Consumer Rights Bill

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde) (Lab)]

I want to focus on certain aspects of the Bill that relate to the changing landscape of the types of products we purchase, the sales techniques we encounter, the impulse purchases consumers make, the consequences of those purchases and, last but not least, the consumer’s experience of the unknown data sharing that clearly happens.

A number of Government Members tried to entice us to welcome the Bill. Although I do not welcome it in its entirety, I welcome the spirit behind it. We welcome anything that brings consumer rights up to date, although I do not think that the Bill totally does that, or that protects the consumer, although the Bill does not do that in the way that we would like to protect them. Those on the Front Bench suggested, as I would hope, that they would engage with the devolved Administrations and encourage them to consider consumer rights and to embrace and work on some of the issues that are raised today and will be raised in Committee and during the later stages of the Bill.

It is difficult for consumers. It is difficult for them to know their rights and for some of them to understand those rights, or to know where to seek assistance if they believe that their rights have been breached. That crosses the generations, covering both the elderly and the young. Let me give an example, which is not in the Bill, that I would ask the Government to consider, caused by the changing way we purchase things. We go online to purchase nowadays, so protection is required on downloads as much as on the hardware and the physical products that we buy.

We must embrace the idea that we live in an age of online shopping and we purchase things that we can only download, as they have no hard physical existence. We still need those products to do exactly what we have purchased them to do, however. We are now living in the world of apps and if we download a patch to our phone or tablet, we should not just accept that it did not operate and move on to the next download.

I want to enlighten the House by sharing some of the experiences that my constituents tell me about when they come to my surgeries. They have had, or believe that they have had, their consumer rights infringed. One example involves unfair business behaviour and sales techniques, such as those used to sell products over the phone. Elderly constituents have come to me who have been caught out time and again by those selling over the phone. The most recent case involved insurance sales. It is not hard to pitch a sale when we have been through a difficult winter, with storms and so on. If someone says, “We can do your house insurance £50, £60 or £100 cheaper,” that would be enticing to an elderly couple, for example, with a low budget.

As we say, if something is too good to be true, it probably is, but those people only find that out when the dream bargain they think that they have acquired over the phone turns into a bit of a nightmare when they have to make a claim. I have heard complaints that such insurance sales companies are difficult to contact and difficult to get back to. After the difficult and stormy weather that we have had, they renege on their commitments for months on end. That means that we have elderly couples in extreme panic about the repairs needed to their roofs. They take on the insurance, but find that they end up phoning the other side of the country and are in a queue, meaning that it can take anything from 20 minutes to get through to someone to talk to. Even after that, the repair does not transpire for months.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend not agree that one of the great problems with some of those calls is how the company at the other end of the phone can make it look as though the consumer has to purchase the product, as though they are coming from some pseudo-position of knowledge? That is especially the case with the rightly much-unloved energy companies, some of which urge consumers to take out higher direct debits by making it look as though they have to do so because otherwise there will be serious problems. They even suggest that there will be money at the end and that it will be a nice way of saving. That is completely unethical.

[Mr McKenzie]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and she is absolutely right to say that there is a pressure from the other end of that telephone line to make the recipient think that the caller is selling the best possible product imaginable. Time and again, it catches people out.

It is not only a question of the elderly being caught out by sales over the phone and so on. Increasingly, a number of young people are coming in to my surgery. They are not the only people who purchase online, but they are increasingly purchasing certain products online and are bitterly disappointed by their quality. I am speaking about those who might have downloaded things, especially music, from the internet in the months leading up to Christmas, only to find that the music is not quite what it said it was and is not quite of the quality they would have expected from the group or individual they downloaded. For them, it is a case of saying, “That is not what I wanted: the product does not do what I thought it would when it was sold to me.” In some instances, it is not entirely the person they expected when they downloaded their purchase. Other people are filling up tracks just to make up the album.

The problem does not often come to light, because when people purchase something for £2.99 or £3.99 they think that it is not really worth their while to go back and complain. However, when we multiply the problem by the number of young people who make downloads and share that experience, it adds up to quite a bit of money. The Bill should look at the download and software side as much the hard physical side of the problem.

We live in an era in which we share a lot of data—perhaps we do not realise how much data companies have on us, including about our buying habits and other trends. I dare say that if we went into certain supermarkets, they could tell us what we purchased every week, what we changed every week and, more to the point, what we were probably enticed to buy when there were “Buy one, get one free” or “Three for the price of two” offers. It is that sharing of data that leads to another consumer experience: nuisance or persistent calls in which people are told, “We know what you buy, we know what you like, and we know what you might buy.” We live in a different world in which we are told that we should not wait and that we have to buy something now—“Get it now; don’t wait”—which is in stark contrast to the experience of a previous generation, who thought that if they could not afford something, they should not buy it. There are pressures to impulse buy as a result of the sharing of that sort of information. For some people, that leads inevitably to debt. An increasing number of people are getting into debt as the result of such purchases.

Pub Companies

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland), whom I know has a long track record of campaigning on this issue.

I am sorry that the playwright Samuel Beckett is no longer with us, because there is more than a shade of an existential play to this one: in act one, we all eventually come to some sort of conclusion, but in act two, it all replays, only in this case there are more than two acts and nothing changes, and on and on we seem to have gone.

[Chloe Smith]

The hon. Lady should come to the Sewell Barn theatre in Norwich. It is currently playing much better works than those.

[Susan Elan Jones]

I fear I might also have to go to a Welsh pub to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) teach us folk singing, but I would be delighted to come to the hon. Lady’s constituency as well.

We were last here debating this matter on 9 January last year, when many of us genuinely felt reassured by the Government’s promises to introduce a statutory code and independent adjudicator, which we all concluded were needed, and I am extremely heartened that today, having doggedly pursued this issue, my hon. Friend the shadow Minister has offered the possibility of a proper cross-party agreement in order to get the Bill on the statute book. The Secretary of State said earlier that it all depended on the legislative timetable, but we know the paucity of business on that timetable. It would be easy for the Bill to pass, and I hope it does.

It was clear that an industry regulator was needed when we debated this last year and that the Government had to take action, and so they still do. We are not waiting for Godot; we are waiting for Government. One year on, and a good deal longer since the House first spoke out, many of us are disappointed that no progress or change has been made. Of course, any regulator must be created carefully, but the Government’s sluggish action is nothing short of a tragedy in many communities. As Members will know, the Government’s response to their own consultation on pub company reform is now four months overdue.

Society changes fast, and it is more than 20 years since the former Prime Minister John Major evoked those oh so quintessentially British images that not even UKIP councillors could complain about: of cricket, warm beer, and spinsters cycling—preferably having kept to soft drinks before doing so. The pub has been in decline for many different reasons, not least the revolting practice of what I believe is called pre-loading, which was mentioned earlier, but it is not about which Government did what. Figures from organisations such as the Campaign for Real Ale demonstrate the scale and pace of the decline, in a situation where we could effect positive change. With 26 pubs closing every week, a few hundred must have closed in the four months in which we have been waiting for the consultation on pub company reform. That is deeply concerning.

I am concerned about why the Government have failed to act. As Members will know, if a Bill is to be introduced before the general election, the Government must put it in this Queen’s Speech. With every month of stalling, it becomes less and less likely that a Bill will be passed this Parliament. We are losing hundreds of pubs a year, which adds up to hundreds of businesses and job losses. With hard-working families already struggling to makes ends meet, that will only add to the melting pot being created within our local communities. By the Government’s own admission this time last year, our local pubs are struggling. We know that. The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills was correct when he said that these small businesses were under a great deal of pressure.

In my own constituency, I am delighted to have seen creditable examples of communities coming together to fight for change, but often that has happened in opposition to the tied system, not because of it. I have been hugely impressed by a group from the village of Minera. Faced with a pub that had closed, local people came together, raised the money and reopened a much-loved pub that is now a welcoming hub within that beautiful mountainous community. Tyn y Capel pub is an excellent example of a truly community-owned and run pub. Local people have bought shares and are managing the enterprise, but financially, for all their success in the community, it is touch and go. It is not possible to run the pub full time; still less is it possible to have full-time paid staff—much of the time, it is staffed by volunteers, with only a temporary residue of paid staff.

We need more Tyn y Capels, but we need an environment in which pubs can survive. Thousands of pubs have closed in the last four years, and hundreds more are being sold every year, and with each closure, a family, an individual or a community lose their business, livelihood or a vital connection to their community.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Pubcos seem to be cutting off their nose to spite their face. I just do not understand. If they charge too much for rent and beer, their tenants will go out of business and it will not work. The only way for pubcos to survive is if they reduce their prices so that more pubs survive. It makes sense. Even without legislation, that is good economics and good business. Why are they not doing that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Susan Elan Jones]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. For far too long, what we have seen from pubcos is a ridiculous example of monopolistic practices, which this House and the Government need to deal with.

Even those pubs that are staying open face an appalling situation, with tied landlords often paid risibly low salaries. That is why it is vital that the Government act and stop delaying on a promise that they made this time last year—and, I think, probably this time the year before. This is not just about beer drinkers facing higher prices and poorer choice, or even about people losing their local; it is about fairness for current pub owners and future jobs in our communities. The Government made us a promise. Indeed, some of us can remember that before the Secretary of State became a Minister, he was often referred to—sometimes affectionately, sometimes not—as Saint Vince. Today Saint Vince has a chance to redeem himself, for it is high time that he and the Government delivered on the promise they made and took some much needed action.

National Minimum Wage

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

rose—

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

rose—

[Rachel Reeves]

I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones).

[Susan Elan Jones]

When Members are a little shy, they should have a little encouragement from the rest of us. I worry that some Government Members are a little shy. They are not usually frightened of defending their party in government. Would they like to do so now, and will my hon. Friend allow them to do so?

[Rachel Reeves]

I have already made the offer to the Secretary of State, but we have not yet heard from him. All Members are welcome to make interventions, but in the meantime I will take an intervention from my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson).

Transport Infrastructure (North Wales)

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mark Tami]

I think there is, and I will talk about why we need a dedicated station. It is important that we make it easy for people to move about, because there is a lot of anecdotal evidence showing that some people are not taking up jobs that are perhaps not well paid because the difficulty and cost of getting to that job outweigh the benefits of taking it. We need to address that.

What do we need to do? On road improvements, we have a pretty good system, but there are pinch points. Considerable work has been done on the M56 to sort out problems on the English side of the border, but there is a pinch point on the A494 and the A55 around Queensferry and Aston Hill. With the creation of the Deeside enterprise zone, that will probably get worse, rather than better. In saying that, I am certainly not arguing for the original proposal, which was totally out of proportion to what was required. At one point, it included 13 lanes—I think it could have been seen from space. It failed to take account of local issues, and there were serious local concerns about that.

I think we can do things relatively cheaply—we are in difficult financial times. As someone who uses the road a lot, I know that most of the problems are caused by lorries and, in the summer, caravans slowing down. A crawler lane could deal with a lot of those problems.

Whatever we do, we need noise protection measures. We also need to involve local people. The Assembly is looking at the issue, and I have written to the Transport Minister about it. The problem is that there is a lot of uncertainty, which makes it difficult for people to sell their houses or to know the size of the project they will face. I recognise that £70 million has been earmarked for improvements further into Wales. I read the other day that another crossing to Anglesey was being considered, depending on what borrowing powers deliver.

A further pinch point is between the A483 and the A55. As someone who has sat in traffic there on many occasions, I know that it causes a bit of a problem. Again, it could be sorted out relatively easily. I am always struck—this perhaps demonstrates that we need more joined-up government—by the fact that the A483 has tarmac on it on the Welsh side of the border. I actually know when I am entering England, because I drop off the tarmac and on to concrete slabs. I do not know why the two Administrations could not just have spoken to each other and sorted the whole thing out in one go, but clearly that did not happen.

As I said, we do not have a bad road network; it needs improving, but it does not need major surgery. The same cannot be said for our rail network, which is particularly poor—especially for people in the Mersey-Dee area who use it to commute to work. The Wrexham-Bidston line goes through the whole area, and it is an ideal solution to many of the transport issues I have talked about. There is great potential, but the service’s frequency and reliability are, unfortunately, not what the average commuter expects.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has spoken about a variety of matters, but does he not agree that some small changes could have a real impact? He referred to the inadequate rail service. In my constituency, there are two stations—Chirk and Ruabon—neither of which has ticketing machines. If one wishes to print a ticket, one has to go to Wrexham General station, which defeats the whole point of advance booking and the like. There is also no disability access at the stations, so it is not possible to go from one side to the other. Those are small things, but they suggest the lack of a mindset favourable to rail usage in smaller areas.

[Mark Tami]

I thank my hon. Friend. I agree there are lots of small changes that could be made. Someone came to see me who was blind. He said that few announcements are made on trains, so he feels unsure whether he is getting off at the right station. There are small things we can do to improve the situation, and they do not involve a big cost.

Oral Answers to Questions

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend correctly highlights that the best way out of poverty is through work. As she says, the private sector has generated almost 1.3 million jobs over the past three years. In fact, it is the fastest rate of job creation in the G7.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

17. The Chancellor said recently that he knew that times were tough and that family budgets were being squeezed. Why, therefore, did this Government choose to prioritise a tax cut for those on the 50% rate?

[Sajid Javid]

Perhaps the hon. Lady missed it, but we have made sure that the people who earn the most in our society are making the biggest contribution to the necessary measures we have to take to make sure that the country lives within its means. In each year of this Government, the richest will pay a higher tax rate than under the Government she supported.

Women in Wales

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Jessica Morden]

As far as I can see, the action on child care is too little, too late. Many families in my constituency are struggling with huge child care costs, which are bigger than those in many countries around the world. The Government’s proposals will take time to filter through and will have no immediate impact on those families. In addition, the little bit of help that has been provided for child care is totally offset by the huge cuts to tax credits.

According to the Bevan Foundation report “Women, Work and the Recession in Wales”, the number of people in Wales who work part time because they were unable to find a full-time job has increased by 79% to one in five of all part-timers. In addition, the burden of unpaid work still falls on women. Child care responsibilities or caring for older people mean that many women have little choice but to work part time. Contrast the difference between the Labour Government in Cardiff, who are doubling the number of Flying Start places despite losing £1.4 billion from their budget, with the coalition in Westminster, who have cut the child care tax credit by up to £1,500 a year for low paid women while giving millionaires a tax cut of £2,000 a week.

In Wales, women make up two thirds of public sector employees, so the steady and sustained attack on jobs in the public sector has affected women disproportionately. In addition, the pay freeze has worsened the pay gap between men and women; the full-time pay gap now stands at 14.9%. In many parts of Wales, particularly in places such as my constituency, the public and private sectors are completely intertwined. If money is taken from public sector workers, less money will be spent in the local economy, which in turn hits the private sector. By affecting so many women in such a way, the Government are directly affecting the Welsh economy.

The living wage is one that meets the requirements for a basic quality of life and reduces families’ reliance on Government programmes for additional income. In 2012, it was calculated that 24% of all working women earn below the living wage and 62% of those earning less than the living wage are women. How do we stand in Wales? Wales has the second-highest proportion of people earning below the living wage in the UK, the highest proportion of part-time workers earning below the living wage and, at 44.5%, the highest proportion of female part-time workers earning below the living wage.

In Wales, many women are on zero-hour contracts, which were the subject of a debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) in this Chamber last week. Recent UK estimates suggest that 97,000 people in Wales have such contracts, of which at the very least half will be women. I know from bitter experience, however, that Government answers to parliamentary questions on the matter are difficult to come by.

Labour wants universal credit to work, but even the impact assessment by the Department for Work and Pensions states that

“second earners may choose to reduce or rebalance their hours or leave work.”

As a result of pay inequality and time taken out of the labour market to raise children, fewer women tend to be primary earners in their households, so the policy will simply not work for many women. In addition, many people are concerned that women will be sanctioned because they struggle to find the child care to enable them to take a job. That question was raised in the Welsh Affairs Committee inquiry into the Work programme.

Government cuts are not only affecting women disproportionately but cutting off access to advice and legal support. At the same time as all the changes are being made to benefits, swingeing cuts are being made to advice services. Organisations such as Citizens Advice, Shelter Cymru and Consumer Focus Wales provide such services, but the sector is expected to lose approximately £3.36 million from various sources over the next 18 months, which is the equivalent of 50 full-time jobs. In fairness, the Welsh Government have recognised the importance of such services and recently provided £1.8 million of extra money to allow the organisations to adapt to the increased demand for their services.

My local citizens advice bureau in Newport, which does excellent work, has had 745 more cases this year than last, but that tells us only part of the story. The citizens advice bureau can only deal with the numbers for which it has funding and advisory capacity. The staff know that more demand exists, but they cannot meet that demand without additional funding. That is happening at a time when people need more help than ever before. As we all see in our surgeries, demand increases every week.

The changes to legal aid demonstrate yet again that the Government are willing to make cuts irrespective of their impact. I am already seeing heartbreaking cases in my surgery following the cuts to some family and civil legal aid. One mother of three children came to see me because her ex-husband had refused to return one of the children after a stay. The father has a high income but the mother is in receipt of benefits, so she sought legal advice but was informed that she does not qualify for legal aid. Because both parents are considered good parents, a court case will be required to solve the issue, but she does not have the money to pay for it. Her husband can have a solicitor but she cannot. She told me that

“the poor no longer have recourse to justice, only the well off.”

Unfortunately, she appears to be right.

Many victims of trafficking and domestic abuse will no longer be eligible for legal aid. According to research by Rights of Women and Welsh Women’s Aid, half of all domestic violence victims will not qualify for legal aid to help them and their children safely to separate from abusive relationships.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

In recent years, we have seen a welcome change in emphasis from the police on domestic violence, and more people are now willing to report domestic violence. If people are being asked, rightly, to come forward, but they are being failed when it comes to legal funding, the situation is serious. I would have thought that people right across the House would regard domestic violence cases as extremely important.

Finance Bill

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

The Government have apparently undertaken their own valuation exercise, perhaps stealthily, so they could publish the information on the numbers of properties across the country. Perhaps the Deputy Prime Minister, with his 16 special advisers, fanned out across the country to look at the issue. I do not know how they found out the 55,000 figure. If the hon. Gentleman has that information and publishes it, I will be interested to see it, but I am afraid I cannot be certain that it is the correct figure. Labour Members have to be very careful and cautious in taxation matters. We want to make sure that all the figures are very clear and well worked through instead of taking the Exchequer Secretary’s back-of-a-fag-packet approach. I take it as a commitment from him that all this information will be published in the public domain, and then perhaps we can work on devising this measure in a less partisan way.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend find it extraordinary that Government Members appear to have been sitting down with their pocket calculators regarding the mansion tax, but none of them has come up with how much ordinary taxpayers who pay the basic rate of tax would benefit from the 10p proposal?

[Chris Leslie]

It is all because their focus is on protecting the wealth of the wealthiest. Ducks go quack and Conservatives defend wealth and privilege. It is in their DNA; it is how they operate.

Road Traffic Offences (Sentencing)

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

First, let me say that it is not my intention to take up the full two hours that are available to us for this debate, but I do want to raise an issue that is very important, in particular to my Sherwood constituency. One of the issues on which I stood for election was resolving the terrible road safety record in Sherwood, particularly around the A614, a stretch of road with which all in the east midlands will be familiar. There have been a lot of fatal accidents on it, with people killed at some of the terrible junctions. That was affecting the local community.

There was one tragic accident in which six people were killed, which resonated particularly strongly with the local community, and it became one of my ambitions to get elected as a Member of Parliament and resolve some of the problems facing the people living around the A614. I have campaigned long and hard to introduce measures to improve junctions. We have been able to improve the Ollerton roundabout and make traffic flows much smoother. We have also been able to put in new traffic lights at the Rose Cottage junction and improve the flows in and out of Edwinstowe.

We have also introduced average speed cameras, which have reduced traffic speeds along the A614 and—I hesitate to say this—stopped the fatal accidents; there has not been another one since they were introduced. Those cameras are not universally welcomed. Some of my constituents do not like them; they complain they delay their journey, so it takes them longer to get from A to B. I recognise the frustration of some drivers travelling up and down our busy roads, but my priority is making sure people are not killed on the roads.

It is important to draw a distinction between a conviction for speeding, for which someone might get a £60 fine and three points on their licence, and more serious incidents for which the perpetrator might be convicted of dangerous or careless driving. There is a conception among the public that it is easy to secure a conviction for speeding, such as driving at 34 mph in a 30 mph zone, but that there is less enthusiasm among the police and in the Crown Prosecution Service to go after the more challenging conviction of dangerous driving, as the burden of evidence is much greater.

I was contacted by a constituent of mine, Louise Stanbrook, who had been to a concert at the Nottingham arena and was crossing the road to walk home when she was knocked over by a driver and quite seriously injured. She suffered a broken collar bone and was knocked unconscious. She also suffered damage to her teeth and spectacles and to her possessions. It was a very serious incident. The perpetrator had a number of previous driving convictions, and was also due to be sentenced for another crime unconnected to this driving offence. The CPS and the police decided it was not in the public interest to pursue the individual for the driving offences he had committed on this occasion, as he was serving an offence unconnected to driving.

It strikes me that the justice system is there for two reasons, the first of which is to make sure that those who commit crimes are rehabilitated and are able to come back into society, having paid their debt. However, the justice system is also there for the victims to see that justice has been done and that when they have been violated in any way the perpetrators of the crime against them make recompense and have to pay a debt to society. That might involve a fine, a custodial sentence or a driving ban, which is another point I wish to deal with a little later.

Louise would say that it is a perception—it is her perception—that people who commit a minor speeding offence, which is still an offence, are prosecuted on a regular basis, as we can agree is only right and fair, but people who commit a much more serious offence such as dangerous driving or careless driving do not suffer the same enthusiasm from the Crown Prosecution Service; there is a reluctance to pursue convictions for such offences because of the amount of evidence that has to be gathered in order to pursue them. That sends the wrong message to society, and the House needs to overcome that and ensure that we turn that tide, so that not only is justice being done, but it is being seen to be done by our constituents and they can have confidence in it. We have to put our hands up and say that many people get caught speeding, but people need to feel that those who commit serious offences are being pursued by the legal system with the same vigour and enthusiasm.

That is very important and it leads me to my second point, which relates to where the justice system is letting us down. It seems wrong that where someone is convicted of a very serious driving offence and is sent to jail, and part of the sentence is a driving ban, they can serve that ban while they are in prison. Given that they cannot drive then anyway because they are being held at Her Majesty’s convenience, it would seem only appropriate that any driving ban that is part of the sentence should be served when they come out of prison and back into society. I would ask the Minister to pass my comments on to the Justice Secretary; he should examine that issue closely on his return, as it is a fundamental part of this debate.

There is another perception that people get enormously frustrated about—my constituents certainly do. Most people work hard, they purchase a car, which can be very expensive, they pay their tax by buying their tax disc and they pay for insurance to drive that car. They also pay for an MOT to make sure it is roadworthy and if they are caught committing a driving offence, they of course pay their fine. However, a section of society does not take out insurance, does not pass a driving test and does not obey the laws. When such people are caught committing a driving misdemeanour, they are often taken to court, prosecuted and then given points on their licence—which they do not possess—and banned from driving, even though they did not possess a driving licence in the first place. Members of the public find it enormously frustrating when they see all the hoops they have to jump through to be a law-abiding citizen and to drive appropriately, yet they perceive that those people who—I hope hon. Members will forgive my Sherwood language—stick two fingers up at the law and ignore it seem to get away with it. That really does need addressing.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one idea worth considering is giving greater flexibility for juries on the upper sentences allowed at the moment? It seems to me that there are certain cases where juries ought to be able to give a higher sentence based on the situation in the case, because, as he rightly says, it is ludicrous how low some sentences are.

[Mr Spencer]

I am grateful for that intervention. I was just coming to that point.

I suppose the challenge is that the law is in chunks—careless driving, death by careless driving, dangerous driving, death by dangerous driving—and there are very tight boundaries. There is no sliding scale of punishment. I believe that lack of flexibility is what drives the CPS sometimes not to go for the more serious chunk, but to satisfy itself with a conviction lower down the scale because it can be sure of obtaining one. That needs addressing, and the only way to do that is to have a review of what laws are in place and whether those tools need adapting. Within the current law the tools are available to make those serious prosecutions, but at the moment the CPS is not minded to go for those serious convictions, whether that is because of the chunking of the convictions or the lack of a sliding scale. That is what needs addressing.

As a point of interest, the Nottingham Post reported that in Nottinghamshire, 58,373 speeding tickets were issued in 2011-12. That shows that our police force is out there, robustly enforcing speeding offences.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

New clause 1 talks about the way in which the Government’s approach may target help on those who want to buy a second home. In tabling new clause, we were concerned that we should prioritise those who need their first home—a primary residence. That is an important part of our argument in new clause 1.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

rose—

[Chris Leslie]

No one knows more about housing issues than my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey)—with, perhaps, the exception of my hon. Friend, the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), to whom I am happy to give way.

[Susan Elan Jones]

I am sure that I do not know more than the first-named hon. Friend.

Does my hon. Friend think that what could effectively become a holiday-home subsidy will end up having a disproportionate effect in rural communities? We know what has happened in north and west Wales in the past, but could not the same apply to the Lake District, Cornwall and other rural areas? Will my hon. Friend be asking the Minister whether any impact assessment has been carried out in relation to the potential cost of rural housing? This move is an absolute disgrace.

[Chris Leslie]

My hon. Friend ought to know by now that this particular Treasury does not go in for assessments based on evidence. In fact, we are lucky that there was a fag packet on which the Chancellor could draw up his plan.

My hon. Friend needs to recognise that the Budget was not designed to deal with the needs of the economy, the housing market or the rural communities to which she has referred. It was designed entirely to save the Chancellor’s skin, and to support his ideological approach and the extreme austerity agenda that he has been pursuing. Because he had been failing on the deficit and borrowing, he decided to design a housing market intervention that fell below the line—that added up in terms of national debt, but did not affect his borrowing figures. The convoluted scheme that he created may have a series of perverse consequences, because it was not designed to meet the needs of housing or of the communities that we represent. It was designed merely for the Chancellor’s own convenience, in the light of his disappearing and diminishing personal prospects.

We all know, or at least Labour Members know, that housing is the bedrock of a stable community, strong families and economic progress, and that the adequacy of housing availability is crucial to our economic recovery. There should be a cross-party consensus on the need to help families to get a foot on the housing ladder and helping people to fulfil their aspirations and provide a decent foundation for the future. However, despite the warm words about housing that we have heard for the past three years, the Government’s record is poor, and the housing investment measures in this Budget—like those in previous Budgets—fall well short of what is needed and what Labour Members would advocate. What hope can there be for hard-working families who are struggling to get on to the housing ladder, given the current mismatch between supply and demand? House building has fallen, rents are rising, home ownership is becoming harder rather than easier so that the goal for young families is becoming less and less achievable, and homelessness has risen.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Leslie]

I doubt that very much. I know that will shock my hon. Friends, but I suspect the Government have not thought about that.

[Susan Elan Jones]

We hear a great deal about Mr Lynton Crosby and his influence on the Conservative party. He is probably rubbing his hands with glee today, thinking, “Goodness, they haven’t worked out the fact that this is a tax break for me when I buy my second home,” if he does not already have one.

[Chris Leslie]

It had not occurred to me that the scheme could be the entrée for Lynton Crosby into a permanent residence. Who knows whether he will take up the scheme, but I am sure he will be very inventive about the matter.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

I am grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to speak in this important Budget debate. I shall make a relatively short speech, because I know that many other Members wish to speak. I make no apology for focusing on my constituency, and on the people who elected me to be their representative in Parliament.

I do not think there is a single issue in my area that people care about more than jobs, and I entirely agree with them. My constituents know that without work, there can be no community and no prosperity. Much concern has rightly been expressed about the fact that growth in our economy now stands at less than a seventh of the amount that the Chancellor anticipated in his 2010 spending review: 0.7%, rather than the 5.3% that was forecast at that time. However, I believe that we are right to be even more concerned about the fact that yesterday the Chancellor, rather alarmingly, had to admit that the growth forecast for this year had been cut in half, to just 0.6%. The forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility that borrowing will hit £114 billion this year, instead of the already immense £108 billion that was previously forecast, should fill us all with concern, as should the fact that yesterday’s UK unemployment figures were up by 7,000 to 2.52 million.

It troubles me, in human terms, that according to the very latest unemployment figures, one person in every 20 in the economically active population aged between 16 and 64—1,770 people—in my constituency is unemployed. I believe that that figure would be even higher were it not for the serious efforts of the Welsh Government’s Jobs Growth Wales fund, which has provided 4,000 jobs for young people throughout Wales.

On the day on which a new Archbishop of Canterbury is to be enthroned, I think that we can do worse than reflect on the words of one of his great predecessors. Archbishop William Temple wrote:

“The worst evil of unemployment is in its creating in the unemployed a sense that they have fallen out of the common life. However much their physical needs may be supplied the gravest part of the trouble remains; They are not wanted!”

Those are the words of someone who lived through the great depression of the 1930s, and who realised that without the politics of one nation, our country could never have stood against fascism. They are, I believe wise and prophetic words for us today. That is why I believe that discussions about unemployment affect us all, and why unemployment can never be seen as a price worth paying. It is why I am deeply disappointed that the Chancellor did not take the step yesterday that my party would have taken by guaranteeing a job for every young person out of work for a year or more and for every adult unemployed for more than two years—funded by a fair tax on bank bonuses and changes to pensions tax relief for the very richest. That would be a far better investment than the subsidy for second homes. For Labour Members, it is the flesh and blood of one nation politics and would have been the best and fairest option.

Real action on national insurance to help small businesses take on more staff would have been the fairest option too. Any Government Members awake at this point may say, “Did you not hear what the Chancellor said yesterday?” Of course I did, and I like the idea of the national insurance cuts for employers so much that I am delighted to be a member of the party that proposed them. It is just that, in the interests of fairness, growth and getting our economy going again, I have to ask: if it matters so much to him, why will he not do it now? Why does he think that excellent local small businesses such as the Community café in Rhosymedre should not be supported this year, yet millionaires will get their tax cut from next month? Why will he not commit to a British investment bank? The hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) spoke eloquently about the Campaign for Real Ale and real ale pubs. Unlike him, I have last year’s CAMRA pub of the year in my constituency. One of its biggest problems in setting up was that bank managers persistently refused it loans. It is exactly the sort of programme that our British investment bank would support. The Government’s thinking on this one just does not make sense.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

In view of the need to support small businesses with finance, how can the hon. Lady justify in the current economic scenario Finance Wales, which is funded by the Welsh Government, giving out loans at 8% or 9% above base?

[Susan Elan Jones]

I am sure that we could carry on this conversation ad infinitum. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman could tell me how he can justify all the cuts in revenue spending that are coming to the Welsh Government, but we will carry that one on some other day. I am sure that he could also tell me about the excellent impact there will be on his local economy when the holiday homes subsidy is in place, but, again, we will carry that on later.

I believe that investment, growth and employment are not just terms in economic textbooks; they are at the heart of what makes communities and countries work. I am talking about communities in my constituency and, more widely, across the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. If our Government and our Chancellor cannot understand that, it is high time for them to be replaced by a genuinely one nation Government who do understand.