Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Vince Cable and Clive Efford(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Vince Cable
I am aware of the hon. Lady’s concern about the areas of outstanding natural beauty in Yorkshire, which she represents. There is indeed an expression of interest, but there are very strong environmental and safety protections around shale gas drilling, and I am sure she will look forward to the extra development that this will produce in her constituency in due course.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
The Environmental Audit Committee says that our investment in renewable energy is growing at half the rate it needs to grow at to meet our future energy needs. What is the Secretary of State doing about that?
Vince Cable
My understanding is that investment in renewable energy is double what it was in the previous Parliament. There are certain aspects of new renewables where we lead the world, including offshore wind.
Royal Mail
Debate between Vince Cable and Clive Efford(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Vince Cable
The hon. Gentleman summarises the benefits admirably, and I would be amazed if, when they sit down and reflect calmly, members of the Communications Workers Union do not see it the same way.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
In his statement the Secretary of State said, “The Government have retained powers to direct Ofcom with respect to certain regulatory levers, such as reviewing the financial burden of the universal service”. What can that mean other than differential charges for a universal service in less-populated areas and in rural areas, fragmentation of the service, and casual labour used to deliver the post in areas that they have no knowledge about?
Vince Cable
The hon. Gentleman is venturing into a fantasy world. The service obligation is universal and I was providing reassurance that the Government have back-stop powers to protect that obligation, not to undermine it.
Jobs and Business
Debate between Vince Cable and Clive Efford(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Vince Cable
It is not complacent to acknowledge the extent to which we have serious problems, which is where I started, or to compare the country with economies that are suffering similar problems. For those who are rightly focused on unemployment among young people, the simple truth is that long-term youth unemployment rose by 40% in the boom years when the Labour party was in power. Labour Members are therefore not in a strong position to lecture us on how to deal with it.
We have focused on two policy areas to deal with the problem of youth unemployment. I am most closely involved in the growth of apprenticeships and my colleague, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, will talk about the other. We have all embraced apprenticeships, including, rather belatedly, the Opposition. There is a recognition among employers and young people that it is an excellent model for training. Under this Government, the number of apprenticeship starts has increased by 86%. There were 160,000 last year. There has been a 42% growth in the number of young people starting apprenticeships. We are making reforms that will improve the system further, notably the employer ownership system, under which apprenticeship training will be channelled through employers so that there is the demand for real jobs. We are also introducing a staged approach through traineeships, so that young people have a route into proper training.
A difficult area is that what has kept unemployment down in the UK is the fact that real wages have not risen. Indeed, they have fallen. That was the main focus of attack from the Leader of the Opposition. We need to understand and explain what has happened. The British economy was hit massively by the financial crisis. We are a significantly poorer country than we were before that time, although we are now recovering. The impact of that has been felt predominantly through the reduction of wages in real terms.
We are trying to mitigate that impact in two major ways. The first is by lifting low earners out of tax, which increases their disposal income even though their pre-tax income may have fallen. The effect of that is that people on the minimum wage are paying half the income tax that they paid before we embarked on that reform. We have also taken 2.7 million out of income tax altogether. Secondly, and this is my direct responsibility, we have ignored the advice from some quarters to abandon the minimum wage or to dilute it. I have followed the advice of the Low Pay Commission on the minimum wage.
One of the points that the Leader of the Opposition made in his speech—
Vince Cable
I will finish my point and then take the intervention.
The Leader of the Opposition pointed to the apparently low level of enforcement of the minimum wage and the limited number of prosecutions. That worried me at the time, so I checked the history. I discovered that in the last four years of the Labour Government, the number of prosecutions under this flagship policy was two a year. We have therefore maintained a rather similar practice.
I have asked for an interview with the head of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, who is responsible for prosecutions, to establish why the level is so low, because this is a perfectly legitimate issue. I have discovered that a large number of companies are being pursued under civil proceedings, where the maximum penalty is £5,000 a year. The matter is therefore being enforced assiduously, but not through the criminal system. I will establish why we are not doing that and whether we should be doing more to underpin the rights of some of the lowest-paid people in society.
Clive Efford
The right hon. Gentleman has anticipated the point that I was going to make, which was about the alarmingly low level of prosecutions for not paying the national minimum wage. Is most of the enforcement not taking place through trade union activity?
Vince Cable
I am sure that the trade unions play a part in bringing this matter to the attention of the authorities. Every complaint is investigated. Some come from the trade unions and I welcome the role that they play.
Sunday Trading (London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games) Bill [Lords]
Debate between Vince Cable and Clive Efford
Vince Cable
There will be significant additional activity in the Manchester area. I cannot decide at this stage—and I am sure the hon. Lady cannot decide either—how the benefits will be distributed between north, south, east or west Manchester.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
What economic impact assessment tells the Secretary of State that all these visitors in London for the Olympics want to travel to Bluewater to shop on a Sunday? What does that say to the independent traders in my high street in south-east London who will be decimated if Bluewater can open for longer hours during that period?
Amendment of the Law
Debate between Vince Cable and Clive Efford(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Vince Cable
I think Mr Blanchard is very firmly on record as endorsing the strategy that we have adopted.
There is, of course, a fundamental dilemma, which any Government in this situation would face. If a deficit is cut very fast, it clearly has an impact on demand; and if it is cut too slowly, we lose the confidence of international creditors and markets. That is what we have not done. Unlike many eurozone countries that are now introducing budgets in panic and under pressure, we have introduced a politically and financially stable approach to deficit reduction. The underlying theme has to be one of financial discipline.
I cannot resist quoting an excellent statement of what this Government are about, and of what any Government should be about. It says that
“we must ensure we pass the test of fiscal credibility. If we don’t get this right, it doesn’t matter what we say about anything else.”
That was the shadow Chief Secretary, the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves). She is absolutely right and has brought fiscal rigour to the Opposition Front Bench for the first time. I just wonder what kind of response she has made privately to some of the commitments that the shadow Chancellor, and indeed the Leader of the Opposition, have been making in the last few weeks. They have been promising to get rid of the fuel duty changes, child benefit changes, child tax credit changes and the changes to public sector pay. I think the total volume of commitments is something in the order of £30 billion. Before we proceed any further with a debate on the Budget, we need to have absolute clarity about which of those measures the Opposition are committed to and to which they are not—and if they are committed, we need to know what else they are going to cut to make way for them.
Let me summarise where we as a Government are proceeding. Unlike many other countries in Europe, we have not introduced our Budget in an environment of panic or under pressure from financial markets. Unlike in the United States, we do not have political paralysis; we have stable government. This is our strategy: we have, and we will retain, fiscal discipline and we will stimulate the economy. There has to be demand—the shadow Chancellor is absolutely right about that—but this is coming through monetary policy. In order to have a monetary policy that stimulates the economy, we need the confidence of the central bank. The central bank has made it absolutely clear that the Government have to be fully committed to fiscal discipline in order to allow that to happen. Thus we have a combination of low interest rates, quantitative easing, now credit easing and a substantial devaluation. This is where the stimulus to demand comes from.
The third element is fundamental: we are dealing with a broken banking system—something we inherited. The banking system was massively expanded under the last Government, but collapsed with disastrous consequences. There is a continuing problem of credit supply. That is a very real problem—and every small and medium-sized enterprise would tell the same story. We have introduced a whole series of initiatives. The Chancellor has taken this forward with credit easing, while my Department has a new programme building on the Breeden report relating to non-bank finance. I have no doubt that we shall have to come back to this, because the banking system is still not functioning, but this is at the heart of the economic crisis that we are trying to manage. For the first time in our lifetimes, the financial system has collapsed—with disastrous consequences—and we are having to put that right.
The fourth and final element in the story is rebalancing the economy and putting it on a proper sustainable basis. That is why the Chancellor underlined in the Budget our commitment to the growth review and to improving infrastructure. We need to recognise that banks have to be properly regulated, which is why we have increased the bank levy, but in addition, we need to give backing to our successful industries, particularly our export industries—aerospace, creative industries, the oil and gas sector, and pharmaceuticals. Over the last few weeks and months, we have been correcting some of the long-standing errors of policy pursued by the Labour Government—the way in which, for example, public procurement took no account of supply chains; we are putting that right. We are beginning to see serious positive commitment by overseas investors—we are seeing it in the car industry and in pharmaceuticals—as a result of this industrial strategy.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
With all due respect, we have heard it all before. In May last year, the Business Secretary said:
“I will fight, and do fight…for manufacturing industry…It is leading this country out of recession”.—[Official Report, 24 May 2011; Vol. 528, c. 793.]
Will he tell us what went wrong with manufacturing?
Vince Cable
Has the hon. Gentleman followed what is happening? The car industry, for example, has grown by approximately 20% over the last year, and all the major producers are investing in the UK.
Green Investment Bank
Debate between Vince Cable and Clive Efford
Vince Cable
An Opposition Member has already asked me a variant of that question, and I have made it very clear that the green deal is proceeding. It is a successful business model, and we understand the mechanisms by which large-scale investment will be forthcoming, but we certainly do not rule out the possibility of the green investment bank complementing it.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I congratulate the Secretary of State on getting to the end of his statement—for a minute I thought he was going to need a wind turbine inserted to pep him up. It is not possible to pick winners in this area, and a great deal of investment is needed in the research and development of new technologies, so will the green investment bank just pick winners or will it be involved in research and development, accepting that sometimes such projects will not come to fruition?
Vince Cable
Any business organisation making project choices is trying to pick winners, and that is what the bank will be trying to do. It will try to get a return for the economy and for society through environmental improvements, so of course it will have to make choices and pick winners. New technologies are being developed through the technology strategy board, we have announced a couple of technology innovation centres—another will be announced later this week—and they will develop the pioneering technologies to which I think the hon. Gentleman is referring.
Tuition Fees
Debate between Vince Cable and Clive Efford
The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)
I urge the House to oppose the motion. I agree with the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) that this is a very serious and big issue. It arouses strong emotions—there are people out on the streets protesting about it—and I think we deserve something a little better than this anticlimactic procedural motion about whether to proceed with a vote before or after a White Paper. Surely, this is an opportunity for him to set out alternatives.
Vince Cable
I will deal with interventions later.
The right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen gave a revealing answer to an intervention from one of my colleagues, in which he acknowledged that there are alternative ways of allocating funding in my Department and in the Government. He did not tell us what they were, but we should examine those choices in detail. The House could reasonably expect, in this massive issue that arouses massive emotions, to hear some indication of what the main Opposition party envisages as an alternative to what the Government are doing.
It has never been explained in the House, but we hear on the grapevine that an alternative idea—the graduate tax—is doing the rounds. Personally, I was instinctively quite attracted to that idea, and we had it very carefully examined. I do not know exactly what the proposal is—whether it is what has been called a pure graduate tax or a system of graduate contributions of the kind we are introducing, which relates payment to the ability to pay. I do not know what the Opposition propose. What is their alternative?
The right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues set up the Browne commission process to examine the options in detail and in general principle. It roundly condemns the alternative that I believe he favours—although I am not quite clear. His Government were in power for 12 years, overseeing student financing and acting on the basis of the Dearing report, which comprehensively demolished the arguments for the alternative the right hon. Gentleman now says he favours, so what is that alternative? What is it?
Vince Cable
I am not giving way at the moment; I may do so later.
What is the Opposition’s alternative? It is perfectly legitimate to ask questions and we shall try to deal with them. What is not legitimate is to create this enormous moral furore, with absolutely no alternative strategy whatever.
Several hon. Members
Vince Cable
No. I will continue.
We were driven to the logic of the Browne report, which the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen and his colleagues set up. In responding to it, we have done two things. First, one of the questions that I asked Lord Browne, which it never occurred to the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues to ask, was how do we make the system more progressive? I had to ask Lord Browne that because it was not part of his terms of reference. As a result, the Browne report has come out with a series of recommendations, many of which we have accepted, that make the system significantly better than the one that we inherited.
Let me deal with one of those measures, which relates to part-time students. The right hon. Gentleman talked about part-time students, but he forgot to mention that their fees were left unregulated by the previous Government. He has not mentioned that two thirds of part-time students are postgraduates. That explains the anomaly and his question. For part-time students reading for their first degree, under the changes that we are going to introduce, there will be no up-front fees, which was the arrangement left behind by the previous Government. Part-time students get a significantly better deal under our proposals than they would have done under the Opposition.
Vince Cable
No, I will not give way again. I have answered the question.
We will decide how we are going to approach the matter, under the coalition agreement. I am clear that the policy is significantly better than the one that we inherited. I am responsible for it and I have every intention of continuing to promote it.
Vince Cable
No, I will not give way again. I have dealt with the issue.
The issue of the Browne commission was raised, and I have made the point that I asked the commission to produce a policy that was significantly more progressive than the one that we had, and Lord Browne has done so. We have not accepted the commission’s report in its entirety, however; we have made significant changes to make it a better policy.
Vince Cable
Will the hon. Gentleman sit down and let me finish the point?
The Browne report—a report commissioned by the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen and his colleagues—recommended no limit on caps. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman remembers that. No limit was proposed, but we have proposed to limit the cap to a manageable and reasonable level that reflects the costs of universities. The report also suggested that—
Vince Cable
No, I am not giving way again.
The report also suggested that caps should be lifted without appropriate conditions for universities, but we are going to introduce those conditions. Let me explain them. We have responded in the circumstances that I have described to the need to make financial decisions; we have produced an outcome that a Labour Government would almost certainly have followed in very similar terms; and we have produced a policy that is more progressive than the one we inherited and better than the Browne report.
The right hon. Gentleman poses a question about delay. What are the merits of delay as opposed to proceeding immediately? There are several reasons why it is desirable to make progress. First, the Browne commission was itself an extensive consultative process, and the right hon. Gentleman knows because he helped to set it up. There was substantial discussion and public hearings, and he probably deserves some credit for having established an extended process that was so open. Many of those debates have already been had, therefore, and the evidence is available on which to make decisions.
The second point is a practical one, which I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman understands. If the cap is going to be introduced for the academic year 2012-13, it has to be introduced quickly. There is a practical reason, and that is why we have to proceed, but there are a series of issues—he has listed some—on which we clearly need to consult and reflect further. He quite rightly says that we need more detail on the national scholarship scheme, and we have suggested that an arrangement could be used to benefit students from low-income families by providing free tuition through, let us say, the first year of their university career.
There are different ways of approaching the problem, and we would like to talk to the National Union of Students and to university bodies about the best way of giving incentives through the scholarship scheme to low-income families. The current arrangements do not work well, as the right hon. Gentleman knows because he presided over the policy for some years. We have not achieved the level of participation in higher education by families from that background that we should have. After his period in office, 57% of all pupils in higher education came from advantaged areas, and only 19% came from disadvantaged areas. Surely, after the failure of programmes such as the bursary scheme, it is right that we reflect on and consider the best way of using Government money to achieve higher participation.
The right hon. Gentleman asks also about the access conditions, and again it is surely right that we consider all the evidence available. I will write to the regulator about how the situation can be improved, but, if the right hon. Gentleman’s party has anything to tell us from its experience in government, I shall be very interested to hear it, because his Government set up the regulator six years ago, I think. As a result of that experience, the relative position of low-income students trying to get into the top third of universities has deteriorated. Their conditions of access failed as a matter of policy. Surely it is right that we consider further how we can make the policy work, and we shall do so.
Vince Cable
I can confirm that it is our firm intention to do exactly that. Whether the measure requires embedding in a statutory instrument is a matter on which we will seek advice, but I am very confident and very happy to have that commitment—the uprating by earnings of the threshold—made firm by law. How it is done—through a statutory instrument or subsequently—is a matter on which we clearly need advice. The right hon. Gentleman is quite right to ask the question, but he should perhaps remind Labour Members that he had an opportunity to uprate thresholds and never did so when in government, despite the fact that his Government’s financial position was more comfortable than the current one.
Clive Efford
The right hon. Gentleman is missing one important point in this debate. Throughout the country, students are demonstrating not because of his technical arguments, but because the Liberal Democrats made a point of saying one thing to them at an election and started to say something completely different within hours of the ministerial cars turning up. Students are listening to what he says tonight, and what they want to hear is, is he going to vote for the proposal, yes or no?
Vince Cable
I thought that that intervention might be worth waiting for, but the hon. Gentleman merely echoes his next-door neighbour on the Opposition Benches, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood), to whom I have given an answer.
I have sought to answer in correspondence some of the questions that the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen has asked, and I am happy to debate the technical points and to correspond further with him, because my colleagues should rightly have as much information as possible. That is how we intend to approach the debate. He said that the costings and calculations were not made available, but they have been made available—to him, his colleagues and the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The models are very complex ones that produce different outcomes depending on assumptions, and we are very happy to share them. We could have hidden them in a black box and pretended that the outcomes were true, but we have shared the assumptions and analysis and are happy to continue to do so.
Higher Education and Student Finance
Debate between Vince Cable and Clive Efford(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Vince Cable
I know that the hon. Gentleman has strong feelings on the subject and we have debated it. The first part of his question posed the problem correctly. The idea of abolishing tuition fees or even freezing them at their present level is simply not feasible, and I think that he acknowledges that. We must work towards a level; I specified £7,000 on behalf of the Government, which we think is the only way in future in which universities can be properly funded to carry out the functions that he and all of us want to see them perform at world-class level.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
The only thing that has changed since the Secretary of State and his colleagues put their skid marks on the student declaration before the general election is the scale and speed of the cuts that the Liberal Democrats have signed up to and are supporting the Tory party in carrying out. Children from many middle-income families will be turned from going to university as a result of these changes. If the changes come about, will the Secretary of State give an undertaking that any future changes will come back to the Floor of the House, as they have to now, and that they will not be able to be slipped through by some future Secretary of State who wants to increase fees even further and deter even more students?
Vince Cable
I think that the hon. Gentleman came to the House the same year that I did. Before we get any more righteous indignation from Labour Members, I should say to him that he may remember campaigning on a manifesto that promised to abolish top-up fees but did absolutely nothing of the kind when the Government were returned.