1. What steps he is taking to increase the number of cadet units in schools.
We are on track to achieve our target of 100 new combined cadet forces in state schools by September 2015. That will ensure that, whatever their background or school, children will have a great opportunity to enjoy all the benefits of being in the cadets.
I am proud to have 1104 Pendle squadron air cadets in Nelson and Army cadet force units in Briarfield and Barnoldswick in my constituency, but we are yet to have any cadet units in schools. Will my hon. Friend update the House on the funding model for all combined cadet forces?
We decided that we would look at the current funding so that we could make sure that we were in a position to expand. We consulted people and I am grateful that they responded in the way that they did. We listened to what was said and as a result we will not change the funding model. We are confident about the expansion plan, which I hope will go into my hon. Friend’s constituency. I look forward to discussing that, and how we can assist further, with him. It is a good idea.
18. Will the Minister proactively promote youth cadets, particularly in our state schools, for which it is not such a natural course to follow? Will she also talk to her Cabinet Office colleagues responsible for the National Citizen Service as a way of getting more recruits into the uniformed youth services and of recruiting more youth leaders to help run them?
I absolutely endorse everything my hon. Friend has said. So far, there are 64 new cadet units of which 47 are up and running. I agree with my hon. Friend that this is a wonderful opportunity. It is particularly important that we expand the cadet experience into state schools, because it should not just be the domain of the private sector.
Tower Hamlets is the lead borough for police cadets. We also have fire cadets, a sea cadet unit is being set up on the Isle of Dogs, and I am president of the 31 Tower Hamlets air cadet training corps at Mile End. How much support will be given to cadet units that are not associated with schools, but that are based in the community?
We know that there are more community cadets. They are all equally important and we are determined to do everything we can not just to support them, but, as we have heard from Members on both sides of the House, to encourage more young people to take advantage of the benefits, opportunities and the fantastic experience that the cadets offer.
I strongly support the Government’s initiative for 100 new CCFs in schools across the land. It is a great idea, but the Minister mumbled over the question of the funding formula—[Interruption.] I apologise: she most certainly did not mumble. To put it a different way, I am a little unclear as to what she meant about the funding formula. Will she guarantee that she will not do what she originally planned, namely fund the CCFs by charging existing cadets up to £500 a year for membership?
That was a gracious withdrawal. I have periodically accused the Minister of things, fairly or unfairly, but I have never, ever accused her of mumbling and I cannot imagine ever doing so.
Some people wish I would mumble a bit more, Mr Speaker. Let me make the situation very clear, in case my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) did not hear me, which I find astonishing. There will be no changes. We are determined to support all our cadet units, wherever they are, but we are particularly keen to see growth into the state sector. Everybody should welcome that, especially Government Members because we are the first lot to actually achieve it.
The House will know from the previous Question Time that I was in the combined cadet force when I was at Hampton school many years ago, but I understand that I will never be gallant. May I draw the Minister’s attention to the concerns of the recently retired children’s commissioner that people as young as 17 could serve in combat duties on the front line?
As a comprehensive schoolchild I never had the benefits of the CCF, which is why I am such a keen supporter of the scheme. I did not have the benefit of going to the independent school that perhaps the hon. Gentleman went to.
It was a grammar school.
It was a grammar school. I will move swiftly on to answer his question. [Interruption.] The Hartland was a very good school—I think the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) and I both went to it. [Interruption.] Oh no, he went to another one. Anyway, the important point is that I do not share the view of the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman). This is not about children being put on the front line. I am confident that our duty of care and the way in which we train everybody who joins our armed forces are absolutely right. We take our responsibilities very seriously. Nobody under the age of 18 goes on to the front line—we need to make that very clear.
I thank the Minister and the Secretary of State for listening during the consultation. The proposal was very nearly a disaster for the existing CCFs and they rescued it. I thank them very much indeed. Although I understand the desire to have CCFs in state schools, I ask the Minister not to lose focus on the Army cadet force as the policy continues.
I absolutely will not lose focus. It is worth saying that we listened to all the representations that were made. We also know and understand that we have a duty to live within our means as a nation and to keep within the Defence budget. That is why we always look at such matters with great care. We looked at the matter, we listened and, in this instance, we did not act. The policy will therefore continue and I am confident that it will do so with success.
2. How many UK military personnel are currently serving in Afghanistan.
Let me start by passing on our congratulations to the hon. Gentleman on his well-deserved knighthood. Our commitment to the current NATO Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan, the UK element of which is known as Operation Toral, amounts to about 470 UK military personnel. They work in support of the democratically elected Afghan Government, who have just announced their new Cabinet.
I thank the Minister for his kind remarks. The benefits that our service personnel, as well as our diplomats and development workers, have brought to Afghanistan at such cost over the past 13 years could be swept away in part or all of that country, as has happened in Iraq, if the new Resolute Support mission to support the Afghan national security forces does not provide the support that is necessary. Can he reassure the House that Resolute Support will be maintained for as long as is necessary to guarantee the gains that have been made over the past decade?
Along with our NATO allies in Resolute Support, we are committed to the long-term security of Afghanistan. On the UK contribution, we continue to lead mentoring at the Afghan national army officer academy and to provide mentors in the Afghan security institutions. We are also taking the lead on the Kabul security force, which is a key enabler for managing and assuring the protection of UK and NATO personnel in Kabul. The hon. Gentleman mentioned sacrifice. We lost 453 personnel who died in the line of duty in Afghanistan. They made a great sacrifice to give the people of Afghanistan a future and we will never forget them.
Will the Minister outline for the House what role he sees for the Army Reserve in contributing to Operation Resolute Support?
As a former reservist, I am delighted to do so. Army reservists have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they will continue to serve in Operation Toral. I believe that some elements of 3PWRR—a regiment close to the heart of the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier)—will deploy to Afghanistan shortly as part of the security force. Reservists will be an important and integral part of our commitment under Operation Toral.
3. What assessment he has made of recent trends in recruitment to the Army Reserve; and if he will make a statement.
The trained strength of the Army Reserve at 1 October 2014 was 19,310 and we expect it to exceed our end of year target of 19,900. Enlistments in the first two quarters of the year were 62% above the equivalent period in the previous year and we expect the latest quarter to show a further increase, owing to the removal of delays in the recruitment process, the restoration to units of the key role of mentoring recruits and the new marketing campaign.
Ministers raised the age limit for Army reservists from 43 to 52 after recruiting, as I understand it, only 20 new reservists—somewhat short of the 30,000 they were aiming for to cover the cutting of 20,000 personnel from the Regular Army. Recently in east Yorkshire, there has been filming for the new “Dad’s Army”, so I wondered whether Ministers thought it might be appropriate for the cast to keep their uniforms on.
In the latest six months, 2,130 recruits were enlisted into the Army Reserve. I ask the hon. Lady to think very carefully before making jokes about the Army Reserve. Whatever policy differences there are, 30 members of the reserve forces—24 of them from the Territorial Army—have died on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
21. Could the Minister also give us a short update on his progress on the cyber-reserves?
Recruiting for the cyber-reserves is on course in all three services, but I am afraid that I am not allowed to give any details of the planned structure, for obvious security reasons.
Reservists in the Royal Army Nursing Corps are putting themselves in significant danger as they are called up to serve in Sierra Leone to help combat Ebola. Why is the Ministry of Defence refusing to pay those brave people their operational allowance?
I share the hon. Gentleman’s admiration of those people, and I was privileged to see them off just before Christmas. I note that the senior nursing officer in the rotation—effectively the commander in the red zone on the current operation—is herself a reservist To answer the hon. Gentleman’s question directly, those people are entitled to a number of other allowances, and we are looking at the moment at the issue that he mentions. My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces will write to him when it has been determined.
The latest MOD figures show that the trained strength of the Army Reserve has actually fallen over the past 18 months. Can the Minister inform the House of the extra cost that has been incurred, over and above the original estimates, to encourage recruitment? The MOD’s continued silence on that suggests either embarrassment or ignorance.
On my hon. and gallant Friend’s first question, by looking back 18 months he is looking back past the bottom of the trough. The past six to nine months have been much more encouraging, and the next quarter is expected to be even better My hon. and gallant Friend has asked his second question again and again, and we have explained that, although we acknowledge that there are some extra costs, there is no way that we can separate them from the whole picture. Some of them are one-off costs, and some of them are connected with regular recruiting as well—we have to remind people, post-Afghanistan and so on, that we are recruiting.
The original plan to reform the reserve force stated that a force of 30,000 would be required by 2018. That was pushed back to April 2019, and last week in The Times, well informed sources in the MOD suggested that the date may well be pushed back even further. Can the Minister confirm exactly when the 30,000 strength will actually be met?
We are still firmly committed to April 2019 as the target date. As I have mentioned, recruiting has increased substantially. If we look at the latest quarter as opposed to the latest six months, we see that it has roughly doubled. Over the past six months it is up 62%, but over the second half of that period it has gone up even faster, and we expect a further continuation of that positive trend. We are firmly committed to April 2019.
4. If he will publish research held by the Government on the global atmospheric consequences of nuclear war.
Classified studies conducted by the Ministry of Defence focus on the effects of UK nuclear weapons and the potential impact, including on critical national infrastructure, of a nuclear attack on the United Kingdom.
Under the 30-year rule, Cabinet papers for 1984 have now been published. They show that the Government at that time refused to undertake any study of the atmospheric effects of a nuclear weapon explosion or nuclear testing. As I understand it, no other study has been undertaken since then. At the conference on the humanitarian effects of nuclear weapons in Vienna, there were some disturbing—no, frightening—reports of what would happen to the world’s climate if any nuclear explosion took place anywhere. Does the Minister not think it is incumbent on the Government to tell the British people exactly what the consequences of a nuclear explosion are, not just for them but for the whole planet?
I think the hon. Gentleman is referring to some declassified Home Office documents, which as Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence I confess I have not read. I believe that nuclear deterrence contributes materially to our national security. If the hon. Gentleman wants to read a really good study on nuclear deterrence, I recommend “On Nuclear Deterrence: The Correspondence of Sir Michael Quinlan”, published by the Royal United Services Institute in 2011. It is a ripping good read about how to keep a country safe and free.
Does the Minister understand that at a time when we are rightly outraged and mourning the deaths of 17 people at the hands of terrorists, it is a terrible paradox that every hour of every day this nation deploys a nuclear weapons system that will kill directly millions of people, and due to its climate effects could kill up to 2 billion? Does he think it is time to engage with a new Austrian initiative that could ultimately lead to a ban on all nuclear weapons and is, I stress, a multilateral initiative?
I respect the position from which the right hon. Lady approaches this issue, but as I have said, I believe that maintaining continuous at-sea deterrence is the best way to deter nuclear exchanges, rather than lead to them. In fairness, she has been absolutely consistent and long standing in her views about nuclear weapons, which is more than we can say this week for her party leader.
I am sure my right hon. Friend agrees that we would all like nuclear weapons not to exist, but sadly they do. Given that, is it not rather strange to hear cries for disarmament on the very day we read that former President Gorbachev has said that the likelihood of a nuclear conflict around Ukraine is much greater than it has been since the end of the cold war?
The Conservative party remains firmly committed to continuous at-sea deterrence to provide the ultimate guarantee of our nation’s security, and as a former Armed Forces Minister, I know my right hon. Friend shares that view. Conservative Members also share that view; what is the view of the leader of the Labour party?
A recent report suggested that the long-term climatic effects of nuclear war could include low light levels, sub-freezing temperatures and heavy air pollution that could place the global ecosystem in serious jeopardy. If nuclear weapons had existed since Roman times, statistically all that may have come to pass by now. Does not that show the danger to the planet of the madness that is nuclear weapons?
A nuclear war would be a tremendous danger to the planet. That is why it is better to deter it.
5. What plans he has to consider delivery of UK defence capability through conventional rather than nuclear weapons as part of the 2015 strategic defence and security review.
The next strategic defence and security review is a matter for after the general election. My Department is preparing for the review, but our focus remains the delivery of the 2010 review.
In a period of changing security threat, and as the national security strategy noted in 2010, is it not sensible to consider how ending the Trident replacement programme would release resources that could be spent more effectively on other security measures, as well as on a range of other public spending priorities, not least our national health service?
Successive Governments, Labour and Conservative, have been committed to our continuous at-sea deterrent for more than 45 years, and I hope that the Labour party in Scotland will not waiver from that. It would be extremely dangerous to move to any kind of part-time or lesser deterrent, and the Conservative party will not gamble with Britain’s national security.
My right hon. Friend has just made that commitment to continuous at-sea deterrence and, as I understand, it is the position of both main parties that the successor submarines for Trident should go ahead. Will he therefore guarantee to me that there will be no question of any delay in signing the main-gate contracts if we end up with another hung Parliament and the Liberal Democrats or Scottish nationalists seek to exact that as a price for their participation and support?
I confirm to my hon. Friend and to the House that the main-gate decision is scheduled for 2016. I will not speculate on the possibility of a hung Parliament, except to note that I know the Liberal Democrats would favour some kind of part-time deterrent, although it is pretty obvious to me that our enemies are not part time.
Given that RUSI is predicting that by the early 2020s the replacement of the nuclear deterrent will account for some 35% of the defence procurement budget, and given that this summer, whatever the outcome of the election, Ministers at the Ministry of Defence will be struggling to make limited resources pay for a long list of major procurements, could it possibly make sense to exclude from a comprehensive review the biggest single procurement?
I am sorry that my hon. Friend, who has some experience of these matters, does not attach the importance to continuing the deterrent that we do. Of course, the costs of the deterrent are spread over a number of years. As I have said, successive Governments in office have, every time they have re-examined the need for the deterrent, committed to continuing it.
6. What progress his Department has made on delivering the defence equipment plan.
Under this Government, the Ministry of Defence was one of the first Departments to publish a long-term plan: our 10-year equipment plan. The third annual iteration of the equipment plan will be published shortly. I expect it to show that, in the vital area of defence equipment, we have a plan and that we are delivering against it in each domain. New investment committed last year includes: three offshore patrol vessels, four new F-35s, and 589 new Scout armoured vehicles under the largest land equipment contract the British Army has seen for 30 years.
What changes have been made to the way the plan is being delivered?
As my hon. Friend will recall, the previous Labour Administration had no plan and compounded one procurement incompetence with another. Consequently, the wrong equipment was often delivered, years late and billions over budget. By contrast, since balancing the defence budget and establishing an equipment plan, where there was chaos now there is competence; where there were cost overruns now there are cost savings; and where equipment deliveries were years late now they are on time, or, in far fewer cases, a few months behind.
In recent weeks, maritime patrol aircraft have been seen in the skies above Moray, operating from RAF Lossiemouth and plugging a capability cap, because the RAF has precisely no maritime patrol aircraft. All of our neighbours have them: the Irish air corps, the Royal Danish air force and the Royal Norwegian air force. In the plan the Minister has just mentioned, when can we expect to have maritime patrol aircraft?
As the hon. Gentleman knows full well, there was a recognised capability gap when maritime aircraft were taken out of service in SDSR 2010. The Government, as with previous Governments, operate in conjunction with our allies around the world. We provide aircraft to Baltic patrol and transport lift aircraft to the French. On occasion, our allies provide us with maritime patrol aircraft.
I was glad to hear the Minister’s answer to the question regarding Russian submarines infiltrating our waters Why, after the major equipment programme has been let, are his Department and UK Trade & Investment still scurrying around trying to hold the manufacturer to a pre-contract offer of safeguarding or creating 10,000 jobs in the UK? We now know that the Scout programme he mentioned will be built in Spain, Germany and the Netherlands, and that the core jobs in the UK are fewer than 400. That has happened on his watch. Why was the economic case for bringing the work to the UK not done before the contract was finalised? The Secretary of State spent all that time trumpeting what seemed to be a huge success when, in fact, it is not.
As the hon. Lady may recall, the original proposed contract, which was considered under her Administration, was for more than double the number of vehicles for which we have contracted. Consequently, the number of people potentially employed is significantly lower. However, the contract for the Scout vehicle, at £3.5 billion, is the largest contract that the British Army has received, and involves some 160 companies, predominantly in the UK. It will sustain 1,400 jobs in the UK, and we are currently actively exploring the opportunity for the onshore assembly of vehicles, from 101 to 589.
7. What his policy is on the creation of a national defence medal.
There is a long-standing and widely understood military tradition that medals are not awarded as a record of service but in recognition of specific campaigns or operations, acts of gallantry or outstanding service. We set up an independent review into medals and decorations, and its chair, Sir John Holmes, specifically considered this matter and decided against such a medal. That decision received royal approval.
MOD tradition and protocol have an important role, but would it not just be the decent thing to recognise our veterans in this way simply because they have served their country? Would it not be wonderful to have cross-party agreement to recognise them, as happens in many other English-speaking countries around the world?
We absolutely recognise and pay handsome tribute to our veterans. There is no better example of that than the military covenant and all that it stands for. The fact that so many people are signing up to it—businesses, all our local authorities and so on—demonstrates that the understanding of the great sacrifices made by our veterans in their service and by their families has never been higher in the public’s imagination.
I support the comments of my fellow Essex MP, the hon. Member for Clacton (Douglas Carswell). The last Government quite rightly introduced the national service badge, which has been greatly appreciated. The medal would do no harm, but it would do a lot of good.
I do not agree with my hon. Friend. Medals are for specific campaigns and acts of gallantry, and rightly so. In this instance, therefore, we will have to disagree.
8. What plans he has to visit Albemarle barracks to review handover arrangements.
I fear I might let down my hon. Friend because we have no plans—unfortunately—to visit his barracks, unless he makes me an offer I cannot refuse. However, we all look forward to the moment when 3 Regiment Royal Horse Artillery replaces 39 Regiment Royal Artillery later this year. I know of the great work he does in supporting his barracks, and of course he will welcome 3 Regiment Royal Horse Artillery when it moves in.
No pressure there! All I can say is that the Minister would be warmly welcomed in Northumberland, where we are transitioning from 39th Royal Artillery and welcoming 3rd Royal Horse Artillery. We are also looking at the base improvements that have happened already and the ongoing case we are making in respect of these troops.
I pay tribute to the work that my hon. Friend and others have done, and I will look at all our diaries to see whether we can come up; we would like to if we can. I promise I will look at my diary, and at the diaries of other Ministers as well.
9. What assessment he has made of the level of the cyber-security threat to the UK.
Maintaining robust cyber-security is a priority for the UK and of particular importance to the MOD. The threat is continually changing in scope and complexity. All public and private sector organisations have a stake in addressing the cyber threat, and the MOD is one element of the national cyber-security programme, which is co-ordinated by the Cabinet Office.
We know that cyber attacks are often targeted at defence companies themselves. What steps have the Government taken to ensure that security within the UK defence sector is strengthened?
We have taken very specific steps. With the Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance, the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure and GCHQ, we are working closely with industry to ensure it is aware of the changing nature of the threat and has effective counters in place. The defence cyber protection partnership aims to meet the emerging threat specifically to the UK defence supply chain by increasing awareness of cyber risks, sharing threat intelligence and defining risk-driven approaches to applying cyber-security standards. We are already doing it.
To what extent have NATO and our NATO allies prioritised the development of cyber capabilities?
For obvious reasons, NATO takes this threat very seriously. For instance, I believe it has a centre of excellence based in Estonia helping to provide advice to other NATO countries. We in the UK also take the threat very seriously and have invested heavily to counter it.
In response to the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), the Minister said that the recruitment for cyber-reserves was on track, but he could not give us precise details because it would breach confidentiality. I have always subscribed to the notion of “trust but verify”. Will he indicate by what means—numbers or some other means—we can ensure that the information is accurate and correct?
I went and verified. I visited the joint forces cyber-group at Imjin barracks in Innsworth in November, and I was able to meet a number of reservists, one of whom was from the Bank of England, who had recently signed up to help provide for the defence of our country. We do not give out publicly the number of people recruited for the cyber-reserves, and I hope the House will realise that there is a logical reason for that. The recruitment is, however, on track, and the quality of the individuals I met at Innsworth were, I have to say, extremely impressive.
President Obama has openly stressed the importance of establishing rules for the road on cyber-security, but what capacity has the UK developed to respond to a cyber-attack?
I remind the House that the strategic defence and security review announced a £650 million budget for the national cyber-security programme. Moreover, in June 2013, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer went further by stating that investment in this area will continue to grow in 2015-16 and will include a further £210 million. An announcement by the Ministry of Defence last July showed that we are going even further than that.
10. What steps he is taking to assist Iraqi forces in countering ISIL.
12. What steps he is taking to assist Iraqi forces in countering ISIL.
14. What steps he is taking to assist Iraqi forces in countering ISIL.
We are making a major contribution to the coalition, having deployed sophisticated surveillance, strike and transport aircraft to the region. As of yesterday, we have carried out 99 air strikes in Iraq, second only to the United States. We have also provided training and equipment to Kurdish forces, including infantry, combat first aid, sharpshooting and counter-IED training.
Given reports at the weekend that ISIL fighters killed another 24 people in the security forces in northern Iraq, will the Secretary of State provide more details of the equipment that his Department might be supplying to Iraqi forces to help them counter this threat?
Yes. The National Security Council has asked us to do further work to scope the additional assistance we can offer to the Iraqi military. We plan to gift counter-IED equipment to the Iraqi security forces in the near future, subject to the approval of this House. All our support is part of the developing coalition and Iraqi plan to ensure that Iraqi forces are coherently supported.
To what extent are British personnel in Iraq liaising with the Shi’a militias? Given the recent deaths in Iraq, apparently in action, of the Iranian General Taqavi, what assessment has my right hon. Friend made of the extent of the Iranian influence over those militias?
Our training has been focused in Kurdistan through the Ministry of Peshmerga, and our other embedded personnel work only with the security forces of the Government of Iraq, not with any of the Shi’a militia. Iranian influence over the Shi’a militia is well known, and Iran can certainly play a positive role in helping to bring about better government in Iraq.
In combating ISIL jihadists, our armed forces might be at greater threat in the UK than in Iraq. After last week’s atrocities, France has, I understand, allocated 10,000 troops for sensitive sites. What steps is my right hon. Friend considering armed forces in the UK should take for their own and our constituents’ safety?
We take our personnel—both military and civilian—extremely seriously. We have reviewed our protective security measures and the advice to personnel in the light of the recent tragic events in France. My hon. Friend will appreciate that, for obvious reasons, I cannot discuss details of the security arrangements that are in place.
Given that the Kurds still face attacks by ISIS forces using sophisticated captured American arms, is the Secretary of State satisfied that our allies have enough heavy weapons, including tanks and helicopters, to counter those attacks?
We are looking at the gaps in the capability of the Kurdish and Iraqi forces, and if we can help with additional equipment, we are ready to do so, and we have already played a very active part in transporting to those forces equipment that has been gifted or sold from other nations.
The House stands united with the people of France, and, indeed, with all who support the principles of freedom of speech, tolerance and democracy in the face of the barbarity that the world witnessed last week on the streets of Paris. This morning the Defence Secretary attended high-level meetings in Whitehall to discuss the United Kingdom’s response to those tragic events. Given that one of the terrorists said that he was acting on behalf of ISIL, will the right hon. Gentleman update the House on what further steps the Government are taking to combat this threat in Iraq and beyond?
I am grateful to the shadow Defence Secretary for, in particular, the tone that he has struck in the light of the tragic events in France. We all have sympathy with those involved I think that the hon. Gentleman and I are clear about the fact that if we are to reduce the threat from ISIL in France and the United Kingdom, ISIL must be defeated in both Iraq and Syria. This morning, under the Prime Minister’s direction, we again reviewed our standing preparations for a terrorist attack, including the number and readiness of troops available to assist the police, and we are keeping the security situation under continuous review.
I think that the whole House will be grateful to the Defence Secretary for his response. Does he agree that following those recent events the need to tackle the threat is even more urgent, and that we must work ever more closely with our allies in Europe—such as France—and with our partners in the region, including Turkey? Will he update us on the progress that has been made by United Kingdom forces in their crucial work of training Iraqi and peshmerga troops in Iraq to combat the ISIL threat there, and also, importantly, preventing future acts of terrorism here in the United Kingdom?
We are already co-operating closely with France in particular, and we have reinforced our offer of assistance to France over the last few days. If ISIL is to be defeated and the threat to our own country and other European countries reduced, we will of course depend on the co-operation of the entire international community, but especially on the co-operation of partners in the region. The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to the role that Turkey and other regional partners can play We have been training Iraqi and Kurdish forces, and are doing so at the moment. Training courses in Kurdistan are being managed and led by British troops, and I hope that they will help the peshmerga, in particular, in their fight against ISIL.
Setting aside the fact that there will be no foreign combat troops on the ground, will the Secretary of State tell us what is the difference between the 2007 strategy in Iraq and the strategy today? In particular, have we a new counter-insurgency doctrine, is there a new Sunni outreach strategy, and have we adopted a new approach to building the capacity of the Iraqi Government and army, or are we fighting the same target with the same strategy and fewer resources?
I can tell my hon. Friend—who, I know, brings a great deal of experience from Iraq to the House—that the biggest difference between now and 2007 is that we now have a genuinely inclusive Government in Iraq, who represent both Shia and Sunni, and, indeed, Kurdish elements in Iraq. The new Defence Minister, Minister Obeidi, is himself a Sunni. It is important for that Government to concentrate on precisely the kind of Sunni outreach that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, so that their forces can enjoy the support of the tribes in the Anbar region, where ground must be recaptured from ISIS.
11. What the strategic rationale is for the opening of a UK military base in Bahrain.
The Ministry of Defence has had a naval base in Bahrain since the 1950s, providing naval and logistics facilities in support of our operations in the Gulf. The agreement that was signed last month reaffirms the joint determination of the United Kingdom and Bahrain to maintain security and stability in the region.
How long does the Secretary of State expect the military personnel who have been sent to train the Kurds in Iraq to remain there? Can he give us a time frame?
Our training effort, our troops and our air contribution to the fight against ISIL will remain in Iraq for as long as is necessary, which may well be a very long time. As for our presence in the Gulf, I hope that the House will welcome the recommitment that we have made to security and stability through the new naval base agreement, which will enable us to deploy larger ships and to provide better facilities for those who are deployed in or are passing through the Gulf.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend and salute the work carried out by Lieutenant General Sir Simon Mayall in re-establishing an east of Suez policy with our very close and reliable ally the Kingdom of Bahrain. Is this not a good example of the role defence diplomacy can play, and, in that context, may I invite the Secretary of State to reaffirm our commitment to the five power defence agreement in the far east, which reassures our allies and gives Britain an influence in the region?
My hon. Friend, one of my predecessors as a Minister in the Department, is right to pay proper tribute to Lieutenant General Sir Simon Mayall, who was responsible for negotiating this agreement, which will put our naval presence in the Gulf on a more permanent footing. My hon. Friend is also right to say that we should continue to examine our defence engagement policy in the far east as well as in the middle east.
It has been estimated that a three-day closure of the strait of Hormuz, perhaps by a terrorist attack, could lead to a four-year negative impact on the world economy. Has that influenced our decision to increase our capability in the Gulf?
Yes, the hon. Lady is absolutely right to draw attention to the economic and strategic importance of the strait of Hormuz. Our mine counter-measure vessels are playing a major part in ensuring that the strait always remains open, and I was privileged to visit two of those vessels and meet their crews. I put on record our appreciation of them for the very difficult and challenging work they do, particularly their divers, in making sure the strait remains open.
13. What recent investment he has made in (a) cyber-security and (b) unmanned aerial vehicles for the armed forces.
In addition to the sums identified by my right hon. Friend the Armed Forces Minister, in July of last year the Prime Minister announced a further investment in equipment for our armed forces, which included £75 million specifically for cyber-defence. The total recent investment in unmanned aerial vehicles for the armed forces in the current year is £233.5 million.
On unmanned aerial vehicles, will my hon. Friend provide more information about the Watchkeeper tactical remotely piloted air system and when it will be available to our British Army units?
I am pleased to be able to tell my hon. and learned Friend that the Watchkeeper achieved its first initial operating capability last summer and was deployed with the Royal Artillery to Afghanistan between August and October last year. It immediately demonstrated its excellent, and potentially game-changing, tactical capability over Helmand. We expect Watchkeeper to be at full operating capability in April 2016.
As well as investing in unmanned aerial vehicles, is the Department responding to reports that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is developing counter-measures designed to diminish the effectiveness of these drones in current operations?
We are always alert to intelligence reports of evolving threats, from wherever they emerge. We take a very keen interest in the development of unmanned systems across the armed forces and will continue to do so.
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
Our immediate priorities remain our current operations in Afghanistan and against ISIL and Ebola as well as the commitments reached at the NATO summit and the delivery of Future Force 2020. I want to build up our reserve forces and invest in the equipment that our armed forces need to keep Britain safe.
Will my right hon. Friend tell me whether there will be opportunities for reserve units, such as 4th Battalion The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, to serve as units in operations and major exercises?
Reserve service offers exciting opportunities to serve overseas in formed units. For example, a platoon from 3 Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment will be supporting 1 Royal Anglian in Kabul from February onwards, and 4 Mercian, based in Wolverhampton, recently deployed two platoons to Cyprus. This is exactly what Future Force 2020 was intended to do—making the most of reservists’ skills by integrating them with our regulars.
In the recent armed forces covenant report, the three service families federations state: “We remain disappointed that a sizeable proportion of our people continue to say that they have little or no knowledge of the AF Covenant and the principles that underpin it.” Three years after Conservative and Lib Dem MPs were initially whipped by the current Armed Forces Minister to vote against enshrining the principles of the armed forces covenant in law, this Government have failed to test their own policies against the covenant, failed to support local authorities to implement it and, we now know, even failed to ensure that forces families know about it. When are they going to get a grip?
May I say how very disappointed I am at such an appallingly negative question that achieves absolutely diddly-squat? With the introduction of the covenant enshrined in law, this Government, more than any other, have ensured that our veterans, serving members of our armed forces and their families get the sort of recognition that they need. It is not disputed that we can do more, especially at local level. That is why, by the end of the day, I shall personally have topped and tailed a letter to every chief executive and every leader of every council in Great Britain. My next task is to write to every clinical commissioning group and hospital trust to ensure that we deliver on the covenant in the NHS as much as we are doing in government, and we now want to do it at local level.
T2. The closure of RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk represents a staggering £0.2 billion loss to the Suffolk economy, including the loss of more than 700 civilian jobs. I know that the Minister for Business and Enterprise, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) is chairing the taskforce on trying to continue economic activity in some form at RAF Mildenhall, but will the Minister tell me what steps he will be taking to help fill the massive economic void that will result from this regrettable closure?
This is the first opportunity I have had to put on record at the Dispatch Box how pleased the UK is with the decision by the United States air force to base its first two F-35 squadrons at RAF Lakenheath, which is adjacent to Mildenhall. We think that a number of jobs will transfer from Mildenhall to Lakenheath. The base closure at Mildenhall is regrettable, but it will not happen for a number of years. We in the Ministry of Defence will engage with the working group being led by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Business and Enterprise, and we will be looking to see whether there is a future military use for the facility; if not, we will work to find an alternative.
T9. According to recent reports in The Times, Ministers are presiding over not only a stalling reserves recruitment programme but a crisis in recruitment to the regular forces. Can any of the Ministers reassure the House that the targets for recruitment to the regular Army forces will be met this year?
The hon. Lady is correct to say that, in recruiting year 2013-14, we were running at 66% of the annual regular soldier target. That represents roughly 6,200 soldiers, against a target of 9,300. However, the numbers are increasing and we are looking at a range of measures to increase them further, including a marketing campaign that is to be launched shortly.
T3. Returning to the question of the issuing of a national defence medal, will the Minister join me in paying tribute to my constituent, Mr Martin Halligan, who has done an inestimable and unstinting job on promoting the campaign for the medal nationally? Despite the review that has taken place, will she take on board the feeling expressed by many current and former service personnel that the issuing of such a medal would not undermine previous protocols and conventions or take away from specific acts of courage, leadership and honour, which are rightly recognised at present?
I certainly pay tribute to the work that has been done by my right hon. Friend’s constituent. I am sure that it is helpful in any event. There has been an independent review, however. Sir John Holmes has made his recommendation, and I am bound by the arguments that he has advanced against what my right hon. Friend is suggesting. I am not actually sure that the veteran community would agree with my right hon. Friend, but I am always willing to listen and if he wants to come and have a chat with me, I would welcome that.
At this weekend’s Cardiff City game, I saw not only a welcome return to blue, but, intriguingly, that substitutions in the game were being sponsored by the Royal Naval Reserve recruitment programme, no doubt at considerable expense. Will a Minister tell me what the cost of that programme was and how many reserves have been recruited? Given the low levels of reserve recruitment across the UK, what assessment has been made of the efficacy of such expensive advertising programmes?
I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the exact answer he requests, but I can say that the maritime reserves have been consistently ahead of their recruiting and manning targets from the beginning.
T4. Will the Minister provide an update on the Future Force 2020 programme?
Progress towards the implementation of Future Force 2020 is on track. Taking the Army as an example, the transition towards Army 2020 structures and locations is well under way. For instance, Force Troops Command reached full operational capability in April, and I was there to mark that. In November, I visited the newly formed 1 Artillery Brigade and Headquarters South West in Larkhill, which has taken responsibility for the regional point of contact in the south-west. On Wednesday, I will visit 11 Infantry Brigade in Aldershot before it deploys to Sierra Leone to help to fight Ebola. I am sure the whole House will join us in wishing them God speed and good luck in that task.
The Minister said earlier that the Cabinet Office has a role to play in cyber-policy. If that is to be a strong and robust policy, will he tell the House when a ministerial representative from the MOD last met the Home Office, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to discuss the issue? What was the outcome of the meeting?
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that within government we take this issue extremely seriously, and we had meetings with representatives from other Departments and with members of the House of Commons Defence Committee. We are dealing with a diverse and complicated threat, and I have already explained to the House how much we have invested to meet it. We are in no way complacent, nor will we be.
T5. Pupils from Corbridge middle school in my constituency are shortly to go to the world war one sites, under the battlefield tours programme. What support is the MOD giving to schools, charities and families whose ancestors were involved as we go forward with future commemorations?
Of course there are a number of schemes run and encouragements given, not just through the MOD, but through the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which has been the main Department leading on all this. My hon. Friend makes a good and important point: the commemorations of the first world war continue right up until 2018. Let me just mention that this March we have the commemoration of the battle of Neuve Chapelle, which holds huge significance in both India and Britain. Later in the year, notably in April, we will remember all the events at Gallipoli, and we will be marking Anzac day on 25 April at the Cenotaph.
At today’s high level meetings was any additional help offered to Yemeni defence forces, who are under sustained attack from extremist groups?
That has not specifically been discussed, but, obviously, we continue to see what further help we can give to countries in the region which are under pressure from ISIL. The right hon. Gentleman is right to remind the House that this is not simply a challenge to Iraq.
T6. Boko Haram slaughter the innocent, sell girls into slavery and impose mediaeval government and fear in wide areas of Nigeria. The local military are seen in many cases as being corrupt and perhaps to have involved themselves in human rights abuses. What role is the MOD carrying out to support Nigeria in tackling Boko Haram?
We unequivocally condemn the awful atrocities committed by Boko Haram in Nigeria. In June 2014, at the London ministerial meeting, the former Foreign Secretary announced that the UK will significantly increase the training and capacity-building assistance we offer to the Nigerian armed forces. We have since expanded our resident training and advisory team, and deployed increased numbers of short-term training teams to help prepare Nigerian troops for deployment against Boko Haram.
Last year, the number of Britain’s reservists rose by just 20. Given the millions thrown at the recruitment campaign, how is that a triumph?
The tri-service numbers of reservists over the past six months were up 400. The fact is that after 15 years of continuous quarter-on-quarter decline, they are now going up again. As I mentioned earlier, in the last quarter announced, recruiting was running at double the rate that it was in the equivalent period last year. [Official Report, 14 January 2015, Vol. 590, c. 7-8MC.]
T7. May I put on record my thanks to the Minister for the Armed Forces for his visit to BAE systems in Warton and Salmesbury aerodromes, which are key employers in Lancashire? Will he update the House on defence export prospects for the Hawk trainer aircraft, as its production line has recently opened in my Fylde constituency?
As my hon. Friend knows, BAE systems is pursuing a number of significant export prospects for the Hawk, with active support from the Ministry of Defence and UK Trade and Investment Defence and Security Organisation. As international air forces modernise their front-line aircraft, we anticipate that there will be significant further interest in the next generation of Hawk aircraft, the Hawk T2, which is already in service to train our Typhoon pilots and will do so for the F-35 pilots in due course.
Next month, the Government will be hosting a meeting of the five declared nuclear weapons states ahead of the non-proliferation treaty review in May. Will the Minister tell the House what he intends to achieve from that meeting, whether there will be an agreed position put and whether the P5 will adhere to the basic principles of the non-proliferation treaty and take steps towards nuclear disarmament?
As the hon. Gentleman knows, we take the nuclear non-proliferation treaty extremely seriously. We uphold that treaty and it is vital that we persuade other nations around the world that may be in breach of that treaty to abide by its conventions as well. The hon. Gentleman and I take a different view on these matters. I spent many years at university debating against the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and I still seem to be doing it now.
Will the Government reassure me that they, apparently unlike some parties opposite, will not allow even the distant prospect of coalition negotiations to soften their commitment to continuous-at-sea nuclear deterrence?
Absolutely. Successive Governments have maintained that commitment to a continuous-at-sea deterrent and this Government are also determined to do so.
I am puzzled by the attempts of the Minister for the Armed Forces to goad the Opposition on the issue of the nuclear deterrent. Let us be clear: we are committed to a minimum strategic nuclear deterrent delivered by submarines that are continuously at sea. We continue to support the programme that we started in Government, which his Government have delayed. In what way is that different from his policy?
What is different is that the Leader of the Opposition, who was challenged on this just a week ago, spoke only about the need for the least-cost deterrent, without repeating—[Interruption.]
Order. I know that the Secretary of State can generally look after himself, but Members must not seek to shout him down. I always facilitate full exchanges on all these important matters, but the Secretary of State must be heard.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a very important matter. The Leader of the Opposition did not repeat Labour’s previous commitment to what matters, which is a continuous-at-sea deterrent. What we cannot have is any kind of part-time deterrent, which would rely on our enemies being part-time as well.
I have the great pleasure of announcing to the House that I have just been made president of the (Mercian) Squadron Air Training Corps in Lichfield, which is one of the biggest Air Training Corps in the midlands. Will my right hon. Friend maintain his commitment to the Air Training Corps?
I congratulate my hon. Friend on that great distinction. Air cadets offer a huge opportunity to young people from a whole range of different backgrounds. The Ministry of Defence provides, and will continue to provide, support to both the Air Training Corps and the university air squadrons through the provision of high quality flying training and other supporting activities, including access to defence training areas and ranges.
May I try to goad the Secretary of State so that he stops trying to bamboozle us all about the real deterrent we need, which is a properly armed, conventional group of 100,000 men and women to defend this country? Is it not about time that he took our mind off reservists and talked about how many men and women we have under arms in this country?
In stark contrast to the previous Government, our defence budget has been properly managed and has enabled us to keep this country safe. We are determined to support Future Force 2020. The hon. Gentleman’s question might be better directed to the shadow Defence Secretary, who last week told The Times: “Army 2020 isn’t working and Labour will not take it forward”, although last year he said that “we support the rationale behind…Future Force 2020”.
Last but not least, I call Mr Duncan Hames.
Allied warplanes cross the skies above Syria while Assad’s helicopters drop barrel bombs on the civilian population. How can this apparent indifference help us to prevent the civilian population of Syria from turning to the ISIL militia?
The Prime Minister has made it clear to the House that ISIL can only be defeated in both Iraq and Syria. We are making a major contribution to the campaign in Iraq, which itself of course allows others to contribute to the campaign against ISIL in Syria. ISIL has to be defeated in both countries.
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will make a statement on the current situation in Nigeria.
The Boko Haram terrorist group continues to wreak havoc across north-east Nigeria. Many colleagues will have seen the press reports over the past week highlighting its latest sickening attacks. Hundreds of people are believed to have been killed in the town of Baga in Borno state last week as Boko Haram continued its bloody insurgency campaign. Suicide bombings in urban areas are also a common feature of Boko Haram’s tactics. This weekend, we saw another heinous example in the Yobe state town of Potiskum These attacks are just the latest example of the insurgents’ reign of terror. We believe that more than 4,000 people were killed by the group last year in north-east Nigeria. The United Nations estimates that more than 1.5 million people have been displaced by terrorist activities, and that at least 3 million have been affected by the insurgency The abductions of the Chibok schoolgirls on 14 April last year shocked the world and highlighted the mindless cruelty of Boko Haram. The group deliberately targets the weak and vulnerable, causing suffering in communities of different faiths and ethnicities. It is almost certainly the case that attacks by Boko Haram have killed more Muslims than Christians The year 2015 is an important one for Nigeria’s future. Presidential and state elections will take place in February. It is crucial that they are free, fair and credible and that all Nigerians are able to exercise their vote without fear and intimidation As Minister with responsibility for the Commonwealth, I responded to the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), the former Prime Minister, on behalf of the Government in the last debate in the House on this subject. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) for asking this timely question, which will allow Members from across the House to give this important issue the attention it surely deserves.
This weekend saw an inspiring and moving display of international solidarity in the wake of the Paris shootings, but while we were watching the horror unfold in Paris, hundreds or possibly thousands of civilians were slaughtered by Boko Haram in northern Nigeria, with very little international attention. While millions poured on to the streets in Europe in a hopeful, defiant march for peace, thousands of Nigerians fled across the border into Chad in fear of further violence, adding to the tens of thousands who have already fled to Chad, Cameroon and Niger and the 1 million or so people displaced internally I visited northern Nigeria with Voluntary Service Overseas in 2008, as recorded in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, to see projects working to improve access to and the quality of primary education. Will the Minister tell the House how UK Government-funded programmes for education in northern Nigeria are responding to the escalating security situation and to the mass displacement of people? What are the Government doing to ensure a rapid humanitarian response for refugees, who are mostly fleeing to countries that are already resource-poor and insecure? Looking ahead to the world humanitarian summit next year, are there measures that can be put in place now for the co-ordination of aid and support for local non-governmental organisations? Does the Minister recognise that the international NGOs are already hugely overstretched in the region, responding to multiple conflicts and Ebola What are the Government doing to bring pressure to bear on the Nigerian Government to tackle Boko Haram and to prioritise protection of humanitarian workers? What are we doing to encourage the Nigerian Government to stamp out corruption, which is such a breeding ground for loss of confidence in the state? Finally, looking ahead to the Nigerian elections, how will the Minister ensure that we can capitalise diplomatically on the window of opportunity provided by a newly elected Nigerian Government to tackle such issues, however discredited those elections might turn out to be, when we will be in the middle of our own election campaign?
I thank the hon. Lady again for asking this urgent question, which gives us the time to return to these matters. There is a problem in that when something crops up elsewhere in the world, we are easily diverted and we forget the appalling suffering that continues in other parts of the world. I pay tribute to the world leaders who gathered in Paris at the weekend, including my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, and the “Je suis Charlie” campaign. I know we would all have liked to be there to show our solidarity To return to the question of Nigeria and managing the humanitarian crisis, we are working closely with our international partners to react to the large numbers of people who have now been displaced by the conflict in the north-east, an issue that affects not just Nigeria but its close neighbours. The UK’s contribution to the UN’s central emergency response fund and the European Commission’s humanitarian aid and civil protection department programmes in 2014 was £1.7 million and, of course, DFID’s total budget for Nigeria is one of the biggest in the world at some £250 million, which includes funding for the safe schools initiative and promoting women’s and girls’ rights in northern Nigeria. British aid will help 800,000 more children to go to school in Nigeria, including 600,000 girls Corruption is worth highlighting, and it is worth remembering as we discuss these matters that Nigeria has the largest economy in Africa. It spends 20% of its national budget on security, so, properly run, Nigeria should be able to do a lot of this work itself. Our money from DFID does not just alleviate poverty, although there is a disparity in the economies of the north and the south, but helps build robust institutions so that Nigeria can take on some of the problems itself The hon. Lady refers to the forthcoming election in February. We have concerns about violence during the election and about the feasibility of running a nationwide election when an area the size of Belgium is now under Boko Haram.
I thank the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) for asking this question and you, Mr Speaker, for granting it The whole House will be shocked and outraged by reports that up to 2,000 people were killed in northern Nigeria last week following a series of brutal and deadly attacks by Boko Haram extremists. Most recently, we have heard reports of 23 people killed in a bomb attack involving three young girls, one of whom is reported to have been just 10 years old. Eyewitness reports suggest that after one such murderous attack hundreds of their victims’ bodies were left strewn across the town of Baga, including those of children, women and the elderly As the Minister highlighted, that follows months of violence across northern Nigeria with killings, mass abductions and attacks on innocent civilians. These attacks and brutality have been rightly condemned around the world, and although many people have rightly praised the moving solidarity seen across Europe this week, there can be no doubt about the need for solidarity across continents in the wake of such appalling attacks. That includes the atrocity in the school in Peshawar; we welcome its reopening today, striking a blow against terrorism everywhere. The world must not simply stand back and tolerate Boko Haram’s brutal campaign of violence Here in the UK there is cross-party support for Britain to continue to provide support alongside our allies to the Nigerian authorities in their efforts to tackle Boko Haram. Will the Minister update the House on the level of that support and say whether there have been any additional requests for British advice and expertise from the Nigerian Government? The Minister rightly reminded us of the appalling kidnappings in Chibok, which brought much needed global attention to the security situation in northern Nigeria and the vulnerability of civilians, in particular women and girls, at the hands of Boko Haram The recent testimonies collected by Human Rights Watch from victims who escaped or who were released show the appalling extent of the violent and brutal conditions in the Boko Haram camps where women and girls are held. In October the Nigerian authorities announced that they had agreed a ceasefire with Boko Haram, which was supposed to see the schoolgirls safely returned, but this agreement was shattered by the horrific news of the suicide bomber wearing a school uniform who set off a backpack full of explosives in the middle of a school assembly. Can the Minister provide the House with an assessment of the current plight of the girls who have been kidnapped by Boko Haram? What discussions has his Department held with the Nigerian authorities on working together to secure their release?
I stand alongside the shadow Minister in welcoming the reopening of the school in Peshawar. We should all stand together against violence and terrorism around the world. By doing that, we can face it down The shadow Minister asked about UK support. I imagine he was referring to the package of support announced on 12 June 2014 by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, then the Foreign Secretary, who is in his place now. Since then we have enlarged our programme of capacity-building support for the Nigerian armed forces to provide direct tactical training and advice to the Nigerian forces engaged in this fight against terrorism. With France and the United States we are supporting regional intelligence-sharing arrangements between Nigeria and its neighbours. As I said to the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), a DFID-US aid partnership will draw 1 million more school children into education by 2020, which includes increased support for girls’ education in particular. This is in addition to the £1 million which we committed in May to the UN safe schools initiative, which I alluded to earlier. DFID is providing advice and assistance to Nigeria for a more strategic approach to economic development in the north The right hon. Gentleman referred to the brutality of Boko Haram. There is no other word that better describes their actions. They are extraordinarily brutal to their own Muslim brothers, as well as to Christians—indeed, to any one who seems to get in their way. The tales of what they leave behind when they move into these areas are too ghastly to rehearse here this afternoon. They are one of the most brutal organisations known to man The issue that caught the attention of this House and of the world was the abduction of the Chibok girls. We are still supporting the Nigerian authorities in trying to establish the girls’ location through the provision of surveillance assets and intelligence expertise. Information generated by these assets has been provided to an intelligence fusion cell in Abuja, where British personnel are working alongside Nigerian, American and French colleagues. We are clearly unable to comment on the results of ongoing intelligence operations, as the House will accept, but while the girls are still missing our resolve and that of the international community to continue the search remain strong. I remind the House that we are dealing with an area the size of Belgium under the control of Boko Haram, and intelligence is difficult, but we are not giving up at this point.
What is happening in northern Nigeria with Boko Haram is grotesque and it is important that the House and everyone else should demonstrate that all human life is equally valid and equally sacred. My right hon. Friend made it clear that he is the Minister with responsibility for relations with the Commonwealth, and as the right hon. Member for Warley (Mr Spellar), who spoke for the Opposition, made clear, this is not just about northern Nigeria; it equally applies to the north-west frontier province in Pakistan. What is the potential for the Commonwealth as an institution to show solidarity by ensuring that Commonwealth countries act collectively to support Commonwealth members that are seeking to resist terrorism and fundamentalism?
My right hon. Friend raises an extremely good point. I am the Minister with responsibility for the Commonwealth, although I do not have direct responsibility for Nigeria, and I have been asking officials about this matter this afternoon. I think that there is a role for the Commonwealth. Particularly in Nigeria, more work could be done locally through organisations such as the African Union, but the Nigerian Government have to want other countries to come in and do that. It is worth looking at a pan-Commonwealth approach to dealing with terrorism of this nature, from which few countries currently seem to be immune, and I shall raise it with the secretary-general.
The vast demonstrations in Paris and in other French cities against murderous religious fascism were among the most impressive in my lifetime. Is there not genuine concern that the authorities in Nigeria are simply inadequate to deal with this terrible threat? Time and again when the Nigerian President has been under a good deal of international pressure, and rightly so, his response has been such that one can conclude only that the commitment to fight the terrorism and atrocities in that country is not as it should be.
No one living outside the affected areas in Nigeria should believe for one minute that they are immune to the possible terrorist activities of Boko Haram. As I said, there is an election in February, and presumably there are those who wish to campaign in this large chunk of the country in the north. It is a problem for Nigeria. Yes, we certainly wish that its institutions were stronger, but I think that both the Nigerian Government and the international community are absolutely certain that Boko Haram needs to be routed out, and quickly, before it does further damage within the country and to its vulnerable neighbours.
I agree entirely with what the Minister and the shadow Minister have said. I particularly agree with the Government’s decision not to intervene in Nigeria directly with military force. Will the Minister explain, though, why the west is right to try to use military force in Syria and Iraq, in rather similar situations, but not in Nigeria?
We have deployed assistance to Nigeria and we will continue to do so, particularly on the intelligence side. I repeat that Nigeria is one of the richest countries in Africa and it spends 20% of its own budget on defence expenditure. In the normal course of events, it should be able to handle these things itself, but it cannot, and that is why we are providing assistance to enable it to do so. Drawing any parallel between what is going on in Syria and Iraq is not useful, if I may say so. This is something localised to Nigeria, and we want to prevent it from spreading across other parts of Africa.
I draw the House’s attention to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, where I have registered visits to Nigeria over the years. The Minister will be aware that the situation in Nigeria is a matter of great concern to the British people. It is also of concern to the tens of thousands of our constituents with strong family connections in Nigeria who want to know what the British Government are doing for their friends and family. As he pointed out, Nigeria has the capacity to deal with Boko Haram if it so chose. After all, it has the largest GDP on the continent and spends huge amounts of money on arms and weaponry, and it was very effective in relation to Ebola. Does he agree that people want to know what the British Government are doing to put maximum political pressure on the Nigerian Government to make them aware that people all over the world are watching them and want them to step up to this crisis?
We are more than stepping up to the crisis. I have said that we have one of the biggest bilateral aid budgets to Nigeria in the world—it is approximately £250 million a year—as well as the additional packages I have just announced. For the diaspora here, that is something of which we can be proud. The hon. Lady said that, given the wealth in Nigeria, Nigerians have the capacity to handle these things, but I disagree. I would say that they should have the capacity to deal with them, but the reality is that they do not. That is why a lot of UK support is going towards helping to build the capacity they need, with direct tactical training and advice to the Nigerian forces. I agree that they should have it, but currently I do not believe that they do.
Does the Minister agree that the answers to violent extremism lie in inclusion and reconciliation, and development and good governance—all of which the Department for International Development will continue to support in Nigeria, even after the cameras have moved on? Does he also agree that effective evaluation of Government-to-Government aid must accompany that work?
The first thing to point out is that no UK aid goes directly to the Government of Nigeria; it goes to other organisations within Nigeria. Yes, we should continue to help build. As I have said, I believe that we have to justify overseas aid because it is a contentious issue and people do not want to see it going to countries that squander it in some way. That is why we do not on the whole give Government-to-Government overseas aid. Given Nigeria’s huge wealth and its huge divisions of wealth, particularly between the north and south, we think there is a role—in the British interest, apart from anything else—to help build capacity and strengthen institutions in that country so that it can handle these issues itself. We will continue to do that, whether the cameras are on us or not.
I think the whole House appreciates what the Government have done to support the Government of Nigeria. In my view, we have the best counter-terrorism operation in the world. Has the Minister had a specific discussion with the Home Secretary about any counter-terrorism support we can give the Nigerian authorities? They may be very rich, but they lack our expertise.
The best thing we can do is what we have done, which is provide satellite imagery, training, and surveillance and intelligence assistance to the Nigerian authorities. In an earlier search, we deployed Sentinel and Tornado GR4 aircraft with surveillance capabilities. I have not had a discussion with the Home Secretary; these things have been handled to date by the Ministry of Defence, the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
The problem with trying to gain intelligence is that the only way to get really good intelligence is to put troops into the area where it can be gathered. The Nigerian Government already spend 20% of their gross national income on security. Will the Minister consider the possibility of putting on the ground some kind of coalition—under the United Nations and paid for, at least in part, by the Nigerian Government—so that effective troops could go into this area the size of Belgium to get decent intelligence and give some reassurance to the people there?
No British troops will be deployed in that role in Nigeria.
I should declare that I chair the all-party group on Nigeria. Although I do not want to play down the evils of Boko Haram, we know that the security forces and the Nigerian police have themselves caused problems while tackling its actions. I know that the Foreign Office has met the Metropolitan police’s Nigerian police forum—there are nearly 900 Nigerian-origin police officers in the Met. Will the Minister update the House on those discussions and on whether there is a role for the Metropolitan police and other police in the UK to help embed human rights policing in Nigeria?
There are human rights issues in not only the police in Nigeria, but in the armed forces there as well, and those very serious concerns have to be balanced against any assistance we provide. That applies to us, France and, of course, the United States. The hon. Lady’s question about any assistance that the Metropolitan police might be able to offer would be best answered by the Home Office, and I shall make sure that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary answers it fully.
As the appalling violence spreads, will the Minister outline what specific measures the UK has taken to help the Nigerian authorities protect civilians in the more isolated and rural areas? Given the targeting of so many women and girls, what steps are being taken to share our technical expertise in preventing and prosecuting sexual violence in conflict?
I will not rehearse again all the assistance that we have given to Nigeria, particularly since June. It is extraordinarily difficult to have a conversation at the moment about the prevention of sexual violence in conflict, to which my hon. Friend alludes. We could have it with the Nigerian military. However, given that across great swathes of the country vast numbers of girls are being abducted, made to convert from their religion and married off, it is a bit premature to start talking about the prevention of sexual violence. This is an endemic problem right across the struggle between the Nigerian authorities and Boko Haram.
It is a sobering thought that the deaths of so many hundreds and thousands of Nigerians last week warranted so little attention in this country. My right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (Mr Spellar) spoke of the need for solidarity across continents. In the discussions that will undoubtedly happen in the wake of yesterday’s moving show of solidarity across the channel, will the Minister see how the UK and France can work together to provide security assistance—particularly at the porous border between Nigeria and Niger, which enables Boko Haram to melt back after its atrocious crimes?
There have been a number of ministerial meetings around the world to look at the security situation in Nigeria and the UK will attend the next follow-up meeting on 20 January in Niamey, the capital of Niger. Co-ordinating the regional approach to Boko Haram’s violent campaign is vital, as the hon. Lady suggested. The terrorists do not respect national borders. The recent attacks on Cameroon have also been extremely bloody. The House should be in no doubt that this will be a long and difficult task, but we are totally committed to standing by Nigeria in its fight against terrorism.
As the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) said, the Nigerian state showed a strong response to Ebola, yet its response to terrorism in the north has been extraordinarily weak, with soldiers reportedly not even having bullets for their weapons. How does the Minister of State account for that enormous discrepancy in competence?
We would like to have seen a more robust attitude from the army and the military to what is going on in the northern states. However, it is an extraordinarily complicated question and it is extraordinarily difficult to find out what is going on. We read lots of stories about people changing sides and equipment being seized. The Nigerian army certainly needs better training to combat the incredibly violent terrorist organisation that is Boko Haram. It needs more assistance and training, but, as I have said, that cannot be done overnight.
The House owes a debt of thanks to the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) for ensuring that this question was asked today. Millions turned out across Europe yesterday, particularly in France, because of the atrocious killings in Paris; millions more need to turn out all over the world over the deaths of innocent people in Nigeria. Does the Minister not think that it is important for all Governments—and all Parliaments, for that matter—to send the message that a human life lost because of such atrocities is equally awful in France, Nigeria or anywhere else, and that every human life is a human life that should not be taken?
Hear, hear to that! We estimate that in 2014, at least 4,000 people were killed in Boko Haram attacks. The insurgency is growing and it is a growing humanitarian issue. The UN estimates that more than 1.5 million people have been displaced and at least 3 million affected by the insurgency The hon. Gentleman will have noted the recent words of the Catholic Archbishop of Jos in Nigeria, who claimed that the west is not doing enough to support Nigeria in tackling Boko Haram and drew an unfavourable comparison with the international community’s response to the Paris terrorist attacks. I think that the United Kingdom is showing the way through leadership, financial assistance and training. Perhaps other countries should look at themselves and see what more they can do to join in with the attack on terrorists.
Members of the Nigerian armed forces have complained that one reason why they cannot defeat Boko Haram militarily is that money destined for equipment has been siphoned off by senior officials. To go back to a question that my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) asked, what specific action is my right hon. Friend the Minister taking to tackle corruption in Nigeria?
There are allegations of equipment going missing and money not reaching the right place, and unfortunately I believe that all those allegations are founded on truth. That is why we have training teams in Nigeria—to try to build better institutional capacity for a better, more accountable and more transparent military, so that such things do not go on happening.
It has been reported that the French have an initiative whereby they are trying to create a multinational taskforce comprising Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad, but so far none of those countries has been prepared to provide the troops required. Is the United Kingdom supporting the French Government in that initiative, which must surely be the way forward?
I think I said earlier that the solution should be regional. Some of those countries, such as Niger and Cameroon, are on the borders of Nigeria and are already affected. However, we cannot offer help if the country we are offering it to does not want it, so we have to hear more from the Nigerian Government about how the international community can assist, particularly locally. Hopefully, a force such as the hon. Lady suggests can come from that.
No one can have a sensible discussion about Nigeria unless they consider its exponential population growth. In 1950 there were 33 million Nigerians, and there are now 175 million. The UN’s central estimate for 2100 is that there will be 730 million. One in five Africans is Nigerian, and half the population is under the age of 14. Against the background of that huge demographic instability, is the Minister satisfied that the Foreign Office understands the potential catastrophe for Africa of a successful Islamic insurgency in that country?
We are extremely concerned about the problem spreading—I have already said that—but let me look at the glass as being half-full, rather than half-empty as my hon. Friend sees it. Nigeria is the richest economy in Africa, and it has huge talent—we have only to look at the Nigerian diaspora in this country to recognise that. It is rich in resources, so there are huge opportunities for it. However, it has endemic problems, such as a disparity of wealth, including a north-south geographical disparity, that is far too great I believe that if an incoming Nigerian Government of whatever persuasion in February are determined to invite in the international community in a more open way to help rebuild a modern Nigeria, they can become a shining beacon on the African continent of what such a country can achieve.
I fear that many people listening to this exchange, perhaps including the 1 million or more British citizens of Nigerian origin, will see the Minister’s response as inadequate: first, because he has framed the problem as being smaller than they perceive it to be; secondly, because his response that we are at the behest of the Nigerian Government, rather than actively pushing them for change, is too weak; and thirdly, because he has not outlined one measure that will give the thousands of people who are running for their lives right now any hope for any change in the near future With the greatest respect to those who took part, our response to Boko Haram needs more than a hashtag and a photo opportunity. It needs an active response from the British Government, who believe in the freedom of the individual wherever they are in the world. May I ask the Minister to reflect on that and perhaps come back to the House with a more substantive response?
I simply do not recognise any of that. My hon. Friend talks about photo opportunities and Boko Haram, but there have not been any that I am aware of. We have one of the biggest bilateral aid budgets at £250 million, and we are doing a lot on education and safety in schools in Nigeria. However, Nigeria is a rich country and it needs to be taught to do those things itself. I believe that the UK is at the forefront of trying to assist Nigeria, but we cannot impose assistance if it is not asked for. There is something called sovereignty, which may have escaped my hon. Friend’s notice, and the Nigerian Government are perhaps, as I have said, too slow to ask the international community for help. The United Kingdom should be proud of its record at the forefront of attempts to right some horrible wrongs going on in that country.
With this it will be convenient to discuss schedule 1.
It is a great pleasure to serve under your Chairmanship, Mrs Riordan, and to debate the Bill Clause 1 amends section 55 of the Finance Act 2003 to change the basis of calculation for stamp duty land tax on residential property transactions, and provide a new table of rates and thresholds that apply to those transactions. It also introduces the schedule that makes the consequential changes to SDLT, and to the method of calculating the amount of tax due when certain reliefs are claimed. As right hon. and hon. Members will be aware, the measure came into force through a resolution under the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968 for transactions whose effective date—usually the date on which the purchase contract is completed—is on or after 4 December 2014 Let me briefly remind the House why we have introduced this important and comprehensive reform to SDLT on residential property. In essence, the stamp duty system on residential property as it previously stood was flawed and widely criticised, and it created an enormous hike in taxes at certain thresholds. Someone paying £250,000 for a house would pay £2,500 in stamp duty, but if they paid £250,001, they would pay £7,500—three times as much. Inevitably that created peaks in transactions at those thresholds and dead zones above them, and that big distortion affected a significant number of properties. We have got rid of the inefficient and distorted old system and replaced it with a fairer new system that cuts SDLT for 98% of those who pay it. No buyer of a property under £937,500 will pay more SDLT than they would have done before 4 December. We have provided a calculator on the HMRC website so that people can work out how much tax they will pay, and I am happy to confirm that to date it has been used more than 1.25 million times.
As the Minister points out, this change will result in savings for the vast majority of people purchasing a home. What assessment has he made of the impact on house price inflation as a result of the changes?
There may be a slight impact on house prices, but we must put that in context. Many factors determine house prices, and on the evidence before us our view is that the changes will not have a significant impact on the overall level of house prices. They are likely to have a bigger impact on removing some of those dead zones and distortions in the housing market, which is beneficial in creating a more efficient and effective housing market The reform has been welcomed by right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House and by outside bodies, including the Council of Mortgage Lenders, the Institute of Directors and the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Jonathan Isaby, from the TaxPayers Alliance, called it: “an early Christmas present for young people looking to get on the housing ladder.”
Will the Minister comment on the impact on revenue? He may collect more revenue where rates have been cut, but lose revenue at the top end.
That is not our assessment. My right hon. Friend is an eloquent and distinguished advocate of the argument that it is possible to raise more revenue by reducing rates, and he has over many years demonstrated cases where that would apply. I do not believe that we will quite see that dynamic effect to that extent in this case. I think more revenue, and certainly a greater proportion of it, will be raised from properties above £2 million. Undoubtedly, we will see a few more transactions, which will mean additional revenue that would otherwise not come in. On balance, we will see a reduction overall in revenue across the SDLT regime, but we believe that that is none the less the right thing to do to ensure that we deliver a reform that benefits the vast majority of people who pay SDLT Under the rules as they applied on 3 December, the amount of tax payable was a percentage of the chargeable consideration—the purchase price—for the acquisition of the property. Different scales of percentages, table A and table B, applied respectively to transactions consisting wholly of residential property and to transactions that consisted of, or included, non-residential property. The clause substitutes a new table A, setting out the new tax rates and bands that apply to a transaction consisting wholly of residential property. It also amends the calculation rules for those transactions, so that each rate of tax applies only to that part of the consideration that falls within the relevant band. The total tax due is then the sum of the amounts of each band.
I stress again how welcome the change has been for residents in St Albans, particularly at the lower end of the market where there have been big savings. Has consideration been given to expanding the scheme to commercial properties, and not just keeping it to wholly or partly residential properties?
All these matters are kept under review. My hon. Friend has been a consistent and doughty campaigner for reform in this area. If we had exactly the same system in place for commercial property, with the same thresholds and so on, we would be imposing a much greater burden on commercial property transactions, because by their nature they tend to be of a more substantial size. There is a higher level of consideration in place than for most residential property transactions. The argument for reform for residential property was particularly strong, which is why we took these steps. Consideration of whether there is a strong and persuasive case for reform for commercial property is perhaps a matter for another day.
I join my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) in welcoming the provisions, which will provide a great deal of assistance to the housing market The Minister knows that for some time I have been pursuing stamp duty land tax for all those affected by the notorious HS2 infrastructure project. Is the Minister willing, while he is looking into this matter, to review those provisions? The SDLT relief applies to only a very narrow number of properties. To keep the property market operating normally, it should be possible to extend it to properties up and down the line that are being so adversely affected by the project.
I am grateful for that observation from my right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour. I know well how the issue of SDLT in general must be relevant to many of her constituents. On the specific point about HS2, the Government remain to be persuaded that SDLT is necessarily the right measure for addressing the concerns that she identifies and on which she provides an articulate voice in defence of her constituents and others affected by the project. We remain to be convinced, but I know that she will continue to make her argument, and we will continue to look at it carefully. As I said, however, we are not yet convinced that reform of SDLT, or an exemption or relief, would necessarily provide the right support for those with properties affected by HS2 Clause 1 substitutes a new table A setting out the new tax rates and bands applying to a transaction consisting wholly of residential property and amends the calculation rules for these transactions so that each rate of tax applies only to that part of the consideration that falls within the relevant band. The total tax due is then the sum of the amounts for each band. The new calculation rules extend to linked transactions—those that form part of a scheme arrangement or a series of transactions between the same buyer and seller. In this case, SDLT applies to the aggregate consideration for all the linked transactions The new rules do not apply to transactions to which table B in section 55 of the 2003 Act applies—transactions or linked transactions consisting wholly of non-residential or a mixture of residential and non-residential property. The clause introduces the schedule, which makes consequential amendments to SDLT legislation to take account of the reform. The main changes are to the method of calculating the tax due under certain SDLT reliefs. The first relief is for statutory leasehold enfranchisement, where leaseholders of flats club together to buy the freehold of their block. This relief formerly operated by setting the rate of SDLT according to the amount paid for the freehold, divided by the number of qualifying flats. Under the new arrangements, first we divide the amount paid for the freehold by the number of qualifying flats and calculate the amount of tax due on that sum. We then multiply that amount of tax by the number of qualifying flats in order to arrive at the total tax due. Secondly, a similar change is made to relief for purchasers of multiple crofts from a landlord by a crofting community body under the crofting community right to buy scheme. This relief only applies in Scotland so will only be relevant until 1 April 2015, when SDLT in Scotland is replaced by the devolved land and buildings transaction tax Finally, a similar change is made to multiple dwellings relief, which applies to purchasers of more than one dwelling in either a single transaction or linked transactions. This relief was previously subject to a minimum rate of 1%. Under the new rules, the amount will be equivalent to 1% of the chargeable consideration given for the dwellings, which in practice gives the same result Right hon. and hon. Members raised several important points on Second Reading. I would like to take this opportunity to explain in a little more detail the Government’s position on some of those issues. First, it has been asked why we have chosen not to apply the new rules to non-residential—commercial and agricultural —property as well as to residential property. That point was raised just now by my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main). As I said, the market for non-residential property is very different from the market for residential property. For example, non-residential properties have a higher value on average and many are held on market rent leases granted for a small or no premium. At this time, the Government do not feel it appropriate to make changes to non-residential SDLT, although all taxes are kept under review as part of the policy making process. Any change to non-residential SDLT would have to be considered very carefully Some concern has been expressed about the possibility of purchasers avoiding SDLT by designating the property as either residential or non-residential in order to obtain a more favourable result. What constitutes residential property is set out in the legislation. Property can be either residential or non-residential, which is a matter of fact. There is no option, as it is has been suggested there is, to flip property between one and the other. I can reassure the Committee on that Finally, it has been suggested that the highest rate of tax payable under the new rules might reduce the disincentive to envelope residential property provided by the 15% higher rate SDLT charge, which applies to purchasers of residential property by a company or other non-natural person. The highest marginal rate of SDLT for the purchase of residential properties above £1.5 million is now 12%. However, SDLT is charged at 15% on the whole value for residential properties bought through corporate envelopes for more than £500,000. We are not proposing to make any changes to the 15% higher rate charge. However, in the autumn statement, we announced that the annual charges of the annual tax on envelope dwellings—ATED—would increase by 50% above inflation for the chargeable period 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2016 in order further to discourage the use of enveloping. The Government keep all taxes under review where individuals continue to hold property within corporate wrappers. They should be prepared to pay their fair share of tax These reforms to SDLT will remove the previous economic distortions in the system, benefiting the housing market and improving the fairness and efficiency of the tax system. They will give another boost to people looking to fulfil their aspirations of owning the place they live in and will make a real tangible and positive difference to the lives of people up and down the country.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Riordan I thank the Minister for his introduction to clause 1 and schedule 1. Let me confirm from the outset that we support these measures, as we did in the previous two debates on the Bill. We will do so again today. As I say, we have already had a couple of debates and it is a small Bill, so many of the issues have been debated thoroughly before. I am grateful to the Minister for dealing with some of the questions that arose on Second Reading. I have just a couple of points on which I would like to press him, and I will be grateful to hear his response in his summing up First, can the Minister provide us with an update on HMRC’s handling of the queries that arose when these measures were announced? Can he confirm the number of queries that HMRC had to deal with, clarify the nature of the queries that the public or their advisers raised and confirm whether all outstanding queries have been dealt with Secondly, let me press the Minister a little further on the revenue. I put some points to him on Second Reading about the expectations of revenue, but that matter has not been fully covered by the responses we have received. The Minister knows that these measures are expected to cost £395 million in 2014-15, rising to £760 million in 2015-16. Research by Lonres and Dataloft has found that more homes changed hands on the day of the autumn statement than on any other day in the past decade, so one in six of all homes sold in London’s most expensive areas in the last three months of the year changed hands on 3 December. The research by Lonres and Dataloft estimates that, as a result, buyers saved £9.4 million in taxes. Is that in the order of the behavioural change that was expected, as modelled by the Treasury in its costings? I am sure the Minister will repeat that they have been independently certified by the Office for Budget Responsibility I should like to know whether the number of transactions and the cost in Exchequer revenue after the announcement of the measures in the autumn statement are along the lines that the Government were expecting. As the Minister knows, the Office for Budget Responsibility, which applies a rating system to the “certainty” of costings, has said that it considers the costings to be medium to high risk. How confident is he about the numbers, and about the extent of the behavioural change that is expected?
I am delighted that the hon. Lady and her party welcome measures that are intended to help people who aspire to own their homes. How does she think this policy contrasts with a policy of an annual property tax which may force some people out of their homes if they have to pay it?
I think that the Bill shows that the Government have accepted that properties with a very high value are under-taxed. The hon. Gentleman alluded to our proposals for a mansion tax, which would help to pay for our NHS commitments. Our measures will not force anyone out of their homes, because, as we have pointed out, a deferment option will be available to basic-rate payers. I am afraid that that was a bit of party political scaremongering on the hon. Gentleman’s part.
The hon. Lady mentioned the mansion tax. My constituents fear that the threshold might start at, say, £2 million, and then drop very quickly to levels applying to properties that ordinary hard-working taxpayers are aspiring to own. The Labour party has done that in the past. Will the hon. Lady tell us what would be the threshold for her so-called mansion tax?
I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has given me an opportunity to tell his constituents that their fears are entirely misplaced. Anyone who publishes literature suggesting that the threshold will lower is doing nothing more than scaremongering. As we have made clear, the number of high-value properties will not increase, because the indexation of the threshold will be in line with the average rise in value for the highest-value properties. That means that the number of properties caught by the tax is not expected to increase. I am, as I say, delighted that the hon. Gentleman has given me an opportunity to reassure people who are currently living in properties that are below the £2 million threshold that they will not be caught by our proposed mansion tax The Minister explained that the changes in the Bill would not apply to commercial property, and I am grateful for his clarification of the Government’s thinking. However, I should like to press him a little further on a couple of matters. First, one of the reasons why the Government were so keen to proceed with stamp duty changes applying to residential property was their anxiety about labour mobility. Has any thought been given to the impact on business mobility of maintaining the slab structure for commercial property transactions Secondly, changes will come into effect later this year in Scotland, where stamp duty is now a devolved matter. The Scottish Government will introduce a land and buildings transaction tax, which will apply to both residential and commercial properties. Have the Minister and the Treasury considered whether there is a risk that England might be disadvantaged, particularly in relation to business mobility? Does the Minister agree that the differential in the treatment of commercial property in Scotland and England is not ideal, and is the Treasury taking account of that aspect of the changes Finally, I want to raise a point that has been highlighted by the Chartered Institute of Taxation. It noted the different treatment given to definitions of residential dwellings, and observed that clause 1(3) inserts new subsection 1B: “If the relevant land consists entirely of residential property and the transaction is not one of a number of linked transactions, the amount of tax chargeable is”, and so on. The CIOT notes that various amendments to the tax system, including the introduction of the annual tax on enveloped dwellings, or ATED, have led to subtly different definitions of “residential” property for the purposes of SDLT. In schedule 29A to the Finance Act 2004 there is different treatment for investment-regulated pensions and potentially for capital gains tax, capital gains tax-related ATED, business investment relief for non-domiciliaries, capital allowances and VAT The Minister and I have had a number of debates when discussing other Bills about the different treatment given to particular phrases in employment law as against taxation law. There seems to be a nuanced difference in the way residential dwellings will be identified in these different elements of different taxes. I am concerned that inconsistencies are creeping in, which lead to complexity and create more work for lawyers. They will welcome that, of course, but ordinary taxpayers will not. It would be helpful if the Minister could give us his comments on those differences in definitions and say whether the Government are considering clarifying that.
I will keep my remarks brief. I have spoken in each previous debate and do not have a great deal to add. My party very much supports these measures and, as I have said in previous debates, dealing with the slab system that we had and the consequent cliff edges and removing the incentives for strange behaviour and sub-optimal activity has to be the right thing to do I have only one point to add, which partly follows on from the remarks of the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) and the assessments of the Office for Budget Responsibility. I would have thought that the taxation of a fixed asset transfer like this, with the certainty that that implies, would mean this is a very low risk method of changing a tax system, but if the OBR regards it as medium to high risk, and if the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting there may be more complex effects that I have not understood, I would like the Minister to clarify whether I am missing something. I would have thought this was a very straightforward way of raising taxes in a highly certain manner—and certainty is, of course, one of the hallmarks of a good tax system I will not detain the Committee any longer. Our party supports these measures. They affect 98% of the population favourably, and, broadly speaking, the other 2% are millionaires, and therefore those with the broadest shoulders. I am pleased that through this Bill this Government have found yet another way to help deliver a small amount of redistribution, with the pain felt by those with the broadest shoulders. The support for it is universal in my constituency, as I think everybody will be a winner. Overall, these measures will lead to a more liquid housing market and therefore a stronger economy, and they also make the system fairer.
First, may I remind the Committee that, as listed in the register of Members’ interests, I provide advice to an industrial company and an investment company The Minister has produced what is on the whole an excellent scheme. I support most of it and was one of those, along with my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main), who was lobbying hard to get this major reform through. I congratulate the Minister and the Chancellor on dealing with the problems that the slab system created. The peaks and the dead areas were damaging to the property market and made it difficult for some people to buy or sell properties in certain price ranges. The system probably distorted pricing as well, to the benefit of some people and the detriment of others. It is therefore good that we have smoothed it out and introduced a more sensible progression up to £937,000, where most of the transactions lie. The new arrangements will represent a fairer, lower-cost system for practically all transactions, which is wholly admirable I want to tease out a little more information about the rather pessimistic forecasts of how much revenue will be lost up to the end of this decade. It is clear from the figures that cutting the higher rate of income tax has produced considerable extra revenue, as it was bound to do, given that the previous rate deterred people or meant that they did not come here at all. It is also clear from the figures that the much higher rate of capital gains tax has been very damaging to revenues, which are still miles below where they were prior to the crash. This is a difficult one to call, and I am not saying to the Minister that the proposals would either damage or increase revenues. I am merely suggesting that the Treasury’s forecasts for that lengthy time period could prove to be inaccurate, and that it would be nice to unpack those forecasts in order to understand what the Treasury thinks is going on The problem with trying to forecast the revenues at this juncture is that, on the one hand, we have seen a slowing of the mortgage market in recent months through regulatory intervention, and we would therefore expect fewer transactions because the regulators and the banks are now being much tougher about mortgages. On the other hand, however, we have Government intervention trying to mitigate that effect through the very successful and helpful Help to Buy scheme, which I believe to be necessary. It is certainly helping people in my area to buy their own home. However, the net result of these arrangements seems to be a dampening of transactions, and we must bear that in mind when trying to judge the impact of those policies and to assess the impact of the stamp duty change. All things being equal, we should expect to see an increase in the volume of transactions under the £937,000 level because buying such homes will be a bit cheaper, and in certain price bands we will see activity occurring that would not have occurred at all because of the slab effect.
Does my right hon. Friend share the optimism that I feel, having talked to small businesses in my community, that there could be a knock-on effect from people having a bit more money to carry out home improvements? Those businesses have suffered in recent years because people have not been investing in their own homes.
Yes, indeed there could This is difficult to predict, because all these things need to be modelled. The level of the reduction in some cases is quite large, and it will be difficult to make up for all that lost revenue through increased transactions. That is why it would be interesting to probe the Treasury a little more on its forecasts. I expect it thinks that there will be quite a big revenue gain where the rate has gone up, but that effect might not prove to be as strong as it hopes, because there will definitely be a disincentive effect at the top end following the introduction of the very top rate for the privileged few who can afford those types of properties. Those people are often in the fortunate position of owning more than one property, and of being able to decide whether they wish to buy property in this country or elsewhere. There will be some kind of disincentive effect, and we need to look at relative taxes and relative prices in relation to London and other centres It would therefore help if we knew a little more about the Treasury’s numbers at this stage of the debate, so that when we review this policy in a year or two, we can see what was right and what was wrong. For example, does the Treasury think that there will be extra revenue from the higher rate? That has clearly not been the case in relation to the two big taxes that I have mentioned. Does it envisage a loss of revenue despite the effect on transactions at the lower level? It would be good to have more detail, so that we can have some benchmarks as we try to assess the financial impact of the policy.
I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions to this short debate on clause 1, and I shall attempt to address as many as possible of their questions. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) raised a number of points about the impact of the changes. First, let me deal with her question about HMRC’s handling of inquiries. I do not have all the detailed numbers available, but, as I mentioned earlier, about 1.25 million hits have been made on the HMRC calculator, which is a substantial number. There have been relatively few queries made over the telephone or in writing. In practice the great majority of those can be dealt with by HMRC’s stamp tax helpline or by reference to ongoing guidance. More complex queries are escalated to HMRC’s technical specialists. As I say, I cannot give the numbers but I do know that the view within HMRC is that this process has gone smoothly, including in respect of the helpline provided on the day of the autumn statement, when, as has been pointed out, a number of transactions were accelerated in order to benefit from the transitional regime. All that has gone smoothly and I am not aware of any particular difficulties in that area.
I thank the Minister for giving way and for his very helpful clarification. It is worth putting it on the record that the opportunities for avoidance of this particular tax, such as time shifting, charging different expenses and reclassifying income or capital gains, are simply not there against a fixed asset of this nature. Although I accept his clarification around those behavioural effects, it is worth saying that the public will not have any opportunities to avoid this tax in the way that they might avoid other taxes.
My hon. Friend brings me to an important point, which is that, over the course of this Parliament, the Government have been determined to address stamp duty land tax avoidance. It was a problem in the tax system. One certainly heard both anecdotally, and in the concerns of HMRC, of transactions being made to envelope properties and so on, which is why in 2012 we announced the introduction of the annual tax on envelope dwellings. It is why, over the course of this Parliament, we have taken a number of actions to deal with that avoidance. Had we not done so, it would have been difficult to make the reforms that we have in front of us today in an affordable way, as we would not effectively have been able to raise additional revenue from the top end of the housing market to counteract the reductions in revenue that will occur in the rest of the market Increasing rates would not have led to much, if anything, by way of additional revenue, because we would have found that it would have increased avoidance activity and we would not have got in the money that we would otherwise have done. As a consequence, the costs would have been unaffordable.
Are there not two obvious ways in which certain groups of people in the higher value properties decide not to pay this tax? The first is people who are in a two to three-bedroom flat or a small house in a very expensive part of the UK, normally London, may decide that they do not want to swap properties or downsize or upsize because it is too expensive. The other is that the very rich people at the top end coming in from abroad may decide that this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back on the transaction. Some people might welcome that but it could still be a behavioural impact of this particular provision.
My right hon. Friend is right to say that there will be behavioural responses. Some people might be dissuaded from entering into a transaction and decide to remain in the same place as a consequence of a higher level of duty. There may also be an impact on the attractiveness of the UK as a place in which to locate, but as he is well aware, that is but one factor among very many. I can think of greater threats to the attractiveness of the UK. I should not get drawn into what those threats may be, but they certainly exist. I am tempted to turn to the Opposition’s mansion tax, but I dare say you would haul me into line, Mrs Riordan, so let me not be drawn into what others might say. There is much I want to say, but it would probably not be in order I hope that my remarks are helpful to the Committee, and that the clause will stand part of the Bill Question put and agreed to. Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 2 Citation, commencement and transitional provision etc Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The clause provides for the new method of calculating SDLT introduced by the Bill to apply to transactions where the effective date is on or after 4 December 2014. It introduces transitional provisions that apply in cases where contracts were exchanged before 4 December, but the contract was completed on or after that date. Under the rules, a purchaser may elect that the new rules do not apply. The election is made in a land transaction return, and must comply with any requirements specified by the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs I should clarify a remark made by my hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary on Second Reading in response to a question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight). The requirements are set out in the HMRC guidance published on 3 December, and simply serve to explain how the taxpayer should make an election; they do not restrict the application of the legislation in any way An election for the transitional provisions to apply is made simply by self-assessing the relevant amount of tax due in the return, or by amending the return, which may be done within 13 months of the effective date of the transaction. The transitional provisions are designed to protect purchasers who, before the changes were announced, entered into a binding contract in the expectation that the old rules would apply. In practice, more than 98% of purchasers will benefit from, or at least be no worse off under, the new rules. The transitional rules will ensure that those who exchanged contracts before 4 December are not disadvantaged as a result of the changes introduced by the Bill Question put and agreed to. Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Schedule agreed to. The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair. Bill reported, without amendment. Third Reading
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time Let me start by thanking all right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed to the scrutiny of the Bill and who have done so in a constructive and positive manner. There has been considerable consensus and agreement on its contents and I welcome the support received from right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House The Bill makes important and comprehensive reforms to stamp duty land tax on residential property. The move from a slab to a slice system will cut SDLT for 98% of people who pay the tax—99% in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and 91% in London. It will reduce distortions in the housing market and will be of particular benefit to first-time buyers and those making the first few moves up the housing ladder. It will ensure that nobody paying up to £937,500 for their home will pay any more SDLT than they would have done under the rules as they applied on 3 December last year The aspiration to own the place one lives in has been the driver of Britain’s prosperity for centuries. SDLT is an important source of Government revenue, raising £6.5 billion in 2013-14 to pay for the essential services Government provide and support, but as a tax it must be imposed fairly and reasonably, and to put it quite simply, it has not been until now. These reforms will boost people’s aspirations and, critically, ensure that SDLT is paid in a fair and applicable manner that minimises avoidance. They are part of a much wider suite of Government measures designed to get Britain building the homes it needs. Almost 217,000 affordable homes have been delivered since April 2010 and between 2011 and 2015 some £19.5 billion of public and private investment is going into affordable homes, putting us on track for the highest rate of affordable house building for at least two decades. A family buying a Help to Buy property at the average cost of £185,000 will be £650 better off as a result of the reforms—a significant sum, especially at a time when cash is most likely to be tight I welcome the efficient and effective debate we have had so far so. The measures will make a tangible and positive difference to the lives of people up and down the country, which has been recognised and welcomed by Members on both sides of the House. I hope that Members will see fit to read this Bill a third time and to pass it.
I thank the Minister and echo his thanks to Members from both sides of the House for the efficient debates we have had on the Bill, which, as he noted, has had support from across the House. He is right that the slab structure of SDLT was very unpopular. It was subject to regular criticism, and Ministers and shadow Ministers have long been lobbied for change. The Institute for Fiscal Studies described it as “one of the worst designed and most damaging of all taxes”, so it is good to see some change, especially given the huge increase in house prices that led to the burden of stamp duty rising significantly I am grateful to the Minister for answering the questions I put to him, particularly those on dealing with the differential treatment of commercial and residential property. Sometimes the way in which the Minister says, “We keep all taxes under review,” hints that some change might be in the offing or that no change will happen at all on his watch. I could not work out which applied today, so at the very least I am sure he has made his officials very happy I welcome the measure. Notwithstanding the figures on house building that the Minister gave at the tail-end of his speech, I place on record our continuing concern that the Government have not done enough to deal with the biggest housing crisis for a generation. We need a much more active approach to housing supply, rather than dealing with demand-side issues, but those are debates for another day. The changes to stamp duty are welcome and we are happy to support them.
I, too, support the Bill because it is a move in the right direction. I strongly welcome the decision to get rid of the slab structure, against which I and others have lobbied strenuously for some time, and it is good that the Government have listened However, given that many of us believe in the virtues of home ownership, it is a pity that we still need a tax on home ownership at all. I welcome the fact that it is now lower, but I do not welcome the fact that we still seem to need a tax on home ownership. It is a great pity when we have to tax good aspirations in our community. Many of my constituents are now fortunate enough to own their own home, but there is a new generation who wish to do so, and this is still a high tax on them which they have to find a way of financing I hope that in future Budgets, as the long-term economic plan produces its magic and as we get rid of the deficit, we can return to this tax. The rates are still very high and it is a tax on one of the most essential things that families need. They need shelter; they need housing. The preferred type of housing for most people in our country is to own their own home, and this is still quite a large tax on home ownership. I know that the Minister and his colleagues are working away to ease the burden wherever they can in the straitened financial times we live in, and I know that they have a number of schemes to promote home ownership I urge my hon. Friend to do everything he can to promote home ownership because owning that first home makes such a difference to people’s lives. It gives them something to be proud of and it means that they can look forward to an old age not facing a rent bill, when they have at last repaid the mortgage and can truly call their home their own. It is very galling for them if a big chunk of the mortgage is paying Government taxes, so I welcome this small step to make home ownership a bit more affordable Question put and agreed to. Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed. Consumer Rights Bill (Programme) (No. 3) Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)), That the following provisions shall apply to the Consumer Rights Bill for the purpose of supplementing the Order of 28 January 2014 in the last Session of Parliament (Consumer Rights Bill (Programme)), as varied by the Order of 13 May 2014 in that Session (Consumer Rights Bill (Programme) (No. 2)): Consideration of Lords Amendments (1) Proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion three hours after their commencement at today’s sitting (2) The Lords Amendments shall be considered in the following order: Nos. 12, 1 to 11 and 13 to 78 Subsequent stages (3) Any further Message from the Lords may be considered forthwith without any Question being put (4) The proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.—(Jo Swinson.) Question agreed to.
I must draw the House’s attention to the fact that financial privilege is involved in Lords amendments 24, 38, 39 and 77. If the House agrees to any of these amendments, I shall ensure that an appropriate entry is made in the Journal New Clause Secondary Ticketing Platforms
I beg to move amendment (a) to Lords amendment 12.
With this it will be convenient to consider the Government motion to disagree with the Lords amendment.
Amendment (a) was tabled by the hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) and me. It gives me great pleasure to speak in support of the new clause as inserted in the other place; it follows on from new clauses 18 to 21, which I, the hon. Member for Hove and others tried to add to the Bill on Report. Those new clauses were based on the report produced by the all-party group on ticket abuse after our inquiry into the secondary market and what needs to change within it It is worth pointing out that all these interventions—the all-party group’s report, the new clauses in the Commons and, latterly, the new clause passed in the other place—have been completely cross-party. I would like to place on the record my thanks not only to Opposition Members, but to other hon. Members—in particular the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) and the hon. Members for Hove, for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams), for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) and for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay). They have been big supporters in the all-party group and in working on the Bill during its passage through the House In the other place, the push was very ably led by former sports Minister Lord Moynihan and by Baroness Heyhoe Flint, both Conservative Members, as well as by Lord Clement-Jones, the Minister’s party colleague, who has been one of Parliament’s foremost campaigners for our live music sector. It was also strongly supported by my noble Friend Lord Stevenson and by many others from all parties and none, including Baroness Grey-Thompson. It is safe to say that the Minister’s counterpart in the Lords had a pretty rough time in those debates. If the Government had any doubt in their mind that they were on the wrong side of the argument when they rejected these amendments in the Commons last summer, their defeat in the Lords should have confirmed that for them.
Will the hon. Lady give way?
I certainly will not give way to the hon. Gentleman at this stage. I am sure that he plans to speak, and we have debated this so often that I cannot think that there is anything he would add to the argument today that I have not heard already. He will get his chance and I will listen to him then.
This is supposed to be a debate.
The hon. Gentleman can debate when his time comes The concession that the Minister offered in this place—tweaking the guidance to a set of regulations to make it clear that secondary ticketing platforms should abide by them—has proved completely ineffective. Those regulations have been in place for more than six months, and the secondary websites have completely ignored them. It is time for real action, and that is what proposed new clause 33 would provide What we are asking for is not exactly radical. Any consumer in any market would expect to know who they were buying from, exactly what they were buying and whether a product came with a risk that they would not be able or allowed to enjoy it.
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Not at the moment What we are asking for would not put secondary ticketing platforms out of business; if anything, it would increase consumer confidence in them. What we are asking for would not drive legitimate resale underground, but it might drive some illegitimate resale underground. Why would the Government and this House want to take decisions that benefited illegitimate enterprise? If that part of touting is driven underground, then it will be nowhere near as successful as it is now, given that it is able to hide behind the legitimate veneer of platforms that are supposed to be about fans selling unusable tickets to fellow fans. What we are asking for would not leave consumers who bought a ticket they can no longer use out of pocket if the event organiser does not allow refunds; there are sometimes very good reasons for many of them not doing so.
rose—
Let me make this extra clear, because that might clear up some of the points that Members are trying to make—if not, I will let them intervene. We have tabled a small amendment to the clause that the Government could easily adopt today to allay their own fears. This is simply about transparency—that is all. Who could argue against creating a more transparent marketplace other than those who benefit from the murkiness and muddiness that we have at the moment?
I want to clarify the hon. Lady’s point about the event organiser’s right to cancel tickets. Under her amendment, in which conditions could the event organiser cancel a ticket if it had been resold?
If the ticket clearly states that it is not for resale—that it is non-transferable—then that is part of the terms and conditions that it was sold under. In the new model that we are hoping to create, with a new level of transparency, there would be less need for that The reason event holders put it on their tickets is to try to do something about the murkiness and market failure that we see at the moment with the resale of tickets on the secondary market. Under our proposal, that need would not be there because there would be full transparency and people would be able to see who was reselling the tickets. There would be fewer abuses of the system so there would be less need to put “Not for resale” on tickets, because genuine fans would be able to resell to other genuine fans tickets for events they could no longer attend.
Does the hon. Lady agree with me and the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, who has said that, when a person wants to sell something, terms and conditions should be respected?
I agree that people should abide by terms and conditions. The fact that the lack of transparency allows platforms to resell against terms and conditions is certainly not in the interest of consumers If the Minister does not want to take my word or that of Members in the other place on why we need transparency, perhaps she will listen to those who are actually involved in our crucial cultural and live sector. As she may know, more than 85 prominent organisations and individuals signed a letter to The Independent on Sunday yesterday calling on her and the Government to adopt the proposal. Those signatories included UK Music, the voice of the live and recorded industry; the Sport and Recreation Alliance, the voice of sporting governing bodies in the UK; the Rugby Football Union; the Lawn Tennis Association; and the England and Wales Cricket Board. They have all gone to great lengths over the years to try to ensure that tickets reach the hands of grass-roots fans.
May I congratulate the hon. Lady on the diligent way in which she has approached the issue and her determination to get justice for music fans, which is what we are talking about? UK Music’s music tourism forum found that live music generates £2.2 billion. Surely we have a right to expect that live music fans are protected and not ripped off.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman and thank him for that valuable contribution. He is not only a creator of music—he remains one to this day—but a huge supporter of the music industry Other signatories to the letter included probably the world’s most pre-eminent promoter, Harvey Goldsmith CBE; the operators of west end and regional theatres; a host of individual music managers who look after some the country’s leading performers, including Iron Maiden, Muse, Arctic Monkeys and even One Direction; and most other industry umbrella bodies, which represent countless businesses contributing to the vitality of our creative sector, such as the Association of Independent Festivals and the Event Services Association All those bodies, and more, joined together to call on the Government to make one simple change. Would the Government rather listen to that collective call from the live event sector: the people whose hard work, talents and investment create the demand that the touts exploit? Alternatively, would they rather listen to the four companies that have been lobbying so intensely—I have with me reams of letters they have been sending out lately—against opening themselves and their relationships with big-time touts up to scrutiny?
May I also praise my hon. Friend’s leadership? She has done a cracking job raising this important point. Does she agree that we need to get at the touts? Those internet spivs are ripping off fans across the country, rigging the market and preventing real fans from going to gigs by exploiting them through the hugely overpriced tickets that they have harvested.
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. If the Minister does not want to listen to him, me, Members from both Houses or the creative industry, she should at the very least listen to the police The “Ticket Crime: Problem Profile” report by Operation Podium has, of course, been quoted in this place before—several times by me, in fact—but it bears repeating. This was, after all, the unit that was set up to tackle organised crime affecting the Olympic games, and it spent about seven years looking at the workings of the ticket market. In particular, it looked at the major ticket touts—the very people my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) spoke about—because of the links that many of them have to serious and organised crime and money laundering, and because it was likely that the same people would try to tout Olympic tickets After spending so much time looking at the ecosystem that exists behind the veneer of legitimacy provided by the secondary platforms, the Metropolitan police’s Operation Podium unit produced a final report on ticket crime in February 2013. It found that: “Due to the surreptitious way that large numbers of ‘primary’ tickets are diverted straight onto secondary ticket websites, members of the public have little choice but to try to source tickets on the secondary ticket market.” It concluded that: “The lack of legislation outlawing the unauthorised resale of tickets and the absence of regulation of the primary and secondary ticket market encourages unscrupulous practices, a lack of transparency and fraud.” It made the following recommendations: “Consideration must be given to introducing legislation to govern the unauthorised sale of event tickets. The lack of legislation in this area enables fraud and places the public at risk of economic crime The primary and secondary ticket market require regulation to ensure transparency, allowing consumers to understand who they are buying from and affording them better protection from ticket crime.” Will the Government listen to the police, who have nothing to gain either way, or to those who have gained and continue to gain from the lack of the regulation that the police say is needed One public agency that might have something to gain from the change is Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. One effect of the new clause proposed in Lords amendment 12 is that it would be possible to see which individuals were reselling tickets as a commercial enterprise, and therefore who should be paying tax on the sales made through the websites At the moment, when somebody buys a ticket on such platforms, they are led to believe that they are buying from another fan, and the only VAT that they see on the final statement is the VAT on the service charge levied by the platform. If they are, in fact, buying from a third party business—or even from the event organiser, or, as in some cases, the performers themselves—VAT should be paid on the ticket price, as well as, obviously, on its profits as a company. That point was raised last weekend with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in an e-mail from a live music agent that I was copied into. They made the point that PRS for Music, which collects royalties to distribute to artists and music publishers, is also being deprived of its lawful entitlement I wrote to HMRC following the “Dispatches” documentary, “The Great Ticket Scandal”, in 2012; I have also referred to that in the House countless times. That programme clearly showed how tickets were being bought up and resold in huge quantities—indeed, channelled directly but surreptitiously to the secondary market by promoters and managers. The response that I received from HMRC was that no investigation could be made unless there were specific questions about specific individuals or businesses. Of course, we did not have those then and we do not have them now, precisely because we cannot see which individuals or businesses are selling the tickets and in what quantities. If that transparency is brought into the market through the proposed new clause, perhaps the Treasury’s coffers will see a much bigger slice of a market that is estimated to be worth between £1 billion and £1.5 billion a year—that is the secondary market alone and does not include the primary market The same principle could be applied to the problem of botnets, which GET ME IN! has been saying is the biggest problem and should be the focus of any legislation. There is certainly a case for keeping the law on the misuse of computers under review. The hon. Member for Hove and I have met the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), who has responsibility for organised crime, to discuss this matter It is welcome that primary ticketing companies, such as GET ME IN!’s parent company Ticketmaster, invest in their own software to try to stop people scooping up large quantities of tickets automatically. However, let us be clear that touts use botnets only because they know that they can shift all the tickets they manage to buy from the primary market through the secondary market with the benefit of complete anonymity, with no questions asked by the platforms about how they got them. The secondary platforms are best placed to detect ticket crime at the moment, but they do nothing, because that is to their benefit. If we make the market transparent, it will be clear for everyone to see who has an abnormally large number of tickets, and I bet that the use of botnets would drop off sharply as a result This entire debate boils down to a simple divide: it is about whose side we are on as legislators. Are we here to pass laws to protect and enhance the rights of ordinary consumers, or are we here to block laws that might make individuals and companies more open and accountable to those consumers? It is about whose interests we are here to serve. Are we here to serve those who elect us, or are we here to be spin doctors for those exploiting them and apologists for those who know full well that they are lucky to be getting away with what they are doing? It is about whose opinions we value most highly. Do we listen to our constituents, the police and those in the live events sector, who all tell us that there is a problem and a gap in the law that needs to be closed, or do we listen to the few who benefit from that gap in the law? I know whose side I would rather be on, whose interests I am here to serve and whose opinions I value most Nobody operating honestly in the secondary market has anything to fear from transparency, and no consumer will be left out of pocket. If anything, the secondary platforms should be embracing the opportunity to build confidence in their sector and limit their exposure to criminal activity. I hope that Members of all parties will think on those points when they go through the Division Lobby later tonight; I am minded that the amendment will have to be pressed to a Division. Let us finally do the right thing and put fans first.
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson). Her arguments have not got any better in all the years we have been going around the houses on this matter, but I admire her for persistence in flogging this particular dead horse There have been a number of reports on secondary ticketing, and the hon. Lady said that the Government have listened to no one apart from certain companies. Perhaps they have listened to the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, on which I serve, which looked into the issue and came up with a report that was unanimous, including among Opposition Members, showing that the market was legitimate and worked in the best interests of consumers. When a former Labour Minister, the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), came to give evidence to the Committee, she made it abundantly clear that she believed that as well, so I will be interested to see how she votes on the amendment. When the Office of Fair Trading looked into the matter, it reached the same conclusion. I am afraid that when the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West says that only a few big companies say that the market works in the best interests of consumers, she knows full well that she is talking absolute cobblers.
Can my hon. Friend throw some light on when that Culture, Media and Sport Committee investigation took place? I have a sneaky feeling that it might have been six, seven or eight years ago, and the market has moved on a bit since then.
It was during the last Parliament that the Committee and the Office of Fair Trading produced their reports and the right hon. Member for Barking made her recommendations. Of course time has moved on, but principles do not, and I will come on to the basic principle of the matter. I do not blame the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West for making the point that she does—after all, she is a socialist, so of course she wants to stop the free market and does not believe in it. If I was a socialist, I would not believe in the free market either. I would want to interfere in every single nook and cranny of how the free market operates. That is what the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), who is on the Opposition Front Bench, wants to do, because she is a socialist as well and that is what socialists do. What astonishes me is that anybody who can call themselves a Conservative in any shape or form would want to interfere in the free market in this ridiculous way. [Interruption.] If my hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay) wants to intervene, I am happy for him to do so.
Let us take the Rugby Football Union, for example. Tickets are sold at a discount to promote the game of rugby, so it is not the operation of the free market as my hon. Friend and I would traditionally refer to it. Tickets are sold to promote the game and are resold in breach of the terms and conditions. It is Government policy to ask the RFU to take enforcement action, but it cannot do that without transparency about which tickets are being resold.
I fear that by using the RFU as an example my hon. Friend is rather leading with his chin. The RFU makes very few, if any, tickets available to genuine fans for rugby internationals. The tickets go all round the houses to rugby clubs and so on, but a genuine fan who wants to go and watch rugby finds it difficult to get their hands on one. The secondary market is one of the prime reasons why—[Interruption.] I will not give way again. My hon. Friend has made his point—
Order. Just because we are talking about rugby does not mean we have to behave as if we are on a rugby field.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. For a genuine fan who does not belong to a rugby union club but wants to watch a rugby international, the secondary ticketing market is one of the best ways of indulging their interest The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West and my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) found that every report on the secondary ticketing market went against them, so they decided in the all-party group on ticket abuse to produce their own report, because they knew that it could come to a conclusion with which they agreed. It was a sort of desperate measure—no one else would agree with them, so they produced their own report. As I understand it, in their report they argued against capping prices, yet the amendment is in effect a price cap. The amendment states that tickets can be resold, as long as they are not resold above their face value, and that is a price cap—[Interruption.] Of course it is. If someone can resell a ticket but that resale is limited to its price value, there is a price cap on that ticket. We have the extraordinary situation where the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend have come up with their own report, and now they have tabled an amendment that argues against that report. They argued against price caps, but the amendment would introduce one There are many arguments against a price cap. First, we do not have price caps on other things. If I buy a ticket to an event, as far as I am concerned that is my ticket and if I want to sell it on to somebody else—for whatever price I can command—that should be my choice. Similarly, if I buy a house and want to sell it on at a later date to somebody at a much higher price, and someone is prepared to pay that price, why should the Government interfere in that legitimate transaction between a willing seller and a willing buyer People say that the market in tickets does not work properly because there is a dearth of supply and a lot of demand, and it is the same with houses. There are currently few houses for sale and a lot of people want to buy one, and the price of houses has rocketed as a consequence. Exactly the same arguments apply to housing as to tickets, yet who argues that we should have a price cap on houses and that someone cannot sell their house for more than they paid for it? It would be ridiculous for anybody to argue that, but it is exactly the same principle.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
In a moment, if the hon. Gentleman calms himself down. The only difference is that people think it is populist to say that we should have a cap on tickets, and they know that it would be grotesquely unpopular to say we should have a cap on house prices.
To take the hon. Gentleman’s analogy to its logical conclusion, it would be like someone coming to a street, buying all the houses in that street, and selling them back at an inflated price. Would he be happy with that?
As far as I understand, that is exactly what the son of John Prescott, the former Deputy Prime Minister, did in Hull. As I recall, he bought a whole street of houses in Hull for a ridiculously low price and sold them on at a higher price afterwards. That is what happens. I know the hon. Gentleman is a socialist too, so I would not expect him to believe in the free market. However, Members on the Conservative Benches are supposed at least to consider themselves believers in the free market. If they agree with the Lords, and in particular with the hon. Lady’s amendment, I do not really see how they can justify that.
As usual, the hon. Gentleman is making an entertaining speech. One thing that has moved on since the date of some of the reports he mentions is IT. A constituent of mine told me last night that he tried to get a ticket for a Mark Knopfler concert in Newcastle. Even though he logged on to the website from the first second, he simply could not get a ticket. He ended up seeing one on the secondary market that he could not afford. He then found some tickets on the primary market that were being sold physically at half the price. Does he agree that IT is part of the problem?
I am not saying that IT is part of the problem or part of the solution. IT is part of the real world. That is what we deal with and IT can benefit people. For example, people can put bids on things on eBay and then go to bed. This is what happens with technology: people make the best use of it Event promoters have many of the solutions in their own hands. Selling all their tickets in five minutes flat creates a secondary market. If promoters are so bothered about the secondary market and ticket touting for a popular event, it may be more sensible for them to start selling tickets in dribs and drabs. There would then still be tickets available to genuine people right up to the day of the event. They do not do that, of course. For cash-flow reasons, they want to get all the money in on day one. It is no good them saying that they want to get all the money in on day one—there is no doubt that the people buying up the tickets to sell on are helping them to get all the money in on day one and therefore helping their cash flow—and then complaining about the very same people they have sold the tickets to in the first place. They are creating the problem they are complaining about and I am afraid I have absolutely no sympathy with them. If they are serious about tackling this problem, the solutions are in their own hands: they should sell tickets in dribs and drabs so that people can go on the day and buy a ticket at face value. That would, at a stroke, make a massive difference to the secondary market There are lots of things that people sell that are at a premium. I have mentioned them in the past and I do not want to go through a long list again, but we have seen it with Christmas toys. People have a bun fight to try to get a particular toy at Christmas, buying up as many as they can. Five minutes later, the toys are on eBay at an inflated price. Are the Government going to start stopping people buying up any precious and valuable commodity that has a limited supply? Of course not; that would be nonsense. So why are tickets any different?
Does my hon. Friend agree that there is another problem, which is that there is nothing to stop a seller wanting to sell a ticket in combination with another item? It would be impossible to know which item was being inflated.
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, which drives a coach and horses through the hon. Lady’s amendment. People could sell a ticket to an event along with a scarf or a hat and say that they are charging x amount for the hat and the face value for the price of the ticket. That would get around the hon. Lady’s amendment quite easily and make the whole thing complete nonsense.
There is a more serious problem than the one my hon. Friend has just described. I do not think people will be selling houses or hats with tickets, but there are hospitality packages. Companies that offer hospitality with an event normally have to pre-buy tickets so that they can get the person into the ground before they can provide the hospitality. There is a cross-pricing issue.
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The point is that people could easily get round the law by selling other things with the ticket to ensure they do not breach the terms of the amendment. They could charge different amounts for the various things being sold as a package. It would be complete nonsense As I mentioned, the OFT decided that the current regime worked in the consumer’s best interest. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay) keeps chuntering from the sidelines. If he wants to make a speech, I am sure that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, will look on him favourably.
My hon. Friend will not take my intervention.
I have already taken an intervention from my hon. Friend. It was not a very good one, if I remember rightly Not only did the OFT make it clear that the current regime worked in the best interests of the customer, but we have practical arguments from the US showing that the kind of price cap the hon. Lady wants to introduce does not work. In fact, when America introduced the price cap, it led to higher prices on both the primary and secondary markets. A study by the university of California found that by focusing on penalties for those who engage in prohibited transactions, anti-ticket scalping —as they call it—regulations seemed to lead to higher prices in the resale market. If a seller is taking more of a risk, they will want to command a higher price—that is what happens with the free market, supply and demand and the rest of it. I am surprised my hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire is not aware of that. The university of Texas found that such regulation increased prices not only in the secondary market, but in the primary market. The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West says she wants to stand up for consumers, but by rejecting the amendment, we will do just that If I buy a ticket to the opening day of the test match at Lords and walk into the pub and say, “I’ve got a ticket for the opening day of the test match at Lords”, and a chap comes up to me and says, “You know what? It’s my lifetime’s ambition to go to the opening day of the test match at Lords. It’s the one thing I’ve wanted to do all my life. I will give you £500 for that ticket”, and if I decide to sell him the ticket at that price, who loses out? I do not lose out—because I am happy to sell it at that price; the other person does not lose out—they have left absolutely delighted at having paid a price they are happy to pay to fulfil their lifetime’s dream; and Lords has not lost out—because it has already sold the ticket and the England and Wales Cricket Board has got the income it was hoping for when it put the ticket up for sale. Nobody loses out. Why on earth should the Government intervene to make that transaction illegal? It would be absolute nonsense if the Government were to make that transaction illegal.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. When he buys that ticket, he becomes the owner of that ticket, and it becomes his to do with as he wishes. He can sell it for £500 or give it away to the gentleman whose lifetime’s ambition it is to go to Lords. It is his ticket to do with as he pleases. It is called living in a free society.
The hon. Gentleman has hit the nail on the head, although he is obviously much more generous than me, because he said he would give the ticket away—but of course he is from Lancashire and I am from Yorkshire, where we are a bit more careful about these matters. In Yorkshire, the idea of giving away a valuable commodity brings us out in a rash—we would at least want to get a good deal—but I take his point. Whether he wants to give it away or sell it, it should be no business of the Government to tell him he cannot The law would quickly become an ass. Does anybody really think that in the utopia the hon. Lady seems to think would result, if somebody could not sell their ticket for £500, they would sell it at cost price or less on eBay? Of course they would not. If anybody thinks that would happen, they need to get out more, to be perfectly honest. That person would be out on the streets, outside the event, touting the ticket to whomever they could find—all the spivs and Arthur Daley types, with their hats and their Mackintoshes and the rest of it. The idea that they would be selling at cost price or less is for the birds. It is an absolute load of nonsense, to be perfectly honest. Anybody who thinks that all sales would go at cost price or less is living in cloud cuckoo land.
I do not know whether my hon. Friend has looked online recently to try to buy a ticket for the first day of the Ashes, but I think he would find that £500 would not buy one. I believe that £545 is the going price. I have some sympathy with what my hon. Friend says about the amendment placing a cap on what tickets could be sold for—at face value, for example. Surely, however, transparency is crucial so people know that they will not get stitched up by buying a ticket that is behind a pillar, reserved for children or whatever. I know he is a great Conservative, so he should believe in transparency.
The point is this. Places such as viagogo guarantee the tickets. If someone enters into a transaction on a viagogo site and anything untoward or amiss takes place, viagogo will stand behind the transaction and ensure that no consumer loses out. When it comes to selling something that is fraudulent or counterfeit or selling a ticket that does not exist, there are already laws in place to stop that. We cannot create another law to make something that is already illegal more illegal. If the ticket exists and is genuine, I could not care less who is selling it, as long as it guarantees me my place in the grounds to watch the game I want to watch. I do not care who the original owner was, particularly when the secondary market exists and respectable companies such as viagogo are there, guaranteeing to the buyer that nothing untoward will happen.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
I am going to press on because others want to speak If we stop this legitimate market, all the protections that the secondary market has introduced into it will disappear. What will happen is that it will not be possible to go to a legitimate company such as viagogo to buy a ticket and have it guaranteed that nothing can go wrong; rather, everyone will be competing outside with the Arthur Daley types with the mackintosh jackets and trilby hats trying to buy a ticket. Then people are taking their lives into their hands, as some of those tickets might not be what they seem If we want to protect the interest of consumers, it is essential to allow the legitimate secondary ticketing market to flourish. An event that I want to go to might come along, but I am not sure whether I can go to it because of my work commitments. All the tickets are sold out. I then find out that I am free to go to the event. Here the secondary market is the only one that allows me the opportunity to go to it. It will ask for a certain price, and if I do not want to pay it, I will not have to pay it. Nobody is fleecing anyone, because I will not pay the price if I do not want to. At least I would have had the opportunity to choose in a way that would not arise if no secondary market was available. That is why the secondary market works in the best interests of consumers. It also means that if someone has a ticket but cannot go, they can get rid of it. Some events do not even accept refunds when a ticket is bought, so it is possible to be left with a ticket and not be able to get shot of it The secondary market is good and a price cap does not work. Anybody who believes in the free market could not possibly agree with the amendment to the Lords amendment. I hope that common sense will prevail. I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West will keep trying to peddle her socialist ideal outcome, with the Government interfering in every single market going just because she thinks certain things are too expensive. When she starts arguing that house prices should be capped because there are too few of them and too many people want to buy them, I will at that point have a little more respect for her. In the meantime, this is just pure political opportunism, which she thinks is populist but it is not in the best interests of anybody.
It is always entertaining to follow the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who puts his case firmly and securely before the House, but I am rather more taken with the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), so I shall speak in favour of amendment (a), tabled by her and the hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) I approach this issue merely from the perspective of the constituents who got in touch with me after Paul Weller tickets went on sale at Scunthorpe’s magnificent Baths Hall. There have has been some fantastic programming at the Baths Hall in recent years, featuring a rich variety of events. Great comedians such as Jimmy Carr, Paul Merton and Alan Davies have appeared there, as have the Moscow City Ballet and the Royal Philharmonic orchestra. We in Scunthorpe are very proud of the Baths Hall, and when someone like Paul Weller is due to appear locally, many of my constituents want to go along and enjoy the act The tickets for the Paul Weller event sold out pretty quickly, at £38 each. Within hours of their ceasing to be available at that price on the Baths Hall site, a large number popped up for sale at significantly higher prices on secondary ticket sites.
Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that when Paul Weller or his management team first put those tickets on the market, they must have known that the tickets were underpriced and that a great many people would be prepared to pay a much higher price?
Other Members know far more about this than I do, but I suspect that promoters want to promote events to their real fans at fair prices, and that that is their motivation.
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I will take further interventions later. Let me first describe my constituents’ experiences in relation to the Paul Weller concert, which is to take place on 17 March 2015. Some arrived early to join the queue at the Baths Hall ticket office, while others applied by telephone and via the website, but many failed to obtain tickets. Shortly afterwards, tickets cropped up on secondary sites. Today I looked into where I could buy a ticket for the event, and how much it would cost me. I discovered that it would cost me £102 to obtain one through a secondary site. According to my maths, that is a mark-up of £64 for someone in the system. It would be better to allow more of my constituents to have access to the tickets locally, or to put money into the local community via the venue, or to give more to the performers.
What that example demonstrates—Conservative Members refuse to see this for some reason—is complete market failure. A Select Committee and the Office of Fair Trading looked into the matter, but what Conservative Members fail to mention is that they did so 10 years ago, and because they did not act then, the market is now skewed to the extent that my hon. Friend has described. Is that not exactly why, 10 years later, we need to do something, and would not the amendment solve the problem that he has highlighted?
With the benefit of her knowledge of this matter, my hon. Friend has made her point extremely well. As she says, what we are seeing is market failure, and it is interesting to note that the main evidence base that was drawn on by the hon. Member for Shipley is many years old.
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I must move on, as other Members want to speak Points made by Members on both sides of the House have reinforced what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson). We should be focusing on market failure, and the need to make the market operate well in the interests of performers, venues and consumers. I did not expect to speak in this debate, but I am doing so because constituents have knocked on my door and said that they consider the present system to be unfair and not in their interests, and I tend to agree with them. However, it is not only my constituents and me—and other Members—who take that view. In a letter that it sent to Members, UK Music says: “UK Music's position is that we would prefer there was no secondary ticketing market as it is often understood as it does a disservice to our customers. Profiteering undermines the enterprise, endeavours and investment of those whose livelihoods depend on the future sustainability of the music industry.” We should focus on customers and on those whose livelihoods depend on the music industry, and the same applies to sporting and other events I agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West when she said, in simple terms, that at the heart of the debate, the amendment and consideration of the Lords amendment was the question of whose side we were on. Are we on the side of consumers, or are we on the side of ticket touts? That is the choice before the House, and I hope that we bear it in mind later when we vote.
While the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) was thoroughly entertaining, the “facts” in it were totally wrong. I hope that both he and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) will listen to my speech, because it will address many of the points that they made I thank the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) for her contributions, which were very good. I shall try not to duplicate the points that she made, and to make additional points. I also thank the Minister for telephoning me earlier today to talk about the issue. I appreciate that. It was the right approach to the debate, unlike some of the references to trilby hats and so forth that we have heard from other speakers. Let us debate this in a serious manner, because it is a serious matter Live events, whether they consist of sport, music or theatre, are essential not only to the British economy, but to British society. Each year our creative industries generate more than £36 billion, and employ 1.5 million people. If they are to continue to be so successful, we need to ensure that performers and fans are given a fair deal through a transparent ticket market. Otherwise, inflated prices will mean that fans continue to pay more for tickets, and performers will lose revenue.
How?
I will explain that to my hon. Friend in a moment, and I shall be happy to take interventions later Society has moved on from the time when there were a few cheeky-chappie touts outside venues selling tickets at marked-up prices. There are some who would reasonably argue that the small scale “street” touts provided a reasonable free-market service. The new issue with which the ticketing industry is dealing is the use of computer programmes, known as botnets, which buy up tens of thousands of tickets only seconds after they have gone on sale, so genuine fans are unable to purchase them at source. That is happening on an industrial scale, and the tickets are then sold on the secondary market. Some botnets in themselves are illegal because they have been used through hacked computers. They are immensely useful to touts, who are able to conceal their identity while purchasing large volumes of tickets with minimal questions asked. Botnets allow touts to seize control of the market, thereby increasing ticket prices. Part of the reluctance of some to consider allowing the proposed measures to be implemented is based on the mistaken premise that those who are buying and reselling are in some way “classic entrepreneurs”. If that were the case, I would be on their side. I am a Conservative because of Sir Keith Joseph and his principles of the free market. In this instance, however, the free-market scenario has been broken owing to severe supply shortage and unequal purchasing ability. [Interruption.] If my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley wishes to intervene to tell me the five principles of the free market and explain why they apply to secondary ticketing, I shall be glad to debate the point. However, the free market has clearly collapsed because the principles of the free market do not apply in this instance There is another important dimension, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley. A ticket is not a commodity like a car; it is a licence to view, owned by the artist. The performances are not a commodity, but a licence to experience. There is the principle of allowing artists to remain in control of their performances. Let me give an example. A football club could sell all its family and juvenile ticket allocations for much more, but it recognises the importance of building a fan base. If all under-16 tickets were bought by “classic entrepreneurs” and sold to adults, tourists or the highest bidder, football clubs would not be developing their long- term fan base. The football clubs know that making a short-term price profit is not in their long-term interests, and it is surely right for the provider of the entertainment to be able to make a commercial decision not to sell at top dollar but to invest in the future fan base. It is the same for live bands and many other events. What the free market does do, which I support, is allow football clubs, bands and theatres to choose how much to charge for their event.
indicated assent.
indicated assent.
My hon. Friends are nodding away, which is great, but that is a mistaken point of view. On taking money away from the artists and putting it in the pockets of these “classic entrepreneurs” and others in the entertainment industry, let us just say—[Interruption.] Let me explain to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North, who is shouting from a sedentary position—
May I ask a question on an intervention? My hon. Friend has said they are taking money away, but how can that be as the vendor has received full price for the ticket? They have not lost a penny.
That is a very good intervention as I have the answer in the very next sentence of my speech Let us say that my hon. Friend has decided that he has £200 to spend on his entertainment budget for the year and he would like to go to four concerts at £50 a throw. If he has to pay his entire annual budget on buying just one ticket, he is going to go to only one concert, not four concerts. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley mentioned the cricket. If someone has paid £500 to go to the cricket game, he will not be buying the T-shirts, the food and all the other things the promoters and artists rely on. Almost more money is paid for merchandise than for tickets. Promoters and artists want people to buy things at the concerts, not for that to be taken away. [Interruption.] If my hon. Friend will not listen, there is no point in his coming to the debate The bands will make it clear that it is not just the ticket price for the gig that gets them the money that allows them to tour; it is also merchandising and other things. If my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North has spent his whole annual budget getting to one gig, he is not going to buy the T-shirt and the other things. That is how bands lose out. It is not possible to argue with the economics of that; it is entirely right.
I want to reiterate that point. Most bands nowadays have to sell merchandise to survive because very few people are paying full price, as they once used to, for the music itself. They therefore rely on selling merchandise on the evening; otherwise, they are not able to survive and produce the fantastic music that British bands do.
Absolutely, and there is no doubt that merchandising plays a significant part in allowing bands to continue touring.
The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful point, which I recognise from my experience of touring with a band. It is uneconomic to go out with two trucks and all the equipment to play in front of fans. Bands rely on their merchandise and on being able to sell other products to enable them to continue to work and make the fantastic records they do, and ensure that people of any age group can watch them play live. Distortion caused by these appalling ticket prices threatens the industry.
I thank the hon. Gentleman, and I would like to thank him for his contributions over the years; we have had good debates in this Chamber It is probably true that my hon. Friends the Members for Bury North and for Shipley have unlimited budgets, but most people have a finite budget and they have to make decisions on how to spend their money. If they spend it all on ticketing, they will not spend it on other things As has been mentioned, different methods have been tried to control secondary ticketing and to protect purchasers, such as named ticketing. It has been proved, however, that this will not work for every event. It works in some situations, but not others. The industry would like to take other steps to control these abuses but it cannot do so. It has been argued by the ticketing organisations that the measures already in place are enough. If that was the case, why are we still seeing cases where fans or performers are not protected from exploitation and revenue loss These amendments do not restrict the buying and resale of tickets. All they ask is that the process is transparent so that buyers have information such as where the seat is, who the seller is, and what the original price of the ticket was, and whether the resale of the ticket is against the terms and conditions of the original purchase. It does not expose the seller to data protection problems. Only those sellers whose job is related to the live entertainment sector will need to provide employment details. This means that an informed decision can be made whether or not to buy a ticket. Similarly, it would mean that in cases where tickets were resold by industry insiders for a profit, it was out in the open Creating such transparency means that it will be easier to prevent and detect ticket fraud, expose and reduce insider dealing of tickets, and assist event-holders in protecting their customers from the worst excesses of ticket touting. It will also assist the artists in ensuring that they are able to deliver tickets to the intended market at the intended price. In my view, these amendments provide the right balance to avoid full legislation criminalising the activity by implementing sensible, reasonable information requests. To quote Steve Parker, managing editor of Audience and Live UK: “The proposed amendment to the Consumer Rights Bill simply requires transparency and the restoration of fairness to the market. It is not a threat, restriction or burden to anyone operating honestly in this sector—it is a threat to those that seek to secretly manipulate the market for their own greedy ends.” Only the operators who want to hide this information could possibly object to a request for the system to be transparent. The proposed measures have been formally supported by a wide range of stakeholders from the live event sector, promoters including Harvey Goldsmith, the Lawn Tennis Association, the National Theatre, the Musicians Union, the England and Wales Cricket Board, UK Music, the premier music booking agencies, managers of major British bands like One Direction, Iron Maiden, Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Radiohead and Mumford and Sons, and over 50 more in a letter issued over the weekend. These amendments are only opposed by those profiteering from the confusion and technological shortcomings of event ticketing.
The list of those that support this which my hon. Friend rattled off were, from what I could tell, all big businesses in the entertainment world, but has he looked at opinion polls which show that when people are asked, “If you have a ticket, should you be able to sell it on to somebody else at a price you determine yourself?”, an overwhelming majority say yes? The idea that only a few people are against this flies in the face of all the opinion poll evidence.
I am so glad my hon. Friend intervened because I would like to quote back to him some things he said in the previous debate we had on the Consumer Rights Bill, on Report on 13 May 2014: “I think that one of the fundamental rights of the consumer is to know what they are purchasing.” That is what this measure proposes. [Interruption.] If I may continue, he went on to say that “legislation requiring labelling is essential for consumers to exercise their right to make an informed decision.”—[Official Report, 13 May 2014; Vol. 580, c. 672-73.] My goodness, he could be giving this speech for me, Mr Deputy Speaker! On mobile phone internet usage coverage, which is important, my hon. Friend said on 16 June 2014: “The lack of transparency and clarity that has persisted in the market has allowed consumers to be deceived.” That is amazing; it could apply to the area under discussion now. He went on to say: “It seems like the voluntary ways of ensuring greater transparency...have failed.”—[Official Report, 16 June 2014; Vol. 582, c. 896.] He said that about mobile phones, but why should it not apply to this debate?
Will my hon. Friend give way?
I have one more quote, but I will give way.
I am sorry to urinate on my hon. Friend’s bonfire, but the point is that if I buy a ticket for the Lords test match, I know what I have got. There is no transparency issue; it is a ticket for the test match at Lords. The quotes he is giving on halal meat and all the rest of it are completely different from a ticket to a Lords test match, where it is perfectly clear what I have bought.
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Order. We should be more gracious to each other. I am frightened that we might undermine that, and that this whole debate is going to descend, which I do not want.
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I was just trying to point out that we ask for transparency in almost every other aspect of our society, and we should be asking for it on tickets. We are only asking for the name, the seat location and so on to be given. I think I have made that point crystal clear It should also be noted that the police are generally supportive of the suggested changes to the secondary ticketing markets. Ticketing legislation was recommended in the final report from Operation Podium, the Metropolitan police unit set up to monitor crime around the Olympic games. The police said the Government should intervene in the ticketing market because, among other things, certain aspects of it are funding criminal activity. We cannot argue against that; the police are saying it There is one more thing: many ticketing companies argue that should a ticket be invalid, counterfeit or fraudulent, a full refund will be given. We heard that earlier. That is very laudable, but it does not address the full problem. Refunding the price of a ticket will not make up for the travel expenses and accommodation costs of going to the concert, show or event; nor will it make up for the time spent acquiring the ticket Refunds look like a fair deal on paper, but even though the buyer will get their money back, the process actually sets up losses across the board. The seller of the ticket does not make any money, the company loses money by having to pay a refund and the buyer does not get the satisfaction of going to the event. The buyer is deprived of the experience that he or she worked hard for and spent money to secure. With the proposed transparent system, that would not be the case. There is another quirk to the existing system that affects not only the artists but the taxpayer. Some venues, such as the National Theatre and the Donmar Warehouse, are subsidised by the state in order to ensure that opportunities to see productions are available to the widest possible audience. When ticket prices are vastly inflated—as in one case, from £20 to more than £2,000 for a Shakespeare production at the Donmar Warehouse—not only are potential purchasers priced out of the market but the Government’s programme of subsidising the arts is undermined and money that could be ploughed back into new productions is lost. Why would we, as taxpayers, want to subsidise theatre to make it more available to people while at the same time allowing others to make £2,000 on a ticket? That is absolutely bonkers The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has told me that he supports the right of ticket providers to have terms and conditions and for those terms and conditions to be respected, and that any buyer should be aware of and adhere to them. Others who have spoken today have said that there should be terms and conditions, and that they should be respected, just as any other contractual arrangement is respected. That is how purchasing works. If I go on a train, I buy a ticket that is not transferrable. That applies in many other areas of society, too, so it seems bizarre that it does not apply to ticketing. These measures would enable those terms and conditions to be respected, and the Secretary of State should therefore fully support the amendment. I find it bizarre that he does not What we are asking for would give artists and venues the opportunity to regain control of ticket pricing and of the terms and conditions that they put on tickets. This would ensure that genuine fans had access to the events they wanted to attend. It would also hinder the ability of those using new methods of mass ticket-buying to artificially inflate the market in such a way as to creative negative impacts on the UK’s creative and sporting industries. If a band, artist or promoter wants to sell tickets at an inflated price, they are absolutely at liberty to use the secondary market to do so, but our proposals would mean that they would need to print on the ticket the fact that they had done so. I see nothing wrong with that. If we can make a small step in supporting the artists and fans, as we can with these amendments, we will have taken a very large step forward.
It is a pleasure to follow my fellow co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on music, the hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley), and it will be difficult to follow such an excellent speech. I agree with every point he made. I shall make my contribution a little more personal I got involved in ticket touting—in the sense of complaining about it, not actually doing it—many years ago. I became an MP 14 years ago and about a year later, Take That got back together. My three daughters were desperate to get tickets to see them, but I am sad to say that they did not, although they have seen the band since. After a lot of shouting and ear-bashing and being told that I should do something about the problem because I was an MP, I looked into the situation and found it to be nearly as bad as it is today. Things were not so technically advanced back then, but they were certainly shaping up that way.
It was tickets for the Take That reunion tour that garnered my interest in this topic. I want to place on the record my gratitude to my hon. Friend for the leadership that he showed on this issue before anyone else in the House did. Others have picked up the reins now that he has led the way in getting us to where we are today.
I think my hon. Friend might be over-egging the pudding a bit, but I am always grateful when people recognise that someone has done something, particularly in this place.
I had exactly the same experience, albeit not with Foo Fighters. I was trying to get tickets for the Jesus and Mary Chain recently, and there seemed to be a lot of sites advertising the tickets as being available. Those sites lure us in, but eventually we get transferred to other sites. By that time, we have wasted a huge amount of time and end up buying the more expensive tickets. Sometimes we try to hunt for the original tickets, but I suspect that that offer no longer exists by that stage.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right This is not a free market; it is what I call a con market. I believe in a fair market. I believe that people should be treated fairly and given a chance to buy something at the advertised price. If 100,000 people want to go to a concert and they get to the tickets before I do, that is fine, as long as there are really 100,000 people. I do not expect the machines that the hon. Member for Hove mentioned to buy up all those tickets in a matter of seconds so that I cannot get one. That is not a free market, and it is certainly not a fair one The previous Labour Government, with whom I had lots of arguments, could not quite see this my way. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), will listen to these points, because she now has a chance to do something that my Government never did—put the situation right. Things are getting worse and as technology becomes more advanced, people use it for the wrong ends. They used it to prevent my kids from getting those Take That tickets all those years ago—my kids are still looking for those tickets, even though they are parents themselves now—and they are preventing me from getting the tickets I want We just want to be treated fairly. I do not mind paying the going rate of £68 or whatever, but I do mind someone buying up 100,000 tickets at £68 each and then selling them for £100 each. That is not right, and it should be against the law—it is taking ticket touting to an extreme. I am not talking about the happy chappie who sells tickets for a game of football before the match, although that used to upset me as well. We cannot allow people to do this on a large scale We can allow someone who has bought a ticket to pass it on to a family member or a friend, and I do not have a problem with them making a profit on it, provided it is not too much. However, I do have a problem with the guy with £500 getting ripped off by the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) with his Lord’s ticket. Why anybody would want to pay that kind of money to watch a game of cricket I do not know! Having said that, if someone really wanted to see the event, I can understand them paying it, but I do not understand why some people should be able to corner the market and then resell tickets to others at a vast profit. That undermines our music industry. At the end of the day, the issue comes back to the people who are trying to give us a service and the benefit of their life’s work.
Let me take the hon. Gentleman back to the discussions about the ticket from Lord’s. I am torn on this issue: I am sympathetic to the amendments, but I am also sympathetic to some of the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley. If someone is prepared to, and can afford to, pay £500 a ticket to go to the test match, that is their choice. However, that individual should be able to find out and know where that ticket is located—where in the ground they are going to be sat—and whether or not it is legitimate. That is where the transparency angle of these amendments is correct.
Therein lies a problem, because sometimes the tickets being sold are not even proper tickets—someone might just have made a very good copy. The person with the £500 would be taking that chance. I do not believe that is right—that is probably why the hon. Gentleman is sat on the other side of the Chamber and I am sat here. If the ticket says £25, £60 or £100—whatever the figure is—I expect to pay that. I do not have a problem if I have to pay a wee bit extra, but I would not be paying £500 or £1,000. The worst case I ever heard of was when two tickets for Wimbledon finals day, which were for disabled people, were being sold on eBay for £2,000 each, and the buyer had to buy the pair. That is not right, and I am talking about only a couple of tickets.
Would my hon. Friend like to say something about venues? I understand that millions of pounds are being taken out of the music industry, in particular. I support small venues in my constituency. They really do struggle. I do not mind paying top dollar for a ticket for a band I want to see, but I want to know that that money goes to the person who bought the ticket at a fair price, the venue or the artist.
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I like to think that the small venues are for new bands—people who are up and coming and do not have a great following. I have bought a ticket to see AC/DC at Hampden Park, which I had no problem doing because it holds 50,000 people. That was easy, but there is a genuine problem in respect of the small venues. We have a new venue in Glasgow called the Hydro, which holds 13,000 people. I have been there and it is fantastic, but even there, depending on who is coming, the ticket touts are out selling the tickets.
The hon. Gentleman is making a fine speech and covering a range of new issues. One thing we have not thought about is that because the Government have failed to do anything about this, it has been left to the big festivals such as Glastonbury and T in the Park to try to put in place some sort of inventive, creative measure to protect their own audience. Why should it be left up to large festivals to deal with the problem? Surely it is the Government’s responsibility to protect fans.
The hon. Gentleman is right about that. I have met various promoters for T in the Park and they have done their level best to try to stop the touts, but even they admit that they cannot do it completely. If we make this illegal, that puts a different front on it. If we tell everybody it is illegal to do something and someone does it, they know it is illegal. If we do not tell them it is illegal, they will continue to do it. As we have already said, they will continue to use all the new technologies that are coming online and they will rip people off. There will be people who are so desperate to buy a ticket to see somebody that they will pay these prices, and as long as somebody is willing to pay them, the problem will continue and prices will keep increasing.
The hon. Gentleman is right that some things should be illegal, but I can reassure him that where someone creates an artificial ticket and it is not a proper ticket, that is either fraud or theft. We have already made that an illegal situation.
I appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman is saying, but what is the difference between that person making a forgery and other people having a machine that can buy up 100,000 tickets for a venue? Is that not illegal? Is it not outrageous? Would you not want to do something about it? I am not talking about you, Mr Speaker; I am talking about the right hon. Gentleman I feel very strongly about this issue, as you can probably tell, Mr Speaker. Sometimes it is difficult to put things into words, but as politicians and Members of Parliament we should be putting our constituents first, not big business. We should not be hindering big business, but we should not be putting it before our constituents. Some in the Chamber tonight would rather put big business before their constituents.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (John Robertson). He makes his points passionately, but I disagree with them all. I am unashamedly on the side of the free market on this one. The whole problem with the Lords amendment is that it simply strikes at the heart of the free market—no more, no less. This is not really an issue about consumer protection, although it is dressed up as that—it is about the free market. If this measure were passed, it is likely to have the consequence—I accept this might be unintended —of providing less protection for the consumer.
The hon. Member for Glasgow North West seemed to suggest that my hon. Friend and I were arguing on the side of big business and that he was arguing in favour of the consumer, but does my hon. Friend agree that the hon. Gentleman is actually arguing in favour of the big music business? Does anyone think Harvey Goldsmith is not big business? I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman would take that as an insult or a compliment, but arguing on the side of those big music businesses is not arguing in favour of the small consumer, is it?
No, it is not. Let us be clear that a lot of these organisations are quite capable of looking after themselves and, if they put their minds to it, of achieving the aims they say they want to achieve. That applies whether we are talking about the Harvey Goldsmiths of this world, the Rugby Football Union or the England and Wales Cricket Board. These organisations put forward their arguments about wanting to help the grass roots of sport and so on, but if they really wanted to do that, they could do so in many ways without going down the road of trying to interfere in the free market Let us be clear about how much personal information will have to be placed on the internet for everyone to see under the regulations that have been passed by the other place. The seller has to provide details of “(a) the face value of the ticket; (b) any age or other restrictions on the user of the ticket; (c) the designated location of the ticket including the stand, the block, the row and the seat number of the ticket, where applicable; and (d) the ticket booking identification or reference number.” That information could easily be used by criminals and those who are less scrupulous in order to ring up the vendor of the ticket and arrange for the ticket to be sent to an alternative address. It could also be used to set up an alternative listing, as so much information is being provided.
The information that the hon. Gentleman has just read out would surely be available at the point of sale, so if anyone wanted to use it in the way he is suggesting, they would merely need to go on the website originally offering the tickets or ring up the venue in order to get it. It is at the point of resale in the secondary ticketing market that we are asking for that same information to be made available. What can be wrong with that?
The difference is the name of the vendor, the booking reference and all that, which are not there on the original sale. At the heart of the argument is the fact that, by placing all this extra regulation on the secondary market and making it more difficult to sell tickets, fewer people will choose to sell their ticket through what will eventually become a regulated market. That will result in people, or spivs as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) called them, choosing to sell their tickets on the unregulated market—or the black market as it is known outside this place. That is likely to happen, and the result will be less, not more, consumer protection It was mentioned a moment or so ago in the context of the Paul Weller concert that someone was being asked to pay £101 for a ticket that had a face value of £38 and that somehow the “real” fans were being denied access to the concert. But no one has been able to explain why someone who is prepared to pay £100 for the right to attend and listen to a concert is any less of a real fan than someone who is prepared to pay £38. It just does not make any sense. Surely if a person is prepared to pay £100, they are equally likely to be a real fan as someone who is paying £38 The hon. Member for Glasgow North West, who is leaving his place, talked about someone making false tickets in their bedroom or their office. That is already a criminal offence; it is fraud. We cannot make it any more of a criminal offence by passing more legislation. Those matters are already covered by criminal law, and the amendment before us will do nothing whatever to sort out criminal behaviour—those who set out deliberately to con and defraud members of the public. We have plenty of laws to deal with those people. The market is working well. To all those who say that they are standing up for the consumer, let me say that I am not inundated with lots of e-mails on this matter. I get hundreds of thousands of e-mails a year complaining about all sorts of things, but I do not get many from people saying, “Oh, I tried to get a ticket for this concert and I could not get it because they were all bought up.”
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, but he seems to be slightly behind the current argument. The proponents of the Lords amendment and the amendment to it are no longer arguing that this is in the best interests of the consumer; they appear to have abandoned that idea. They are now saying that the measure is absolutely crucial to pop groups such as One Direction as they can sell expensively priced merchandise to their supporters. They will not be able to do that under the status quo. Will my hon. Friend keep up with the argument? This is not about consumer rights but about big groups such as One Direction selling overpriced merchandise to their supporters. I am not sure why that is necessarily in the best interests of consumers.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. When those arguments were put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) earlier, we were taken into a whole new area. We are now arguing that the tickets themselves may have been underpriced to allow people to pay over the odds for the merchandise. That seems to be the argument, does it not?
That is absolutely right.
So we have to sell the tickets cheap so that people can be conned into paying over the odds for the T-shirts and the CDs. That is the reality. The other argument is that this is all about transparency; that a person needs to be able to see that they are in a certain row, seat and place in the stadium. Well, people are not stupid. They know that if they buy a ticket without that detailed information, there is a risk that they might end up sitting behind a pillar and have a restricted view. People do not need any further legislation to help them make up their minds about the risks involved in buying tickets. They know that if they buy on the secondary market, there might be risks, but there will be much greater risks if they go underground. Under the current market, we have operators who run professional businesses, which have been going for a number of years without any problems. Everybody uses them every day of the week. Okay, so a person might pay more than the face value of the ticket, but that is the operation of the free market. I come back to the central point: such operators would not even exist if the vendors sold the tickets at a higher price in the first place. They know when they sell those tickets on day one that they will be swept up and sold at a higher price. In most cases, they turn a blind eye to it because all they are interested in is selling the tickets, getting the money in the bank, and forgetting about the problem.
That is utter rubbish and so not true. People involved in cricket, rugby, tennis and music have written to the Minister and made this case. It is not the case that they are not bothered as long as they are sold out. They set the price for a variety of reasons, including making it affordable for the genuine fan. It is so disingenuous of the hon. Gentleman to say that the clubs do not care as long as the tickets are sold out.
Interestingly, I was happy to give way to the hon. Lady, but she did not give way when I wanted to intervene, but we will leave that aside. If the large organisations that run these sporting bodies put half a mind to it, there would be many ways in which they could ensure—[Interruption.]
Order. All Members are doing is holding up the debate.
If those organisations want to ensure that the tickets are being used by the clubs, that is for them to deal with. We have seen what happened with the Rugby Football Union. The tickets are sent to the clubs, supposedly for use by the grass roots, and they are then sold on by the clubs. The tickets get leaked out into the open market. We cannot interfere with the free market; that is a fact of life. No matter how we dress it up or what legislation we introduce, tickets will find a way to be sold at the market price—what somebody is prepared to pay for it.
My experience of the RFU at Twickenham is that rugby tickets are given out on allocation and request to local clubs—the grass roots of rugby—at a certain price. Were those to be sold on the black market at a higher price and the RFU were to discover it, that club would then get no allocation of tickets for several years. That was a reasonable protection that was placed on the sport.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. He has just described one way in which these sporting bodies can control the allocation of tickets. I am sure that there are many other ways. Much has been said about the use of botnets and modern technology to scoop up tickets I have heard nothing about how big businesses, which run these venues, have tried to use technology to deal with the problem—if they think it is a problem. I put it to the Chamber that they do not think it is a problem, as they are getting the money that they expected to get. They do not see it as a problem and the consumers do not see it as a problem. The reason why I have not been inundated with complaints is that people are, by and large, happy with the system. They know that tickets for popular events will probably be sold at a price that is greater than that for which they were originally sold. If people are lucky enough to get a ticket in the first allocation, that is exactly how they regard themselves—lucky. They know that they have got a valuable commodity, in just the same way as someone who acquires any other article that goes up in value thinks themselves lucky. Someone may buy something for a fiver at a car boot sale on a Sunday morning, and find out a few months or years later, when they take it on “Antiques Roadshow”, that it is worth 10, 100 or 1,000 times more than they paid. That is how the free market works It does not matter how much we try to legislate or to cap ticket prices, the fact is that ultimately the free market will out: tickets will change hands, whether through an organised website or on the black market outside stadiums and venues, for whatever someone else is prepared to pay for them.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) for her campaign on secondary ticketing and the need to protect consumers, and to the hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) for his consistency on this issue and, as someone who comes from the entertainment industry, for his very well-informed speech I must also pay tribute to Statler and Waldorf at the back of the Government Benches—if it was not unparliamentary, I would suggest that the hon. Members for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) were a couple of muppets. My question for them is: what kind of market would object to consumers being fully informed about a commodity at the time of purchase? Even if we applied the principles of the free market, we would not want to restrict information to consumers when they buy products The hon. Member for Shipley used the example of selling houses, but we would not sell someone a house without letting them look around it or without giving them all its specifications. Similarly, we would not sell someone a car saying, “We’ll only let you look at its left side,” or “We won’t let you look inside”; we have to give people all the information. There cannot be any objection to ensuring that consumers are fully informed The hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) intervened to ask about the resale of rugby tickets. He said that if tickets allocated within the rugby family were offered for resale on the secondary market, the rugby club found doing so would be banned from receiving any future allocation. The RFU went to court to obtain the information it needed in order to regulate the sale of tickets in exactly that way. I therefore agree that such rules should apply, but rugby needs such information to make its own regulations stick. In seemingly agreeing with his colleague, the hon. Member for Bury North, the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire is actually agreeing with us The Olympics restricted the resale of tickets, which had to go back through the arrangements set up by London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games and be resold by Ticketmaster at face value. In the early stages, people complained about the fact that there were a lot of empty seats, but such tickets had to be recycled to ensure there was an atmosphere in the stadium. The process of making sure that the tickets went to family members or genuine fans successfully and memorably created a unique atmosphere within the Olympic stadium. That is remembered, particularly by the athletes who performed there, because we made sure that such tickets were made available at face value to genuine fans The RFU wanted to do exactly the same with its tickets for this year’s rugby world cup, but even before the tickets were made available, they could be bought for several thousands of pounds on secondary ticketing websites. The cheapest child’s ticket is £7 and the most expensive ticket is £700, but I saw—I will not name the website, because there are lots of them and it is wrong to single out one of them—five tickets on sale for £8,000 each, with a £3,000 handling charge.
I want to take the hon. Gentleman back to his point about the website selling tickets for £8,000 with a £3,000 handling charge. Did it actually sell any tickets at that price, and if so, is he concerned or sorry for the people who decided to pay £11,000 for a ticket of their own free will and does he believe that they need to be protected?
If they can afford £8,000 for a ticket, I do not think they need my sympathy. The point is that we put pressure on people such as the organisers of the rugby world cup to make tickets affordable through a progressive ticketing policy so that people who genuinely love the sport but might not have the funds to pay that price for the ticket can go to the games.
rose—
I am answering the hon. Gentleman’s point and he can come back to me on it in a minute, although I am going to shut up quite soon Some of the people purchasing these tickets are clearly involved in criminal gangs, as shown in the report on Operation Podium from the Metropolitan police. That report was given to the Government and they were warned that it was not just a question of people making a few bob on the secondary ticketing market. The people who set up these botnets to swamp the market when tickets are first offered for sale are often involved in criminal gangs associated with drugs and firearms. The Metropolitan police have raised serious concerns about this and we ignore them at our peril. What kind of free market wants to perpetuate such activity? I am interested in that.
We have heard a lot about the £500 tickets to go to a particular day of the Lord’s test against Australia, but as a cricket lover who wants more people to be able to go to test matches does the hon. Gentleman agree that an awful lot of tickets are on offer from the original vendor at very sensible prices for Headingley, Durham, Old Trafford and so on and that people could go to those?
I am delighted that those tickets are on sale at very sensible prices, which is why I am in the Chamber to support the ECB, the RFU, the FA and others in asking for the sensible ticketing policies they apply to be protected. All they are asking is to have the information available when a ticket is offered for resale so that they can see whether that ticket is being sold according to the original terms and conditions for the sale. We should not be allowing organised gangs to exploit the consumer by hoovering up these tickets and forcing people to pay much higher prices on the secondary ticketing market.
To return to the question of the RFU, it is well known by the local grass-roots rugby clubs that these tickets are on allocation and should not be resold at a higher value. All it needs to say on the ticket is, “If this ticket is resold at a higher value, ring this number.” Everyone will then know that the club will not get an allocation for three or five years.
The point is that the governing body of the sport wants that information so that it can police it. It went to court to try to get the information, so we should be saying that it is not unreasonable for the information available at the original time of purchase of the tickets to be made available when the tickets are being resold—
rose—
I am not going to give way again, because I want to end my remarks I have one question for the Minister before I sit down. She wrote on 8 January to the Trading Standards Institute and to the Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland. Our argument is clearly getting through, because she has raised concerns about consumer protection and has asked for the organisations’ advice. When she responds, will she say whether she has had that advice? We have been debating the issue for a very long time and for the Minister to be writing on 8 January to find out this information is a little like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, but we still have time, because the Bill will obviously go back to the Lords where there will be an opportunity for common sense to prevail with the Government, even if they will not concede the point tonight. I hope that the Minister can tell us how she got on with her letter.
I came late to this debate and picked up on some interesting arguments being put by Members on both sides of the House. At first glance, my one concern about the amendments is that they do not seem to address some of the valid points about robots that have been raised by Members on both sides. I am sure that the Minister will want to address that point when she answers the debate. One point that has not been raised about the nature of the free market and how it operates for secondary ticketing is that there is not an absolute property right to a ticket when it is sold, because it is not like any other good. The hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) mentioned second-hand cars, which someone might buy and then sell at a later date, but of course the ticket is merely a promise to provide a service or a piece of entertainment in a given period of time, and therefore the original vendor must retain some sort of property right. If the original vendor wishes to sell a ticket to someone at one price, perhaps because they are a certain age, come from a particular area or belong to a particular club, that vendor might still have some property rights that enable them to enforce the terms of that sale. I am sure that the Minister will want to address that issue as it pertains to the secondary market, because those people who sell tickets should be able to have some control at some point, if they wish, over who they sell those tickets to.
It has been a year since we started to scrutinise the Bill, time during which much has changed, not least the Minister leading on it. As she can tell from today’s debate, she missed many treats during our debates, although I am not sure whether a repeat performance of the arguments made by the hon. Members for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) and for Shipley (Philip Davies) was what she intended to generate It has been a long journey and I pay tribute to all those Members who have sought to scrutinise and improve the legislation. Many debates have taken place to meet the test we set, as this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a nation that is on top of its rights and can play a full and active part in the market in both the public and private sectors. Labour certainly recognises that helping people to make the most of their money is vital in a country that is drowning in personal debt—£1.43 trillion of it. Little wonder that StepChange Debt Charity says that six out of 10 people in this country believe that politicians must do more in the next five years to help them stay out of financial difficulty. Making sure that they do not get ripped off should therefore be absolutely paramount in the work we do and in this Bill I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) for tabling the amendment and for their perseverance on ticket touting, which is a clear example of people being ripped off. I also want to pay tribute to the hon. Members for Bury North and for Shipley for their persistence in making their arguments and possibly making Friedrich Hayek spin in his grave through their interpretation of a free market. Let me deal with their arguments, because I think we will have to come back to them otherwise Few other markets would be characterised as free in which a limited number of sellers hoard a product, buying it up in bulk using underhand methods and then colluding to sell at hyped prices. Just because this is happening on the internet does not make it any different. One of the golden rules of the free market is that people should deal with each other honestly and require honesty in return, and that is clearly not what is happening in this industry. It is clearly not a free market. I am also delighted that both hon. Gentlemen outed themselves as fans of St Trinian’s, because that can be the only explanation of why they believe that this is about spivs in pork-pie hats looking at the types of shoes people are wearing rather than a billion-pound ticket-touting industry that is damaging the pockets of fans of sport and music One reason we support the amendment tabled by the all-party group on ticket abuse and reject the Government’s call to reject the cross-party call from the Lords to address this issue is that we do not agree with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport that this is classic entrepreneurship, precisely because we know that it is not an open market. We know that botnets are hoovering up tickets the second they go on sale. Fans simply do not stand a chance Some estimates put the figure at 60% of tickets being taken up in this way. One expert looking at the sporting industry in the past year has identified around 30% of tickets being bought up in this way, so fans cannot click fast enough to beat the botnets. The Secretary of State challenged my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West and said: “The interests that the hon. Lady is representing are probably those of the chattering middle classes and champagne socialists”— I noted that the hon. Member for Shipley called me a socialist earlier; I have amended my Twitter biography accordingly, with his praise— “who have no interest in helping the common working man earn a decent living by acting as a middleman in the sale of a proper service.”—[Official Report, 21 January 2011; Vol. 521, c. 1187.] This is no Flash Harry and this is no decent living.
I am delighted to speak on the Bill for the first time—a Bill whose development and gestation took far longer than my pregnancy. Although the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) says that I missed many a treat, she does not know that I did watch Second Reading on BBC Parliament during my maternity leave, although I had to use the pause function occasionally. It seemed to have a fairly soporific effect on my son. Perhaps that is a tip for all new parents—the delights of BBC Parliament The debate often seems polarised, with on the one hand the advocacy of very prescriptive primary legislation to deal with the issues, and on the other, the speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), who argue that the free market is working perfectly and no intervention is required. I recognise that there are issues and difficulties. We have to find the best way forward to deal with those so that the interests of consumers are well looked after A careful balancing act is needed. We want to make sure that as many people as possible can access events, whatever their means. We want sports and entertainment in the UK to flourish. We have some of the best events and tournaments in the world, which bring in large numbers of international visitors and businesses. We also, of course, want to protect consumers and allow the ticket resale market to work as well as it can There has been an encouraging trend in recent years towards safer and more tailored online ticket marketplaces and away from the touts outside venues. These websites can offer much more consumer protection than was available before, often in excess of what the law requires. The sites have processes in place to try to prevent, discourage and punish fraud. Although no market is perfect, we know how much time, money and emotion fans invest in attending events, so we want fans, as consumers, to be able to operate safely in this market There are already protections in place for consumers. The consumer contracts regulations came into force just six months ago to ensure that consumers are fully informed before they buy from a trader. At the time, the Government announced guidance specifically on internet ticket sales to accompany those regulations, which build on existing law such as the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, which protect consumers from being misled by practices such as claiming that a seat is on the front row when it patently is not The regulations complement the Fraud Act 2006 and the Computer Misuse Act 1998, which list a range of offences available to law enforcement to tackle the fraudulent sale of tickets and the criminal harvesting of tickets from online ticket sales. Botnets and hacking into sites have been mentioned, but these proposals would not only cover cases of hacking. Botnets could also be illegal if, for example, they were being used to gain unauthorised access to a website that clearly states that it deals with real individuals We are absolutely committed to ensuring that the law is properly enforced. We have a powerful economic crime command within the National Crime Agency to drive forward this work. We have invested about £86 million to build law enforcement capabilities to respond to cyber-crime, including online fraud. We have strengthened the reporting and intelligence arrangements for fraud. Action Fraud is now the single national reporting centre for fraud and financially motivated cyber-crime. Since 1 April last year, responsibility for Action Fraud rests with the City of London police, bringing it closer to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau The City of London police are also working with the organisation behind the rugby world cup to exclude participants in the ticketing lottery who have links with previous reports of fraud. In October last year, the police reported that they had foiled “hundreds” of fraudulent attempts to gain tickets via the official ballot. The Competition and Markets Authority and trading standards bodies lead consumer law enforcement in this area. Through their hard work, trading standards officers have successfully enforced consumer law—for example, right here in Westminster in reducing the number of consumers being caught out by bogus theatre tickets My right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott) and Baroness Neville-Rolfe have previously set out the Government’s position. We do not think that there are no problems in this market, but we have to find the best way to tackle them In that context, I will set out the difficulties involved in Lords amendment 12. Although it purports to add further transparency requirements to protect consumers, it could have the opposite effect. It would mean that all sellers, whether as a business or as one friend selling to another, would have to provide detailed information about themselves and the ticket they were selling, including the seat number and the booking reference number. That would enable the event organisers to cancel tickets put up for resale, as is intended by the amendment. That would mean that a fan with a spare ticket, perhaps because their friend is ill, could not resell it without risking having all their tickets cancelled. Someone who had bought a resold ticket could arrive at the venue only to be refused entry on that basis. That does not seem very fair or proportionate.
Will the Minister clarify two things? First, does she think that the amendment applies to individual-to-individual sales? It is actually aimed at the marketplace that secondary ticket sites create. Secondly, if she is worried about resales and tickets being cancelled, will she accept the amendment proposed by the all-party group, which would specifically deal with that to ensure that it does not happen?
I recognise the attempts made in that amendment, although they do not address all the difficulties that I have outlined. Many people who are unable to attend an event at short notice will find that they have another friend who is happy to go along to it with them, but others will not, so they will use online marketplaces, in which case these issues will apply One of the main difficulties with the Lords amendment is that it would require sellers to provide their name. That should raise concerns, because it would include private individuals who could be young people or vulnerable consumers. Perhaps a 14-year-old One Direction fan who is unable to attend the concert she has bought tickets for will want to resell them, and in doing so would have to provide her name online. This is a concern not about ticket sales but about things such as identity theft and the difficulties involved when private individuals have to place their names online. There were over 100,000 reports of ID fraud in 2013, and we do not want to support proposals that could—albeit inadvertently —push that number higher.
When I asked the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) in what circumstances a ticket could be cancelled—a crucial point, because there might be legitimate circumstances but also circumstances where it would be unreasonable—I did not feel that I got a sensible answer. The Minister is right to be worried about that lack of precision.
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for making that point.
This proposal is in no way about making 14-year-olds vulnerable online if they want to sell their ticket. On eBay, people who buy and sell have an identity: we know who we are buying from in the sense of whether they have sold one of something or 1,000 of something. All sorts of mechanisms could be in place to keep the person who is selling on the ticket safe. The Minister is wrong to suggest that this is about allowing event organisers to cancel tickets—that is not the intention at all. It is about transparency. Very few event organisers put “Not for resale” or “Non-transferable” on their tickets. The reason why some do is to try to protect the tickets, but they would not need to if we had this transparency.
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I appreciate that her intention might not be to force people to use their names, but unfortunately that is what the Lords amendment says. Many organisations would wish to cancel tickets if they knew exactly which tickets were being resold, and that would not be in consumers’ interests The amendment could result in the cancelling of tickets and potential ID theft, which would have the common impact of incentivising the movement of sales to other, less secure websites, perhaps overseas, or to the street touts of whom people already have experience. Having more safety in online marketplaces that behave more responsibly has to be better than pushing things on to foreign, unregulated websites or insecure websites. We want to make sure that consumers are protected. The touts we see outside venues do not offer that protection—not even close to it.
The Minister says that the amendment is too prescriptive. Does she not recognise that the internet spivs who use these botnets are rigging the market and putting up prices for consumers? What is she going to do about these internet spivs who are harvesting tickets against the interests of consumers?
I will come to enforcement, because I accept that there are issues that need to be looked at, but I want to complete my explanation of the difficulties with amendment 12 There is a real risk that introducing these additional, more stringent information requirements would go beyond the provisions set out in the consumer rights directive, which EU law does not allow us to do. Compliance with EU law might be further harmed in relation to the technical standards and regulations directive. To comply with that directive, the amendment would have to be notified to the Commission at least three months before the Bill was due to finish its passage through Parliament, meaning that it remained in draft form during that standstill period. We have clearly run out of time for such steps to be taken now. The consequence, which I know the proposers of the amendment would not want, is that amendment 12 could end up being unenforceable if it were passed in its current form.
It is interesting that the Minister raises the EU directive, which talks about the importance of providing the characteristics of an item that is being sold. If the characteristics of a ticket are not to say where the event is, what time it is, and which seat it is, what does she think would be included under the directive?
Much of this information already has to be provided under the consumer contracts regulations, and that is absolutely fine. However, amendment 12 goes beyond that—for example, in requiring individuals to give their name. I do not think that people would wish to run the risk that it ended up being unenforceable, but unfortunately that is the legal situation The amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) talks about stating the face value on the ticket. I understand what she is getting at, but this is not a particularly helpful concept to use in legislation because the face value is not clearly defined. A ticket does not necessarily have just one value—there may be delivery and administration charges, and the seller might not know which of those needed to be included in the face value. If the fan selling the ticket got that wrong, the ticket could end up being cancelled without their knowledge. The value stated on the ticket might not be what the fan paid because of the fan club or early-purchase discounts that have been discussed. People would not want consumers to lose money when they cannot attend an event, and the face value would not always cover what the consumer had actually paid There is a more substantive issue of principle. Is it right for Government to tell consumers that they cannot sell items that they have bought second-hand at above the price that they paid for them? If I buy a book for £4.99 and then a very popular film is made of it and a friend offers me £10 for the book, why should the Government get involved and say that it cannot be sold on Perhaps unintentionally, the amendment suggests that it is acceptable for an event organiser to cancel tickets that have been sold for above face value. Many hon. Members have addressed the issue of terms and conditions, and some have said that organisations should be able to cancel such tickets, but that would not necessarily always be a fair term. Under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, it would be up to a court to decide on a case-by-case basis, but it may not always be a fair term There are problems in the market—as is the case in any market—which is why we have listened and are taking action. We agree on many of the issues relating to consumer information, including consumers not knowing where to go to get redress when they have a problem with a resold ticket. Consumers sometimes raise concerns with event organisers when they should approach the online marketplace where they bought the tickets. Of course, that can be inconvenient and frustrating for both the organiser and the fans There is also a problem with bulk selling and the people who have been referred to as bedroom touts. Like the organisers, I am not comfortable that there are people who buy tickets as if they were real fans, but with the sole intention of reselling for a profit. I am, therefore, pleased to announce various actions that we have taken. We have been working closely with the secondary ticket marketplaces and continue to have constructive discussions with them and the event organisers The online ticket marketplaces have made a range of commitments, as outlined in the letters that have been placed in the Library of the House and are available from the Vote Office in the Lobby. They have committed to providing further information and transparency, to make sure that consumers have appropriate information. The commitment covers much of the information that Lords amendment 12 would require, but it will not breach EU rules, result in unintended consequences for privacy and fraud, or give event organisers the opportunity to cancel tickets put up for resale Secondly, the marketplaces have confirmed their commitment to consumer protection. When consumers have a problem with a ticket they have bought on an online marketplace, they should have access to redress. The marketplaces have set out the guarantees they provide to users and how they work to protect consumers. Thirdly, the marketplaces have committed to ensuring that consumers know where to go to get redress by providing the information prominently on their websites. Alongside those common commitments, they have committed to a range of different improvements specific to their individual sites. They are all welcome commitments In addition to the action taken by industry at a practical level, we want to ensure that the Government address the issues with an evidence-based approach. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has today launched an independent review of the effectiveness of the current law—and, indeed, what can be done to improve it. The review will survey enforcement of the current consumer law as it applies to online marketplaces as facilitators of transactions in tickets, and it will assess the challenges of enforcement of that law. We invite the review to suggest how that enforcement could be improved. That will include looking at how to tackle bulk selling, which has been raised by many Members today, and how to effectively enforce the law against traders impersonating consumers in order to evade consumer law I have written to trading standards to gather evidence on what more can be done to enforce consumer law as it applies to buyers and sellers of tickets. That will complement the DCMS review. To respond to the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), I have not yet received a response from trading standards, but I will, of course, keep the House informed Given the ongoing commitments to tackle the genuine issues, I urge the House to reject Lords amendment 12 and the amendment to it, and to welcome the package of measures that I have announced.
We have had a wide-ranging debate. If we were to apply the law of averages to the question of which side of the argument the coin would fall, I think it would fall on the side of the Opposition and the hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) who tabled amendment (a). The debate has been strongly in favour of transparency, apart from the contributions of two hon. Gentleman in the back row—the hon. Members for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) —who have been the only Members to put up any argument against that, albeit unconvincingly I have listened to what the Minister has had to say and I have seen the lobbying from the four secondary marketing companies. They have obviously spent a fortune on lobbying and I am sad to say that I heard a lot of their arguments in the Minister’s speech. From their point of view, all the money they have spent on lobbying has worked, but the House is not convinced There is demonstrable market failure. When the House, the Select Committee and the then Minister looked at the issue 10 years ago, they said we would need to see such failure before requiring legislation. We have now demonstrated that that market failure exists. I know that the Minister has written, very late in the day, to trading standards. I wrote to trading standards years ago and the response I received was that there was no evidence. Transparency would provide the evidence of what is happening The four letters from the secondary marketing companies say, at long last, that they will abide by the regulations that the Minister’s colleague, the right hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott), announced last year, but they have already had more than six months to abide by those regulations. I wrote to them to point out that the regulations are now on the statute book, but they have carried on regardless. I have no faith that they will do anything different. That is why we need to legislate. There is cross-party support for that and I hope that Members on both sides of the House will support us in the Lobby. I know that when the Bill goes back to the House of Lords our proposal will have cross-party support, ably led by Lord Moynihan, Lord Clement-Jones and Baroness Grey-Thompson, as well as our own Lord Stevenson. I will push the amendment to the vote Question put.
I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.
With this we may take Lords amendments 2 to 11 and 13 to 78.
I am delighted that we are bringing the Bill back to the House in such good shape. There was a good debate in the other place and a number of amendments build on and improve the Bill. We listened to concerns in both Houses about consumers being out of pocket if they have to pay to return rejected goods, and as a result we agree that it is sensible to make it clear in the Bill that the trader bears responsibility for the reasonable costs of returning goods that have been rejected by the consumer. That provides clarity and sets a sensible balance between the parties, without causing significant burden to business The Bill has always contained a provision that if a consumer exercises the final right to reject, the trader may reduce the refund to take account of the use that the consumer has had of the goods, unless the goods are rejected in the first six months, in which case the general rule is that no deduction may be applied. That is intended to balance the interests of consumers and traders, and for that reason the Bill provides a limited exception to the general six-month rule. However, we understand the concern that that exception could be interpreted too broadly, and in response we have narrowed the exception to address specifically the impact on the motor industry The particular nature of motor vehicles may affect the balance between traders’ and consumers’ interests because cars are high-cost items that lose value quickly. They are also complex, so it is more likely that a car will develop two faults in the first six months than, for example, a piece of furniture. The option to make a deduction for use in the first six months is therefore particularly significant for traders in motor vehicles The amendments include a power to increase the scope of the exception if appropriate in future. We think that is important, as it is not possible to predict the goods and technologies that may develop. We are conscious of the need to reflect the dynamic nature of digital content. Many forms of digital content are not static products and change over time with updates to software and apps. The Bill provides that the digital content must meet the quality rights—satisfactory quality, being fit for a particular purpose and as described—following an update. We listened to concerns raised in the other place that as originally drafted the requirement could prevent traders from improving digital content or offering flexible products. That outcome would not be good for consumers, so we have clarified that the requirement does not prevent traders from adding new features or enhancing existing features, as long as the original description is still met We have amended the provision on digital content that causes damage to a consumer’s device or other digital content. That will allow traders to exclude or restrict their liability under the Bill for damage to the consumer’s device or other digital content, to the extent that it would be fair under the unfair terms provisions in part 2 of the Bill. That provision will apply even to free digital content, specifically when it causes damage and the consumer can show that the trader failed to use reasonable care and skill to prevent the damage occurring. We have clarified the maximum fining penalty that the regulator of premium rate services can impose on non-compliant and rogue operators, and we are making clear that where appropriate and proportionate, the regulator can impose the maximum fine for each contravention of the code. That maximum is £250,000, so in the event of a company making two serious contraventions of the code, the regulator could impose a fine of up to £500,000 if that was considered appropriate and proportionate We are determined to tackle the minority of rogue letting agents who offer poor service, and in Committee we added provisions to ensure transparency of letting agent fees, to give consumers the information they want while supporting good letting agents. It is important that that requirement comes into effect as soon as possible to ensure that tenants have certainty over the payments that they make, and for that reason we are putting the enforcement details in the Bill. We are also applying the duty on letting agents to publicise fees in Wales as well as England. That was requested by the Welsh Government and has the added advantage of minimising any cross-border enforcement problems Existing legislation requires landlords and letting agents acting on their behalf to protect the tenant’s security deposit. That is the most significant money likely to be held by an agent, but they might hold other money on their client’s behalf, which is why the Government already encourage agents to join client money protection schemes. Public awareness of that is not as high as we would like, so we are also requiring agents to state whether they are a member of a client money protection scheme From 1 October last year all letting agents and property managers must belong to one of our three approved redress schemes that provide tenants with an effective way to address complaints. We will now require letting agents to publicise which redress scheme they have joined. Those changes will level the playing field for agents by raising awareness of what best practice looks like, put downward pressure on fees, and provide consumers with the information they need without introducing significant new costs to the sector As set out in our 2011 White Paper on higher education, we are providing all higher education students who receive public support with access to external dispute resolution. That reflects the fact that increasingly, new and different providers are offering higher education, not just the traditional university sector, yet only a handful of alternative providers—seven in total—have so far voluntarily joined the Office of the Independent Adjudicator’s complaints handling scheme. We are making it mandatory for alternative providers whose courses are designated for student support to join I convey my grateful thanks to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. It published the outcome of its scrutiny on 11 July 2014, and I was delighted to accept its recommendations that the exercise of certain powers in the Bill be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, as reflected in the amendments. We also addressed concerns that current provisions for the appointment of the Competition Appeal Tribunal—or CAT—effectively exclude judges from the Scottish Court of Session or the Northern Ireland High Court. We have now ensured that Lord Chief Justices of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the Lord President of the Court of Session, may nominate any suitably qualified individual who is already a judge sitting in a relevant court to be deployed as a CAT chair We have improved provision for private actions in competition law. First, we are allowing the Competition and Markets Authority—the CMA—to approve an outline of a voluntary redress scheme, and for the business to create a full scheme afterwards. That is part of a wider Government initiative to promote alternative dispute resolution, and it allows responsible businesses who wish to make redress to those they have wronged an avenue to do so. The amendment allows the CMA to impose conditions necessary to set up a full scheme. If those conditions are not complied with when the full scheme is set up, the CMA can withdraw approval or consider a revised scheme We are enabling provision to be made for claimants to incur costs if they apply to have the representative to the action removed but lose the application. That is in line with the wider “loser pays” principle that exists in domestic law, and should deter vexatious applications. The Government recognise that during collective proceedings, not all damages are claimed. Therefore the Bill makes provision that the CAT may award unclaimed damages from opt-out collective action proceedings to a prescribed charity—currently the Access to Justice Foundation. Although the body to receive unclaimed damages may be changed, we are ensuring that it must always be a charity The Bill consolidates and simplifies important provisions on investigatory powers of consumer law enforcers, and the Government greatly value the vital work that enforcers such as trading standards do in protecting consumers and legitimate businesses. We now require enforcers to give two days’ written notice for routine inspections, and we have set out clear exemptions to that. We are firmly underlining that provision by putting it beyond doubt that notice need be given only for routine inspections, which is when there is no reason to doubt that the business in question is operating properly without any significant breaches of legislation. We have committed to review the practical effect of the notice requirement within two years of the commencement of the Bill. As a result, we are confident that the powers and safeguards strike the right balance between protecting civil liberties, reducing business burdens, and ensuring effective enforcement, and I invite the House to agree with the amendments
In the short time available let me say that I think we are looking at a form of alternative dispute resolution this evening, so let me first flag up the positive in terms of the customer service feedback we would like to give to the Government on these Lords amendments: we will be supporting all the Lords amendments. In particular, there are three that are worthy of consideration, following the rule about the six in 10 Britons who believe that politicians should do more in the coming years to help them stay out of financial difficulty.
I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. She had some well-crafted lines and I disagree with her final remarks, but she raises an important point about information for consumers whether in the public or private sector. My view is clear: passing the Bill to enshrine those rights is not in itself sufficient. It is vital that people know how to use these rights in a practical way. That is why the Department has been working with consumer information bodies such as Citizens Advice and Which?, and retailers and other groups, to try to ensure that there will be sound, straightforward and easy to understand information that will be readily available to consumers, whether at the point of sale or where they have a problem, through a variety of different methods, and whether online or through more traditional means. Consumer confidence, which will underline the improvements in the economy, is crucial and will ensure that this landmark legislation, which the hon. Lady rightly highlights as a once-in-a-generation opportunity, will truly deliver much more confident consumers who are able to enforce their rights. That will help to ensure that the economy benefits and is much stronger.
I beg to move, That the period on the expiry of which proceedings on the Consumer Rights Bill shall lapse in pursuance of paragraph (13) of Standing Order No. 80A shall be extended by 67 days until 30 March 2015 We have this afternoon and early evening considered the amendments made to the Bill in the other place, and the result of our deliberations now needs to be considered there. We are mindful of the fact that the Bill was introduced in this House on 23 January 2014. As set out in Standing Order No. 80A, as a carry-over Bill, it will fall if it does not receive Royal Assent within 12 months of its First Reading, and that date is now approaching Given the strong support for the important measures contained in the Bill, it is only right for us to safeguard against this. The Bill is the biggest overhaul of consumer rights for a generation. It sets out a simple, modern framework of consumer rights that will promote growth through confident consumers driving innovation and more competitive markets. I therefore trust that hon. Members will support me by agreeing to the motion.
I simply rise to agree that this is an important Bill, and we are looking forward to progress being made and the Government finally agreeing with us in the Lords on ticket touting. We look forward to its return to this House for us to approve it.
rose—
I call—[Hon. Members: “John Spellar”.] Oh, yes. I call John Spellar.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Those days we spent in Washington together were clearly—
Order. Mr Spellar, this is not the time to tell secrets. My apologies for temporarily not calling you correctly to speak.
I understand, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is an age-related thing I congratulate the Minister on moving the extension right up to the end of her period in Parliament. We wish her well in her future career. As she and the Opposition spokesperson said, this is an important Bill, in which case one wonders why the Government have taken so long to bring it to fruition on the statute book. What is their problem? It is not as though we are burdened with business. Week after week, the Government are filling time in this Parliament—not just since we came back after the Christmas holiday, but certainly since we came back in September. What have the Government been doing and why are they taking so long to pass the Bill? This Parliament has rightly now been described as a zombie Parliament.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that since the introduction of fixed five-year Parliaments, there is no excuse for not knowing when the general election will be, meaning that the proper programming of Bills should be a piece of cake for the Government?
My hon. Friend is exactly right; it should be a piece of cake for any properly run Administration. We realise that there are substantial internal tensions in the Government. That is why several private Members’ Bills are held up in the proceedings, and why other important issues, such as one dear to his heart in his role as deputy defence spokesman for the Opposition—the failure to advance the programme on the renewal of the Trident submarine programme—are also held up. On those matters, we understand, although we do not agree, with the delay. The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) has several times drawn to the attention of the House and the Prime Minister some of the internal contradictions of the coalition. We understand those problems What are the problems with the Bill before us? There might be differences between the Government and the Opposition, as we saw with the Government’s disgraceful support for the ticket touts against the interests of supporters and fans of sport, music and the arts, but there are no internal differences to hold up the progress of the Bill. That brings us to the underlying point: the Government’s programme is in a bit of mess. We have to consider this point, because it is important for the constitutional arrangements of the House. Although there are strong differences of opinion within the Chamber, things really fall down when we have a Government who cannot handle their own business, do not know what they are doing and—equally important, although for some this is a more trivial issue—do not understand the dynamic of Parliament, not just in this House but in the relationship between the two Houses. We are seeing many examples of that It might be that the Minister can give us some clues as to where the problem lies. Who is in charge of Government business? Who should be steering the Bill through Parliament, and why have they failed so singularly to do so inside a year—a very long time? Normally, when there is good will in the House—as the Minister rightly said, the Bill has broad approval and is important—Bills can progress at a reasonable pace. Have there been unreasonable obstacles from the Opposition or within the coalition? Or is it that the Government are asleep on the job Many Members, including Back-Bench Government Members, have raised concerns about that issue. It is clear that the Prime Minister and the crew at No. 10 are not in charge of Government business. We have seen in the newspapers and heard personally many complaints from Members about his “chillaxed” approach, and we remember the comments about the fish rotting from the head down. He makes a virtue of his “chillaxed” approach to policy and, in particular, to administration and organisation—those dull details that actually ensure that government and Parliament run properly.
The right hon. Gentleman is making an interesting speech. It seems to me that he is arguing for a business of the House committee, which I would of course support him in.
Most certainly not. I am arguing for an effective Government, but the hon. Gentleman makes an interesting observation, because he is really saying that the driver behind his business of the House committee is the failure of his own Government. He has to consider whether that is a failure arising from the particular circumstances and structure of this unholy coalition, or whether it is down to the deficiencies of the individuals concerned. I think it is probably both, but even within this alliance, which I know he is deeply unhappy with and would like to see ended—it was Government Members who voted for the five-year fixed-term parliaments, which has ossified this Parliament—if there were people there who had some grip on the situation, matters would be improved. Either way, it is clear that the Prime Minister and his fairly undistinguished staff at No. 10 have not got a grip on the situation. Within the House, of course, under all Governments, including much better run Governments, the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip have played key roles, so let us deal with them in turn, starting with the Leader of the House I say without any sense of irony that the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague) was a very good Foreign Secretary. I did not always agree with all his policy, but he was an effective Foreign Secretary who advanced a number of important and noble causes. I pay tribute to him for the redirection and reorientation of the Foreign Office towards using our embassies more to ensure that they sold British goods and services and represented British interests. I am pleased to say, too—I pay tribute again—that he made sure that embassy staff drove British-made cars The Leader of the House is also an entertaining speaker. On a day when he is not bored, he is an extremely effective speaker and very fine writer, too. I suspect he will use those talents in the future, and I think it will be a loss both to this House and to the Conservative party when he stands down voluntarily—unlike the Minister, who will be standing down involuntarily—at the next general election However, notwithstanding all those qualities, I do not believe that organisation and boring detail are top of the right hon. Gentleman’s agenda, so I do not think that the Leader of the House—in this as in a number of other facets of this zombie Parliament—has got a grip on the pace of the programme of the Government’s legislation The Chief Whip is in a slightly different position, along with the deputy Chief Whip, although I see a lack of organisation in what they do. We have seen many examples of them rushing around during votes when they clearly do not have a clue what is going on. They have not been speaking truth unto power, either, when it comes to what can or cannot be done within this House, so they bear some degree of responsibility for what has happened We are having to spend some time this evening examining these issues not just because of one Bill. Rather, it is because of a systemic problem in the Government that is, frankly, not helping Parliament, not helping proper debate, not helping the progress of legislation and not helping the bringing forward of measures to deal with the problems facing this country. Thus, I am pleased to say, we now have a useful opportunity to examine all that, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham will be able to deal with it in more detail in his contribution.
It is a privilege to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (Mr Spellar). I agree with him that this is an important Bill, although, as my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) stated, much should have been in it that is not in it, so it has been a missed opportunity. I give credit to my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) and others who have argued for greater transparency over ticket touts. I cannot for the life of me think why the Government think there are votes to be gained from ticket touts rather than from the mass of the public who buy tickets. My hon. Friend helpfully highlighted cases where people had clearly been ripped off or misled under the present situation The motion before us relates to paragraph (13) of Standing Order 80A, which states: “Proceedings on a bill ordered to be carried over to the next Session of Parliament shall lapse on the expiry of the period of twelve months from the date of its first reading in this House and the bill shall be laid aside unless the House shall order, in pursuance of a motion under paragraph (14), that proceedings on the bill be extended for a specified period.” This Bill had its First Reading on 21 January 2004, as the Minister mentioned—[Interruption.] I meant 2014 Very little legislation has gone through Parliament over the past year. Another habit of this Government is trying to push things through the House very quickly, with limited days allotted for the scrutiny of legislation, which means that the other place has more time to examine a Bill at leisure. I have a fundamental objection to that, because this House is the supreme body for framing and scrutinising legislation and for tabling amendments. The rush to get everything through this House as quickly as possible has left us with what has been described in many newspapers as a “zombie Session”. The programme for next week and subsequent weeks shows that very few votes on legislation are going to be provided for. We are waiting on their lordships’ House to return legislation that has speedily been channelled through this House I do not believe it right that an amendment such as the one debated today to deal with ticket touts should have been agreed in the other place. It should have been agreed here. The Government should have taken more time to consider it in detail and to ensure that hon. Members understood the implications of what they had done. We have seen legislation—badly drafted legislation—rushed through this House time and again during this Parliament; it has then gone to the other place and been filleted like a fish.
My hon. Friend draws attention to a further aspect that causes difficulty. In the initial enthusiasm of the coalition, a number of ill thought through constitutional changes were brought through—changing the date of the Queen’s Speech and the five-year Parliament, for example. However, no consideration was given to the natural rhythm of legislation in this Parliament, either on a sessional or a whole-Parliament basis. In both cases, the coalition has run into considerable difficulties in respect of running through legislation in this place and of the inter-relationship between this place and the other place.
I agree with my right hon. Friend. After passing the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 for five-year Parliaments, it should have been easier for the Government to programme their business motions through this House. At the time of the last general election, the Prime Minister talked freely about reducing the cost of politics, but since then he has absolutely stuffed the other place with new peers and peeresses. He is obviously trying to ensure that the Conservatives maintain their in-built advantage in the other place It is clear that the whipping system in the other place is not working very well, which is laughable. Either Members who have just been ennobled are not turning up or other Members are rebellious, because they are clearly not voting along Government lines on every issue. The amendment on ticket-touting, for example, was tabled by a Conservative peer A five-year Parliament ought to ensure that programmes are completed, but motions such as this mean that Bills are stuck in the other place and we must wait for them to come back. That applies to some important Bills, such as the Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Bill, which would create an armed forces ombudsman and must be keenly awaited by members of our armed forces. It has been argued that there has not been enough time during the current legislative Session, but we should bear in mind the number of Opposition days and Thursdays devoted to business tabled by the Backbench Business Committee. I mean no disrespect to any of those debates, but space could have been made for debates on important Bills Moreover, during the current Parliament an unprecedented number of Committee stages have been dealt with on the Floor of the House rather than in Committee Rooms upstairs. That has used up days that could have been devoted to more lengthy consideration of Bills.
The hon. Gentleman is making one of his interesting speeches, but surely he is not suggesting that Committee stages of constitutional measures that have been dealt with on the Floor of the House should have been dealt with upstairs.
No, I am not. I cannot think of an example at the moment, but a number of Committee stages that would previously have been dealt with upstairs have been dealt with on the Floor of the House. That leads us to ask whether the Government are simply trying to fill up time on the Floor of the House—and I think that that is exactly what they have been doing As I said at the beginning of my speech, this is an important Bill, and it will clearly be given a great deal more scrutiny and attention in the other place than it will be given here. Given the current logjam in the other place, we shall have a very thin February and March as we wait for Bills to return to us. There is also the broader issue of the reputation of the House of Commons. I do not think that headlines about, for instance, zombie Parliaments or MPs coming to the House on only two days a week do our reputation any good. We cannot expect the public to understand the minutiae of parliamentary timetabling, especially given the incompetent way in which the Government are handling it.
My hon. Friend may recall press reports about a memorandum sent by the Government Chief Whip to his Members of Parliament, indicating that they were unlikely to be needed on Thursdays and, possibly, Mondays, and therefore, effectively, they had to be here on only two days a week. In fact, this level of inactivity was being “programmed in” by the Chief Whip, partly because of failure to run the business, but also for party political purposes.
That is an interesting point. I do remember seeing press reports about the letter sent to Conservative Back Benchers. If I thought that the Chief Whip and the Leader of the House were well organised enough, I would say that there was obviously a plot, but I do not think that there was. I think that they have found themselves with time on their hands, and Conservative Back Benchers have been told not to come here on Mondays or Thursdays.
May I state categorically that I have never received such a letter from the Chief Whip?
He does not include the hon. Gentleman.
He would prefer me to stay away much more often.
That does not surprise me, given the hon. Gentleman’s record. I should not have thought that he was one of those whom the Chief Whip would hold close to his bosom in terms of communication. I imagine that if there was room for only one more person in a lifeboat, the Chief Whip would not get into it if the hon. Gentleman was there The point is that we have ended up with a slack programme, and the progress of Bills, including this Bill, depends on how sedately or otherwise the other place deals with them. Certain important Bills, such as this and the Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Bill, could be delayed until the wash-up, and could then fall. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, provisions in this Bill that are actually welcome could end up being dealt with in the usual meat-grinder sessions at the end when it is decided what can and cannot be agreed. I do not think that that would be satisfactory from the point of view of those who have worked hard to ensure that the Bill is passed, or when it comes to ensuring that it is scrutinised in a proper and just fashion. I note that there are other carry-over motions on the Order Paper, and I suspect there will be others, because it is within the Government’s remit to introduce them. As I said, under paragraph (13) of the Standing Order that has been invoked, paragraph (14) comes into effect, which states: “A motion may be made by a Minister of the Crown to extend for a specified period proceedings on a Bill which would otherwise lapse under paragraph (13), and any such motion (a) may contain provisions amending or supplementing a programme order in respect of the Bill; (b) may be proceeded with, though opposed, after the moment of interruption” I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (Mr Spellar) that this is not about the Government having a procedural or a timetabling Committee of the House for Bills. A competent Government should be able to put forward a legislative programme for a Session that ensures not only that they get their Bills through, but that it is done in a timely fashion and the Bills get proper scrutiny in this place. Clearly, now that they have discovered paragraph (13), it is going to be used far more to extend consideration of Bills The time period goes up to 30 March and it will be interesting to see what timetable there will be and whether or not, and when, we will get this Bill back from the other place. On the transparency issue around ticket touting, for example, Lord Moynihan was clear on the radio this morning that he would listen to what this House said, but there is a good chance that the Bill will be voted on again in the other place and come back to us The issue is whether the Conservative Whips Office in the House of Lords can get all these new peers whom the Prime Minister has added out of their sleepy slumber and ensure that they attend and vote in support of the Government. Their record so far is not very good. There is even a question as to whether they can be relied on to vote the right way, because there are Cross Benchers and Conservative peers who support the cause of greater transparency for the consumer which my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) has championed for many years. If the Bill comes back, we will get into a ping-pong session, and given that we are now getting a logjam of Bills, what real in-depth discussion will we have of any amendments that are brought back That brings us back to my central point about the role of this House as opposed to that of the other place. I could be unfair on the Government and think that all along, with the coalition in place, their plan and the Prime Minister’s plan was to rush everything through this House as quickly as possible, so that it gets to the other place where, because he has appointed so many new Conservative peers, he now has an in-built majority to steamroller through whatever he wants We have seen some examples of that. The coalition love-days of the rose garden at No. 10 in 2010 have now clearly gone sour. The coalition was described then as a shotgun marriage, and it has clearly not lasted the course. I know of occasions when internal tensions in the coalition have led to legislation being dropped—the latest example being the issues around surveillance on the internet, where there appears to be a clear divide between the position of the Liberal Democrats and that of the Conservative part of the coalition. It is important that we get legislation through in time, and we cannot second-guess the internal politics of the coalition. Let us remember the rights of this House. There has been a lot of talk about broken politics, and the—
Order. The hon. Gentleman is now drifting a long way from the subject before us. We are not discussing the internal politics of the coalition; we are concentrating on the proposal for the carry-over extension of the Bill, and the hon. Gentleman needs to return to that.
As always, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall heed your advice. The important point, however, is that a very strange dynamic has been created during this Parliament. Bills have been announced and put forward, and the first was the Bill relating to the Boundary Commission, which subsequently fell apart. That also happened to a House of Lords Bill. I use those as an example—
Order. Mr Jones, it is fascinating to hear your explanation of why you should continue to make the points that I have asked you not to make, but I am now directing you to return to the subject before us. Members might be entertained by your contribution, but it is my job to keep you in order. You are currently out of order, so please return to the subject.
I am quite aware of that, and I apologise for digressing into areas that are beyond the scope of the Bill The central point is that this Government have not been able to programme their Bills properly during this Parliament. Depending on where this Bill gets to in the stack of Bills in the other place, it could end up in the wash-up. If Lord Moynihan presses these matters to a vote again, as he said on the radio this morning that he would, we shall have ping-pong and this Bill and others could end up either being filleted or in a ping-pong session. That could result in important legislation not being put forward. The use of this Standing Order shows that the Government have failed in one of their basic tasks—that of timetabling their legislation in this House. It is an indictment of the incompetent and arrogant way in which they have acted.
Does not this show precisely the reverse? Does not it show the ambition and forthrightness of the Government in having such a busy programme, even at the end of five years, that they need an extra 67 days? That dynamism is something of which the Government should be proud.
I am glad I have woken the hon. Gentleman from his slumbers. In fact, the opposite is the case. The Government have had a year in which to get the Bill through, yet they have had to argue for an extension to finish the process for this and other legislation. They cannot hide behind the argument that there has not been enough time to consider the Bill; there has been plenty of time. This Government have an inbuilt practice of trying to get Bills through the House as quickly as possible, which is why they have ended up with a logjam in the other place. That is not good for this House, because the Bills do not receive proper scrutiny. This House should be the place in which amendments are tabled and discussed During this Parliament, we have seen some very badly drafted Bills. They have not only needed amendment in the other place but come back to this House, at which point the Government themselves have had to table reams and reams of amendments. That is about bad drafting of legislation. It says exactly the opposite to what the hon. Gentleman suggests, in that if the Government cannot get it through in a year, that shows either incompetence or, as I said, a strategy whereby they were trying to push everything to the other place so that when they have their in-built majority there they can bang it through as quickly as possible That does this House, or how the public see it, no favours. They do not understand the effectiveness of the other place and how it changes Bills. This House should be where amendments are introduced and things are changed. Without that, all we are doing is rubber-stamping the Government’s legislation—that should not be the position. Members should propose amendments and argue against badly drafted legislation and against things they feel strongly about, as on occasion have the hon. Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) I think that we will be seeing more of these carry-over motions, which is an indictment of how this Government have been managing legislation. The Procedure Committee needs to look at this practice in order to ensure in future that this House is the body that not only drafts legislation, but ensures that it receives proper scrutiny Question put and agreed to.
I am very pleased to have this opportunity today to lead a special debate on the future of fire services in Corby and east Northamptonshire. My constituents are extremely concerned about plans drawn up by the current administration at Northamptonshire county council to scrap one of Corby’s two fire engines and cut the firefighter team at the station, which serves Corby and much of east Northamptonshire. The county council is planning reductions in the Northamptonshire fire and rescue service operating budget of £1.6 million over three years—that is equivalent to a cut of 7.5% in the current operating budget. That is additional to cuts in excess of £1 million already implemented under this Government, which resulted in a loss of 31 posts. The strategy for delivering these cuts is simple: cut at Corby; cut an engine; and cut the crew The council has been running a consultation, which closes today, in which it is not considering cuts to services in any other part of the county—the impact is all on Corby. A one-option consultation is not a consultation at all; it is a public relations exercise. The council’s plans will take out a standard fire appliance, and the associated crew, from Corby and replace this with a new Cobra intervention vehicle crewed by only two firefighters. I have discussed this with Martyn Emberson, head of the fire and rescue service in the county, who has confirmed that these changes would not add any new capability to Corby—Cobra-based technology can already be deployed from the Corby station, as I have seen for myself; would significantly deplete manning levels at the station; and would result in a degradation of the response service locally. The key concern about these changes is that if firefighters arrive on the scene of a major fire, they may face a delay of up to 20 minutes before they can enter the building The strength of public opinion against the plans is huge. Thousands of people have signed an online petition organised by local firefighters. Over the past few weeks, more than 200 people have responded to my appeal for input into tonight’s speech. I want the Minister to hear from my constituents in their own words. I hope that she will listen to them and agree to meet me, local firefighters and the county council to see whether we can find an alternative to these current plans I appreciate that money is tight for local councils, but the county council has not explored other options. Firefighters tell me that there are other ways of making savings, but the county council is not interested in exploring them I want to start by saying that my constituents really appreciate the excellent work of the firefighters who cover Corby and east Northamptonshire. Graham Scotney says: “Our firefighters do an amazing job from the front line, fire fighting and accident rescue through to fire prevention and education.” Terry Lester says firefighters “attend many emergency situations such as road traffic accidents, plane crashes, train crashes, building or scaffolding collapse, all aspects of flooding, chemical spills, releasing people trapped in machinery and rescuing animals.” Lyn Simnett says simply: “We must protect them as they protect us.” Of the county council’s proposals, Anne Brown tells me that they are “bloomin’ terrible”. “Disgusting,” say Bryan Robson, Janet Keeney, Liz McCormick, Dave Holt and Robert Nelson. “Uncannily stupid,” says Ian Murrie. Paul Cross calls the plans “insane”. Kenny Keys, Albin Wallace and Lisa Chong say the plans are a “disgrace”. Tim Wadley feels that the proposed cuts are “putting lives at risk”, a view that is shared by Robert Anderson David Laws says the proposal is “ludicrous”. As a Corby resident for more than 60 years, he told me that he objects “strongly to this ridiculous idea” Julie Kelly says fire cover is not a “nice to have” but a resource that is there to save lives. “This is just stupidity”, says Michael Gray. Jean Addison and John Ashman both say that the council’s proposals are “short-sighted”. Christine Larkman says it is “repulsive to put money before lives.” Mark Lonnie says: “Less sometimes really does mean less and that is exactly what’s being offered.” Ian Foreman is “very troubled” by the plans. Tim Hawkes says that the plans are “incompetent and inept” “Ridiculous”, say Tom Cardwell and George Jenkins. Damian Roche agreed, saying: “It is a ridiculous cut to make that endangers the lives of the residents of Corby and surrounding villages.” Chris Godbold questions whether the idea has been thought through. I agree with Kim Denham when she says that there has been a “lack of sound judgment”. Shayna Denson said: “This is crazy. The service should be expanded, not cut.” “Idiotic”, says Valerie Walker. Keith Jenkinson said: “It shows a lack of civic responsibility.” Paul Grey, Niell McAllister and Samantha Timms say the idea is “ludicrous”. Ronald Aston calls it, “scandalous”. Ann Huntington says: “It's iniquitous, terrible and a travesty.” It makes no sense, says Robert Burridge. “Terrible”, says Jayne Gardiner. “A crazy idea”, agrees Sally Barlow Many commented that the cuts come at a time when Corby is the fastest-growing town in the UK with the highest birth rate in England. Helen Moore mentioned the new development at Priors Hall. Paul Young highlighted the growth of the Oakley Vale area Many of my constituents believe that rather than looking to cut Corby’s fire service, we should be talking about how we meet the needs of an expanding population Those points are re-enforced by John Walker, Elizabeth Mullen, Madeline Whiteman, Joseph Burlington, Geraldine Oliff, Tony Killem, Kelly Farrar, Irene Hamilton, Jane Parsell, Kirsty Lane, Gail Corby, Anita Few, Ian Duncan and others who contacted me. The others who expressed a view included: Trevor Haynes, James Campbell, Anita Hambly, Simon Neves, Melissa Roberts, Margaret Browning, Linda Bingham, Ann Kieran, Stan Gemmell, Barry Tempest, Sue Clews, David Smith and Wendy Finn. All of them took the time to share their views. Andrew Tyre says that, if anything, we need possibly more cover, not less. Corby’s firefighters had a busy time over Christmas, with a large fire in the town’s shopping centre, along with a number of other serious incidents. Fortunately there were no fatalities, but my constituents are worried that cuts to the service will put at risk the safety of the public and the firefighters. Bernadette O'Keefe says: “People's lives will be put at risk.” Vicky Sidwell says: “No amount of money saved would be worth risking people’s lives for.” Helga Ramsay told me that “the prospect of the time taken to reach a fire being extended is unacceptable.” David Hamilton says: “They waffle about it not endangering lives and the service being maintained... I don’t understand how this can be the case”, and he is right to be sceptical. Debbie Graham thinks that this will put “people’s lives at risk” Mel Munton, the manager of one of Hanover’s sheltered schemes in Corby, said: “It concerns me very much that because of this decision if ever a major fire emergency happened here at Swan Gardens many of my residents could be put in danger, serious danger, many being wheelchair bound or with poor mobility could lose their lives. The twenty minute wait for another fire tender to arrive could be disastrous” Michael May says the plans put “costs before essential services”. Paul Balmer says: “If we saved money but lost ONE life then we would have saved nothing” John Holton says that the reason for maintaining cover is simple—“it saves lives” Lives will be particularly at risk when there is a large incident because, as Bob Scott points out, there will be fewer firefighters, or when two or more incidents require a fire service response at the same time. Susan Bird asks what will happen when two fires occur at once, and Jeff May asks: “What happens if the fire service is called to two incidents in Corby at the same time?” Paul Garvie stresses that a “fire can take hold and kill in minutes so every second counts”, and that that “cannot be allowed” Danny McAvoy highlights that the plans will leave Corby with only two firefighters to deal with some incidents. Mark Browning raises concerns about the ability of firefighters to respond should more than one fire break out in the town. Sonia Barker says: “I think it is ridiculous cutting the fire services to just one engine. If there was a very major fire and only one to go out to the call you would have to get more from around the county and that will be losing time and make things even harder” This is happening at a time when many of the retained fire engines in nearby towns are frequently not running or not available. Corby’s two engines provide resilience for the whole of north Northamptonshire. Taking that away will put lives and firefighters at risk not only in my constituency, but in neighbouring areas The Corby fire service covers many villages surrounding the town. My constituents in rural areas are rightly concerned about the plans. Jacqueline Kay highlights the fact that residents in her village, Gretton, “have not been asked” about how the plans will affect them. Lloyd Caddock asks “how long will it take to get to villages for serious fires”? John Melhuish points out that lots of rural areas depend on the Corby fire service, as do areas right across from the border of Lincolnshire and to the border of Cambridgeshire Skip Sortland is worried that “if they can get rid of a second engine in Corby they can then reduce the fire services in others parts of the county just as easy” The truth is that they are not even considering what options there are in the rest of the county; this one-option consultation is all focused on Corby Darren Whitaker believes the cuts “will clearly affect the level of protection that Corby and its surrounding villages require and deserve” Peter McDonald says: “Bearing in mind that Corby station provides cover for a vast amount of rural communities in the North East of the county it is not only the people of Corby whose lives are being jeopardised. It’s a disgrace to hoodwink the general public by saying they are replacing an appliance with new high tech fire-fighting equipment” Alison Tootle says that this is a “real problem for Corby and the surrounding villages”, and she is right Many people have commented to me on the impact the plans will have on Corby’s business community. Marian Anderson says: “A cut in fire service personnel will undermine the attractiveness of Corby as a destination for business and put lives at risk” Dave Fox, a resident of east Northamptonshire, highlights the fact that Corby is a highly “commercially productive” sector of the county. Indeed, Corby has been identified as the manufacturing capital of the country, which has to be weighed as a factor in assessing fire risk Janice Harper points out that if “crews are unable to take swift action there is a cost to businesses and in consequence to the community. If businesses are unable to continue it means loss of jobs and damages the local economy” William Renwick, who told me that he was responsible for finalising a report about risk in fire services in Northamptonshire in 1985, says that removing “one pump and replacing it with a questionable vehicle will place the industry and commerce of Corby at risk” Robert Thorogood, a business owner in the area, says that “Corby and district represent a large part of our business infrastructure”, and that the size of the population and the number of businesses demand its having both pumps Robert Leacroft says: “As the number of industrial units in the area increases the chance of fires involving chemicals, plastics etc. increases and these need to be tackled as fast as possible so reducing the number of engines available is a very backwards step” There have been fires in many of our factories in the area. Les Vargerson makes the point: “It is not just Fires. Corby is surrounded by Arterial Roads where the Fire Brigade is always in attendance due to the number of…accidents. They cannot be in two places at any time with just one unit.” Tony Banks believes that the proposals show that the Government want to return Britain to the ’30s, with the decimation of public services. Kevin Morrisey asks whether savings could be made elsewhere by the council, which is a good question. Eleanor McEwan sees a different motive. She says that it is “typical Tory councillors targeting a Labour…town” Paul Dickson believes the proposals are “indicative of the County Council’s treatment of Corby in general. How can they even think this is remotely workable? They are now playing with the lives of Corby residents” Ann-Marie Leonard says that this is “another demonstration of the blind stupidity of the rapidly failing” Northampton county council. Julie Halliday says: “I think for a council to even consider this just as a money saving measure shows a lack of care and imagination which the Corby people will fight all the way” Tracy Bruce says: “Reducing a life or death service to a growing population is the politics of the incompetent” David Rafferty said that “this is another Tory action showing that they care more about profit than the ordinary people” Lorraine Shaw says: “As usual with Northants County Council they are targeting Corby residents and have a complete disregard for life and safety” Rob Maguire points out that Northamptonshire county council’s own website presents figures for last year “indicating that Corby Fire Station has the second highest area coverage and incident attended” whereas Richard Sharman reinforces the point that “Corby has had two fire crews for the last 50 years” Lucille Giola works in a local pharmacy and has spoken to lots of her customers about the plans. She says that she has “not heard one person agree with the proposals” Roger Kinsey asked a good question, which was whether “a correct procedural risk assessment survey” has been conducted “and past statistics…taken into account” I very much doubt it and I have seen no evidence of such Kelly Tallan shared her experience with me: “Having had family and friends involved in house fires in Corby, sadly with fatal consequences, I cannot believe this is even being discussed. Any delays to enter a burning building can and will have dangerous results, not only for the people inside but also the firefighters. This town is growing rapidly and we can’t have our emergency services reduced, please please rethink.” Ian Chapman says: “The figures being used for the argument to reduce the number of fire engines are already old and with the year on year population increase this data is completely unreliable and there should at the very least be a stay of execution whilst new data is gathered and this time include a factoring for the future growth of Corby.” I appreciate that the Minister will be unable to respond to all the points from my constituents, but I hope she has taken on board what they think. I am sure that she was in contact with the county council before today, as that is the usual way of preparing for such debates, and I look forward to hearing from her. I hope that she has challenged the council on why it is considering only one option, and I very much hope she has not bought into the spin it is peddling about the proposals. Before I finish, I want to share three final comments from Corby firefighters. They have insights and experience that we should listen to, but sadly they do not feel valued by the Government, who have failed to find a resolution to their ongoing pensions dispute—a resolution that has been found in other parts of the UK, but not by this Government. The Minister has a chance to show the firefighters that on this issue she is listening and respects their view Lois Smith said: “As a serving firefighter in the town for some twenty plus years, I can tell you that we have rescued numerous people by the skin of their teeth over the years. Downgrading a full appliance that carries four personnel to a smaller appliance with two personnel will ultimately lead to the new appliance turning up to an incident one day and the two person crew not being able to rapidly deploy to the incident and immediately rescue people.” He continues: “In the skin of the teeth cases the outcome would have been very different if we just had this new proposed appliance there at the time” rather than a proper fire engine Gary Mitchell says: “The proposal to reduce the number of fire fighters (2nd Pump) at Corby Fire Station is shocking. I have had to listen to the County councillors responsible for these cuts trying to explain that the Cobra fire fighting system and a robot can some how take the place of operational fighters, this rhetoric is completely misleading and dangerous to both the public and fire fighters alike. We have had Cobra fire fighting equipment on Corby appliances for 5 years! Expert Firefighters save people’s lives from fire and road traffic collisions”, not robots. Rob Martin says that the plan “to replace a properly equipped fire appliance with the proposed van is like replacing a properly equipped ambulance with a first aid box” In summary, I believe that there are very important reasons for maintaining the current level of capability at the station. The first is the risk profile of Corby and the surrounding area. Corby still has a range of businesses within its local economy that present particular risks arising from the nature of the processes and materials used. Historically, the industry and commerce in Corby are the reason the risk was rated higher traditionally and Corby always had two engines The second reason is the recognition that Corby is growing. This is planned to continue, with the population reaching 100,000 by the end of the next decade. Even accepting the progress made in preventing domestic fires, a town of this size needs to be serviced properly by the fire and rescue service because extra demands will be placed on the service by a growing population. Thirdly, the station supports a very large geographical area beyond the town of Corby, stretching across all the villages up to the county’s borders with Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. There are well-documented difficulties with, for example, the fire station at Oundle, which is rarely able to get its retained crew to be available to be on the run with the fire engine. Maintaining the Corby station’s capability is critical to providing north-eastern Northamptonshire with the assurance that a responsive and adequately crewed service is available to meet fire and rescue needs in this part of my constituency I recognise that councils, including Northamptonshire county council, have faced very significant cuts. When this Government were elected, they told us that their cuts would not have an impact on front-line services. We all know that is not true. We have seen the cuts in social care, Sure Start and road maintenance. People have put up with it partly because they were told it was needed to eliminate the deficit, but now they know the truth—the deficit is still there and the debt has gone up because the Government caused our economy to grind to a standstill for four years. The Government have dug a bigger hole and now they are planning cuts that are deeper and ever more dangerous. Taking away Corby’s second engine would become a symbol of this and it would have tragic consequences I heard that the Tory parliamentary candidate in Corby is trying to dissociate himself from the fire cuts. He has called on Corby borough council to pick up the tab using the new homes bonus, a cheeky move that conveniently overlooks the fact that Northamptonshire county council receives far more in new homes bonus. More important than that, it has the statutory responsibility to provide a fire service. We do not want a sticking plaster. This is about the security of revenue funding year on year in future years for the second fire engine that we need in Corby to be provided by the county council, with its statutory responsibility If the Tories ever want to get anywhere in Corby, they should show local people some respect and stop trying to treat them like fools. People in Corby know where these cuts are coming from, they know exactly who is responsible, and if Tory councillors over at county hall force these fire cuts through, the damaging and potentially fatal consequences will be on their hands. I hope the Minister will do the right thing and use her influence to tell the county council to think again, because there has to be a better way.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) on securing this important debate, to which the excellent Minister with responsibility for fire, resilience and emergencies will respond As the hon. Gentleman said, east Northamptonshire relies a lot on the fire service in Corby and we share that fire service. There is a consultation going on so the House should not think that the proposed cuts will definitely happen. Listening to the hon. Gentleman’s speech, the House might have got the impression that Corby would go down from two pumps to one pump if the consultation suggestion were implemented. That is not the case. The consultation suggests that the second pump at Corby is replaced by a Cobra two-man intervention vehicle, so there would still be two pumps there I declare an interest. Ever since I was elected in 2005 I have shared a close interest in the fire service in north Northamptonshire, one of the reasons being that when I was fighting to be elected for the first time, the Labour-controlled county council was proposing to close a fire station in my constituency. We fought hard against that and after the general election, when I was elected, we managed to save the fire station. Never under the Conservative-controlled county council has a fire station in Northamptonshire been closed I pay my tribute to the men and women in our fire service in Northamptonshire. I also pay tribute to the people who run the fire service in Northamptonshire. They are leading the world with new technology. The Cobra intervention vehicle is new technology. What it does in certain circumstances is a quicker method of saving lives. It will also prevent flashbacks that kill firefighters. There is a significant role for the intervention vehicle. To the Government’s credit, that has been funded entirely by central Government; there has been no cost to the taxpayer in Northamptonshire. I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman that thousands of new homes are being built in Corby and across east Northamptonshire, and the number of businesses is expanding rapidly. In fact, only today I was with the Transport Secretary at Chowns Mill in my constituency, where we looked at the new roundabout improvements and road improvements that stretch between my constituency and Corby. They are being put in place because of the expansion in the number of houses and businesses. We have also had the Government’s announcement of the Rushden Lakes development—a huge retail and leisure park that will of course result in more fire risk The hon. Gentleman was right to read out what his constituents are saying. Since I was first elected, I have run a so-called listening campaign. That is being copied by Tom Pursglove, the excellent Conservative councillor in Corby whom the hon. Gentleman mentioned. The idea of a listening campaign is to go out and listen to what people are saying, as the hon. Gentleman has done, reflect on it, and then campaign on it. People in Corby and east Northamptonshire clearly want more fire cover for our area; I think he said that one of the people he mentioned said so That is why earlier this year Tom Pursglove and I launched our More Fire Cover campaign. Everybody in Corby has had a card from Tom about that and I have distributed leaflets in my constituency. We are arguing for more fire cover, not less. I have met the chief fire officer and the firefighters of green watch in my constituency. I have seen the Cobra intervention vehicle in operation and heard the firefighters praise it, but I do not see why it should be a substitute for one of the pumps at Corby. It should be an additional vehicle that can cover Corby and east Northamptonshire. As the hon. Gentleman said, there was recently a very large fire locally, and of course the two pumps from Corby got there quickly, but would it not have been better if we had had three pumps The More Fire Cover campaign that Tom and I have launched is getting widespread support. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the local firemen’s petition at Corby fire station. Tom has been to meet the firefighters there and signed the petition. In political terms, there is no difference between the hon. Gentleman and me in that we want things to improve, but he is wrong because just two pumps are not enough—we need three. The question is how we pay for that. The capital cost of the intervention vehicle has already been paid by the Government, so there is no cost to local taxpayers for that—there are only the running costs We need this extra vehicle because of all the new homes and businesses that have been built and created in east Northamptonshire and Corby, so the logic is that the funding should be connected with that expansion. That is exactly what the Government provide through the new homes bonus. This year, Corby borough council will get £2.6 million to spend on infrastructure measures that support the local community. I cannot think of anything more important than fire cover, and only a fraction of that £2.6 million would be spent in providing, in effect, the cost of an additional two firemen I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman pooh-poohed that idea. I think it was because Corby borough council has massively overspent, by £13 million, on a project involving offices and a library complex. In the past 18 months, it has also spent, bizarrely, a third of a million pounds on temporary staff. We hear about the campaign for no zero-hours contracts, but it is all a bit topsy-turvy at the council. If it put its house in order, part of the £2.6 million could be spent on supporting the two extra firefighters we would need to operate the Cobra intervention vehicle as an additional pump. It would be based at Corby—I am quite happy with that—but serve the whole of east Northamptonshire After this debate, I would like the hon. Gentleman to join me and Tom Pursglove in supporting a bipartisan approach to more fire cover in our area.
The hon. Gentleman proposes that the new homes bonus be used to provide resilience across the area. His claim to participate in this debate is that Corby’s fire station serves some of his own constituents and provides resilience in the north of the county. He will certainly accept that it serves my constituents in Oundle, Irthlingborough and Thrapston. Is he recommending to the leader of East Northamptonshire district council that it should make a proportionate contribution, and has he made a similar recommendation to Kettering and Wellingborough councils? What contribution does he expect Northamptonshire county council to make, because it would, of course, be entirely wrong for Corby to fund his proposal to meet the needs of his constituents?
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Perhaps he is moving towards my and Tom’s listening campaign. The reason we need this extra resource is the expansion in the number of houses and businesses, mainly in Corby. I think the hon. Gentleman would accept that, without that expansion, we would not be so worried about getting more fire cover However, because the issue is being driven by expansion in the borough of Corby, it is right that it should be the borough of Corby that contributes. I say that because the new homes bonus is linked to the number of houses being built. If all those houses were being built in east Northamptonshire, I would argue that east Northamptonshire should contribute, but they are not being built there; as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, they are being built in Corby.
The trouble with the hon. Gentleman’s contribution is that he is purporting to speak about his own area when in actual fact he would much rather talk about Corby, which his constituents find perplexing. He would be welcome to stand for Corby in the future—we would send him packing in the same way as we did the last candidate with whom he trooped around my constituency. We will do the same to the next one. If the hon. Gentleman knew anything about my area, he would know that a significant amount of the expansion is in east Northamptonshire district, not Corby.
We are just going to have to disagree on that point.
It is a factual point.
All I will say—I do not think the hon. Gentleman will query this—is that a £2.6 million new homes bonus is being given to Corby this year. The great thing about the new homes bonus is that it will increase every year. I think that Northamptonshire county council realises that a new fire station will be needed somewhere in east Northamptonshire in the future, but it is illogical to reduce the fire cover for Corby and east Northamptonshire at this moment in time Other ways of saving money are being considered, and this is where I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. For example, the police are moving into Rushden fire station, which the Conservatives fought so hard to keep and Labour wanted to close. It will be a shared facility, which clearly will save money both for the fire service and for the police. It is a little unfair, therefore, to suggest that the fire and rescue service is not looking at other options.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
I am always delighted to give way to the hon. Gentleman.
I would be stunned if the hon. Gentleman could find in the county council’s medium-term financial plan—it needs to make a saving of £1.6 million over three years, with a 7.5% reduction each year—a saving in his area that is anything other than the cut to the number of Corby’s fire engines. I cannot find such a saving.
I just gave the specific example of Rushden fire station housing the police. We need to consider doing much more of that sort of thing and look at the whole estate. Coming back to tonight’s topic, the puzzling thing is why the hon. Gentleman, who is usually quite happy to support the expansion of services, does not support the proposal to use just a little of Corby borough council’s new homes bonus money for this purpose.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
I will in a moment, but it might help the hon. Gentleman if I finish this point. The reason he does not support the proposal, of course, is that if we have a Labour Government after the next general election, they will abolish the new homes bonus, so Corby will immediately be £2.6 million worse off.
The new homes bonus is simply a partial replacement for the grant to Corby borough council and other local authorities that has been cut. It is only right that we once again link the resources that local authorities have with need by returning the funds back into grant. That is our proposal. Corby will not lose out from that because it has substantial need The hon. Gentleman has inferred that I am opposed to the expansion of Corby fire station. He presents all sorts of Aunt Sallies and tries to distract people in my constituency and treat them like fools. They can see that what is really on the table is the proposal to cut one of the two engines. I am fighting to stop that. He is trying to get my constituents to look away, to distract them and to pretend that that is not happening, but before we know it, that cut will have been implemented. I have at no time opposed the expansion of the service. I would be happy to see it expanded, but right now I am fighting the battle in hand with the Tory county council that he supports, which wants to cut my fire engine.
It can hardly be suggested that I support the proposal from the county council. I am doing exactly the opposite. Neither can it be suggested that Tom Pursglove is somehow supporting the Tory line, when he has signed the petition for the firefighters and is running a campaign for more fire cover in Corby. I just do not see the logic in the hon. Gentleman’s argument.
Order. We started with an Adjournment debate about the Corby fire service, which was allocated to the hon. Member for Corby (Andy Sawford). We are moving very wide of the mark. We are referring to people who are not Members of this House and to all sorts of propositions, whereas the Adjournment debate should be addressed to the Minister so that she can give the answer. Mr Sawford and Mr Bone, perhaps we could move back to the central proposition and allow the Minister to answer. You may, by all means, intervene on the Minister for clarity, but I do not think that we are making much progress.
May I apologise unreservedly, Madam Deputy Speaker? I should not have taken the bait from the intervention of the hon. Member for Corby. Of course, he brought up Tom Pursglove in his opening remarks, so I thought I ought to set the record straight Perhaps I may end my speech, before we listen to the excellent fire Minister, on a point of consensus. I would love the hon. Gentleman to stand up and support my campaign for more fire cover.
Order. Mr Bone, that really is enough. The convention of the House is that this is an Adjournment debate that Mr Sawford is addressing to the Minister. You are perfectly entitled to take part, Mr Bone, but this is not an inquisition of Mr Sawford. I would therefore like you to allow the Minister to respond to the important points that have been made. I think that you had concluded.
Not quite.
Okay, but can we not have this ping-pong across the Chamber and instead return to the conventions of an Adjournment debate?
I am very grateful that we have a lot more time than we normally have for Adjournment debates because of the collapse of the other business Finally, may I say to the Minister that I appreciate all the efforts the Department is making to find solutions to problems, including what she did with the firefighters’ pension scheme? I thought that that was Parliament at its best. Perhaps we can work towards a unified approach to solve what is a really important problem in my constituency and the surrounding areas. On that note—I hope it is one of harmony—I will conclude.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) on securing this important debate, not least because it affords me the opportunity to congratulate Northamptonshire fire and rescue authority on its tremendous success in keeping its local community safe. Since the start of this Parliament, there has been a 34% reduction in all fire incidents in Northamptonshire, and no fire fatalities at all were reported last year. That is good news for people in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, and everyone involved in those achievements deserves praise However, we cannot afford to be complacent. Fire and rescue authorities must continue to put prevention and protection first in all that they do. We have made a clear commitment to ensuring the ongoing effectiveness of front-line fire and rescue services, despite the need to tackle the deficit inherited from the previous Administration It is clear that Northamptonshire fire and rescue service shares that commitment. Its recently published community protection plan reviews the strong progress that it has made towards delivering its strategic targets and objectives, as set out in its 2013 to 2017 integrated risk management plan. It has set out clearly how it has successfully delivered on those original plans, which were to collaborate with other blue light responders and develop the potential for an integrated emergency service across the county, in order to provide better local services. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) pointed out, it is a world leader in that work: to keep the public safe through partnerships with other agencies; to continue to work to reduce the cost of false alarms, which has fallen by more than 50% since 2008; and to ensure the ongoing safety of its firefighters through the provision of enhanced training facilities and methods, and the adoption of new capabilities, technology and equipment Although there have been reductions in funding over recent years, fire and rescue authorities have been given some important protection across the spending review period. Funding reductions have been back-loaded to give fire authorities more time to make sensible and considered savings without their having an impact on the quality of services offered to communities. As Northamptonshire is a county fire authority, its budget allocation is a matter for Northamptonshire county council. Overall, the county’s spending power was reduced by only 1.6% in this financial year, and the provisional settlement for the next financial year will see its spending power increase. In addition, the county has received £488,000 of funding for the forthcoming financial year for specialist equipment to improve resilience for flooding and other emergencies We are supporting fire and rescue authorities to transform the delivery of services by promoting greater efficiency, either independently or in collaboration with other emergency service partners. As I announced in October, 37 fire and rescue authorities have been awarded a proportion of the £75 million fire transformation fund for next year, and Northamptonshire is one of those authorities The county council has been proactive in planning its spending over the current round, setting out its proposals in a new community protection plan. That document has been subject to full consultation with the local community.
The Minister is talking about additional funds. Does she understand why my constituents and I will be perplexed when she suggests that the Government have given Northamptonshire county council and the fire service additional funds, since the chief fire officer and the county council’s cabinet member for finance have come to me to say that they are cutting the engine because they do not have any money and have to make cuts? To me, those two things do not add up. Will the Minister explain?
I would be very happy to clarify things for the hon. Gentleman, because some of the things that he said in his speech do not add up. I am happy to address the points that his constituents have made, but I also want to set out the facts, because it is incredibly important that whatever decisions people take—I am not taking them—the public are aware of the facts. We do not want to scaremonger and make people concerned about things that will not come to pass. All Members realise how important fire and rescue services are to our communities, so we need to ensure that we deal with the facts of the case The county council’s consultation closed today, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman has put in a submission and made his views known. Part of Northamptonshire’s proposed strategy is to move towards a new firefighting system called Cobra.
Cobra is incredibly important, but before the Minister turns to that will she clarify whether she is saying that Northamptonshire county council will have more or fewer resources for fire services as a result of the funds and changes she has outlined?
For the forthcoming financial year the authority’s spending power will increase, and I have mentioned the fund of almost half a million pounds that has been provided for resilience and flooding. The only action I can take, and the only part within my remit as Minister—quite rightly, these are devolved issues—is the fire transformation funding that has funded the vehicles I am about to describe. I am not minded to withdraw that funding. It is close to £2.3 million, and I would rather Corby have that money. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to argue to the contrary—I am sure he will not.
Will the Minister give way?
I will make some progress and then I will be happy to take an intervention Cobra is a new technology that utilises high-pressure water and can be used in conjunction with an abrasive compound to cut through materials releasing high-pressure water droplets into a fire compartment—I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has seen that in action, but I understand that Corby already has two of those appliances. Northamptonshire fire authority is a proactive user of that technology, which it believes will enable it to develop and deliver a new strategic approach to firefighting. The authority already uses those vehicles. It currently has two, and it wants to increase those to seven. The vehicles have been used in rural areas, covering places where retained duty staff availability is insufficient to allow early intervention at incidents, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned, and they will move around as necessary We fully support a forward-looking strategic approach, and have awarded Northamptonshire £2.3 million, of which £1.5 million is for the purchase of five new Cobra-enabled vehicles. That award was the result of a rigorous, fair and consistent evaluation process, and the bid was assessed against a range of criteria set out in published guidance to meet the fund’s transformation objectives. It was in competition with other fire authorities and the authority was awarded that money because we had confidence in the bid and the difference it would make to the hon. Gentleman’s community.
Will the hon. Lady give way?
I will make some progress. The authority is clear that the new Cobra vehicles will enhance—not compromise, as was suggested—the flexibility of response within Corby and the north of the county. It will maintain the current two-appliance capability, and although it will facilitate a reduction in whole-time staff, those reductions will be met only through natural wastage rather than any redundancies. I can conclude only that the hon. Gentleman does not support the benefits that Cobra will bring and would like me to withdraw the fire transformation fund funding, but I can see no reason to do so.
Will the Minister give way?
I will make a little more progress.
That is quite a big claim.
I will make some progress. Operational matters such as the introduction of the deployment of fire appliances and crews are best assessed and planned at local level. It is not for the Government to interfere with the judgments of fire and rescue authorities, or to micro-manage the services provided from central Government. We expect and trust chief fire officers and elected Members to listen to their communities and make the right operational decisions for them. That local voice is critical, which is why I support fire and rescue authorities and oppose Labour’s plans to abolish them and move everything to the centre Whether or not the hon. Gentleman thinks that that is the right approach, it is clear that the proposal is not to reduce cover but is about seeking a quicker response in rural areas where there are problems such as those he mentioned. It should be made clear to his constituents that this issue does not warrant scaremongering.
It is very simple. May I just explain to the Minister the maths of this? There are currently two Cobra facilities at Corby. They sit on two proper pumps. Four firefighters man those pumps. We are talking about going down to one proper pump with four firefighters and a van with this equipment on the back of it. That is not—the chief fire officer readily acknowledges this—an enhancement of what is available at Corby. It may be that in some other areas of the county there will be some additional service from the seven vehicles—in other areas. In Corby, however, in my area there is a clear reduction in the service. To suggest otherwise—well, the public will not believe it for a moment and they do not believe the county council.
The point I am making is that it is not as the hon. Gentleman set out in his speech. There are operational reasons why this has been put forward as a proposal. However, I readily admit that local people may disagree with that. There is a consultation which closed today and clearly Corby is an expanding town. This is not just about what the fire service has to deal with today; this is about planning for, and making provision for, the future In those circumstances I can see why Corby might want more from its local fire services. I am very aware of the More Fire Cover campaign, which, although it is content with using new technology and the Cobra vehicles and welcomes that new technology, wishes to retain the second traditional appliance for Corby. The campaign, led by Councillor Pursglove, has put forward a way that that could be funded without the need to increase council tax. I give credit to all residents in Corby and Northamptonshire who have made their views known.
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I seek your advice? This is an Adjournment debate. The Minister is now talking to proposals I am not familiar with. They were not part of my speech and are not part of the county council’s proposals. They are not really the matter in hand. I just wonder whether it is in order for the Minister to continue in that way.
The Minister is responsible for what she says at the Dispatch Box. The normal procedure is to answer the hon. Member, and the points raised by other hon. Members who have participated in the debate, and I am sure the Minister will bear that in mind.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker Local leaders will make better decisions with the benefit of the ideas and input from the residents of Corby and the wider area. The idea of using the new homes bonus to fund the cost of a third appliance may not have been considered before, but it is encouraging to see sensible, pragmatic ideas being proposed. There may be other options, but the two we have been discussing today are an improvement on the status quo In conclusion, I will not, as the hon. Gentleman might have wanted me to, withdraw the funding for Cobra vehicles. I am very glad that he has put the record straight on that. The service asked for that funding. We were impressed with the project and the new technology, and I think that Corby will be better off for that £2.3 million. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that if he agrees with the objectives of the More Fire Cover campaign, he might review his opposition to the new homes bonus and support it as a way of providing extra funding, from whichever authority it comes out. I also encourage him, if he values the local voice, as his innovative crowdsourcing debate seems to imply, to hold in high regard fire and rescue authorities and that local accountability that really does put local people in charge and in the driving seat for such local decisions. He might wish to reconsider his wish to centralise fire and rescue authorities. The consultation closed today, and it is not for me to decide what should happen.
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I appeal for your advice. There have been repeated claims about my position on a range of matters. For example, it has been suggested that I would not support the expansion of Corby fire service—of course I would; and that I do not welcome additional funds for Corby fire service—of course I do. These claims have been made time and again. It might be orderly—this is where I seek your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker—but it certainly does not seem to be very parliamentary.
As I have said, the Minister is responsible for her own words at the Dispatch Box, and the hon. Gentleman has had the opportunity to correct the record. I remind the Minister that when she is standing at the Dispatch Box, she is answering for her responsibilities as a Minister. Any other observations we can hear at another time.
This is an incredibly important matter, as the start of the debate clearly outlined. There are serious concerns in Corby about some of the messages put out about the consultation, and it is important to set the record straight. There are many people with many different perspectives in the community putting forward solutions and ideas about how they can best protect their community. It is important to put that on the record and to state that there is no complacency either from the professional firefighting staff or the elected members of the authority, who take their duties seriously and by all accounts have a good track record on protecting their communities, as the statistics bear out There are clear choices and different visions emerging. It is a choice between protecting the local voice through fire and rescue authorities, and abolishing them and centralising decisions; between councillors who think it is important in an expanding town that fire stations be protected, and those who want to close them; between proposals to improve services and perhaps have a third appliance on the run, and the status quo; between using the new homes bonus, and not having that funding option; and above all else, between careful, thoughtful local leadership, coming up with solutions to these serious matters, and scaremongering and an abdication of responsibility. I trust the people of Corby to decide which vision for their future is best for them Question put and agreed to.