1. What steps he is taking to increase democratic participation.
Some elements of participation, such as polling day turnout, lie far beyond the powers of mere Government and depend on the importance of the poll and the brilliance or otherwise of the campaigns. However, Governments can help things such as voter registration, where we are about to begin canvassing pilots to make the registration process quicker, cheaper, and more digital. We are also working with groups such as the British Youth Council, Operation Black Vote and Universities UK to encourage under-registered groups to sign up, and partnering with our embassies abroad and the Electoral Commission to run registration drives in the run-up to the polls on 5 May and 23 June.
I am grateful for the Minister’s answer. Nevertheless, in the week before the Scottish Parliament elections and the elections to the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly, this Government have overseen the disenfranchisement of over 770,000 people by the introduction of self-assessment in terms of the registration process. How can this Government hold their head up and say that they are increasing participation?
The registers are being reduced by the entries of people who have moved house or who have died and are not therefore likely to turn up and vote. There is, however, a parallel problem of the missing millions of people who have never been on the register and need to be found. We cannot cross them off because they are not on it, but we all collectively, on a cross-party basis, need to get out there and sign these people up. If the hon. Gentleman wants to join in a cross-party deputation to do so, I would be only too delighted to help.
Does my hon. Friend agree that equally important as ensuring that those who are entitled to vote are able to vote is making sure that genuine candidates are not disenfranchised by people who get on to the electoral register who ought not to be on there because they are there through fraud?
Absolutely. It is crucial that we have a register that is both complete and accurate. I therefore look forward with great anticipation to the report on electoral fraud by my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Sir Eric Pickles), where I am sure he will cover this, among other things.
What specific work are the Government doing with students and young people to ensure that they are registered to vote?
We are taking a number of different approaches. First, we are working with Universities UK and the Association of Colleges. A great deal of work is being done in universities themselves. We are also examining very closely the work that is being done in places such as Sheffield University to sign up students when they first arrive and enrol. We are doing a great deal, but there is probably more as well.
I congratulate the Government on driving up democratic participation in the EU referendum by publishing their leaflet, which I understand is up for the Pulitzer prize for the best work of fiction. Does the Minister agree that that is driving more people to take part in the EU referendum because they are so cross and want to leave?
I am glad that my hon. Friend enjoyed the read. I point out to him that some 85% of the population say that they want to hear more about the issues from the Government. If that serves to drive up participation among either remainers or leavers, then I am sure that both he and I will be pleased.
There is much concern about the Government’s new proposals for public appointments in that they might decrease social mobility. Sir David Normington has gone so far as to say: “Grimstone’s proposals would enable ministers to set their own rules; override those rules whenever they want; appoint their own selection panels; get preferential treatment for favoured candidates; ignore the panel’s advice if they don’t like it; and appoint someone considered by the panel as not up to the job.” Would the Minister like to answer that?
Before the Minister does so, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is concerned about the appointment process in the context of the drive to increase democratic participation.
Indeed, Mr Speaker—yes. Social mobility in public appointments is very important for democratic participation.
I am not sure how I link any kind of answer to democratic participation, but I none the less point out that we adhere consistently to the Nolan principles in everything that we do in this area.
I appreciate the Minister’s answer to my creative question. I do not believe everything that I read in the papers, but this week it was revealed that the Culture Secretary had recommended five candidates for the position of trustee at the National Portrait Gallery. Three were Tory donors and one was a former Tory Minister. Is that a way of improving democratic participation for Tory cronies?
I suspect that the hon. Gentleman is trying to raise a serious point, but this is an example of the principle of if you are in a hole, you should stop digging.
2. What plans the Government have to increase the number of young people participating in the National Citizen Service.
We have ambitious plans to make NCS a rite of passage for young people. We have committed more than £1 billion to grow the programme to reach the majority of 16-year-olds by 2021 and we would like NCS to benefit every young person, regardless of where they live in the United Kingdom. It is therefore extremely disappointing that there is currently no NCS programme in Scotland or Wales, despite the generous funding made available through the autumn spending review.
Last summer, I was invited to a highly successful lunch event for veterans and others organised by a group of young people through the NCS scheme. This year, those on that scheme are running a social action project, which involves creating a sensory garden for young adults with learning difficulties. Does the Minister agree that the skills learnt through the programme—confidence building and teamwork—are making a real difference to young people in getting them into work and closing our skills gap?
Indeed. It is absolutely true that NCS is creating a generation of more responsible and engaged young people. The skills that NCS participants in Taunton are developing are echoed widely around England and Northern Ireland. Indeed, 90% of participants say that NCS helps them develop key skills for the future. UCAS now recognises NCS, and taking part is becoming a sought-after addition to any young person’s CV.
The Minister will know that I am a great supporter of NCS, but is it not underfunded? At the moment, we must be honest and admit that it reaches mostly into more affluent communities and not those with kids from poorer backgrounds. That is the truth and the Minister should do something about it.
Two hundred thousand young people have been through the NCS programme so far and we are aiming to increase that number significantly by 2020. We have made £1 billion available to do that. We are doing extremely well on diversity: 21% of NCS participants are eligible for free school meals compared with the national average of 8%, and 27% of participants are from non-white backgrounds, compared with 19% throughout the country. We are therefore doing better than the national average.
Order. The Government should have grouped this question with Question 4. For some reason, they did not do so, but I will take that question now.
4. I am very grateful. The Minister is right that NCS is proving invaluable for young people across the country. In Dorset, there was recently a successful scheme called “From yard to garden” about replanting trees. I would be grateful if the Minister gave advice and guidance to Members of all parties about how they can get more involved in that excellent programme.
I know that my hon. Friend is doing all he can to support the NCS in his constituency. Every Member can help by visiting a local NCS programme to raise awareness and ensuring that local schools and colleges encourage students to participate. The Secretary of State for Education and I will shortly write to all Members to highlight how everyone can make a contribution to NCS.
Last summer, I visited an NCS scheme in Dukinfield in my constituency and I was hugely impressed by the work with young people, but many of those young people raised with me the wider cuts to youth services. Has the Minister conducted an impact assessment on how those cuts have affected the aims, ambitions and objectives of the NCS programme?
That question gives me the opportunity to say how disappointed I am that local authorities choose to make cuts in their service provision. We are investing more than £1 billion in NCS in this Parliament and the overwhelming majority of that funding will flow through delivery organisations, most of which are public or VCSE—voluntary, community and social enterprise—organisations. Beyond that, we are also investing more widely in the youth sector through programmes such as Step Up To Serve and the British Youth Council, and supporting local authorities to reshape their youth provision.
10. The Minister gave a statistic in response to the question asked by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), but what steps is he taking to encourage NCS participation by young people from a black and minority ethnic background?
I thank my hon. Friend for asking about the participation targets. It is really important that every young person—every 16-year-old—gets the opportunity to take part in NCS, because the programme not only creates a more cohesive society and adds to social mobility and social engagement, but delivers value for money. The statistics that I cited earlier show that it is a programme of which we, the Government and the whole country can be very proud.
3. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of an anti-lobbying clause in Government grant agreements on the ability of charities to scrutinise Government policy.
6. What assessment he has made of the compatibility of the proposed anti-lobbying clause in Government funding agreements with the terms of the Government’s compact with civil society organisations relating to campaigning.
As set out earlier this month, we are continuing to work on this issue with charities, universities and others. The principle is clear: taxpayers’ money should not be wasted on Government lobbying Government.
Will the Minister not admit that this policy is a mess? The Government have been forced into a U-turn by research scientists, so the clause will not apply to them. Will he undertake urgently to review the operation of the entire clause and, at the very least, commit to an ongoing review so that we can be sure that the freedom of speech of charities and other organisations is not undermined?
As we have said, we are reviewing representations and we will take a decision on the form of the clause. We are pausing on implementation, but we are committed to ensuring that taxpayers’ money is used for the good causes for which it is intended and not wasted on Government lobbying Government.
Six years after the Government promised to crack down on lobbyists, the big corporate lobbyists are free to lobby, in secret and anonymously, but the worthy charities are having their lives made a misery by new bureaucracy. Why do the Government consistently dabble in the shallows, worrying the minnows, while the big, fat salmon swim by unhindered?
I am an enormous supporter of the work of charities, but I find it extraordinary that the hon. Gentleman seems to be a supporter of lobbyists using money only when it comes from taxpayers. I think that taxpayers’ money should be put to better use.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that when our constituents give money to charity, they expect it to be used directly to help those disadvantaged people whom the charity claims to help, and that if they wanted it to be used for political lobbying, they would have made a donation to a political party?
I could not have put it better myself.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that when people donate money, they want that money to be spent on the services provided by the charity, and that most people in this country would be shocked at the amount of money spent on administration and lobbying?
My hon. Friend makes an important point, which is that charities play an enormous role in alleviating suffering, improving good causes and strengthening our communities. Let us make sure that when money is donated to a charity—as it is by many of us, possibly everyone, in this House and many people around the country—it is spent on the good causes for which it is intended.
The Government have succeeded in uniting the entire British voluntary sector against them, including household names such as the girl guides, Mencap and Oxfam. Indeed, their actions in trying to suppress debate and discussion are reminiscent of a totalitarian political culture. If voluntary organisations come across systemic child abuse or practices such as female genital mutilation, are you really saying that they should remain silent and not seek to influence Government, when a change in the law could outlaw such practices?
I am not saying anything of the kind, but I will leave it to the Minister.
And nor are we. It is an absurd suggestion. The principle that taxpayers’ money should not be used to lobby Government is perfectly reasonable and one that most people support.
A leading board member of the Charity Commission has written an essay calling for the UK to leave the EU. That comes after the Charity Commission tried to clamp down on charities engaging in the EU debate. Is the Minister able to explain why the Charity Commission rule on campaigning appears to be, “Do as I say, not as I do”? I welcomed his clarification that charity voices should and could be heard on the issues that affect them, but it flies in the face of the Charity Commission’s recent gagging clauses. Will the Minister confirm that charities are now allowed to speak out, but only if they agree with him?
No.
5. What recent assessment the Government have made of the case for electoral reform.
My hon. Friend will remember that in the last Parliament we held the alternative vote referendum, in which this country resoundingly rejected a proposal to abandon our tried and tested first-past-the-post system in favour of an alternative. I believe that we should respect that result and the clear democratic decision that it represents, and therefore we have no plans to change the voting system.
Given that the British people voted overwhelmingly for first past the post, does my hon. Friend agree that, as with all referendums, the vote is final and settled, and that the Government are absolutely right to push ahead with delivering their vital manifesto commitments?
As in many things, I could not have put it better myself.
When it comes to electoral reform, in Northern Ireland we are closing all our electoral offices. Surely, part of electoral reform is trying to get more people involved, and closing electoral offices is the wrong way to do it.
I will not trample on the purviews of the devolved Administrations and the Northern Ireland Office, but if the hon. Gentleman would like to write to me with more details, I would be happy to respond.
Are the Government looking seriously at how the understandable security challenges of online voting might be overcome so that future generations of young people can vote online in this country safely and securely, thereby increasing voter registration and participation?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that online activity is an increasing part of our everyday lives, whether it be shopping or anything else. As technology improves and online voting becomes steadily more secure, it is something that we will need to continue to revisit. At the moment, the prospect of potentially stealing the Government of a country is too grave to allow online voting to happen.
Does the Minister agree that we must do everything possible to bring power closer to people in every part of the country, and that a good start would be to make it easier for people to engage in politics?
I absolutely agree. As I said in response to an earlier set of questions, there is a great deal that Governments can do, but there is also a great deal that political parties and others need to do, to engage the interest of the voters.
7. What discussions he has had with industry leaders on increasing social mobility in the public and private sectors.
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for his work in the House on social mobility. In our mission to increase social mobility, we are working with a number of leading businesses and organisations on our plans to improve life chances across the nations. That includes the civil service pushing ahead with the delivery of more than 30,000 of the overall 3 million apprenticeship starts by 2020, introducing name-blind recruitment and leading the development of new national common measures of socioeconomic diversity for employers.
As it is vital that the civil service reflects the society that it serves, will my right hon. Friend explain how the Government are acting on the recommendations made in the report of the Bridge group?
My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that we are accepting every part of the recommendations of the Bridge report. He will know that we are the party of the ladder, the party of social mobility, the party of the living wage, the party of lower taxes for low earners and the party of millions of apprenticeships and millions of jobs.
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Cabinet Office is responsible for efficiency in reforming Government, transparency, civil society, digital technology, cyber-security and delivering the Government’s agenda.
I commend my right hon. Friend for releasing vast amounts of Government data, which will improve transparency across Government. What further action can he take to ensure that performance improves, transparency is available to the general public and data are in a manageable form so that people can analyse them
My hon. Friend is right that this is not only about releasing more information, but about releasing it in a way that is usable. I can announce to the House that since 2010 the Government have released 27,000 open datasets—a new high—which goes to show that we are the most transparent Government ever.
T3. British troops served fewer years in Iraq than during the first and second world wars, and the first and second world wars did not take as long as it has taken to publish the Chilcot report. Will the Minister make an apology to my constituent Pat Long, whose son was killed in the Iraq war, for these unforgivable delays, and also give a commitment to her and other families that they will see the embargoed report, rather than getting the news—inevitably there will be bad news—second hand?
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concern and the concern of his constituents. He will know that the timing of the publication is a matter for the independent inquiry, which has set out a timetable. Checking for national security issues is very important, and will take place appropriately. Thankfully, we will get to the conclusion of this process soon.
T2. The Government need to keep up with the digital revolution, and I applaud the Minister’s efforts to ensure that that is being done. Does he agree that as more interaction between citizens and Government takes place online, cyber-security must keep pace with that increase?
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. He is absolutely right that cyber-security is increasingly important not just for communications between citizen and Government, but in a wide range of businesses. That is why we have laid aside £1.9 billion to improve our cyber-security during this Parliament, and why we are creating a new national cyber-security centre.
T5. We heard earlier about the anti-lobbying clause that the Minister for the Cabinet Office is determined to introduce in a drive to clean up politics. The Lobbying (Scotland) Act 2016 covers the lobbying of MSPs. Does he have any plans to expand the scope of the register of consultant lobbyists to cover the lobbying of MPs?
We brought in the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 and made progress on this issue during the last Parliament. The crucial point about tackling lobbying through grants is that taxpayers’ money should be spent on the things it is intended for, not on Government lobbying Government.
T4. The FIFA corruption scandal and other corruption scandals around the world have shown the need for a more integrated and international approach to tackling corruption. Will the Minister push for such an approach at the Government’s anti-corruption summit next month?
In short, yes. That is of course part of the global development goals, which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister led the world in establishing. One of the targets within those goals is precisely to reduce that kind of corruption, and we will emphasise that in our work to fulfil our part of those targets.
T7. What steps has the Minister taken to make Government colleagues aware of the disastrous impact that the Trade Union Bill will have on industrial relations with civil servants?
The Trade Union Bill, which is currently before Parliament, takes important steps to modernise the relationship between trade unions and their members. Although trade unions play a very important part in our national life and represent the interests of many, they do not represent the interests of all, and we must make sure that that relationship is modern and appropriate. [Interruption.]
Order. There is a lot of noise in the Chamber. The Minister must be very disappointed to have such an inattentive audience. Let us hear the words.
T6. To return to individual electoral registration and the question from the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes), will the Minister give further assurances that all steps are being taken to reach harder-to-reach groups, such as private renters, of which there are very many in my constituency of Eastbourne?
Yes, indeed. We are determined to reach out to a new set of potential electors who have failed to register, as the Minister for constitutional reform, my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), made clear earlier in our proceedings. I should tell my hon. Friend that every single person whose name appeared in the old register but who has been discounted under individual electoral registration would have been approached at least nine times before their name was removed.
I appeal to Ministers to face the House because much of the right hon. Gentleman’s answer was lost on the rest of us, which is to our grave disadvantage.
T9. When I used to work for a charity, I was often called by the Ministry of Justice, the Home Office and the Department for Communities and Local Government to give expert advice, on one occasion to a very anxious Minister just before a sitting of the Home Affairs Committee. Under the new anti-advocacy clause, will charity specialists continue to be able to help the Government, or will the new rule apply only when it suits the Government, rather than when it suits the public?
Of course charities will be able to contribute to debate. They will be able to advise and researchers will be able to bring forward their world-beating ideas, but as for the idea, supported by the Labour party, that taxpayers’ money should be used for paid lobbyists, we are going to put a stop to that.
T8. I welcome the Government’s commitment to improving social mobility in the civil service. Will the Minister join me in encouraging more private sector employers to do the same—for example, through schemes such as Inspiring the Future?
I strongly endorse that approach, Mr Speaker. If you or any other Member have not already got involved in an Inspiring the Future event, I would encourage you to do so. Not only is it good for the country but it is an incredibly enjoyable way to spend some time.
From Cabinet Office figures, 67% of people in the senior civil service were based in London last year, the highest proportion in the past five years. Given that, and the decision to close the office of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in Sheffield, does the Minister not accept that his policy of moving civil servants out of London and into the regions is failing?
We are introducing regional hubs for the civil service. Of course, many UK civil servants work in Scotland, supporting the people in Scotland. Inevitably there are a large number of civil servants in London because this is the capital of the United Kingdom, but we have to make sure that they represent the country that they serve.
We know that special advisers are required to submit their emails and telephone texts to public view under freedom of information legislation. What is the Government’s policy on the use of WhatsApp, which special advisers are using to conceal Government business from public view?
I hesitate to admit to my hon. Friend that I have never personally used WhatsApp in my life. I am happy to reassure him that all aspects of Government business are properly recorded and minuted, and are subject to FOI requests as normal, despite the rumours that he has heard.
That probably makes two of us, then.
Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 27 April.
Yesterday marked a momentous day for the family and friends of the 96 victims of the Hillsborough disaster. Over the last 27 years their search for justice has been met with obfuscation and hostility instead of sympathy and answers. As I said to the House in 2012 about the Hillsborough independent panel’s report, it is wrong that the families had to wait for so long, and to fight so hard, just to get to the truth. I know that the whole House will want to join me in praising their courage, patience and resolve. They have never faltered in the pursuit of the truth and we all owe them a great debt of gratitude This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others, and, in addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
I would very much like to associate myself with the Prime Minister’s important comments on the Hillsborough tragedy, along with Members on all sides of the House, and pay tribute to the victims and their families, and to the resilience of the campaigners who continue to strive for the truth in the pursuit of justice In my constituency of Eastleigh, the service that GPs provide is crucial to people’s daily lives, including at St Luke’s surgery in Botley—I have met the people at that surgery to highlight its important local value. Does the Prime Minister agree that the recent key announcement of £2.4 billion of funding for GPs is only possible because of a strong Conservative majority Government?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We made a choice to put £12 billion into the NHS in the last Parliament and £19 billion into the NHS in this Parliament. We want to see strengthened primary care. Our vision is of GPs coming together and having physiotherapists, mental health practitioners and other clinics in their surgeries, so that people can get the healthcare they need and we take the pressure off hospitals. That will only happen with a Government who keep investing in our NHS.
Yesterday, after 27 years, the 96 people who tragically lost their lives at Hillsborough, and their families, finally received the justice they were entitled to. I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister has apologised for the actions of previous Governments, and I join him in paying tribute to all those families who have campaigned with such dignity, steadfastness and determination, to get to the truth of what happened to their loved ones on that dreadful afternoon. I also pay a warm tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), for Halton (Derek Twigg) and for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) and other MPs who have relentlessly campaigned with great difficulty over many years. I hope that the whole House will be united in demanding that all those involved in the lies, smears and cover-ups that have so bedevilled this whole inquiry will now be held to account Last week the Prime Minister told the House that he was going to put rocket boosters on his forced academisation proposals. This weekend, in the light of widespread unease—including among his own MPs—it seems that the wheels are falling off the rocket boosters, and that the Government are considering a U-turn. Will the Prime Minister confirm whether that U-turn is being prepared for or not?
Let me join the right hon. Gentleman in praising those who campaigned so hard and for so long to get justice for the victims of Hillsborough. This whole process took far too long, and it is right that we had the Jones report—I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham)—and responded to it. I also want to mention the former Attorney General, who took the case to the High Court for the Government himself, to argue for that vital second inquest On academies, I have not yet met a rocket booster with a wheel on it, but rocket science is not really my subject, and apparently it is not the right hon. Gentleman’s. I repeat: academies are raising standards in our schools, and I want a system where heads and teachers run schools, not bureaucrats.
Well, there wasn’t much of an answer there. Will the Prime Minister tell the House—[Interruption.] If Conservative Members would be patient, they might hear the simple question that I am putting to the Prime Minister. Will he tell the House whether he will bring forward legislation to force good and outstanding schools to become academies against their wishes in the upcoming Queen’s Speech? Yes or no?
Obviously, I cannot really pre-empt what is in the Queen’s Speech, but on this one example I can help out the right hon. Gentleman. We are going to have academies for all, and it will be in the Queen’s Speech.
We look forward to that, but there is still time for the U-turn that I am sure is at the back of the Prime Minister’s mind. It has been reported that the Government are considering allowing good local authorities to form multi-academy trusts. Ironically, that would give local authorities more responsibility for running schools than they have now, although the Prime Minister has previously suggested that local authorities are holding schools back. Why is this costly reorganisation necessary for schools that are already good or outstanding? Why is he forcing it on them?
As I said last week—this is good; I like repeats on television, and I am very happy to have them in the House as well—outstanding schools have nothing to fear from becoming academies, and indeed they have a lot to gain. Just because a school is outstanding or good does not mean that it cannot have further improvement. We want outstanding schools to help other schools in their area, often by being part of an academy trust. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned local authorities—[Interruption.] He has asked two questions so far, with two very clear answers. Third question, and third clear answer coming—[Interruption.] Simmer down. Perhaps if he could deal with the anti-Semites in his party, we would all be prepared to listen to him a bit more—perhaps we will come on to that Of course, there are lots of ways in which schools can become academies: they can convert and become academies; they can be sponsored by an outside organisation; they can work with other schools in the area; they can look at working with the local authority. Those schools that want to go on using local authority services are free to do so. I am very clear: academies are great and academies for all is a good policy. What we are now seeing from Labour, I sense, is that it is moving in favour of academy schools. Perhaps when the right hon. Gentleman gets to his feet, he can say: does he favour academies or not?
The Prime Minister will be aware that repeats on television sometimes get more viewers than they did the first time round The chief executive of the largest academy chain in London, the Harris Academy, has warned that a far more fundamental thing that the Prime Minister should be worrying about, rather than whether schools should become academies or not, is teacher shortages. The academies do not want this; parents do not want it; teachers do not want it; governors do not want it; Conservative councils and MPs do not want it. Who actually does want this top-down reorganisation that he is imposing on our education system?
Okay. Question 4, answer 4: here it comes. The right hon. Gentleman asks who wants this. Let us start with Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of schools. I think he is someone worth listening to. He said that “academisation can lead to rapid improvements…I” firmly “believe it is right to give more autonomy to the front line” The OECD has been in the news today, so let us try that. This should not be too controversial. The OECD states: “I view the trend towards academies as a very promising development in the UK, which used to have a rather prescriptive education system” So it supports it. What about the endless academy trusts who support it The right hon. Gentleman asked another question, and, very keen for full answers—[Interruption.] If you shout, you will not hear the answer. He asked about teacher shortages, but the fact is that there are more school places and more teachers under this Government than there were under Labour. Why? Because we have got a successful economy, and we are putting it into our schools and our children’s future.
There are, of course, still record numbers of children in over-sized and super-sized classes, and that is getting worse. If the Prime Minister is looking for support for his academisation proposal, he might care to phone his friends, the leaders of Hampshire, West Sussex and his own Oxfordshire county council, who are deeply concerned and opposed to it. He might care to listen to Councillor Carter, the Conservative chair of the County Councils Network, who said that “the change will lead to a poorer education system” Why, then, is the Prime Minister pushing this through with so much opposition and concern, and when it is such a waste of money, when we should be investing in teachers and schools, not top-down reorganisation?
I am glad the right hon. Gentleman is quoting Conservative council leaders, and because they keep the council tax down and provide good services, I hope we will see more of them in 10 days’ time. To be clear on teacher supply, there are 13,000 more teachers than there were in 2010 To give a wholly accurate answer to his fourth question, the right hon. Gentleman asked who else supports academies. Let me quote Helena Mills of the Burnt Mill Academy Trust. She said: “I used to be very sceptical about, and resistant to, academy status. But during the process of developing the…Academy…I have been increasingly convinced that” this “is the way forward.” That is what more and more people are saying. That is why 1.3 million more children are in good and outstanding schools. That is why almost nine out of 10 converter academies are good or outstanding schools. On this side of the House we are very clear: we back aspiration; we back opportunity; we back investment in our schools; we want every child to get the best. It is Labour that wants to hold back opportunity and have one-size-fits-all.
A pattern seems to be developing. [Interruption.] It is quite simply this: the Prime Minister has a Health Secretary who is imposing a contract on junior doctors, against the wishes of patients, the public and the rest of the medical profession; and he has an Education Secretary who is imposing yet another Tory top-down reorganisation that nobody wants. When will his Government show some respect and listen to the public, parents and patients, and indeed to professionals who have given their lives to public service in education and health? When will he change his ways, listen to them and trust other people to run services, rather than imposing things from above?
I tell right hon. Gentleman the pattern that is developing: we can see 1.9 million more people being treated in our health service; and we can see 1.3 million more children in “good” or “outstanding” schools. That is the pattern that is developing: a strong economy, investing into our public services. The other pattern that I have noticed, standing at this Dispatch Box, is that I am on my fifth Labour leader—and if he carries on like this, I will soon be on my sixth.
Q2. The Government package to help potential buyers of the Tata Steel site in Port Talbot is substantial and befits the tremendous bipartisan endeavours this Government have undertaken to save the industry, and it stands in stark contrast with the distasteful, disrespectful comments of Labour’s policy adviser, who said that the steel crisis had been “good for Labour”. Is there any indication that the package could help expedite the sale of the site, which could provide the long-term viable future for Welsh steel, which we all hope for, and for the workers who live in my constituency of Gower
I want to thank my hon. Friend for welcoming me to the Gower yesterday. Before coming to his constituency I visited Port Talbot, where I met the management and trade unions, and had a very constructive discussion. [Interruption.] I did actually meet the Conservative leader, Andrew R. T. Davies, who does an excellent job in the Welsh Assembly. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) wants to be Speaker, he had better stop interrupting everybody, as it is not going to get him any votes—a little tip for him there. But the serious point is about the areas where we could help. We could help on power, on procurement and on the issue of pensions. There is a very constructive conversation going on, but I say again from this Dispatch Box that although I want to do everything we can to secure the future for not only Port Talbot but for Scunthorpe and for steelmaking in Britain we are coping with a massive oversupply from China and a collapse in prices. We must therefore do all we can. There is no guarantee of success, but if we work hard and get a proper sales process and get behind it on a bipartisan basis we can see success here.
Following the Hillsborough inquiry, we join in all the comments made so far in relation to the families and in paying tribute to all the campaigners for justice Last night, the Government were defeated for the second time in the House of Lords on the issue of refugee children being given refuge in the United Kingdom. Many Members of that House, like many Members of this one, in all parties, including on the Prime Minister’s own side, would wish us to do much, much more in helping provide refuge for unaccompanied children in Europe. Will the Prime Minister please reconsider his opposition and stop walking by on the other side?
I do not think anyone can accuse this country of walking on by in this refugee crisis. Let us be very clear about what we have done: first, we are taking the 20,000 refugees from outside Europe, which I think has all-party support; secondly, last week we announced the further 3,000—principally unaccompanied children and children at risk from outside Europe—whom we will be taking; and, thirdly, under our normal refugee procedures, last year we took more than 3,000 unaccompanied children. But where I disagree, respectfully, with their lordships’ House is that those people who are in European countries are in safe European countries. To compare—somehow—children or adults who are in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal or Greece with children stuck in Nazi Germany is deeply wrong, and we will continue our approach, which includes being the second largest donor country anywhere in the world in those refugee camps.
As in the 1930s, there are thousands—[Interruption.] Apparently, there is “no comparison” between thousands of children needing refuge in the 1930s and thousands of children in Europe at the present time—[Interruption.] Yes! Yes!
Order. I am not interested in someone yelling out their opinion of the right hon. Gentleman’s question. This is the home of free speech. The right hon. Gentleman, and every other Member, will be heard, however long this session takes. That is very clear.
Europol estimates that 10,000 unaccompanied children in Europe have disappeared. This is an existential question about the safety of vulnerable children. The Prime Minister thinks that it is not the responsibility of the United Kingdom to help unaccompanied children in Europe, so I ask him: who has the moral responsibility for feeding them, clothing them, educating them and giving them refuge, if not us, and everyone in Europe?
Let me answer that very directly. First, any unaccompanied child who has direct family in Britain, on claiming asylum under the Dublin regulations, can come to Britain—and quite right too. But the right hon. Gentleman asked who was responsible for refugees. The answer to that question is the country the refugees are in. I want Britain to play our part, but we have to ask ourselves whether we do better by taking a child from a refugee camp, or taking a child from Lebanon, or taking a child from Jordan, than by taking a child from France, Italy or Germany. As I have said, to compare this with the 1930s is, frankly, to insult those countries, which are our neighbours and partners.
Q3. ATP Industries Group, which is based in Cannock Wood, is one of Europe’s largest independent remanufacturers of automated transmission and vehicle electronics. Last week, it was given a Queen’s Award for innovation. It exports goods across the globe, and its international trade increased by more than 50% last year. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating ATP, and will he tell us what the Government are doing to help exporters to reach new markets?
I certainly join my hon. Friend in congratulating ATP. It is very difficult to win a Queen’s Award for exports, so it does deserve praise. What we want to see in our country is this. We currently have one in five small and medium-sized enterprises that export, and if we could make it one in four, we would wipe out our trade deficit. We are encouraging that through the work of UK Trade & Investment, but, as I saw yesterday in south Wales, we are also encouraging it by encouraging reshoring: by encouraging the supply and components industries—including those that supply the automotive industry—to come back onshore and invest in Britain.
Q6. In my constituency, the Zielsdorfs have lived and raised their family in the small village of Laggan for many years. Despite their full co-operation, they face an uphill and fruitless battle with the Home Office. They have had their driving licences revoked, and they are being forced out of the community that they have served, and in which they have invested, by a technicality involving their business—the local shop. Will the Prime Minister look into this grossly unfair situation, and work with me to achieve justice for the family?
I will certainly have a look at that case. If the hon. Gentleman lets me know the names involved and the nature of the issues, I will make sure that the Home Office looks into it urgently.
Q4. As the Prime Minister will know from getting stuck on his way into Bath just before the general election last year, my constituency is plagued by high air pollution levels and by congestion. Given the Government’s commitment to investing billions of pounds in infrastructure—something that the Labour Government failed to do in 13 years—will he consider committing himself to looking at the construction of the long overdue and much-needed missing A36/A46 link road to the east of my constituency?
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Some people think that if we care about air quality there is no room for any road building, but, of course, stationary traffic pollutes much more than moving traffic. We must make sure that the arteries that serve all our constituencies are open, and I will look carefully at what my hon. Friend has said. However, we should also recognise that air quality is improving. Nitrogen oxide levels have fallen by 17% over the last four years, and we want to do more by introducing the clean air programme.
Q11. With the United Kingdom facing its most momentous decision for a generation in eight weeks’ time, does the Prime Minister think it makes more sense to listen to all our closest friends and allies around the world, or to a combination of French fascists, Nigel Farage and Vladimir Putin?
I am glad the right hon. Gentleman takes the English pronunciation of Farage, rather than the poncey, foreign-sounding one that he seems to prefer—a thoroughly good thing. I think we should listen to our friends and our allies. Looking around the world, it is hard to find the leader of a country who wishes us well who wants us to do other than stay inside a reformed European Union.
Q5. The new ISAs announced in this year’s Budget are very welcome. They will help people to save for homes and for retirement. As my right hon. Friend will have seen in this morning’s City AM, hidden fees can strip as much as a third off the gains a pension could make over a lifetime. What are the Government doing to ensure that firms investing people’s hard-earned savings reveal all the fees they charge, so that people know exactly what they will pay and can choose the investment that is best for them?
My hon. Friend has fought a long campaign on this—and rightly so. One of the things that sap people’s enthusiasm for investing in savings products is a sense that they do not understand the fees and charges, and do not know how much they will get. Since last April, we have ensured that trustees of defined contribution pension schemes report charges levied on members. The Financial Conduct Authority is committed to making regulations with us during this Parliament to require the publication of more costs and charges. We have given ourselves the legal duty to do so, but I am sure he will push us all the way to make sure it happens.
Q12. The Prime Minister and his Government did next to nothing to save the Scottish steel industry; it was left to the Scottish Government to do that. The UK Government are now breaking the promises made by Tories and Labour to protect the Scottish shipbuilding industry. Why does the Prime Minister think that Scottish jobs are so expendable?
Frankly, the Scottish Government and the UK Government should work together. One thing we should work together on is procurement. It is worth asking how much Scottish steel was in the Forth road bridge—zero! None! Absolutely nothing! Yes. What a contrast with the warships we are building, which of course we would not be building if we had an independent Scotland. We back the steel industry with actions as well as words. [Interruption.]
Order. The House is excitable, but it must simmer down. We must hear the hon. Lady.
Q7. Hatred and ignorance lie at the heart of anti-Semitism. When those in public life express such views they denigrate not only themselves but the institutions to which they belong. Will my right hon. Friend reassure the House of his commitment to fighting this vicious form of prejudice
It is very simple: anti-Semitism is effectively racism, and we should call it out and fight it wherever we see it. Frankly, the fact that a Labour Member of Parliament, with the Labour Whip, made remarks about the “transportation” of people from Israel to America, talked about a “solution” and is still in receipt of the Labour Whip is quite extraordinary. The shadow Chancellor said about these people: “Out, out, out. If people express these views: full stop they’re out. People might be able to reform their views and the rest of it. On this? I can’t see it…I’m not having it. People might say ‘I’ve changed my views’ – well, do something in another organisation.” Frankly, there will be too many hours in the day before that happens to the MP in question.
Q13. My constituent Joseph Brown-Lartey was killed at the age of 25 by an 18-year-old driving a hire car without a licence at 80 mph in a 30-mph zone. The 18-year-old was convicted of causing death by dangerous driving and received a sentence of just six years, of which he will probably serve three. Two weeks ago, I, along with Joseph’s family, delivered a 20,000 signature petition calling for tougher sentences for causing death by dangerous driving. Does the Prime Minister agree that sentences for these crimes are too lenient? When can we expect to get a response to our petition and get justice for Joseph?
I have every sympathy with the family in question. I had an almost identical case in my constituency where a young girl was killed by a dangerous driver. The maximum sentence is 14 years, so the courts do have the ability to sentence longer, but I know what this means to the families. I am making sure that the roads Minister is looking again at all these issues relating to dangerous driving, and I will ensure that the case that the hon. Lady mentions is taken into account as well.
Q8. As the birthplace of the industrial revolution, Dudley is proud of its heritage, but we need economic stability to deliver a prosperous future. Will the Prime Minister come to launch the new enterprise zone in Brierley Hill and look at how we can attract more investment, create new jobs and develop the highly skilled workforce that our community needs?
I will look very carefully at whether I am able to do that, because we support the industrial regeneration of the black country. The truth is that enterprise zones have been a success. They have created nearly 25,000 jobs, attracted over 630 companies and secured £2.4 billion of private sector investment. The delivery of enterprise zones has involved a lot of hard work by local authorities. I pay tribute to them, and I wish my hon. Friend well in the black country.
Q14. Given the strategic and economic importance of the M62 corridor to the northern powerhouse, will the Prime Minister give me and the people of Bradford his commitment to the electrification of the Calder Valley line and lend his support to the great city of Bradford being a fundamental part of the proposed northern powerhouse rail network?
We have made commitments on the electrification of north-south lines and east-west lines. I will have to look very carefully at the hon. Lady’s proposal, but we want everywhere—Bradford included—to benefit from the northern powerhouse.
Q9. In Cumbria, nuclear matters. We have the nuclear legacy at Sellafield, defence work at Barrow and the prospect of serious investment in a new nuclear plant at Moorside. Given the apparent opposition to nuclear from the Opposition, will the Prime Minister confirm that the long-term decisions for nuclear power and defence will be made in a timely manner?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that Cumbria depends to a large extent on jobs from the industries he mentions. We continue to invest in reprocessing procedures at Sellafield. As he knows, we are also looking at redeveloping our commercial nuclear industry, starting with the vital decisions at Hinkley Point, which could then have great benefits for other areas that want nuclear power stations. Barrow is home to the development of our nuclear submarines and we will hold a vote in this House to make sure that we renew Trident in full.
The Prime Minister has just suggested that child refugees who are alone in Europe are safe. Children’s homes are full in Italy and Greece, and more than 1,000 children will sleep rough alone tonight in Greece. How are they safe? Ten thousand children have disappeared in Europe. How are they safe? The agencies say that children are committing survival sex and that they are being abused and subjected to prostitution and rape. It is not insulting to other European countries to offer to help: they want us to help. So will he reconsider his position on Alf Dubs’s amendment before it comes back for a vote, and will he stop, through his attitude to lone child refugees, putting this House and this country to shame?
The right hon. Lady asks whether we are helping other European countries, and we are, not least with the £10 million we recently announced. The crucial point is this: how do we in Britain best help child refugees? We think that we help them by taking them from the refugee camps, taking them from Lebanon, taking them from Jordan and taking them when they come to this country. That is what we are doing. We have a proud record and nothing to be ashamed of.
Q10. Several small businesses that I met in Tadcaster last week are being treated appallingly by insurance companies. Four months after the floods, claims have not been settled and renewal premiums are being hiked to astronomical levels. The Government have rightly helped to introduce the Flood Re scheme to help homeowners after flooding, but does my right hon. Friend agree that the same protection should be given to small business owners too?
I recognise the problem that my hon. Friend lays out. When my constituency was badly flooded, some insurance companies paid out quickly, but others were not so fast. When we look at what happened during the winter, we see that 82% of claims have been paid out, but if colleagues have specific examples the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will be interested to see them so that we can get on top of the insurance industry. We are looking specifically at whether we need a Flood Re-style approach for small businesses to ensure that they can get the insurance they need.
Three years ago, my mother fell seriously ill while on holiday in France. Thanks to the French health service, she received excellent treatment and was unfortunately diagnosed with cancer, but she is doing well today thanks to our NHS. Millions of Brits travel to other EU countries every year and benefit, like my mum, from the European health insurance card. What would happen to the card should we vote to leave on 23 June?
May I, on behalf of the whole House, wish the hon. Lady’s mother well in her treatment from the NHS? The hon. Lady raises the important point that this is one of the benefits we now have. Many of us will have used it ourselves or with our own children, and think we can make the system even better as we are. It is for those who want to leave the European Union to explain whether, if we were to leave, we would still be able to access this and other such systems, which are very handy for people when going about their holidays.
Whatever the outcome of the EU referendum, does the Prime Minister agree that one thing that will never diminish is the mutual affection and admiration between Britain and our great ally, France? Given that connection, will he pay tribute to the people who fought and won the Normandy campaign, such as the late Captain Paul Cash, the father of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), who was killed fighting in Normandy at the age of 26 having won the Military Cross, and Sergeant Peter Carne, who, at 93, is at Westminster today, and who built the Bailey bridges that enabled the breakout from the Normandy beachhead and will receive the Légion d’honneur in a typically generous gesture from our French allies?
I certainly join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to all those who served, particularly those who fell in that heroic campaign. One of the things I have been able to do as Prime Minister of which I am proudest was to go to the vigil on the 70th anniversary of our gliders preparing for the landings and to go to Gold beach to see the incredible work that was done. We should remember what they did and what it was that they gave their lives for, which was to achieve peace on our continent.
My constituent Debra has HIV, which she contracted via a partner who had received a contaminated blood transfusion. My constituent Neil has hepatitis, again from a contaminated transfusion, and he now needs a second liver transplant. Neither of them can hold down a full- time job because of their conditions’ catastrophic effects on their health, so they both absolutely rely on the support from the state that the Government now plan to slash in half. I simply ask the Prime Minister why the Government are so willing to attack people whose only mistake was to be unlucky.
What we said before the election was that we had set aside £25 million to help those who were infected with HIV because of contaminated blood. We have actually raised that since the election to over £100 million, and we are currently consulting all the groups about how best to use that money. We will actually be doing more than we said at the time of the election, which is necessary because these people have suffered through no fault of their own.
With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on the Hillsborough stadium disaster, the determinations and findings of the fresh inquests presided over by Sir John Goldring, and the steps that will now take place Twenty-seven years ago, the terrible events of Saturday 15 April 1989 shocked this country and devastated a community. That afternoon, as thousands of fans were preparing to watch the FA cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, a crush developed in the central pens of the Leppings Lane terrace. Ninety-six men, women and children lost their lives as a result. Hundreds more were injured, and many were left traumatised It was this country’s worst disaster at a sporting event. For the families and survivors, the search to get to the truth of what happened on that day has been long and arduous. They observed the judicial inquiry led by Lord Justice Taylor. They gave evidence to the original inquests, which recorded a verdict of accidental death. They have seen further scrutiny, reviews and a private prosecution. They suffered the injustice of hearing the victims—their loved ones and fellow supporters—being blamed. They have heard the shocking conclusions of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, and they have now once again given evidence to the fresh inquests presided over by Sir John Goldring I have met members of the Hillsborough families on a number of occasions and, in their search for truth and justice, I have never failed to be struck by their extraordinary dignity and determination. I do not think it is possible for any of us truly to understand what they have been through—not only in losing their loved ones in such horrific circumstances that day, but in hearing finding after finding over 27 years telling them something that they believed to be fundamentally untrue. Quite simply, they have never given up I also take this opportunity to pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), who has campaigned so tirelessly over the years on the families’ behalf, and also to the hon. Members for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), for Halton (Derek Twigg), for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) and for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) Yesterday, the fresh inquest into the deaths at Hillsborough gave its determinations and findings. Its establishment followed the report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, chaired by Bishop James Jones. The contents of that report were so significant that it led to the new inquests and to two major new criminal investigations: one by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which examined the actions of the police in the aftermath of Hillsborough, and a second criminal investigation, Operation Resolve, led by Jon Stoddart, the former chief constable of Durham Since the fresh inquests opened in Warrington on 31 March 2014, the jury has heard 296 days of evidence. They ran for more than two years and were part of the longest running inquest process in British legal history. I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in thanking the jury for the important task it has undertaken and the significant civic duty the jurors have performed I will turn now to the jury’s determinations and findings. In its deliberations, the jury was asked to answer 14 general questions covering the role of South Yorkshire police, the South Yorkshire Metropolitan Ambulance Service, Sheffield Wednesday football club and Hillsborough stadium’s engineers, Eastwood and Partners. In addition, the jury was also required to answer two questions specific to each of the individual deceased relating to the time and medical cause of their death. I would like to put on the record the jury’s determinations in full. They are as follows Question 1: do you agree with the following statement, which is intended to summarise the basic facts of the disaster “Ninety-six people died as a result of the Disaster at Hillsborough Stadium on 15 April 1989 due to crushing in the central pens of the Leppings Lane Terrace, following the admission of a large number of supporters to the Stadium through exit gates.” Yes Question 2: was there any error or omission in police planning and preparation for the semi-final match on 15 April 1989 which caused or contributed to the dangerous situation that developed on the day of the match Yes Question 3: was there any error or omission in policing on the day of the match which caused or contributed to a dangerous situation developing at the Leppings Lane turnstiles Yes Question 4: was there any error or omission by commanding officers which caused or contributed to the crush on the terrace Yes Question 5: when the order was given to open the exit gates at the Leppings Lane end of the stadium, was there any error or omission by the commanding officers in the control box which caused or contributed to the crush on the terrace Yes Question 6: are you satisfied, so that you are sure, that those who died in the disaster were unlawfully killed Yes Question 7: was there any behaviour on the part of football supporters which caused or contributed to the dangerous situation at the Leppings Lane turnstiles No Further to question 7: was there any behaviour on the part of football supporters which may have caused or contributed to the dangerous situation at the Leppings Lane turnstiles No Question 8: were there any features of the design, construction and layout of the stadium which you consider were dangerous or defective and which caused or contributed to the disaster Yes. Question 9: was there any error or omission in the safety certification and oversight of Hillsborough stadium that caused or contributed to the disaster Yes Question 10: was there any error or omission by Sheffield Wednesday Football Club and its staff in the management of the stadium and/or preparation for the semi-final match on 15 April 1989 which caused or contributed to the dangerous situation that developed on the day of the match Yes Question 11: was there any error or omission by Sheffield Wednesday Football Club and its staff on 15 April 1989 which caused or contributed to the dangerous situation that developed at the Leppings Lane turnstiles and in the west terrace No Further to question 11: was there any error or omission by Sheffield Wednesday Football Club and its staff on 15 April 1989 which may have caused or contributed to the dangerous situation that developed at the Leppings Lane turnstiles and in the west terrace Yes Question 12: should Eastwood and Partners have done more to detect and advise on any unsafe or unsatisfactory features of Hillsborough stadium which caused or contributed to the disaster Yes Question 13: after the crush in the west terrace had begun to develop, was there any error or omission by the police which caused or contributed to the loss of lives in the disaster Yes Question 14: after the crush in the west terrace had begun to develop, was there any error or omission by the ambulance service, SYMAS, which caused or contributed to the loss of lives in the disaster Yes Finally, the jury also recorded the cause and time of death for each of the 96 men, women and children who died at Hillsborough. In all but one case, the jury recorded a time bracket running beyond the 3.15 pm cut-off point adopted by the coroner at the original inquests. These determinations were published yesterday by the coroner, and I would urge the reading of each and every part in order to understand fully the outcome of the inquests The jury also heard evidence about the valiant efforts made by many of the fans to rescue those caught up in the crush. Their public spiritedness is to be commended and I am sure that the House will want to take this opportunity to recognise what they did in those terrible circumstances. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Clearly, the jury’s determination that those who died were unlawfully killed is of great public importance. It overturns in the starkest way possible the verdict of accidental death returned at the original inquests. However, the jury’s findings do not, of course, amount to a finding of criminal liability, and no one should impute criminal liability to anyone while the ongoing investigations are still pending Elsewhere, the jury noted that commanding officers should have ordered the closure of the central tunnel before the opening of gate C was requested, as pens 3 and 4 were full. They should have established the number of fans still to enter the stadium after 2.30 pm, and they failed to recognise that pens 3 and 4 were at capacity before gate C was opened Although the inquests have concluded, this is not the end of the process. The decision about whether any criminal prosecution or prosecutions can be brought forward will be made by the Crown Prosecution Service on the basis of evidence gathered as part of the two ongoing investigations. That decision is not constrained in any way by the jury’s conclusions The House will understand that I cannot comment in detail on matters that may lead to a criminal investigation. I can, however, say that the offences under investigation include gross negligence manslaughter, misconduct in public office, perverting the course of justice and perjury, as well as offences under the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975 and the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 I know that those responsible for the police and Independent Police Complaints Commission investigations anticipate that they will conclude the criminal investigations by the turn of the year. We must allow them to complete their work in a timely and thorough manner, and we must be mindful not to prejudice the outcome in any way I have always been clear that the Government will support the families in their quest for justice, so throughout the ongoing investigations we will ensure that support remains in place in three ways First, the family forums, which have provided the families with a regular and structured means of engaging with the investigative teams and the CPS, will continue. They will remain under Bishop James Jones’s chairmanship, in a similar format, but will reflect the fact that they will be operating after the inquests. The CPS, the IPCC and Operation Resolve will remain part of the forums Secondly, now that the inquests have concluded, it is the intention to reconstitute the Hillsborough article 2 reference group, whose work has been in abeyance during the course of the inquests, under revised terms of reference. The group has two members: Sir Stephen Sedley, a retired lord justice of appeal, and Dr Silvia Casale, an independent criminologist Thirdly, we want to ensure that the legal representation scheme for the bereaved families continues. This was put in place, with funding from the Government, following the original inquests’ verdicts being quashed. Discussions are currently taking place with the families’ legal representatives to see how best the scheme can be continued In addition, I am keen that we understand and learn from the families’ experiences. I have therefore asked Bishop James, who is my adviser on Hillsborough, to write a report which draws on these experiences. This report will be published in due course to ensure that the full perspective of those most affected by the Hillsborough disaster is not lost I would like to express my thanks to Bishop James again for his invaluable advice over the years. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] There is further work to be done, so I have asked Bishop James to remain as my adviser, and I am pleased to say that he has agreed to do so The conclusion of the inquests brings to an end an important step since the publication of the Hillsborough Independent Panel’s report. Thanks to that report and now the determinations of the inquests, we know the truth of what happened on that day at Hillsborough. Naturally, the families will want to reflect on yesterday’s historic outcome, which is of national significance I am clear that this raises significant issues for the way that the state and its agencies deal with disasters. Once the formal investigations are concluded, we should step back, reflect and act, if necessary, so that we can better respond to disasters and ensure that the suffering of families is taken into account But I want to end by saying this. For 27 years, the families and survivors of Hillsborough have fought for justice. They have faced hostility, opposition and obfuscation, and the authorities, which should have been trusted, have laid blame and tried to protect themselves, instead of acting in the public interest But the families have never faltered in their pursuit of the truth. Thanks to their actions, they have brought about a proper reinvestigation and a thorough re-evaluation of what happened at Hillsborough. That they have done so is extraordinary. I am sure the whole House will want to join me in paying tribute to their courage, determination and resolve. We should also remember those who have, sadly, passed away while still waiting for justice. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] No one should have to endure what the families and survivors have been through. No one should have to suffer the loss of their loved ones through such appalling circumstances, and no one should have to fight year after year, decade after decade, in search of the truth I hope that, for the families and survivors, who have been through such difficult times, yesterday’s determinations will bring them closer towards the peace they have been so long denied. I commend this statement to the House. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]
I thank the Home Secretary for her powerful statement and her kind words. At long last, justice—for the 96, for their families, for all Liverpool supporters, for an entire city. But it took too long in coming, and the struggle for it took too great a toll on too many. Now, those responsible must be held to account for 96 unlawful deaths and a 27-year cover-up Thankfully, the jury saw through the lies. I am sure—to repeat what the Home Secretary said—that the House will join me in thanking the jury for their devotion to this task and for giving two years of their lives to this important public duty When it came, their verdict was simple, clear, powerful and emphatic, but it begged the question: how could something so obvious have taken so long? There are three reasons: first, a police force that has consistently put protecting itself over and above protecting people harmed by Hillsborough; secondly, collusion between that force and a complicit print media; and thirdly, a flawed judicial system that gives the upper hand to those in authority, over and above ordinary people. Let me take each of those issues in turn, starting with South Yorkshire police Can the Home Secretary assure me that there will be no holding back in pursuing prosecutions? The CPS has said that files will be submitted by December. While we understand the complexity, can she urge it to do whatever it can to bring that date forward? Of course, the behaviour of some officers, while reprehensible, was not necessarily chargeable, but, through retirement, police officers can still escape misconduct proceedings. In her Policing and Crime Bill, the Home Secretary proposes a 12-month period after retirement where proceedings can be initiated, but one of the lessons of Hillsborough is that there can be no arbitrary time limits on justice and accountability. Will the Home Secretary work with me to insert a Hillsborough clause into her Bill, ending the scandal of retirement as an escape route and of wrongdoers claiming full pensions? Will she join me in making sure that that applies retrospectively The much bigger question for South Yorkshire police to answer today is this: why, at this inquest, did they go back on their 2012 public apology? When the Lord Chief Justice quashed the original inquest, he requested that the new one not degenerate into an “adversarial battle”. Sadly, that is exactly what happened. Shamefully, the cover-up continued in that Warrington courtroom. Millions of pounds of public money was spent retelling discredited lies against Liverpool supporters. Lawyers for retired officers threw disgusting slurs around; those for today’s force tried to establish that others were responsible for the opening of the gate. If the police had chosen to maintain their apology, this inquest would have been much shorter. But they did not, and they put the families through hell once again. It pains me to say it, but the NHS, through the Yorkshire ambulance service, was guilty of the same Does the Home Secretary agree that, because of his handling of this inquest, the position of the South Yorkshire chief constable is now untenable? Does she further agree that the problems go deeper? I promised the families the full truth about Hillsborough. I do not believe they will have it until we know the truth about Orgreave. This force used the same underhand tactics against its own people in the aftermath of the miners’ strike that it would later use to more deadly effect against the people of Liverpool. There has been an IPCC report on Orgreave, but parts of it are redacted. It has been put to me that those parts contain evidence of direct links between Orgreave and Hillsborough This is a time for transparency, not secrecy—time for the people of South Yorkshire to know the full truth about their police force. So will the Home Secretary accept the legal submission from the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign and set up a disclosure process? This force has not learned and has not changed. Let me be clear. I do not blame the ordinary police officers—the men and women who did their very best on that day and who today are out there keeping our streets safe—but I do blame their leadership and culture, which seems rotten to the core. Orgreave, Hillsborough, Rotherham: how much more evidence do we need before we act? So will the Home Secretary now order the fundamental reform of this force and consider all potential options Let me turn to collusion between police and the media. The malicious briefings given in the aftermath were devastatingly efficient. They created a false version of events which lingered until yesterday. No one in the police or media has ever been held to account for the incalculable harm they caused in smearing a whole city in its moment of greatest grief. Imagine how it felt to be my constituent Lee Walls, who came through gate C just before 3 pm with his friend Carl Brown. Carl died but Lee survived, but days later he had to read that he was to blame. Given the weakness of the press regulatory system back then, the survivors of this tragedy had no ability to correct the lies. But is it any different today? If a tragedy like Hillsborough were to happen now, victims would not be able quickly to undo the damage of a misleading front page. Leveson recommended a second-stage inquiry to look at the sometimes unhealthy relationship between police and press. I know the Hillsborough families feel strongly that this should be taken forward. So will the Government end the delay and honour the Prime Minister’s promises to the victims of press intrusion I turn to the judicial system. I attended this inquest on many occasions. I saw how hard it was on the families: trapped for two years in a temporary courtroom; told to show no emotion as police lawyers smeared the dead and those who survived—beyond cruel. I welcome Bishop James’s new role in explaining just how cruel this was to the House and to the country. The original inquest was similarly brutal, but that did not even get to the truth. Just as the first inquest muddied the waters after the clarity of the Taylor report, so this inquest, at moments, lost sight of the Hillsborough Independent Panel report. One of the reasons why it produced a different outcome, though, is that this time the families had the best lawyers in the land. If they could have afforded them back in 1990, history might have been very different. At many inquests today there is often a mismatch between the legal representation of public bodies and those of the bereaved. Why should the authorities be able to spend public money like water to protect themselves when families have no such help? So will the Government consider further reforms to the coronial system, including giving the bereaved at least equal legal funding as public bodies? This, the longest case in English legal history, must mark a watershed in how victims are treated The last question is for us in this House. What kind of country leaves people who did no more than wave off their loved ones to a football match still sitting in a courtroom 27 years later begging for the reputations of their sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and fathers? The answer is one that needs now to do some deep soul-searching. This cover-up went right to the top. It was advanced in the Committee Rooms of this House and in the press rooms of 10 Downing Street. It persisted because of collusion between elites in politics—on both sides—police and the media. But this Home Secretary stood outside of that. Today I express my sincere admiration and gratitude to her for the stance she has consistently taken in righting this wrong But my final words go to the Hillsborough families. I think of those who did not live to see this day: of the courageous Anne Williams; of my constituent Stephen Whittle, the “97th victim”, who gave his own ticket to a friend on the morning of the match and later took his own life. I think of people like Phil Hammond, who sacrificed his own health to this struggle. I think of the many people who died from outside Merseyside, recognising that this was not just Liverpool’s but the country’s tragedy. I think of Leigh lad Carl Brown and his devoted mum Delia who still visits his grave most days. I think of Trevor and Jenni Hicks and their heart-breaking testimony to the new inquest. But I think most of my friend Margaret Aspinall. She did not just sacrifice everything for her own son James: she took on the heavy burden of fighting for everyone else’s loved ones—and, by God, didn’t she do them proud? It has been the privilege of my life to work with them all. They have prevailed against all the odds. They have kept their dignity in the face of terrible adversity. They could not have shown a more profound love for those they lost on that day. They truly represent the best of what our country is all about. Now it must reflect on how it came to let them down for so long. [Applause.]
May I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his words, and particularly for his kind words about myself? May I, as I said in my opening statement, once again commend him for the way in which he has stood by the families for so long and carried their cause in this House, and indeed in government when he was in government I will respond to some of the right hon. Gentleman’s specific points, but first to the final point that he made. It is absolutely right, as was reflected in the statement that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made after the independent panel’s report came out, that what the families faced was a combination of the state in all its various forms not believing them, all the various attempts, as the right hon. Gentleman said, to cover up what had really happened, together with other agencies—the media and others—and indeed, dare I say it, most of the general public believing the stories that they read about the fans. To have stood against that for so long shows steel and determination but also an affection for their lost loved ones and a passionate desire for justice for those who died that is, as I said, extraordinary. I think we will rarely see the like again On the right hon. Gentleman’s individual questions, he asked me about the time for the files to be prepared by the two investigations. Both Operation Resolve and the IPCC say that they expect to have those case files prepared by the end of the year—I recognise that for the families this is a further wait—and there will be then be a period of time for the Crown Prosecution Service to consider them. I think everybody recognises—including those bodies, because they do of course interact with the families through the family forums—the importance of doing this in a timely fashion, but it is also important that it is done properly and thoroughly. I do not want to see anything in the way of this being done in the right way On the retirement of police officers, I have always felt that it is wrong that police officers should be able to avoid misconduct or gross misconduct proceedings by being able to retire or resign. That is why we have already changed the disciplinary arrangements; and, as the right hon. Gentleman said, we have a clause in the Policing and Crime Bill. I, or the Policing Minister, will be very happy to meet him or the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) to discuss the various issues in relation to that matter The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Orgreave. Together with the hon. Members for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) and for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), I met representatives from Orgreave last year. I then received a submission from Michael Mansfield QC on behalf of the relevant group, and that is being considered. We have always said that a decision on Leveson 2 will be made when all the investigations have been completed. Some cases are still being considered, so that point has not arrived The right hon. Gentleman talked about the availability of funding for families at inquests. That is precisely the sort of issue that can be encompassed in the work that Bishop James Jones will do in hearing from the families about their direct experience and reflecting that to Government. As I said, it is right and appropriate that we then take a clear look at what further action we need to take Nobody should be in any doubt about the experience that the families had to go through at the inquests in not being able to show any emotion. The right hon. Gentleman referred to that. Also, for 27 years, many people did not know what had actually happened to their loved ones. They did not know how or at what time they died. Those details have come out only through the inquest. It must have been particularly difficult to sit through that, but I hope that the families have now found some peace through the truth coming out.
I am very pleased that the efforts of the families and of the independent review panel, which did such outstanding work, have contributed to the outcome that entirely vindicates the position that they both adopted. I am also pleased if the small Department that I led at the time played a role in bringing that about The key issue is not that people make mistakes, because in human society mistakes will always be made, sometimes with catastrophic consequences. The real issue that should concern the House is that, in a society that counts itself as civilised and subject to the rule of law, it appears that for such a long time it was impossible to get redress and a proper examination of the issues. I regret to say that this is not a unique event, as there have been other occasions in the House when we have had to consider the implications of similar events in other circumstances. Bloody Sunday springs to mind The lesson that the House needs to take away is that we must subject ourselves and our institutions to quite a lot of self-examination and maintain that if we are to ensure that we do not have a repetition of this deplorable episode. I am not sure about the best way to do that. I simply say to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary—she has done everything right in respect of this, and I commend her approach—that it is a question not just of the systems that we have in place but of some of the underlying attitudes. When uncomfortable truths float across the horizon, there is a temptation to try to brush them away because they confront us with difficulties that make us uncomfortable. If we tackle that, we can ensure not only that we do justice to the families in this matter, but that, in so far as is humanly possible, we do not repeat this.
I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his remarks and for the role that he played in ensuring that fresh inquests could take place. He is right: it is a question not just of systems but of attitudes. I have seen that in other areas, for example, in the work that we are doing on deaths in custody and in hearing from families in those cases. As I said, often, the institutions that should be the ones that people can trust to get to the truth combine to protect themselves. They have a natural instinct to look inwards and protect themselves rather than doing what is right in the public interest. My right hon. and learned Friend is also right that we can change the systems all we like, but it is really about changing attitudes and saying that those institutions are there to serve the public and that they should always put the public interest first.
I thank the Home Secretary for her immensely dignified and thorough statement. I also welcome the jury’s determination and findings On behalf of the Scottish National party, I would like to acknowledge the heroic struggle for justice of the friends and relatives of the 96 dead. I also acknowledge the heroic struggle for justice of the shadow Home Secretary and others on the official Opposition Benches Today, we must also remember the 96 dead: decent people from all walks of life who were failed by the police and the emergency services—the very ones who should have been there to help them in their hour of need. Yesterday’s verdict follows 27 years of concealment of the truth and mudslinging at dead innocents. I agree with the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) that Hillsborough must rank alongside Bloody Sunday as one of the most disgraceful establishment cover-ups of our time The ruling confirms that some police officers behaved abominably and I note the shadow Home Secretary’s words about their being from the same force that so brutally repressed the miners’ strike. I was very pleased to hear what the Home Secretary said about that. Will she acknowledge the impact that the behaviour of some police officers has had on public confidence in the police and assure us that such actions can never happen again I am sure that elements of the media will also have learned a lesson, but, as the shadow Home Secretary said, will they ever be held to account? I think that the Conservative party has learned a lesson from this because, as has been said, the Home Secretary’s actions have been exemplary when compared with the attitude of the Cabinet at the time. Will she assure us that such a miscarriage of justice will never be allowed to happen again Justice delayed is justice denied. Now we have the truth, but accountability must follow, so what happens next is crucial. Does the Home Secretary agree that, where there are strongly founded allegations that police officers may have perverted the course of justice, or given misleading information to the media, MPs and this Parliament, or perjured themselves, appropriate action and prosecutions must be seen to follow swiftly I also echo the shadow Home Secretary’s comments about concerns that 30 police officers avoided disciplinary action by retiring to enjoy a full pension. Will the Home Secretary take steps to ensure that that cannot happen again I welcome the Home Secretary’s intention to reconstitute the Hillsborough article 2 reference group—article 2 of the European convention on human rights. Without the Human Rights Act and the procedural obligation on the state to investigate deaths properly under article 2 of the ECHR, the second inquest would never have happened, and the families might never have got justice. Will she and the Government please bear that in mind when they consider their attitude towards human rights and the ECHR in this Union of nations?
The hon and learned Lady mentioned public confidence in the police and it is correct to say that this shattered some people’s confidence in the police. The representative from the IPPC made the point to the media yesterday that for some people in Liverpool, their trust in the police was severely damaged, if not destroyed, as a result of what they had seen. However, in talking about the actions of police officers at Hillsborough that day, we should recognise that some officers actively tried to help the fans and do the right thing On police responsibilities and attitudes, the College of Policing has introduced a code of ethics for police. We need to ensure that that is embedded throughout police forces, but it is an important step forward The hon. and learned Lady asked about ensuring that prosecutions take place where there is evidence of criminal activity. Of course, that is entirely a decision for the CPS. We must leave it to make that decision independently, as we must leave the police investigation and the IPPC investigation to prepare their cases independently On the hon. and learned Lady’s final point, I simply observe that we have had the coronial process in the UK for a considerable time, and the right to request an inquest and to request fresh inquests long before the ECHR was put in place.
May I, too, pay tribute to all those who worked so hard to see that justice was done in this case, and to the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary for their very balanced approach Does the Home Secretary agree that it is important that we learn lessons? For example, although the court process is inevitably stressful for victims and witnesses, as I know, none the less in this case the coroner and the jury did their duty and have proved that the jury system can be capable of grappling with the most complex and distressing of cases. That is to the system’s credit Will the Home Secretary also look at ensuring that there is proper equality of arms with regard to access to justice on such matters? That is fundamental to our rule of law? The Crown Prosecution Service must now consider and deal with a considerable volume of work and material. I note, for example, that some 238 police statements are said to have been altered in one way or another. Will the Home Secretary therefore discuss with the Treasury and my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General whether some blockbuster funding could be made available to deal with the pressures of resourcing the Crown Prosecution Service in this case, and whether the approach could be similar to that taken towards the Serious Fraud Office when it has to undertake major and unexpected inquiries?
My hon. Friend will have noted that the Attorney General is sitting on the Treasury Bench and has therefore heard what he said about funding this sort of case. On my hon. Friend’s first point, he is absolutely right about the importance of the jury system. This shows the value of our jury system, and I repeat what I said in my statement: for people on the jury to have been prepared to take two years to ensure that justice was done in this case is absolutely commendable. They have shown considerable civic duty and our thanks go to them.
May I say first of all that the response by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) to the statement will reverberate throughout Merseyside and all around the country? I also praise the Home Secretary for all she has done to bring about yesterday’s momentous decision: thank you from the families On 15 April 1989, as fans walked away from an FA cup semi-final in Sheffield, we knew then that the disaster was not our fault. Almost immediately, however, lies and smears were being peddled, and within hours an orchestrated cover-up was in full swing. It took political intervention to force the judicial process of this country to take 27 years to recognise what we knew from day one—that Hillsborough was not an accident; that fans did not open a gate; that drunken and ticketless fans did not turn up late, hellbent on getting in; and that it was not caused by a drunken, “tanked-up mob”. Instead, 96 people were unlawfully killed Those who doubted must now recognise the true story of the efforts of my fellow supporters and their acts of self-sacrifice and heroism as they battled to save the lives of their fellow fans, and consign to the dustbin of history the lurid tabloid headlines that vilified them Despite the inquest being adversarial, not inquisitorial, yesterday’s verdict was unequivocal: Liverpool supporters were totally absolved of any blame and did not contribute to the disaster in any way. As someone once said: “I cherish the hope that as time goes on you will recognise the truth of what I say.” Will the Home Secretary join me in paying tribute to the families, survivors, campaigners and supporters who fought for truth and justice; to the solidarity of those who stood shoulder to shoulder, whether red or blue, for nearly three decades; and to the men and women of a proud city who never gave up until they got justice for the 96?
I am very happy to join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute not only to the families and the way in which they kept the flame of hope for truth and justice alive over 27 years, but to the city and people of Liverpool, who have shown solidarity and will continue to do so over the coming days. As the hon. Gentleman has said, regardless of their footballing affiliations they recognised the injustice that had been done. They came together, they supported the families, and truth has now been found.
What we can learn from the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) who raised the question of the Stephen Lawrence investigation is that people can come to Members of Parliament—either as families or as members of the professional services, including the ambulance service and the police—and if there is some kind of cover-up going on, we can hope that the leaders of any professions involved, including the police and the NHS, will pay attention when an MP comes along with them to say that action needs to be taken There was a series of three mistakes at Hillsborough. The first was allowing the game to take place in a stadium when people knew it was not right. The second was the actions that happened then, which may have been mistakes, and worst of all was the cover-up. How can more than 230 statements by the police be changed, presumably in the police service, without people being able to say to Members of Parliament, “This is wrong: there is a cover-up and it needs turning over and investigating”? Such things need to be brought out into what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health calls intelligent transparency. I think that that is the lesson from now on.
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Of course, as a Member of this House he has taken forward causes that others have stood against and tried to resist, and he has been successful in that work. He is absolutely right. What came out of the independent panel report was astonishing. People were truly shocked by the fact that they had heard that statements had been altered in order to show a different picture from what had actually happened. That is appalling and it should never happen again.
May I put on the record my thanks to the Home Secretary for her statement, and praise the magnificent courage and steadfastness of the families of the 96 in their campaign After the publication of the 2012 independent panel report, I reread my match-day programme from 15 April 1989 and was struck by this comment by the chairman of Sheffield Wednesday football club: “As you look around Hillsborough you will appreciate why it has been regarded for so long as the perfect venue for all kinds of important matches.” Such statements underline the complacency and total disregard for the safety of football supporters I have two brief questions. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) mentioned the current chief constable of South Yorkshire police. Is the Home Secretary aware that the statement he made in 2012 apologising to fans is still on the website? He said: “I am profoundly sorry for the way the force failed…and I am doubly sorry for the injustice that followed”, and yet the fools representing the police at the inquest went over the same argument again, putting the families through torture Finally, of course we should focus on South Yorkshire police, but what about West Midlands police? It was responsible for the investigation and, as we have seen from yesterday’s result, it was a sham, complacent and a complete waste of time. What is the Home Secretary doing to make sure that it is held accountable for what it did?
As the hon. Gentleman says, the comment from the match-day programme shows the extraordinary complacency. As I indicated in my statement, there were several questions that related not just to Sheffield Wednesday football club, but to the engineers who designed the stadium. The jury was very clear that there were problems with the design of the stadium and with the certification process. There are some very real questions for those in authority of various sorts who allowed a game to take place in a ground with those particular problems Obviously, the IPCC is looking at the aftermath of the event. Operation Resolve is looking at the lead-up to the deaths of the 96 men, women and children. In doing so, it will, of course, look across the board at the work of police officers. I assure the hon. Gentleman that my understanding is that the evidence taken will cover things done by West Midlands police as well as South Yorkshire police.
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend and to the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), but particularly to the families of the 96 victims, for their herculean efforts to bring about the result that we saw yesterday. Does my right hon. Friend agree that slurs were made against the families; that those were an injustice; and that it is right that they are now recognised as smears?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, those slurs were not just made at the time; they continued for far too long. The families and supporters had to endure not just the terrible tragedy itself, but the further injustice that, consistently, the Liverpool fans were blamed for something that was not their fault. The verdict that came out yesterday was absolutely clear: the fans did not contribute to this disaster.
The inquest verdict proclaimed the truth and exposed the deceit, including the wicked lie that the fans were responsible for their own deaths. We should never, ever forget that the truth has been finally exposed only because of the commitment of the bereaved families, who were supported by the city of Liverpool—whatever the rest of the country might have thought—in their determined campaign for truth. I, too thank the Home Secretary and the former Attorney General for the decisive steps that they have taken to make sure that justice has now come out. Following the Home Secretary’s very supportive comments about the action she intends to take to support the bereaved families as we move from exposure of the truth to accountability, will the Home Secretary do all in her power to ensure that now that we have the truth, real accountability will follow?
I thank the hon. Lady for her comments, and she is absolutely right. The city of Liverpool stood by the families when the rest of the country took a different view about what had happened in that terrible tragedy. I am very clear that we need to ensure that the proper processes are followed for the investigations and for the Crown Prosecution Service decisions about whether criminal charges should be brought. The truth was there with the independent panel’s report, and I hope that people feel that justice has been seen with the verdicts that came out, but accountability is the next step, and that rests with the independent investigations and the Crown Prosecution Service.
I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement, and I think that she and the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) have been beacons of hope during this tragic period. The strength of the families makes me proud to be a Scouser. There is a lot of talk about justice, but I do not think it is justice that it has taken 27 years for the fans to be found not guilty of something that was not their fault. It is not justice that the city, the fans and families were kicked when they were on their knees and at their lowest point. It is not justice that there was an establishment cover-up. Does the Home Secretary agree that real justice starts when the individuals responsible are personally prosecuted?
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments, and he is right. It must be very difficult for the families, who have suffered over those 27 years but have kept true to their cause and their belief in the reality of what happened at the Hillsborough stadium in 1989. They must have felt terrible when they were, as my hon. Friend said, kicked constantly over those 27 years. This is not just about finding the truth; it is about accountability. As I just indicated in response to the previous question, that process of accountability is now in the hands of the two criminal investigations and the Crown Prosecution Service.
The inquest findings were very clear that on the day of the disaster, South Yorkshire police failed completely in a number of respects. Even more alarming, in some respects, were the attempts to cover up those failings afterwards. May I reflect on the comment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) that this is no reflection on the important work done by the ordinary community officers of South Yorkshire police on a day-to-day basis for the safety and security of my constituents and the residents of South Yorkshire? Will the Home Secretary therefore offer complete support to the PCC in South Yorkshire to take the force through a very difficult time, recognising that the complete command structure of the force will change, in one way or another, during the next year, and that it will need every bit of outside support it can get from the Home Secretary and others?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. He is absolutely right to say that we should recognise the work that is done daily by South Yorkshire police officers to keep their communities safe and to cut crime. May I also take this opportunity to recognise the support that was given by people living in Sheffield to the fans and others who suffered from this tragedy on the day The hon. Gentleman is right that the South Yorkshire police force will not only have to deal with the outcome of the Hillsborough findings; the report on Rotherham raised a number of issues around the South Yorkshire force. The hon. Gentleman asks me to provide support to the police and crime commissioner. Next week, the people in the South Yorkshire force area will go to the polls to elect the police and crime commissioner for the next four years. We will talk thereafter to the police and crime commissioner and the chief constable about the future of the force, but it is for those two individuals, primarily, to look at the structures that they need and to ensure that the force is doing the job that it needs to do on a daily basis.
I commend the Home Secretary and the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) for what they have done on the matter. I also commend all the Members from Liverpool who have taken part in debates. Everyone knows my connection with football and with what happened on that day, which I have spoken about in the House. Football suffered massively on that horrible day. The family of football looked on that tragedy and changed many things, from stadium safety to how things are placed around football games Following on from the point made by the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), I am concerned about the culture that still exists in South Yorkshire police. From statements on its website and statements that it has made, I fear that it still has not learned all the lessons of that tragedy all that time ago. Will the Home Secretary comment on what is going on in South Yorkshire police force?
I think everybody will be disappointed and, indeed, concerned by some of the remarks that have been made by South Yorkshire police today. There was a very clear verdict yesterday in relation to the decisions that were taken by police officers and the action of police officers on 15 April 1989, and I urge South Yorkshire police force to recognise the verdict of the jury. Yes, it must get on with the day-to-day job of policing in its force area, but it needs to look at what happened—at what the verdicts have shown—recognise the truth and be willing to accept that.
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement and, in particular, for her decision when she came into office in 2010 to allow the work of the Hillsborough Independent Panel to continue. That has been absolutely crucial to this outcome. When I was first elected in 1997, my constituents Phil Hammond, Doreen Jones and Jenni Hicks were some of the first people to come to see me. They were then part of the executive of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, and between them, they lost five family members. They came to see me about the disaster, and I have campaigned with them ever since to have the truth acknowledged and to have justice done We all knew the truth; it just seems to be the legal system in this country—I speak as a lawyer—that has been unable to get to the truth and accept the truth. For 27 years, it failed the victims at every turn. Almost everything that could go wrong in a legal case went wrong in those 27 years. Yesterday, the legal system finally did its job, but it has more to do to hold to account those who we now know for absolute certain are responsible. The Home Secretary has more to do to deal with the appalling culture and behaviour of South Yorkshire police, which persists to this day This disaster was filmed live and shown on television, and within months the interim report of the Taylor inquiry put the blame squarely where it actually lay—it did not get everything right, but it was substantially correct—yet for 27 years the families of those who died have had to defend every day the reputations of their lost loved ones and of their friends and other people living in Liverpool who have been blamed for what happened It was only the panel taking this out of the legal system that has led to the truth being acknowledged more widely than it was, and to its then being fed back into the legal system. There is a deep issue about our legal system, so will the Home Secretary now commit to supporting Lord Michael Wills’s Public Advocate Bill to ensure that the victims of public disasters—there will be more in future—are never again forced to spend decades of their lives fighting smears, lies, official denials, indifference and cover-ups from public authorities? We have to make sure this can never ever happen again.
The hon. Lady is right that we need to stand back and ask what it is about our system that actually enabled this to happen and enabled people to suffer in this way over those 27 years. One of the reasons why I have asked Bishop James Jones to work with the families, to hear from them their experiences, is obviously to try to learn from that and to see what steps we need to take in response One of the things that has come of this is that the panel model is one that can be used elsewhere. I have indeed used that model, with fewer members, in relation to the necessity of looking into the killing of Daniel Morgan, where again the legal system, through a number of cases, has failed to get to the truth. I think it is a method that we could use on other occasions.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the statement she has made today. It is painfully clear that, for over 20 years, hon. Members in this place did not take the opportunities available to them to bring the matter to this Chamber and therefore to spread the light of transparency on something terrible that had happened. I just want to put on the record the role played by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), who is far too humble to talk about his role. When we were first elected in 2010, he very quickly took a group of us in front of the Backbench Business Committee in a Committee Room and secured a debate that made sure light was shone on what was a terrible incident, and we have arrived where we are today. I thank him for that.
My hon. Friend has recognised the particular role played by a single Member of this House. I might say that, over the years, a number of Members of this House have raised this issue. The fact that authority did not listen to the issue being raised is entirely separate.
May I, too, add my thanks to the Home Secretary for the crucial role she has played in bringing this matter to a reasonable conclusion at this point? May I ask her, alongside others, to consider the extent to which the lazy, dishonest, inaccurate stereotyping of football fans, in collusion with some sections of the media, gave some credibility—wrongly—to the original failed inquest? I attended one day of the inquest. It was agony for the families to sit there and listen day after day to their loved ones who had died being denigrated in the way that the questions were put. Does she agree with me that many other failures result from the lazy assumption that football fans in general and the people of Liverpool in particular were in some way culpable in a matter that was completely beyond their control? When she asks the bishop and others to look at the implications of all this, will she ask him to look at this question: why is it that some sections of the media and some sections of the public services, including the police and the ambulance service, still feel that they can casually disregard the truth by accepting lazy stereotypes?
The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. He is absolutely right. There was an image of football fans that people held to regardless of what they saw going on in front of their very eyes. I was struck when I heard the commentary—I think on Radio 2 —that was taking place at the time, as the tragedy unfolded. Even at that time, some of the commentating and some of the assumptions being made were about unruly fans, rather than about people who were crying out for help as they were dying. To see the police actually being lined up to form a line against public order problems when there were people whose lives were being lost at the time shocks and appals us all now. He is right that we should never allow casual stereotypes to get in the way of the truth.
I obviously do not represent Liverpool, but I was so fortunate to live there for the best part of the 1990s. It is a wonderful city, with decent people—thoroughly decent people—and I believe that the way in which the families have conducted themselves over nearly 30 years has demonstrated that to those of us who knew it and to everybody else. I was very fortunate to take over one of the student unions in Liverpool in the ’90s, and I was told in no uncertain scouse terms why we did not stock all newspapers in the student union shop. I have never forgotten that, and many shops and stores in Liverpool still do not stock the full complement of newspapers, as Liverpool Members will know What does the Home Secretary think is the main lesson that we should learn from the state’s failure to do justice for the 96? Does she think that some elements of the British press—they have apologised several times since, although I think that that means little to many, or probably all, of the families in Liverpool—should take a long, hard look at themselves?
I think that that is important. It is important when information is spread to the public through the media that the veracity of that information is an issue that must be considered. My hon. Friend asks me what the overall, abiding lesson that we need to take from this is. I think it is about the whole issue that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) referred to, which is the culture and the attitude that is taken. It is about public institutions whose job is to work in the public interest, who should be institutions that can be trusted by the public and whose job is often to protect the public not, when something happens, instinctively wanting to protect themselves instead, but always having the view that whatever has happened and whatever the answer, they must actually find the truth for the public.
Order. I hope the House will forgive me, but at the risk of stating the obvious, if colleagues are concerned about being able to make their own contribution, let me say that I will of course call every colleague. This is a little different from other days, and there is therefore some latitude: Members must say what they want to say. I am sorry if people have other commitments, but if Members stay in the Chamber, they will be heard.
May I put on the record my thanks to you, Mr Speaker? You have been incredibly supportive. May I, especially as chair of the all-party group on the Hillsborough disaster, thank the Home Secretary and her staff, and all those—officials, and the staff of Members of Parliament as well—who have worked to help our group function over the past four years Finally to know the true verdict—that these killings were unlawful—is just a huge weight lifted, but there is one more issue. The campaign for justice has never been for Liverpool fans alone. Shirts of all different teams were worn at the memorial service. For the 25th anniversary, Members of this House from all parts of the country sent with me to Anfield the scarf of their local team. That is why, at the recent memorial service, Trevor Hicks was absolutely right to ask football fans to be “united in grief”, though rivals in the game I have one last thing to say: the “Murderers, murderers” chant has got to stop now. Does the Home Secretary agree that there are no excuses—we have the truth—and that those who have suffered because of the Hillsborough disaster have, frankly, now suffered enough?
I agree with the hon. Lady. For those who have been through everything that they have for 27 years we now have the truth. They have suffered enough. Although part of the process still remains, to ensure accountability, I hope, as I said in my statement, that the peace that they have been so long denied will now come to them. I hope that they will be able to take from the verdicts some comfort that at last what they knew on that day has been shown to be true.
Weaver Vale is part of Merseyside, and I have many Liverpudlians in my constituency who have welcomed the jury’s determinations. For me, it is a case of there but for the grace of God go I. Those of us who went to football matches in the ’70s and ’80s know that the facilities were terrible and crushes were regular. I remind the House that at the Hillsborough 1981 FA Cup semi-final—the Tottenham Hotspur-Wolverhampton game—there was a very similar crush. The police allowed the fans on to the pitch. It looked very similar to the scene years later in 1989. That tells us that lessons clearly were not learned. The hon. Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) was at the 1989 game; as he said, that facility was never fit for purpose I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Benches, in particular the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), who made the speech of his parliamentary career, and the hon. Members for Halton, for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) and others, who have consistently campaigned on behalf of their constituents for justice. Will my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary assure the House that the lessons will be learned? I welcome Bishop James Jones’s report, but no family should ever have to go through this kind of tragedy again.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Sadly, the example he gave us of the game in 1981 shows that at that time lessons were not learned. Whatever comes out of the work with the families, and from the panel’s report and all that we are now seeing, we need to make sure that we learn the lessons, and that we do not just say that we are doing that but put what is necessary into practice.
The jury has determined that what happened on the day was negligent, unlawful and criminal. It was also tragic and unintended. The 27 years since have not been unintended; there have been deliberate lies and deception. When the Home Secretary is researching the variety of criminal charges that may be brought, will she ensure that appropriate emphasis is placed on perversion of the course of justice, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and perjury, because that is where the real evil lies?
As I indicated in my statement to the House, the question of perversion of the course of justice and perjury will be looked at, but it is for the independent Crown Prosecution Service to decide whether to bring those or any other criminal charges.
I start by paying my tribute to the families who, since before some people now in this House were even born, have had to fight the state, quite frankly. That is appalling. I thank my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for everything she has done, and all of the Members locally who have worked for so many years. I pay particular tribute to the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) and the hon. Members for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) and for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), who have been in communication with me about the support I could offer, even as a west Yorkshire MP To those who wonder why MPs not related to the area have found this so hard and so difficult, I say that it is because we all have families. We all have parents, uncles and aunts, and some of us have children. We all go to events to which hundreds of thousands of people go every year. If someone goes to an event, perfectly legally, we have the right to expect that the authorities will look after them. The people who died at Hillsborough on that tragic day got there early, by definition, because they were at the front of those pens. They were ticketed. It will be a stain on this society for ever more that the state said it was their fault. It was obvious from day one—from the very moment—that it could not be their fault I have a huge amount of respect for the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who is no longer in his place—indeed, we have debated this. He is absolutely right to say that police officers on the frontline for South Yorkshire police do an outstanding job every day and deserve our respect. But the behaviour of South Yorkshire police during this inquiry, and the subsequent comments since the verdict—a verdict that can leave no doubt in the mind of anyone in this country that those people were unlawfully killed—have been a disgrace. There is a stain on the name of South Yorkshire police that I am not sure can ever be erased Therefore, as controversial as this is, may I ask my right hon. Friend, working with other Members on a cross-party basis, to go away and consider—I do not expect an answer today—very seriously whether the only way of bringing back faith in policing in south Yorkshire, and of making sure that the officers in south Yorkshire who dedicate themselves to protecting the public can really move forward, is perhaps to merge all four Yorkshire police forces and to get rid of the name “South Yorkshire police”?
My hon. Friend has asked me a question that I suggest goes slightly wider than simply the issue of South Yorkshire police, as he talked about merging all four Yorkshire forces. He is absolutely right to identify that at a football match or any other public event where arrangements have been put in place by organisers to ensure people’s safety and where there is policing, fans who have gone along expect those arrangements to keep them safe and secure. They expect arrangements to have been thought through and made properly and carefully, and the right decisions to have been taken. As he and others have said, many people who are not Liverpool fans recognise what those families went through on that day, as they themselves go to similar events, week in, week out, hoping to enjoy themselves and not expecting the sort of terrible tragedy that befell families and supporters on that terrible day My hon. Friend has asked me to reflect on an issue. I think he knows the Government’s position on merger of forces. As I have said, South Yorkshire police will need to look very carefully at the verdict and accept it.
I commend the Home Secretary and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) on all the work they have done, along with all hon. Members of this House. It is often the role of a Member of Parliament to give a strong voice to the weak, and this has been an example of that. May I also say a word of gratitude for the kind words of the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) about some of the work I have done in the past? There are comparisons between what happened to the family and friends of Stephen Lawrence and what happened to the Hillsborough families. They have certainly been strong voices and advocates for themselves, and an example to us all. They were signatories to the letter sent to the Prime Minister earlier this month asking him not to renege on his promise to implement Leveson 2. Given that it relates to the relationship between the police and the press, it would seem even more imperative that we go ahead with that part of the Leveson report. Will the Home Secretary perhaps have a word with the Prime Minister to ask him to expedite that as quickly as possible?
Some of the issues about the relationship between the media and the police were identified in Leveson 1, and the police have taken some actions to change some of their approaches to the media as a result. As I said earlier, we have always been very clear that any investigations taking place needed to be completed before a decision was taken about Leveson 2. Some investigations are still being undertaken, which is why at this point of time it is not appropriate to take a decision about Leveson 2.
Days like this really make us think in this place. Will my right hon. Friend commit to making sure that all the resources required to bring the criminal investigations to a speedy and thorough conclusion are brought to bear, because these families have suffered for far too long already?
I assure my hon. Friend that the Home Office has made funding available for Operation Resolve, and it is ensuring that the IPCC has what it needs to conduct these investigations, which will then go to the Crown Prosecution Service. Families deserve a proper, thorough process that is undertaken in a timely manner and provides them with the accountability they want.
May I add my thanks to the Home Secretary for her statement and commitment, and thank all my colleagues for their work over so many decades on this terrible atrocity? After 27 years of pain, torment and suffering, both for the families of the 96 people who tragically lost their lives and for the survivors, at last a dark cloud is lifting. After this statement, Merseyside MPs will travel back to Liverpool to commemorate what has happened on St George’s Hall plateau, and I have no doubt that the solidarity that prevailed in Liverpool will shine bright this evening I pay tribute to the campaigners who have fought tirelessly and never given up. They have endured the unendurable, and they should not have to wait any more. A moment ago the Home Secretary spoke about the work of the IPCC and the police, and the investigations that are being completed, and I echo the call from my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) that the handover of files should happen as quickly as possible. Will the Home Secretary also commit to ensuring that the CPS has whatever resources it takes to expedite its work? We have the truth and we have justice; now we need accountability.
The Attorney General is present and has heard the hon. Lady’s comments regarding his responsibility in relation to the CPS. We want this to be done in a timely fashion, and to ensure that it is done thoroughly and properly. Having visited the work of Operation Resolve and the IPCC, I know the significant amount of material that it has had to go through. Until now, it has been supporting the coroner in the inquests, and now its focus will be on preparing those files to give to the CPS.
Although I have always lived at the other end of the country, I have been a passionate Liverpool fan all my life. I remember vividly watching the start of that game and feeling gutted that I was not able to be there—a feeling that quickly turned to relief. Although nothing can compare with the grief, pain and sense of injustice suffered by families who lost their loved ones, it is also true that on that day Liverpool fans across the country—indeed, all football fans—were smeared by what was said in its aftermath. On behalf of all football fans, I hugely welcome the fact that at last the truth is known: football fans were not responsible for what happened that day. It is, however, an absolute scandal that it has taken 27 years to get to the truth. Does the Home Secretary agree that not only must we never forget the 96 who died that day, but we must never be allowed to forget that those in authority chose to cover up their responsibility for this tragedy, and to smear the name of a great football club, a great city, and football fans everywhere?
My hon. Friend is right, and as he recognised, in the rest of the country and around the globe there are not just football fans, but there are also Liverpool supporters. I cannot reiterate enough how appalling it was that it was not just organs of the state and other agencies that were involved in this. There was a general public feeling that somehow the fans must have been responsible. Question 7 of the verdict yesterday and its supplementary question were clear. The jury was asked whether there was any behaviour on the part of the football supporters which caused or contributed to the dangerous situation at the Leppings Lane turnstiles, or which may have caused or contributed to that situation. The answer was clear: no.
The verdicts yesterday are momentous and long overdue, and I join other Members in paying tribute to the campaigners, families, friends and survivors of what happened in Hillsborough. I warmly welcome the Home Secretary’s statement and the incredibly powerful response from my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham). I join him and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) in urging the Government and the Home Secretary to do everything possible to press the CPS to make its decisions as quickly as possible. That is certainly what the families and survivors want.
It is certainly the Government’s desire, intention and hope that the CPS will make its decisions as quickly as possible, commensurate with it exercising proper independent consideration of the facts.
What hits home about this tragedy is that anyone who has been an away fan or stood on a terrace can picture themselves in that tunnel, on the way to the pen, looking forward to the match, hoping to see their team win, but it ending up in tragedy. Therefore, when those fans were smeared, all of us were smeared. It could have been our club, town or city—only the finger of fate meant that it was Liverpool. Does the Home Secretary agree that looking back, steps could have been taken to avoid this tragedy? When I spoke to Coventry City fans who attended matches at Hillsborough in 1987, they recounted some of the issues that they experienced during those games but that were not addressed, with tragic consequences. After 27 years it is time for some of the organisations involved to stop the denials, accept the verdict and the truth, and move on to ensure that those responsible are finally held to account.
My hon. Friend is right to refer to the issues relating to the stadium, and many people will think it not just surprising but incredible that a game of that size took place in a stadium which, as I understand, did not have the proper safety certification. People will question forever how the relevant authorities can have allowed that to happen, and there are issues not just about the police and ambulance service, but about the football club and the design of the stadium.
As a Merseyside MP and a Liverpool supporter, I thank the Home Secretary for what is almost the last chapter of an unbearably sad book. She must recognise that in this world, justice does not compensate for loss and grief. Apart from the judicial process, what more needs to be done to support the families and for closure?
Obviously, the next stage of the investigation and the CPS is important for the families, and I hope that they will continue to work with Bishop James Jones through the family forums, and on his work to hear about their experiences. That process is important for the families, and also for us, so that we ensure that we have heard their experiences and can take away from that any lessons that need to be learned and any action that the Government need to take.
May I add my thanks to the Home Secretary for her excellent statement, and for her work on the Orgreave truth and justice campaign? I look forward to her response on that. Having served as a special constable in the Metropolitan Police Service, I recognise the institutional defensiveness that was mentioned yesterday by the families, and I fear that that problem is not unique to South Yorkshire. As part of her review of lessons learned, will the Home Secretary consider ending the practice of officers conferring together when recording statements?
The hon. Lady is right, and there are issues not just for policing but for public sector institutions generally about the desire, which I described earlier, to look inwards and protect themselves. I will reflect on her comment.
I thank the Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) and other Merseyside colleagues for their determination in pursuing this matter over many years. The Merseyside victims came from Bootle, Birkenhead, Crosby, Liverpool, Runcorn, Knowsley and other Merseyside communities, but as my right hon. Friend said, supporters also came from all over the country—Cheshire, Essex, Leigh, Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Middlesex, Wrexham and London among other places. Will the Home Secretary join me, Merseyside MPs, and the people of Merseyside in remembering those supporters and their brave families, wherever they came from on that dreadful day, because they are now part of the Merseyside family?
I am very happy to join the hon. Gentleman in doing just that. He is absolutely right to draw our attention to the fact that many of the supporters came from all parts of the country. As he said, they are now part of the Merseyside family.
Does the Home Secretary accept that, although she gave us a long, miserable litany of organisations that failed—organisations whose very essence is supposed to be about securing our safety—one institution shines through gloriously? That is the family, and particularly the families of those who were killed at Hillsborough. Does she accept that whatever we try to say in this House, we say it inadequately, but that we share in the sympathy and admiration of the whole country for those families who had to fight throughout this case? I would like to thank her, the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and the then Bishop of Liverpool, James Jones, for making the triumph of these families possible Concluding her statement, the Home Secretary read out the list of possible charges that might now follow. Although this will be a chilling task in itself, it will be an even greater chill for us if—as I hope, please God—we see through the necessary reform programme for great institutions that we thought were unquestionably on our side, but which were on somebody else’s side on that fateful day.
The right hon. Gentleman raises a number of points. He is absolutely right that it will be necessary for us to stand back and look at how this happened and why 27 years have been allowed to pass before we have come to this point. This might mean taking a very difficult look, as he said, at some of the institutions that people expect to protect them but simply did the opposite on this occasion.
As a Doncaster and South Yorkshire MP, I want to express my disgust and that of many people in South Yorkshire at what the services that we are meant to trust did on that day in Sheffield. I also express our disgust at the manipulation and delaying tactics that have contributed to 27 years of heartfelt pursuit and grief by the families of those killed, but also the survivors, including 730 people who were injured on that day, many with life-limiting injuries that they have had to live with and face the consequences of since then I believe in the rule of law and I believe in justice, but it cannot take 27 years to achieve the outcome that we saw yesterday—an outcome that has not only validated the actions of the families and others who pursued justice, but has called into question the very faith we put in procedures to bring public services to account for failure Will the Home Secretary pick up two issues that were raised earlier? The first is about equality of access to justice. From what I have seen and heard, having money to access legal services made a big difference to the cause of these families. Secondly, we need to look at whether it continues to be right to have police forces investigating other police forces or hospitals investigating other hospitals. Perhaps this is the time to look at having a more independent body for overseeing and investigating when, sadly, our public services fail.
The right hon. Lady raises two specific issues. On having an independent regime in place for inspecting public authorities, one thing we are doing in respect of policing is changing the arrangements for how complaints against the police are investigated so that serious and sensitive cases are not investigated by police forces themselves, but taken to the IPCC. We will be making changes to the IPCC in the Policing and Crime Bill that is going through the House. On the fact that the procedures did not allow for the truth to come out—and in some cases stopped the truth from coming out—for 27 years is a crucial point that underpins the whole debate. I hope that when Bishop James Jones is able to publish his review of what we need to learn from the experiences, it will cover the right hon. Lady’s second point and indeed other issues raised by Members today.
I echo the comments of those who have thanked and congratulated everyone, including the Home Secretary, who campaigned for yesterday’s verdict. The 18 people from the borough of Sefton who died are commemorated on a memorial in Crosby. As we remember all 96 who died, as well as the 730 who were injured, it is important to remember too that in these 27 years many more people have died who wished to see yesterday’s verdict but who sadly did not live long enough to do so, including Anne Williams, who campaigned so long and hard for her son Kevin, who was just 15 when he died at Hillsborough The Home Secretary spoke about a range of possible criminal investigations. Would she say a little about the potential for criminal investigations relating to those who reported, completely falsely, what they were fed by those in authority, which added to the cover-up, to the smear and to the downright lies told about fans and the people of Liverpool at that time? Those actions added hugely to the 27-year wait for yesterday’s verdict.
I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s point about the impression given to the public of what happened. I indicated some of the offences that are included in the work that is being done. The investigation is, of course, a matter for the two bodies set up to undertake the two elements of the investigation—Operation Resolve under Jon Stoddart and the IPPC. As I said in response to other hon. Members, decisions about any prosecutions that take place will be taken entirely independently by the CPS.
As a football fan, I will never forget 15 April 1989 and hearing the unimaginable news that 96 people—men, women and children—had gone to watch a football match and would never come home. It could have been any club, but in this case it was the proud club of Liverpool. Let me say that there were many, many football fans around the country who never believed the official verdict and always believed what Liverpool fans were saying. Let me also pay tribute to all those involved in the campaign. They are not only heroes of the proud city of Liverpool; for their extraordinary fight for truth and justice, which will go down in the history of our democracy, they are British heroes too In addition to dealing with the cover-up, will the Home Secretary give us a clear assurance that the appalling ways in which the families of the victims were treated in the aftermath of the disaster will never happen again? We saw police officers sitting eating chicken and chips in the gymnasium as the bodies were lying there, while families were told that they could not hug their loved ones in body bags because they were the property of the coroner. Worst of all, the initial coroner forced alcohol testing on all these victims—including children such as 10-year-old Jon-Paul Gilhooley—of this unlawful disaster. That was a disgrace, and we want to know that it will never happen to a single victim again.
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to refer to what was done and how the families were treated. How appalling it must have been to learn that one of your loved ones had died in these appalling circumstances and to be unable to touch them, and then not to know the proper details of when and how they died—the cause of death. People have had to live with that for far too long. I hope that these sorts of issues coming out of the families’ experiences will be brought to light by the work that I have asked Bishop James Jones to do.
I thank the Home Secretary for the work she has done, but I wish to raise with her a point I raised in 2012 when she made the same statement: that the rest of the country fell for this story. The rest of the country did not fall for this story. Those of us who went to football matches expected to be treated like second-class citizens and expected the police to get their retaliation in first, even when people had done nothing wrong I also want to pick up on the point raised by my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary about Orgreave, as I was there in June 1984. Seven years after that, South Yorkshire police paid £425,000 in compensation to silence 39 miners who were suing them for assault, yet not one of those police officers was even disciplined for what they had done. The police used public money to bury bad news on that day I come back to where we are now. The hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) made the point that so desperate were the police to cover up that they actually tested young children who were dead, and that shows how seriously they took this. But the real responsibility for what happened from then onwards cannot just be left at the doors of South Yorkshire police. I ask the Home Secretary to do what the Prime Minister did not do today in response to a question from the leader of my party and say what specific action will be taken to expose everybody—at every level in this country, elected official and appointed official, of previous Conservative Governments and of my party’s Governments—who played any role in this cover-up, either by omission or commission Those individuals are as guilty of making the people suffer for 27 years; many people went to their graves vilified when they would have been vindicated had this been sorted out at least a quarter of a century ago. We need to know that this will not just be laid at the door—rightly—of Duckenfield; other people must be called to account. Even if they did not commit criminal acts, they have done things that delayed the course of justice and they should be called to account for that.
Importantly, the independent panel’s report showed the truth of what had happened on that occasion. That work required a number of organisations that had previously been silent about what had happened to be prepared to come forward to give their evidence to the panel On the criminal investigations and the potential criminal prosecutions, obviously I have answered that point. I say to the hon. Gentleman that there has been a collective recognition across this House today, from all parts of it, that there were verdicts on what happened on that day in 1989 but that subsequently the procedures and processes that should have sought out and found the truth failed. We have to ask ourselves how that happened and what we can do to make sure it does not happen again.
Yesterday’s verdict was an historic one, and I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and, in particular, the emphasis she has put on the fact that the fans were not to blame. I was a young schoolteacher working in Liverpool in 1989 and I, like everyone in the city and right across Merseyside, remember that day well. I remember how the city was affected, both at the time and in the years that followed Twenty-seven years is a long time, and the families of the 96 who lost their lives at Hillsborough have had to fight for the truth. It takes a special kind of courage to fight for 27 years, and I pay tribute to the courage and determination of the families. There is nothing more powerful than the truth, and yesterday’s verdict delivered that to us. I hope that will be some comfort for the families and the friends who lost loved ones, and I know that the 96 will not be forgotten.
The hon. Lady is right: the 96 will not be forgotten. She is absolutely right to pay the tribute she does to the families, who have kept alive the hope of truth and justice. As I said earlier, I hope they will take some comfort from the verdicts yesterday.
May I pay tribute to the Home Secretary and the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), not just for the power, poignancy and import of their words here today, but for the decisive and responsive character they have both shown on this matter? Not only do I salute my fellow Members in this House who represent the families of the Hillsborough victims, but, on behalf of the Bloody Sunday families in my constituency, I want to salute the Hillsborough families. They have made that journey from victimhood, through vilification, to vindication—that tortuous journey to justice that my constituents faced. The right hon. Gentleman brought the Hillsborough families over to Derry to meet the Bloody Sunday families in advance of the panel report, for solidarity and mentoring, and I know that the Bloody Sunday families would give the biggest hugs they could possibly give to the Hillsborough families today We need to learn other lessons, rather than just comparing what has happened in this case and in other cases. Points have been made about what the families still had to go through even after what the panel report told us—the fact that they had to sob and seethe inside, and yet still show calm in the chamber as they listened to callous cynicism about the deaths of their loved ones, no less cruel from the paid lips of counsel We also need to address, once and for all, this insensitivity and arrogance of power, and this default setting of system defensiveness that the Home Secretary has rightly identified. The system tells us all when we raise these issues on behalf of families who come to us, “Move on, there is nothing more to know.” I know that that is exactly what the system was telling the right hon. Member for Leigh when he was in government and was making his decision. On the questions about possible charges that arise, one issue occurs to me, and it arises from the Bloody Sunday experience as well. Could we get clarity soon on whether or not the law officers in this situation are applying the same rubric that they have applied to the Bloody Sunday situation: that any question of charges of perjury, perverting the course of justice or anything else cannot be considered until the issues of any possible charges relating to the events of the day have been? That rubric is deeply troubling to Bloody Sunday families.
I will take that point away and look into it. I thank the hon. Gentleman for the remarks he made about the importance of a justice system. We are rightly proud of our system of justice in this country, but sometimes it has failed to get to the truth, as we have sadly seen. On Hillsborough, it is once again the families who have been prepared to fight over 27 years who have got, first, to the truth from the independent panel’s report and now to the clear verdicts which have vindicated what they have said about the fans and about their loved ones all along.
As a teenager in the late ’80s, I followed my team in that stand on many occasions, and this was a victory for all of football today. The crime was exacerbated by the cover-up, so I wish to ask the Home Secretary this: apart from going to hell, what does she see as the consequences for those who bore false testimony?
Obviously, the question whether people have acted in a criminal way and whether charges should be made against those individuals is a decision for the CPS, after it has seen the results of the investigations.
Let me add my congratulations and commendations to the Home Secretary on her statement and her conduct so far and in particular to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) on his work over many years and on an outstanding contribution. May I recall his words of praise for Anne Williams, from Chester, who, sadly, did not live to see this day? I assure the Home Secretary and the House that Anne will be at the forefront of the minds of many of my constituents in Chester today Hillsborough was a tragedy. It might have remained a tragedy but instead it became a scandal. Does the Home Secretary share my concern about the toxic legacy of Hillsborough? A large proportion of people—a generation, indeed—not just on Merseyside but perhaps more widely in the north-west and, as hon. Members from other parts of the country have suggested, perhaps more widely across the country, have absolutely zero confidence in elements of the state and of the justice system. It behoves all of us in this House to help rebuild that confidence, based on the judgment yesterday.
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman that we have a role to play in this House on this, as I said in response to a previous question. We have always felt huge confidence and pride in the justice system that we have in this country, but we need to make sure that it operates properly and that it does provide justice for people.
May I press the Home Secretary to recognise the importance of the European convention on human rights in securing justice in this case? The purpose of the reference group which she says is being reconstituted is specifically to protect the Hillsborough families’ article 2 rights. Because the coronial system does not always work as it should, victims’ families rely on article 2, which safeguards the right to life, to ensure that deaths that take place when people are in the care of the state are properly investigated. Will the Home Secretary think carefully before pursuing her desire, stated this week, for the United Kingdom to withdraw from the convention?
I must point out to the hon. Gentleman that human rights were not invented when the convention was granted. However, my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General responded to an urgent question yesterday, and responded well to the many questions that he was asked by Members The whole question of deaths that happen when there is some involvement of some element of the state is one of the concerns that I have had, which is one of the reasons why, for example, I have set up an inquiry into deaths in police custody. I think that we see many examples in which it is not clear whether the system is actually getting to the truth as it should, and it is right that we should look into and investigate that.
This has been one of those occasions when I have felt very proud to be a Member of Parliament, and I commend both the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary for the roles that they have played. I also commend Liverpool football club, which I do not think has been mentioned yet. The club never told the fans that it was time to move on; it has always taken ownership of a terrible, terrible tragedy This was allowed to happen because, in the eyes of the establishment, football fans were less than human. As soon as the police and the establishment see groups of people not as individuals but as less than human, we enter very dangerous circumstances. Before these people, it was the miners who were less than human. Perhaps we should think about the way we treat disabled people, asylum seekers or the victims of child sex abuse today, and wonder whether we think that they, too, may be less than human. Perhaps that is a lesson for all of us to consider As soon as this tragedy unfolded, the first instinct of South Yorkshire police was to protect their institution and their reputation, and to think nothing of the people who died, and their families, because they considered those people to be less than human. That instinct that they experienced instantly in April 1989 appears to be just as strong 27 years later, given the way they have conducted themselves during this latest inquiry. I commend everything that the Home Secretary has done, but may I ask her to consider whether she believes that the people of south Yorkshire should have confidence in the current leadership of South Yorkshire police, and whether, indeed, she has confidence in the chief constable of South Yorkshire police? Might she take the opportunity of the final moments of this exchange, during which she has conducted herself so magnificently, to ask the chief constable of South Yorkshire police, from the Dispatch Box, to consider his position—not just for the sake of the families, but for the sake of all the people who rely on that police force?
The hon. Gentleman has referred to the leadership of South Yorkshire police. As I said earlier, people will vote for a police and crime commissioner next week, thus conferring that democratic accountability I responded earlier to questions from my hon. Friends about the wording of the statement issued by South Yorkshire police, but let me say again that I think it behoves them to recognise the import of yesterday’s verdicts. I hope that we will not see attempts to suggest that those verdicts were somehow not clear, or were in any way wrong. That jury sat through 296 days of evidence, and they were clear about the role of South Yorkshire police officers.
I thank the Home Secretary, the shadow Home Secretary, and all colleagues for what they have said, and for the manner in which the exchanges on the statement have been conducted.
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I seek your advice on how I can express my deep sorrow about something to which the Prime Minister referred earlier As you know, Mr Speaker, if Ministers make a mistake, they can correct the record. I hope you will allow me to say that I fully acknowledge that I have made a mistake, and I wholeheartedly apologise to the House for the words that I used before I became a Member of Parliament. I accept and understand that the words that I used caused upset and hurt to the Jewish community, and I deeply regret that. Anti-Semitism is racism, full stop. As a Member of Parliament, I will do everything in my power to build relations between Muslims, Jews, and people of different faiths and none I am grateful, and very thankful, for the support and advice that I have received from many Jewish friends and colleagues, advice on which I intend to act. I truly regret what I did, and I hope—I sincerely hope—that the House will accept my profound apology.
The hon. Lady has found an opportunity to apologise. I thank her for what she has said, and it will have been noted by the House. I think that that is all I should say on this occasion.
I commend the hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) for the words that she has just spoken On a point of order, Mr Speaker—a wider point of order —would it be possible for us to develop in our procedures an opportunity for the Prime Minister rapidly to correct any misleading impressions that he inadvertently gives during Prime Minister’s Question Time? For example, I know that he would be incredibly anxious today, following his general attack on the procurement policies of the Scottish Government with specific reference to the Forth crossing, to acknowledge that, in fact, 45% of the total orders, which amounted to £540 million, were placed with Scottish companies I know that the Prime Minister would also want to correct the misleading impression that there was no Scottish steel in the contract by acknowledging that steel from the Dalzell plate mill was used in the girders at either end of the bridge. And I fully understand that he would want to acknowledge that the reason why there was no Scottish bidder for the main subcontract was the closure of the Ravenscraig steel mill by a previous Tory Government in the 1990s, which removed our capacity to supply such steel I know, Mr Speaker, that the provision of such an opportunity would swallow up the entire time of the House, given the many mistakes that this Prime Minister makes, but in view of the clarity of this particular example, perhaps you could consider my new, innovative prime ministerial correction procedure.
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. It has been commented upon many a time and oft in recent years that I have sometimes judged it necessary and desirable somewhat to extend Prime Minister’s questions if I have felt that there has been excessive noise. I have done that because I have wanted Back-Bench Members to have their opportunity. However, there are limits. Even I would not seek to extend Question Time to absorb more than two and a half hours, notwithstanding the sedulous advocacy of the right hon. Gentleman and his obvious enthusiasm for my doing so.
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your help in finding a mechanism whereby the House might be able to force a binding vote on the Government, as a matter of urgency, following the new Lord Dubs amendment to the Immigration Bill. Vulnerable unaccompanied children require help now, but it would seem that the House of Commons is not likely to consider the Bill for another two weeks, the intention being, presumably, to avoid further embarrassment to the Government Let me also say, Mr Speaker, that I should like to avail myself of that prime ministerial correction procedure in order to enable the Prime Minister to retract his comment that other European countries are able to cope with those children. They have, of course, asked the United Kingdom to participate in a relocation scheme, and Frontex has identified the issue of vulnerable children as one of the most concerning aspects of the refugee crisis.
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. He is, in a sense, performing a kind of double act today with the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond), two seats to his left. What I would say to the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), who is a very experienced denizen of the House, having previously served as its Deputy Leader, is twofold. First, as he knows, the scheduling of business is in the hands of the Government, notably in respect of Government business. Although his expectation, as things stand, as to when that matter will next be treated by the House may well be correct, it has not been announced Secondly, the scheduling will, in all probability, be announced at business questions tomorrow by the Leader of the House. If it is not, there will be an opportunity for that matter to be probed. I know I can say with complete confidence and with no fear of contradiction that just as the right hon. Gentleman is in his place now, so he will be at the appropriate time tomorrow, and I think there is more than a passing possibility that he will catch my eye.
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.
I am not sure it is, but I always like hearing the hon. Gentleman, especially as he has such a beaming countenance today. So let us hear the attempted “further” from the hon. Gentleman.
We have heard the suggestion that the Prime Minister said something that was wrong. We heard from the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond), from the Scottish National party, that the bit between the ends of the Forth crossing, which I would call “the bridge”, was actually made with steel that was not produced in this country.
Whatever else may be said, and it may be a point of enormous interest, that is manifestly not a point of order. We will leave the matter there for now. If there are no further points of order, perhaps we can now come to the ten-minute rule motion in the name of the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington. Whatever he may have to say tomorrow, I assume that today he intends to address his ten-minute rule motion.
I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the regulation of landlords and private rented accommodation; to extend tenants’ rights, particularly in relation to the sale of occupied rental property; to cap letting agents’ fees; to require the Mayor of London to establish a mandatory licensing scheme in respect of private landlords in Greater London; and for connected purposes It is no exaggeration to say that we have a national emergency in housing. It is unacceptable that in 2016 millions of people still suffer daily from poor housing, and live in fear and desperation without a secure, affordable place to call home. This fear is tearing communities apart and risks further dividing our country between a very well-off minority and the rest of us. We have soaring house prices, with the average cost of a two-bedroom house in London now out of the reach of more than 80% of people, and a rental sector in which too many people on low and middle incomes are spending around two-fifths of their salaries on housing—something confirmed by a report in the Evening Standard yesterday—and often suffer at the hands of rogue landlords. This problem is not going to go away soon Over the past decade, London’s private rented sector has more than doubled in size to become the second-largest housing tenure in the capital. There are now almost 1 million private rented sector properties in London, housing over 2 million people—about a third of the population. For many of those people, living in the private rented sector works well, with short-term tenancy agreements offering them the flexibility they need to move homes quickly for new jobs or career opportunities. Many of their private landlords are responsible, carrying out repairs in a timely manner and returning deposits promptly. However, for many others the sector has become a tenure of last resort, rather than a housing destination of choice There have been huge changes in the demographics of the private rented sector in recent years with an increasing number of families, low-income and vulnerable households living in the sector, but conditions remain poor: a third of homes fail to meet the Government’s decent homes standard, with over 60% of renters having experienced either damp, mould, leaking roofs or windows, electrical hazards, animal infestation or gas leaks, according to a recent survey commissioned by the housing charity Shelter Just last week at my surgery I met a woman who, soon after she started describing the conditions in her rented property, broke down in tears. She and her young son could no longer face waking up to live or dead rodents in their flat. In this case, her landlord is trying to help, but the quality of the housing stock makes it very difficult to stop rodents getting into the property. A few weeks previously, at another surgery, a young woman came to see me with her mother. Repairs are outstanding on their rented property. The landlord is refusing to sort them out while at the same time putting pressure on them to leave their flat. I am sure every MP will be all too familiar with these types of cases. This is why I am supporting the measures put forward by Caroline Pidgeon’s London Liberal Democrat team to overhaul the private rented sector. We believe the measures will benefit tenants and good landlords, and shut down the Rachmans of this world The exact number of rogue landlords operating in the sector remains unknown, but there is a growing sense that the problem is getting worse as demand for housing, and the profits that can be made from renting out any accommodation in whatever condition, continues to increase. One in 20 renters say they have rented from a rogue landlord in the past 12 months. As a survey of local authority enforcement in the private rented sector carried out in March 2016 by my Liberal Democrat colleagues on the Greater London Authority shows, the enforcement of standards in the private rented sector by local authorities is highly variable, with recent cuts to local authority budgets further diminishing the resources available to councils to tackle landlords who provide poor or unsafe living conditions. The resulting patchwork of enforcement has left thousands of Londoners at the mercy of rogue landlords Much of the problem lies with the lack of effective regulation and enforcement in the sector. The Residential Landlords Association, which represents small private landlords, would welcome tougher enforcement. Unfortunately, enforcement and inspection is very weak. One third of councils in London—10 boroughs—failed to prosecute a single landlord for providing unsafe accommodation in 2014-15. On average, London boroughs inspected one in every 55 homes in the private rented sector using the housing health and safety rating system. There is significant variation in the level of enforcement activity, with some councils inspecting one in 14 private rented properties for hazards and others about one in 500 The private rented sector may have met the needs of tenants in years gone by, but the profile of renters, and the average length of tenancy, has changed dramatically in recent years. If some landlords are to lose their reputation as the property industry’s wild west cowboys, it is clear that a proper framework of regulation and enforcement is required. That is what is set out in the plans I am about to refer to, which would reform the private rented sector. My Bill seeks to implement them First, all landlords in London should be registered. This would make it easier to identify the scale of, and trends in, the private rented sector, and to ensure landlords can be traced easily Secondly, there should be a crackdown on rogue landlords through a licensing scheme. The Government should introduce a licensing scheme for all private landlords in London, with the aim of professionalising the sector, improving conditions and removing rogue landlords from the housing market. I accept that this proposal would not be welcomed by all landlords, but some accept a limited role, in certain circumstances, for licensing in some areas of London Thirdly, unfair letting agent fees for renters should be scrapped. Moving from one rented home to another can be very expensive, with high letting fees and large deposit requirements. I am told that agents try to poach landlords from each other to secure for themselves the fees that are triggered on a change of tenancy. Of course, they dangle the prospects of higher rents in front of the would-be landlord. In Sutton, a quick check suggests fees of around £400 to £500 when signing up a new tenant. When that is added to the six-week deposit—currently approximately £1,500 for a two-bedroom flat—a tenant would need to find a total of £2,000 upfront Fourthly, renters should be given extra rights when landlords sell up. There should be a requirement for tenants to be given first refusal to buy the home they are renting, should the landlord decide to sell it during a tenancy Finally, councils should be given the power to manage private rental property and offer longer tenancies. This would allow councils to develop, own and manage private sector rented homes, outside of housing revenue accounts, to improve the quality of homes in the sector, with the freedom to offer long-term tenancies. I call on the Government to work with private landlords, mortgage companies and freeholders to enable private landlords to offer longer tenancies. It is often the mortgage companies or the freeholders who are standing in the way of longer tenancies. This is a package that will make a real difference Neither I nor Caroline Pidgeon is claiming that these measures are the silver bullet that will solve London’s housing problems, because the fundamental challenge is a lack of supply, particularly of affordable homes, and that problem is no closer to a solution, given that fewer than 5,000 affordable homes were built in London last year, the lowest figure since the current Mayor was first elected in 2008. However, we believe that these proposals will improve the lot of private renters, some of whom suffer in poorly insulated, damp, mouldy properties with the threat of a retaliatory eviction hanging over the heads every time they ask for a repair. This has to stop. I urge the House to support this Bill Question put and agreed to. Ordered, That Tom Brake, Norman Lamb, Greg Mulholland, John Pugh and Stephen Timms present the Bill Tom Brake accordingly presented the Bill Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 13 May, and to be printed (Bill 168). Trade union bill (programme) (No. 3)
I beg to move Government amendment (a) to Lords amendment 2.
With this we will consider the following: Government amendment (b) to Lords amendment 2 Lords amendment 17, and Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) to (c) to words restored to the Bill.
The measures in the Bill aim to modernise the relationship between trade unions and their members and strike a fairer balance between the rights of trade unions and the rights of people who rely on public services, by ensuring that strikes happen only when unions have secured a clear, positive and recent democratic mandate. Consideration in the House of Lords has made important changes to the Bill, the great majority of which the Government believe will improve the Bill. However, the first group of amendments deals with those issues on which the Government do not support the proposed changes The first group is about electronic balloting and facility time. We have reflected carefully, in the light of the strong views expressed in debates in this House and in the other place, and I will take each issue in turn. As I have said before, the Government have no objection in principle to electronic balloting. I have also said before, and I am happy to say it again at the Dispatch Box, that it is likely to be common in 20 years’ time. We are seeking a degree of sensible caution on this matter.
The Minister will remember our many conversations about this in Committee. He says that he is not opposed to electronic balloting in principle and he accepts that it might come in. We can see the Lords amendment before us and there are moves towards a pilot scheme. Electronic balloting is used by many organisations including the Law Society, many businesses and indeed the Conservative party for the purposes of the mayoral elections. Why not just do this now?
I have greatly enjoyed debating the many detailed clauses of the Bill with the hon. Gentleman over a long period when he occupied a different post on the Opposition Front Bench, and if he will give me time, I will explain why I am not quite ready to rush to the nirvana that he describes We are seeking a degree of sensible caution to ensure that important votes—these are indeed statutory votes—are safe and secure, so I am not asking hon. Members today to reject the clause added to the Bill in the House of Lords on electronic balloting. However, I am asking for agreement to a small but important change to ensure that we proceed prudently on the basis of evidence as we take this important step.
The Minister will no doubt have seen the evidence from the Electoral Reform Society that the incidence of fraud in electronic balloting is no different from the incidence of fraud in postal balloting. In the light of that evidence, what is his objection?
The hon. Gentleman will have to be a little patient, because I am going to come on to talk about evidence from around the world of some of the problems that other systems have encountered when trying to embrace electronic balloting too quickly and without adequate preparation I appreciate from previous debates on the Bill in this House that there are differences of opinion about whether electronic balloting is sufficiently safe and secure. Lord Kerslake said that he personally was convinced that the case for it had been made, and we have heard from others in recent minutes that they too are so convinced, but Lord Kerslake was good enough to say that he appreciated that others were not. I remind the House that the Open Rights Group gave evidence to the Speaker’s Commission in which it neatly summed up the concerns over the security of online voting. It stated: “Voting is a uniquely difficult question for computer science: the system must verify your eligibility; know whether you have already voted; and allow for audits and recounts. Yet it must always preserve your anonymity and privacy.” That was the view of the Open Rights Group, and that is the view that we must investigate more carefully. Lord Kerslake explained that that was why his clause, added to the Bill in the other place, required that a review should be commissioned There have already been many reviews looking into this matter, such as those carried out by Electoral Reform Services, WebRoots Democracy and, of course, the Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy. They have made encouraging comments about a move to electronic ballots, but none has been able to provide assurance on managing the risks. While there is still this doubt, I can see merit in exploring the issues further. And of course the important difference is that this review will be specifically in the context of electronic ballots for industrial action. So, in accepting that there should be a review, we accept the spirit of the clause on electronic balloting. In fact, we accept virtually the entirety of the amendment made by the Lords on electronic balloting.
I understand the position that the Minister is setting out, but I am struggling to understand his logic. If he is saying that electronic balloting is neither secure nor anonymous, is he implying that when Conservative party members vote for a particular candidate online in an internal Tory party election, it is neither secure nor anonymous?
With the greatest respect, I would point out to the hon. Gentleman that that is an internal election within an independent organisation. We are talking here about statutory elections, which are important because the public has a deep interest in their result and it is quite right that we should hold them to a higher standard than we do others.
The Minister sounds almost guilty of double standards on this issue. He says that he has accepted the majority of the Lords amendments, but he has neglected to adopt any of those components that require substantial action by the Government. What possible objection could he have to piloting an e-balloting scheme? I think he realises that he just does not have a reasonable argument against it.
If Opposition Members will just give me a minute, they will be able to hear my argument. Then they can decide whether they think it is reasonable or not.
Will the Minister give way?
No, I am now going to satisfy Opposition Members by setting out my argument, after which I will be happy to give way if they want to comment on it. There is only one element in the amendment made by the House of Lords with which we cannot agree and that is the strategy for roll-out, which prejudges the outcome of the review and irrevocably commits the Secretary of State to press ahead with a strategy for the roll-out of electronic balloting, irrespective of the review’s findings.
I am interested to hear what the Minister says about that. The last Labour Government piloted e-voting, and the Electoral Commission report afterwards indicated that there was no evidence of fraud or other things, but what did for it was the scandal around postal voting in certain areas. There was no evidence in the report that e-voting was any more corrupt or inefficient than any other type of voting.
If the hon. Gentleman is correct and if there is no problem, the review will conclude so and will report to Parliament that there is—
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No, I am not going to give way again; I am going to carry on with my argument. The review will report accordingly to the House The power to permit electronic balloting already exists in section 54 of the Employment Relations Act 2004, but we have not yet exercised it because we have not been convinced, and neither have any previous Government, including a Labour Government that held office for 13 years, that the system would ensure privacy, opportunity and minimise the risk of fraud and malpractice. There has been much positive progress in the way that technology can help to address such issues, which is reflected in the reports I have cited. We have been clear that we will be willing to use the power when we are convinced that the concerns have been adequately addressed. The legislation is framed in a way that requires us first to be satisfied on such matters, and for good reason. That is why, instead of a strategy for roll-out, I am today seeking agreement to a statutory requirement for the Government to publish their response to the review, which would be laid before Parliament, making it readily accessible to hon. Members, who could ask questions and raise matters in the House in the usual way.
Before the Trade Union Bill reached the House of Lords, the Minister wrote a letter to ministerial colleagues that was leaked to the Socialist Worker, for which the Minister may have an explanation. Will he confirm that he will use secondary legislation to put e-balloting in place should the pilot be successful?
Madam Deputy Speaker, I can assure you that my relations with the Socialist Workers Party or its newspaper are probably rather less good than the hon. Gentleman’s, so it was not through my good offices that it got hold of any document—not that I accept that it did get hold of any document The hon. Gentleman asks a reasonable question, and I have made it clear that the Government have no objection in principle and that we expect statutory elections eventually to move towards online voting, but we will do that with trade union strike ballots when we are convinced that such voting is safe. That is why we want an independent review that will report to Parliament. I will not prejudge its outcome, because if I did, it would be slightly pointless to have the review in the first place.
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I am happy to give way and will do so first to the hon. Gentleman.
The Minister said before that online voting was okay for the election of the Tory candidate for Mayor of London because the Conservative party is an independent organisation. I hope that he would accept that trade unions are also independent. Did the Tory party carry out a review into how secure the system was before it set up the discussions for having electronic voting for the Tory mayoral candidate?
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman heard my previous answer and he must recognise that these are statutory elections. Internal elections for candidates in any party are not statutory. They might be subject to problems, but that is a problem for the organisation, not for the public. The public have a right to expect a higher standard in the consideration of statutory elections.
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I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman; he has had a go. I will give way to the hon. Members for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) and for York Central (Rachael Maskell), who have not yet had a go, but all hon. Members are welcome to speak in this debate in their own right, so it would be right to make some progress.
I am grateful to the Minister for allowing me to speak. He says that it might be pointless to have a review and all the other various stages, and I agree with him. A review of the technology is pointless, because it already exists. It has already been mentioned that the Conservative party has used the technology and, as a previous programmer, I can tell the Minister that it already exists and is secure. It has been used not only in various businesses and independent organisations, such as the Conservative party, but in “The X Factor” and various other TV shows. The Minister does not need a report; he just needs to move on to the next stage.
The hon. Lady is a fan of “The X Factor” and so are many of us, but she will recognise that, important though it is to the public, “The X Factor” is not a statutory election. While I am absolutely happy to acknowledge her expertise, I hope that she will acknowledge the evidence of the Open Rights Group. It is not a Tory front organisation—she can investigate it—but an independent specialist organisation that gave evidence only last year and said that there were specific issues to overcome. She will also have to explain to the review why it is that several countries have experimented with online voting and then reversed the decision because they found it to be unsafe. The review will allow us—
Will the Minister give way?
Of course. I did say that I would give way to the hon. Lady.
Will the Minister be specific and say how electronic voting is less secure than postal voting, which has additional risks?
No, I will not be specific, because we are going to set up an independent review involving people with real expertise in the matter. The hon. Lady will be welcome to give evidence to the review, which will produce a report that will be laid before Parliament. She can then interrogate the report and the Government’s response.
On the point being made by the Opposition about the Conservative party’s online voting, I found it impossible to get on to the site and was unable to vote for my candidate in the mayoral election. Did my hon. Friend experience the same issue?
I did not have that issue, but that does show that there can be issues with online voting, as there can be with postal voting. While it is not a matter of enormous public interest, because it was not a statutory election, we would be very worried if a statutory election, such as a union strike ballot, was subject to the same level of problems.
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Have I not given way to the hon. Gentleman already? I will give way one more time and then I will get on.
Is the Minister seriously suggesting that whoever is the Conservative party candidate for London Mayor is not a matter of interest to the public? I find his argument bizarre.
I am quite happy to explain again that it is not a statutory election The review will allow us to consider again the case for e-balloting and ensure that we have assessed the latest technology. Taken together, the review and the Government’s response will enable the Secretary of State to make a properly informed and transparent decision about the risks of achieving safe, secure electronic balloting, and therefore whether such a system should be rolled out.
The Minister has invited us to contribute to the review. I wonder whether he will accept electronic submissions or do we have to get our quills and parchment out?
The hon. Lady makes a good point—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) suggests that submissions should be inscribed on vellum, and my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office has a particular enthusiasm for that means of communication, but I prefer the more modern kind, so I suggest that an online submission—perhaps even by WhatsApp—might be appropriate Turning to the reserve power to cap facility time, the Government do not agree with the Lords amendment.
As my hon. Friend knows, I am in favour of electronic voting, but the route that he is taking is the correct one. The one real fear out there, which can be put paid to right now, is that this approach is designed simply to delay the onset of online voting. Will he tell the House that, when the Minister receives the report, it will be dealt with with appropriate dispatch?
I thank my right hon. Friend for his contribution on this and other important matters. He has made a significant contribution to the improvement of this Bill. On his particular question, the amendment that we propose agrees with the noble Lords that this review should be commissioned within six months and then reported to Parliament. I have made it clear that we have no objection in principle to e-balloting. If the review suggests that it is safe to embrace, we will proceed with it. I think he will have noted that the amendment specifically suggests that we should be able to introduce pilots. One issue with the existing provisions is that it might not be possible to do a pilot without going for a full application. Such pilots might well be an appropriate phase after the review has been completed Let me return now to facility time and the facility time cap. The Government do not agree with the Lords amendment and, in consequence, I am moving amendment 17, which brings back the reserve cap, but with safeguards that respond to the concerns that were expressed in our debates and that led to the deletion of the clause in the other place and were the subject of quite forensic inquisition in both Houses. Together with the publication requirements, it is my view that a reserve power to cap facility time to a reasonable level delivers our manifesto commitment to “tighten the rules around taxpayer-funded paid facility time for union representatives.” I shall reiterate what I said when this House was previously considering the Bill. We are not seeking to ban facility time. That has never been our intention. Our strong preference is that transparency alone should be enough to change practices in the public sector, with employers voluntarily reducing their costs where they are found to be spending more on facility time than is reasonable.
The Minister is being very generous. In the aforementioned leaked memo to which I referred earlier, there was an indication that there would be concessions and discussions with the devolved Administrations in relation to facility time. Will he confirm whether consultations have taken place with the devolved Administrations, or whether it is his intention to dictate to the devolved Administrations what the facility time should be for their own workforce?
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will understand that I never comment on articles in the Socialist Worker. He will also understand that we have regular conversations with Ministers in the devolved Administrations, but all of the matters addressed in this Bill are reserved matters. It is a matter not of dictating, but of this Government fulfilling their duty to legislate on the matters for which we have exclusive responsibility.
Specifically on the point about devolved powers, is it not the case that in that letter the Minister received legal advice saying that there is a very weak case for enforcing those powers on the Welsh Government?
The hon. Lady, who made an admirable and, for me, rather challenging contribution to our deliberations in Committee, knows that we do not comment on legal advice If publication, and the proper monitoring and recording that it necessitates, do not achieve the aim of bringing excessive spending on facility time back down to a reasonable level, it will be necessary to consider the imposition of a cap. A reserve power is very much a power of last resort.
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If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I wish to explain what we are now proposing, because it is a little different from what we proposed previously. I will give way to him before I conclude on the facility time cap A reserve power is very much a power of last resort. Although our amendment 17 brings back the reserve power, we are not simply replicating the provision that this House considered previously and that was deleted from the Bill in the other place. The amendment before the House today incorporates a number of safeguards that will trigger how and when the reserve power to cap facility time would be exercised. We have listened to the concerns of Members of this House and the other place and have sought to address those concerns in the amendment.
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Let me finish this bit, because I am trying to explain what is different about what we doing. I will then be very happy to give way to my hon. Friend.
And me.
Of course It is our intention that exercise of the reserve power will not even be considered before there are at least two years of data from the bodies subject to the publication requirement. Following the publication of the second year’s data, should a particular employer’s facility time be a cause for concern, having regard to all relevant factors, the Minister will send and publish a letter to the employer drawing attention to the concerns. The employer will have the opportunity to set out the reasons for the level of facility time. They will then have at least a further year from the date the Minister notifies it of concerns to make progress on its facility time levels. Nothing will be done until a third year’s data have been published. Only then will the Minister be at liberty to exercise the reserve power and make regulations to cap facility time for those employers.
A person who enjoys facility time will spend a lot of that time trying to manage huge reorganisations and redundancies, most of which are the responsibility of the Minister’s former Government. Can he explain what he means when he says things such as “excessive” and “reasonable”? Over the past four years, Gateshead council has lost 48% of its budget and 2,000 people have been made redundant. People have been engaged day and night, trying to redeploy and retrain people. How on earth is a Minister in Whitehall going to be able to pull all that together and say, “Well, that works for them, but it does not work for others.”? It is nonsense.
The hon. Gentleman is right. What is reasonable can vary according to the organisation and the situation of that organisation, which is why we want to collect two years of data before we establish what seems to be a reasonable level by looking at comparable organisations. I will come on to the fact that we will also be creating the possibility of removing the cap from an organisation if it has a particular situation, such as the one that he describes, that would justify a much higher level of spending on the different kinds of facility time.
What my hon. Friend is trying to make explicit is that, across the trade union movement there are shop stewards who do an excellent job, day in, day out, but there are some situations where the facility time is taken advantage of. One merely has to think of Grangemouth. Can he be clear on this? He has struck the right balance in the way that he looks at things, but at no time has he said that all shop stewards are swinging the lead or that a lot of valuable work goes on.
I am very happy to confirm and applaud what my hon. Friend said. In truth, I would be as worried if an organisation was declaring no spending on facility time as if it was declaring excessive spending on facility time. Helping people with training or with health and safety issues is not just appropriate, but vital in a well-run organisation. He will recognise, as will Members across the House, that there have been agencies and Departments—we have had direct dealings of this within the civil service—that were allowing an abuse of the system. We want to restore confidence in the system by making it clear that we need transparency. If there is still excessive behaviour, we will introduce a cap.
In order to try to help the House understand why you feel that there is a need for this cap on facility time, could you tell the House what percentage of public sector employers excessively grant facility time and how many of them would this cap be beneficial in stopping?
I am not at all sure, Madam Deputy Speaker, whether you feel that there is a need for a cap, but I think the hon. Gentleman was referring to me.
Order. Let us clear that up. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) will get used to the fact that if one says “you”, that means me. If one says “the hon. Gentleman”, that means the Minister.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thought that for your sake I should clarify that The hon. Gentleman asks a very reasonable question, but I hope he understands that until we have applied the transparency clause, we do not know the current level of spending across the broader public sector, so we cannot judge which organisations are spending in excess.
rose—
No, I will finish. We know that when we introduced a similar provision in the civil service, we found that some organisations were acting perfectly responsibly and others were allowing an abuse of the system, hence we introduced a cap in the civil service. That has saved the taxpayer money and has not in any way undermined the proper fulfilment of responsibilities by trade union representatives. I shall now make some progress—
rose—
Well, okay. I have such a soft spot for the hon. Gentleman.
The Minister is indulgent. I appreciate his generosity. Given some of the rhetoric from some of his ministerial colleagues and others about the matter, does he recognise that people might have a reasonable suspicion that even after collecting the data, the Government might seek to use these powers perniciously, going after particular groups whose practices they are not happy with, rather than using the powers in the way that he describes? Does he accept that that is a reasonable suspicion?
I do not. After all, I am the Minister and I will be in charge of this until the Prime Minister decides otherwise. The hon. Gentleman has had enough time to judge whether or not I am sincere. He will also note that in the amended proposals that we are putting forward today, there have to be three years’ data before we can introduce a cap, and that where there is some concern about the level of spending we have to allow the organisation an opportunity to explain why that level of spending is appropriate. That responds in part to what the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) said. Partly through the good offices of hon. Members in this House and in the other place, there are now greater safeguards to ensure that there can be no abuses.
I am a bit confused about what the cost will be of a Minister or civil servants sitting down and sifting through mountains of data from every council and every public body covered by the provision to determine whether facility time has been abused, when from his own lips the Minister has just admitted that he does not know whether there has been any abuse. If there is not a problem, why are we bringing in this expensive system that is impossible to regulate?
I do not accept that it will be expensive. Although there are no data because the transparency clauses have not yet been applied, I point the hon. Gentleman to estimates that the public sector as a whole spends on average 0.14% of its total pay bill on facility time, the civil service spends 0.07%—half of that—and the private sector spends 0.04%. I can promise him that if he multiplies the pay bill of the public sector by that percentage, he will arrive at a very large figure indeed, and a great deal more than the cost of implementing these clauses.
rose—
I have been generous and I will be generous again, but I shall try to make some progress As I indicated, the amendment provides that the cap may be disapplied for as long as necessary and to the extent necessary for individual employers. This would enable a temporary lifting of the cap for one or more specific employers, and we propose to use it in circumstances where the employer and Ministers consider it necessary. We envisage that should a particular employer experience a need for more facility time, perhaps during a period of change or following a particular incident, Ministers can allow this so that facility time can be increased to respond to the circumstance. The reserve power that this amendment would deliver is considerably improved from the version that was deleted in the other place, and I urge the House to support it. I commend the amendments to the House
I want to make it clear right at the outset that we remain opposed to this Bill. Despite some of the changes that it has undergone in another place, it remains a dreadful, mean-spirited, partisan, petty piece of legislation. Having got that off my chest, I recognise that Members in another place have made a valiant attempt to make a silk purse out of this particularly malformed sow’s ear, so that after today it may end up being a slightly less ugly sow’s ear than it was, but it will remain a malodorous porcine lug, for all their lordships’ noble efforts Many of the changes that peers made are welcome if we consider the crudeness of the Bill in its original form. On the first group of Lords amendments and the Government’s response to them, Lords amendment 2 was passed in the other place by 320 votes to 181, requiring the Government to commission a review of electronic voting in industrial action ballots within six months of Royal Assent. After the review, amendment 2 would require the Government to publish a strategy for rolling out electronic voting Government amendment (a) would revise Lords amendment 2 so that Ministers are required only to publish a response to the review, but need not take further action to actually introduce e-balloting. The Government have consistently resisted e-balloting on the grounds that they still had concerns about the safety of electronic voting, despite the fact, as many hon. Members have pointed out, that the Conservative party used electronic ballots for the selection of its London mayoral candidate, although I suppose the Conservatives may now be regretting that, given the poor performance of the candidate they selected using that method. Perhaps that explains the Government’s concern It is clear that the Government’s real objection to e-balloting and, indeed, to workplace balloting, which we argued for unsuccessfully in this House and in the other place, has been that they do not want high turnouts because their new threshold barriers could be more easily reached if more people were more easily able to vote Not only will all ballots for industrial action require a minimum 50% turnout under the Bill, but those working in the loosely defined “important public services group” will face an additional hurdle of needing a 40% yes vote from all those eligible to vote. That means that these thresholds place higher requirements on those industrial action ballots than on any other democratic process within the UK. For example, the 50% turnout threshold was not reached for the last London Mayoral election or most local government and devolved elections The Government have agreed that Ministers should be required to commission an independent review of the use of e-ballots for industrial action within six months of Royal Assent. They have agreed that it will be possible to run pilots as part of that review, as the Minister said, but the Government are proposing that after the review Ministers would need to publish a response, but not necessarily to take any further action. There would be no requirement to publish a strategy for rolling out electronic voting.
Is there not a slight concern that this is just a delaying tactic by the Government, who do not intend to introduce these measures? Given that in 2016 many people are quite used to banking online, registering to vote online and submitting their tax returns online, do not questions about security and anonymity fall by the wayside?
I know the Minister, and I take him at his word when he says that that is not his intention and that this is not a delaying tactic. However, to coin a phrase, he is a here today, gone tomorrow Minister—I say that from experience, as a former Minister—and somebody else may well occupy his place in the future. That person may not have the good intentions the Minister has outlined to the House today, and we must legislate for that possibility, rather than assume that somebody with good will is going to occupy his seat in perpetuity The Government propose that they would not have to publish a strategy after the review. Let me be clear: their amendment is not necessary. I accept that they have moved a long way in accepting the review, the pilots, the requirement to lay a report before Parliament, the need to consult experts and to get advice and recommendations, and the need to commission a report within six months of passing the Act. Those changes are significant, and they go part of the way towards achieving what we have argued for right from the start, as well as achieving most of what was agreed in the other place with cross-Bench support.
As someone who, along with other colleagues, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), considers that electronic balloting is probably the right way to go, may I ask whether the hon. Gentleman welcomes the progress the Minister and the Government have made in that direction? I believe that the Minister, and indeed any future Minister, although I hope this Minister remains in his place for a long time, will ensure that the evidence is looked at and that, provided it shows that electronic balloting is the right way to go, which I very much hope it does, we will go forward with it.
Obviously I cannot comment on how long the Minister will remain in his post—we will see what happens in the forthcoming reshuffle. However, I did recognise the movement the Government have made, although I made it clear that their amendment to their lordships’ amendment is unnecessary and that the whole matter could have been dealt with in a much more straightforward manner. However, we are where we are, having received these amendments from the Lords, and those are all that we can discuss today Ultimately, it is inconceivable that any Minister, having received a report on how e-balloting could be introduced safely, would then deny trade union members the opportunity to participate in a ballot using modern electronic communications. The only possible reason for Ministers at that future point to reject an expert report outlining the appropriate way to introduce modern technology into ballots and to offer the opportunity for easier participation in a democratic vote would be a desire to suppress turnout.
The hon. Gentleman comes right to the point. He does not have to rely on the good will of this Minister, who I am sure will be in the Cabinet in six months. The reason I asked the Minister to outline at the Dispatch Box the Government’s intent on receipt of the report was that, if another Minister were ever tempted not to follow the explicit policy line we have now, the hon. Gentleman and I could hold that Minister to account in this Chamber.
I do not know whether future Prime Minister Gove will appoint the Minister to the Cabinet—we shall have to wait and see—but the right hon. Gentleman is exactly right. That is why the Government’s amendment is unnecessary and dilutes the effect of accepting the rest of this Lords amendment. However, I am seeking to put on record the fact that, should any future Minister take another path, having had a clear recommendation in the report, one could only interpret their intentions as less than honourable.
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Could you advise me whether it is in order for the House to spend quite so much time talking about my career prospects, because I do not feel that that is really helping?
I am not sure whether that is good or bad for the House.
I am happy to leave the Minister alone for the rest of the debate, apart from on the issues we are discussing If any Minister did take the path I described, there would obviously be considerable anger and opposition from not just the Labour party but other parties and Members of the other place, who worked so hard to craft this amendment on electronic balloting. In practice, I think the momentum for e-balloting will be unstoppable if the report is published and comes to the conclusions we think it will. However, we prefer the Lords amendment, and we will seek to keep it in the Bill this afternoon Let me move on to the other part of this group of amendments, which includes Lords amendment 17, on facility time, the Government’s motion to disagree with it, and their proposed additions to clause 13—should the House decide to reinstate it by voting to disagree with the Lords. The Lords passed amendment 17 by 248 votes to 160, removing Ministers’ power to impose a cap on union facilities by deleting clause 13. The Government have tabled a motion to disagree with Lords amendment 17 so that they can restore their ability to impose a cap on facilities. They have proposed a further amendment to amend the reinstated clause in line with assurances they gave in the Lords, providing that no cap could be imposed for the first three years after the new reporting requirements on facilities came into force Before Ministers could impose a cap they would need to review the published data on facilities, the cost of facilities for the relevant employer, the nature of the services run by the public authority, any particular factors relevant to the employer, and other related matters. They would also need to consider the type of organisation and any relevant factors—for example, if the organisation was facing a major restructure. If the Minister had concerns about the level of facilities in a particular public authority, under the Government’s proposed provisions he would need to write to the employer expressing those concerns.
What is having to review all this information going to cost the taxpayer? The Minister skated over that. Surely if it is to be done thoroughly and effectively it will come at great cost to the taxpayer.
Indeed. Given that the Government’s stated purpose in doing this is to look after the interests of the taxpayer, it is ironic that what my hon. Friend says is exactly the case As I said, we are dealing with what we have got back from the Lords. We would not have wished this provision to remain in the Bill at all. We support the Lords amendment to remove it from the Bill completely, and I am setting out to the House the consequences of not doing so The original clause 13 included a reserve power for Ministers to introduce regulations imposing an arbitrary cap on the amount of time that union reps in the public sector can spend in the workplace improving health and safety standards, promoting learning and training opportunities, consulting on redundancies or on TUPE transfers, negotiating better pay and conditions, and even representing members in grievances and disciplinary hearings. We agree with the Lords that the clause on facility time should have been removed from the Bill altogether. It is an unnecessary interference in the conduct of good industrial relations. It also goes against the Government’s professed desire to support devolution, as other hon. Members have pointed out, including the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) and my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens). As the Minister will know, it is being resisted by the devolved Administrations We acknowledge, however, that significant advances have been made in Government amendment (a). We support the Lords and want this clause removed from the Bill, but if the House decides not to do so, Government amendment (a) will at least make some improvement to a proposal that should never have appeared in the first place.
I should like to speak to amendment (a) to Lords amendment 2. I hope my comments are met in the spirit in which I hope to make them I want to outline a frustration that I expressed on Second Reading when I spoke about turnout thresholds within the private sector. In my remarks, I made it clear that trade unions have a very important part to play in the workplace, whether on health and safety, bullying, contract renegotiations regarding a change in working practices or funding, or many such issues. It is wrong to be seen not to appreciate the work that trade unions do. Indeed, as I said earlier, many shop stewards in this country do an outstanding job. I had experience of that when I was a member of Unite, with some excellent shop stewards who worked very well I also said on Second Reading that I was not keen on turnout thresholds in the private sector, because, as I outlined, the threshold to go on strike in the private sector is much higher than in the public sector. Whatever the rights and wrongs of it may be, when people go on strike in the public sector, there will generally always be a job to go back to because it is being funded largely by Government through taxation, whereas in the private sector the same threshold cannot be guaranteed, especially in smaller business. If a workforce withdraws its labour, it has gone through a much higher threshold, in its own mind, in perhaps putting at risk the ongoing viability of the company. Therefore, taking strike action in those circumstances means, first, that the conditions that have led to that strike must be very bad, and, secondly, that there has been a complete breakdown of relations between the shop stewards and the owners of those companies On Second Reading, I cited Grunwick in the 1970s. I repeat that I do not support the Conservative party’s attempts in the 1970s to break the strike in that company, run by George Ward, because people were working in appalling conditions. Strike action was taken to try to improve conditions that would be unacceptable today. As I said previously, I applaud the last Labour Government for introducing a legal requirement to allow a trade union to operate in the workplace if that is the wish of members of staff I therefore hope hon. Members understand my regret that movement was not made on turnout thresholds in the private sector. The flip side of that is that I believe that it is right to have a turnout threshold in the public sector.
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many trade unions have thresholds in their rule books to ensure that a certain percentage of members must vote? When I was a full-time official, my union, the GMB, had a threshold. It is therefore not the case that the threshold is uniform across all unions or businesses.
I accept that, but as the hon. Gentleman says, the threshold is not uniform, and in the public sector it is right to have a threshold for taking action when there is a lot of employment protection in terms of having jobs to go back to Although I have regrets about the threshold for the private sector, I believe that electronic balloting will lead to higher turnouts and will meet strike thresholds, and as long as the system is secure and can be seen to be genuine, it is the right thing to do. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to apply the policy as quickly as possible because that will enable the private sector to meet the thresholds more easily than perhaps it can now There is a balance to be struck. There needs to be some control on those in the public sector who cause great disruption to people who work in the private sector who may not enjoy the terms and conditions that they do. I unreservedly support thresholds in the public sector, but I do not have the same regard for them in the private sector. Hon. Members can refer back to Hansard and my comments on Second Reading, which explain my views further The Government’s approach to electronic balloting is right. When it can be proved to be safe and reliable, it should be introduced because I believe the Bill will have the unintended consequence of having a bigger effect on union members in the private sector than on union members in the public sector.
I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my trade union activity in the past 20 years. In the past few days in the media, we have seen the performance of somersaults of Olympian proportions, and I commend Ministers for that. Having voted down sensible amendments in Committee and on Third Reading to allow alternative methods of voting in industrial action ballots, Ministers found themselves so out of step on the work and organisation of trade unions that even arch-Thatcherites such as Lord Michael Forsyth are friends of the workers by comparison. If I were a member of the Conservative party, I would be very worried about that I welcome this minor change. As we have argued previously, if e-balloting is good enough for the Conservative party to elect its candidate for London Mayor, surely it is good enough for trade unions to use when making their choices. As Lord Cormack said in the other place, “I cannot for the life of me understand why the Government are arguing against a system that the Conservative Party felt was good enough for the selection of a candidate for London Mayor”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 March 2016; Vol. 769, c. 1861.]
Given the increase in postal charges in recent years, does my hon. Friend agree that it also costs more to do postal balloting?
Yes, I agree. I also take the view that postal balloting prolongs the length of a dispute because of the time it takes to conduct such a ballot. Electronic balloting allows for greater flexibility and efficiency Like the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), we are disappointed that the pilot will not extend to workplace balloting as a secure option, because that would increase democracy in the workplace. The TUC has previously argued that there is no evidence that workers feel intimidated into voting a particular way when ballots take place in the workplace, as has been argued by the Government Although the Government have accepted the need to commission an independent review on the use of e-ballots for industrial action, their amendment (a) effectively means that Ministers would only have to publish a response to the review. They would, therefore, not be obligated to introduce a strategy to roll out electronic voting. That is simply unacceptable Lords amendment 2 is actually very moderate. The question is whether the Government’s response is good enough or whether it weakens the intent behind the Lords amendment. Having listened carefully to the Minister, we can only conclude that Government amendment (a) does weaken the other place’s intention The Government propose to revise the Lords amendment in such a way that Ministers would be required only to publish a response, but they would not need to take any action. That underlines what the Government intend to do after the e-balloting review. They intend to do nothing: there will be no strategy on how to proceed and, therefore, no actual commitment to allowing electronic balloting in the future. That is absurd. If the Government were truly intent on modernising the law, they would allow for electronic balloting and secure workplace balloting. I would be interested in the Minister’s response to that. Our view is clear. Electronic balloting will modernise the law, promoting democracy and inclusion We have always been clear that the clause on facility time is completely unnecessary and unwanted. Having such a clause in the Bill signals intent: the Government’s intent to interfere with the facility time arrangements—the basic industrial relations arrangements—not only of devolved Administrations but of local authorities across the United Kingdom. As Lord Kerslake put it in the other place, “The Government are saying that the costs should be transparently known and proportionate to the benefits…However, this is fully secured…through Clause 12. There is no need for the reserve powers contained in Clause 13.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 March 2016; Vol. 769, c. 1905.] He further stated: “If, however, the public body is a local authority, it has its own democratic mandate and is answerable to its own electorate for the cost. Given the immense financial pressures now on local authorities, do we really think that they are incapable of making this judgment?”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 March 2016; Vol. 769, c. 1906.] Although we acknowledge that some amendments have been made by the Government, that is simply not good enough. Any attempt by the UK Government to instruct devolved institutions on how to treat their workers should be robustly resisted. Facility time allows union representatives to spend time in the workplace improving the safety and health of their workers. Representatives also promote training opportunities and negotiate better pay, terms and conditions for employers, among many other roles and responsibilities. Limiting the ability of unions to play such a role in our public sector will have a damaging impact on public sector workers across the United Kingdom Trade unions are key social partners, which play an important role in sustaining effective democracy in society, particularly in the workplace. The existence of good employment practices is a key contributor to economic competitiveness and social justice. In Scotland, the SNP Government have taken a different approach. We have taken a modern and progressive approach to industrial relations and believe that trade unions are at the heart of achieving fair work. The UK Government should work with trade unions in a social partnership approach rather than launching yet more attacks against them Industrial relations mechanisms should be agreed at a devolved or local level. It beggars belief that the UK Government do not believe that a legislative consent motion is required for a UK Minister to dictate policy in these areas. The detail of much of the Bill is set out in regulations, and there will be no formal opportunity for the Scottish Government or the Welsh Government to influence such regulations. Today, we need a commitment from the UK Government that the rights of workers across the UK will not be restricted by the imposition of facility time In Committee, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) asked the Minister whether the Health Secretary would “make regulations that affect facility time in the health services of Scotland and Wales, which are wholly devolved and under the control of Health Ministers in those countries” The Minister replied, “Yes,” but stressed that “health policy and the management of the NHS in those countries will remain…in the control of the Governments” ––[Official Report, Trade Union Public Bill Committee, 22 October 2015; c. 347.] He was referring to the Governments of the devolved Administrations. I said at the time: “Having only just debated Evel last week, it seems that the UK Government now want to dictate to devolved administrations” On 2 February, the Minister said that the Government would not change the proposals on facility time and check-off provisions in the Bill. However, the infamous letter referred to earlier of 26 January—the letter was leaked by the Socialist Worker newspaper and published widely in other media outlets—contained a number of concessions that the Government proposed to make to the Bill in the House of Lords. Those concessions included giving devolved Administrations the right to maintain facility time and check-off arrangements. It would be helpful if the Minister confirmed today that devolved Administrations will maintain that control over facility time. The SNP will continue to push to derail any attempt by the UK Government to dictate to Scotland and other devolved Administrations how they should treat their public sector workers.
First, I declare an interest as a member of the GMB. My wife also works for a trade union We often hear the cry from Conservative Members that the turnout in union ballots is not high enough. We have before us a mechanism that would at least assist with that, by getting more people to participate in e-balloting. I have seen some pretty poor excuses for statements, but today’s statement about why we cannot introduce e-balloting for trade union ballots must win the prize for the poorest argument This Government pride themselves on wanting to be an e-Government on everything from driving licences to the new universal credit, which can only be accessed online. The Minister said the Government need to be convinced that e-balloting would be secure, but in response to numerous interventions from Labour Members, he did not articulate the reasons why he thought the process was in any way insecure. I would respect his position more if he came up with reasons and said what the problems are. The idea of a review is clearly the classic civil service “kick it into the long grass” approach.
I do not want to take up time because lots of Members want to speak, but may I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to elections conducted in the Philippines? Interestingly, a company called Smartmatic—chaired by a former Labour Minister, his colleague Lord Malloch-Brown—was put in charge of conducting online voting for the entire population of the Philippines. There was a hack, in which the identity data of 70 million people were stolen, and a report said that every registered voter’s data were open to abuse.
I know this Government love things foreign, but may I tell the Minister, with great respect, that he need not go very far to find examples of where e-voting has worked and there have not been any problems? I am referring to the pilots that took place in 2004, including in my constituency and others in the north-east, after which the Electoral Commission’s report found no problems with e-voting. He will obviously want to go on a fact-finding trip to the Philippines to look at this—I am sure we would all welcome his going there—but the fact is that he just needs to look at has happened in this country I must say that the Minister put up the very flimsy defence to the question, “If it’s all right for the Conservative party, why is it not all right for the trade union movement?” I would have respected his position if he had come up with concrete reasons why he thought electronic—[Interruption.] Well, he cites the Philippines, but has he actually looked at the Electoral Commission’s report on e-voting in 2004? It quite clearly stated that there was no issue of fraud or any risk to security. The fact that the Government then got cold feet about what I must say was a rather hysterical campaign against postal voting is neither here nor there.
That has been said not just by the Electoral Commission, but by the Electoral Reform Society, which is obviously expert in e-voting. It has certainly conducted a number of internal elections for the Labour party using e-voting, and it would be quite capable of running similar elections for the trade union movement.
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The Minister backed himself into a corner by saying that such votes were so important that they could not be done electronically. Let us look, for example, at foundation trusts, which elect their governors by electronic voting and are quite happy that such a system is secure. The Minister may think that that is not very important, but my constituents certainly think that choosing those who run their local hospital and have a lot of powers in my area is a pretty important decision My hon. Friend is right that electronic voting is used by many organisations, including private companies and charities, to consult their members. Organisations such as the Electoral Reform Society, which are used by many bodies to conduct ballots, whether in electronic or postal form, not only have a track record of impartiality and strict adherence, but are respected not just in this country but internationally—the Minister is interested in international comparisons—so it is pretty pathetic to say we need more evidence The other weakness in the Government’s argument is that I am not convinced that, once they have had this so-called review, they will actually implement the proposal. The proposal came from the trade unions, and I congratulate the general secretaries and others who have backed it. It would be a move forward by improving access to voting for trade union members and by improving the situation.
I wish to challenge the Government about the way in which they are handling the Lords amendments. They need to be clearly scrutinised to make sure that there is evidence behind what is said, as today is yet another example of a Government who are evidence light when putting their proposals before Parliament.
Will my hon. Friend give way?
I will just quickly declare an interest first. I am a member of Unite and of the GMB, and was a Unite official for 17 years.
Does my hon. Friend agree that the evidential basis for the entire Bill has been non-existent throughout its passage through Parliament? Levels of industrial action are at historical lows in the UK. The days of work lost per year to strikes are down 90% since the 1980s.
I thank my hon. Friend for making those points, and in particular, the point that levels of industrial action are at an all-time low. The industrial action that is occurring is in the public sector, where the Government are failing to negotiate with the trade unions, as we see today with the junior doctors. We have to examine why we are in the situation that we are in, but the evidence does not sit on the Government’s side I have overseen many industrial action ballots, including paper ballots and electronic indicative ballots. There is greater engagement with electronic balloting. There is a reason for that—it is convenient. It is also far more accurate. We do not have the same issues as with paper ballots, because in electronic ballots it is very clear whether a vote is a yes or a no, whereas other forms of voting can be more ambiguous—we all experience that on election night. The intention of the person voting is very clear in an electronic ballot I put this challenge to the Minister. He has talked about his tour of the world, but we are talking about ballots here in the UK and an evidence base from the UK. That evidence is overwhelming; I would say that it shows 100% security of electronic balloting. Other countries may not have such rigour in their processes, so it is inappropriate to bring them into the equation. It was very telling that the Minister was unable to say why it was less safe to use electronic ballots than postal ballots because the evidence simply is not there It is also important that the Government acknowledge the temperature of industrial relations, in the public sector in particular. People express a view about decisions that have been made on terms and conditions because it is essential that the Government respond to that. High turnouts will help inform the Government in their decision-making processes. They are vital Like many of my colleagues, I point out that the Government depend on electronic means for matters that I would say are far more serious: tax returns, local government council tax collection, driving licence applications and registering to vote in a parliamentary election are all done electronically. We know that many—if not all—bank transfers of millions of pounds in which the Government engage are done electronically, so why does a vote of an independent trade union require even more vigour than processes that the Government already use? It does not add up, other than to say that the Government are using this as a political tool The Labour party does not have confidence in the Government’s intentions for the process of review and roll-out for electronic balloting, and they should set out the timetable for that review. They say that it will start in six months, but when will it end, how long will it last, and how will it lead positively to a roll-out? We must start enabling trade unions now to provide and build up evidence from the pilots, which they can then run in parallel to prove that electronic voting is safe, accurate, and gets a clear result on the intentions of workers over a dispute There is no evidence behind what the Minister said about a facilities time cap. Let us consider the cost of administration, and the time taken up by ministerial hands to review what has been put together. How many personnel will be involved? Will a whole unit be set up for that three-year review? What about public sector employers who will also need to dedicate a lot of time to provide evidence for that review? That will be time that they do not have because, as we know, they are already challenged with the cuts in local government, the NHS and elsewhere. How will they find the resources to supply the Minister with the information that he will then scrutinise for hours and hours, day and night, before assessing whether there have been excessive costs How will the Minister balance the minuscule cost of facility time with the amount of money that trade unions save through employers not going to employment tribunals or having such high sickness levels, and by so much value being added to organisations through increased productivity? I would like a response. How will the Minister assess the cost of health, safety, learning, and all the value that trade union reps bring?
Order. If we are all brief, nearly everybody will get in.
At every stage of this Bill I have asked what great calamity there is in our land’s industrial relations that requires us to bring forward new primary legislation. I have yet to receive an answer, because of course there is none. This proposal is unique among many that we have considered in this House, because it is not a proposal to change public policy as a result of a problem that has been identified in society; the proposal before the House is motivated purely by the ideology of factions inside the Conservative party that have scores to settle, and whose antipathy towards the trade unions is manifest Some Conservative Members—they are not in their place at the moment—do not share that view, but overall that is where the centre of political gravity lies in the party of government. It is setting itself an attitude that will inform public policy on trade unions that is not shared by almost any other Government in Europe, or in the advanced capitalist world. Why are the Government going so far out on a limb to set themselves apart from everyone else? I accept that the Bill is now slightly less bad than it was on Second Reading, but we should be under no doubt that this is still very much an anti-trade union Bill This Bill is designed to curtail the expression, capacity and effectiveness of free trade unions in our country, and I must speculate about whether this is a genuine change of heart on behalf of the Government, or whether other factors may be involved in their consideration of how many fronts they can fight on at once. I wonder whether the proximity of 23 June and the referendum that will happen then have persuaded the Government that they should try not to engage in too large a conflict with the trade unions of this land, because they need their support in order to secure the Government’s position of staying in the EU. That is why we all want to see the words written down in black and white, rather than accept the spoken words of Ministers from the Dispatch Box at this time I am glad to say that the situation is different in Scotland. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) explained, the Scottish Government are committed to working in partnership with the trade unions of Scotland to try to build our economy towards prosperity. We believe that trade unions are a vital component of civil society. If my party is re-elected next week, we are pledged to do everything we can within the law to compromise the provisions of this Bill and to prevent them from frustrating the operation of free trade unions I shall engage with two further issues under consideration. The first is e-ballots. When the Government first announced their attitude to e-balloting, it sounded very much like an analogue Government in an digital age and that they were scared of the possibility of e-balloting. It is a matter of some irony, is it not, that it takes such a contemporary, modern and forward-looking institution as the House of Lords to try to persuade the Government of the error of their ways? I accept what the Minister said and I accept the Government’s position that they have moved slightly on this issue. They can no longer defend the indefensible, which would be to say that they would not allow electronic balloting in a society where it is now commonplace and the norm for most of our citizens I see you looking at me, Mr Deputy Speaker, so I shall try to be as quick as I can. We are concerned when the Minister tries to give himself a get-out clause. If he had come up with an amendment saying that e-balloting would go ahead unless it could be shown that there were clear and demonstrable problems for its introduction and roll-out, we might have had more sympathy with him. What he is trying to achieve, however, is to give himself a get-out clause to prevent this from happening in the future. In a post-referendum situation, he might not be so well disposed to favouring the trade unions The Minister also provided what I think is a thin defence when he spoke about this being a statutory matter. It is statutory only in the sense that trade unions operate within the framework of legislation—but so do charities, private companies and indeed political parties. As I say, I find that to be a very thin defence Finally, I want to make a point about the cap on facility time. I have witnessed some bizarre debates in this Chamber, but frankly, this one borders on the surreal. We are being asked to pass legislation to try to prevent something that the Minister accepts we do not even know exists. This is fantasy legislation and fantasy law-making. I think we should reject the proposal for a facility time cap, support the Lords amendments, reject the Government’s attempts to weaken them and, if we get the chance, finally vote against this anti-trade union legislation.
I shall be brief. I welcome the Government’s shift in position, particularly on check-off. I do not believe that check-off has any intrinsic costs to employers. For many public sector organisations, this is literally a check in a box on the payroll system. I view the shift of view as testament to the hard work of thousands of ordinary working people who take on additional responsibilities as shop stewards in their own time to support and protect their fellow workers’ rights—a task for which they are often thanked neither by their co-workers nor their employers, yet they sometimes go above and beyond in their role Trade unions have a proud history of internationalism, and tomorrow is International Workers Memorial day—a day strongly supported by the TUC, the trade union movement as a whole, lawyers and the Health and Safety Executive. I mention this because I shall not be able to attend tomorrow’s events. I would like to pay tribute to Herbert Styles, the former Unite representative and Blue Star Fibres worker who religiously organises this event sequentially in Immingham, Grimsby and Cleethorpes This is a growing event, with greater attendance every year by families who are deeply grateful for the work Herbert puts in. Time is taken to remember those who have lost their lives in the course of their day-to-day work. I shall not be there to lay a wreath tomorrow, but Jonathan Spurr will be there in my place to do so. I would like to see this day recorded on our calendars. Can the Minister do anything to assist in recognising the role of trade unions and workers and those who lose their lives in the course of their day-to-day work. Can he help to get this recorded in calendars and diaries across the UK?
This is supposed to be about modernising —that is the word the Minister used—ballots, but it is really about trying to limit people’s ability to take strike action. Let us be honest: he knows that if electronic balloting was allowed, the turnouts would go up, way beyond the limits set out. The lights have come on in the Conservative party and it has realised that it has set itself a trap and walked into it. In a situation where the Government are trying to stop people being able to take industrial action by setting ludicrous limits, they have set a precedent and had a debate that says, “If you are genuine, let us have as many people participating as possible.” Let us look at the history on this issue. In the 1980s, the Tory Government tried to control the right of people to take legitimate industrial action under the law and were told, “If you do away with workforce ballots, you will reduce the turnout.” The facts and figures have proved that for more than 30 years; the average turnout in workplace ballots was 80% but now if you get 40% you are doing well The proposals on facility time show the real ignorance of the Conservative party, tied to its arrogance; it just does not know what goes on in the workplace. Let me give two examples. In 1986, I spent every day for a fortnight visiting a man in hospital, 30 miles away from his workplace. He had been buried under 50 tonnes of coal and ultimately died, and we did not take evidence from him; we took what was used in a coroner’s case. Five years later, I was working for Newcastle City Council, encouraging home careworkers who had worked themselves into an early grave. I was saying, “Look, it is really in your interests to leave work on ill-health retirement agreements.” They would not talk to personnel officers because they were frightened of that sort of authority figure, but as a local trade union representative I was able to convince them it was the right thing for them to do and for the authority to do. We saved having to give people compulsory redundancy and we were helping to manage the system. Under what is being proposed now, the likes of me will no longer be there. There will be some clerk filling in forms to send down to London for a clerk there, and there will be thousands of these things. This really has to be stopped. It is nonsense and it should be thrown out.
My hon. Friend and I know, as does anybody who has been involved in these things, that for the past 50 or 60 years every Tory Government manifesto has had a clause attacking the trade unions. He referred to facility time, and the proposal shows how inexperienced Ministers are on industrial relations. Any major employer welcomes facility time as it saves them a lot of money in the end.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. If instead of talking to the TaxPayers Alliance to get information, the Government had spoken to any reasonable employer in this country or any trade union that deals day in, day out with this, they would have got a picture of the real story, not just some made-up attack on the trade union movement, which is what this is really all about.
I realise that time is short, so I shall be brief. Welcome as it is that the Government have been forced into a series of embarrassing U-turns, my party, which does not receive funding from the trade union movement, does not regard the Bill as a sensible attempt to look at some of the issues relating to party funding. Clearly, that should be done in the round and fairly, including looking at trade union funding, and we would support such an approach. This always set out to be a cynical, politically motivated Bill that undermines the important role that trade unions play in the democratic process. Encouragingly, Members in the other place have acted in a measured and cross-party way. Rather than simply striking down rafts of the Bill, as many would have liked—we would have liked to see that for some parts of the Bill—they have suggested cross-party, sensible and measured amendments.
Is it not amazing that a party that tells us all that it is in favour of the free market has in this case resorted to very high-handed regulation?
It certainly presents itself as an extremely draconian Bill whose drafting involved no collaboration of any kind I think that, welcome though it is, the Government’s change of heart has not gone far enough. I echo the words of the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard): it is clear that the Government have realised that they cannot make enemies of the trade unions when they need the trade union movement in order to secure a “yes” vote—an “in” vote—in the EU referendum. I look forward to working with trade unionists, with the Government, and with members of all parties in seeking to achieve that Time is short. Let me end by saying that, given the Government’s welcome U-turn, we will not oppose the amendment. Nevertheless, the Government have simply failed to make the case that electronic voting is not a sensible, modern way forward, which exposes the fact this is really about trying to stop trade unions from reaching the threshold rather than sensibly reforming the system. Alongside others, we will continue to make the case for such reform I believe that the Government should think again about the attitude to trade unions that they have shown during this process, and should work together with parties.
Let me begin by drawing the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and to my membership of the GMB and Unison I want to make just one brief point, which relates to my earlier intervention about the Welsh Government. The Minister is placing the UK Government on a collision course with the Welsh Government in respect of facility time. The case will end up in the Supreme Court at great cost to the public purse, and the UK Government will—according to their own legal advice—lose. So I ask the Minister please to reconsider his approach to this part of the Bill Question put, That amendment (a) to Lords amendment 2 be made.
I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.
With this it will be convenient to consider the following: Lords amendments 3 to 6 Lords amendments 7 and 8, Government motions to disagree, and Government amendments (k) to (p) in lieu Lords amendments 9 to 16 and 18 to 29.
The amendments improve the Bill and take account of a number of points of concern raised by Members of both this House and the other place. This is a raft of amendments, and I hope hon. Members will understand if I focus on the highlights in the order in which they appear in the Bill The 40% ballot threshold relates to strike action in important public services. The broad reference to “ancillary workers” has been removed and a “reasonable belief” defence for unions has been added. Those changes provide more clarity and certainty for unions and employers On the timing and duration of industrial action, the ballot mandate has been extended from four to six months, and to up to nine months where the union and the employer agree to that. That responds to concerns that four months was simply too short a time to enable both sides to resolve a dispute On the provision to provide two weeks’ notice of industrial action to an employer, the Bill now continues to allow for the current period of only seven days’ notice, where the employer and the trade union agree to that On picketing, there was great concern in this House, but less so in the House of Lords, about the Bill’s reference to “armbands”. That reference was taken from the original picketing code, which has been in force for a great deal of time. We do not want picket supervisors mistakenly believing that they must wear an armband. I hope that that will be welcome, particularly to my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who is not in his seat, but who eloquently raised concerns about the issue The House debated at length the principle that union members should make an active choice to contribute to a trade union’s political fund. The other place established a Select Committee on Trade Union Political Funds and Political Party Funding under the chairmanship of Lord Burns, and I would like to place on record my gratitude to him and all the members of the Committee for their deliberations on this question The Bill has been amended to reflect the Select Committee’s recommendations on opting in. Our manifesto commitment suggested that we wanted to extend the opt-in principle for trade union members, and the revised provision meets that commitment. In future, all new trade union members will have to make an active choice to contribute to the political fund through an opt-in. Our amendment corrects some legally defective drafting in the amendment tabled by Lord Burns and agreed to by the Lords. In particular, instead of the certification officer being given responsibility for issuing a code of practice, our amendment places a statutory obligation directly on unions to provide an annual reminder to existing members of their rights to opt out. That complements the position for new members, who will be required to be offered the right to opt in We have also improved requirements on unions to report details of political expenditure in their annual returns. That reflects the debates that we had about the importance of that issue in assisting union members to make informed decisions about whether to contribute to a union’s political fund. At the heart of the provision is transparency and proportionality The Bill has been amended to require reporting on all expenditure from a union’s political fund, including to causes and campaigns, but it also fixes what became characterised as the onerous obligation for the union to report on “every bus fare”. Instead, unions will be required to report on the total expenditure going to each political party or organisation in each of the categories Finally, the other place rightly agreed to increase parliamentary oversight of regulations that could seek to lower the reporting threshold once it has been raised and therefore increase the regulatory burden on trade unions On check-off, we had robust debates in this House, and there were equally robust debates in the other place. Those debates related to union subscriptions being deducted automatically from wages in the public sector. The Bill we welcome back to the House allows check off to continue where the costs are met by the trade unions and on the basis that union members have the option of paying subscriptions by other means. My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), who is not in his place, made an eloquent argument for an amendment on this very issue, and I indicated on Report that we would look at it closely as the Bill went through the House of Lords. I therefore hope that he is satisfied with the decision by the Government to accept this amendment. I pay tribute to him for his work, both privately and publicly, in making the case for this important change Our manifesto committed us to reforming the role of the certification officer. The Bill removes the requirement for the certification officer to be able to act in some areas only where a complaint has been received from a member of a trade union. Instead, the certification officer will be able to look into issues that come to his attention from third parties, or in the course of his duties. However, the provisions have been amended to increase the independence of the certification officer by ensuring that he is not subject to ministerial direction. As I have said previously, the certification officer is under no obligation to act on complaints or representations from third parties Nevertheless, concerns were raised that spurious or vexatious complaints could tie up the certification officer’s resources and, indeed, place an unfair burden on trade unions. The Bill has therefore been amended to require that the certification officer must have reasonable grounds to suspect a breach before appointing an inspector to conduct an investigation. I am confident that this will protect unions from vexatious complaints and over-zealous regulation. However, I am happy to assure hon. Members that we will keep this under review to see how it works out in practice. In response to human rights concerns, the judicial oversight of the certification officer has been strengthened. The Bill has been amended to allow appeals to the employment appeals tribunal on the certification officer’s decisions on the grounds of fact as well as law I hope that hon. Members will welcome the amendments. I believe that they improve the Bill, and I hope the House will see fit to accept them.
I call Kevan Jones.
Kevin Brennan.
I am sorry—Kevin Brennan.
Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. There is a great physical similarity between me and my hon. Friend, and it was entirely understandable on your part to mistake one for the other First, as I should have done when speaking on the previous group of amendments, I declare my membership of Unite the union and my very proud membership of the Musicians Union As the Minister said, the Government are accepting most of the amendments in this group. Due to the time constraints, I will not deal with all of them. He highlighted the significant changes, including on check-off, which we very much welcome. He will recall that during our debate on Report the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) tabled an amendment on these provisions. I pointed that out that it was extraordinary that a Conservative Government were seeking to make illegal a voluntary arrangement between parties, even where one party is paying for the service, when that arrangement is neither immoral nor illegal. That would have been an extraordinarily illiberal measure. I am glad that in their lordships’ House the Government gave way on this matter and it is no longer in the Bill. That is very welcome I welcome what the Minister said on the record about the certification officer. It is extremely important that the Government recognise the concerns that have been expressed about the potential for vexatious complaints by third parties and the tremendous waste of time that that could be for all concerned. I also welcome his comments on a review of how the provision works out in practice. Although, as I have made clear, we do not agree with what the Government are doing in relation to the certification officer, that is a welcome assurance, and I am glad that he has put it on the record here at this stage before the Bill goes back to the Lords Perhaps the most controversial and contentious element of the Bill has been the Government’s desire to create an opt-in process for trade union political funds. Lords amendments 7 and 8 relate to that. The original Government proposal meant that existing trade union members who pay into their union’s political fund would have to opt back into the fund, in writing, within three months of the Bill’s passage, and do so again after five years.
Does my hon. Friend agree that this will not be difficult for many trade unions because on their application forms to join, there is a box to tick to contribute to the political fund? As someone who ran a political fund, I know that that was the case in the GMB. Is this therefore not another example of proposed legislation that is not really needed?
Given that my hon. Friend has been physically mistaken for me, I am not surprised that our opinions are identical on this matter. I agree with him.
May I take my hon. Friend back to his comments about the work of the House of Lords? I echo the words of Lord Patrick Cormack, who was a Member of this House for 40 years. He said: “But we do not have to advance on that at such a pace that we seriously disadvantage one of the great parties of the realm and unbalance our democracy in the process.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 March 2016; Vol. 769, c. 1876.] Does not that get to the nub of what this was all about—unbalancing democracy in this House and disadvantaging the Labour party? Lord Cormack was absolutely right. It is a shame that there are not more like him in the Conservative party in this House today.
I pay tribute to Lord Cormack for his work on the Bill and his words in the House of Lords. He might seem to some an unlikely hero of the working class, but in this instance he has reflected what one nation Conservatism should mean. That phrase is bandied about from time to time, but his interventions and those of other colleagues in the House of Lords remind us that we legislate not just for one Parliament but for the future. I will go on to describe why it would have been very dangerous if the Government had stuck to their original plans The House of Lords looked for a workable way for the Government to introduce their stated manifesto commitment without it becoming a crude and clumsy device to starve the second largest party in Parliament—the Labour party—of a long-standing source of finance from the very institutions that founded it. My hon. Friend just said this in another way, but I think that the Lords have done the Government a big favour. Had they proceeded with the original proposals, they would have created—make no mistake about it—a lasting bitterness and resentment in the trade union and Labour movement and, indeed, beyond. We are grateful for the support received from other political parties I have no doubt, as many of their lordships pointed out, and, indeed, as paragraph 130 of the House of Lords cross-party Select Committee report noted, that the original proposal would “make the Labour Party more inclined to take unilateral action against the Conservative Party and its funding when next in government.” It appears that, at this very late hour, that point has hit home with Ministers, and I very much welcome that The Government have decided to think again about their proposals on political fund opt-ins and have tabled amendments (k) to (n) to replace Lords amendments 7 and 8. The requirement to opt into political funds will apply only to new union members. As a result, union members who have already voluntarily agreed to make contributions will not be required to opt in again to support ongoing trade union campaigns. Existing members will be required to opt in only if their union votes to establish a political fund for the first time. The Government have also conceded on the issue of five years and have allowed for a minimum 12-month transition period for unions. Union members will be able to opt in or opt out not only on paper, but through electronic means, so it is now okay to use electronic means to opt in—we will eventually get it to apply to ballots—including online forms, emails and, potentially, texts. Unions will still be required to remind members annually of their right to opt out and they can do so by using individual communications or through their usual systems for informing members, including union newsletters and notice boards The Government’s amendments take on board all of the core elements in the proposals made by Lord Burns’s Committee’s report, and I remind the House that it passed the Lords by 320 votes to 172. It therefore passed by an even greater majority than that which set up the Select Committee in the first place, which demonstrates the growing support for this approach I still believe that the proposals for an opt-in system for political funds are totally unnecessary—that should be put on the record—but we recognise that the Government’s new proposal is a substantial improvement on the original Bill, which would have required all members to opt in within three months and to renew that opt-in within five years. On that basis, while retaining our opposition to the Bill in general and to opt-in in particular, we will not seek to divide the House on the Government amendments, given the substantial concessions they have made.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the clear intention behind the move from opt out to opt in is an attempt by some members of the Conservative party to attack the funding of the Labour party. Does he agree, however, that our defence of the right of trade unions to engage in political activity will be more effective if we ensure that they are able to engage not just in activity to support the Labour party, but in other political action that achieves change and support, whichever party they feel serves their members’ best interests?
It is accepted that there is a special relationship between the Labour party and the trade union movement, which founded the party. Of course, they use political funds to campaign in all sorts of way. I am grateful to all parties that have recognised the importance to our constitution of the political funds of trade unions and the vital role they play in our democracy. Trade union money is the cleanest money in politics, compared with some of the sources of money and donations to political parties, and long may that continue I do not want to detain the House for much longer, but it would be remiss of me not to conclude without paying tribute to all those who have made this change possible and worked so hard to improve this dreadful Bill. I include all my hon. Friends in our BIS Front-Bench team, including my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State; former members of that Front-Bench team who helped at earlier stages of the Bill; Members from other parties in the House who have helped to fight the good fight; and my hon. Friends in the Labour party I want to pay special tribute to my good friend Baroness Smith of Basildon and her team in the Lords—Baroness Hayter, Lord Stevenson and Lord Mendelsohn —as well as all the other peers from other parties and from no party at all who voted to create the Select Committee and who worked so diligently and expertly to get us to where we are today It is said that our constitution means that the Opposition have their say but the Government get their way. In this instance, the Opposition have had their say and, at least in part, also got their way. As a result, the legislation has had some of the most pernicious edges knocked off, even if it remains a pig’s ear.
I welcome the work of the Lords, which my hon. Friend has just outlined. It is quite clear what the Bill is about. The Prime Minister talks about being a one nation Conservative, but he wants to be a one nation Conservative with one party—the Conservative party—at an advantage. If we want to understand Conservative Members’ disappointment, we have only to look at the Secretary of State’s face, which says it all There was no need for the legislation. It was based on a prejudice born of not understanding the way in which trade unions work, and it was an attempt to ensure that the Conservative party had not only a political advantage but a major financial one. The original requirement in the legislation for new trade union members to opt in would not have come as any great surprise to trade unions. If the Minister takes the trouble to review some trade union application forms, he will see that they have a box on them, next to which is written: “If you want to pay the political levy, tick this box”. It is up to members whether they wish to do that, so the idea that that provision needs to be in the Bill is quite remarkable. We know what the provision was really intended to do, and we know the reason for the climbdown that we have seen. That climbdown has nothing to do with the Trade Union Bill; it has to do with the Prime Minister’s realisation that if he wants millions of trade unionists to vote yes in the EU referendum, he will have to keep them on side. As we often see in politics, the coming together of events has been of benefit and has defeated that bit of pernicious legislation. If it had gone through, as the House of Lords said in the Select Committee report, it would have given the Conservative party an advantage in political funding I totally agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) when he says that trade union money is as clean as any type of money. There is transparency about how it is spent, and it is regulated. The same cannot be said of the way in which funding comes to the Conservative party, whether it be through dining clubs or unincorporated associations, which are a way of masking the true source of donations. I look forward to the Government’s bringing forward legislation on the reform of party funding, including greater transparency about sources of funding. That is vital if we are to have an even playing field in terms of the ability to raise funds and the knowledge of where money comes from There is another side to this. The media have completely misunderstood the matter, and certainly the Minister—[Interruption.] I am sorry that I seem to be boring the Secretary of State, who is just leaving. He is obviously not very happy about the fact that one of his flagship pieces of legislation is in tatters. The clear impression given by the Conservative party and its supporters is that every single trade union that has a political fund donates it all to the Labour party, but that is simply not the case. Many are not affiliated to the Labour party, and many make no donations at all to any political party. Having run a political fund for the GMB, I know that the proportion that goes to the Labour party is small compared with the proportion that is spent on campaigning work. That allows the union not only to campaign on political issues, but to have a say, quite rightly, on things such as health and safety legislation or reorganisations of hospitals and other institutions. Without the political fund, the union would not be able to do that. The proposal would not only have taken away from my party the ability to receive money from trade unions, but would have hampered trade unions from taking part in civic life in this country, as they are quite right to do, through having a voice and making sure that their members’ collective voice is heard in consultations on whatever affects them directly.
It is really important to calculate the real cost of check-off. The cost is absolutely nominal, and many trade unions are actually subsidising local authorities, the NHS and other public bodies with the amount that they pay for the levy.
I agree. This shows my age, but the process used to have to be done manually, which meant that there was a cost. My hon. Friend is quite right that, with modern-day computer payroll systems, for example, the cost is very difficult to determine I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West, oppose the Bill as a whole, but given the compromise that we have got because of the EU referendum, we are in a good place. However, I would just issue a final warning. I hope Conservative Members will not, once the EU referendum is over, bring in legislation to fill in what has been left out of the Bill. That would not only be another attack on trade unions, which are among the most highly regulated sectors in our country, but would show the vindictiveness that still exists in a section of the Conservative party. I look forward to the introduction, not long after June, of a Bill exploring total transparency in party funding in this country. If trade unions can have openness in terms of their money, we should decide it is time for other donations to political parties to have the same type of scrutiny and transparency, so that people can make up their own minds when they go to the ballot box.
I apologise to Chris Stephens. I should have called him before the last speaker.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). I agree with many of the points he made. SNP Members have always opposed the Government’s proposals on trade union political funds for the simple reason that it should be up to trade union members to decide where their money goes. It is up to them to decide whether they should support one political party or another, or whether they should sponsor individual candidates, as has happened in some cases, rather than work for a particular political party I emphasise the point that this is an attack not just on the Labour party but on the ability of a trade union to organise effectively across a community. Political funds have done great community work, health and safety campaigning, and anti-racism campaigning, sponsoring organisations such as Hope not Hate and Show Racism the Red Card. There is also charity work and international work—trade unions do fantastic work across the world It will come as no great surprise to any trade unionist that the change on check-off is not a major one. Unison has said that it has 11,000 different agreements where it contributes to the cost of check-off. We welcome the Government’s U-turn on that I have participated in proceedings at every stage of the Bill’s progress. I will say a few words about that. If the voices of those with experience of a trade unionised workplace and those with a trade union background had been listened to and heeded, we would not be where we are now. There perhaps would not even have been a Trade Union Bill. Many Opposition Members have pointed out on a regular basis how unnecessary and unwanted this legislation is.
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. I declare an interest as a member of Unison and of the Community trade union, and I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I should also say that although I am a member of those unions, I have very good employers in the people of Ilford North and do not anticipate going on strike any time soon The Government’s concessions are welcome, but it is something of an irony that it has fallen to the unelected House to defend some of the most democratic elements of trade unions and their commitment to democratic life in the country. For some reason, this Government, who were elected with a slender majority of just 12, seem to think that that majority gives them carte blanche to trample all over the democratic traditions, values and heritage of our country It is not just the brazen attack on party political funding, and the Labour party in particular, that the Government have embarked upon with this Bill. Look at their record in the short time that they have governed as a single party. They have sought to rig the House of Commons, pack the House of Lords, gag charities and civil society, and restrict trade unions. This Sunday, new restrictions kick in on any publicly funded body, restrictions that have the potential to gag all sorts of people, including academics. It is a complete dog’s breakfast of a proposal. We will see what the higher education Bill says later this year; the Government will undoubtedly try to have another go at student unions, like they did in the 1990s I have been listening to the Minister this afternoon, and in particular, to what he said about the previous group of Government measures, which unfortunately passed, underlining why the Bill should still be opposed. There can be no decent evidence-based argument against trialling electronic balloting for trade union industrial actions and proposals to strike. The Minister himself could not offer a single shred of evidence to argue against a simple trial The Bill has really been about delegitimising trade unions. Whenever people go on strike and take industrial action the Government want to be able to say that a hard rump of activists have prompted it. But even the measures in the Bill would not have stopped the junior doctors or London transport workers going on strike. The turnout in both cases exceeded the threshold in the Bill. If the Government are serious about trade unions having broader and greater democratic legitimacy, they should unshackle the hands of trade union leaders and activists, so that they can do what they want to do and have asked to do, namely enter the 21st century by having electronic balloting We also had the farce about facility time. That goes to the heart of the Government’s fundamental misunderstanding of the role of trade unions. Full-time reps and staff who are let off part time for facility time play a valuable role in good industrial relations. They take up cases on behalf of their members, and ensure that they are well represented and supported. They advise employers on how to improve the workplace environment. Where there are good industrial relations, with trade unions and employers working together, the likelihood of a strike is lessened, and the workplace environment is better for everyone.
Is another key role for trade unions that of welfare, and giving workers assistance and help that they might not know about?
I wholeheartedly agree. The hon. Gentleman speaks with great experience from his own background in the trade union movement, and good employers value that working relationship with trade unions. When I speak to trade union members—whether in my local authority where I am an elected member of the London Borough of Redbridge, or representatives in other workplaces—they tell me that they do not have excessive facility time; often they do not have enough. They struggle to cope with caseloads, particularly when there are major changes to employment involving terms and conditions or staff numbers. That generates a huge burden and workload, and I do not think that the Government appreciate or value that.
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is only thanks to trade unions campaigning and funding legal action that millions of people have received rightful compensation for industrial injuries such as mesothelioma, or that there is the miners compensation scheme that was pioneered by the trade union movement? Without that, millions of people in this country who suffered through no fault of their own—apart from going to work—would not have received rightful compensation.
I wholeheartedly agree, and if we are honest, too often trade unions have to speak up for people who would otherwise not have a voice. Often, because of the failures of this place and different Governments over the years, trade unions have had to exercise pressure on behalf of their members, and exercise that muscle to ensure that Governments act to protect those who have been done a terrible injustice.
I speak as a former trade union lawyer who dealt with the legal cases that my hon. Friend referred to, and as an employer who benefited from having a unionised workplace to resolve issues and disagreements, and to get changes through companies. Without union representation in the workplace, that would have been much more difficult. Does my hon. Friend agree that we can see things from both sides?
I agree with my hon. Friend. I have sat on the employer side of the table when working with trade unions more than I have sat on the side of employees, even though I have been a member of a trade union for as long as I have been in full-time work. Employers often value that relationship with trade unions. It is not an adversarial relationship—well, sometimes it can be, and the breakdown of industrial relations, particularly when strike action occurs, is a sign of failure. When people choose to strike they lose their pay, so they do not do it lightly. Many families struggle to balance their budgets at the end of the month, with too much month and not enough money left, so losing a couple of days’ pay is often a real hardship. They do not take such action lightly, and that is not understood enough when we speak in glib terms in this place about trade union industrial action I listened to what the Minister said about concessions that have been made, and how no changes will be made to facility time for a few years until we have done all the counting and assessment, but how long will that take, and how much money and civil service time will it cost? Bizarrely, the Government will waste time counting trade union facility time for employers up and down the country, but they will not count the number of children in poverty. That tells us all we need to know about this Government’s wrong-headed priorities, and about the timewasting involved in introducing this Bill in the first place. I congratulate Members of the House of Lords—where the Government do not have a majority—on the way that they have torn this Bill apart and exposed it to forensic scrutiny, and we heard expertise from across the political spectrum.
The Bill also received forensic scrutiny in the House of Commons, but we could not win any votes.
My hon. Friend has pre-empted me. I was about to congratulate not just my Front-Bench colleagues on their diligent work, but also my colleagues on the Bill Committee. I followed some of the sessions and read the evidence, and there was forensic scrutiny. The Government’s arguments did not stack up, and many of us have come to this Chamber time and again to get them to rethink.
I would like to put on record the fact that I am a member of the GMB union. It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), whom I commend for his long-standing commitment to this issue and for his work on the Bill Trade unions are a vital part of a free and democratic society, with a proud history of working hard on behalf of their members to achieve fair and just outcomes. Their roots lie in the industrial revolution, but their aims and aspirations are just as important to the 21st century context of an increasingly digital workforce, the European marketplace, globalisation, the challenges presented by an ageing population and the need for highly skilled workers to deliver the higher-skilled, higher-waged workforce that we need and aspire to in the UK My constituency is rich in small and medium-sized enterprises, and I want to see a vibrant local economy, providing high-quality services, well-paid jobs, excellent apprenticeship schemes and clear routes for progression in the workplace for those who want to develop their career. Trade unions have as much a role to play now as they did when they were first created in a very different employment and economic environment I want to share some examples of the positive differences unions have made and continue to make in my constituency. As a councillor, I was proud to vote for Southwark Council to adopt Unison’s ethical care charter—a commitment to dignity and respect for those who work so hard on behalf of vulnerable residents. The ethical care charter delivers better terms and conditions for care workers, but just as importantly, it delivers better standards of care for vulnerable residents by providing minimum visit times, paid time for travel and a commitment to training. Paying the London living wage for home care workers has resulted in higher-quality applicants working in this vital service, as well as a better quality of life for carers and their families BECTU—the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union—has fought a hard campaign for its members working at Picturehouse cinemas in my constituency. The campaign started at the Ritzy in Brixton and has extended to the new East Dulwich Picturehouse and the West Norwood Picturehouse, which will open next year. It is an excellent example of a modern trade union campaign, generating huge support among local residents and customers via social media. This campaign has achieved significant progress in driving up rates of pay for Picturehouse staff by 26% over three years, but there is more to do to achieve the goal of ensuring that all staff receive the London living wage—work that is hampered in part by the approach of Picturehouse and its parent company Cineworld in refusing to recognise BECTU in some branches in favour of internal staff forums, which is a practice that should not be allowed Last week, I attended the launch of an important new campaign by Unison, “Making waves for a Living Wage”, calling for the water industry in the UK to become the first sector to be fully living wage accredited. This campaign has already succeeded in persuading several water companies to progress towards living wage accreditation—and in some cases to achieve it. It is an achievable, practical campaign, which the water companies can afford to implement and which will have huge benefits for low-paid staff working in this sector. It is a great example of the positive difference unions can and do make.
The Unison campaign on the living wage provides a perfect example. We would not have had a living wage campaign without the trade unions setting up the wider campaign in the first place.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right Only yesterday, I was encouraged to see so many local NHS staff who are members of trade unions, including the GMB, Unite and Unison, coming out during their lunchbreak to show their support for the BMA and the junior doctors’ strike. They know that it is only by working together as one team—doctors, nurses, therapists, technicians, receptionists and cleaners—that our wonderful NHS delivers the world-class healthcare that it was set up to do Union members across the country know that industrial relations work best when there is a professional and respectful relationship between employers and employees. Change is often needed in response to changes in the economy, policy or legislation, or when particular injustices arise, and it is often best achieved by different parties—unions, employers and consumer groups—coming around the table to negotiate, work together and resolve differences or develop new practices. The situations we never hear about, but which are much more common, are those where there was no strike action and a settlement was reached through effective joint working. Such effective working relies on an even balance of power between different parties. This divisive and mean-spirited Bill seeks to shift the balance of power in a way that can have only negative consequences. It is right that negotiation and positive joint working take place in every possible circumstance, but in the rare instances where all other avenues have been exhausted—for example, when a Secretary of State for Health rejects out of hand every compromise offer he is asked to consider—the right to withdraw labour by taking strike action is an essential right, and its existence can often be the very thing that focuses minds on all sides on achieving effective negotiations The Government’s change of heart on opting in to unions’ political funds and check-off is welcome, but it reveals the extent to which the Bill is politically motivated. It is completely unacceptable that the Government are applying double standards to the turnout required for a strike ballot by expecting a much higher turnout of union members than they would accept as providing legitimacy for their own Members of Parliament or indeed for the election of councillors, whom they accept as having democratic legitimacy. MPs are not, by rule, required to be elected by more than half of the eligible residents living in their constituency, and this is even less likely to be the case for councillors. In an age where the Government are rightly encouraging the greater use of digital services and technologies, it must be right that there should be the ability to vote electronically, with the oversight of the Electoral Commission. What is considered good and fair for the Conservatives in selecting their candidate for London’s Mayor must be considered good and fair for union members in casting their votes on critical issues. It is very disappointing that the Government have not accepted Lords amendments on this matter. They are applying a mixture of different standards to trade unions, refusing to implement e-balloting to maintain consistency with public elections but requiring an even higher turnout threshold than that required for public elections. The Government therefore appear to be picking and choosing standards to suit their own political ends. They appear now to be trying to unravel some of the mess, but it would be better simply to scrap this Bill.
I will not detain the House for long, as it has been a long day. I just want to remind the House that in this place it has consistently been the Liberal Democrats who have called for a proper reform of the party funding system. We have done that fairly and equitably, looking at the issues relating to funding from big business and from wealthy private donors, as well as the issues with trade union funding. It has been frustrating, even in my 11 years in Parliament, that that has been frustrated at times by the Conservative party and at times by the Labour party, with both acting in their own self-interest, seeking to preserve their own sources of funding while seeking to deal with the other’s. The Bill is still clearly doing that today and it is the wrong approach.
I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point, but his party is not clean on this, given the money it accepted from Brown, who was found to be a fraud. So I do not think the hon. Gentleman should be lecturing others about transparency in party funding.
I respect the hon. Gentleman, but that is a poor comment, given that I am talking about the party funding system. As he knows full well, issues have arisen for all parties with various donations that were accepted in a reasonable way and later found to have question marks about them. That is one reason we need to deal with this, but it is about the system and so his comments do him no favours on this occasion I warmly welcome the sentiments expressed by the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), another Member of a party outside the two-party system that we have had in the past, but which is now gone in British politics. He said that although it is right that trade unions use their funding for political campaigning to stand up for the rights of their workers and important rights for British people, that is not the same thing as simply funnelling money to the Labour party to win elections I have a very interesting perspective on the matter. During my first five years as the proud, new, and perhaps in some ways slightly naive MP for Leeds North West, I found myself courted regularly by my local trade unions. I got on with them very well. As for their agenda, they told me consistently how disgusted they were with what Tony Blair’s new Labour Government were doing to workers’ rights and trade unions, and sought my Liberal Democrat support. I was only too happy to give that support, and to work with them I subsequently became lead member of Leeds City Council, and had direct and very strong relationships with my local trade union representatives—but then came the 2010 general election, and despite all that, and despite their disdain for Tony Blair and new Labour, they paid for billboards to go up in my constituency saying “Please vote for your local new Labour candidate”. That is not what I think hard-working trade union members paying into a political fund expect, and I think that it should be looked into by the trade union movement and by the Labour party Ultimately, we need to move to a system of transparency. I agree with the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) in one respect: he made the sensible point that we should be doing all this together rather than through what is clearly a cynical Bill, and indeed a cynical attack on the main source of funding for the Labour party. I do not support that, although I have spoken of the need for a greater differential between funds for the Labour party and funds for political campaigns that may, from time to time, be supported by other parties—indeed, potentially all parties, and even Conservative Back Benchers We also need more transparency when it comes to the very shady organisations that funnel money from companies and private donors and pass it on without always revealing who those donors are. That arrangement is clearly unacceptable and needs to be reformed, but, again, all of us—all the parties in the House—must reform it together. The Bill does not provide for that, but we will continue to do it I am proud that it was the Liberal Democrats who pushed for a House of Lords Select Committee to lead recommendations on party funding reform, and that it was that Committee which twisted the Government’s arm so that they came up with these U-turns. We think that that is sensible, as it saves the trade unions the clearly unfair and unnecessary administrative burden of having to contact all their existing members who signed up on the existing basis I look forward to continuing this discussion in the right place and in the right framework—not in the context of this divisive Bill, but in the context of proper cross-party discussions about how we can finally, and properly, reform party funding as a whole. We will participate fully in those discussions, and we look forward to working with Members in all parts of the House Lords amendment 1 agreed to. Lords amendments 3 to 6 agreed to. Lords amendments 7 and 8 disagreed to. Government amendments (k) to (p) made in lieu of Lords amendments 7 and 8. Lords amendments 9 to 16 and 18 to 29 agreed to.