House of Commons
Thursday 5 June 2008
The House met at half-past Ten o’clock
Prayers
[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]
new writ
Ordered,
That Mr. Speaker do issue his Warrant for the Clerk of the Crown to make out a new writ for the electing of a Member to serve in this present Parliament for the County Constituency of Henley in the room of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Esquire, who since his election for the said County Constituency has accepted the Office of Steward or Bailiff of her Majesty’s Manor of Northstead in the County of York.—[Mr. McLoughlin.]
private business
Bournemouth Borough Council Bill [Lords] (By Order)
Canterbury City Council Bill (By Order)
Leeds City Council Bill (By Order)
Orders for Second Reading read.
To be read a Second time on Thursday 12 June at Three o’clock.
London Local Authorities (Shopping Bags) Bill (By Order)
Order for Second Reading read.
To be read a Second time on Thursday 12 June.
Manchester City Council Bill [Lords] (By Order)
Nottingham City Council Bill (By Order)
Reading Borough Council Bill (By Order)
Orders for Second Reading read.
To be read a Second time on Thursday 12 June at Three o’clock.
Oral Answers to Questions
Treasury
The Chancellor of the Exchequer was asked—
Mortgage Rates
I have many discussions with colleagues on a range of matters, including those who are in the market for mortgages.
House prices in my constituency are among the highest in the country, and home owners are experiencing real pain and anxiety. What can my right hon. Friend tell me to assure those who hold fixed-term mortgages that are coming to an end that the Government understand the pain and anxiety that they are going through and will take action to help them with future repayments?
My hon. Friend has raised a matter that concerns many people in this country. We have had discussions with the Council of Mortgage Lenders, which I expect to meet again next week to discuss how we can ensure that when people come off fixed-term mortgages and look at the options, they can receive proper advice and hopefully get on to rates that are as low as possible. I can also tell the House that the CML has told me that it hopes that it can make considerable progress in ensuring that smooth transition, because we want to make sure that people get on to the lowest possible mortgage, especially at this time.
Would the mortgage market not be working better if the Chancellor had not dithered and delayed for so long about the necessary banking reforms in the light of the Northern Rock crisis? It is nine months since Northern Rock ran into difficulty; when are we going to see some serious proposals for legislation?
The two things are not connected, as the hon. Gentleman well knows. On action that we have taken to help the mortgage market, in addition to the money that the Bank of England and other central banks put into the system last autumn, the Bank of England’s special liquidities scheme will help. It will take time to work its way through, but it will underpin the financial system in a way that is absolutely essential.
Yes, the banking reforms are necessary, but we have just finished a period of consultation and spoken extensively to banks and other institutions about the reforms that we need. We want to get the reforms right, and the overwhelming view of the British Bankers Association, which is working co-operatively with us, is that we can see where we want to get to. We need to get the detail right, but I intend to introduce legislation during this parliamentary Session. I hope that that legislation will receive all-party support, because the sooner we get it on to the statute book, the better. Of course, the Banking (Special Provisions) Act 2008 that we put on the statute book following the taking into public ownership of Northern Rock will help, in that it provides powers that the Government and the other authorities simply did not have before then.
Will my right hon. Friend look at the plight of home owners on low incomes who face particular pressures because of reductions in their working hours? He is giving very generous support to families in rented accommodation, but will he also look at providing some support to families on low incomes who are in their own homes?
Yes. As my hon. Friend knows, we discussed this matter yesterday in the Treasury Committee, and, as she has rightly said, we have been able, through disregarding the child benefit, to help people who receive housing benefit. She rightly raised concern about people on low income, who may be facing reductions in their income because they are working fewer hours and who have to pay their mortgage. As I said to her yesterday, we clearly need to look at that as part of a range of measures to help people. Of course, the increase in the personal allowance will mean that all basic rate taxpayers will be paying less tax this year, and that, too, will make a contribution.
Discussions with ministerial colleagues, or, indeed, with the Council of Mortgage Lenders, on this matter are all well and good, but what advice would the Chancellor give the Bank of England in respect of alleviating the pain of the many millions of mortgagees who are suffering from high interest and mortgage rates?
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Bank of England and its Monetary Policy Committee are entirely independent of Government, and neither I, nor my predecessor, have commented on what they do, because it is important that they conduct those things independently. The Bank of England is, of course, making its decision today, but it is doing so against a background of a strong and stable economy over the past 10 years. It has a target, and it has to decide what it ought to do.
A substantial fall in house prices inevitably brings with it the risk of serious recession. Yesterday’s OECD economic forecast was quite pessimistic, so is it not time for my right hon. Friend to urge the Monetary Policy Committee to reduce interest rates?
As I have just said to the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field), the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee is independent of Government. That is one of the main reasons why our inflation levels are now at a historically very low level, and I am not going to change Government policy so far as that is concerned.
The OECD, along with other independent commentators, has made the point that, across the world, economies are slowing down and, as I said in the Budget, ours is no exception. However, the OECD said that the
“real economy indicators”
for this country
“have so far been resilient”,
and if my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) were to look at the routine surveillance report that the International Monetary Fund carried out on this country about three or four weeks ago, he would see that it made the point that we have experienced sustained low inflation and rapid economic growth, and that that was an exceptional achievement and the result of the policy that we have been pursuing for the past 10 years. That policy will ensure that our economy remains resilient, although we cannot be complacent. We are going through a period of unprecedented uncertainty and turbulence in the financial markets, and we are facing the pressures of inflation in relation to fuel and food. We must be mindful of those, but our economy is in a much stronger position than it was 10 or 15 years ago, when 3 million to 4 million people were out of work and there was double-digit inflation. [Interruption.] Opposition Members may want to forget it, but people in this country remember it very well indeed.
Will the Chancellor accept that with mortgage lending at its lowest level since the early ’90s, prices in vertical decline and the extent of arrears and fraud exposed by the Bradford and Bingley’s problems, more drastic intervention is required? That drastic intervention could take the form of using the perfectly sensible, but pitifully small, proposal from the Prime Minister, which is to acquire repossessed homes for social renting, and operate it on a much larger scale, using the prudential borrowing powers of local councils and the Housing Corporation?
As the hon. Gentleman has said, taking action on repossessed homes will help. We may want to consider other measures as well. I say to him that house prices have been falling, which is inevitable given what is happening and the constraint of credit and mortgages, but that is happening against a background of house prices having risen by about 45 per cent. over the past five years. We will continue to take whatever action is appropriate to support not only the economy, but the housing market.
It is remarkably complacent of the Chancellor to describe the British economy as “strong and stable” at the moment, which is not the experience of home owners and people in work. Will he confirm, given that he is fond of his historical comparisons, that the figures announced by the Halifax this morning on house prices showed the fastest fall on record in house prices?
In relation to the hon. Gentleman’s first point, our economy is strong and it has been resilient. I was drawing attention not to what I have said, but what the IMF, which is, of course, entirely independent of this and every other Government, has said. House prices are falling, but the Halifax also said today that one of the factors that is important this time—as opposed to my historical comparison with last time—is that employment levels are much higher than they were 10 to 15 years ago. That makes a difference to confidence and the outlook for the future.
Again, we hear remarkable complacency from the Chancellor. He knows that the most recent figures show a rise in unemployment, and house prices are falling at their fastest rate ever. Inflation is rising, real incomes are falling and the Government stand paralysed, like a rabbit in the headlights, because they saved nothing in the good years to prepare for these difficult years. Therefore, their only answer is to increase taxation on families that already face a rising cost of living. Indeed, the Chancellor’s performance is so poor that he is about the only member of the Cabinet not touted about as a future leadership contender.
As the Chancellor wants to quote international organisations, will he confirm that the OECD said yesterday that
“the government’s options have been limited by excessively loose fiscal policy in past years when economic growth was strong.”?
In other words, they did not fix the roof when the sun was shining. In what could be his last ever Treasury questions, who does he think is to blame for that?
The hon. Gentleman would have more credibility on that point if, at the time in question, he and all his colleagues had called for less expenditure, not more, on education, health, police and defence. You name it, Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives were calling for more and more expenditure on it, without any identifiable means of paying for it.
Over the past 10 years, as the IMF and others have noted, we have built up a strong and resilient economy. It is undoubtedly the case, in this country and every other country, that we are feeling the effects of the problems that started in the financial markets and have spread to the wider economy. We are also facing the twin threats of inflation in food and fuel prices, but I believe that what we have done over the past 10 years will stand us in good stead. We will continue to do whatever is right to support the economy, but above all we will ensure that we continue with policies that build a stable economy, which is so important for the future.
Vehicle Excise Duty
The vehicle excise duty reforms announced in the Budget are due to be legislated in the 2009 Finance Bill. The Chancellor keeps all taxation policy under review. Tackling climate change is the most serious environmental challenge that we face, and road transport contributes about a quarter of the total UK carbon dioxide emissions. As part of a package of measures to reduce emissions from transport, the VED reforms will send strong signals to motorists to purchase more fuel efficient new and second-hand cars.
This morning, all over Britain, many British mums have finished the school run. During the day, they will probably pop into Tesco, where they will have to leave on the shelves treats for their children that they could have afforded a few months ago. [Interruption.] Well, that is how it is. Those mums will be unaware that the road tax on the family second-hand car in the car park is about to increase dramatically. How much misery does the Chancellor want to heap on to the shoulders of struggling British mothers?
Many of the mums about whom the hon. Lady seems to be so concerned have benefited greatly from tax credits, which the Conservatives would abolish.
In my hon. Friend’s consideration of the Tory fuel escalator, will she look again at the excellent proposal by my constituent, Mr. Peter Bernie, to end the cap at the top end of the vehicle excise duty rates, so that the most polluting vehicles pay the most vehicle excise duty?
I note that the quality of life policy group report published by the Conservative party last September suggested introducing a purchase tax on new cars of up to 10 per cent. of sale value, which would be far more than the £950 that we are proposing.
In a rural constituency such as mine, there are a lot of working vehicles, many of which are older vehicles, which will be caught by these VED changes. There is a very strong environmental argument for doing something about VED on new cars, but what on earth is the environmental argument for doing that to cars that have already been purchased?
Agricultural vehicles are exempt, and there is, of course, the red diesel concession for those who use vehicles for farming. We understand and are considering the issues for those who live in rural areas.
Will my hon. Friend consider holding the tax band for the present owner until the vehicle is sold on, which would inform the new owner of the tax that they will have to pay?
Changes to VED have always been applied in such a way. There is nothing new or unusual about applying new car tax rates to existing cars. Indeed, the Conservative party put up VED rates 13 times when it was last in power, and those increases applied to all cars, not just to some.
Is the Minister aware that this is the most intellectually threadbare argument that the House has heard for a long time? How can she conceivably justify such retrospective taxation, and how does that show any understanding of the plight of the rural community?
It is not retrospective legislation. Will the hon. Gentleman explain to Labour Members why the quality of life policy group report, which the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) welcomed and said would form part of the Conservative manifesto, suggested an even greater increase between the top and bottom bands based on CO2 emissions?
I appreciate that the Minister represents an urban constituency, but what thought has she given to livestock farmers in the hill country of the UK, who need a powerful 4x4 not only to transport livestock to cattle markets and elsewhere but to undertake their job in difficult terrain? Is it not unfair that those cash-strapped farmers face a huge increase in vehicle excise duty?
I hope that the market will develop so that such cars and vehicles produce lower emissions in the future than they do now. That is what these dynamic changes are intended to produce.
In a parliamentary answer that I received today, the Minister stated that
“of all households sampled with incomes less than £15,000, 41 per cent. had cars in current VED bands B or C.”—[Official Report, 4 June 2008; Vol. 476, c. 927W.]
Will the Minister confirm that that must mean that 59 per cent. of those households that earn less than £15,000 have bought new cars in higher bands than B and C, and will therefore pay more VED? In some cases, the increase will be getting on for £250, which is more than a week’s take-home pay. How does the Minister expect those households to financially plan ahead when she will not even admit that this retrospective tax will hit them worst? Is it not time to drop this plan and listen to the—[Interruption.]
Of the poorest 20 per cent. in income terms, half do not own a car at all. Low-income households are far more likely to own a pre-2001 car, and such cars are unaffected by the changes.
Bonus Payments (Financial Sector)
I believe that bonus payments should be tied to the performance and increased performance of companies.
While it is true to say that the £15 billion paid out in City bonuses last year has fallen back to £7 billion, which is a meagre drop, two directors have received personal bonuses of £200 million. Does the Chancellor understand why the public sector is asking why there is one rule for some and another rule for others? Surely such bonuses must have an inflationary impact, and we should review that position.
I do not think that that has a terribly significant inflationary impact, and of course, all bonuses are taxed, usually at the higher rate. However, when boards fix bonuses for their executives, they should ensure that they are tied to the long-term interests of their companies. That has not always happened in the past, as we have seen. It is important that people are given incentives to consider what is in the long-term good of the company involved, because that must be in the best interests of our whole economy.
As the Government are now the owner of one of the largest mortgage providers in the country, what inflationary impact has the Chancellor caused by paying £1 million to the chief executive of Northern Rock? Can the right hon. Gentleman name any other chief executive of a mortgage provider who earns more than £1 million a year?
The Government have indeed taken temporary ownership of Northern Rock. We had to employ staff, and we had to pay the appropriate rate. Frankly, I would rather pay the appropriate rate, get some good management in there, sort out the problems of Northern Rock and then return it to the private sector. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman does not support that.
Warren Buffett, the world’s richest financier, said this about the credit crunch a couple of weeks ago:
“The banks exposed themselves too much. They took on too much risk. It’s their fault. There’s no one else to blame.”
But despite that reckless disregard of risk, the banks have rewarded the bankers, in particular, in both good and bad times. The Governor of the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority have expressed concern to the Treasury Committee about that structure. Will the Government work with us in our financial stability and transparency inquiry to ensure that we have a payment system that rewards success only and not failure—today, we have seen a profits warning from the Bradford and Bingley and the chief executive has departed with a golden nest egg?
I think that the chief executive of that bank is retiring for health reasons. On bonuses generally, I said just a few moments ago that I believe that boards should ensure that the way in which they reward their executives ought to be geared towards the long-term improved performance of their institutions, and that has not always happened. On my right hon. Friend’s general comments, it is quite obvious that a number of banks did not understand the nature and scale of the risks to which they became exposed. However, that does not help any of us in the immediate period, because we have to live with and resolve the consequences; but I agree that boards ought to be far more diligent in ensuring that they reward people for doing things that are right for the company in the long term, because the public and their shareholders expect that people should be paid for success and not for failure.
Does the Chancellor agree that the huge bonus paid to Adam Crozier is completely unjustified, when small but viable rural sub-post offices are being closed?
On post office closures, as the hon. Gentleman will know, a problem that has faced our Government and his Government before that is that, over the longer period, fewer and fewer people use post offices. The National Federation of SubPostmasters recognises that problem, which is why the proposals that I put forward a couple of years ago were designed to ensure that there was a viable network, but there is no getting away from the fact that we must ensure that the Post Office is properly supported. We have put a great deal of public money into the Post Office, but we must also ensure that the network is viable. To pretend that it can be easily fixed or to do something else would be quite wrong.
Financial Inclusion
The Government are committed to ensuring that everyone has access to financial services to meet their needs. In 2007, I chaired a ministerial working group on financial inclusion, with colleagues from across the Government. That group developed a three-year action plan, which was published in December 2007.
I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Does she agree that information and education are the crucial features in giving people better access to financial products and that that should be delivered at the youngest possible age? Some of the programmes that I see in schools that are designed to teach young people about financial products are, frankly, rather poor and not fit for purpose. Is there some sense perhaps in looking harder at whether the available materials are pedagogically suitable?
I agree with my hon. Friend, which is why from September this year financial capability will be included in the personal, social and health education curriculum at key stages 3 and 4. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families has announced £11.5 million precisely to provide educational support on financial capability in schools. I hope that we will shortly be in a position to announce who will provide that information.
The category that is most excluded is, of course, women, who tend not to present themselves for advice on taking up a financial package. What measures are the Government taking to include women more in those financial packages, and how does the Minister respond to newspaper reports today that women will be particularly affected by the removal of the 10p income tax band?
Our policies are designed for all people, male and female, but an important strand of the financial inclusion action plan published at the end of last year is making sure that we use all the public sector agencies to reach the people who most need support and information. That is why every single person who visits a hospital to have a child will shortly be given the new parents’ guide to money through the midwife service. I have seen that scheme in action in my constituency, and I can heartily recommend it.
I know that the Minister is a great supporter of the role of credit unions in tackling financial exclusion, and I thank her for agreeing to speak at the inaugural meeting of the all-party group on credit unions at the end of the month. Does she agree that a fundamental review of credit union legislation is long overdue, if credit unions are to play the role that is needed within communities to tackle financial exclusion?
I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend, which is why we conducted a review of the environment in which credit unions and co-operatives operate. The results of the consultation were considered and published at the end of last year, on, I think, 31 December. We are working extremely hard to make sure that credit unions can play their full part in addressing the problems of some of the poorest people in our society by providing them with affordable credit and other forms of financial support. I hope to be in a position to announce more details shortly.
I am sure that the Minister agrees that educating children about financial management from the earliest age is essential if we are to combat long-term financial exclusion. Will she undertake to look at AweSum Challenge, a programme recently devised and launched in West Bromwich by West Bromwich Building Society with the support of the Secretary of State for Children, Families and Schools, to consider its potential for combating financial exclusion?
I would be delighted to look at that programme in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and I commend him on his work on the issue. I believe that we can do far more through the education system, and through the various grass-roots organisations in some of our poorer communities, to drive up levels of financial capability. My hon. Friend will know that we commissioned Otto Thoresen to do some work on the subject and to provide a service that works for the whole population. The results of his work are currently being taken forward by the Financial Services Authority.
Income Tax
The announcement that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor made on 13 May means that four in five households that stood to pay more tax as a result of the abolition of the 10p tax rate have been compensated in full, and the remaining 1.1 million will see their losses more than halved. Details of the household incomes of the 1.1 million households that are not fully compensated are set out in the memorandum to the Treasury Committee for its inquiry on Budget measures and low-income households in annexe D on page 24.
Does the Minister find it acceptable that if we take together the abolition of the 10p tax rate, the cut in the base rate and the increase of £600 in personal allowance, the loss in income is greatest for somebody earning only £7,755?
That is why, as we have said, further work is being undertaken. The Treasury Committee is conducting an inquiry into the impact of the abolition of the 10p tax rate, as the hon. Lady knows. I do not wish to pre-empt the outcome of that inquiry, but further work is being undertaken, precisely because we have been concerned about the impact.
One group of people who are not included in the Minister’s figures are the workers with occupational pension schemes who had their pensions stolen from them five years ago. The Government have introduced a compensation package for them, five years on, but many pensioners on low incomes will now be taxed at 20p in the pound, not 10p in the pound, as they would have been if they had had their pensions five years ago. What are the Government going to do about this robbery of their pensions?
That is rather excessive language, I think, coming from a party that dismantled the state earnings-related pension scheme, which was one of the greatest benefits to working people. As I said in my previous answer, precisely because we have been working hard to make sure that those who lose overall are compensated for the impact of the abolition of the 10p tax rate, further work is being undertaken and the Treasury Committee is taking forward its work.
Mrs. Georgina Nolan wishes to stand outside the Treasury with a placard indicating that she is one of the 1.1 million people who have still not been fully compensated. She is in her early 60s, having worked all her life, and she is now feeling the pain and experiencing financial problems. She wants to be compensated now.
Indeed. The changes that have been introduced will feed through into pay packets in September. It is the earliest possible change that could have been made. Mrs. Nolan ought at least to be pleased that she will see the changes taking place in September.
In the 2007 Budget, the then Chancellor made great play of the fact that from 2009 there would be only two rates of taxation on personal income, because of the alignment of income tax and national insurance contributions. Indeed, the Minister took a Bill to that effect through the House. Given the changes in the income tax threshold announced as the compensation package for the 10p tax rate losers, will that still happen in 2009, or is that yet another tax policy that will collapse before it is even implemented?
In the changes that we make to national insurance, all factors are taken into account and taken in the round. That is not signalling that the hon. Gentleman should take that as a yes or a no. I am obviously not in a position to say at this point exactly what we will do when we come to consider the rate of national insurance later this year.
Government’s Fiscal Rules
I set out my economic and public finance forecasts in the Budget, which shows that the Government are meeting their fiscal rules.
Yesterday, the OECD warned that the Government’s Budget deficit will exceed 3.5 per cent. of national income. It stated that
“these figures suggest that the sustainable investment rule could be breached in 2009”
and it blamed the Treasury’s “excessively loose” fiscal policy over the past 10 years. Does the Chancellor agree that it would be entirely wrong to blame him for this situation, when responsibility so clearly rests next door?
The discipline that we imposed on ourselves almost 10 years ago has served our country well. Among other things, it has enabled us to make up for the huge lack of investment in the transport system, education and health. As a result, we are now able to spend far more in investing in those services, which help each and every one of us.
In relation to what the hon. Gentleman says, as I said to the shadow Chancellor earlier, the Opposition would have far more credibility on this issue if it were not for the fact that, for the past few years, they have been calling not for less but for more public expenditure on every possible occasion, without being able to show how they would pay for it. So our rules are right and they have ensured that we have been able to make up for a massive backlog in public investment. That would never have happened under a Conservative Government.
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, in this period of economic turbulence, the fiscal rules will continue to be at the centre of his framework for maintaining stability in the British economy?
As I said, the rules provide us—and, indeed, any Government—with the right disciplines to ensure that, over the cycle we borrow to fund investment and that we keep debt at a sustainable level. The fact that our debt levels are historically low is hugely beneficial to us, especially at the moment.
The Prime Minister has criticised banks and other institutions for carrying assets and liabilities off balance sheet, thus giving a misleading impression of their financial health. Does it matter that if the Government included their own off-balance-sheet liabilities, such as Northern Rock and private finance initiatives, they would be carried way through the fiscal rules?
I am not sure that the Conservative party policy at the moment is to argue seriously that we should take Northern Rock on to the balance sheet. If we did that and applied the rules on the back of that, it would distort the economy, especially at the present time. It would make no economic sense and no sense whatever. I find it hard to understand why the hon. Gentleman is arguing that.
Fuel Prices
Increases in fuel prices, driven by developments in the global oil and wholesale gas markets, inevitably continue to influence UK inflationary pressure. However, the UK is better placed to respond to those challenges than in the past, given that employment is at record highs and that inflation is still low by historical standards.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that he was addressing the root causes of high oil prices. Is the Minister aware that the chief executive of Total said yesterday that oil prices had been pushed up by speculation? That was confirmed by the well-regarded Global Research organisation, which said that
“60 per cent. of today’s…oil price is pure speculation…by large trader banks and hedge funds.”
Does the Minister agree that there is absolutely nothing that she can do about that, unless she proposes to interfere in the markets?
The hon. Gentleman is right about what has been said and what was said yesterday. I understand that that was largely because it was expected that there would not be an increase in production. However, an open economy such as the UK’s is inevitably affected by global developments, including those in global food and energy prices.
Overall, UK inflation is lower than that in the US and the euro area and is the second lowest among all 27 European Union countries. Although we are going through a period of difficulty, it would be of benefit to all if more were made of the demonstrable underlying strength of the economy, rather than there being the celebration of the problems that we sometimes hear from Conservative Members.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the issue is not only about production? The argument used to be about the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its failure to increase production, and that still applies. However, that is added to by massive speculation. If America, that bastion of capitalism, can set up a Senate Committee to look into the speculation that is shoving oil prices, along with food prices, through the roof, surely it is time that we led a campaign in the international gatherings—at the G8 and among Finance Ministers—to put a stop to that massive speculation, which is hitting many people around the world.
My hon. Friend has made his point as only he can; it is a pleasure to see him in his seat. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor will take the advice that my hon. Friend has given the House with him when he attends the next meeting of the G7, which is in Japan in two weeks’ time.
The recent rises in fuel prices have caused an economic crisis on our islands and remote parts of the mainland, particularly the Kintyre peninsula. I thank the Exchequer Secretary for our constructive meeting yesterday. However, will the Government examine the evidence presented and consider the problems that the high price of fuel is causing remote rural communities? Will they look at the rural fuel discount schemes that operate in other countries and seriously consider introducing a scheme for a lower rate of fuel duty for islands and remote communities? Such help is needed for the struggling economies of those parts of the country.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the acknowledgement of the meeting that he had yesterday with my hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary. She has indicated to him how willing she is to look at the evidence, and I am sure that he will bring that evidence forward and that she and her officials will give it some consideration.
Will my right hon. Friend have discussions with the oil companies about extending or creating a social tariff for heating oil and for domestic liquefied petroleum gas and liquefied natural gas? Although it is right that the energy companies now have a significantly increased social tariff for domestic gas and electricity users, many people in rural areas whose only source of heating is heating oil or LPG have no social tariff available to them. Will my right hon. Friend tackle that problem?
My hon. Friend may know that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has already indicated that that is a good idea that he would like to consider, so my hon. Friend’s suggestion is welcome. However, it is worth reminding the House that the volatility of inflation since 1997 has been just a quarter of what it was in the two decades before 1997, underlying the case that we are able to make for the strength of the British economy in being able to deal with the challenges in the weeks that lie ahead.
In terms of the impact of high fuel prices, not only remote rural areas and island communities—in the northern isles, where prices are at £6.50 a gallon, people are questioning whether it is worth going to work—but economic sectors all over the UK, not least the haulage industry, are being hit hard. Does the Minister agree that the right thing to do in principle would be to introduce a fuel duty regulator to smooth out unexpected spikes in pricing? Does she further agree that the only tool that the Chancellor has—either to apply or postpone routine increases in duty—is now a totally inadequate response to the massive spikes in fuel price rises?
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting proposal that has been considered, but there are concerns that it would actually increase the volatility of fuel prices. It is wrong to suggest that we have only one tool. My hon. Friend the Minister for Energy recently attended the 11th ministerial meeting of the International Energy Forum, securing an ambitious programme of further work on improving market transparency and removing barriers to investment in new oil supplies. As I said, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will make this a high priority for British input into the G7 summit in two weeks’ time. This is an international problem—it is not only being experienced here in the UK—and the most effective response will be a global one from economies throughout the G7.
We now come to topical questions. Could I ask that when hon. Members ask a topical question it is brief and not an opportunity to make a speech?
Topical Questions
The core purpose of the Treasury remains to ensure the stability of the economy and to promote growth, as well to manage the public services and finances.
From next year, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs will be able to show up at someone’s office or workplace, at their accountants or their bank and demand information about them. Can the Chancellor outline what benefits there will be from those massively increased powers?
HMRC has been undertaking a review of its powers because it was widely recognised that there were very strong powers in some areas of the tax code and much more limited powers in other areas where there was unevenness and inequity in the way in which they were exercised. We will scrutinise the powers that we propose to reform, including, I assume, in the debate that we will have later today in the Finance Bill Committee upstairs. There will be a reining back of some of those powers and a greater transparency about how they are applied. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be reassured if I tell him that there will be many more safeguards for taxpayers—rights of appeal and so on—in the way that the powers are applied. I am listening closely to representations that are being made by taxation advisers and others in the field as we take this review forward.
We will raise that issue at the G7 meeting in Japan in 10 days’ time. It is important that countries throughout the world act to deal with some of the problems that are causing high food prices. For example, we in Europe need to face up to the impact that the common agricultural policy is having on food prices or the very high import tariffs that we impose in some cases. We also need to look at whether the current biofuels policy is distorting the market. It cannot be right that corn that could be used for food purposes is used to be put into petrol tanks. Sustainable biofuels can be used, and we need to make sure that we use them, but we also have to ensure that import and export barriers that countries have are broken down, which is why it is important that we get a trade deal as quickly as possible. We need to look at the barriers that are preventing farmers, either here or in developing countries, from planting the crops that we need. That is a huge problem for developed and developing countries alike, and it demands international action. We want to make sure that it is properly discussed and that action follows from the meeting in 10 days’ time.
Does the Chancellor agree with us and the Treasury Committee that the person appointed to the post of deputy governor of the Bank of England should be someone with direct financial markets experience?
We will make an announcement shortly, but I say to the hon. Gentleman that I hope that we get all-party agreement on the matter. Part of the changes that I want to make to the Bank of England is to restructure it so that one of its core purposes is the maintenance of financial stability. We should learn from the example of the Monetary Policy Committee, and take a similar approach to financial stability, bringing in outside expertise to advise the Governor and the appropriate deputy governor.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is crucial that the Bank of England, which does not have such a responsibility at the moment, has a statutory responsibility to ensure that the viability of the financial system is at the front of everything that it does. It is important that we get that reform through; it is also important that we appoint the right person to be the deputy governor. I will ensure that that happens.
I am not aware of being routinely asked for advice on such matters. Of course, the Treasury, if asked by either the Home Office or Foreign Office for its comments, would be happy to give them.
As the hon. Gentleman will know, we have increased spending on defence over the last few years, which contrasts with what happened in the 1980s and 1990s. In the settlement made with the Ministry of Defence last year, we have also made additional funds available for the refurbishment of Army homes. I agree with the hon. Gentleman: it is important that we provide decent homes for people who are serving their country so well.
I understand that the Chief of General Staff raised the issue of pay in an interview in one of this morning’s newspapers. We implemented the independent pay review recommendations last year, and some soldiers in the junior ranks got an increase in their pay way above inflation. We will continue to do whatever we can to support the armed forces that serve this country so well, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman and the House that we have been increasing the amount going to the MOD for some time now.
I agree with my hon. Friend that people face increased pressure because of increased gas and electricity bills. That is why we reached an agreement with the power companies earlier this year. Among other things, it will ensure that people do not pay so much on the pre-payment meters. It always seemed wrong to me to ask people on low incomes to pay more than those on high incomes. It was unnecessary and should be sorted out, as it will be. As part of that, we have agreed to ensure that people get proper advice to try to get them on the lowest appropriate tariff as well as, of course, proper advice on and provision of, for example, insulation, to cut down on the amount of energy that people need to use in the first place. We are doing a range of things, but I agree with my hon. Friend that we must ensure that people know what they are entitled to so that they can get the benefit of it.
We always keep those rates under review. The hon. Lady should also remember that the mileage rates are not meant to compensate for all the costs of running a car.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me notice of the question. Since 2004, we have succeeded in relocating 15,700 staff out of London and the south-east. We are determined to maintain the momentum and I am confident that further posts will move to the north and north-east. Indeed, I understand that, in the past few days, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has confirmed a further 95 jobs in the Washington cluster of offices. I hope that my hon. Friend is reassured that we are maintaining the pressure and the momentum.
If the hon. Gentleman cares to examine what we have done in the past 10 or 11 years, he will realise that we have hugely increased people’s incomes, especially those of people on lower incomes. I strongly believe that it is right to ensure that there is a fair tax system and that people are rewarded for their work. It will always remain a central purpose—a part of what we are about—to ensure that people on lower and middle incomes see the reward for what they have done and to continue to do everything that we can to take children and pensioners out of poverty.
Following the Bank of England’s indifferent performance on Northern Rock, may I strongly endorse the earlier suggestion that the Chancellor stay firm in support of appointing a more City and market-oriented individual to the deputy governor’s post instead of the cosy but wrong alternative of an in-house promotion?
I do not think that I can add much to what I said to the shadow Chief Secretary. I will make a decision in the not-too-distant future, but it is important that we keep sight of the fact that, although the appointee is important, it is also important to make the necessary changes to strengthen the Bank of England’s ability—and responsibility—to deal with the stability of the financial system as a whole.
If an ordinary family in my constituency who drive, say, a Ford Mondeo face a 30 per cent. rise in their car tax over the next three years and the consequent damage to its resale value, can the Chancellor explain by what mechanism that improves the environment?
Many Ford Mondeos will see a freeze or a fall in their vehicle excise duty. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should recognise that some people will gain from the changes.
Will the Chancellor consider liberalising the regulation of non-standard forms of consumer credit? In the current climate, it is impossible for low-income families to secure mainstream consumer credit. We do not want them to go to loan sharks or dodgy credit providers, but the current regulatory framework makes it difficult for non-standard providers to offer consumer credit to families.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. He will have heard in earlier exchanges this morning about the important role that institutions such as credit unions can provide in, I hope, one day crowding out the legal but extortionate credit providers. Obviously loan sharks operate in the illegal sphere. My colleagues in the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform have already made significant progress in tightening up the regulations in that area. If there are other issues that my hon. Friend feels that we should look into, I should be happy to discuss them with him personally.
Will the Chancellor now come to the Dispatch Box and acknowledge the disproportionate impact that the increase in vehicle excise duty will have in rural areas?
Again, it depends on the cars being driven. There is no obvious reason why there should be a disproportionate impact in rural areas, as opposed to urban areas. The idea behind the changes is to encourage people to move to cleaner, less polluting cars. The Conservative “Quality of Life” report proposed putting the idea into effect in a much more draconian way than we are suggesting, yet now the Conservatives vote against it and do not support it.
The Chancellor will know that Rachel Lomax, the deputy governor of the Bank of England who is retiring, has done an excellent job in charge of monetary policy. I urge the Chancellor not to box himself in, but to take the recommendations of the Treasury Committee and consider a management reorganisation at the deputy governor level, so that we can elevate financial stability to the important position that it should have?
I have tried over the past 20 minutes precisely not to box myself in, for obvious reasons. I do not normally discuss individuals on the Floor of the House, but Rachel Lomax has served the Bank well. She has also served successive Governments well, as a loyal, distinguished and hard-working civil servant. I know from my experience as Secretary of State for Social Security and then for Work and Pensions and as Secretary of State for Transport that Rachel Lomax was an excellent permanent secretary. Whatever she does in the future, I hope that the whole House will wish her well.
Business of the House
May I ask the Leader of the House to give us the forthcoming business?
The business for next week will be as follows.
Monday 9 June—Second Reading of the Climate Change Bill [Lords].
Tuesday 10 June—Remaining stages of the Counter-Terrorism Bill (Day1).
Wednesday 11 June—Conclusion of the remaining stages of the Counter-Terrorism Bill.
Thursday 12 June—It is expected that there will be an oral statement on the HMS Tireless board of inquiry. Topical debate: subject to be announced, followed by the Chairman of Ways and Means has named opposed private business for consideration.
Friday 13 June—Private Members’ Bills.
The provisional business for the week commencing 16 June will include:
Monday 16 June—Second Reading of the Children and Young Persons Bill [Lords].
Tuesday 17 June—Opposition Day [14th Allotted Day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.
Wednesday 18 June—A general debate on the pre-European Council.
Thursday 19 June—Topical debate: subject to be announced, followed by a general debate on defence procurement.
Friday 20 June—Private Members’ Bills.
I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 19 and 26 June and 3 July will be:
Thursday 19 June—A debate on the report from the Work and Pensions Committee entitled “The Best Start in Life? Alleviating Deprivation, Improving Social Mobility and Eradicating Child Poverty”.
Thursday 26 June—A debate on skills for life.
Thursday 3 July—A debate on women with particular vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system.
May I remind the House that we will rise for the summer recess on Tuesday 22 July? The dates for the tabling and answering of written questions during the summer recess were agreed by the House yesterday.
I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the future business. I note that the business for next Monday has changed. Will she tell us what has happened to the second day’s debate on the Planning Bill?
Robert Mugabe’s actions have directly caused appalling malnutrition and famine in Zimbabwe. His presence at the UN food summit earlier this week, in defiance of EU sanctions, has rightly caused outrage. On 1 May, the right hon. and learned Lady said she would consider a topical debate on Zimbabwe. On 22 May, she said:
“I think that the House will want a debate soon…I will report back shortly”.—[Official Report, 22 May 2008; Vol. 476, c. 403.]
Lord Malloch-Brown is giving a briefing to the all-party group on Zimbabwe next week. That is welcome, but it is no substitute for a full debate in Government time in this House, as promised, on Zimbabwe. So when will we have that debate?
Food security is a matter of concern globally, so why was the UK the only country not to send a Minister to the recent meeting of European Agriculture Ministers? I understand that the Environment Secretary was at a meeting of the G8 Environment Ministers, but where was the rest of his team? May we have a statement to the House explaining why no Minister attended?
This week, the National Audit Office told the Ministry of Defence that the Ministry had wasted £500 million on eight Chinook helicopters that have never been flown. Today, the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, has taken the unprecedented step of publicly asking the Government for more funding for our troops. Moreover, he has called for the Government to set out their priorities. Will the Defence Secretary make a statement to the House to do just that, and explain why, when troops in Afghanistan need more helicopters, his Department has wasted hundreds of millions of pounds on helicopters that are sitting in a hangar in Wiltshire? The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee has called this a “gold-standard cock-up”, so why is the debate in a fortnight’s time on defence procurement being held on a Thursday, when it will be cut short by an hour and a half?
The disclosure by Post Office Ltd that a further 4,000 post offices could be closed, including profitable ones, in addition to the current 2,500 closures, has justifiably angered many people. In London, the current round of closures is pushing ahead, despite the fact that the Mayor has said he will launch a legal case on this matter. This comes on top of the news that Post Office managers have not even agreed on the minimum number of post offices that the service requires. We are lurching from closure programme to closure programme with no end in sight. Members on both sides of the House have highlighted the disastrous consequences of post office closures for their constituents. May we have a statement from the Business Secretary on what strategy, if any, his Department has in place on post offices?
Days after the British Medical Association called on the Government to dump the polyclinic plan, a report published today by the King’s Fund has found that all patients would have to make “major sacrifices” under Government plans to centralise health services, and that the elderly and those in rural communities would be the worst hit. May we have a statement from the Health Secretary on the number of family doctors’ practices that would have to close under the Government’s plan for polyclinics?
Under this Government, rural communities such as those in my constituency and neighbouring constituencies have lost their post office, their local shop and their police station; now they are threatened with losing their family doctor. Furthermore, the Government are pushing up the tax on their elderly family cars. The Government simply do not understand rural communities. May we have a debate on how Government policy is slowly eroding our rural communities?
The Government are failing to represent the UK abroad, they are failing our armed services and they are failing our rural communities. The Prime Minister says that he is going to listen, but when is he going to learn?
The right hon. Lady asked about the Planning Bill. The business of the House has indeed changed: it had been announced that the Bill was in the House next week. On Second Reading, a number of hon. Members from all parts of the House raised concerns about the Bill. Further, there have been meetings between Ministers and hon. Members. With the Minister who is responsible for the Bill, I too have met the Chairs of various Select Committees who are concerned about the processes involved in the Bill.
It is only right that if hon. Members, including Chairs of Select Committees, raise questions about a piece of Government legislation, the appropriate thing to do is to reflect on what changes might need to be made. Without arranging it formally, the Bill will probably come back to the House the week after next, probably on Monday 23 June—if that is the week after next. Hon. Members cannot have it both ways. Either they raise issues and want us to address them, or they raise issues and criticise us if we plough ahead—[Interruption.] At all stages, it is right for the Government to respond to hon. Members.
The right hon. Lady’s second point was on Zimbabwe, and she pressed me on that. It is a matter of concern to the whole House. The second elections in Zimbabwe will be held on 27 June. The House has strong feelings about Zimbabwe, and the issue has been raised repeatedly in business questions. Both the Foreign Secretary and the Minister for Africa, Lord Malloch-Brown, are well aware of the strong feelings in the House and of the views of all hon. Members. They stand ready to meet them to discuss our diplomatic work in support of the democratic movements in Zimbabwe. The Foreign Office has contacted the offices of all those hon. Members who have raised Zimbabwe in business questions, and they will be invited to the all-party briefing next Tuesday, to which the right hon. Lady referred.
I can assure the House that we will have a debate on Zimbabwe. It will not be before the elections because the democratic movements in Zimbabwe do not want the views of the UK to be used as an alibi by Mugabe. However, I can assure the House that it will be before the House rises for the summer recess.
The right hon. Lady raised the issue of ministerial attendance at, and Government involvement in, the food security EU summit. I shall arrange for the relevant Department to write to her about that.
I understand that the Chinook helicopters were procured in 1995. I believe that there has been a written ministerial statement on that, but if there has not I will arrange for the Secretary of State for Defence to write to the right hon. Lady. As she said, there will be a debate on defence procurement on Thursday week, and that will give her colleagues and all hon. Members an opportunity to raise the issue.
The right hon. Lady mentioned armed forces pay, as did other hon. Members in Treasury questions, which were the business of the House this morning. The independent Armed Forces Pay Review Body recommends the level of pay increases for the armed forces. If hon. Members want a different system for setting the level of pay for the armed forces, perhaps they should make that clear. The Government have accepted the body’s recommendations in full and without staging. That is the first point. We have a process, and no one is suggesting a different one—unless they come forward with proposals. We have complied with the process in full.
We have also increased the defence budget. By 2010, it will be 11 per cent. higher in real terms than it was in 1997. The UK is currently second only to the US in terms of defence spending as a nation. I have not heard Opposition Members propose how they would increase defence spending beyond what we are doing or which operations—Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo or elsewhere—they would cut back.
I remind Members that a soldier’s salary does not constitute the entire remunerative package. Housing and council tax relief for soldiers on operations and, in some cases, school allowances should also be taken into account. Defence questions will take place on Monday week, and the general debate on defence on Thursday week will give Members an opportunity to raise the matter.
The right hon. Lady will know that the consultation on the post office network is still under way. She will also know that the issue has been raised repeatedly in Westminster Hall. The schedule for Westminster Hall debates shows what an important opportunity they provide for Members to raise questions about their localities.
As the right hon. Lady is aware, we have invested in the Post Office and are committed to further such investment, in contrast to the cuts—not cuts, but lack of subsidy—[Interruption.] We have invested public money in the post office network, and we remain committed to investing public money in the post office network. Under the regime of the right hon. Lady’s party, there was no public investment in the network.
I can refute the right hon. Lady’s suggestion that there is a threat to general practitioner or primary care services. Let me remind her of what has happened over the past few years. In my constituency, there used to be closed lists. People who had recently moved into an area could not get on to a GP’s list unless they appealed, and once they were on the list they could not get an appointment for more than a week because the practice was so hard pressed. When they did manage to see the GP, the GP would be absolutely knackered because he or she was so overstretched—[Interruption.]
Order. I must point out to the Leader of the House, and the shadow Leader, that we are entering a debate situation. I always think that business questions are best when Back Benchers are attentive. Let us leave it at that.
May I remind the Leader of the House that a number of our colleagues have suffered various forms of harassment, some of it from constituents, and have been stalked? Given the concern of many Members in all parts of the House about the possibility of Members’ private addresses being put in the public domain, would the Leader of the House be able to consult the police and others about whether that is a wise move?
The House authorities have consulted the police and the security services. As the House will know, following a freedom of information request the question of whether the private London addresses of 14 Members should be put in the public domain will be subject to case-by-case consideration in the context of security issues involving those individuals.
I know that there is concern in all parts of the House about two aspects of this matter. The first is the personal security of Members. The second, which I consider even more important, is the need for Members to feel absolutely confident that they can speak in the House on difficult issues without fearing that, when they leave the Chamber having spoken about what they believe in, they will have to look over their shoulders because their addresses are in the public domain. In that regard, the House authorities are seeking legal advice on whether or not the Freedom of Information Act provides an opportunity for the House to defend Members’ right to speak without having to look over their shoulders thereafter.
Following the exciting success of Barack Obama in winning the Democratic nomination and the strong showing by Hillary Clinton, and given that the Government are due to announce the publication of a White Paper on House of Lords reform—we have been given a date for that—may we have a full day’s debate in the House so that, recognising the progress made by the Labour party in particular, we can discuss how we in Britain can modernise our political system to make it truly representative of both women and men, and of all our communities throughout the United Kingdom?
Will the Leader of the House also provide time for a debate on the 10th report of the Public Administration Committee, on the Government’s draft Constitutional Renewal Bill, which was produced two weeks ago today? In particular, will she allow the House to put pressure on the Government so that we can get real opportunities to transfer power from the Executive to Parliament? The report says that there is only one proposal in the Bill to give more powers to the citizen. That cannot be what the public want, so may we have an opportunity to put pressure on the Government to change that?
This Friday, the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan)—she was in the Chamber a moment ago—presents her Bill to give votes to people from the age of 16. Will the Government now come off the fence, and will the Leader of the House tell us today whether it is now Government policy that older teenagers should be able to take part in the democratic process, because they are subject to our laws and many of them would feel absolutely willing and able to participate in formulating those laws through the electoral system?
Lastly, we are about to have a very important debate on knife crime. Following on from that, will the Leader of the House consider having an online consultation on behalf of the House of Commons, between now and the end of next month, with the young people of Britain on how they might suggest that we make our homes, schools, colleges and streets safer, particularly from the threats of knife crime and gun crime? Like me, the right hon. and learned Lady is well aware that this is a very big issue in the homes of many of our constituents.
The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of the US elections by way of a point about the House of Lords and the Constitutional Renewal Bill. Whatever the outcome of the Democratic nomination or the presidential election, I want to take this opportunity to pay my personal tribute to Hillary Clinton, who is and will remain a beacon to women across the world. The Justice Secretary has kept the House updated on our progress on Lords reform; we have already made progress and will continue to do so. He will update the House when it is appropriate. A Joint Committee of this House and the Lords is scrutinising the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill, and that will afford part of the scrutiny that this House will give to this important Bill.
The hon. Gentleman asked about older teenagers and their involvement in the democratic process. He will know that we have already reduced the age at which people can stand for election as a Member of the House of Commons or as a councillor, and that we have introduced citizenship classes in the national curriculum. We keep the voting age under review as one of a number of issues that we need to look at to increase participation in democracy across the board, and to tackle falling voter turnout and participation.
The hon. Gentleman made a sensible and thoughtful proposal on what more we can do to involve young people themselves in tackling knife crime. As he knows, there is a topical debate on knife crime in the House this afternoon, and no doubt we can explore his suggestion further.
Will my right hon. and learned Friend consider holding a debate on the benefits of regional railways? On Saturday, for the first time in 44 years, passenger trains will run from the towns of Ashington and Bedlington to Newcastle. Although it is a demonstration project, it will prove that for very little extra investment this valuable service could become permanent.
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue. He has raised in this House on numerous occasions, and occasioned debates to be had on, the issue of railway passenger services in his constituency. I congratulate him on the success of his campaign for passenger trains to be reintroduced on the line between Ashington and Bedlington for the first time in 44 years. He has truly been a champion of his constituents.
Will the Leader of the House please bring early-day motion 1349, which requests a statement on the upgrading of the A14 in Cambridgeshire, to the attention of her right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport?
[That this House is alarmed by the 52 deaths on the A14 in Cambridgeshire in the last 10 years; notes with concern there have been 12 serious accidents on the trunk road this year causing two fatalities; is concerned at the delays and spiralling costs of long-proposed improvements to this lethal highway; congratulates the Cambridge News on its A14 - We Need Action Now campaign; and calls on the Government and Highways Agency urgently to commence the upgrading of the A14 to full dual carriageway and near motorway standard throughout Cambridgeshire to prevent more accidents, deaths and injuries.]
The early-day motion has attracted all-party support and emphasises the urgency of upgrading the A14 in Cambridgeshire, which has seen 52 fatalities in the past 10 years and 12 accidents this year, including two fatalities.
Will the right hon. and learned Lady also remind her right hon. Friend that in an answer to me during Transport questions a few weeks ago, she did say that an announcement was imminent? We are still waiting.
I will draw the points made by the hon. Gentleman to the attention of the Secretary of State for Transport.
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that next week, during consideration on Report of the Counter-Terrorism Bill, we will be dealing with one of the most difficult issues facing any democracy: fighting terrorism and at the same time trying to preserve our traditional civil liberties? Does she also agree that as far as Labour Members are concerned, we will be debating the case on the merits—be they those presented by our colleagues who support the Government, or those who, like me, are opposed to any extension beyond 28 days?
My hon. Friend is right to say that this is a matter both of fighting terrorism and defending civil liberties—of getting the balance right. The House will have ample opportunity to debate this next week, and I remind him and all hon. Members on this side of the House that this is Government business.
Since I last raised the question of the judges’ dangerous decision that MPs’ home addresses should all be published, the number of signatories to early-day motion 1620 has risen from 77 to 159.
[That this House believes that the home address of any hon. or Rt. hon. Member should not be published if he or she objects to publication on grounds of privacy or personal security.]
Every party in the House, including independent and minority parties, is well represented among those signatories. May we therefore have a debate on this topic, preferably with a vote at the end? That would enable me to lay before the House interesting facts such as that the Information Commissioner has gone out of his way to tell me that he never wanted the addresses to be published in the first place, that this was added by the appeal tribunal and the judges, and that I have just received a letter from the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the hon. Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills)—the Minister with responsibility for freedom of information—in response to my freedom of information request for the publication of judges’ home addresses. In it, he says that he is refusing the request because
“High Court Judges, whilst certainly public figures, are entitled to a private life and levels of privacy that accord with this…It is my view that routinely to disclose the personal addresses of judges would breach their privacy and would be unfair.”
Unfortunately, he does not say anything about security, which ought to be the overriding consideration in both cases.
I commend the hon. Gentleman on his early-day motion, which I would indeed sign were protocol not there to prevent me from doing so. The point that he makes about judges is that it is right that their home addresses are not published because they need to mete out justice without fear or favour when they sit in court. I would think that something of the same argument applies to Members of this House. Our addresses should not be published so that we are able to speak freely on democratic issues of importance in this House without looking over our shoulders.
May I first comment on the issues raised earlier in relation to the Planning Bill? As one of the four Select Committee Chairs involved in detailed discussions with the Leader of the House on the matter of parliamentary scrutiny during the proposed new planning process, I want to put on the record the helpfulness of those discussions, the real give and take and the real changes that are going to be introduced as a result of those discussions. That was the Leader of the House working with Select Committee Chairs in the most positive way, and it should be commended by all. Of course, two of the Chairs are Members of the Opposition, and I think they would agree with me on that.
I want to raise—[Interruption.]
Order. That is not on.
I thank my hon. Friend for her comments. As Leader of the House working with Select Committee Chairs, irrespective of what party they come from, it is indeed my responsibility to make sure that the House is listened to and responded to.
Will the Leader of the House arrange for a debate in Government time on why the Department for Work and Pensions, through Jobcentre Plus, provides free advertising for sex clubs? Such a debate would give the House an opportunity to debate whether job advertisements requiring women to work naked or semi-naked on the national minimum wage constitute exploitation. I am sure that such a debate would be very helpful; the Leader of the House might even want the opportunity to put on record whether she condones such activities of the DWP; given her previous statements, I am sure that she does not.
The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue, and I shall draw it to the attention of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. I had meetings with the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the question of ensuring that those seeking jobs who have an obligation to take a job rather than remain on jobseeker’s allowance should not be obliged to take a job in some lawful but sleazy activity. This is a difficult line to be drawn, whether in respect of lap-dancing clubs or escort agencies. I shall draw the matter to the attention of the current Secretary of State. There is also a question about the licensing of lap-dancing clubs. We must ensure that where the local community and the local council do not want a new lap-dancing club, the law ensures that they get their way in this respect.
The Ministry of Justice announced this week the publication of a consultative document on compensation for pleural plaques sufferers, and that is to be greatly welcomed. Will the Leader of the House ensure not only that Members get a statement in the House from the relevant Minister on the proposals being put forward, but that we get a chance to participate in a full debate on this important issue, which affects tens of thousands of people in this country?
Because of the efforts of hon. Members such as my hon. Friend, the Government have carefully examined the House of Lords decision on the question of pleural plaques. A debate on this matter took place in Westminster Hall this week, in which a number of Members were able to participate. A consultation process will start before the end of this month in respect of the Government’s response to the concerns about the House of Lords judgment, and I know that he and other hon. Members will want to participate in that consultation, which is largely a response to their concerns.
Whichever way MPs voted last month on the abortion time limit, I am sure that they will share my concern at recent figures showing that the number of abortions is continuing to rise. Can we therefore have a debate on the Government’s strategy for reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions, so that we can discuss why it is not working and how it can be improved?
I understand that there has recently been a Westminster Hall debate on teenage pregnancies, but the hon. Lady makes an important point. Now that the House has decided not to change the time limit, that does not mean that we should leave behind the question of unwanted pregnancies and abortions. I think everybody would agree that if an abortion has to be carried out, it should be done as early as possible, but we want to reduce the number of abortions by ensuring that there is good motivation among girls to postpone pregnancy, that boys take responsibility, and that there is good sex education and good availability of contraception. That is what the House should be addressing now, and I shall look for an opportunity to allow that to happen.
We know from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals that over the past 12 months there has been a huge increase in dog fighting and an explosion in the number of ferocious dogs on our streets. Such dogs just intimidate people, so can we have an early debate on the operation and continuing relevance of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, and on whether we should bring back a system of dog licensing?
My hon. Friend makes a very important point, which I shall consider as a future subject for a topical debate. As he says, this is not just about cruelty to animals; it is about people striking fear into other people in the local community, and about antisocial behaviour bordering on criminality. We need to examine whether the law and enforcement mechanisms are satisfactory, and I shall look for an opportunity for us to do that.
When the Leader of the House examines the parliamentary week, would she agree that Thursdays have become the poor relation, because they have reduced attendance in the Chamber, fewer votes and fewer meetings of parliamentary Committees and all-party groups? Will she consider stretching the parliamentary week by moving Prime Minister’s questions from Wednesdays to Thursdays?
First, on the question of Thursday being a poor relation, we have a very important debate on knife crime today, and in a couple of Thursdays’ time we will have an important debate on defence procurement and defence more generally. It is down to hon. Members to participate in, and be present for, debates on Thursdays. As to when oral questions take place, the timing of questions to all Departments and to the Prime Minister is always kept under review.
I welcome the inclusion of the equality Bill in the draft legislation programme. When that programme is introduced, will the Bill deal with age discrimination, which is rife throughout my constituency, as must be the case for all constituencies? At a time when our elderly population is growing, it is outrageous that elderly people are being discriminated against in areas such as the take-up of credit and so on. Such discrimination should be outlawed, and surely that should be in the equality Bill.
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that important point. He will know that we have outlawed employment discrimination against people on grounds of their age, as part of our approach to tackling unfair discrimination and prejudice. As he rightly says, there is a growing number of older people, and they, too, should have fairness. We will bring forward our proposals in the equality Bill later this month, and I hope that he will be satisfied by what he sees.
May I raise a subject that I know will be close to the heart of the Leader of the House, and will she make time for a debate to which other colleagues who share my concerns can contribute? An ongoing case with which I am concerned involves a very popular local pharmacist in Vale of York. I understand that for the first time, under new procedures, a disciplinary action has been brought against her under the heading “fitness to practise”. She wanted me to undertake any parliamentary proceedings that could expedite an amicable solution before the matter was taken before a legal tribunal. The problem was that the delay that I incurred in trying to obtain a reply to my initial letter to the Department of Health precluded any parliamentary proceedings pre-empting legal action. Could the Leader of the House look into Departments—not just the Department of Health—taking a very long time to reply to both my letters and those of hon. Members, because in this instance the delay could have made a difference?
Order. The hon. Lady is raising a constituency case. Such cases are important to every hon. Member, but such a lengthy intervention during business questions is out of order. What I say to her is that there are opportunities to raise these things—Adjournment debates, parliamentary questions and others—and it is unfair if hon. Members take up lengthy periods during time that should be about next week’s business.
The hon. Lady raises two points of principle. First, I do not think it is right that parliamentary action should interfere with, or intervene in, what is a legal process, but I totally agree that Secretaries of State should give prompt replies to Members who are raising constituency issues. I shall undertake to get a reply to her letter to her this afternoon from the relevant Minister.
Yesterday, a petition was placed on the No. 10 website. It reads:
“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Force Brent Council to desist from it’s present policy of closing and refusing new tenancies to community groups, in a cynical bid to raise capital.”
Stonebridge day centre and Roundwood café are just two organisations that are facing closure. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that Brent, which is a Lib-Dem/Tory run council, uses the Government as a smokescreen to cover its disgraceful policies?
Order. I am going to stop hon. Members doing this. These questions are about the business of next week; this is not an opportunity to attack a local authority. There are other opportunities to attack local authorities, although I am not advocating that; with a bit of ingenuity hon. Members could try it in other parts of the week.
Perhaps Mr. Mackay can keep in order—I know that he can.
Returning to the business of next week, but not wishing to intrude on the private grief of Labour Members after Prime Minister’s questions yesterday, may I call on the Leader of the House for an urgent debate next week on the proposed increases in vehicle excise duty, which will hit families on low incomes especially hard? It is likely to be this Government’s poll tax, unless they change their mind.
The right hon. Gentleman will know that there was extensive discussion of the matter in Treasury questions this morning. He will also know that our concern is to raise revenue fairly and to cut carbon emissions. The Chancellor also gave evidence to the Treasury Committee yesterday.
May we have a debate about the devaluation of the honours system by the automatic award of honours to top civil servants? Did my right hon. and learned Friend notice the parliamentary reply that showed that all the most recently retired 29 permanent secretaries got a knighthood, without discrimination, and four got a peerage? Is not that a devaluation, bearing in mind—to use the words of the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) in quoting the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee—that some of them presided over gold-standard cock-ups? It really is one in the face for ordinary people when these blighters get such awards.
There is not an automatic award of honours. I know that my hon. Friend agrees that people who spend their lives dedicated to public service are valuable, and we need to pay tribute to them. We believe in people of the greatest talent and ability forgoing what sometimes could have been shed loads of money in the private sector to work in the public service. I for one am glad if they are recognised.
A report this week shows that broadband speeds in rural areas are half those in London and the south-east. That is a considerable inconvenience to rural families and a hindrance to the development of business in rural areas. We also have not-spots, such as Rhiwlas in my constituency, which has no broadband provision at all. May we have a debate on the digital divide, which should be called digital inequality?
This is something that I will bring to the attention of Ministers in the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. It is an important issue not only for individuals, but for commerce.
May we have a debate about the tax on alcoholic drinks? While we should all obviously be concerned about binge drinking and its links to antisocial behaviour, the SNP, not for the first time, seems to have two positions on this issue—one for Edinburgh and another for London. In Edinburgh, it is talking about raising the tax on cut-price budget drinks—those within the reach of people on low incomes—but here in London, the SNP Treasury spokesman demands a freeze on deluxe spirits, specifically mentioning a 15-year-old malt, the Balvenie. Such a debate would allow us to expose this latest example of the SNP penalising the poor while pandering to the rich.
Not so long ago, we had a debate on binge drinking and its contribution to antisocial behaviour, especially its connection with youth crime. My hon. Friend raises an important question about the taxation of alcohol, especially the issues raised north of the border, and I will bring that to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, as well as other UK Ministers dealing with tax and health issues connected to alcohol.
May we have an early debate on tax poverty, now that the Government are driving so many people into despair over the ever-rising taxes, charges and impositions? That would give us an opportunity to expose the wasteful and needless expenditure on things such as unelected regional government, over-manned quangos, ID cards and computer schemes, and to offer some relief to people if only the Government would manage things better.
Taxation and poverty are important issues, but I find it a bit much that that request should come from someone who voted for VAT on gas and electricity to be 17.5 per cent. I might consider that request if it came from someone else, but not from the right hon. Gentleman.
Rapidly rising transport fuel prices are causing lots of concern across the country, but especially to people living and running businesses in rural areas. The Government are starting to realise the problems those people face because of the lack of public transport. There are measures open to the Government, so will the Leader of the House ask the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to consider introducing measures on this issue, especially a derogation from the European Union, to reduce fuel prices in remote and rural areas?
As the hon. Gentleman rightly says, the Government need to focus on quality of life and standard of living issues in rural areas. That means a focus on jobs, health services, education, support for businesses and public transport, as well as on the cost of fuel. I will draw his points to the attention of Ministers in the relevant Departments.
Will the Leader of the House ensure that next Thursday’s topical debate is on the Government’s eco-town policy and that the Minister for Housing condescends to come to the House to be cross-examined by Members about her policies? So far the Minister for Housing has not answered a single debate. We have had two Adjournment debates—one that I was granted on 29 January and one granted to my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) in Westminster Hall earlier this week—which were answered by the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright). He is no doubt an eminent Minister, but he was unable to give us any information of any value about the Government’s policy or the particulars of the 15 sites so far identified. It is most important for our constituents that we have the Minister for Housing at the Dispatch Box to be cross-examined by effective constituency Members. So far, all she has done is give us a conference call that was not recorded. There is no transcript of that call, and that is bad practice, quite apart from being unconstitutional.
I will bring the hon. and learned Gentleman’s points to the attention of the Minister responsible for eco-towns, and I will also consider the matter as a subject for topical debate. If he thinks that it continues to be topical, I suggest that he drops me an e-mail and pursues that request.
The Leader of the House will have read early-day motion 1587, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) and is about the proposed sale by the Environment Agency of 22 lock-keepers’ houses along the Thames.
[That this House is concerned about the Environment Agency’s proposal to dispose by sale or letting of 22 lock-keepers’ homes along the Thames; recognises the importance of lock-keepers being resident in homes adjacent to locks to maintain safety on the river; fears for the welfare of the lock-keepers and their families; and calls on the Government to ask the Environment Agency to re-examine its decision so as to protect this unique part of the nation’s river heritage and the tradition of lock-keepers living at the site of locks.]
Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the motion so that those of us with constituencies adjoining the Thames can express constituents’ concern about the effect of that proposal on river users, lock-keepers and their families, safety and the social ecology of the Thames?
I note the points that the hon. Gentleman has made and suggest that he considers requesting a debate in Westminster Hall or on the Adjournment of the House.
Will the Leader of the House ask the Chancellor to clarify reports that sales of defence estates in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will in future accrue to devolved Parliaments and Assemblies, rather than to the Ministry of Defence estate? She will understand that such a change would represent a significant defence cut and would be of grave concern to us all, especially in the current climate.
As I understand it, there is no suggestion to change how the proceeds of the sale of defence estates are dealt with, but if I am wrong about that, I will ensure that the hon. Gentleman is written to and I shall correct the record.
May we have an urgent debate next week on the tender for the successor to the Post Office card account? There is a risk that the Department for Work and Pensions will take that contract away from the Post Office, but that would mean the closure of thousands of post offices, and pensioners on several islands in my constituency would have nowhere to collect their pension. The contract must stay with the Post Office.
I will bring the points that the hon. Gentleman makes to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and I shall ask my right hon. Friend to write to the hon. Gentleman on the points that he raises.
May I reiterate calls for a debate on polyclinics? In particular, in my constituency the acute general hospital is closing and we are having a polyclinic imposed on us. That would sound quite good if it were not for the fact that the GP surgery 800 yd away will have to close because it will lose all its patients. Can we have a debate so that we can have the truth about polyclinics?
On the question of primary care services in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, he has no doubt raised the subject with his primary care trust. If he is not satisfied with its response, perhaps he should seek a debate in Westminster Hall. Without getting into a debate, I would say that the Government’s concern and our commitment are to improve primary care services. That is why we have trained and recruited more GPs, paid GPs more and ensured that patients in primary care services get better health care and better outcomes and are satisfied with the services that they get. There will always be disputes about exactly how services are provided, but nobody would think that we should stand still in the 1950s with one model of GPs’ services remaining in perpetuity. There has to be change in order for improvement to occur, and we need to work together to ensure that, with the extra investment that the Government have put in, that is exactly what happens.
May we have a debate in Government time on sentencing guidelines? Figures revealed via a freedom of information request this month show that in Cambridgeshire 389 individuals are subject to a failure to attend warrant. Of those individuals, 83 are category A—the most dangerous criminals, charged with offences such as assault, rape, kidnapping and so on. Is it not time that we reviewed the sentencing guidelines, particularly as magistrates and judges are put in a difficult position in that they cannot remand the most dangerous criminals in prison and have to give them bail, only for them to abscond? And while we are at it, can we also look at the funding for—
There will be questions to the Secretary of State for Justice on Tuesday, and perhaps the hon. Gentleman can raise his concerns then. A review of the question of bail is under way and is considering appropriate alternatives to custody, as well as how to ensure that people are remanded in custody in appropriate cases and that those who fail to attend are tracked down, brought before the courts and appropriately sentenced.
I hope that the Leader of the House will ensure that one of those alternatives is to allow local constituency MPs, local residents and local councils to be consulted prior to the installation of bail hostels in constituencies. It is completely unacceptable that despite questions to the Ministry of Justice, my constituents remain in the dark about how many bail hostels there are in my constituency and about who is being kept in those bail hostels.
If this is about a registered bail hostel with a measure of security, as people are required to be subject to certain conditions, such as not going out at certain times of the day, consultation is required on the existence of such bail hostels or indeed any plans for new bail hostels. I think that there has been confusion about the question of people who, if they had a home to go to, would be remanded to return to it. Such people are not remanded in custody, but instead go to supportive accommodation. Such accommodation is not a bail hostel as such, and in such cases the services and agencies have a responsibility to consult each other. Beyond that, it is simply at the discretion of the local authority to decide whether it wants to consult the local community. If the hon. Gentleman wants to propose a different regime for change of use and planning and wants to have a different planning classification for the sorts of accommodation that I have talked about, which are really little dissimilar to someone going home to live with mum, then he ought to make that proposal.
Can we have a debate on education? Perhaps then we could discuss the state of education in Milton Keynes and the news we have heard today, which was released only under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. That news was that as a direct result of the net £22 million Government cut in funding for schools in Milton Keynes, eight new schools that are desperately needed to cope with the expansion of Milton Keynes will not be built. Why are the Government forcing Milton Keynes to expand but refusing to fund our schools?
The Government are not refusing to invest in schools. There has been a threefold increase in investment in schools across the board. Obviously, it is important to ensure that there is planning ahead. Over the next three years, the Government will invest more in school building than was invested for the whole 18 years of Conservative government. We have to prioritise areas where there is an expansion in the school-age population and we have to prioritise deprived areas. His party has said that it would cut investment in schools, but I will none the less bring his point to the attention of the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. I know that the other Member of Parliament for Milton Keynes, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey), has done so, too.
May I join other Opposition Members in calling for a debate on the taxation of the poor? Even before the 10p tax abolition fiasco, the lowest paid in this country were paying higher rates of tax than the richest. Can we have an urgent debate so that Members from all parties can ask Labour Front Benchers why, in the 12th year of this Government, that ridiculous and oppressive state of taxation is hitting the poorest in the land?
We have just had Treasury questions. Yesterday, the Chancellor appeared before the Treasury Committee. Such questions are raised every week with the Prime Minister. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the subject is never far from the concerns of all Members from all parties.
Last year, there were a staggering 64 programme motions. At the last business questions, the Leader of the House said that
“whenever a programme motion is tabled, there is an opportunity for Members to debate it and to say whether they think it is appropriate…There is always an opportunity to debate a programme motion”.—[Official Report, 22 May 2008; Vol. 476, c. 409.]
Under Standing Order No. 83A(7), the question on a programme motion is put forthwith without debate. Unless the Leader of the House was proposing a change to Standing Orders about programme motions, will she make a statement during next week’s business to correct that information?
That is a good point. I looked into it, but I cannot remember what I found out. I will look into it again and not only remember what I found out but report it back to the House. The House will have another opportunity to debate a programme motion next Tuesday in relation to the Counter-Terrorism Bill. I am sure that there will be a full debate.
Can we have a statement next week from the Minister responsible for fire safety about what steps the Government will take to amend building regulations, part B, to reduce the fire risk from faulty domestic electric circuitry? Following the launch of the important campaign by the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph to get more smoke alarms fitted, the Electrical Safety Council wrote to me to say that one fifth of domestic fires are caused by faulty electrical circuitry, causing some 30 deaths and 4,000 injuries a year.
I agree absolutely with the hon. Gentleman’s points. I shall bring them to the attention of the relevant Ministers. I am glad to see that he is clearly of the view that in such cases regulation does not mean the nanny state but saves lives.
Royal Assent
I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that Her Majesty has signified her Royal Assent to the following Act:
Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008
Topical debate
Knife Crime
Before we start the debate, I must ask Members to be careful in any reference that they make to specific incidents of knife crime where charges have been made or where any court proceedings have not been completed.
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of knife crime.
This is a very important and opportune debate, and the whole House would agree that the murders of 15-year-old Arsema Dawit and anti-gun crime campaigner Pat Regan over the weekend are deeply tragic. My sympathies and those of everyone will be with their families and loved ones, as well as with those of all the other victims of crime. Looking around the Chamber, I see Members whose constituents have been affected by such crime.
No doubt, we will rightly consider in the debate the impact of knife crime, particularly with respect to young people, but I promised the young people at the NCH children’s charity event that I visited in Hackney this morning that I would say that we should start by saying again that not all young people carry knives and that the vast majority of young people in this country are decent, obey the law, work hard and are a credit to themselves and their families. It is important to make that clear in this context.
Does my hon. Friend agree that many young people, sadly and foolishly, carry weapons because they are frightened and that there is a culture of fear on the streets? Does he also agree that it might be time that some neighbourhoods, such as those where three young men have tragically died on the streets of my constituency, deserve a higher safer neighbourhoods and reassurance policing presence than others where there is simply not that risk?
My hon. Friend has worked extremely hard with her local community and local police to deal with some of the tragic incidents that have occurred, and we have spoken about the issue. I agree that, of course, the police, the local authority and other agencies in any area need to ensure that they target their resources where they are most needed. Indeed, that is part of the lesson that we learned from the tackling gangs action programme—a taskforce that we set up—where we targeted resources on gun crime in certain areas of the country. That is true of gun crime, and it is true of knife crime. Of course, it is the case that individual police forces can direct their resources to where they will have the most impact. I agree with my hon. Friend.
I totally agree with the Minister’s opening comment that the great majority of young people are law-abiding and well behaved. However, today, we are considering how we can tackle the minority. With 32 per cent. of schoolchildren admitting to carrying knives, according to a recent MORI poll, does he believe that an advertising campaign, however well intended, will have any discernable effect?
I absolutely accept that an advertising campaign is not sufficient on its own, but an advertising campaign—such as the one that we launched last week, which was designed by young people, who advised us on what they thought would be the most appropriate campaign—can certainly play a part. I think that, as I go through my speech, the hon. Gentleman and most people will agree that this is a case not of one solution or the other but of all the different parts fitting together to form a strategy.
Although such incidents are tragic, it is worth saying that the overall number of people killed with knives or other sharp instruments over the past few years has remained stable. The problem now is that the police are catching more and more young people carrying knives, and many of us are worried that a culture is emerging in some areas where it is deemed acceptable to carry one. There is increasing concern about the lower average age of both the perpetrators and the victims of knife crime.
Just a year ago, my constituent, Police Constable Jon Henry, was stabbed to death. He was a fine police officer and a devoted family man, who was loved and respected by all who knew him. Since then, an individual has been detained under the mental health Acts, but I cannot comment on the case because it is sub judice. Will my hon. Friend say how the Government propose to protect people, particularly police officers, from those who suffer from serious mental health conditions and serious personality disorders who perpetrate some of those crimes?
Without commenting on that case, although I recognise the awfulness of what happened, I can say that the Government are considering, with other agencies, how we can ensure that dangerous people are not released on to the streets and how the management of people with mental health problems can be made effective, to ensure that we do not unnecessarily put people at risk because of mental health problems. A more rigorous use of the existing system and rigorous management of the tools available to us are relevant to addressing that risk.
Although the number of people caught with a knife has risen, the number sentenced for that crime has increased significantly from 890 in 1996 to 6,284 in 2006. In the same period, the number of those under the age of 18 sentenced for possession of a knife in a public place has risen from 114 to 1,226. However, we are absolutely determined to clamp down on the carrying of knives, which, as we all know, all too frequently leads to serious injury and sometimes fatal consequences.
We are concerned about the number of cautions issued. In 2006, there were 10,217 cautions for possession by those of all ages, but, as the Prime Minister announced this morning, anyone over the age of 16 caught in possession of a knife can now expect to be prosecuted on the first offence. Under-16s can still expect to receive a caution if there are no aggravating factors, such as being in or near a school or being involved in gang activity, but, apart from just that, they can also expect to be referred to a knife education scheme to help them to understand the dangers and consequences of carrying knives, and their parents will be informed and may receive parenting orders to ensure that they play their part in changing those young people’s behaviour.
Will the Minister join me in congratulating groups, such as Hainault Youth Action and the Open Door project in my constituency, on getting the very youths whom he met this morning off the streets and into activities, discouraging them from getting involved in knife crime and getting them involved in the community, to the benefit of all, including their own safety?
To be fair, the hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The police or schools cannot solve the problem on their own, and the sort of voluntary organisation activity that he mentions is extremely important. Sometimes, the most effective work is done by those community-based organisations—all hon. Members can point to such effective organisations in our constituencies. The challenge for us all is to ensure that some of them receive not only funding but long-term sustainable funding. We need to find a better means of doing that, as it would help voluntary organisations, such as those mentioned by the hon. Gentleman.
On a related point, is not the problem primarily one of feral youths in gangs going armed? If they are prevented from going armed with knives, they might go armed with something else. We need to concentrate on how concerned adults somewhere in their communities—parents, relations, teachers, youth workers or whoever—gives them a purpose for living, other than going out on the streets and causing trouble.
Again, that is a perfectly reasonable point to make. Indeed, the young people whom I met this morning made the point that good role models are needed, that people need to be responsible for young people and that their roles and those of schools, voluntary organisations and faith organisations are crucial. However, as well as all that, we are trying to put across the message that there must be a deterrent in the law, so that people also know that the expectation is that they will be prosecuted if they carry knives. That, as well as the other measures that the right hon. Gentleman refers to, is an important part of our work in trying to attack the problem.
We are also putting in place local targeted action to reduce knife crime. The tackling gangs action programme showed that focused action on specific areas really works, which is the point made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck). It set a template for joined-up working by bringing together community groups, Departments and local delivery partners with some excellent results. We will take forward that type of organisation and template by intensifying our knife crime work in seven areas.
Key elements of that work will include providing extra search equipment to the forces involved; fast-tracking the knife referral project, which is a course for young people convicted of a knife-related offence designed to increase their awareness of the consequences of knife crime; re-enforcing parental responsibility; introducing home visits and letters to parents of those young people known to carry weapons in the area; and developing new or strengthening existing youth forums, to give young people the opportunity to speak directly to the police and other statutory bodies. As I have already said, tackling the issue does not stop at the door of any organisation or Department.
In his list of seven points, the Minister did not mention metal-detecting equipment, which was supposed to be put in place in schools. I remember that there was a Government announcement on that some months ago. How many schools in areas that are being ravaged by knife crime have metal-detecting equipment in place?
I shall see if I can find out the answer to that question before the end of the debate; I could not tell my hon. Friend exactly how many schools are involved. However, the power for head teachers to search has been extended, and of course they can delegate that power to teachers in their schools. It is open to schools to use that power, if they feel that that is appropriate in their area. One would expect them to work with the local community to do that. My hon. Friend makes an important point. The Government will work with schools to ensure that that can be delivered, where appropriate, and if the measure is felt necessary and is agreed by the school and the local community. On his specific question, I shall see whether I can get the number to him by the end of the debate.
We need to deal with all aspects of the problem, including prevention, education, diversion, family and health. Our strict enforcement and tough legislation serve to capture all who flout the law, irrespective of age or where they come from. We have already increased the maximum sentence for carrying a knife—not for using it, just for carrying it—from two to four years in prison. We know that the judiciary shares our view that carrying a knife is a serious offence. Sir Igor Judge, one of the most senior judges in the country, stated in a recent judgment:
“Every knife or weapon carried in the street represents a public danger and, therefore, in the public interest, this crime must be confronted and stopped.”
I welcome and support Sir Igor’s comments.
Welcome though that is, will the Minister confirm that knife crime is three times more prevalent in society than gun crime, but that the criminal justice system still treats knife crime less seriously than gun crime?
The hon. Gentleman has consistently made the point well that knife crime is much more prevalent than gun crime, serious though gun crime is. I agree that it is important that knife crime be treated extremely seriously by the courts; that is what I was trying to suggest from the remarks of Sir Igor Judge. I am talking about not just occasions on which a knife is used, because that obviously results in other charges, too, but about the possession offence. The message being sent by the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary, who spoke earlier today about the expectation of prosecution for 16 and 17-year-olds, and the comments of Sir Igor Judge will mean that, for possession offences, the courts will now give cautions as an exception, whereas previously they were used more often than not.
My hon. Friend is right to focus on the problem of knife crime among young people, but there is another aspect to it, to which I referred earlier. Does he have statistics on what proportion of knife crime is committed by people who suffer from serious mental health disorders and personality disorders?
If I am to do justice to my hon. Friend’s question, I probably ought to look into the matter and write to him about it. I do not have to hand the number of people involved in knife crime who have specific mental health problems. Suffice it to say that much of the knife crime that we discuss in the House and that is rightly discussed in the media is street knife crime. We know that knives are used in lots of domestic violence incidents and lots of family incidents—they are a significant part of knife crime. I will look into the incidence of knife crime among people with mental health problems, write to my hon. Friend and place a copy of the letter in the Library, so that other hon. Members can look at it.
I am eating into everybody else’s time, but of course I give way.
I thank the Minister for giving way. Obviously it sends a good signal to society when a maximum sentence is doubled in the way that he has described, but am I right in thinking that people will still be released halfway through that doubled sentence? Are we not giving with one hand and taking away with the other? On the one hand, we are sending the message to society that we will be tough, but on the other we are letting people out halfway through the sentence, and that negates the message that we are trying to send.
According to our understanding, people are released halfway through the sentence if they present no danger. The problem at present is not so much the one that he describes; the fact is that very few people receive the maximum sentence of four years, irrespective of the argument that he puts forward. I do not want inappropriate sentencing, but it has to be said that the courts need to consider the four-year sentence available to them when making sentencing decisions.
We are in danger of isolating knife crime and of trying to treat it on its own, but I suspect that there is a strong correlation between the leader of the pack who carries a knife, the leader of the pack who throws a brick through a bus shelter window, and the leader of the pack who sets fire to school premises during half term. All those youthful crimes need to be dealt with as a whole; I urge the Minister to do that, rather than just highlighting knife crime.
I agree, and that is what we have tried to do. Our youth crime action plan, which will be published in a few weeks, will try to bring all those issues together. The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point, but as I have said, there is a specific issue with knife crime, and that is what we are dealing with, although I agree that the other crimes that the hon. Gentleman mentions need to be dealt with, too. I also understand his point that there is usually a ringleader. Often, someone in the group is the persistent offender whom the system needs to grip more firmly. They sometimes get other people involved, and they sometimes become the sort of negative role model that we do not want. A couple of weeks ago, the Home Secretary announced the work that is going on with the police to ensure that we more effectively target persistent offenders, who may be of exactly the type to which the hon. Gentleman refers.
I think that the Minister and others accept that all the evidence shows that the increase in the number of youngsters who go about tooled up, either with a knife or with another instrument, is due to fear that they will be attacked. Is the Minister willing to take on an idea that other Ministers have been positive about, namely that where local authorities are willing to collaborate, we have a much more extended network of detached youth workers on the street, funded ward by ward, or community by community? They could spot incidents happening on the ground, identify the people concerned, and intervene pre-emptively, rather than wait until there is an incident and it is too late.
I agree, and that is my point about the fact that we cannot just have one focus in tackling the problem. Detached youth workers, and the money that the Department for Children, Schools and Families is trying to push down to local authorities so that they can deal with the issue, are important ways forward. In addition to detached youth workers, as used by local authorities, voluntary organisations are important. The hon. Gentleman will have seen, as I have, the work of street pastors and other such people, which is fantastically effective. We need to support that type of activity, too.
I apologise to my hon. Friend for not being here at the start of the debate. I congratulate the Prime Minister, and indeed the Minister, on this morning’s announcements that highlight the issue and the seven-point plan. I also congratulate the Mayor of London, who admitted in a statement yesterday that there is real difficulty in getting to the core of why such crimes are committed, and that is what my question is about. Research is being carried out on gang culture and the real frictions at street level between kids in different communities. That is incredibly important work. I have had five teenage murders in my constituency since the turn of the year, three of which were committed on the street as a result of friction between gangs. Will the hon. Gentleman carefully consider extending that programme of research, so that each and every local authority can have some idea of the level of gang culture that is leading to such crime?
That is an extremely important point, and we need to look at that research. We also need to understand much better the dynamic of gangs, what we mean by gangs, as opposed to collections of kids on the street, and other such issues. A lot of work needs to be done. I will look carefully at the matter, share the results of that research with my hon. Friend, and try to take it forward.
I congratulate the Metropolitan police on the very successful Operation Blunt. Operation Shield is also being run by the British Transport police. To date, we have funded almost 100 search arches and 350 wands, and we are committed to extending that in the police forces with which we are working. They will be receiving additional funding as part of the various package of measures. The use of search equipment has had a positive impact in London.
The emphasis has been on enforcement, but I should like to conclude by saying that we also fund various voluntary programmes and diversion work in the community. The response cannot be enforcement alone. That must be combined with education, increased parental responsibility and work with youth organisations. For too long, such public policy debates have been plagued by the participants being categorised as tough law enforcers or wishy-washy liberals. Frankly, all those things need to be—
The scourge of knife crime has touched the lives of too many families across the country. It is impossible not to have been deeply moved by the individual tragedies detailed, with appalling regularity, in the newspapers and on the television—a sentiment which I know is shared in all parts of the House. I join the Minister in sending a message of condolence to the families of all those affected by such shocking and appalling incidents. I also join him in sending out a message from the House that that is not to suggest that all young people are lawbreakers. We have so many fantastic young people who contribute so much to their communities, and it is right and proper that that message should go out loud and clear from here. Those same young people often end up the victims of terrible crimes.
We need also to send out a strong message from the House that knife carrying in our communities is unacceptable, and that we will take all appropriate steps to confront and control knife crime. I make it clear from the outset that the Opposition will support any measure that will be effective in tackling the growth in knife offences.
Sir Igor Judge, the president of the High Court, Queen’s bench division, in his recent Court of Appeal judgment gave a clear and powerful statement on the current disturbing situation when he said:
“Offences of this kind have recently escalated. They are reaching epidemic proportions.”
Action has been slow in coming. Last year, 258 people lost their lives in incidents involving the use of a knife or other pointed weapon—up by nearly a fifth on the previous year and by more than a quarter on the number of such offences 10 years ago. According to the centre for crime and justice studies at King’s college London, there were 64,000 muggings in which a knife was used last year—more than double the number two years before. Home Office research indicates that there are around 500,000 young people carrying knives on the streets, and an earlier Youth Justice Board study suggested that more than a quarter of young people in school admitting to carrying a knife.
Policing and enforcement are essential in combating this serious problem. That is why the action that the Mayor of London and Chief Constable Bernard Hogan-Howe in Merseyside, for example, are taking is so important to ensure detection. But knife arches and mobile scanners should not be isolated initiatives. The risk of getting caught with a knife must be a real factor in the mind of someone getting ready for a night out, and that means the police making proper use of powers to stop and search.
When offenders are caught, they should normally be prosecuted and receive the most severe sentences appropriate. Fines are an inadequate deterrent. Frequently, if the crime involves a young person, fines are paid by the parent and not by the youth responsible; more often, they are not paid at all. A caution does not recognise the seriousness of the offence. In 2005 and 2006, nearly 6,000 people were dealt with by a caution or a warning alone for the possession of a knife. There should be a presumption that offenders receive a custodial sentence or a tough, enforced community penalty, not a so-called unpaid work requirement that is not even completed.
I do not dissent from much that the hon. Gentleman says, but does he accept that some youngsters who carry a blunt instrument or a knife do so under pressure from their peer group—from their mates—and carry it for someone else? We must be careful not to institutionalise, send away and criminalise those who are not the gang leaders or the motivators, but who get dragged along by the much more evil and malicious intentions of others?
There needs to be a presumption that such matters should be dealt with by the court. The culture of dealing with such incidents through cautions has been one of the fundamental problems and failures of the Government’s approach in the drive to summary justice. Clearly, there needs to be flexibility for police officers at local level, but the presumption should be to go to the courts rather than deal with the issue by way of cautions.
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case, and I am listening with great interest. Is he aware that evidence indicates that many young people are carrying knives because they are worried about being victims of crime?
My hon. Friend makes an important point, which I shall come to later in my speech. How we tackle the problem of people feeling that they are not safe in their own community is one of the key factors in dealing with knife possession.
It is telling that between 1997 and 2006, just nine people out of more than 47,000 convicted of carrying a blade in a public place received the maximum custodial sentence, as it was then, of two years. Even with changes to sentencing, the Government’s early release scheme means that offenders will not stay inside for long. Violent offenders are being released on to the streets early, before half of their sentence has been served.
Last week the Government launched a new initiative with a hard-hitting advertising campaign designed to shock young people out of carrying knives on the streets. Although prevention through education and advertisements is an important strand, it will work only if it is part of a wider package of measures to tackle the problems of social breakdown, drug abuse and binge drinking, which have become significantly worse under the present Government. The initiative will be effective only if people’s experience of being in their communities is not one of risk and danger.
My hon. Friend is making an extremely important point. Does he agree that if the Government are thinking of introducing more legislation in this field, they need to deal with the problem that there are many everyday items other than knives which, in the wrong hands, can be wielded as weapons, and that, on the other hand, knives and other domestic utensils can be lawfully used and we should not make it impossible for the law-abiding to make lawful use of them?
My right hon. Friend makes an important point, which is why there is a limit to the use of wands and knife arches as a means of identifying the presence of weapons. However, I do not underestimate their importance: the use of wands in stop-and-search is an important way of conducting some of those searches. He is right—the police need to have discretion in how they conduct their operations. In recent years they have been too heavily hemmed in by targets and the culture surrounding them.
The hon. Gentleman is right to raise all the points that he has. He has obviously not had the chance to see the evidence on alcohol given by some of the supermarkets to the Select Committee yesterday. Does he agree that there is a responsibility on those who sell alcohol to make sure that it is not readily available? We should look at how much alcohol is sold at a discount or as a loss-leader, which provides young people with the opportunity of buying alcohol very cheaply, which contributes to the number of knife-related incidents.
The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Although I was not able to attend his Select Committee, I heard a report from it. I agree that loss-leaders and sales of alcohol below cost are relevant factors, which is why I argue that we should regulate to outlaw the below-cost selling of alcohol. In some cases, alcohol is almost cheaper than water. Cost is an important issue, as is supply. Local authorities should have the powers that they need to crack down on licensing, which sadly has not been the experience following the introduction of the Licensing Act 2003.
I strongly support the theme of raising the price of cheap alcohol, but does the hon. Gentleman accept that prohibiting below-cost sale is not good enough? Alcohol is still quite cheap for supermarkets. Even if they sold it at cost, it would still be too low in price. Does he agree that there should be a minimum price for alcohol, as well as strict enforcement of who is able to buy it?
I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman on minimum prices. We should look at below-cost sales, but also at specific products that may be linked to binge drinking. That is why we support a targeted approach to taxation, focusing on those products most closely associated with the underage sale and excessive consumption of alcohol that, sadly, leads to violence on our streets and to real pressures on accident and emergency units, which are having to pick up the pieces as a consequence of the Government’s general approach to licensing.
On safety, the picture among young people is not good. According to a recent report by the children’s charity NCH, becoming a victim of crime, particularly violent crime, is a real fear for children and young people growing up in the UK today. The NCH report suggested that nearly half of all young people do not feel safe at any time, with one in five saying that they sometimes or often feel in danger. Part of the solution lies in strengthening communities, and neighbourhood policing is an essential element of this, but how committed are the Government to the community policing model? The Flanagan review says that current police numbers are apparently unsustainable, so what guarantees can the Minister give that front-line community policing will not be hit, given that the Government have welcomed the Flanagan review and, by implication, the potential cuts in policing that might sit within it? It is no good the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary issuing press releases and doing walkabouts promoting neighbourhood policing if they are not able to commit to it in the future.
The Minister for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing said in a recent interview that the Government had reached the “end of the road” in legislation to tackle knife crime. He and the Government may have reached the end of the road, but we would legislate if required. In particular, we would give police sergeants at the heart of community police teams a new authorisation to conduct stops and searches for up to six hours in specific areas where they believe—they are most likely to know their communities the best—that weapons are being carried or that an act of serious violence is about to occur. Such a measure has the support of the Police Federation.
The hon. Gentleman makes some powerful points on knife-carrying and what the police have to do. I wonder what he thinks of this statement:
“You may want to take knives in your picnic hamper to cut the fruit, or have a knife on you to cut your lunchtime roll at the office. On a country walk you might want a knife to fashion a stick or toy for children in your party.”
How important is it that we curb such comments?
The issue is unlawful knife-carrying. The law is quite specific: one must not have unlawful purposes for carrying knives. It is understood—the point was made earlier by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood)—that there will be other circumstances in which knives are carried, but if there is the unlawful carrying of knives on our streets, we must confront it firmly and clearly. That is at the heart of the debate this afternoon and why there needs to be the presumption of prosecution, rather than going down the route of issuing a caution or lesser sanction through summary dismissal.
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend and apologise for joining this important debate late; unfortunately, other parliamentary business kept me away from the Chamber. Following the hon. Lady’s comment, does my hon. Friend agree that there is a difference between someone going out with the intention of using a kitchen knife to cause harm and someone going fishing and having a knife for the purposes of their sport? Those are two different scenarios. We need to establish why someone feels the need to carry a knife to protect himself, compared with somebody who uses it for a form of sport. To ban knives completely would miss the point entirely.
My hon. Friend makes his point very well. The real question is why people feel they need to carry knives on the street in everyday circumstances. The fact that they do not feel safe in their own communities says an awful lot, which is why community policing is so important. That is why we would cut the form filling, the bureaucracy and the central targets that prevent the police from doing their job effectively and from providing the reassurance that so many communities desperately need.
The statistics that my hon. Friend has given about the number of young people who feel unsafe in their communities are shocking. I would be surprised if many of those arrested or prosecuted for being in possession of a knife were coming into contact with the police or other authorities for the first time. Are the troublemakers—the leaders of the pack—not being dealt with seriously enough, early enough, before they reach the stage at which they carry a knife in public?
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. We must deal with offending early enough and effectively enough, which is why I am critical of the Government’s approach. Their Respect agenda has been put out to pasture, because that is not happening. If we look at the offenders involved, we will see a pattern of offending; by the time they get to the offence in question, they are inured to the criminal justice system. It is then much harder to turn things around as they have not been dealt with properly from the outset.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
I want to make some progress, as I am getting into injury time.
We fully recognise that the criminal justice system alone cannot solve this problem. Addressing the roots of social breakdown requires long-term social action. Dealing with family breakdown, reforming welfare, tackling gang culture and improving discipline in schools are all important long-term components of a strategy to tackle violence in our communities, but none of these actions should stand in the way of more rigorous enforcement and stricter penalties.
The sad fact is that the Government have lost their way on tackling this most serious of crimes. The Prime Minister is now belatedly talking about prosecutions for knife possession, but only after 6,000 cautions and warnings have been issued in just two years. Home Office Ministers used to talk about the importance of knife amnesties until it became clear that the most common knives out on the street can be found in the kitchen drawer.
The Government used to believe that violent crime was about specific people in specific areas; now they appear to accept that there is a much wider societal problem. The Government even voted against Conservative proposals to increase the sentence for knife possession to five years, only to do a U-turn on increased sentences later. The Prime Minister's statements today on more prosecutions for knife possession are the latest admission of failure. It is an acceptance that the policy agenda of a slap on the wrist rather than a conviction before the courts was fundamentally flawed. The Home Office was wrong. The Government were wrong. The Prime Minister was wrong. We will not forget and neither will the public.
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire). We served together for a short time on the Justice Committee before we went our separate ways. He was quite right in his analysis of the problems that face our country on knife crime. At the end of his speech, he of course made the normal attack on Government policy. We expect that; we cannot expect a bipartisan approach throughout the speech, but his analysis was similar to that put forward by the Minister: we do have a serious problem with knife crime and it is important that we as a nation should debate it, but also that we should take specific action.
Many of the points made by the hon. Gentleman and the Minister are ones that everyone in the House will agree with. We may have different emphases on how we would like to see these matters pursued, but we agree that something pretty dramatic has to be done about this situation. That is why I welcome the summit held this morning at Downing street, when the Prime Minister, with representatives of the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Home Secretary, set out a clear strategy as to what the Government are proposing to do about this important issue.
To whom do we owe that strategy? We owe it, of course, to the country, because we are legislators. However, we also owe it to people such as Arsema Dawit, the young woman stabbed to death on Monday of this week. We are parents of young children, as well as legislators; the hon. Member for Hornchurch has young children, as I do. The fear that children such as ours may go out at night on to the streets of London, catch a tube or bus and not return home because they have been stabbed should concentrate all our minds.
The commitment by the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Government to change the presumption about people’s ability to carry knives is extremely important. It is vital for us to understand that when a person goes out with a knife intending to cause harm, it is right and proper that they should be stopped and prosecuted. That should not be prevented from happening just because that person happens to be under the age of 18. That presumption is important.
I do not dissent at all from what the right hon. Gentleman has said. Does he agree that things can be done in addition to the measures that have been announced and other initiatives, such as that of the Home Affairs Committee when it took evidence on young black youths in this country? If we are to get the messages from the young people concerned, we could consult them as broadly as is possible. Will the right hon. Gentleman reflect on whether, between now and the end of July, his Committee—with the Leader of the House, who is positive about the idea—could hold, on behalf of Parliament, an online consultation with youngsters aged under 18? In that way, we could get their views on how they think they can help themselves, their neighbours and friends.
I am delighted to accept that suggestion. I shall have to put it to other members of the Home Affairs Committee, two of whom are here today. As part of our current inquiry into policing, it would be an excellent way of finding out precisely what young people think about the issue of policing and knives.
The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) has raised a valuable point. I have launched a website, mylifemysay.co.uk, to which young people can log on and have their say about issues that matter to them. In Democracy week in October, young people will be invited to the House of Commons to have a debate and set an agenda that we expect all politicians from all parties to listen to and take on board.
I was not aware of that. As always, my hon. Friend is campaigning on youth affairs with much passion. I do not know whether I will be admitted to her meeting—I would not qualify, of course—but I shall certainly be keen to know its outcome. It will help the Home Affairs Committee enormously with our inquiry into policing.
I welcome what the Government have done this morning. I want to concentrate on just four aspects of the policy. The first relates to enforcement and the proper way the police conduct their investigations into these matters. I am pleased with how Operation Blunt has worked. It is right that people on the public transport system, especially the tube, should have been challenged about the knives and weapons that they carried. The figures indicate that the exercise was properly conducted, with sensitivity.
It is important that when we undertake stop and search, we are focused on what we are trying to achieve. It should not be done like a fishing expedition; I do not believe that every young black person in London ought to be stopped on a presumption that they are carrying knives. However, the targeting and focusing are extremely important if we are to get to the real source of the problem.
On additional policing, the Minister will know much more accurately than I the number of police officers the Government have put on the streets of London and the rest of the United Kingdom; he probably has an up-to-the-minute account. He will be able to reassure the hon. Member for Hornchurch that the Flanagan report does not mean a reduction in police officers; it means—or I certainly take it to mean—that there is consideration of how the police use their time productively. There may not be an increase on the levels of the past 10 years, but there is certainly no commitment from Flanagan that there should be a decrease or from the Government that there should be any reduction in the resources given to local police authorities.
As usual, the right hon. Gentleman is making a powerful argument, and about something in which he has a great deal of expertise. As an authority on home affairs issues, will he comment on police authorities wanting to turn away from Government targets—in respect of arrests following fights in children’s playgrounds, for example—and focus on more serious issues such as tackling knife crime?
The hon. Gentleman is far too generous with his compliments, which I do not deserve. Owing to our case loads, all hon. Members are—or seek to be—experts on this issue. Policing is an issue that affects every one of our constituencies. The hon. Gentleman is right to focus on what police officers do with their time; as the hon. Members for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) and for Colchester (Bob Russell) have discovered during the progress of our inquiry into policing, it is important to consider that. Some local police authorities have decided not to record or pursue certain offences such as fights in the playground, but to concentrate on what we and they regard as more important issues. We should consider police priorities. However, the police have their priorities right: they understand that the issue is crucial and needs to be pursued, and that Parliament and the public are concerned about it.
We have seen a cultural change. It is not just that older children or young adults are stabbing young children or teenagers; it is that young people are stabbing each other. That different cultural phenomenon seems to have occurred in the past few years. There have been 15 deaths similar to that of Arsema Dawit; 16 young people have been stabbed on the streets of London so far this year. That is particularly worrying, and it is why I welcome what my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Ms Butler) has been saying. It is important to ask young people themselves what they see as the solution to the problem. The problem for us is not only generational, but to do with the fact that we are not part of that culture. Young people have to be consulted if we are to find the solutions to the problems.
I turn now to sentencing. The Minister mentioned what the deputy Lord Chief Justice said about sentencing priorities. It is important that judges understand precisely what is happening as far as the cultural shift is concerned. However, we also need to give them a bit of leeway. As we know, the jails are full; as previous Governments have done, we are releasing people from prison to make places available for others. We need to find a way to break the cycle. Of course, prison is the only answer for serious offences. However, if we get involved in more preventive work, that will make a great deal of difference.
That brings me to the From Boyhood to Manhood Foundation, an organisation with which the Minister is familiar. The funding regime for the organisation, which operates in south London—not a million miles from the constituency of the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes)—had been threatened with closure. After the foundation’s representatives had given evidence to and been praised by the Home Affairs Committee last year, its grant was withdrawn—not, of course, because we had praised them but because financial resources are limited. We were pleased when the Minister intervened to make sure that the grant was restored.
Such mentoring organisations, which break the stereotypes of young people carrying knives, are extremely important. The issue is about awareness; it is about education and schools. It is not just about taking the knives from the young people as they go through the scanners into school, but making sure that when they come out again, they do not get a knife from somewhere else. The hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) was right about the idea of banning all knives. According to the statistics, kitchen knives are now the weapon of choice in most of these cases. We cannot ban kitchen knives, nor can we have SWAT teams suddenly entering people’s homes, invading the kitchen and taking all those knives away—they just happen to be part of the household. We need to stop the kitchen knife leaving the household for reasons connected to crime, and that is where sensitive policing is so important.
I should like to make what might seem a slightly strange and counterintuitive point. It has been put to me that most injuries are caused by the point of a knife or other weapon, not by the blade, and that in the medium term we could think about getting the people who produce knives to ensure that they do not have sharp points, as they do not need sharp points but only blades. That is a production issue that might significantly reduce the danger of the common-or-garden bread knife, kitchen knife or suchlike.
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point that I have not thought about before—trust him to come up with an innovative solution to the problem. We would need to consult those who use such knives in kitchens—sadly, I am not one of them, because I cannot cook very well—to see whether that would spoil their culinary delights.
The comments of the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) are very interesting, but all sorts of implements have sharp points, and we will never find a technical fix for that. Does my right hon. Friend accept that we have to focus on the people who use them rather than the instruments themselves?
I take my hon. Friend’s point.
My penultimate point concerns the stakeholders. On Tuesday, we took evidence in the Home Affairs Committee from the supermarkets and representatives of the alcohol industry. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington was there; he spoke extremely well and asked some searching questions. I am not convinced that the alcohol industry understands the role that it plays in crime. Forty-six per cent. of crimes are alcohol-related. I do not have the statistics for knife-related crime and alcohol, but I believe that they would be of a similar order.
We have heard about pre-loading, whereby people get tanked up—if that is not an unparliamentary term—before they leave their homes. We have heard about happy hours, when people who buy a drink can get another one free. We have heard about discounted prices for drinks. We have heard about loss leaders. The alcohol industry and those who sell alcohol in supermarkets—Asda, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Tesco—are unaware of their responsibilities. It is irresponsible of supermarkets to sell alcohol as a loss leader, trying to compete with each other so that, as the hon. Member for Hornchurch said, in some cases it is more expensive to buy water than beer. The Government need to address those issues. I know that there is a review of the subject. It is of great interest to the Select Committee, and other Members will no doubt want to make their comments. We need to act quickly if we are to make progress.
The right hon. Gentleman is making an extremely valid point. However, as with the issue of the sharpness or bluntness of the point of the knife, we can find ourselves moving away from the reason why someone decides to leave their house or flat with a knife in their pocket in the first place, before they have even bought a can of beer. The supermarkets are in a difficult position, because were they to get together and agree that prices should be set at a certain level they would hit problems with the Competition Commission, as did the milk cartel that ended up getting fined. While alcohol plays an important part in knife crime, it needs to be tackled in several ways. I, for one, would like more emphasis to be placed on role models such as the father or mother—the people who can set an example and say, “You do not need to leave the house with a knife in your pocket in the first place.”
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and he brings me on to my last point. I noticed, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you raised your eyebrow and looked at the clock, and to me that is almost a rebuke.
There is a huge responsibility on parents to ask what their children are doing, where they are going and what they are carrying. If their teenager comes in and asks to borrow the kitchen knife, it is reasonable for them to ask, “Why do you need a kitchen knife when you leave the house? We understand that you need it if you want to chop up the carrots, but do you really need it if you’re going down to the local playground?” However, it is not only the parents’ responsibility—it is part of the shared responsibility that we all have in making progress in this area.
I am glad that the Government were able to highlight the problem with their advertisements last week, although I do not know whether that is the best way of getting through to parents. Far more shocking are some of the real life examples of teenagers being killed. That kind of crime will shock any parent, because it could be our child. I hope that in placing an emphasis on enforcement, the Government will place equal emphasis on prevention and on education and awareness of parents, which is one of the keys to tackling the problem of youth crime and ensuring that we solve this problem.
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), who leads the Home Affairs Committee so admirably.
I regret the necessity for this debate, as, I am sure, do all other Members, but it is necessary because of the prevalence of knife crime in some of our communities, particularly in London. I should like to start by expressing my condolences to the families and friends of the latest victims of stabbings—Arsema Dawit and Pat Regan—as well as to the Navaneethan family, residents of Carshalton in my constituency, two of whose children died at the weekend. Clearly, those families will never recover fully from those tragedies.
I enthusiastically endorse the Minister’s comments about how the overwhelming majority of young people play a very positive role in society. Like many other Members, I have a steady stream of young people coming from local schools, colleges and universities doing internships or work experience, sometimes in their summer holidays, and they all make a fantastic contribution.
Statistically speaking, it is probably true to say that there is not yet an epidemic of knife crime, but among young people something is clearly amiss. The number of teenagers gunned down, stabbed or beaten to death in the capital has risen from 15 in 2005 and, if current trends continue, could top 35 in 2008. The Government’s response has included some very positive measures, including increasing the maximum term from two to four years—although, as a senior police officer said to me a few days ago, what is most important is for young people to know that they risk being caught carrying the knife, not necessarily to know about the term.
As regards the Prime Minister’s announcement of the presumption of prosecution for people of 16 years or older, could the Minister tell us what assessment has been made of the impact of that in terms of police and court time, and what safeguards will be put in place for innocent young people? Let me illustrate that with an example. A couple of years ago, an American friend of mine in his early 20s came to visit me in Westminster. He was carrying a lock knife. That is not illegal in the US, but when he came here he could have been caught under that legislation. He had no intention of using it, and if he had done he would not have chosen to carry it into Parliament. We need to hear more from the Minister about that.
Obviously, intelligence-led stop and search is essential, and I support Operation Blunt 2, which has worked well in my constituency—four arrests followed an operation a couple of days ago in Sutton—and the use of metal-scanning arches. Catching those carrying knives is just part of the solution. A bigger part of the solution, which I hope the Minister will have more time to talk about when he responds because his opening speech was very much about enforcement, is finding out why young people are carrying knives in the first place, what is effective in preventing them from doing so, and whether more can be done to educate them better about the lethal nature of knives.
This last point was put to me by a senior police officer. He did not want to overemphasise it, but he felt that some young people were using knives not knowing that the consequences could be fatal if, for instance, they stabbed someone in the leg. The publicity campaign is clearly part of educating young people better. We also need to consider what is being done to reassure young people that police are out and about in areas of highest risk. I hope that the Minister will also be able to give us an update on the progress of the roll-out of the youth centres that will be delivered as part of the dormant funds proposal. We have heard a lot about that, but so far I have not seen much youth work that has been paid for by that route.
My final point concerns the most recent victim of youth crime, Arsema Dawit. I shall not comment on her case, but reports suggest that she was the victim of a crime involving a stalker. Partly prompted by an officer who has made this suggestion, I would like to ask the Minister about the work being done by the Met and other forces to review stalker cases, particularly those involving young people. How many cases are being reviewed and when does the Minister expect those reviews to be completed? We need to know that that matter is being examined fully.
We all agree that we cannot stand idly by while knife crime takes the lives of our young people. We need more research into the causes of knife crime, better deterrents, better detection, more enforcement and tougher sentences. The Government will have our support as they struggle to control the rise in these fatal attacks.
This debate is very important. In my constituency knife crime has almost remained stable. In 1997, there were 202 knife crime incidents in London, and in 2007, there were 212. What has become more prevalent is that the victims and perpetrators are younger and younger. We have a problem, and we must realise that it is not just knives and guns that kill people—it is people who kill people, and we have to go to the roots of the problem.
I thank the Minister for attending a packed Committee Room 14 this week. About 80 per cent. of the people in that room were young people, and I remember the Minister raising his eyebrows at talk of postcode wars. That phrase is probably unrecognisable to many of us, but it is a serious issue. Young people feel that they are not able to go into other postcode areas because they fear for their lives. The Government will not be able to resolve that issue; we have to connect with young people in order to eliminate that interpreted fear. There are also road codes, to which we will never be party; they are the code of the road, and unless people live on that road, they will never know what the code is.
What the Government can do—and they have been successful in it—is give money to young people so that they can have events to resolve those issues. The youth opportunity fund and the youth capital fund, which has now been extended, have enabled young people in my constituency to hold street parties. Young people from all over were able to gather and party together, which eliminated some aspects of the postcode wars. We cannot just throw out legislation, however, and the Government should not be criticised for the work that they are doing, because we have to recognise the effect that it is having on the ground.
There is a lot more work to be done, but in the work that I have been doing with young people, they have come up with recommendations, some of which will be presented to the Minister next week. One of the issues is policing. As well as giving respect to the police, young people would like to be respected by them, and part of that respect is manifested in police accountability. I implore the Minister not to get carried away by the idea of taking away the accountability involved in stop-and-search. That was a fundamental part of the Stephen Lawrence report. It also came about after the sus laws were used, under which police would randomly stop black people in the streets, which resulted in the Brixton riots. We do not want to get to that stage again. Stop-and-search accountability is important, and the Flanagan report suggests the use of electronic devices to make data inputting easier; there is a trial at the moment. I spoke to some police officers in Brent who told me that they prefer to fill in paperwork themselves, rather than give it to a clerk, because of mistakes that might be made that will affect their case later on. It is important that the police are still given the opportunity to record and register that information themselves.
Does my hon. Friend disagree with the giving out of hand-held machines to the police as a way of speeding up the recording of information?
No, it is absolutely a good idea to use technology to speed up the process. I am concerned, however, that we should not eradicate that process. Stop-and-search accountability should be there to stay because it exists for a specific reason. It was introduced to counteract a problem that came about because that accountability was not there from the beginning. If we took it away, we would cause further problems, and we should not be short-sighted in our approach. I wonder whether the Minister could expand on the £1 million campaign that the Government are going to roll out shortly to stop the glamorisation of crime.
Finally, there are lots of relevant voluntary groups and religious institutions. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) mentioned the From Boyhood to Manhood Foundation. There are also Boyz 2 Men, Not Another Drop, Reallity and Respectism; there are hundreds and hundreds of voluntary organisations. I know that the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Phil Hope), who is the Minister for the third sector, has been working hard with those organisations, but I wondered whether we might be able to get some of them together so that we can further explore the invaluable work that they are doing in our community. I agree with the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker), when he says that we have to reach out to all these voluntary organisations to help us resolve the situation of the crime on our streets today.
Today’s debate is called a topical debate, but knife crime has been growing year on year for at least the last two decades. Indeed, on 27 March last year, the Select Committee on Home Affairs had an inquiry on the matter, and the Minister gave evidence. That followed several months of asking the Committee to do it, and in February last year, I said to the then Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions that the simple fact was that knife crime is three times more prevalent than gun crime. I challenged the Government to do something about it, and I truly welcome what the current Prime Minister is doing, but more should have been done a long time ago.
In March last year, I presented to the House a petition of 5,000 signatures in the name of my constituent, Mrs. Ann Oakes-Odger, whose son Westley had been killed in Colchester in September 2005. I want to read out the petition because it summarises what the debate is about. It states:
“We are appalled by the number of people killed through the use of guns and knives; we are further appalled that although the number of people who are killed by knives is three times higher than those who are killed by guns, the legal system treats knife crimes less seriously than gun crimes.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Home Secretary to introduce legislation so that the carrying of knives and the use of knives, and sentencing policies, are treated on the same terms as gun crimes.”—[Official Report, 21 March 2007; Vol. 458, c. 918.]
I do not believe that that happens now or that the Government’s proposals will complete the journey, although they move in the right direction. My constituent said that, since she has begun talking to young people about the consequences of carrying knives, she has noticed this:
“They really have no idea. Television programmes and computer games which feature violent crime hardly ever show the devastation felt by victims’ families. Young people don’t realise so many lives will never be the same again.”
I would like to say much more, but I appreciate that others wish to speak, so I will draw my comments to a close as quickly as possible. Since my constituent’s son was murdered while he was drawing cash from a machine outside a supermarket in the afternoon in broad daylight, she has taken her anti-knife campaign into the classroom. Her goal is for information on knives, guns, drugs and violent crime to become statutory in all the UK’s secondary schools and later in primary schools. She has packaged the information into “Westley’s Weapons Awareness”, which has Home Office approval.
Mr. Deputy Speaker, as a fellow Essex Member of Parliament, you will know that we are not considering just an inner-city problem. It is also to be found in the towns around the UK. In my town, Colchester, which is dubbed the safest town of its size, knife crime is increasing. In the year finishing at the end of January, 94 knife crimes occurred in the Colchester area. The figure for the previous year was 53. My plea to the Government in today’s brief debate is to raise knife crime and its treatment to the same level as gun crime.
I welcome today’s debate and the rational and reasonable way in which it has been conducted. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire), who made an excellent speech and highlighted the issues and failings in the fight against crime in the past few years. I also praise the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), the Select Committee Chairman, who made constructive comments. I noted with interest that investigations are taking place and his appraisal of the position.
I am pleased to make a short contribution because the subject is of genuine and growing concern in my constituency and my borough of Bexley. Traditionally, Bexley has been the safest borough in London, and it remains a tremendous place in which to live and work. However, this year three murders—one in each of the three parliamentary constituencies—involving knives regrettably occurred in my borough. In April, a man was stabbed to death in the Barnehurst area of my constituency. In January, a stabbing occurred in the constituency of my friend and neighbour the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (John Austin). More recently, a tragedy occurred in Old Bexley and Sidcup, where a promising young actor was stabbed outside a bar. In each case, Bexley police responded extremely well and I praise them for their actions in trying to allay the fears of residents in the borough. Of course, they must catch the perpetrators and we hope that people will be brought to justice in all those cases.
Constituents regularly contact my office because they are increasingly concerned about safety and especially violent crime. I intervened on the Under-Secretary to underline the concern of many young people about their personal safety and security on public transport when going home late in the evening and so on. We must tackle the fear factor among young people. They are frightened that they will be the victims and, regrettably, the statistics show that that is happening.
I welcome the appointment of the new Mayor of London, who made tackling crime a major component of his manifesto. He has already started work on that and we welcome his appointment of Deputy Mayor Ray Lewis, who will be directly responsible for young people and opportunities. That is crucial.
Several hon. Members highlighted the fact that we are considering a concerted effort. It involves the Government, and we want them to do more. I have not had time to examine the details of this morning’s proposals by the Prime Minister and the Government because of my duties in the Chamber. However, I will read them with great interest to ascertain whether they get to the nub of the problem—I hope that they do.
The concerted effort involves not only the Government and the police, but local councils and communities and, of course, parents and education. The latter are fundamental: education and parents must play a vital part. We want the perpetrators to be apprehended and punished and to ensure that our streets are safe and that law-abiding citizens can work, walk the streets and go about their normal business without fear, but education must underlie that.
Catching criminals and sending out a strong message is vital, and I hope that we will be united in supporting that. I would therefore welcome measures to increase awareness of the risk of carrying knives. The Under-Secretary responded to my intervention about the advertising and promotional campaign. We welcome it, but it is a small part of the overall picture. It is another weapon that we can use in the fight against knife crime, but we should not push it too much to the fore because other issues are much more important. I tried to make that point to the Under-Secretary.
Violent crime has doubled under the Government and recently horrific incidents have become far too common. I welcome the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch that we need a short-term, medium-term and long-term plan. The Conservative party has it, and we will continue to present our proposals because we must deal with the problem now. If we do not, our society, especially our young people, will suffer even more.
I hope that the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) will not find it intimidating if I intimate to him and the House that I hope that the Under-Secretary will have at least five minutes to wind up the debate.
I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and appreciate being able to catch your eye. Again, I apologise for arriving late.
It is a pleasure and a privilege to participate in this important debate. However, I am sad that it is tacked on to the end of the week, on a day when there is a one-line Whip. I fear that the number of hon. Members in the Chamber reflects not the importance of the subject, but the timing. The subject is so important and emotive that perhaps we could hold an annual debate on knife crime. Let us have an annual report from the Government and the Select Committee outlining the progress that has been made in the previous year to tackle something that is high on everybody’s agenda—the agenda of parliamentarians and legislators, of parents who are worried about their children and of young people, as hon. Members of all parties underlined so eloquently. May I request, through the Under-Secretary, regular feedback on progress on tackling the blight of knife crime, which has increased?
Ideas have been presented for making knives blunt and removing them altogether, but we need to ask what encourages an individual to go out with a knife before even having a drink. A knife is perceived as a badge of honour, something that must be had to be part of the gang. It is seen as something that must be carried to feel proud and part of the pack. There is something very wrong when our society has moved to a point at which children grow up believing that that is right. Somewhere along the line, someone has failed in their duty to get across the following message to those youngsters as they grow up: “This is wrong; this is not the way of the society that we want to live in; this is not the sort of community and safe environment that children should be growing up in,” and which we perhaps enjoyed.
Let me talk about the deterrent. Police powers are important. In Bournemouth and Dorset, one crime a week is committed involving a knife or a blade. That is unacceptable. The police require more powers to stop and search, and to ensure that the message gets through that those who carry such implements are likely to get caught. We must also talk about prevention, and this is where role models are important. I intervened on the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) and talked about role models. He said—I think in jest—that he could not participate in the online youth discussions.
I would argue that older people have more of a responsibility to participate in the wider debate. Who are the role models we enjoyed when we were young, compared with today’s role models? In a broken family, where the father figure has disappeared, where does little Johnny, aged five, six or seven, look for aspiration? Today’s role models are different from those that I grew up with and absolutely different from those that my parents and grandparents grew up with. We lack those people in society who can guide those fragile and impressionable children in the way that they should be guided. That is why children end up joining gangs—so that they can feel part of a cohesive unit, because their family no longer provides one.
I apologise to my hon. Friend and to the House for arriving even later for this debate than he did. On his point about role models, does he agree that one place that the young boys without father figures whom he describes look to for a male role model is either the sports industry or the music industry? Is it not a good idea for those seen as role models in those fields to send out precisely the right messages not just about gun crime, which they have done, to their credit, but about knife crime?
My hon. Friend makes a powerful argument. It is difficult for parliamentarians or the Government to interfere with sports or entertainment, but anyone in the public eye must understand that they have a social responsibility to the country that they live in and the community that they participate in. People watch them and they see how they behave, whether we are talking about Amy Winehouse or the way Wayne Rooney goes up to referees on television and swears at them; we cannot hear the words, but we can see exactly what he is saying.
A four-year-old sees such behaviour and thinks that it is the way to deal with authority. I would like to see a sin bin in football, so that people understand straight away that they cannot get away with challenging authority in that way. Those are, I am afraid, the building blocks that lead to a legacy of crime, which starts either because people do not respect the authority figures around them or because there is simply an absence of authority figures.
This is an important debate. A lot of ideas have been put forward, and I understand that further ideas came forward in the summit at No. 10 Downing street. This debate should not end here. Let us continue our work, rather than pack up our bags at the end of the day. Let us return to the issue in six months or a year’s time and see how we have progressed.
This has been a good and important debate. One thing that I have taken from it is that none of the hon. Members who contributed got up and said, “If only we did this and that, all this would be solved.” In other words, there is no one thing that needs to happen if the problem is to be dealt with. However, nobody can underestimate—indeed, nobody has underestimated—the seriousness of the issue. We cannot wake up every morning wondering whether somebody will have been stabbed overnight and added to the numbers of those already murdered on our streets. It is incumbent on us all to take action.
I will consider the suggestion that the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) made about ensuring that this is not just a one-off debate. I also take the point that members of the Home Affairs Committee made about its work. We need to keep looking into the issue. I am conscious of the fact that people sometimes think that we see a headline in a paper and we pay attention to it, but then a couple of months later we move on to something else.
Perhaps I can remind the Minister that his concluding comment to the Home Affairs Committee on Tuesday 27 March 2007 was:
“I shall be very pleased to come back to see what progress or otherwise has been made”.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that—it now seems clear that I will indeed be coming back. The serious point, however, is that Select Committees perform an important role not only in holding Ministers to account, but in considering how we move public policy forward and looking at what is happening. We owe it to the people of this country, and particularly the young people, not to be complacent, but to see what more we can do. I am pleased that hon. Members in all parts of the House welcomed the Prime Minister’s statement this morning about the expectation of prosecution of all those over the age of 16 charged with a possession offence.
In the brief time left, let me try to pick out some common themes. In answer to the hon. Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire), who, to be fair, made some reasonable points, I point out that the number of homicides involving sharp instruments has varied from year to year, but there has not been an explosion in the number of such homicides. These are the figures for homicides by sharp instrument as the apparent method of killing in England and Wales, which can include screwdrivers and things other than knives: there were 201 in 1998-99, 213 in 2000-01, 265 in 2002-03, 242 in 2003-04, 250 in 2004-05, 219 in 2005-06 and 258 in 2006-07. It is important to put those statistics on the record, because there are variations from year to year. Of course, we would not want any of those murders to be committed and would rather the figure for each year was zero.
Neighbourhood policing is crucial, and we have committed resources to local police forces. The hon. Gentleman said that he wanted to tell the police how to organise things in their areas, but he will find that his party supports local decision making, and he will have to find a way around that. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) pointed out, we have put resources into policing and seen huge increases in the numbers of police on our streets.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East, the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, made a very good and wide-ranging contribution. I want to pick out two things that he said. First, he mentioned the importance of voluntary organisations such as the From Boyhood to Manhood Foundation. As I was trying to say to the hon. Member for Hornchurch, voluntary and community organisations are crucial if we are to solve the problem. They often have a better handle on the problem and a better way of getting to the people affected, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Ms Butler) knows from the work that she has done. We need to work better with such organisations and fully consult young people.
The proposals on 16 to 17-year-olds that the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) mentioned have the full support of the Association of Chief Police Officers and prosecutors. We are trying to roll out weapons awareness programmes and so on. I agree with the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) on the importance of knife crime and the need to recognise that it is far more prevalent. As important as gun crime is, we need to ensure that knife crime has the importance attached to it that it needs.
In the few seconds that are left, let me again thank all hon. Members who have taken part in this debate. As a Government, we are absolutely determined to do all that we can to work with everyone to deal with the problem. It cannot be solved, as hon. Members in all parts of the House have said, just by enforcement. All of us need to work together—
It being one and a half hours after the commencement of the proceedings, the motion lapsed, without Question put, pursuant to the Temporary Standing Order (Topical debates).
Care and Support
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of the future of care and support.
I welcome the opportunity to have this debate on the Floor of the House on a subject that is undoubtedly one of the great challenges that now faces our society, as well as increasing numbers of families and politicians of all persuasions, as we face up to some of the biggest issues in society. I want to use my opening speech to refer to the context of this debate, the progress that we have made over the past 11 years and the changes that we are now making. I shall then move on to the difficult issues that have to be resolved in creating a system that can respond to this new world.
I shall start by describing the context. There is a constant debate about the big challenges that we face, including climate change, globalisation and fundamentalist terrorism. Arguably, demographic change is equally important in terms of the big public policy challenges that this country faces. Undoubtedly, for many people, elder care is the new child care. Care and support might have been an issue for a relatively small number of families in the past, but it is now a mainstream issue for the majority of families in this country.
This is also a question of social justice, whether in regard to the way in which we treat older people in terms of dignity, respect and quality of life, or to our ability to support disabled people and people with mental health needs to have equality of citizenship and a right to live independently as equal citizens in our society.
This issue is at the heart of what we mean by 21st century families. I shall give the House some examples of the changes that we are now seeing. Many parents—mainly women—are struggling to hold down a job and bring up a child while also caring for an elderly parent or grandparent. Many husbands and wives are caring for a partner who is perhaps in the early stages of dementia, yet, at 3.30 every afternoon, they are expected to be at the school gates to collect a grandchild. As a consequence of the fact that, thankfully, disabled people now live full and long lives, some people are now lifetime carers. All those factors are having a massive impact on the nature of family life in the 21st century.
I, too, recognise the debt of gratitude that we owe to the carers of people with dementia and Alzheimer’s. Those carers depend on respite care and, ultimately, on their loved ones going into care. Is it not important that we get the home support right, and that the NHS has the facilities to take care of those individuals?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is an issue about the volume and availability of respite care, and there is equally an issue about the quality and nature of that care. If someone is caring for a parent—or, indeed, a husband or wife—who has dementia, and they feel that the available respite care does not offer quality, dignity or safety, they will be reluctant to use it. It is therefore incredibly important that we expand the availability of respite care in this changing world, and that we ensure that people are confident and comfortable that that care will properly look after their dependent relative.
I accept what my hon. Friend says about the fear of inadequate care in care homes, but a much greater fear is that there will not be any respite care, and that the excessive pressure on carers in the home will, in time, break them. Is it not of primary importance to ensure that respite care and—eventually, when necessary—residential care are provided, and that we do not pressurise people to keep elderly relatives in the home when they cannot cope?
I partly agree with my hon. Friend. The vast majority of older people want to stay in their own homes for as long as possible, and that is quite a shift compared with the expectations of my generation and my parents’ generation vis-à-vis my grandparents’ generation, who might have accepted the inevitability of institutionalisation. However, my hon. Friend is right to say that, too often, families are being left to struggle because appropriate residential or respite care is not available in their local community. When we announce in the near future our new deal for carers, one of the most important issues that it will address will be the availability and quality of respite care.
On the wider issue, is it not the case that people were promised in 1979, when Tony Blair said that he did not want—
I am sorry; I meant 1997. Tony Blair said that he did not want to live in a country in which the only way that pensioners could get residential care was by selling their home, but that is still happening today, 11 years on. And is not the fact that the situation south of the border is rather different from that north of the border causing growing resentment?
It is not generally known that, in 1999, the Government introduced the notion of deferred payment, whereby older people do not have to sell their home if they go into care. It is not totally clear how many people are taking up the opportunity to use the deferred payment scheme. I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that, in fact, he got his timeframe right. Between 1979 and 1997, there was no attempt to do anything about the means-tested system. In contrast to the NHS, social care has been means-tested since 1948, but nothing was done about that between 1979 and 1997, so we will not take lectures from the hon. Gentleman about the inevitable consequences of a means-tested system—[Interruption.] I will answer his second question. Members of the House are aware that, if we examine the detail of what is happening in Scotland, we see that care is not free. People still have to pay for housing and for food. Also, services are being rationed, which means that people are having to wait for increasingly long periods of time to access care. Scottish local authorities are saying that the current position is entirely unsustainable. Politicians may shroud-wave and make offers that appear attractive, but in reality, the result is the provision of inadequate services.
As part of the debate over the next six months leading up to the Green Paper, let us have an honest and serious discussion about the respective responsibilities of the state, the family and the individual for paying for care, bearing in mind that there are no easy options in regard to fairness and sustainability. The people for whom I feel most sorry under the current system are those who work hard, play by the rules and do the right thing, and who are neither rich nor poor. There is a sense of injustice and unfairness among those people at the way in which decisions are made about means-testing.
I am also anxious to put right the situation in which people who fund their own care are left alone to make difficult decisions about choosing their care and where to go for advice and support. In my view, self-funders should be entitled to a much greater level of protection and help than they get at the moment, but let us not pretend that there are any easy answers or easy solutions.
On the subject of the need for a debate, will my hon. Friend accept my praise for him in bringing this matter to the fore so that we can have a great public debate on such a big policy issue? Does he agree that there is a role for the media to help in this regard? Will he give credit to the BBC for its recent in-depth and deliberative coverage of these issues, which has tried to include everybody in the debate?
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind comments on my contribution. Other hon. Members, some of whom are in the Chamber today, have made a major contribution over the years to ensuring that social care has been given a greater level of priority. That requirement is still desperately needed in view of the changing nature of society. Of course it is helpful when the media engage in this debate in a positive, constructive, honest and balanced way. Some of the recent coverage has been very balanced. Let us consider, for example, the way in which the “Today” programme reported the lady who went under cover in care homes. Some people were concerned about the ethics of her going under cover, which is a different debate, but that coverage was incredibly balanced. She was encouraged to talk about the positive and good things as well as to highlight the negative experiences that she had in residential and nursing care. All too often we do not present a balanced view. For example, hundreds of thousands of low-paid low-skilled workers work in the care system. They do a tremendous job on the front line of providing care in very difficult circumstances. Yet we always present this industry—this care sector—in the deficit model, in a negative way. Of course, there are massive problems. We only need to listen to the experiences of older people and their families to know that all too often the system does not respond to their needs in the way in which they have the right to expect. Equally, however, we should have a balance to the debate. I welcome the fact that sections of the media are starting to ensure that the debate is far more balanced.
In my view, the care system does not function in a vacuum from the rest of society. We have deeply cultural and attitudinal issues to address about how we treat older people in our communities and society. In the same way as we recognise that investing in children and young people will determine the future of our country, we must also recognise that the way in which we treat older people will determine the character of our country in the future.
We should also remember that older people are not simply passive recipients of care. They increasingly have the ability to make a massive contribution to their communities and families and to our society. It is incredibly important that we have an adult, mature debate about the issue, which poses one of the greatest challenges that we face.
It is also important to reflect on some of the progress that has been made over the past few years. This is the first Government to introduce a serious set of national minimum standards backed up by inspection and regulation. The consequence of that has been a significant improvement in the number of providers of residential and nursing care and of domiciliary services that meet minimum standards. That would not have happened without the dreadful word “regulation”. All too often, regulation is presented as a bad thing, but it has begun to make a real difference in the sector. As we develop the new regulator, bringing together health and social care regulation and inspection, it is important that we continue to use that system to help us to raise standards.
I agree entirely about the need for regulation. Indeed, a number of recent reports have shown that regulation clearly has been inadequate because standards have not been good enough and people have been suffering. However, the Government have proposed light-touch, risk-based regulation instead of rigorous inspection. Does that not pose a risk that the regulation will not be good enough?
I do not agree. There are a number of ways in which we influence the quality of care that older people and others experience. One of them is inspection and regulation; the other is the commissioning decisions that are made by local authorities or the NHS. Frankly, they should not be commissioning with either poor providers or even, on occasion, those providers that can meet only minimum standards. World-class commissioning is about ensuring that we organise services from those care homes and day care and domiciliary care services that offer people a high standard of care.
The other important element is to ensure that individuals and families feel sufficiently empowered to complain and raise concerns if they are not getting the care that they need. Communities also need to take responsibility for ensuring that we treat older people in a positive manner. That becomes even more important as more and more people remain within their own homes. It would not be appropriate to send inspectors and regulators into people’s homes, but equally there is an argument for saying that there is a vulnerability and risk to consider that requires us to think differently about the relationship between the state, the family and the individual. We must not make the mistake of believing that the only way to protect older people in this context is through the inspection and regulatory framework, although it is incredibly important.
We have also introduced free nursing care for the first time. I mentioned the deferred payment scheme. It was this Government in 1999 who introduced the first ever national carers strategy. Since then, we have given every local authority a specific annual carers grant to expand respite care and to give better information and better emotional support to carers. There was a period in this country when there was a denial in public policy terms of the contribution and role that carers make. The fact is that carers have distinct needs as opposed to the needs of the people for whom they care. Six years ago we also launched Valuing People, to ensure that people with learning disabilities have the same life chances that many other citizens take for granted, whether it be a home of their own, a job or the opportunity to have a decent quality of social leisure life.
Last year, I introduced a new national framework for continuing care. There were concerns about a postcode lottery across the country whereby some primary care trusts were not accepting their responsibilities in terms of recognising that people have nursing care needs as opposed to social care needs. That national framework has begun to make a difference to people’s ability to access continuing care funding.
This Government introduced a specific grant to stimulate the use of telecare. One issue that does not get sufficient attention in the debate on social care is the potential of modern technology to support people to have a more independent high-quality life, particularly within their own homes. We are seeing across the country a significant expansion in the utilisation of telecare to support people, but we have a long way to go. It is important to encourage and stimulate innovation because we are still pretty weak in terms of innovative development of services and innovative approaches.
We also introduced the General Social Care Council to register social workers who move on to domiciliary care agencies so that professional standards are maintained and monitored. Skills for Care ensures that we invest significant amounts in a difficult environment, which has a low-skilled, low-paid work force, to get people who work on the front line of care services to at least level 2 qualifications and beyond.
There has been an improvement in integration between health services, local government and the voluntary sector in some communities, although we still have a long way to go in the terms of the so-called Berlin wall between health and local government. I hope that we will be able to make more significant and rapid progress in the future.
Our White Paper “Our health, our care, our say: a new direction for community services”, for the first time commits us to a vision of integrated personalised preventive services. We should not forget in the context of a debate about how we treat older people in our country that older people have been the major beneficiaries of the slashed waiting times and waiting lists for the national health service. That point is frequently not made. Older people used to be made to wait for years for the treatment of health conditions, such as hip replacements and cataract operations, that affect people’s ability on a day-to-day basis to have a decent quality of life. I am proud that as a result of the decisions taken and the targets set, the Government have been able slash waiting lists. We will achieve the historic objective by the end of this year of a maximum wait for most treatments of 18 weeks. We should not forget that the major users of the NHS are older people. They have benefited significantly in terms of their independence and health as a result of our policy and the investment that has come directly from the Government.
There has been a major expansion of community-based mental health services. We all know that of course it was right to close those institutions down and to give people the chance to live dignified, decent lives within the community. Anyone who spent time as I did in those dreadful long-stay mental handicap hospitals, where people were shut away from society for 40 years, will know that it was the right thing to do. The Conservative party embarked on that programme when in government, and I pay tribute to it for that. The only problem was that the Conservatives did not transfer adequate resources specifically to people with mental health problems within the community, so many of them were left in vulnerable positions, not having proper and adequate support. I am proud of the fact that we have significantly expanded mental health services in the community, although we have a long way to go.
With regard to the controversy about the new GP contract, one of the other benefits that does not often get referred to is the fact that for the first time we incentivised GPs to take responsibility for the management of long-term conditions. That is another major advance. We should bear in mind that an ageing society is not the only challenge that we face. A major challenge is the number of people who are living longer with long-term conditions developed earlier in life, when they are in their forties and fifties, and making GPs responsible for managing such conditions and taking them seriously is an important way of preventing those people from deteriorating further.
This year’s programme of reform and other activities is probably the busiest and the most significant for 20 years. Since April, the Putting People First transformation scheme has been delivered in every local authority area, supported by half a billion pounds of Government funding over three years. It focuses on a shift from the present system, which tends to support people only when they become very ill or very dependent, to a system based on prevention and early intervention. The aim is to offer decent information, advice and, where appropriate, advocacy to everyone, including people who fund their own care.
One of the unintended consequences of the community care legislation of the early 1990s was that people who went to their local authority and said that they had assets or means of £21,000 were told “You’re on your own: there is no help for you here”. It is crucial for us to ensure that those people have access to high-quality information and advice on difficult decisions relating to care and support for themselves or family members.
Of course information should be available to self-funders. As the Minister knows, they often end up on the doorstep of the voluntary sector, which does a fantastic job in pointing them in the right direction. Does he think there is any scope for the Government to do more to help that sector to provide advice, rather than providing it directly?
This Government have invested more money in public service and improving the quality of life in local communities than any other Government in living memory, but I agree that the voluntary sector is a major part of the solution. In the past, I have been critical of local government and NHS commissioners who reach for conventional, traditional solutions rather than using the voluntary, community-based organisations that are sometimes far better placed to provide advocacy and contact sections of communities that are hard to reach, such as members of the black and ethnic-minority community and people who do not feel comfortable about using traditional services because of their faith or culture.
Voluntary and community organisations have a crucial role. For many older people, the real issue may be not a need for hard-edged personal care but loneliness and isolation, and the voluntary sector is often in the best position to offer them activities and support. All too often, however, statutory agencies are not commissioning with the third sector as we would wish them to. Despite the unprecedented amount invested in the sector over the past 10 years, it could do more, and in many localities the relationship between it and the statutory agencies could be more satisfactory.
Voluntary organisations have every right to complain about the need for longer-term funding, which currently means knowing only one year at a time how much they will receive, but, arguably for the first time, local government and, within a couple of months, the NHS are to benefit from three-year settlements. That means that there is no longer any excuse for those organisations not to enter into longer-term funding arrangements with the third sector and put the principles of the compact into practice.
I am sure that my hon. Friend is going to mention direct payments, which have been a great success in Gloucestershire. Carers and others in the voluntary sector set up an organisation to act as gatekeeper with the local authority and ensure that proper use was being made of the payments. However, because they had “professionalised” themselves, the local authority forced them to tender for moneys, and lo and behold, they lost the tender. That was a huge knock back. Will my hon. Friend work with his colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government to encourage the voluntary sector locally to make the best use of resources, and not to be overtaken by outside organisations?
I entirely agree. I was, in fact, going to say something about personal budgets and direct payments. Obviously my hon. Friend can read my mind, which is usually not a very pleasant experience.
At present direct payments are used by a relatively small, albeit increasing, number of people. We have made clear that we want the vast majority of adults to have personal budgets within the next three years. We want people to have maximum control and power over their own care and support, because we believe in the right to self-determination. Some people will need a significant amount of help to exercise that control and power over their lives, but in principle that is our direction of travel, and we want it to become the norm.
The Government must work with, in particular, local authorities to ensure that the necessary support systems are there to enable people to use direct payments and personal budgets to maximum effect. We encourage the pooling of personal budgets and the bureaucracy that is necessary to make control and choice possible. Our role is to clarify and encourage best practice, and to support local government in the delivery of what is arguably one of the most radical pioneering public service reforms that the country has ever seen.
Does my hon. Friend agree that we should not underestimate the number, and the type, of people who can use personal budgets? In Wigan I met a man with severe learning difficulties who, with help and the use of a life map, was able to express the way in which he wanted to lead his life, and who, through the use of direct payments, was able to leave residential accommodation and live an independent life in his own flat, despite his severe disabilities.
As ever, I agree with my hon. Friend. I pay tribute to the work that he did when he was doing my job. He initiated much of the pioneering work that has made direct payments a mainstream part of the social care agenda.
Some people hold the ideological view that certain members of society, to whom they attach labels, cannot exercise control or self-determination, and the state should not put them in a position that suggests that they can. That is not consistent with the views of our party or our Government, although of course there are people who will need a massive amount of help to exercise control and choice.
I shall never forget attending a conference, before I had been doing this job for long, where an individual with learning disabilities stood up at the back of the room and said “Minister, I want a life, not a service.”
That individual was making the point, “I am fed up with this collection of agencies and organisations fishing around in my life. Give me a budget, give me the opportunity to exercise control and articulate my needs, and then I can have the quality of life that I really want.” All the evidence shows that where people do have that level of control and choice, two things happen: first, they get much better outcomes and quality of life than under the existing, traditional way of doing things; secondly, we get better value for money. It is a win, win. This is incredibly complex because it is a new system that requires a lot of thought, but I am absolutely convinced that giving people control and choice through personal budgets and, where appropriate, direct payments is the right thing to do from a values point of view and a quality-of-life point of view.
I must now make some progress, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Let me rattle through the other changes that we are making this year.
Will the Minister give way?
I give way to the hon. Gentleman.
I am grateful to the Minister, as clearly he is not going to move on to talk about the relationship between health care and social care in personal budgets. Does he agree with me that, given that we are trying to have more co-ordinated commissioning and to break down the barriers between health and social care, it is important—contrary to what the Government said in their White Paper of January 2006, with which we disagreed—that we look to develop opportunities for health care, where it is predictable and stable over time, to be added to social care budgets and managed as a personal budget?
I am absolutely delighted that the hon. Gentleman has supported the recent statements from the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and Lord Darzi that we ought to use personal budgets as a potentially powerful vehicle to break down the Berlin wall between social care and health care. Lord Darzi said in his interim report that we now need to consider that, and in his final report he said that we need to spell out clearly how we believe it should happen. There is absolutely no doubt, particularly for people with long-term conditions, for example, that over time, the obvious solution for many of them will be to bring together streams of health funding and social care funding in an individual budget that is focused on their personal needs. We need to go about that carefully and to get it right, but I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman that that is inevitable and, as I said, I am delighted that he endorses the views of the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State.
It is also important to say that we have a new system of local area agreements that is bringing together local government, the health service and the voluntary sector at local level. It is interesting that local authorities have voluntarily identified social care—particularly self-directed support, personal budgets and the needs of carers—among their top priorities for local area agreements. That will also ensure that we have much better joint working at local level.
I have asked the regulator, the Commission for Social Care Inspection, to conduct a review of the eligibility criteria that govern social care. We all know that there is inconsistency of access to social care services both within and between local authority areas, so later this year CSCI will report to me on how we can adopt a more acceptable approach to eligibility criteria. We recently announced the extension of our dignity in care campaign—I am delighted that Sir Michael Parkinson has agreed to be our dignity ambassador—and we will go around the country focusing on this issue. It seems to me incredibly important that in every care home, on every hospital ward and in every domiciliary service, people debate every day what dignity and respect means for older people in their care. There is a limit to what Government can do from the centre, but if nothing else, we can provide leadership and ensure through commissioning and policy, as well as through the things that we say and do, that respect and dignity are seen to be important.
I really appreciate the Minister’s giving way and I apologise for not being here earlier. I was listening to the debate upstairs, and I came to the Chamber because I did not hear a subject that I am concerned about being covered. The Minister talks about dignity; let us consider elderly patients with dementia and their treatment in care homes. As he will know, my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) and I have lost the battle to keep open the flagship facility at St. John’s hospital, which deals with such people. We are finding that all the alternatives use a chemical cosh to control people with extreme behavioural problems, which surely is not acceptable to anybody in this House. Will the Minister address that issue in the remainder of his speech?
It is very kind of the hon. Lady to join us and I agree entirely with the point that she makes about people with dementia. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) for the significant work that he has done to get this issue up the political agenda. That is why, this autumn, the Government are launching the first ever national dementia strategy. We will focus on a number of issues: not only early identification of the symptoms and appropriate diagnosis and referral, but the quality and nature of care that people with dementia receive. We will also focus specifically on the question of inappropriate medication, which is obviously a concern not only to us, but to many families. We have to be careful not to exaggerate the scale of the problem, but it is clear that medication is being used inappropriately—to suppress people, rather than to treat them appropriately. That cannot be acceptable in the context of dignity, or of a civilised society and best professional practice.
Does my hon. Friend agree that although many families want to keep dementia patients and people with Alzheimer’s at home for as long as possible, there comes a point when they cannot cope, and the health service needs wards and other facilities for people with challenging or difficult behaviour resulting from their condition? Does he also agree that in places such as Durham, where the local trust is closing down such wards, people will be left in a very vulnerable position?
I agree with my hon. Friend. What is important is that in Durham—I would be happy to talk to him in more detail about this—the local authority and the primary care trust come together to ensure that the right continuum of care, from home-based support to day care, respite care and full-time care, is provided in that community. Some of that care—the full-time care—can be provided in residential and nursing settings. Some of the people concerned will have acute health conditions and might require acute NHS accommodation. From my experience of having, unfortunately, spent some time sat on an acute ward because of a family member’s illness, I know that an acute NHS ward is not the best place for most older people with dementia.
The right relationship between the NHS and local government needs to be in place to ensure that enough places are available in nursing care, so that those people receive the quality, dignified and specialist care that they require. That is one of the issues that the national dementia strategy will specifically address, but, as I say, I would be happy to talk to my hon. Friend about the situation in Durham.
The Minister will anticipate part of what I am about to say. He rightly says that the right place for these very vulnerable individuals to be is not an acute medical ward. Let us suppose that the right place is the proper type of care home with the necessary staff and resources to deal with their condition. Would it not be true to say that those people also need to be provided with some medical support from a specialist mental health team, and that such teams should come to care homes more often than they do now to offer support to the staff in those homes?
Again, I pay tribute to the work that the hon. Gentleman has done on the all-party dementia group. He is right to say that we need a combination of getting universal services to be far more sensitive to the needs of people with dementia and their families and, equally, ensuring that providers of those universal services have access to people with specialist knowledge and expertise. That will be one of the key objectives of the national dementia strategy. In some circumstances, care workers will not have the professional expertise or qualifications to deal with people in the necessary way, so the national strategy will examine that.
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, because I appreciate that he wants to conclude his remarks. I just want to ask him whether the national dementia strategy will come with some indication of how resources will be redirected and what additional resources will be applied to deliver it. For example, if inappropriate medication were used less, resources could be unlocked to invest in the training of staff, so that they could provide the extra support necessary to deal with the challenging behaviour encountered in many care homes.
Of course resources are an issue; we must always consider whether we are using existing resources to best effect and whether we would ultimately save money if we shifted money to prevention and early intervention. All of those matters have to be addressed. I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that not a moment goes by without a Liberal Democrat making a spending commitment on the Floor of this House and in a “Focus” leaflet, but such commitments are never costed. The problem with being in government is that all spending commitments have to be costed. Of course, the question of resources has to be addressed.
I come to other issues that we are addressing this year. We are reviewing the “No secrets” guidance, which deals with the protection of vulnerable adults. We want to ensure that we have the right protection framework in place for vulnerable people. It is important to get the right balance between allowing people to exercise maximum control over their own lives and protecting people who may be very vulnerable. It is also important that the adult protection framework reflects the move towards direct payments and individual budgets, so that we do not end up in a contradictory position.
I have mentioned that we will announce soon a 10-year strategy to support the 6 million people who are carers. We are also consulting on the independent living strategy for disabled people. This debate is inevitably skewed towards the needs of older people, but we should not forget that the challenges we face concern all adults, and disabled people now have the right to expect equality of citizenship, independent living and full lives. I am proud of the progress that the Government have made on ensuring that disabled people have the opportunities that the rest of us take for granted.
I recently announced a specific study on adults with autism and Asperger’s syndrome—another area that needs to be brought out of the shadows. We have long debated the fact that a growing number of children have autism, and we need to do more to support those children and their families. The Government can be proud of our “Aiming high for disabled children” commitments and reform, and of the record levels of investment, which will expand short breaks over the next three years. All those children with autism will grow into adults, and we know that the choice for many such adults is between learning disability assistance or mental health services. However, many adults with autism or Asperger’s have neither learning disabilities nor mental health problems, so we need to ensure that we have the right policies in place to support those adults.
In the next few weeks, we will announce a significant renewal of our policies for supporting adults with learning disabilities to achieve the maximum possible quality of life. We have made much progress since the “Valuing People” White Paper, but we have not made much progress on access to jobs and employment. Many people with learning disabilities, if given the right support and chances, could hold down a job, and it is scandalous that neither the private sector nor the public sector is doing enough to ensure that more jobs are available for people with learning disabilities. I hope that we can see a commitment from both sectors to work together on a specific push to open up job opportunities for people with learning disabilities.
I am pleased to say that we are joining forces with four national charities in a £80 million campaign over the next four years to focus on the issue of stigma and mental health, which remains one of the biggest barriers in our society to people having a decent quality of life. The statistics are clear: mental health issues touch the vast majority of families, but the stigma remains, which is why I welcome the fact that an increasing number of well known figures have been courageous enough to talk about the fact that they have struggled with mental health problems at some time in their life. That is important for people who are struggling with a mental illness, but who do not feel able to seek professional help. That can lead to dreadful consequences, as we are all well aware. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon) is doing remarkable work in relation to the tragedies in her constituency—the issues are difficult to cope with, and we are not quite sure what is happening in that community—and trying to ensure that young people feel able to open up and seek support if they are struggling with mental health problems.
This year, for the first time, local authorities will be required by law to carry out joint population needs assessments. There is a growing emphasis on the importance of joint commissioning. Lord Darzi will produce his report on the future of the NHS. For many patients, it is the connectivity between the NHS, local government and the voluntary sector that determines their health and well-being, so as Lord Darzi maps out the next stage of the NHS’s reform programme, it is important that we make those connections and encourage and support integration. The other place is now debating the creation of the new regulator to bring together the Healthcare Commission, the Commission for Social Care Inspection and the Mental Health Commission.
I shall end on the subject of the Green Paper on the long-term future of care and support. Both sides of the House are united in believing that we have to address this as a country and as responsible parliamentarians. First, the Green Paper is not just about older people, but about all adults who need additional support to have the best possible quality of life and to live independently in our society. Secondly, it is not about tinkering with the adult social care system, but about an entirely new vision for a care and support system that can respond to a changing society.
We are all aware of the nature of the challenges: demographic change, demand and affordability. We need to answer the financial question about how we will cope with demographic change and rising demand for these services. How will we respond to changing aspirations? An increasing number of people want care in their own home rather than in institutions, but our generation expects high-quality care and will accept nothing less.
We need to tackle the “no help here” culture, where people are told that if they have £21,000 a year or more, there is nothing that we can do to help them to choose care and make difficult choices. If someone goes to the local authority and says, “My mother is lonely and isolated. She is not getting out very much and does not have many visitors to her home,” they are told that that is a loneliness problem and a low-level need. We need to do something about the notion that people’s loneliness and isolation are nobody’s responsibility. We have to tackle the Berlin walls between health and social care and between health, local government and the voluntary sector.
Is my hon. Friend also prepared to consider the Berlin wall between local authorities? Are the Government considering making care and support packages portable from one local authority to another?
My hon. Friend raises an important point. A person for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect, Baroness Campbell—a tremendous champion for the rights of disabled people—is proposing some amendments on that subject to the Health and Social Care Bill in the other place. There is certainly an issue about the possibility of retaining the level of support in the short term when someone moves from one local authority to another, while the local authority carries out the necessary assessment processes. The more fundamental issue is that, as part of the debate, we have to resolve what should be universal and what should be subject to the discretion of local authorities and local PCTs. That will be central to creating a satisfactory new care and support system. Unlike in the NHS, there has been a massive amount of devolution and localism in social care. One of the challenges for the long-term review is what should be universal and what should be subject to local discretion. Of course, we also need to address the questions of the means test, the threshold and, as I said earlier, the group of people who work hard, play by the rules, do the right thing, are not rich, are not poor and feel that the system is unfair to them.
In the end, the responsibility must be shared between families, public agencies, the voluntary sector, the private sector, where appropriate, and local communities. People are absolutely clear about what they want and expect: independence, control, flexibility and, increasingly, personalisation. As the debate rages, it is important to focus first on the quality and the system that people want. We then have to address the difficult question of the respective financial responsibilities. What is it right to expect the state to fund through general taxation? What is it right to expect of families and of individuals?
Every party in this House accepts that the responsibility has to be shared. There are no easy solutions. The debate needs to be about fairness, transparency and affordability. How do we get a system that is seen to be fair, that is clear and that the country can afford in the long term? This is about not only the cost, but the benefit. In the end, we spend a significant amount of money on caring for people when they have deteriorated because the money is in the wrong place in the system. There is a debate about how we can shift money from the acute end of the system to the early intervention and prevention end of the system, so that we prevent people from deteriorating in the first place.
No party in the House now advocates—one party did so for some time—that, for example, free personal care should be a reality. The debate is about the respective responsibilities of the state, the family and the individual. The Government would genuinely like to achieve consensus in the same way as we achieved it on pensions policy. It is a shame that the Conservative party has begun to move away from that consensus to some extent. It would be in the country’s interests if we could achieve long-term sustainable consensus on the system, but of course that is not totally in my control.
Finally, I am delighted that we have had the opportunity of the debate. I look forward to hearing the contributions of right hon. and hon. Members. The provision of care and support is one of the great issues that face our society. Perhaps more importantly, an increasing number of families are struggling daily to cope with the realities of ensuring that their older relatives who suddenly become ill have the dignity and respect that they deserve and the maximum possible quality of life. It is our responsibility to come up with the solutions, but we need to do so in partnership with families and local communities.
I am very glad that we have the opportunity to debate this crucial area of public policy on the Floor of the House today. The assumption is that between one in three and one in five of us will need some form of long-term care, with about one in 10 of us needing to live in a care home. About a fifth of those who need long-term care will have some form of dementia. Two thirds of the care home population have some form of dementia, and that is likely to continue.
I immediately take the opportunity to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Jeremy Wright), who has done such an enormous amount in establishing and taking a big lead in the all-party group on dementia and in giving great advice in authoritative reports to hon. Members in all parts of the House.
What was estimated to be a £14 billion gross spend in 2006-07 is forecast to double to between £24 billion and £31 billion, depending on the decisions that we make now. In addition, the baby-boomer generation, having put its parents through the system, is about to go through the system itself. The national feeling is that those who have done the right thing in paying their stamp, scrimping together hard-earned savings in cash or assets, paying off their mortgages if they had them or sacrificing some lifestyle choices in their earning years to build and earn pensions and are now on ever-threatened fixed incomes—particularly in view of the current rising cost of living—are very anxious as the consumers of long-term care, as are their families. As the Minister said, they are the ones who are unlikely to settle for a system that is perceived as either unfair or inadequate.
This key issue is growing in the minds of English people—technically, given devolution, they are the people we are talking about today, but it is fair to say that the issue has a strong read-across to the other parts of the United Kingdom—partly because of their own experience and partly because of increasing media interest. I single out and congratulate in particular the Daily Mail on its dignity for the elderly campaign, the Daily Express on its respect for the elderly campaign and, indeed, the BBC’s “Panorama”, “File on 4” and “Today” programmes on raising the profile of the issue. I join the Minister in accepting that, when the media have been responsible, they have indeed helped to highlight the issue.
It is reassuring to hear the hon. Gentleman describe this as one of the most important issues that we face. The leader of the Conservative party established a working party on social care. Will the hon. Gentleman tell me how often that working party has met and whether it has reached any conclusion?
The great advantage of working parties is that they advise our party, and I hope that they greatly benefit what we are doing. That working party met very frequently, covering not just social care but health, housing and education. Of course it would be completely wrong to single out any of those parts. The Minister must know, from the research that I dare say he jumped up to try to read into the record, that the working party has met numerous times. It is important to recognise that we are all spending a lot of time and effort trying to understand and grapple with the issue that faces all of us and that is very much on the minds of the people we represent.
Excellent work is being done by organisations concerned with social care. The Wanless review from the King’s Fund underpins much of the current debate. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Help the Aged, Age Concern, the Local Government Association and the International Longevity Centre UK have all led the debate, with organisations such as Carers UK and the Alzheimer’s Society, among many others, feeding in their experience. I pay tribute to those organisations and encourage them to continue to hold the Government’s feet—indeed, all parliamentarians’ feet—to the fire. I am sure that those of us present hope to do just that today.
The Minister has said that the issue poses as big a threat to the country as climate change; the Secretary of State for Health said the same of obesity. Clearly, that is the metaphor of choice at the Department of Health. The difference is that we have direct control over the issue of social care. We know how the policies that we adopt will affect the future. The question is: are the Government doing enough, or could they be accused of dragging their feet?
The enormity of the issue and the political impetus that it has gained has given rise to
“a large amount of political will at the moment to try and really solve this problem.”
That is what I said at the launch of the Caring Choices coalition report last year. The Minister said at that event that it was “absolutely crucial” to achieve political consensus, and the Liberal spokesman on that occasion, the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), said that that “ought to be possible”.
Consensus will come about only through serious discussion of the issue, underpinned by meaningful, trustworthy research and consultation. It is fair to say that there is consensus in the analysis of the problem, as the Minister suggested. It is right to put it on record that I agree with a great deal of what the Minister said in his opening remarks about the elderly, those who have lifetime conditions and needs, children, disabled people and those who have to take advantage of mental health services. It is important to recognise that we in the House share our analysis of the problem—the need, the demand, the technological opportunities and people’s increasing anxiety to take control of their care and lead good, independent lives, often in their own homes, as far as is possible. We have to recognise that what is needed today is a Government proposal for a solution. It is on that point that there is anxiety, and on which I will focus much of my contribution.
If consensus is so important, we might start by placing it on record that it would perhaps have been helpful if a Liberal spokesman and I had been invited to the Prime Minister’s launch on the future of social care. The Prime Minister ended his speech on that occasion by stating that he looked forward to building a consensus on the best way ahead, but it is quite difficult to do that if one excludes the very people with whom that consensus needs to be built. I hope that the Minister is committed to consensus in deed, as much as in word. If so, perhaps he should start by getting his Prime Minister to be a little less tribal, and to start to look at the national, big picture, rather than the narrow, Labour party view.
The Conservative pledge at the last election to provide free residential care after three years would have benefited the rich and would be worth nothing to people on lower incomes, such as my parents. In the spirit of getting rid of tribalism, will the hon. Gentleman assure the House that his party is withdrawing that policy and listening to the debate?
Given that I was at a meeting yesterday with the hon. Gentleman, who was there as chair of an all-party group, I am disappointed that he should take such a cheap approach. As it happens, in the 2005 election, our party—not his party or the Liberal Democrats—was the only one that had any policy on the issue. Furthermore, it is absolutely the case that Wanless applauded our limited liability model. The hon. Gentleman tries to suggest, from a sedentary position, that I have just said something untrue; I hope that he will withdraw that immediately, as Wanless went out of his way to praise our limited liability approach.
Before the hon. Gentleman tries to recover his position, I have said on the record that we are looking carefully at building on the policy that we were able to offer at the last general election—uniquely among all the main political parties—by saying that we are considering the partnership model. That is different, and we are also building on that, but at least we had something to put forward—something that does not just favour the rich, but which would give people certainty, in view of all the uncertainties, that at least some contribution would be made.
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman again if he wishes to correct his original intervention, which he got badly wrong. He should have tried very hard not to show that he was such a partial all-party group chairman.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I am sorry—I was trying to correct what I thought was a tribal comment on his part. I was making a simple point about the Conservative policy at the last election. My question was whether they have withdrawn the policy which, in guaranteeing free home care after three years, would clearly benefit the better off and would mean nothing whatever to people on low incomes, like my parents who, after three years, would have seen their savings gone. In the spirit of trying to achieve a fair system, will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that that proposal ought to be withdrawn? Yes, let us look at partnership models, but that was not one of them.
It was indeed one of them. The hon. Gentleman should read the Wanless report again. I am very surprised at his inaccuracy. I look forward to our forthcoming manifesto. There may well be a successor policy to the original one, but I am not suggesting that we are withdrawing a policy that made the British public proud that something was at last being offered to them at the previous election.
Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the current position is that there is no policy, or that the policy that was in his party’s last manifesto stands? Does the Conservative party have a policy on the matter? Does the policy in the last manifesto remain its current policy?
The position is clear. As we approach the next general election, of course there will be a manifesto for that election. In the manifesto that we presented at the last election, there was an offer—uniquely, given that the other two main parties had no policy to offer, and have published no policy since. I shall describe why the Government have been so lacking in offering solutions.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
No. None of us wants to give time to the Lib Dems until they can show where £2 billion comes from.
Tribalism is typically unfortunate as we try to develop a consensus. In the light of the political good will that I shall try to establish, the public interest and the high quality of the debate that has been conducted by third party organisations, it was disappointing that the document underpinning our debate, “The case for change—why England needs a new care and support system”, did not seem to come up with a proposal. It forms the basis for consultation and discussion, but it does not offer leadership and a way forward in an area where the third sector and the official Opposition have offered proposals.
The document offers no solutions and few facts, and barely outlines the problems. We were expecting the Government to begin grappling with the detail of the issue, but the document turns out to be, yet again, part of the consultation. I accept that the consultation is what the Government promised in the comprehensive spending review. We were promised continuous consultation, rather than action, and that is what we have. All of us hoped for more from the Government, and it is a shame that we have been driven by reviews. There have been 55 reviews since the Prime Minister started less than a year ago.
We are consulting in advance of a Green Paper, which itself is a consultation document. I am the first to recognise that consultation is important, but at some stage the Government must take action. The Minister said of the by-election in Crewe and Nantwich, the seat neighbouring mine:
“We face a stark choice. This is either the beginning of the end for Labour or a call to action.”
I hope he heeds his own call for action. He might say that the Government are consulting now and will publish a Green Paper leading, presumably, to a White Paper and perhaps some legislation. The Government, we hope, will not find themselves trapped in a constant cycle of consultation. I leave aside Tony Blair’s cry in his 1997 conference speech:
“I don’t want children brought up in a country where the only way pensioners can get long-term care is by selling their home.”
For 11 years, Labour has held to that promise and, for 11 years, has failed to do anything about it. The Prime Minister, in launching the consultation—
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
No, I will not give way. Let me finish the paragraph.
The Prime Minister said:
“Younger adults are aware that much of their parents’ hard-earned housing wealth may disappear… At some point in the future people may have to sell a treasured home to pay for their own care…Too many people fear the prospect of selling their homes.”
After 11 years, we are still in exactly the same position. I remind the House that we were led to believe by the Minister and his predecessors that the last CSR would provide some concrete proposals. That was last year.
Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the Government have given a sum of money to all local authorities to allow them to put a charge on an individual’s home so it does not have to be sold in their lifetime if they do not wish it? The reason why so many Conservative MPs complain that people have to sell their home when they have a care need is because their constituencies are in Conservative council areas that do not bother telling people that this money is available.
The hon. Gentleman did not produce any figures to justify that. The Minister himself said that he was not clear how much of the deferred payment scheme had been taken up, but it has been very light. I take issue with the hon. Gentleman’s belief that that has made any tangible difference to people’s concerns about having to sell their own homes. He knows that that is the case; otherwise the Prime Minister would not have said what I have just quoted.
When Sir Derek Wanless published his report on 30 March 2006, the Minister’s predecessor, the Minister for Borders and Immigration, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Byrne), headed off the criticism of his Department by announcing his intention—supported by the then Chancellor, now the Prime Minister—to conduct what he called a “zero-based review” starting from scratch to reassess the whole social care budget for older people. The announcement was that the Department of Health would
“conduct a review of social care, starting from first principles on how social care is funded. We believe this is a once in a decade chance to undertake a fundamental review of social care costs.”
This review of long-term care funding
“would inform the Department’s plans for social care funding, which will be submitted to the Treasury as part of the comprehensive public services spending review in 2007.”
Building on the expectations raised by that, the Minister spent the 18 months before the CSR talking up what the Government would do through
“a new settlement in social care”,
a quote I have often used with him, in the CSR.
In February last year, the Minister said:
“We continue to negotiate with the Treasury to secure a fair and reasonable settlement as part of the comprehensive spending review.”
In March he said:
“We will assess the proposals for the future provision of long-term care services as part of the long term vision of the comprehensive spending review 2007.”
In June he said:
“We are arguing forcefully…with the Treasury about the importance of a good settlement for social care under the comprehensive spending review.”
Yet when the CSR came, there was no evidence of any zero-based review having been undertaken and little evidence of any impact of negotiations with the Treasury. There were certainly no solutions to the funding of long-term care.
Furthermore, I have asked a raft of parliamentary questions about the zero-based review. It has met only four times in total; in June, July, October and November 2006, concluding a year before the CSR. The Department did not quantify the work of the group; that is supported by a written parliamentary answer. I cannot track down any evidence of the work done, any report, any recommendation or any impact at all. I should also mention the concordat “Putting People First,” another bundle of paper with no firm commitments, proposals or bases for action.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Perhaps I could develop my argument a bit more; the Minister did very well to take a full 50 minutes. He was keen to paint a record that was very lopsided.
However, I shall give way very briefly.
The “bundle of paper” to which the hon. Gentleman referred was signed up to by a gentleman for whom I have a lot of respect—Sir Simon Milton, who is a member of Boris Johnson’s cabinet. He is the most senior Conservative councillor in this country.
Far from being a “bundle of paper”, what the hon. Gentleman referred to is the beginning of a three-year radical transformation programme, supported by more than £500 million of Labour Government money in every local authority area in the country. Does the hon. Gentleman wish to withdraw his description of it a “bundle of paper”, given that it is in fact a three-year transformation programme supported by more than £500 million?
The Minister has admitted that he regards that not as taxpayers’ money, but as Labour Government money—a rather unusual approach to identifying other people’s hard-earned money. What is key is that there was no firm commitment or proposal as a basis for action on the issues that we are addressing today. That is the central point.
The Minister has said that the Prime Minister is “out of touch”; that may be why the Prime Minister and the Government are so desperate to consult. At least we have the promise, on the record, that the Green paper will be published in early 2009—given what has happened in the past, “early” means any time between January and July. Assuming a three-month consultation period thereafter, the White Paper will come out at the end of 2009 at the earliest. Will that really come five months before the last possible date for a general election? It would seem that legislation will be undertaken by the next Government at the earliest—nearly six years after Wanless published his review. The inescapable conclusion is that the Government appear to have tried to kick the issue as far as they can away from the current parliamentary Session.
What the Government should be doing is simple: getting together good data on the issue, as we have been arguing, so that parliamentarians can make policy from an informed position. The Government should have done that in the past 11 years. All the forecasts of demand are predicated on morbidity remaining constant as the population ages. What assessment have the Government made of that?
More scandalously, the Government do not know how much is currently being spent across public and private purchasing, different Government Departments and local authorities. A cursory glance at the Official Report shows a raft of hundreds of questions, from me and many other hon. Members from across the House, that are answered with statements such as, “The information on numbers and costs is not held centrally.” The Government have also failed to do any modelling on how different funding structures might impact on public and private finance, consumer and provider incentives and the shape of the market.
The National School for Social Care Research, launched last week, will, we hope, provide some of the academic rigour needed to underpin this debate. We will be watching closely to see that it does. If it lives up to its billing, the school will be long overdue and much welcomed.
Sir Derek Wanless flagged up Kent county council’s long-term care insurance. It looked promising to him, but neither the Department of Health nor the Treasury would fund further study, as each said that it was the other’s responsibility. Other councils, such as the Conservative-controlled Isle of Wight council, have recently started to provide free social care to all those over 80. Why are the Government not investigating those? As we assess the Government’s action, it is fair to ask why in the past 11 years they have not done what was easily identifiable as necessary.
I shall move quickly over the Liberal Democrats’ free personal care proposals during the last election; the policy was unaffordable and their health spokesman called—
Boring! You’re so tedious!
Ah! I am pleased to see the hon. Lady in her place. She, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, called that policy during an Adjournment debate, on the record, “dishonest”—an appellation that she went on to attach to all Liberal Democrat manifesto writers.
It seems that the policy has been quietly dropped by the latest Liberal Democrat leader, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Clegg). Many weeks after it was originally said that it had been dropped, it has also finally been dropped from the Lib Dem website. The Liberal Democrat spokesman will no doubt tell the House that the Lib Dems have committed to a “care guarantee” based on Wanless’s partnership model, along with a £2 billion price tag. It is fair to say, however, that until the Liberals have said what each person might be guaranteed and given an indication as to where the money will come from, the House need not be detained by giving the proposal any credence. It is interesting to note that the Minister said that the free personal care that was offered in Scotland had never been deliverable, let alone delivered, because of the disparities between local authority provision in Scotland and because it completely omitted the so-called hotel costs of accommodation and food. As there was a combined Labour-Liberal Administration at the time, I am sure that the lesson has been taken to heart that that policy could not be afforded. That is another element in building the consensus that has at last been arrived at.
We need to find a way forward on carers, on whom the Minister spent a little time in his speech. There are about 6 million carers in the UK, and more than three in five of us will become carers at some time in our lives. Too often, carers bear the brunt of inadequate provision of care and support, and they are among those who are suffering most because of the Government’s prevarication on reform. In its helpful briefing for this debate, Help the Aged calls for carers to be supported as an integral part of the care and support system. I pay tribute to the work of Carers UK and many other partners of carers week, which takes place next week. We are still waiting for the new deal for carers; I think that the Minister said that it will be delivered relatively shortly.
It is important to recognise that carers have become very concerned about the changes made to service provision and regular respite care, particularly locally, through changes to the carers grant. I make a distinction between the announcement on emergency respite care and the need for regular predicted respite care, which remains of serious concern to many carers. Carers suffer most because of squeezes by councils on eligibility criteria. We are therefore looking seriously at how carers can be included as part of the original assessment of the care needs package of the cared-for person. We need to include a recognition of the effects on the social and other aspects of the carer community. That may be a pointer in terms of the consensus that is being developed across the parties and across the House.
This applies equally to the grave concerns that we all share about young carers. In 2001, the census found that there were approximately 175,000 young carers in the UK, although that figure is believed to be higher by those working in the field. The average age of young carers is 12. One in three regularly misses school and one in four has no external support. That has led to tragedies such as that of Deanne Asamoah. Those of us who understand and are concerned about this issue know that there is a need to support young carers, not ban them. It is important that it is part of a family’s choice, and often the young person’s choice, that they wish to care for a parent, grandparent or other relation. The needs of young carers should be part of the original care assessment, as I said in relation to carers generally. When making the assessment of the cared-for person, there must be clarity about the needs of the young person and those must be taken into account in assessing the package of support that is required.
I agree entirely with what the hon. Gentleman said about young carers. Does he welcome the fact that in the bundle of papers he referred to, there is, for the first time, a requirement on adult services to ensure that, as a result of the decisions that they make about an adult, no child or young person is left inappropriately caring for a parent? He is right to say that we cannot stop children and young people loving a parent who has an illness, and nor should we, but no child should have their childhood stolen through being asked to take on inappropriate responsibilities. Does he welcome the fact that in the bundle of papers he dismissed earlier, we call on adult services to ensure that that never happens to any child or young person?
I certainly acknowledge that there is a call. The issue has been support in resource terms to ensure that it happens. That support has not been translated into what is happening on the ground, which is why the matter has caused concern throughout the House and has been the subject of some debate. It is important that we try hard to maintain the consensus on young carers and carers in general, because the regularity of respite care is important to the health and welfare of carers, who are ultimately the people who will be able to deliver the best care.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
No, I think I have given way generously to the Minister. There will be a chance at the end of the debate for him to put anything he wants to on the record.
I am going to move on because I think that the Minister has had more than a fair chance.
We must also tackle the issue of dignity. On Tuesday, the Commission for Social Care Inspection report on dignity for those in dementia care identified that only a quarter of the care homes inspected had detailed care plans that gave guidance about the residents’ preferences for care. CSCI issued statutory requirements to half the care homes, detailing actions that they had to take to improve care provision, and an astonishing one in five were given requirements on maintaining people’s privacy and dignity. It is clear that that is simply not good enough, but at the same time, we must praise and celebrate much of the good work that goes on in care homes, carried out by people who give such a lot of professional support.
The problem is not limited to the social care sector. The Healthcare Commission’s report, “Caring for Dignity”, which was published in September last year, looked at 23 trusts at high risk of non-compliance with dignity standards. The report noted that the profile of dignity had been raised in the NHS, and I am sure that the whole House will wish Sir Michael Parkinson well in his role as the dignity ambassador. Raising the profile is one thing, and concrete action is another. The Healthcare Commission noted serious failures of non-compliance, most often due to failure in providing single-sex accommodation. In addition, most trusts found it difficult to engage with patients with dementia and inadequate arrangements were made for uninterrupted meal-time environments.
As we know, the Healthcare Commission’s most recent in-patient survey, published on 12 May, showed that one in four patients had to share a sleeping area with people of the opposite sex when first admitted to a hospital ward, and that one in five had to share a sleeping area with the opposite sex when moved to a second ward. Nearly a third of patients had to use the same bathroom or shower area as the opposite sex. The survey also highlighted malnutrition, with one in five patients not given enough help to eat their meals. It is important for the House to note that those failures are not primarily the fault of front-line care staff—far from it—or hospital managers. It is a question of the gulf between the words that are spoken and the ability to translate them into action.
Does the hon. Gentleman welcome the fact that in the NHS operating framework for this year, it is made clear to NHS managers that minimising mixed-sex accommodation has to be a top priority? Does he also welcome the fact that the director general of Age Concern, Gordon Lishman, is overseeing an action plan to improve nutrition in the health and social care system? Finally, does the hon. Gentleman’s party have any policies at all on how we will enhance support for carers in our society?
The Under-Secretary was right to say that Age Concern referred to malnutrition and I am glad to note the important work that will help tackle the problem. However, the problem emerged in responses to a series of parliamentary questions, which I tabled. The Government eventually gave the information, which showed a seriously adverse move, I think from 10 to 11 per cent., in the proportion of those going into hospital who left more malnourished. Government figures acknowledge that. It is interesting that Gordon Lishman said:
“What we need is not just a discussion but a timetable for action. These problems have been with us since Labour came to power”.
The Under-Secretary needs to be careful about whom he prays in aid.
Mixed-sex wards cause “indignity” and “distress”—a quote from Tony Blair in 1996. He said:
“Is it beyond the collective wit of the Government and the health administrators to deal with that problem? It is a question not just of money, but of political will.”—[Official Report, 19 November 1996; Vol. 285, c. 832.]
Yet the Government have reneged on their promise to end such wards, although the Secretary of State attempted to make a weaselly distinction between mixed-sex wards and mixed-sex accommodation. The Under-Secretary was rightly keen to identify dignity as central to many of the arguments about social care, but we must consider the Government’s track record.
The Under-Secretary also rightly identified the importance of individual budgets for older and disabled people. We look forward to the publication later this year of the Green Paper on the individual budget pilot programme, which finished at the end of last year. We accept that individual budgets are key to giving more control to individuals. The Institute for Public Policy Research report, “Just Care?”, which was published last week, called for joined-up services and consideration of the community and family context of care, a greater voice for the community, clarity in outcomes and supporting individual choice through budgetary control of services.
Oldham is a pilot site for the Department’s individualised budget scheme and a “total transformation” site for In Control. To date, the pilot scheme has made an 8 per cent. saving in the overall budget. In the feedback from participants, 86 per cent. reported an improved quality of life, 56 per cent. said that opportunities to take part and contribute to their community were increased, 72 per cent. reported greater choice and control over their lives and 74 per cent. said that they had more dignity in their support. People should be able to take charge of their care and not be forced into accepting “one size fits all”. Direct payments and individual budgets do not simply deliver savings—far from it—but give people the freedom to take charge of their lives and design their care services around their individual needs. It is vital to acknowledge that, although individual budgets and direct payments are no answer in themselves, they are positive when appropriate and should be encouraged.
Tightening the eligibility criteria has also caused great concern. As was pointed out earlier, yesterday evening, I attended the launch of the National Centre for Independent Living’s report for the Coalition on Charging, entitled “Charging into Poverty?” It states that rising care charges put older people and disabled people at risk of not being able to afford to eat, heat their homes, wash or get essential support. It found that 80 per cent. of those surveyed who no longer use care services said that charges contributed to their decision to stop their support. A fifth of those surveyed who currently use support suggested that they would stop if charges increased further, and 29 per cent. of respondents did not feel that their essential expenditure on impairment and health conditions was taken into account in financial assessments for paying charges. That means that they have to choose between essential support and equally essential food, heating and utility bills. Nearly three quarters of those surveyed believe that the Government should think about the charges that people pay for support at home in adult care reform plans.
The Coalition on Charging is calling on the Government to conduct a thorough review of the impact of care charges from 2008 and for those issues to be addressed in adult care reform in England. We await the outcome of the eligibility criteria review from the Commission for Social Care Inspection, which the Under-Secretary mentioned, in relation to a power that I hope that the Health and Social Care Bill will not remove. We discussed that with the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw), in Committee and we hope that that power will not be temporarily suspended until the next general election. The continuing operation of CSCI and its successor, the Care Quality Commission, will be an advantage for all.
Often, the most vulnerable people affected by the various issues in long-term care and care for the elderly are the low earners and those subject to the means test. The Resolution Foundation, headed by the former special adviser to the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), has done some work on the impact of care charges, particularly the means test, on low earners in the UK. There are 15 million low earners in this country, 3 million of whom are over 65. Low earners are 25 per cent. more likely to be carers. They find the system complex, inaccessible and unfair, and have found it difficult to access the advice and information that they need. Again, I am happy to share the Minister’s view on the importance of having access to good information and advice.
Low earners often have limited savings and their primary source of wealth is, as it happens, their homes. The Resolution Foundation’s report says that 72 per cent. of low earners have levels of wealth that can exclude them from free care and argues that reform of the long-term care system is more important even than improving hospitals. That is the call for action coming from so many of the people who find that long-term care is their primary need.
I share the Minister’s view, as I am sure hon. Members in all parts of the House do, that finding adequate resources to meet all those demands is a major challenge, given all the other challenges that we face. That is why it is important to get the Minister to urge all his colleagues and the processes within Government to come up with the final reviews, so that the final recommendations can be made and decisions taken. The principal frustration, at least on the Conservative Benches, is that we have been subjected to such a series of reviews that people do not have that base of information that is so important in coming to the conclusions required.
In his opening remarks, the hon. Gentleman was critical of the Government for publishing a consultation document that was long on analysis but short on prescription. Surely the way for him to start goading the Government into developing their policies is for the Conservative party to set out what it would do, but that is signally not what we have heard so far. Will he tell us what the Conservative party thinks about such issues?
All in good time—and that is not just a light aside, but a serious point. When a Government are in office, they have a responsibility to produce the data that we have called for, upon which everyone can then make an informed judgment and formulate policy. [Interruption.] The Minister may say from a sedentary position that Wanless has done that, but the Government have said that they did not use the Wanless report as the base upon which they made recommendations. Indeed, the Minister’s predecessor said that there needs to be a zero-based review, but that has not come forward. That is why we are all so mindful of the fact that the Government have not yet produced the base upon which policy is to be articulated.
The issues are wider than just care. Work force issues come high up the agenda in any reform of the sector. In 2007, Dame Denise Platt reported on the status of social care, with recommendations on supporting the work force with the establishment of a skills academy, a research centre, which I assume is what the Government launched last week, a journal and social care awards. I should be grateful if the Minister could update the House in his winding-up speech on those recommendations that he did not touch on earlier.
There are other issues, too. On Monday, The Times reported that criminal records checks for thousands of migrant staff are not being done. According to The Times, an estimated 240,000 foreign-born individuals were employed in the care-related sector in 2006, and they are vital to that sector, as the Minister said. The concern is not only that such individuals are going unchecked. Care providers are also concerned that they have paid £36 a time for checks that are not properly undertaken. Can the Minister tell us whether the providers are told when a proper check has not been carried and, if not, can the provider get its money back?
The issue is one of some interest. I understand from representations that I have received that the amounts of money are significant, which is causing care home owners and others to become anxious about a process in which they are obliged to engage. If the Minister cannot answer my questions immediately, I would be grateful if he agreed to write to me and anybody else who is interested.
This is a crucial debate for the House, and if it will speed up the Government’s production of their review—I know that I speak for millions of people in this country in saying this—we would love that to happen. We would give a resounding cheer if it did. However, we are trapped in a consultation process, or even paralysis, when what is really needed is hard data collection, costed options and a grown-up discussion that can lead to a consensus policy approach based on the Government’s proposals and recommendations.
I pay tribute to the many third-party organisations that are campaigning on this issue, and I urge them to continue to hold the Government’s feet to the fire. I urge the Minister to put the vast resources of his Department, and the army of civil servants at his disposal, into collecting the necessary data and to bring those data, along with some serious measures, to the Floor of the House so that we can reach consensus on what is best for the most vulnerable people in our society. As Gordon Lishman of Age Concern said:
“What we need is not just a discussion but a timetable for action. These problems have been with us since Labour came to power”.
The Crewe and Nantwich by-election might have been, as the Minister has suggested, the beginning of the end for Labour. The Prime Minister and the party he represents might, as the Minister has indicated, be out of touch, but there is certainly a call to action on this issue. It is up to the Government to answer that call with more than just words; they need to translate them into deeds.
I very much welcome this debate. I do not feel completely paralysed about talking about policy while waiting for someone else to produce some data. I genuinely hope that the national debate, and the response to the consultation document, will produce a consensus that will take us forward. I genuinely agree with the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien) that it is important for these matters to move quickly. Like him, I note that the Green Paper is planned for next year, and I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to ensure that it is produced early next year, if possible, and that decisions are made soon thereafter.
My hon. Friend the Minister is doing an outstanding job—[Interruption.] I have just agreed with the hon. Member for Eddisbury, yet he is churlish enough to speak from a sedentary position. I will continue, however. The Minister is doing an excellent job of developing this agenda, and I very much welcome the actions that the Government have taken thus far. Inevitably, however, there are certain things that we can urge them to do better and more quickly. Again, I agree with the hon. Member for Eddisbury—
Steady on!
I note what my colleague says.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that urgent action on some issues is necessary. The needs of many disabled people, older people and carers are not being met. The system is bureaucratic, wasteful and inefficient—
My hon. Friend is making a very good point, but he missed out one important word: underfunded. That is the problem, is it not?
If my hon. Friend had allowed me to continue my sentence, or indeed my speech, I would have said that. I will come to the issue of funding in a moment.
There is little doubt that we have unmet need and inefficiencies—multiple assessments are an example—and my hon. Friend the Minister has acknowledged that there are inconsistencies in local authority provision. Those factors, together with the fact that care packages are not portable between local authorities, mean that many disabled people, older people and their carers do not have the freedom of choice that they have every right to expect. I want briefly to discuss those issues.
It has been well documented that more than 70 per cent. of English local authorities restrict access to support to those who meet the highest eligibility criteria. There is an issue about access and about charges. Yesterday evening, I hosted a meeting on behalf of the National Centre for Independent Living to draw people’s attention to a report that the centre has published on charging for care. It was a pleasure to be at that meeting with the hon. Member for Eddisbury. I will not repeat the conclusions that he brought to our attention, and I am grateful to him for doing so, but it is a fact—albeit, in this study, based on a small sample—that people are being discouraged from securing the care and support they need because of charging. They are afraid of increases in charging in the future. That is notwithstanding the fact that the Government have put far more funding into social care than the previous Government. It is a fact that funding for local authorities more generally has been significantly higher than under the previous Government. However, we all know that demands are increasing for demographic and other reasons, and that aspirations are, understandably, increasing.
The Coalition on Charging is right to say that we need an urgent review of charging policy in the context of the debate about care and support. It represents 18 well-known organisations, including Age Concern, Radar, the National Centre for Independent Living, Disability Alliance, Carers UK, the Alzheimer’s Society, Mind and Mencap. Those very well-known, competent, professional and knowledgeable organisations are all urging us to tackle charging.
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the difficulties with charging is defining what is a social care need and what is a health care need? The Minister described a number of times the Berlin wall between health and social care. Is not the problem that sometimes some of the issues are being smuggled in or over the Berlin wall between those two, so that what is really a health care need, which should be funded entirely by the state, is called a social care need, and the person receiving the care has to make a contribution?
The division between so-called health care and so-called social care has been a problem since 1948. Indeed, it was a problem before then; it was just that in 1948 our predecessors set up a national health service and did not attach a similar importance to setting up a social care system. I should declare an interest, although no longer financial, because both my parents are in the advanced stage of dementia. I therefore have direct experience of the problem, as well as the experience that we all have from our constituents. I have never understood why dementia, as a medical condition, means that the NHS can abandon its responsibilities and hand people over to the social care system, whereas for those with cancer, which is also a medical condition, it does something different. The logic is clear: if people have needs as a result of their condition, we should have a uniform policy.
In terms of funding, as a society the taxpayer needs to make a significant contribution. As my hon. Friend the Minister said, it is right that individuals and their families inevitably will make a contribution. That is the nature of the debate. However, I do not find it useful, and never have found it useful, to distinguish between health care and social care in the sense of trying to find one set of principles for access or funding that can be applied to health care, and then making a great leap and saying, “But by the way, there should be a completely different set of principles that apply to funding and access in terms of social care.”
We are, as a society, trying to make progress—there is much closer working, for example, between the health services and social services in my area than there was 10, 15, 20 years ago. There is joint commissioning and joint budgets. For reasons that I do not need to repeat, I share the hon. Gentleman’s concern that often we apply different principles in different circumstances without being able to justify them intellectually or in any other way.
On charging, my understanding—I hope I have got this wrong—is that the review of charging announced in the independent living strategy, to be led by the Office for Disability Issues, is set for 2009-11. I hope the Minister will tell me that I have misunderstood, and that it will be brought forward to become part of the welcome overall review of care and support.
Let me make a point that arises from the report published yesterday by the Coalition on Charging. As I have said, many organisations have expressed concern about this issue: organisations representing 10 million disabled people, 6 million carers, and who knows how many millions of older people, depending on the definition. Of course there is some double-counting and, indeed, some treble-counting, but the community of interest in care and support represents a very large proportion of all our constituents.
Disability organisations, older people’s organisations and carers have united on this issue, as they have on the related issue of independent living. We would be well advised to recognise that, according to a major body of public opinion, it is time we did more to ensure that disabled people, older people and carers have the same rights, choices and freedoms as everyone else, along with access to good-quality care and support. Whether we agree with those organisations or not, as elected representatives we must recognise that they speak for a fundamental and significant group of our constituents, who will rightly demand action from us. A coalition of interests is emerging that I did not observe three or four years ago, and it is clear from the Government’s response to the concerns expressed in the consultation document that they recognise that as well.
The report by the Coalition on Charging refers to the additional costs incurred by disabled people for such necessities as heating, equipment and accessible transport. Disability-related expenditures are important to the determination of charging policy, but it is often said that many of them are not taken into account for that purpose. We need to address charging policy extremely seriously.
I am very interested in the meeting that was held yesterday. I am not sure whether Leonard Cheshire Disability is a member of the coalition, and I do not know whether my hon. Friend has read its report “Your Money or Your Life”. According to that report, when social care support is cut, family members are much more likely to leave their jobs to become full-time carers, and families then slide into debt, poor health and endless worry. Is that covered in the coalition’s comprehensive report, and does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should take it into account?
Leonard Cheshire Disability—another admirable organisation, for whose work I have great respect—has raised such issues on a number of occasions, and they are very pertinent. Earlier this year, it examined the implications of disability-related expenditures for the extent of poverty among disabled people. It is relevant to the debate, for obvious reasons, that according to official statistics three in 10 disabled people—3 million out of 10 million—live in poverty. If necessary expenditure on extra heating, adaptations, equipment, accessible transport and personal assistance are taken into account, according to the most conservative estimate a disabled person’s cost of living is 25 per cent. higher than that of a non-disabled person. Leonard Cheshire Disability deserves credit for coming up with what must be the most conservative estimate, but if it is true, that means that not three in 10 but six in 10 disabled people live in poverty.
The additional dimension that I therefore want to introduce into the debate on the future of care and support is that—despite the Government’s achievements in reducing poverty very significantly, including for disabled people, the extra money going in and all the other policies—we must recognise that as of today, there is a real challenge here, because many disabled people are living in poverty. When we talk about charging policies for care and support, we must not forget that fact.
Nor must we forget the obvious, which is that means-testing does provide disincentives for people to save. Gosh—I am agreeing with the hon. Member for Eddisbury again, but I am sure that we all know that. This is an important issue, particularly for those living on very low incomes. Indeed, if the Government are to meet their poverty targets, which I believe they will, they will have to address disability poverty, because we will not meet our child poverty reduction targets without reducing disability poverty. So this is an enormous agenda, and it is all related to the future of care and support.
My hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) raised the question of funding, and the truth is that we get the social services and social care that we as a society are prepared to pay for. I have always accepted the view—indeed, a sane person could not do otherwise—that taxation is the price we pay for a decent, civilised society, so it is self-evident that anyone who wishes to spend more money in a particular way has to be prepared to vote for it and to indicate where that money comes from. That is as true now as in any other circumstances.
I would add, however, that there are significant savings to be made in the social care system. There are ways in which—I am sure that the Government are looking at this; the organisations certainly are—the system could be made less bureaucratic, wasteful and inefficient. First, there are multiple assessments for benefits. I am often driven to tears, as we all must be, when a constituent tells me how many forms they have had to fill in to access benefits. Then, there is social care, housing, accessible transport, adaptations and so on—the list goes on and on. I met a constituent the other day who had assessments going into double figures. This is a complex issue and it is not easy to solve, but we can do better than that.
On adaptations, does my hon. Friend agree with me that it is not just a question of the bureaucratic cost involved, but the delay? For example, in County Durham the assessment is done by the county council and the adaptation by the district council, and the delay involved is sometimes not weeks but months. Throughout that time, the person who needs the adaptation is clearly suffering and having a very poor quality of life.
I agree with my hon. Friend; we will all have encountered that experience.
It must be said that sometimes, it takes a long time for the assessment to take place, and then it might be out of date, so another assessment has to be made. Alternatively, the assessment is made when one is absolutely convinced that the relevant local authority has no intention of sanctioning the expenditure. Resources are spent assessing people’s needs when there is grave doubt, to put it mildly, whether the resources are there to meet those needs. That is not a very efficient way of using money.
Also, reducing delays in meeting people’s needs can be not only the right thing for the individual but incredibly efficient in using public resources. The Office for Disability Issues has examined a range of initiatives on independent living and has pointed out, for example, that investing in housing adaptations and improvements can result in long-term savings. If we invest in the adaptations necessary today, we are less likely to have to spend on social care or residential care further down the line. On occasion, I am not sure whether we have a system at all. We have a jigsaw puzzle; we have a mixture of initiatives, some coming from one area, some from another. The collective effect of our complicated system is that if decisions were made quickly, they would often result in overall efficiency in the system. Some up-front funding in a range of areas, including housing adaptations and support, could lead to the efficient use of resources in the future. We must recognise that we get the care and support system for which this country, as a society, is prepared to pay.
Does my hon. Friend agree that another problem is that the one significant area of a council’s budget that is not ring-fenced is the adult social care budget? That means that it is in the council’s interest to raise charges, to extend eligibility criteria and to exclude people from care, because it can then use the money somewhere else, if it wants to do so.
My hon. Friend, who has great expertise in this area, is absolutely right; the point has been well made, and I hope that he will get the opportunity, in a moment, to make it at greater length, because it is significant.
I have been talking about the fact that investing more in improving the care and support system can, in many respects, be good finance, because money is saved further down the line. We should not forget the obvious: that investing in enabling people to live better quality lives not only gives them their rights, but it enables them to contribute to society. The Minister made the point that we are talking about individuals who not only have rights, but who, if they are enabled by having the same freedom, choice and opportunity as everybody else, can make enormous contributions to our society. We should get away from any notion of a burden.
I wish to give others time to contribute to the debate, so I come to my final point, which relates to the inconsistencies in local authority provision and the fact that care and support packages are not portable from one local authority to another. I was first made aware of that major problem more than 10 years ago, when there was a lobby in support of disability rights in Westminster Hall—that has since been repeated. I met someone from Lambeth who told me that he wanted to move to Southwark—I cannot remember whether he wanted to move in order to work or to live in Southwark, or to do both.
This individual wanted to move from one London borough to the borough next door. When I did that—I used to live in Lambeth and I now live in Southwark—I encountered no problem; I just moved. He faced the serious problem—it was not the trivial problem of just finding and sorting out somewhere else to live—of not being able to take his care and support package to the next-door borough. He was terrified of the prospect that if he moved from one borough to another, he would lose his entitlements and, moreover, that it might take ages—his perception is more important than the reality, but we know that these things take time—perhaps a year or so, for his care and support package to be sorted out by the next-door borough. He told me, “I am a prisoner in Lambeth. I don’t have the freedom that you have. It took me ages to sort out a decent care and support package. I am happy with it, because it is a good package, but I want to live somewhere else.” We are not talking about another country, because he was moving next door, to another London borough, yet his package is not portable.
For many years I was a local councillor and I believe that localism has many merits, but it also has many disadvantages. The hon. Member for Eddisbury and I were at a meeting last night and the one occasion on which I got a round of applause—perhaps the rest of my speech was not very good—was when I said, “This is localism gone mad.” The disabled people, older people and carers present knew what I was talking about. Baroness Jane Campbell and many others have made the point that the lack of portable care and support packages denies disabled people freedom and choice. It is not good enough that each individual local authority should have its own packages.
My personal view is that disabled people and others want a fair and universal system for care and support packages. I am not saying that local authorities should not be the very important agents that implement the packages or arguing that we should reduce their important role in this matter. However, it imprisons disabled people if they cannot move their care and support packages.
Care and support is a vast and challenging area, and I commend the Government on the progress that they are making. It is part of the commitment to make progress on independent living. However, we still have a long way to go before everyone can exercise the freedom, choice and rights that independent living means. It should be a priority for policy developers and for resources, because millions of our constituents deserve nothing less.
I welcome this debate on the Floor of the House on a key aspect of public policy that all too often does not get the attention that it deserves. It is especially good to follow the hon. Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry), who rightly drew the House’s attention to the coalescing of coalitions around the need for a much more rights-based approach to the delivery of care as a key part of making progress on this agenda. I hope that at the end of the debate the Minister will respond to the hon. Gentleman’s remarks about portability, because it is nearly impossible for people with a care package to move from one locality to another with confidence that it will continue in place.
Listening to the remarks by the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O’Brien), I thought that they were a model of the speech that someone should make if they were keen to be spotted through Google. All the key words were trotted out, such as Alzheimer’s Society and Age Concern—it was a list of the key words that people interested in the issue would punch into a search engine, but anyone who found the hon. Gentleman’s speech in that way and started to read it would find that it had nothing at its heart. It had no substance: we heard nothing but analysis, with no prescription or any attempt to suggest that the Conservatives had any policy, other than during an exchange with the hon. Member for Kingswood about the Conservatives’ 2005 policy.
That 2005 policy is, we understand, the party’s current position on the funding of long-term care. It is described as a “limited liability model”. Well, it is certainly limited, in a range of ways. Most importantly, it is deceitful in saying that the state will step in to meet the care costs of an individual in long-term care only after three years. That is deceitful to the public because the average life expectancy of someone in care—these figures are quite dated—is little more than 18 months. For most people, therefore, the liability is limited absolutely and they would never become eligible for state support under the system proposed by the Conservative party at the last general election. The reality is that, in the past few years, because of tightening of eligibility criteria, life expectancy in care homes has become even shorter.
We also heard the curious argument that the Conservative party is in some way frozen, unable to develop a policy, because the Government have not yet published all the data. The hon. Member for Eddisbury gave us data by the bucket load, yet the Conservative party still cannot articulate a policy of its own. I hope that the timetable that the hon. Gentleman urged on the Government will soon be published by the Conservative party, too. The people of this country need to know what the Conservative party, as well as my party and the Labour party, has to say on these issues.
I want to move on and say something about my party’s position.
Before the hon. Gentleman moves on to the subject of his party’s position, did he notice, as I did, that the hon. Member for Eddisbury spoke with some pride about a Conservative council that gave free care to the over-80s? Does his analysis of that coincide with mine, which is that in those places—I would call them the leafy suburbs, although the Isle of Wight, which he was talking about, hardly fits that description—where people are better off, they tend to live longer? That means that the better-off are favoured compared with those who struggle throughout their lives to live, to eat and to have good health.
Those issues are inherent in the system. There is that difficulty. The hon. Lady has made her point very clearly and it is now on the record.
When I approached my preparation for this debate, I was overwhelmed by an incredible sense of déjà vu. More than a decade has passed since Labour came to power, promising to tackle the long-term care issues that were facing this country. Secretaries of State and Ministers have come and gone, and so have consultation papers, Green Papers and reviews—even Prime Ministers have come and gone. Yet one constant remains: social care in this country is still a poor relation of health policy and of almost any other aspect of public policy. It is undervalued and underfunded, and there is much within it that is unfinished business.
Why do I say that? One has only to look at the record. For example, in March 1999, as the then Secretary of State for Health, the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson), concluded his statement on the royal commission on long-term care—I am sure that some hon. Members will remember that august group and the publication that it produced, which is still gathering dust in many parts of this House—he said:
“I hope that the royal commission’s report and the debate that it will stimulate will help us to find a way of ensuring that people have access to high-quality long-term care that is fair to both individuals and the taxpayer. I hope that it will be founded on a consensus that will stand the test of time: a dependable contract across the generations. That is of great importance because, second only to good health, elderly people seek financial certainty and security, and that is what the Government are determined to deliver.”—[Official Report, 1 March 1999; Vol. 326, c. 743.]
Some determination—10 years have passed, but those words could have been almost exactly replicated by the Minister today. Indeed, in some ways, they were.
I do not deny that it is good to have consultation and dialogue and to build consensus, but the Government embarked on the process in 1999, and 10 years on we are still waiting for the action that will begin to transform the system. Ten years on, the system for funding long-term care is as confusing, unjust and unfair as it ever was. Instead of acting, the Government have been content to defend and tinker with the status quo, introducing piecemeal changes of the sort that have been set out by the Minister in his speech today, but failing to tackle the fundamental unfairness in the system.
In those 10 years, the health service ombudsman found that the NHS and the Department of Health had allowed thousands of elderly people to be ripped off, paying for care that should have been fully funded by the NHS. Just this week, a constituent of mine wrote to me to tell me of the long-running battle to recover the costs of their mother’s care, which, as is now accepted, should have been funded by the national health service. She has just received a cheque for £91,000 as a consequence. The sums that have been repaid to people as a consequence of what is, frankly, the mis-selling of care by the Government and the NHS run into hundreds of millions of pounds. Yet, thanks to the conspiracy of silence between the NHS and far too many social services departments around the country, people have been means-tested, which happened to my constituent’s father, who was forced to sell his home to pay for long-term care.
Even now, the lottery of access to care continues. Huge disparities remain between the numbers of people primary care trusts say will qualify for NHS continuing care funding. Of course, the new framework is welcome, but it does not yet appear to be getting the traction necessary to effect the sort of change that the rhetoric suggests is being demanded. For example, figures from Age Concern just last year show that, in Gloucestershire, funding for continuing care covered just six out of every 50,000 head of population, compared with Coventry, where 88 out of every 50,000 people got access to NHS continuing care. Any plan for the future of care and support must deal with the funding question.
A new financial settlement for social care must strike a better balance between the funding of health and social care by local and central Government and individuals and families, as well as the mixing in of private and voluntary sector contributions. The royal commission on long-term care offered a way forward to deliver such a rebalancing of the system, but the then Chancellor of the Exchequer set his face against the commission’s central proposals. Indeed, by the appointment of those who served on the commission, he sowed the very seeds of its own failure and destruction.
I regret the fact that the then Chancellor chose to set his face against the commission. I believe that good policy demands that we look at the evidence and that we learn from experience. That is why the Liberal Democrats championed the case for implementing the commission’s central proposal. In government, that is exactly what we did in Scotland, and we saw the idea made reality. Perhaps it is not a perfect reality, but we still believe to this day that we should see that as a cause of pride, because it made a difference in Scotland and because those who independently assessed the scheme acknowledge that it made the system somewhat fairer, although perhaps not fairer overall.
I will take the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, as we sparred on a number of occasions on these subjects when he was a Minister.
The independent assessment that said that that policy was a good idea was carried out by the man who came up with the idea in the first place.
I am referring to the assessment done by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation a couple of years ago, which was separate from Lord Sutherland, who, quite rightly, has also done such an assessment, in which he was prepared to acknowledge both the warts and the good points. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation acknowledged in its assessment that the system had been fairer than the one that still operates in England.
I have been agreeing with the hon. Gentleman, and I strongly support the royal commission’s conclusions on paying for care. Since then, however, the Liberal Democrats have backed off and joined the Tories and the Government on these matters. Is he not speaking against his own party?
Not at all; I am taking some interventions that have stopped me getting to the point of my comments. At the top of this part of my remarks, I simply said that no good policy and no one involved in policy making can ignore evidence and experience. Although there are good aspects to the delivery of free personal care in Scotland, some aspects of it are not working. Some perverse incentives have been built into the system. We accept that they mean that we must change our policy, and we are doing so.
Let me set out what we think needs to happen. Even if we are changing our policy, we are the only ones who still have a policy and are prepared to articulate one. No policy has been articulated by the Conservatives, and we have not yet had one from the Government. As the hon. Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) rightly suggested in his intervention, Lord Sutherland said that the system in Scotland had problems, but he also acknowledged that it is working well in many ways. In recognition of those difficulties, we have changed our policy.
In striking a fair balance of funding, it is essential that absolutely everyone is clear about who pays for what. Lack of transparency is the fatal flaw in the current system that must be addressed. We believe that when framing new policy, any Government must clearly mark out what funds come from the state through the taxpayer, and what comes from the individual. The foundation of any new system must be the principle of universality, to ensure that every person has access to a guaranteed minimum standard of care.
Liberal Democrats believe that the work that Derek Wanless did for the King’s Fund offers a practical way forward: that work suggested a personal care grant based on need, not ability to pay, for those who require personal care. Under our proposals, that payment will be set at two thirds of the cost of all the care that a person needs, guaranteeing a minimum standard of care. On top of that, every pound that an individual spends to make up the other third should be matched pound for pound by the taxpayer. That would create the climate necessary to incentivise and reward saving and ensure that there is the necessary means to fund fully a care system. Those who are on low incomes should be entitled to support for their care costs through the benefits system.
Putting that new settlement in place will not be without a cost. The point made in interventions in this debate is absolutely true: we cannot get something for nothing when it comes to trying to drive up standards and deliver better quality care.
I shall just develop my point a little bit, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind. Based on the modelling that has been done for the London School of Economics by Julien Forder, who was involved in the Wanless work, it is estimated that the cost to the taxpayer of our proposal for paying two thirds of the cost of care and matching additional individual contributions pound for pound would be £2.1 billion. That cost, and how we pay for it, will be set out in detail in the costings documents that we always publish as part of our manifesto, which are always appraised independently, found to add up and found to be effective in demonstrating how measures are delivered.
Unlike the Conservatives.
Unlike the Conservatives.
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I am spoiled for choice. I will give way to the Minister.
I respect the hon. Gentleman’s contribution to our debates, but from an economic literacy point of view, how on earth can one come up with a policy without identifying how it will be paid for? He has just conceded that his party has not yet done that, but says it will find a way of doing so at some point. He has identified the policy and how much it will cost, but he has completely failed to identify how it will be paid for. How much extra tax would the average taxpayer have to pay if the policy were delivered?
I will not take any lectures from Treasury Front Benchers, given the debacle of the doubling of the 10p tax rate and the fact that extra money was borrowed to get us out of that policy. The Government’s record on fiscal responsibility went out of the window then. We have said that we will identify specific savings, which will be earmarked to pay for our policies, and we are doing so. We have already set out some, and we will set out more. We will deprioritise some issues in order to prioritise care of the elderly. Surely that is what any sensible Government do when allocating resources.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
No, I would like to make progress. I will take another intervention in a minute, if the hon. Gentleman will bide his time. I am sure that we will still be somewhere near the subject when he gets his chance to intervene. It is not just our belief but that of many independent experts that that £2.1 billion extra a year is the minimum necessary to provide the care guarantee that every elderly person in the country needs. Such an approach has been welcomed by a wide range of organisations. I will not make a “Google point” by listing them. Let us be clear: there is no cost-free solution, as much as the Government might want us to wriggle on that hook, and might want to try to embarrass my party and me because we have outlined how much extra we think needs to be spent. The current system is unfair and not fit for purpose, and additional investment is essential to allow the system to move on to what we need for the future.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
I will; the hon. Gentleman is persistent.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He described his policy as a two-thirds-for-free package, followed by a pound-for-pound match by the taxpayer. According to my simple arithmetic, the Liberal Democrats have moved away from free personal care to five-sixths free personal care. In other words, the only extra money that the individual will provide is one sixth of the total cost of personal care. Given the demographic changes that we foresee in the next 20 years, that is not a £2 billion cost but a cost of something like £10 billion. Where will he get that sort of money from?
The hon. Gentleman will recall from his detailed study of the royal commission’s report when it considered projections that it concluded, first, that we should not allow ourselves to be driven to distraction by the myth that a demographic time bomb is about to explode and make it impossible to provide dignity in old age; and secondly, that in terms of the share of GDP that will be necessary over the next 20 to 30 years, the increase will be less than 1.1 per cent of GDP to realise the free personal care proposals.
In his report, Derek Wanless set out the implications for GDP. By 2050, the cost reaches about 2.6 per cent. of GDP, compared with its present level. As a price that society should be prepared to pay, a slightly increased share of GDP for dignity in old age is a price that I am prepared to go to the electorate and argue for. I am disappointed that the hon. Gentleman is not. There is no cost-free option.
Derek Wanless published a report for the Government which advocated increased investment in health care. It was a seminal moment after the 2001 general election, which gave the Government the case that they needed—the Chancellor’s case—for a significant boost in spending in the national health service. We strongly supported that and voted for the extra resources to be made available. That report contains the seeds of a further concern of mine.
In his report on health spending, Derek Wanless rightly made a link between health and social care spending. He rightly identified that social care spending had lagged behind health spending. Over the past decade, NHS spending has increased by 70 per cent., whereas social care funding has risen by 14 per cent., yet in so many ways they are two halves of the same system: underfund one, and we undermine the other.
The Wanless report recommended a review of social care funding. The then Chancellor said no to such a review. Is that still the present Prime Minister’s view? Is he willing to commit to the investment in social care necessary to deliver a sustained and better future for social care? That is the question that the Government so far have not answered, yet they expect us in opposition to do so. We have been clearer about our position and how much it will cost than the Government have been prepared to be so far.
All the indicators point to a system that is under huge pressure. Care is being rationed ever more tightly. The Commission for Social Care Inspection, in its report “The state of social care in England”, paints a depressing picture of the system’s difficulties. The number of older people receiving services has fallen year on year, while the number of people with unmet needs has risen. More than 120,000 fewer people are receiving home care than when the Government came to power. The commission found that more than 250,000 people are receiving no support at all from local authorities, charities or commercial care providers for the daily tasks with which they need help, and almost 500,000 are receiving less help than they need to maintain a decent standard of well-being.
That adds up to over 700,000 older people in England who are not getting the care package that they need. At the same time, there has been a 25 per cent. fall in the number of people having their care costs met by local authorities in the past 10 years, as a direct result of ever tighter eligibility criteria. The Leonard Cheshire report “Your Money or Your Life” has been mentioned. It paints a disturbing picture and presents ample statistics. I do not want to cite them, but I shall give two quotes from the report about the impact of ever tighter eligibility criteria on real people’s lives.
The first is this:
“He tried to commit suicide by drowning himself—he has fallen and banged his head”.
The other quote is as follows:
“He had 77 hours of care a week and it’s been halved—he can’t be on his own—he now shuffles around on his knees. He needs constant care.”
Care is now routinely restricted and rationed in this country to those with substantial or critical need. I had to look up the definitions to be clear what that meant—just how critical one had to be, how substantial the need had to be.
The rhetoric is all about independence—a vision we can all share and embrace. The hon. Member for Kingswood rightly talked about the need for far greater emphasis on independent living in what the Government do. But to qualify on the basis of critical or substantial need, one has to have been the victim of abuse, to be the potential future victim of abuse or at death’s door. Those are key criteria used to sift out those who are entitled to the largesse of the state and its support and those who are turned away.
The future of care support has to be a lot more ambitious. We must connect the lofty goal of independence to the reality of people’s experience of the system on the ground. That is why the review of eligibility criteria is important, but it should not just ensure a level playing field. The level is so low at the moment that we have to do more to be ambitious to get the quality of life that we want people to enjoy.
It is not just who pays for care and the level that the taxpayer contributes to that care that have to be addressed. There is also a need to overhaul the legislation governing adult social care. Today, there are more than 40 Acts of Parliament governing the organisation and delivery of social care in this country. The legislation has all the hallmarks of its piecemeal evolution, with differing philosophies of care, reflecting the era in which the legislation was drafted. The National Assistance Act 1948 is a good example: crafted for a rather different view of the world in terms of how politics and public services would be delivered.
Private Members’ Bills have attempted to crowbar important reforms into statute, the carers legislation being an obvious example. That is a good example of individual private Members leading the policy agenda in the House through legislation, but surely the Government need to take stock of the carers legislation. There are also considerable gaps, overlaps and contradictions between different existing pieces of legislation.
How is any practitioner, or anyone who wants to access the system, supposed to keep abreast of all the primary legislation, let alone the regulations and guidance? It is a mystery to me how we expect that someone we wish to take control of their budgets and personal lives will be able to do just that. The Minister was right when he talked about unintended consequences of the community care legislation, which to an extent left self-funders out of the system of being given support and helped to navigate through the system. That is why we need a new comprehensive adult social care Bill, which would consolidate and reform the way social care is organised and delivered, setting out in law the key principles that underpin the system. In many ways, this would address how we deliver that notion of independence.
The only way we can deliver a notion of independence is by empowering individuals to have the rights, even through the courts, to demand what they are entitled to. If it is down to care plans, guidance, Ministers making promises at Dispatch Boxes or local executive members of councils promising things, none of those is ultimately as tangible as the ability to take them to court and hold them to account. We need to look at how we ensure that the system is reformed in that way. At its heart is the idea of empowering users of services and carers to get what they need. In this way, the essential needs of carers can be met too.
No matter how good or gold-plated the social care system becomes, there is no substitute for the huge contribution of family carers. I have no doubt that the new national carers strategy, which is to be published next week, will contain much that will be welcomed on both sides of the House. Many will have contributed to the consultation, but unless carers have a legal right to services, too many will continue to shoulder a burden of care, paying the price with their own health and well-being as a result.
The Minister knows that I have raised concerns over the years about the scandal of elder abuse in this country. Elder abuse is a serious matter and the Government are to be applauded for funding a study that found that 342,000 people over the age of 66 are the victims of one form or another of abuse: fraud, theft, psychological or emotional abuse, assault, restraint and various other things. The study set some pretty high hurdles before someone could be counted in it as a victim of abuse. It excluded those in care homes, who are now to be included in their own new study, and anyone with dementia. The study’s figures must be a conservative estimate of the problem.
To be honest, I would rather we went beyond just catching and punishing abusers. That is important, and the Government have introduced measures that might help us to do that, but we need a system that prevents abuse in the first place. A new adult care reform Bill could place the user and carer clearly at the heart of the system so that they can determine the service provision that they need. Getting the service right will reduce the risk of abuse happening in the first place. In that context, I hope that the Government will give local authorities and the courts the powers necessary to protect vulnerable adults from abuse.
There have been proposals; they have been around for more than a decade. In 1995, the Law Commission said that it had no confidence in the adult protection procedures that existed at that time. However, not a lot has changed since then. The Law Commission proposed that to protect vulnerable adults, social services departments be given powers similar to those to protect children: a duty to investigate; powers for magistrates to issue entry warrants; temporary protection and removal orders; and an offence of obstructing officers acting on behalf of the courts. However, all that was put to one side, and we had the guidance issued in the form of “No Secrets”—worthy words that have not changed hearts and minds or secured the change necessary on the ground.
In 2006, Action on Elder Abuse completed its own study on behalf of the Department, and it found that “No Secrets” was not being taken up consistently across the country. It recommended that in respect of protection, vulnerable adults be placed on a statutory footing equivalent to that for child protection and domestic violence. That was in March 2006. Two years later, in March 2008, there was a welcome, perhaps overdue, Department of Health announcement—of yet another review. It was a review of “No Secrets” and one that may consider legislation.
When Victoria Climbié tragically lost her life because of neglect, abuse and failure in the system, it convulsed the child protection system and galvanised the Government into doing something. It cannot be right that we should have to wait for a similar shock to the adult protection system to achieve long-term, long-overdue reform and action.
In conclusion, the case for a new deal for social care is overwhelming and there are two essential elements for delivering that transformation. The first is dealing with the unfinished business of who pays for care. That must be settled. A partnership model that shares the burden clearly and fairly between the state and the individual is now the best way forward and the only way to secure a lasting consensus. Secondly, the transformation of the system that hon. Members want can come only by giving the users and carers power to drive change themselves. I am thinking not only of policy change but of statute. That means clear legal rights to services through a reform of adult social care law. Those most vulnerable and in need in our society deserve no less; I hope that in their remaining time, the Government do something about those two key challenges.
rose—
Order. Before I call the next hon. Member, I should say that the speeches so far have been extremely lengthy, perhaps for good reason. However, the whole House can see how many people are seeking to contribute. If hon. Members make shorter contributions, we can try to get everybody in.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister for his leadership on this subject. It takes only a short review of his curriculum vitae to see that he has the portfolio towards which his entire career had pointed him. That experience is being put to good use, as he shows real leadership on this subject. I congratulate him on that and on his opening speech.
As far as the opening speech made by the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien) is concerned, the least said the better. However, I should like to offer one particular criticism. Like many Conservative speeches, it fell into the trap of using a stereotype of what care is all about. I well remember that when I had the ministerial portfolio on these matters I was constantly having debates with the Conservatives about care homes. They were convinced that we had to take immediate action to keep care homes open around the country even though people did not want to go into them. There were shades of that view in the hon. Gentleman’s speech, indicating that they still have not heard that we want to create a new vision for social care.
As for the speech of the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow), he is right that we had many enjoyable jousts when I was in that job. However, I must take him to task over the arithmetic that underpins the Liberal Democrats’ policy. We clearly heard him say that their new policy is to invite the public to pay one sixth of the cost of personal care with the state picking up five sixths of the cost, instead of the entire cost, which was their previous policy. Let us examine that. There are 1.2 million people working in social care at the moment. The wages for 1.2 million people, even if they are on the national minimum wage, must be about £25 billion or £26 billion a year. The state puts £14 billion into the cost of social care, so the private sector, at the most conservative estimate, must be providing £12 billion. The hon. Gentleman’s policy is to raise £2 billion from some undisclosed place and invite the public to kick in £2 billion of their own money, after which the missing £10 billion will be magically found from somewhere else. If he had said, “The Liberal Democrats’ policy is that we need to kick an extra £10 billion a year into social care”, I would have replied, “Well, all right, that is in the right sort of ballpark. With an extra 4p or 5p on income tax, you go away and take that to the public and see how you get on at the next general election.” However, they are not going to take that policy to the public, because they know that the sums that they have come up with are profoundly dishonest.
My hon. Friend is trying to frighten us with big numbers, as so often in the past. The royal commission suggested that the figures would be far less, even over the next 50 years. Does he accept that such sums are scare figures and in reality are much smaller, and that even if they were at that level, the majority of the population would probably agree to pay for them out of taxation, provided that it was fair?
First, I would say that the royal commission is entirely wrong. Secondly, the figures that I quoted are today’s figures, not tomorrow’s figures or made-up figures. There are 1.2 million people working in social care. Their wages, paid for by the public sector and privately, must be in the region of £25 billion. The public sector only kicks in £14 billion. The difference is the cost of personal care made up for by people’s personal contributions. If the Liberal Democrats are saying that they are going to pay for that, they must promise to pay for all of it, not some mythical small amount.
My hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) mentioned the royal commission and its idea that social care can somehow carry on over the next 50 years as it is and that we should not let the potential demographic time bomb deflect us. Let us look at those figures. We know for a fact that the number of older people has quadrupled in the past 100 years and doubled in the past 75 years. We know that the number of people over 65—currently 9.3 million—will increase to at least 17 million by the middle of this century. We know that the number of people over 85 will at least quadruple by that time. We know that the number of people with learning disabilities—about 800,000—will increase to 900,000 by 2020—
I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman as he trots out those important demographic statistics, but may I ask him about his attack on the position of the Liberal Democrats? Our policy is founded in the research and modelling done by the London School of Economics for and on behalf of Derek Wanless in respect of his work for the King’s Fund. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that that was complete rubbish and therefore should not be the basis for any policy making?
The Chancellor has already indicated that he will not use that work as the basis for policy making, and one reason why may be that he shares my concern about the number of people for whom we will have to provide care in the future. In a moment, I shall come to my vision of how we should resolve these issues. I have some proposals to put to the Government, and I do not know whether they will be taken up.
We have to start planning for a transition from where we are today, spending about £10 billion from the public purse on older people’s care and another £4 billion on the care of people with disabilities, to the position in 2050. We should be planning not on spending twice as much at that point, but on spending three or four times as much to provide the same level of care as we do today. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North, who I see is shifting in his seat waiting to intervene, that that is not enough. We are not spending enough today, and we have to plan on spending three times more just to stay still, if we are to carry on doing the same thing.
Einstein used to say that madness is continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result. My argument is that we have to start repositioning social care. We have to think again about what social care will look like in the future, because we cannot plan on the basis of its looking as it does today. Not only do we need a completely different vision of social care and the way in which it will work, we need a completely different vision of how we will pay for it. When the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam and my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North, whom I shall give way to in a moment, talk about social care funding, it is clear to me that they are talking about where the money goes to, but in my view they are failing to think about where it comes from. I shall give way to my hon. Friend; I am sure that he will tell me that he would be perfectly prepared to put up income tax to pay for such care. I suspect that our voters would not be.
I have asked many of our voters about this issue, and they say that they would be happy for income tax to be raised to pay for care so that they would get it. Why do we not look at the models of Scandinavia, Germany and France? Even today, France and Germany spend 2 per cent. more of GDP on health than we do—£30 billion more on health in British terms. We are miles behind the levels of spending in Germany, France and Scandinavia, and we should be spending at those levels.
I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to spend more on social care. We are not putting as much into it as we ought to be. All I am saying is that even if we put that right today, and carry on providing social care for the next 50 years in the way in which we do now, we will not be able to afford it in 50 years’ time. We have to start investing in different ways of providing support for people that will reduce the cost of social care.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry) touched on some of those ways. Adaptations and telecare have a huge potential to lower the cost of social care by allowing people to be provided with care and support remotely. We should be making significant up-front investment in helping people to implement telecare. We need to be thinking of providing tax breaks to those who are prepared to put such adaptations into their homes, if they want to be self-supporting and they do not already have them.
I have argued passionately for some years that we need a huge expansion of extra-care accommodation; I know that the Department is keen on such accommodation. We need to get that message across to the Department for Communities and Local Government as well. Extra-care accommodation is where people live in their own flat or bungalow in a community in which flexible care packages are available. People go into those communities when they are relatively fit, hale and hearty, and if they have the flu for a couple of weeks in the winter and need a bit of care, a flexible care package is available. If their condition deteriorates as time goes on and they need more care, they can build up their care package. As they are living in a community where many people have different needs, care can be provided in a very cost-effective way. Most of all, it maintains people’s independence. When one asks people what two things they want out of the social care system, my constituents reply, “We want to maintain our independence and stay in our own home. We don’t want to go into a care home. We understand that some people may have to go into care homes and nursing homes, but we don’t want to be those people.” The extra-care model provides that independence. People have their own front door and the ability to stay behind it if they wish. In addition, private home owners can lock away some equity in the cost of the home. People want to continue to have some equity and pass it on.
I shall cut my comments short because so many colleagues want to speak, but I encourage my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to examine some research by the International Longevity Centre. I provide some advice to the UK branch, and a researcher called James Lloyd recently produced some excellent research, which considers inheritance packages in this country. It shows that there is huge expectation among people of a significant inheritance. Approximately 2 per cent. of people a year get a significant inheritance, but many people expect to get an inheritance of tens of thousands of pounds at some time. That does not apply to everybody, but it suggests that more than enough wealth is locked away in personal property for many people to provide for their social care and a comfortable standard of living in their old age, if they can find ways to free up equity that do not put their entire equity at risk but allow them to manage their affairs appropriately. Buying extra-care accommodation is one method of achieving that.
Another method of unlocking some of the equity and putting it into social care that the International Longevity Centre recommends is a social insurance model. That encourages those who can do so to make a lump sum payment into a social insurance model at the age of 65. The money will provide the billions needed to provide free social care to all those who contribute to the model for the rest of their lives. It would provide the sums of money that the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam needs to seek and the free personal care that people need. It would share the burden between everybody who reached that age. Existing state funds could then be used for those who do not have the equity or the means to contribute to the social insurance fund. Those are not the only ideas that we should consider, but I believe that they should be given some thought in the consultation on which we are about to embark.
I have asked many people whether they would prefer to put at risk their small amount of equity in granny’s family home or pay slightly higher taxes. Without exception, everyone said that they would much prefer paying a slightly higher rate of tax to putting the small amount of equity at risk.
I take my hon. Friend’s comments at face value—I am sure that his constituents say that. However, my constituents do not say it to me; perhaps we have very different constituents. I also stress to him that I have not proposed models that put equity at risk. In both models—extra-care, whereby people buy into care communities, perhaps with some sort of tax incentive from the Government, and social insurance, whereby people use some of their equity at the age of 65—the remaining equity would be protected. Their inheritance to their kids would be protected if that is what they want. The rest of us would not be faced with a demographic time bomb and potentially huge increases in income tax to pay for such care. Perhaps my hon. Friend would like to propose his idea of paying for all that through extra income tax. I am perfectly happy for that to be on the table, but we should consider the full cost, not the Liberal Democrats’ mythical £2 billion. We should consider the full £10 billion or £15 billion and then see whether people are prepared to pay the hike in income tax that would be needed to cover it.
If the hon. Gentleman’s constituents are not willing, as other people are, including in my constituency, to pay the extra income tax needed to provide coverage across the board for everybody, can he clarify why they would be willing to put their equity into a care community or social insurance, knowing that everybody who was not doing so would be paid for by the taxpayer? Why are people not willing to pay through taxation, but happy to use the system that the hon. Gentleman describes?
Because of the standard of care that people will receive, as they will be able to maintain their independence in a way that might otherwise not be possible and because the Government might encourage them through income tax breaks, since that system would be more profitable for the Government than relying on income tax. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam has been telling his constituents that they can have free personal care for only £2 billion, which is about 0.5p on income tax. I am sure that we would all pay 0.5p on income tax for free personal care. However, the cost will not be 0.5p on income tax; it will be 4p or 5p, and our constituents will not stand that.
Let us have a sensible debate about the future of social care. Most of all, let us ensure that we are aiming for a vision of social care that allows people their freedom and independence, and achieves the generally higher quality of care that we shall all be looking for when we reach that age.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman). He was the architect of some of the reforms that we have debated this afternoon and has made a plausible bid to get his job back by sharing with us his vision of social services in the future. I hope that he will excuse me if I do not follow him down the same path.
The only point that I want to pick up from previous speakers is that which the hon. Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry) made, quite rightly, about the lack of portability of social care packages. It is not just local authorities that do not provide portability; it is the national health service. We can move from one GP to another and find a totally different prescribing philosophy or find that a new primary care trust has a totally different approach to IVF, for example. The hon. Gentleman put his finger on the problem, but it is much broader than he described.
I want to focus on one aspect of social care, namely the move to self-directed support in social services, which is the most radical and exciting change currently taking place in social policy. Before I talk about that, however, I want to say a word about two carers organisations in my constituency.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien), in a powerful speech, mentioned young carers. Growing up nowadays is difficult enough, but it is even more difficult if, at the same time, a young person has to care for a parent or sibling. I pay tribute to the work of the Andover young carers project, which cares for about 150 children between the ages of eight and 17 by providing somewhere to meet, homework clubs, support groups in school, short trips and holidays. The project is a lifeline for vulnerable families and enables them to function effectively. The other organisation is the Princess Royal Trust for Carers. I am sure that other hon. Members have branches in their constituencies and that, like me, they will be launching carers week in their constituencies next week.
We have made enormous progress in enabling people who work to care at the same time, by developing flexible working. We now need to make similar progress in enabling people who care also to work, in order to achieve their goals and raise their incomes. Both the organisations that I have mentioned survive on a shoestring, and I am sure that that is the same for many voluntary organisations in other constituencies.
I want to talk about personal directed support—the move from an inflexible, institutionalised response to personal care needs, individual budgets and personalised care or self-directed support. Personal directed support is a much more user-friendly response to social care, which, as the Minister said, means that people will have a life, rather than a set of services, which often entrench further dependency on the local authority.
Hampshire county council, which is a progressive authority led by Ken Thornber, with Nick Georgiou as director of adult services, has set up a commission to take the policy forward. Serving on that commission is this year’s president of the Association of Directors of Social Services, a local authority chief executive, leading academics and representatives of the voluntary sector. I sit on the commission as a humble observer.
I want to make three points about the change to personal directed support. First—the Minister touched on this—there is a parallel between the debate about personal directed support and a similar debate that took place 30 years ago, when I was the doing the job that the Minister is now doing. At that time, we had large numbers of elderly people in long-stay geriatric wards in hospitals and even more people in mental hospitals with learning difficulties, or mental handicap as it was then called. Most of them did not need to be there and did not want to be there. They were disfranchised and institutionalised; they were not in charge and they could not choose what to do. So, we moved to a new policy—care in the community—that enabled people to become de-institutionalised and to lead as normal a life as possible in the community. We hear the same kind of language today about the need to move away from today’s institutions—adult training centres and residential care, for example—to other forms of personal support.
At this point, I need to mention the Treasury. The Minister was briefly a Treasury Minister. When the debate on care in the community was going on, the Treasury’s interest was aroused. It saw enormous savings; pound signs flashed before its eyes as the mental hospitals were closed, the land was sold off, and the public sector employees in hospitals and mental hospitals were dispensed with; informal and “cheaper” care in the community was just round the corner.
The policy was never going to save any money. The reason for introducing it was not to save money; it was done because it was the right thing to do. Moving away from large-scale institutional provision to more tailor-made individual provision is likely to cost more. In the short term, it will certainly cost more, because of the need to keep two systems going in parallel. We had to develop the services in the community before we could close the mental hospitals. I think that the same will be true of the move to personal directed services. It will not save money if it is done properly.
I think that it was the university of Lancaster that carried out some research on this subject, which showed that less can be spent on individual budgets than on local authority-provided services. However, part of the reason for moving over to a new regime is to intervene earlier and to help all those people who are not being helped at the moment. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury mentioned CSCI—other hon. Members certainly have—which has criticised the tightening of the eligibility criteria. Many people with substantial needs—let alone those with low levels of need—do not get any help at all at the moment. This is before we even start to consider introducing the Wanless model, in which everyone gets something for nothing, and which must cost more. The lesson of history is that these types of social reform will not save public money and that, if we are to achieve the goals and unlock the potential, they will actually cost more.
My second point might help to solve the first one. Other potential sources of funds could go into individual budgets besides what is being spent by adult services. The primary care trusts, for example, might be able to put some money into the kitty. As the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) said, the trusts have had much more generous settlements over recent years than social services. Other local authority departments, such as adult education, could chip in. The potential pool to be spent is therefore bigger than the one currently being spent by adult services. Indeed, one could argue that disability benefits should also go into the pot. If the aim of a disability benefit is to enable someone to overcome their disability, should it not form part of the pot of personally directed support?
My final point on personalisation, or self-directed support—
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Very briefly.
The right hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech, and I am enjoying it very much. I agree with an awful lot of what he is saying. May I encourage him to look at a 10 Downing street strategy document that was produced about two years ago, which covered personalised budgets? It included the recommendation that we should indeed investigate taking money from all those sources and putting it into people’s personal budgets.
Indeed. The point that I was about to make was even broader: personalisation need not be confined to social services. We could apply it to education, and to higher education. Indeed, once the personalisation genie has been let out of the bottle, where do we stop? We almost reach the point of education vouchers if we go down the path of personal budgets or individual budgets for personal care.
Finally, I want briefly to touch on the implications of the new policy. There are obviously going to be implications for social services departments. At the moment, they are the funder, the advocate and the supplier. They provide all three functions. Once we move to personally directed support, they will be the funder, but they will not be the advocate and they will probably not be the supplier. This will have enormous implications for the structure of the departments, and they will have to make absolutely certain that independent advocacy services are available. It is not true to say that older people do not want choice, but it is true that most of them do not want the hassle of navigating the care system without easily accessible advice and support. At the moment, sadly, information and advice services are exactly those that are being cut back, and that needs to be addressed if the roll-out of self-directed support is to be feasible.
The supply side of personal social services must respond. There will be a whole new market as individual buyers try to invest in particular packages of care to meet their needs and a whole new infrastructure will have to be created to respond to the change in the market as resources are shifted from institutional provision to more individualised provision. There will be fewer block contracts, much more transparency on costs and, crucially, a need for more trained providers who can provide the individual packages that people want. That has implications for those working in the adult training centres and in residential care. All the pilot studies of those local authorities that have gone down that path show that there is reduced demand for that type of provision. On the commission that Hampshire has set up, which I mentioned, we have already heard the concerns of those who work in social service departments, thinking that their jobs are threatened or are at best going to change.
Related to that is the viability of the traditional services as some people opt out and it becomes uneconomic to keep the adult training centres going. That has happened in, I think, Oldham, which makes the case for a gradual phasing in of the new regime and retraining those whose jobs may go. Then there are some people who may choose not to choose—people who prefer to stay in a comfortable institutional setting—and we need to look after them.
There is the issue of risk. How do we reconcile the right of the individual to determine how he or she spends his individual budget with the obligation of a local authority to ensure that public money is wisely spent and to discharge its responsibility to look after vulnerable people. Risks were taken with care in the community. Some of them were unacceptable, and people were discharged who should not have been. The risks with personal directed support are different—that the resources will be misapplied or inappropriate services might be bought. Safeguards exist—the local authority will have to validate the plan before it can be implemented—but the fact that there is an element of risk is not a reason for holding back. What I find unacceptable is what is done at the moment in the name of risk avoidance—the curtailment of activity, particularly by elderly people in residential care, some of whom are sent to bed under sedation because of inadequate supervision in the communal lounge.
Any new system must be simple and easy to access. One reason why so few people have accepted direct payments—I think only 5.4 per cent. of those eligible have accepted them—is because of the paperwork. We have to make it absolutely clear that local authorities or the advocate can handle the paperwork once the individual has decided on the package.
A point made by other hon. Members is that the new regime must reach out to everybody who needs help, not just current users. One of the problems of the current regime is that the self-funders are left struggling while those who are eligible get a decent service.
Some real issues arise for carers. Can the funds in the budget be used to pay for what the carer does at the moment for nothing? Can they be used to help them remain in work and carry out other responsibilities? Can they be extended to help them and pay them beyond retirement age?
My final point is about resources. The issue of calibration is crucial: how much money do we allocate to individual budgets? There is a risk of getting the whole policy wrong if we make unrealistic provision for it and for the budgets, with people then finding that they get less support. At the moment, we can send someone to an adult training centre for three days. There is no transparency on costs and the cost is irrelevant to the individual. With personal directed support, the costs are of enormous importance and are very transparent. The experience with direct payments is that in some cases the sum allocated has been wholly inadequate to purchase the care that was needed, perhaps explaining why take-up is low. The policy will have to be adequately resourced, not least if we are to help more people and intervene earlier.
I make the point, which I have made to the Minister in other debates, that we need a step change in how social services are funded. I have expressed disappointment in earlier debates at the recent three-year settlement, which has left social service departments severely squeezed. The Treasury has got to be at the table if the policy is to fly. The new policy provides real, challenging opportunities. The challenge is to find the necessary resources, but we have an opportunity to make a real difference to the social care system—to come up with a system that is fairer, is seen to be fair, is more accessible, and makes a difference to everyone’s life. I hope that all Members can rally behind that objective.
I have been involved in social care issues for some 13 years, first as a council executive member and later when researching health and social care issues with national carer charities. I believe that social care is in a more prominent position now than at any other time during those 13 years. Even during my time in the House, it has risen on the political agenda. The demographic changes that we have discussed today are a big reason for that, but the Government’s commitment to the agenda is a key element as well.
The Prime Minister has placed social care and carers high on the agenda, but I also commend the personal commitment of the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis), who has won wide recognition among stakeholder organisations for the determined way in which he has driven social care issues to prominence. At a recent consultation event, he said that we should be judged by our actions and not our words in our commitment to social care. I look forward to seeing plenty of action to improve social care services in the coming months and years.
As next week is carers week, I shall focus on carers in my speech. One of the aims of carers week is to reach out to hidden carers and ensure that they know where to find help and support. Once they have been identified, they can gain access to the services that are available to them. As a result of recent policy developments, the number of such services has increased. Carers are to receive pension credits in recognition of their caring work, more money has been allocated for emergency respite care, and new information and help services are planned. That support and recognition is crucial to carers, as all the consultations for the strategy review have shown. However, we cannot avoid the fact that we cannot support carers better until we identify them more thoroughly.
In my constituency and across the country, there are to be many events to mark carers week. I congratulate all who do such work. One event, at St George’s high school in Walkden, aims to raise awareness of the most vulnerable group—young carers. A study by the charity Barnardo’s found that 91 per cent. of teachers feared that young carers were falling through the net, and about three quarters of them thought that pupils were hiding the reality of their circumstances from friends and teachers alike.
The teachers felt that it should be the responsibility of GPs and families rather than schools to identify young carers, but I think it important that schools and local authority children’s services take some responsibility for them. Teachers can develop an understanding of the burden felt by young carers, protect them from bullying, and support them if they fall behind in their work. I pay tribute to young carers projects such as the one run by the Princess Royal Trust Salford Carers Centre, which is working with St George’s high school.
On Friday next week I shall attend an event at Hope hospital, Salford, supporting the Salford carers centre’s efforts to make contact with hidden carers. I attended the same event last year, when we handed information keys to people as they passed our stand. I was amazed to discover how little recognition there was among even hospital staff that their role in caring for family members meant that they were really carers themselves. I discussed that with one person who questioned whether she was a carer, and whether the information applied to her. Clearly, she was. Although the hospital has a carer support worker on its staff, the message had not reached the staff that help and support were available and that their own organisation was in a position to help them, for example, by allowing them time off to attend medical appointments with those whom they looked after.
That is a typical example of the problems involved in this issue. As Members of Parliament, we state that there are 6 million carers, but we do not think about how many of them we are not reaching, helping and supporting. Those people think of themselves as daughters, sons, husbands and wives but not as carers, and even in political discourse the word “carer” is often used to describe paid care staff.
I discovered recently that the problem is often even greater among black and ethnic minority communities. At a national conference of carers from those communities, it was emphasised that language and cultural differences increased their problems. One carer said that in his language there was no word to describe schizophrenia. He cared for a son with the condition, but he could not describe it to others in his own language.
On two occasions I have introduced 10-minute Bills which would give health bodies a duty to identify carers and then require them to be referred to sources of help and support. Identification of carers should result from an holistic view of the patient and their family. Opposition Front Benchers have expressed a similar view—that we must move toward that more holistic approach. If the patient needs substantial care and support, GPs should be looking around and asking who is providing it and how they, as health care professionals, can support the person providing the care.
The need for GPs to identify patients who are carers and patients who have a carer was first stated by the Government nine years ago, in the first national carers strategy. The five-point checklist given to GPs in that strategy suggested, for example, that they check carers’ physical and emotional health at least once a year, that they tell them that they can have an assessment, and that they help them to find local support groups or carers’ centres. Clearly, that does happen—Members may be aware from their own surgeries of carers who know that such help is available—but even though my constituency has a wonderful carers centre, many of the people who come to me do not know about the help and care available to them.
The GP contracts established in 2004 appeared to offer an ideal opportunity to ensure that GPs undertook the work of identifying carers, but out of a maximum of 1,050 “points” available in the contracts for the quality of GP services, only three relate to identifying carers. In my view, that gives insufficient incentive to GPs to undertake what is becoming a vital task. I hope that the updated carers strategy and developments based on it in the months and years to come will ensure that we take on the vital task of identifying carers, making it something that GPs must commit to contractually, rather than just optional. Because the contractual reward is so small, many GPs simply have not bothered with it. We talk about personalisation, but as there is very much more for a family and a carer to take on board, knowing at the right point of diagnosis where all the care and support can be found is vital.
The “case for change” document asked which is more important: local flexibility or national consistency? It is crucial that we reach a consensus now on the balance between local decision making and ensuring a basic national entitlement to care. I believe that local decision making is important in many service areas, but, as other hon. Members have said, we have moved to a point where there are unacceptable differences between the level of social care services offered by local authorities and the continuing care services offered by various local NHS bodies.
Let me give an example of decisions on the eligibility of patients for continuing care, which can be crucial. A constituent of mine, Mrs. Reade, desperately wanted to care for her husband at home when he was diagnosed as terminally ill with an aggressive form of motor neurone disease. His final weeks of life ran across Christmas and new year. The Ashton, Leigh and Wigan primary care trust turned down the request for continuing care because there were so many delays in reaching a decision, mainly caused by staff absences during the holiday weeks. The absence of a social worker in the hospital proved crucial to things going wrong there. Sadly, the letter conveying this decision to Mrs. Reade, which was written in very difficult, technical language, arrived just days after her husband had died in hospital. We can and must do better than that.
Because I have two local authorities in my constituency, there is different provision for those of my constituents with moderate and substantial need; the services vary, depending on which council area they live in. I hope that the CSCI review of eligibility criteria helps to iron out those differences.
Many speakers today have touched on the need to recognise that service development is being pursued at different rates. Telecare, which I see as vital, has been used to great effect in some regions of the UK, such as West Lothian, and in some authorities—Oldham has been mentioned—but other authorities are not pursuing the new technologies at the rate that they should. I am very pleased that the Department of Health has announced the piloting of telecare and the £31 million investment to ensure testing on a large scale, but following the pilot, it will not be acceptable if some areas are allowed to lag behind in providing services involving telecare. My belief is that we have to accept the principle that people are entitled to equal care wherever they live.
In conclusion, I commend the progress made by the Government in developing support for carers and greater choice and flexibility, in recognising the need to regulate and develop skills in the social care work force, and in the recent and earlier developments in telecare. As we set out on a path towards that new care and support system, which I am sure all hon. Members want, I hope that we can embrace the two developments that I have discussed. First, we must ensure that GPs and primary care staff identify carers, because there is no way that they will obtain the advice and support they need if the primary care people do not do that. Secondly, we must ensure that local decision making does not get in the way of offering decent minimum standards of both social care and continuing care.
I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Worsley (Barbara Keeley), whose commitment to and enthusiasm for carers’ issues I recognise and entirely share. The debate has made yet clearer the scale of the challenge we face in constructing a social care system that is adequate and decent, and that covers to a good standard those whom it needs to cover. It is right that funding plays a large part in that, and we have talked a little about how that funding might be found. It has also been sensibly said that we first have to decide what kind of system we wish to fund, and I wish to discuss that initially.
I agree entirely with the hon. Lady and with others that it is too easy to talk only about the challenges that we face and not enough about the opportunities that the development of modern technology has presented to us—telecare is one of those. It is hugely encouraging and exciting that we can now examine ways of providing people with the reassurance that they and their families wish to have, while preserving their independence and their dignity, as the Minister mentioned, with a form of care that is not intrusive, but which works well for them. Those aspects of telecare give us some reason to be cheerful.
Of course, we face a number of problems and we cannot ignore them. Some operate at a very high level, being widespread and difficult to resolve, whereas others operate at a very small, personal level. I shall identify one such problem that will be familiar to all hon. Members who speak regularly to carers. In any system that involves people supplying care from social services departments or elsewhere, we should find a way of ensuring that as often as possible it is the same individual who turns up at a person’s door, because one difficulty we face is that often a different individual rings the doorbell each time. That means that it is difficult for a good relationship to be built up with the person who is being cared for. It also means that it is more difficult for anybody living at the house—perhaps a permanent, so-called, informal carer—to say, “If they’re five minutes late, I’ll leave the door open”, or “I feel happy to go out and have them in the house when I’m not there.” These minor, personal issues have a huge effect on the quality of care provided and on the overall experience.
It has been said—this point goes back to the macro level—that one of the major issues is the system’s complexity. There is no doubt that those who have not previously experienced it are befuddled by how someone goes about finding the care they need, and where they go for the help they want. As has been mentioned, one of the places people often end up looking for that help is the voluntary sector. It does tremendous work in this area, on which we should congratulate it, and I am sure that there are ways we can support the sector further. I heard what the Minister had to say about that, and it is encouraging.
We can perhaps be more imaginative still, by finding other ways of providing that assistance, support and guidance in other scenarios and circumstances with which people who use such things are familiar. We have spent a good deal of time in other debates in this House trying to think of ways of supporting the rural sub-post office network; we have tried to think of things that we can allow sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses to do that will give them a ready supply of income. Providing this sort of advice on how to find the right social services and how to gain access to these networks is something that rural sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses and, indeed urban sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses, could do very effectively. That is because of the relationship of trust that they have already built up with the sort of people who are likely to be the main customers for social services, in addition to being regular customers in their local post offices. I hope that we can also explore that.
Much of the complexity and many of the problems arise from the relationship, or lack thereof, between the health care sector and the social services sector. The Minister described it as a Berlin wall, but in many ways it is more like the Grand canyon. There is a gap between health and social services into which too many people regrettably fall. To give just one example, there is the game of pass the parcel between health and social services when someone who is in receipt of social services support is admitted to hospital—perhaps a rehabilitation hospital for a short time to get them back on their feet.
That seems to be a signal to social services that the person should no longer have any action taken on their file, which is put into a drawer. The person is now a health service responsibility, and no further work will be done on that file unless or until the person comes back to the front door of social services. That is regrettable, if we are serious about the sort of joined-up working that phrases such as “multidisciplinary teams” suggest should already be happening. I hear that phrase all the time, but I do not see much evidence of it taking place. It is common ground that we need more joined-up thinking, but the problem applies to cases in which assessments have been made and when short stays in hospital break up what was previously a reasonably effective social services provision.
It is impossible to ignore the economics in the context of this debate. The problem arises from the dysfunctional relationship between health and social services over exactly what is classed as a health need and what is classed as social care need. I make no apologies—nor would the Minister expect me to do so—for raising again the issue of dementia. As the hon. Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry) made clear, dementia is a classic example of the problem. As those with dementia find it progressively more difficult to feed themselves and to deal with other care needs, those needs are assessed not as health needs but as social care needs, resulting in a contribution being necessary—where appropriate—from the individual or their family. They regard that as bitterly unfair, and I am sure that the House can understand why that is. People with dementia and their families are by no means the only ones in that position, so any system we develop must find a fair way to identify needs. It is accepted that some contribution will be needed in the appropriate cases, but we need a way of distinguishing which those cases are, without trying to pretend that what arises from a medical condition does not in fact do so. That is an issue that we must consider.
Dementia will have a much wider impact on the social care system—either the existing system or one that we will construct in the future. The Minister knows the figures: 700,000 people have dementia now, and that will rise to well over 1 million in less than 20 years. Those people will put extra pressure on the care home sector and on the care delivered in the community. The Minister knows, because we have had this conversation, of my strong view that we should have mandatory training for those who work in the care home sector who will inevitably deal more and more with people with dementia. That argument applies equally to those who provide social care to the two thirds of people with dementia who live in the community. The care providers must understand the condition and the symptoms it presents.
The hon. Member for Worsley mentioned what is sometimes referred to as “informal care”, which forms a substantial part of the care provided. I personally do not like the term, as it suggests care that is casual or sporadic, whereas in most cases it is neither. In fact, it involves people sacrificing their own lifestyles for the benefit of the lifestyle of another. People prepared to do that deserve the greatest possible consideration in any debate on the future of social care.
Nor can we ignore the economics of the issue. It is correct that we will face a huge funding shortfall if we continue to provide only the level of support that is currently provided. The hon. Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) was probably right to say that the current figures are an underestimate, but the Government predict a £6 billion shortfall over the next 20 years.
According to Carers UK’s last assessment, carers save the state some £87 billion through the work that they do. It does not take much more advanced mathematics than even I can manage to work out that if those carers, for whatever reason, were unable to do even 10 per cent. of what they now do, we could swiftly more than double the deficit. Of course we have to think about ways to solve the financial crisis facing social care, but if nothing else we should not make it worse. That means ensuring that whatever we do, we support carers in all that they provide to the system and make life as easy as we possibly can.
I want to focus briefly on a minor subset of the people whom the hon. Member for Worsley described. Some 1.5 million of the 6 million carers are over 60 years of age, and I suspect that that proportion will only increase over time. Those people face particular challenges. It seems remarkable, looking at the figures, that 8,000 carers are over 90. How those people manage is completely beyond me. It shows that a large number of people who have considerable problems of their own are carrying out the functions of a carer.
As I say, the phenomenon will only grow because families will become yet more far-flung as time passes. There will be less support from other members of the family and spouses will often be the carer. Given that those being cared for are predominantly elderly, their spouses will be, too, and, because of increasing life expectancy, a carer might be a son or daughter of pension age. We have to think about the particular requirements of those people, which are obvious in many ways. The more elderly are more likely to fall victim to illness, and we know already that carers are more vulnerable to illness. We know that the physical requirements of moving someone around get more difficult the older the carer gets.
Some of the problems that face all carers face older carers more dynamically. I shall focus on two of those. First, respite care has already been mentioned and it is crucial to all carers, but one tends to find that the older generation are less willing to ask for respite even though they are more in need of it. The second problem is the relationship between carers and social services departments. That seems to me to be a major structural problem.
Among carers of all ages, there is the constant refrain, “We are not listened to. We are not respected. We are patronised and talked down to and we know the people whom we care for much better than social services do.” There has to be a better relationship between carers and social services departments to ensure that carers remain keen and enthusiastic to do what they do against all the barriers to their doing so, which will always exist. Any programme to deal with social care must address that problem.
We need to talk about funding and social services departments but, as the hon. Member for Worsley said, we must never forget the substantial portion of care that is provided by those who do it voluntarily, and who do it very well.
I want to add my praise to the Minister for the policies and spending programmes that he has been responsible for introducing as he described. I also praise him for bringing the Government to the position that they are in, with the beginning of the consultation that we have debated today.
We are coming to the end of the welfare state mark 1, which was designed by William Beveridge. I have always been slightly curious about the life of William Beveridge because for all my childhood I lived in a house in Beveridge close in Stoke-on-Trent. I always wanted to know why the street was named after him. It is tremendously to the credit of our predecessors, the politicians of 1941, that, in the depth of a dangerous war when the survival of our democracy was in the balance, they appointed William Beveridge to design the state of Britain that we would hope for when the war was won. The welfare state that was then implemented by the 1945 Government—the national health service, social security and the philosophy of support for every citizen from cradle to grave—has stood us in good stead until now, but the faults and strains of 60 years of pressure have been well described.
We have reached the stage where we need to design the welfare state mark 2, which must take account of the complex health and social care needs of many more older people than it did in the past. As my hon. Friend the Minister said, that involves an adult care system for many people other than old people; it is for all those who are disabled, those with learning difficulties, those with autism and carers.
I am pleased that so many hon. Members mentioned young carers. Although we have been talking about adult care, youngsters often care for adult family members and we must ask to what extent the pressure is on them to provide that care because of failings in the social care system. As adults, we must ask what is our responsibility and why we deprive youngsters of their childhoods, as they take on those grown-up responsibilities of caring for adults.
I hope that, in the consultation, we will design a system that can cope with all the new pressures and demands and be affordable. The Government are right to start with a fairly open consultation, with not very many constraints and restrictions, because there are big questions to answer about what we want in the system, how much it will cost and precisely what the public are prepared to pay through their taxes and through their personal expenditure from their own pockets, as they contribute to the debate during the six months of consultation.
I want to spend the very short time that I have to contribute to the debate in describing an event that I jointly hosted at Stafford with Staffordshire university a few months ago, before the consultation began. We set ourselves the objective of contributing to the national debate, while anticipating changes in future national policy and starting immediately to implement them locally in Staffordshire. Our audience involved three Departments, the Association of British Insurers and other insurance representatives from the national scene. We had regional representation from the health, social care and voluntary sectors, as well as the main players from the local providers of health care, social care and voluntary services.
We came up with five things that we thought it important to adopt in the policy. First, a conceptual change is required to assist an ageing society. We thought that universal provision must be taken as a prerequisite if we live in a fair and equitable society. Alongside that, we need a speedy integration of health and social care. It is important to invest in prevention as a high priority, echoing the King’s Fund report “Paying the Price”. We recognise that a significant debate is required on the balance between state responsibility, individual responsibility and family responsibility.
The second thing was the future work force. We need a work force who are both flexible and fit for the future. Work force projection and planning require more sophistication for the future. Although we now see a slow movement from secondary to primary care health provision, the move of mental health services into primary care advances at a much slower pace.
The third thing that we talked about was financing and communicating systemic change. A viable, fair and equitable system will cost more than the present one, but insurance alternatives need to be explored. A pooled finance system might help, by utilising state and individual components, and pass the equity test.
The fourth thing was intergenerational support. How do we persuade young people to start to think about old age and to plan for later life? What are the incentives for them to do so? Although the dignity in care agenda has started work on valuing older people, much more is still to be done.
The fifth thing that we wanted to talk about was the future focus of the system. Prevention must become a key priority alongside incentivising the health agenda, not the illness agenda. Technology needs the development that many hon. Members have commented on already today. They are the five points that we wanted to project. We want to move on to develop our services locally, anticipating what we think will be the national decision.
Before concluding, I want to tell my hon. Friend the Minister that Staffordshire university was a great help to me. It has a centre for ageing and mental health, and it wants to contribute to the debate. I would offer its help, with its agreement, to my hon. Friend in any way that he wants, perhaps by hosting events, running panels to contribute to the debate and advising the Department of Health if it wants it. On the same basis, I want to offer my assistance, as a Member of Parliament, in the consultation, and suggest that other MPs want to do the same. We are a very good resource for collecting the views of our constituents, and for explaining to people that the consultation is taking place and how important it is. If necessary, we can host events ourselves to contribute to the debate over the next six months.
There is so much more that I wanted to say, but there is not time to do so. I want to point out, as many people have done, the importance in any future care system of quality, the dignity of the individuals being cared for, and their protection from abuse. My last point takes the Minister on to a slightly different agenda. In the Queen’s Speech in the autumn, there will probably be a Bill on equality. One of the burning issues is whether there will be a full-blown outlawing of age discrimination in the Bill. Given all that we have heard in today’s debate, I urge the Minister to do his very best to make sure that the Bill outlaws age discrimination.
Like the previous speaker, I will cut short some of my comments, because we want to make sure that everybody can contribute before the end of the debate.
I will be fairly brief on the funding issue, which has had quite a good airing. We have already established that provision of care in all areas is underfunded, and the situation will get a lot worse. We have an ageing population demographic, people are living longer as a result of more prosperity and better health services, and not only are more disabled people being born, but they are living quite long and fruitful lives when they would not have done so 30 or 40 years ago, due to the sort of policies and medical capabilities that there were in those days.
Somewhere, someone will have to pay for the care that is needed. That can be done through general taxation, which is mutual insurance paid for according to ability, hopefully, although the Government’s tax policies penalise the poor more than the wealthy. The other way is to follow the extreme USA example, in which the emphasis is on the individual being responsible. If the individual has not earned or saved very much, for whatever reason, that is tough. About five years ago, I was in Lincoln, Nebraska. Those of us visiting met a voluntary group that gave us a fantastic explanation of how it helped elderly people to access support, care and so on when they needed it. There came a point when we suddenly realised that all that it did was advise elderly people on how to spend whatever money, personal insurance or benefits they had got for themselves. There was no state aid, effectively. I hope that we do not move towards that extreme in the coming years.
The Conservative and Labour Back-Bench spokesmen, but not my party’s spokesman, have today suggested that we cannot possibly consider taxation. They say, “We will not put forward any suggestions involving that side of things, because that would cost money and upset voters.” One way or another, we have to pay if we are to provide the decent society that various Members have talked about this afternoon. The money has to come from somewhere. It can come from a mix of taxation and payments; otherwise, there are the extremes: it could all come from taxation, or we could take the USA approach, which leaves one in five Americans with no medical cover at all. When they reach old age or have a disability, it is even worse.
We need to bite the bullet and be honest, especially given that we have only just reached the average level of western European taxation. We are not a highly taxed nation, contrary to what everybody on the street will tell you, if you ask them. I even read one analysis this morning suggesting that tax levels are lower than when the Conservative Government left office. I have checked the figures, so I know that we have just reached average levels of western European taxation. On health and education, which have had money poured into them, the average western European levels of investment has just been reached. We should not sell the pass completely and just say, “We are an incredibly highly taxed nation; we cannot afford to provide decent pensions, care, support and so on.” However, I shall not go into huge detail on that point.
Every MP has many examples brought to them by constituents. We have heard some today that illustrate the need for more and better targeted care services and care funding. One MP pointed out that he has two parents who are suffering from dementia. Many of us will have that experience in our families. Ten years ago, my father died with Alzheimer’s. Last summer, my mother-in-law died with aggressive dementia as a result of multi-infarct. A few weeks ago, my mother died with Alzheimer’s at 82. As so many others in the Chamber have done or will do, I have gone through all those problems that constituents bring us about ageing parents who physically need more help at home, and then start to lose their mental faculties. They may consider doing what we did: we moved my mother-in-law into our dining room and made it into a bedsit, and tried to cope in that way. As the dementia got worse, it became impossible. She needed 24-hour care. When one looks for care homes, all the issues of selling property, funding and payment arise. One way or another we will all go through that with members of our family, or ourselves, with our children going through it for us. The problem is widespread and we all have those experiences.
There are further examples that constituents have brought to me. One of them is early onset Alzheimer’s. Terry Pratchett, who was recently diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s, is a famous example. One constituent came to me five years ago and the problem has still not been solved. Her husband in his early 40s was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s, which is quite rare at that age. As a result, no care home within decent travel distance was suitable. Although at 40 or 42 he had Alzheimer’s, he knew when he looked around the care home full of old-age pensioners that there was something wrong—that was not his generation of people.
My constituent’s husband ended up in a care home some miles up the motorway, up past Rotherham, with his wife trying to travel back and forth every day to visit him. We had round table meetings with all the medical professionals and social services. We all agreed that it was an immense problem, and five years later we have still not solved it. That will become more common as we get better at diagnosing conditions such as early onset Alzheimer’s.
Respite care has been mentioned, so I will not go into detail about it. We can all think of constituents with autistic children. We have had examples of elderly people looking after elderly parents, where both sets are old-age pensioners. I can think of at least three sets of constituents where the old-age pensioner has been looking after a disabled child who is now an adult—pensioners who need care and respite themselves, but who have 30 or 40-year-old adult children living with them. One, for example, was born with mental disability and was blind, and is still living with his elderly pensioner mother. She is approaching 80 and he is 30 or 40-odd. Such cases are becoming more common and need support and funding.
The entire year’s budget for Derbyshire for disability adaptations to housing could be spent in the first three months of each financial year clearing the previous year’s backlog. That would leave not a penny for anybody who applied for a disability adaptation to a house in the current year. That is an ongoing problem and I am sure it is not specific to Derbyshire. Other Members must have come across it as well.
Some hon. Members have mentioned direct payments, usually with great enthusiasm. We all welcome direct payments. They are excellent in intent and in effect for the vast majority of people who access them. Some people want them to be spread into some areas of NHS funding and support, for example, but how good is the guidance and support given to people who access direct spending?
What happens for people who access direct payment and become a small employer for the first time in their life, perhaps when they are a vulnerable adult? What will happen, for example, to a 73-year-old man who becomes blind virtually overnight, and at the age of 74 takes on direct payment and becomes a direct employer? First, he has carers through care agencies, but as one hon. Member commented, people do not like that. They have lots of different care workers coming in and they are never sure who is coming each day. In the example to which I refer, the man became a direct employer of one care worker, which worked well for a while.
What happens if the person falls foul of employment law and ends up facing thousands of pounds of legal fees and compensation—about £20,000 in all, for a 79-year-old constituent who is blind? How do we avoid that happening? How widespread is that? I hope the Minister may be able to comment or write to me. I shall send him details of the constituent in question.
Derbyshire country council might give me a substantive reply on the matter fairly soon. I wrote a month ago and asked some specific questions. I asked the council to provide me with hard copies of the documentation on being an employer that it provided to clients like my constituent five years ago, clearly indicating where it emphasised the legal obligations that direct payment would entail, and the guidance and training that it gave on the requirements of employment law. I understand that the situation was pretty chaotic five years ago and that Derbyshire county council undertook a massive rewrite of the procedures for that reason.
In the council’s latest newsletter to clients using direct payments, which came out only a few weeks ago, on 24 April, it said that it had a three-year-old manual that was prehistoric and needed rewriting because it was so out of date, and advised clients to take out employer and public liability insurance. Did it do that five years ago, four years ago or three years ago? How widespread is the problem? The Minister may know about that from cases that have reached his desk. I have asked colleagues, some of whom say that they have come across the problem. I will write to him with full details.
Now that I have raised the issue in the House of Commons in a fairly gentle way, Derbyshire county council will give me a full, detailed and substantive response. If not, I shall seek an Adjournment debate to deal with the matter in rather more detail.
The debate today has been very good, and the thrust of the consultation document was to try to ensure that we not only support people in their own homes for longer, but make sure that their quality of life in old age is rewarding and comfortable.
There are cases, however, where it comes to the point at which people cannot be kept in their own homes. We need the fallback, especially in rural counties such as County Durham, of locally provided, resourced and staffed units to look after some of the more challenging and difficult cases with which relatives cannot cope at home.
The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) mentioned the movement to community-based support for mental health services and said that the Treasury saw it as a way of saving money. My problem with the present policy is that lessons that should have been learned in the past are not being learned. My experience of working with local Alzheimer’s charities is that they give people with severe dementia or Alzheimer’s a tremendous amount of support. A lot of relatives want to look after those people at home for as long as possible, but we all know—reference was made to this earlier—that behaviour can become challenging and it can be difficult for elderly carers to look after those people.
In Durham, we have the Earls House site, run by the terribly named Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Trust. The trust covers County Durham and some of us pointed out that it might have been a good idea to put County Durham in the title when it was formed, but we were ignored. The unit on the Earls House site, which covers the north of the county, provides accommodation for dementia and Alzheimer’s patients with challenging behaviour. The trust is just about to announce the unit’s closure. I take issue with the idea that we can have a consultation document where the preferred option by the trust is already there. As the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire said, the budget is driving this matter rather than the provision for elderly people in the north of the county.
The only provision for these patients will be 40 to 50 miles to the south of the county. We are hearing the right noises about supporting the community, but the beds are needed to support elderly people with difficult situations. For example, a Mrs Swann came to see me last week. She has a 77-year-old husband who has severe Alzheimer’s and has been in one of the two wards at Earls House, Appletree and Inglewood. She goes three times a week to visit her husband, who is grateful for the support he gets in that facility. She will now have to travel about 40 miles if the two wards close. Let us not make the mistakes that were made in the past, to which the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire referred. We will need provision in local areas, and the idea that everything can be closed and pushed into the community is not the answer.
My other concern was raised in a good speech by the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Jeremy Wright). It is how we give carers and relatives a voice. Frankly, I opposed the setting up of the NHS Appointments Commission—the independent arm’s length commission making appointments to various health trusts, because I am a bit old-fashioned. I believe that politicians should take responsibility for decisions.
Local accountability is not there in respect of the weirdly named Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Trust. How will Mrs. Swann and other relatives have a say in what happens about the two wards earmarked for closure? The consultation is out, and my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods) and I are objecting to the closures. Will those people be able to have an impact and change the situation? I doubt it.
We need to ensure that we give a voice not only to carers, but to relatives. As we know, the individuals in these cases are often unable to articulate the views that are needed. We should have the debate by all means, but let us be careful not to get into a situation in which facilities are closed and we more or less say that somehow people will cope at home. They will not.
I also want to mention something raised by the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire: the relationship between social services, acute trusts, local NHS trusts and primary care trusts. How do those interact? How do people work their way through that network? We need to consider that carefully. If we are to keep people in their homes for longer, we cannot have the silly situation mentioned earlier, in which, for example, the county council does the assessment for adaptations, the district council direct labour organisation does the work when it finally gets around to it and the poor client is unable to hurry up the case or, in many cases, to get an answer about some of the assessments. I hope that the abolition of the single-tier local authority in County Durham will help. However, if we are to have these joined-up care packages, I am concerned about how people will have that seamless service, whether they are in hospital, local authority care or, like Mr. Swann, in a hospital ward run by the acute trust.
This has been a good debate and the document is the right way to start the consultation. However, at the end of the day, what we are discussing will not be a cheap option for care. If all parties enter the process with that starting point and realisation, we may be able to get a system that is better not only for recipients of care, but for their carers and loved ones, who are also important and want their elderly relatives to be treated with pride and dignity.
With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should say that, on the whole, this has been an excellent, high-quality debate. However, I have to turn to the contribution from the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien), which demonstrated that Conservative Front Benchers have no policies, no vision and no substance when it comes to these and many other issues. I asked the hon. Gentleman how often the group set up by the Leader of the Opposition to consider social carers had met, and his answer was, “Many numerous times.” Will the hon. Gentleman write and tell me how often it has met?
Will the hon. Gentleman also speak to Sir Simon Milton about Putting People First, probably the most radical transformation of social care for a generation? It is happening in every local authority area. The hon. Gentleman described it as “a bundle of papers”. I should tell him that there was never any commitment to a Green Paper specifically on individual budgets; later this year, we will publish the results of the evaluation into the individual budget pilots in the 13 local authority areas. The rest of the hon. Gentleman’s contributions were very constructive.
I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry) that there is a commitment to issue a Green Paper early next year. There is no doubt that as we consider fundamental reform of the system, we must take seriously the question of differential approaches to charging and, specifically, the portability of care packages. I pay tribute to his long-standing contribution to championing the rights of disabled people.
On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) must answer the question about where the money for their policy would come from. Would it, as he hinted, come from cuts to spending elsewhere, such as in the NHS? Would there be a tax rise to fund it? He must also say whether their policy is genuinely sustainable in the long term or simply intended to get them through the next general election. I greatly respect the work that he has done on elder abuse and on dignity for older people, and I hope that he will think that the review of the No Secrets guidance comes up with an appropriate system for adult protection that reflects some of the tensions and challenges that have been evident in the debate.
Everybody I have spoken to regards my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) as having been an excellent Minister for social care. He put in place the foundations that led to many of the reforms that have taken place in recent times. He is right that it would be wrong to talk about the future funding of social care being based on the existing system and model. The challenge is whether we can have a vision for the future that reflects people’s changing aspirations, the opportunities presented by technology and extra-care housing, and people’s behaviour in terms of financial incentives. This is not simply about tinkering with the existing social care system.
I pay tribute to the contribution by the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young). He clearly “gets it” in terms of self-directed support. It is one of the most radical reforms of public services—a redistribution of power between the state and the citizen the like of which has not been seen previously in public services. It is important that the policy is explained to people and that they are enthused by it, because it is an incredible example of social justice and equality of opportunity in action. He is right to point to the obstacles and barriers and to the lessons that we need to learn in putting into practice this entirely new approach to vulnerable people’s rights to exercise self-determination and maximum control over their own lives.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley (Barbara Keeley), who has championed the cause of carers for many years since she entered this House. I hope that she will not be disappointed when she sees the new carers strategy on the role of GPs as regards identifying and acting specifically on the needs of carers. She is right to refer to the appropriate balance between universal entitlement and local discretion, which has come up time and again in the course of the debate.
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Jeremy Wright) for the work that he has done in the House on raising the profile of dementia. We have to bring dementia out of the shadows—that is one of our great challenges. He is right to prioritise the need for carers to have access to appropriate respite and to note that professionals sometimes do not treat carers with the respect that they deserve.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), who is right to say that many of these issues are at the frontier of the new welfare state—they are the new challenges to which any responsible Government, and indeed Opposition, should face up. He rightly identified five themes from the work that he has done with Staffordshire university.
We did not speak enough about the work force. If we are to make a reality of this new agenda, it is essential to get the quality of the work force right. With a low-skilled, low-paid work force, we have a lot of work to do in thinking through the implications of the new system in terms of the people who will be required.
The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) said that Labour has poured loads of money into health and education. We do not often see that acknowledgement in “Focus” leaflets. He advocated significant tax hikes, although I am not sure that he will do so in his own constituency. However, he is right about guidance on issues such as direct payment.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) rightly talked about the nonsensicality of proposing the reorganisation and reconfiguration of services without being clear about the alternative provision that will be in place and the fact that that needs as far as possible to be available locally. There will always be a need for residential and nursing care, and sometimes acute hospital beds, for people with dementia. Decisions need to be made not just about the here and now, but with regard to planning for the long term needs of his constituents. I agree with him that there should be a genuine consultation but it must be about future provision and demand for people with dementia. It is important that the voice of relatives is heard in that debate.
It being Six o’clock, the motion lapsed without Question put.
Highways Agency
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Blizzard.]
I am particularly grateful to Mr. Speaker for granting me this Adjournment debate at relatively short notice. When threats to local jobs are involved, he is always concerned to ensure that Members have the opportunity to raise the matter on the Floor of the House.
I shall briefly sketch my constituency for the Minister. It had a fairly extensive industrial base, particularly in the Dunstable and Houghton Regis area, where we used to make the Bedford truck, and a large auto components industry sprang up around that making car batteries and so on. We had the ACDelco factory at the north end of Dunstable high street, the BTR rubber factory at the south end, and in between a number of other factories producing high-quality jobs and exporting goods all over the world. Sadly, much of that industry has gone in recent years, notwithstanding the excellent efforts of the economic development team and others in South Bedfordshire district council to bring new jobs to the area. We have some excellent new retailing and distribution jobs in the area, but we have lost much of our industrial base. The most recent loss was the closure of the ecomold factory, where some 200 jobs were lost, along with Dunstable’s last link with the car trade.
On 27 March this year, I hosted the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright), in my constituency. We were accosted by a developer who was seething about his dealings with the Highways Agency while trying to create jobs in the south of Dunstable. I took a close interest in the subject and followed up that developer’s concerns—I should make it absolutely clear that I have no financial involvement with him. What I discovered disturbed me very much.
My interest in this debate is to make sure that the redevelopment of the site of a former major factory that employed a great number of my constituents in days gone by is brought to fruition, and that the economic base of my constituency has a chance to recover. I should also point out to the Minister that the issue of local jobs is particularly critical for my constituency, because we are in one of the Government’s housing growth areas. The Government want 43,000 extra houses in our area. The people in those houses need to work and many of them will need the opportunity to work locally. For reasons of sustainability, and for various other reasons, they will not all be able to commute for miles, even should we want them to.
Unfortunately, the Highways Agency has a slightly chequered history. I shall mention two other issues before I come to the main substance of the debate, which is the agency’s dealings with the development on the former BTR site. My first general concern, which I mentioned briefly to the Minister last night, is the agency’s involvement in building what is known as the A5-M1 link, formerly the Dunstable northern bypass. That is a key requirement for all of my constituency, including Leighton Buzzard, and all the villages and towns outside my constituency, such as Aylesbury. It must function properly to serve local people and ensure that we have a vibrant economic base.
The Highways Agency and many other stakeholders are coming to Dunstable on 4 July to a meeting, which I shall chair, with the secretariat of the Government office for the east of England. It is critical to get the Dunstable northern bypass—the A5-M1 link—in place well before the housing growth occurs. Congestion in the area is awful. It is the reason for our losing many jobs recently and for the retail base in the centre of Dunstable experiencing particular pressure. I therefore look for a positive move forward on 4 July from the position at the December meeting.
South Bedfordshire district council has raised concerns with me about the fact that the new employment land lying alongside the growth area around proposed junction 11A of the M1—the point where the A5-M1 link will join the M1—means that the housing growth will start well before the transport infrastructure is in place to enable the land to provide the jobs for the extra 43,000 dwellings that are proposed for my area.
The main reason for the debate is the proposals for the site south of Dunstable. I understand that the design was first submitted to the Highways Agency in September 2006, but technical approval took a further 11 months to obtain—it was granted only in August 2007. If the final hurdles are successfully surmounted—as of today, that has not happened—it will take a good two years for building work to start on the site. I was especially concerned to learn from the developers that the Highways Agency had apparently not factored in the major factory site south of Dunstable, next to the A5, when it undertook its traffic modelling for the “green wave”, officially known as the A5Q relocation works, on which it spent £2 million a couple of years ago. It was a controversial scheme, which was subject to National Audit Office censure, unusual though it is for the NAO to focus on a local project and produce a report on it. However, the developers tell me that the traffic modelling did not take account of the major factory site, which included some 243,000 sq ft of former BTR buildings.
The developers, iCP, tell me that it has taken a long time to get the project near the starting blocks and able to move forward. They also tell me that they struggle with the fact that, despite being responsible for the full cost of working with the Highways Agency, they feel that they have no control over the process that the Highways Agency has imposed on them. I understand that the drainage design was submitted in November 2006, yet comments from the Highways Agency were not received until April 2007—five months later.
I gather that the Highways Agency offered two different types of procurement process to the developers, but advised them to choose one because the other entailed more legal complications. I further understand that there was a meeting with the Highways Agency on 28 April to try to iron out the final problems. I understand that iCP responded with everything that the Highways Agency had asked for on 7 May. Apparently it then took three weeks for the developers to receive minutes of the meeting. They were then told that the final legal document—the section 278 agreement, as I understand it is called—would be ready by the middle of May. However, I have spoken to the developers today and I understand that the document has still not been supplied.
I could provide the Minister with more detail, but I should say a little more about the fact that the costs to the developer have risen significantly because of the two-year delay. That has altered the economics of the project. In this debate, I am asking the Minister is to ensure that the new chief executive of the Highways Agency, who comes into post shortly, takes a personal interest in ensuring that the agency is as co-operative as possible, so that that important project, which will provide many jobs for my constituents, comes to fruition. The Minister will be aware that the financial climate has changed dramatically in the past six months or so, because of the credit crunch. We are lucky that iCP still thinks that it will be able to develop the site.
In essence, what I am saying to the Minister is that everyone in public life, including us, whose salaries are paid out of the profits of successful businesses, and all the civil servants and local government officers, who are also paid out of the public purse, need to realise that when they deal with commercial projects of this nature, there is a certain momentum about the business deal. Of course things have to be done properly to ensure that the traffic flows. However, if officials in the Highways Agency do not realise the commercial necessity of moving at a speed that will enable a project’s developers and financial backers to bring it to fruition within a realistic commercial time scale, a lot of projects—not just in my constituency, but throughout the country—will not come about.
At a time when unemployment is starting to rise—I have mentioned the 200 jobs lost in my constituency—and when, sadly, significant extra job losses are possible across the country, as we have read in the papers over the past few days, it is imperative that all Departments and all Executive agencies, including the Highways Agency, realise the need to ensure that such projects come to fruition.
My hon. Friend is clearly a powerful champion for his constituents and has made an impressive case on their behalf this evening. I agree with his call for the Minister to urge the Highways Agency to get its act together. In my constituency, which is also in a growth area, there are no plans to improve the A14 around Kettering until after tens of thousands of new houses have been built. That is simply the wrong way round. We cannot have extra houses first and road improvements afterwards. The developments should be the other way round, as my hon. Friend has said.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It seems that the issues in my constituency are similar to those in his and, no doubt, throughout the country.
I wanted to raise the issues that relate specifically to my constituency. I am passionate about the provision of local jobs in my constituency. Genuinely sustainable communities—that is what the Government like to call their housing growth plans—are communities in which there is a proper balance between housing and employment, with the necessary transport to get people between the two. Many people need the chance to work locally. The site in my constituency is next to the Downside estate, to the south of Dunstable. Many people will able to walk to work at the site, in a carbon-neutral and sustainable way.
I am grateful to the Minister for the opportunity to brief him last night on the issues. I ask that he give them serious consideration. I am determined that the commercial deal in my constituency should come to fruition. I also ask him to ensure that the officials in the Highways Agency develop a slightly better understanding of the pressures under which people in commercial life operate, especially in the new, constrained circumstances resulting from the credit crunch, when funding for commercial deals such as these is much less readily available than it was in the past. Land prices are falling, and, because of the two-year delay, the costs of the project, not least those arising from the Highways Agency, have risen considerably. I repeat: we are fortunate that the developer thinks that it can bring the project to fruition. I want to make sure that that definitely happens and that those jobs are available for my constituents.
I congratulate the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) on securing this debate. I also thank him for doing me the courtesy of briefing me last night on the subject that he wished to raise today. Of course, it was not a complete surprise, given that we have had an exchange of correspondence on the subject as recently as 21 May.
I have reordered my prepared speech, because I want to address the specific issues that the hon. Gentleman has raised before I talk generally about the role of the Highways Agency. I know that he has maintained an active interest in the conditions on the A5, both strategically and locally in his constituency, as well as in the development activity, and the infrastructure requirements needed to underpin it, in and around Dunstable.
The Highways Agency is an executive agency of the Department for Transport, responsible for operating, maintaining and improving the strategic road network in England on behalf of the Secretary of State. The agency plays a vital role in supporting the everyday lives of individuals and communities, and it is crucial to the success of the UK economy, giving good service directly to road users and thereby ensuring that the economy continues to thrive while ensuring that environmental conditions are not adversely affected.
In the case of the development at Dunstable, there were delays, but they were caused not by the Highways Agency but by shortcomings in the design presented by the developer’s agent. I fully respect the role that the hon. Gentleman is playing in representing an important developer and potential investor in his constituency, but I hope that he will accept that he has, perhaps inevitably, been presented with a one-sided illustration of the situation by the developer. That is inevitable, because the developer can speak only from his own point of view.
The criteria to which developers have to adhere when applying to participate in a development of this kind are well understood and well publicised. There really is no excuse for any developer to find himself out of the loop or for him not to adhere to any of the criteria. If that happens, however, the Highways Agency has no alternative. It cannot, for example, fast-track an application. It certainly cannot fast-track an application if the information that has been presented to it is in any way at fault, or if it in any way falls short of the criteria and standards that have already been publicised, and that any developer would know that he had to meet.
I do not mean to suggest, by those comments, that the developer has absolutely no grievance against the Highways Agency. I gave the hon. Gentleman an undertaking here in the Chamber last night that I would ensure that the agency approached this case with some priority, to ensure that we do not lose the valuable opportunity for this level of development in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. That is clearly a target that we both want to achieve—as does the Highways Agency. I would certainly be concerned if the agency had done anything to put that investment at risk.
I should like to refer the hon. Gentleman to the letter that I sent him on 21 May. There is no evidence, as far as I am concerned, that the Highways Agency is at fault in this regard. In fact, in any future similar development proposal, if the agents for a developer did not provide the required information, I would not expect the Highways Agency to proceed with the application.
I said I understood that things had to be done properly, and I gave the Minister specific examples of time scales which to my mind seem quite long. Let me give him one more. iCP gave the last legal documents to the Highways Agency on 7 May. It is now 5 June. They were vital to get the section 278 agreement signed and the agency knew how urgent that was. I understand that consecutive members of the Highways Agency have been on holiday over that period. Frankly, that is not good enough. Did the Highways Agency tell him about that today?
If that is the case, I agree that it is not acceptable. I shall make inquiries to ensure that I am fully apprised of those facts. There is no real major point of principle separating the hon. Gentleman and me on this case. We both want the same thing, and I would contend that the Highways Agency also wants the same thing. However, I shall ensure that there are no unnecessary delays between now and the final acceptance of this particular application.
With regard to the comments by the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr. Hollobone), we have discussed the matter he raised a number of times, not least during the Transport Committee hearings a few weeks ago. Instead of there being a presumption that housing growth comes before the development of the necessary road infrastructure, he suggested it should be the other way around. I would suggest that there could be a third way, which is that road infrastructure development should happen at about the same time as housing infrastructure. I would not support a situation in which perhaps billions of pounds—certainly hundreds of millions of pounds—are spent on a particular region in advance of housing growth. I do not think the hon. Gentleman would suggest that either. It cannot be the other way around, as he suggests. I think that the development has to happen simultaneously.
My hon. Friend and I are experiencing the same problem in that we are not getting roads at the same time as development is taking place. In my constituency of Kettering, the Highways Agency is proposing that the A14, which is a dual carriageway, is split into three lanes on both sides of the carriageway without widening it. Local people are frightened of driving on the road now. They will simply not go on it in future. There are no plans to change that until after 2016. In both Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire, the Highways Agency simply does not get the growth agenda of the Department for Communities and Local Government.
My understanding is that the A14 is a road of regional importance. The reason the work is not going ahead is that it has not been prioritised by the regional transport board in the hon. Gentleman’s area. However, I find it difficult to believe that following its transition to a three-lane dual carriageway, as it were, his constituents would refuse to travel on it. One overarching principle of any such development is that safety procedures and standards, which are very high in this country and in the Highways Agency, are adhered to. I encourage him to encourage his constituents to continue to use the road network, particularly following such developments.
I shall return to my prepared comments, because they refer specifically to the issue raised by the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire. The developer subsequently proposed a number of changes to the highways works as a means of reducing the cost. The agency afforded all the bidders the opportunity to review their prices as a consequence. All of that is in accordance with good procurement practice. Hence the overall cost of the scheme rose because the estimates prepared by the developer’s own advisers proved to be considerably lower than the cost of the current anticipated works. Also, the design costs of the agency’s agents are inevitably higher owing to the previously mentioned shortcomings of the original design and the resulting additional time required to recheck the submissions.
You will not be surprised to know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the agency has to charge developers the full cost associated with preparing documentation for section 278 work. I do not expect that procedure to end, and I think that hon. Members in all parts of the House would support it. However, I emphasise that the Highways Agency, the Department for Transport, I, the hon. Gentleman and all hon. Members accept that it is imperative for the Highways Agency to use every effort to ensure that we do not lose the opportunity for crucial investment—investment that creates necessary jobs and leads to the growth of our local economies and our national economy. In that regard, I do not think there is anything for the hon. Gentleman and I to disagree on—although there may be other things on which we wish to disagree.
I hear what the Minister says, and he is right. There is no difference between us: we both understand that roads must be safe, and that trunk road entrances and exits in particular must work properly so that there is no danger to the travelling public. What I have not quite heard the Minister say, however, is that he will make a serious attempt to ensure that the Highways Agency, going forward, understands the commercial dynamics of each project and at what point it might fail by virtue of the Highways Agency’s going through its various processes—which would waste everyone’s time, including that of the Highways Agency.
I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point. As he said, the Highways Agency is in the process of appointing a new chief executive. I assure him that at my first meeting with whoever the new chief executive may be I will raise that point as a priority, and will ask him or her to do exactly what the hon. Gentleman has suggested. Having said that, I should add that “going forward” is an expression that I never use. It is a horrible expression, and I urge the hon. Gentleman not to use it again.
The Highways Agency is committed to the delivery of the Government’s growth agenda, as exemplified by its input to the spatial planning process at all levels and specifically in relation to growth areas, new growth points and eco-towns. The challenge for the agency is to enable that necessary development to proceed, while ensuring that the reliability of the strategic road network is maintained. To do that, the agency has built good relationships with national, regional and local planning stakeholders. It continues to seek new ways of improving those relationships and contributing to truly sustainable solutions.
In operational terms, the agency minimises disruption to the travelling public, and hence the impact on local economies, by carrying out as much maintenance and improvement work as possible at off-peak times and/or overnight. Clearly the environmental consequences of overnight working preclude its being done on routes that are close to residential properties. That applies particularly to work on the A5 in Dunstable, where the trunk road also forms the town’s high street.
Although it is undesirable for the trunk road to be located in such an environment, the agency must work according to the realities of life while attempting to mitigate the effects of the road. However, as the hon. Gentleman knows, plans to remove the road from the centre of Dunstable are in the Department’s major roads programme. The proposed A5-M1 link to which he referred—the Dunstable northern bypass—will provide an alternative route for strategic traffic on the A5, and will provide significant benefits in terms of journey time reliability across the network. The preferred route for the scheme was announced in February last year; since then there have been minor changes, which were shown locally at an exhibition early in October.
We are not viewing the link road in isolation. Planning proposals are likely in the near future for a significant housing development consisting of up to 16,000 new homes north of Dunstable, between Houghton Regis and the link road. The development is part of the large Milton Keynes-south midlands growth area.
The Highways Agency and its consultants have been working closely with developers who have an interest in developing the land north of Dunstable and south of the A5-M1 link. A position paper which was signed recently sets out the matters that have been agreed between all parties so far, including the Highways Agency. The agency has also been giving its comments to Luton and South Bedfordshire district councils on the local development framework documents, which set out the proposals for future development in the Dunstable area among others. It has expressed a desire to become more closely involved with the traffic-modelling work that will underpin the transport strategy for the local development framework. For some time it has adopted a proactive approach to development in the Dunstable area, and it meets developers and others regularly to establish what must be done.
The one thing that all my constituents want to know about the A5-M1 link is when it will be built. Can the Minister specify a date?
I think that if I were to give the hon. Gentleman a date he would be more surprised than me, but I am happy to write to him informing him of the stage that the planning process has reached. It would not be appropriate to make such an announcement during an Adjournment debate.
The regional funding allocations provide the means of delivering the transport priorities for each region, and hence fulfilling those in the east of England plan. The Secretary of State for Transport’s response to the region on 6 July 2006 accepted its advice that the construction of the A5-M1 link road should start during the period between 2008-09 and 2015-16—a date that is not as specific as the hon. Gentleman would like—but also required the Highways Agency to proceed with the scheme through statutory processes—
The motion having been made at Six o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Deputy Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at half-past Six o'clock.