my all-party group co-chair, the hon. Member for Hove, would be an ideal candidate to take up the challenge after he leaves Parliament. I do not know what his plans are—he might be hoping to travel the world and have a normal life for a while—but I can think of no one better. Whoever is chosen, however, I am confident that they will ensure that the right questions are asked, the right leads are pursued and the right outcome is achieved so that at last we can be sure that the market will put fans first.

[Mike Weatherley]

It is an honour to follow my co-chair on the all-party group, the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson). The amendment is the culmination of four years of hard campaigning and it is a little ironic that we have only about two minutes to squeeze in all our comments. I will not go through all the points that have been made so admirably by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West, as there is no point in doing so, other than to say that the bots have made the free market untenable and something needs to change.

I want to make two particular points. The first is about the review, which is crucial. I thought at first that that would be like kicking the issue into the long grass, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley said, but it is an essential part of the reforms. The critics of the reforms are screaming about the potential problems, as we have heard, whereas those who want more action are screaming that more should be done. That is a lot of shouting, but time will tell and the review, which will report in a relatively short period of time in parliamentary terms, will closely consider both claims and at last come up with a proper analysis and recommendations.

The legislation specifically states that terms and conditions need to be fair, and making sure that they are fair must be part of the review. The terms and conditions that event organisers attach to tickets are there to protect fans—not to take advantage of them, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley indicated they might be. Where fans have bought tickets for genuine use, and have a genuine reason for resale—that is, where they have bought tickets not just to make a profit—I am fully behind their ability to resell. I will make sure that that is a fundamental principle in the review. Equally, I will make sure that the insertion of “fair terms” in the amendment is not the secondary ticketing industry’s way of undermining all these changes to the law. I am pleased that groups such as the Sport and Recreation Alliance, the England and Wales Cricket Board and the Rugby Football Union are fully behind the amendments.

As with all compromises, neither side is fully happy with the solution, but on balance, this is a good step in the right direction. The review will be key. With this review, the UK, with its rich cultural heritage and world-leading position, will once again be the focus of world attention. I suspect that the review will act as a blueprint for many countries around the world—both those that have enacted secondary ticketing legislation, and those considering doing so.