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10.53 am
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. David Davis): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) not only on securing this debate but on the best speech that I have heard him make on this subject in all the many years I have listened to him. I grant that it was not the shortest speech, but then that is a pretty difficult race to win. Although I obviously do not agree with everything that he said--not least his apparent comparison between Neville Chamberlain and myself in respect of appeasement--I certainly felt that he addressed the issue vigorously, as did the whole House.
A number of very perceptive interventions on my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford highlighted how important and central the issue of flexibility is. I am sure that flexibility will be the central axis of the negotiations in Amsterdam, and there will be a great deal of movement around it at that time. I am delighted that he has taken the role of John the Baptist in going around Europe before my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary, preparing the way for him. I trust that my hon. Friend will have a better fate than the original John the Baptist.
The speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) highlighted perfectly the issue that is at the heart of flexibility: the difficulty of squaring the circle between those who want one vision of Europe and those who want a federalist Europe. His input was very good. I also enjoyed the speech of the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Radice). He and I do not agree on many aspects of Europe, but I recognise how hard he has fought his case in his own party over the past decade.
Mr. Dalyell:
How would the Minister feel if Klaus Kinkel went around Britain lecturing us?
Mr. Davis:
I was asked that question on the radio. After five minutes of discussing what Mr. Kinkel said, the radio interviewer attacked me for not being more critical of him. I think that the hon. Gentleman is trying to ask what right my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary has to put his views. The answer is a very great right. Our argument is recognised and supported by many of the peoples in Europe, and it is perfectly right for my
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The debate has largely focused on flexibility, which has been hung on the hook of enlargement of the Union in the past. Enlargement to include the new democracies of the Union is certainly this generation's greatest challenge and opportunity. It is a vital vocation for the Union. Flexibility within it is driven by two views of the future after enlargement. On the one hand, there are those countries which argue that widening should mean deepening, to use the jargon of the art.
That view is virtually adopted by the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), who in December attacked the idea of maintaining Britain's veto after enlargement on a number of grounds. He said:
The other view of Europe is our view: Europe's strength lies in its diversity. That is the British vision. The approach that we support is designed for a Europe which respects the differing political traditions, social cultures, historical experiences and geographical features of member states, a Union with which all member states feel comfortable, which develops on the basis of consensus as well as diversity--exactly the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge.
Flexibility is already a reality in Europe. Not everyone agrees with it, and my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford highlighted that. The obvious examples are the provisions on monetary union and the United Kingdom's social protocol opt-out, but there are other, less obvious, examples of flexibility. The issue of zero rating of value added tax has been somewhat controversial recently. Britain and Ireland are the only two countries in Europe to maintain a derogation on zero rating on VAT on food and various other items. That demonstrates flexibility within Europe.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford raised the question whether flexibility would make Britain a second-class citizen and aid the on-rush of federalism in Europe. We differ on that issue. However, if he was describing the effect of the Franco-German proposal, I would agree with him wholeheartedly. That would certainly have the effect that he described. France and Germany have proposed a form of flexibility in which no member state would have a right of veto: it would be a veto bypass--there is no other way of describing it--and we oppose that wholeheartedly. That is--
Madam Deputy Speaker:
Order. We must move on to the next topic.
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Ms Roseanna Cunningham (Perth and Kinross):
I am grateful for the opportunity to express my concerns and the concerns of the Scottish National party about the operation of the cold weather payments scheme and the problem of fuel poverty in Scotland. The scheme was intended to ensure that our most vulnerable citizens had enough money to finance extra fuel requirements over winter. I aim to highlight the fact that it has failed on several fronts to achieve its aim.
To be eligible for a cold weather payment, an individual must be entitled to income support or income-related jobseeker's allowance and either be in receipt of a pension or disability premium or have a dependent child aged under five years. Payments of £8.50 a week are triggered only if the average mean daily temperature is 0 deg C or below for seven consecutive days or if such temperatures are forecast for the next seven days. The Meteorological Office monitors temperatures on behalf of the Benefits Agency at 70 weather stations in the United Kingdom, 18 of which are in Scotland.
It is widely recognised that anomalies in the existing system mean that it is failing to meet the requirements of those in need. The cold weather payments scheme was intended to prevent our most vulnerable citizens from getting into the dreadful position of being unable affordably to heat their homes during the cold winter. Its success or failure must be measured against that aim. The prevalence of fuel poverty among Scotland's poor therefore reveals the inadequacy of the current system.
Fuel poverty is defined as the inability to afford adequate warmth in the home because of low incomes and energy-inefficient dwellings. Energy Action Scotland estimates that about 800,000 households in Scotland still experience fuel poverty. That represents a staggering one in three Scottish homes. Poorer households tend to live in the least insulated and hardest to heat homes.
The 1991 Scottish house condition survey found that single parents, large families, the unemployed and retired people were far more likely to live in properties affected by condensation and damp, in both the public and private sectors. To achieve adequate warmth, such housing requires more fuel, so the poor have to designate a greater proportion of their disposable income to fuel costs.
An accepted definition of affordable warmth in purely monetary terms seems to be that no more than 10 per cent. of disposable income should be spent on fuel, yet Energy Action Scotland estimates that poorer families and individuals generally spend as much as 20 per cent. of their weekly income on fuel, compared with the UK average of only 5 per cent.
Research conducted by the Scottish Consumer Council has confirmed that low-income families tend to have electrical heating systems, which usually consume more fuel and are more expensive to run. The imposition of value added tax on fuel therefore has a proportionally greater impact on those who can ill afford to pay it. Once again, the Government have revealed their twisted priorities, adding to the misery of the poor instead of alleviating it.
Fuel debt is also a major problem in Scotland, representing the second largest form of debt after rent arrears in the social rented sector. In May 1995,
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Although the number of electricity disconnections has decreased, there has been a significant increase in the installation of prepayment meters, which are often offered as a last-resort alternative to disconnection. A study conducted by Scottish Power in 1993 found that each year about 7,500 households repeatedly go without electricity for more than 24 hours. That is effectively a system of self-disconnection. Almost half the respondents to the survey explained that they could not afford to buy power cards, which is a cause for great concern.
All those factors have a devastating impact on the health of the nation. The number of deaths from hypothermia significantly increases during the winter months. It is widely recognised that official records grossly under-record such deaths and gravely underestimate the problem.
During the debate on the Cold Weather Payments (Wind Chill Factor) Bill, the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Dr. Hendron), said:
I asked the Library to provide me with those figures, and I was told that the number of deaths in December 1994 to March 1995 was more than 600 per month higher than in the adjacent months, giving a total excess of 2,500 deaths for the December-March period. A survey of preceding years shows similar figures. Research has confirmed that most of the excess winter deaths are accounted for by elderly people, most of whom die of respiratory or cardiovascular disease. I am certain that those deaths are cold-related, and the fact that many of them could be avoided enhances the horror of the Government's tolerance of fuel poverty.
The present Prime Minister acknowledged the fact that there was a problem as long ago as 1986, when he was a junior Minister in the Department of Health and Social Security. He said that the excess winter deaths had
During the winter of 1993-94, a group of Scottish doctors undertook a study of urban hypothermia in the west of Scotland. The results were published in the British Medical Journal in September 1995. The group studied patients coming to hospitals in Glasgow, Paisley,
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The report confirmed my fear that excess winter mortality in Britain is greatest among socially deprived people with the worst heating. The majority of the patients--53 out of the 93 studied--were found inside the home, and most lived alone. All but two of the patients had heating, but two thirds of them had it switched off when they were found. The report noted that one of the explanations for the reluctance of elderly people to use heating in winter was the cost or perceived cost of fuel.
The prevalence of fuel poverty and cold-related deaths clearly demonstrates the extent to which the cold weather payments scheme fails to meet immediate need. One major problem is that there is no guarantee that payments will be made when the freeze comes. Without that predictability, people will simply not take the risk of running up fuel bills that they know they cannot afford to pay.
It is conceivable that we could experience five or six days of freezing temperatures, followed by a thaw that significantly increases the temperature for only a short time, bringing the average temperature for the seven-day period to above 0 deg C. In this lottery, is it any wonder that the elderly are too frightened to turn up the heat when they are left with the worry that they may not be able to meet the payments?
The scheme's eligibility criteria are far too restrictive. If we take the number of households on means-tested benefits as a measure of poverty, it includes 35 per cent. of households in Scotland, compared with 28 per cent. in England. I have already noted that fuel poverty is compounded by low income, yet the Government's scheme falls far short of providing assistance to Scotland's poor. In addition, the Department of Social Security estimates that between 34 and 41 per cent. of pensioner households eligible for income support fail to take it up, so they are denied access to cold weather payments.
Thus, the amounts paid out, even in the exceptionally cold winter of 1995-96, understate the need for extra help. It is not enough for the Government to make excuses and do nothing about it. If the Minister's conscience does not bother him and he does not share our sense of moral responsibility, perhaps he prefers to view the problem in financial terms. Scottish hospitals spent an estimated £20 million last year alone on treatment of respiratory illnesses.
A fundamental flaw in the existing scheme is its failure to take account of climatic variations in different parts of the United Kingdom. The payment, when it is triggered, is a flat rate of £8.50, regardless of whether the temperature is 0 or minus 15 deg C. That failure arises in spite of the Department of the Environment's admission in response to a parliamentary question in 1994 that it took more fuel to heat a house in Scotland than elsewhere in the United Kingdom. To heat a typical semi-detached house with gas central heating takes 23 per cent. more fuel in Glasgow than in Bristol; 28 per cent. more in Edinburgh; 32 per cent. more in Dundee--I see the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion) here this morning; he may be interested in that figure--41 per cent.
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"let's disentangle those two quite separate concepts . . . let's take first the issue of majority voting and then we can look at the issue of centralisation".
He missed the point entirely, of course, because majority voting is quintessentially about centralisation. By definition, majority voting means overruling nation states, and overruling nation states means moving power from the nation state to the centre. However, I shall not labour that point for too long, as I have only a few minutes to address the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford.
11 am
"Wearing my medical hat, let me say that hypothermia . . . affects many people who die of chronic heart failure or chronic obstructive airways disease. I have no doubt that for thousands of people death is hastened by hypothermia even though it does not appear on their death certificates."--[Official Report, 17 January 1997; Vol. 288, c. 586.]
A more accurate measure of winter mortality rates is to assess the number of excess winter deaths by comparing the number of deaths from December to March with the number in the four months on either side.
"perplexed successive Governments for years. . . The real problem, then as now. . . is not hypothermia, but the additional deaths from all causes, particularly heart disease, strokes and chest infections, which tend to occur in winter. It is a long-standing problem that our excess winter mortality rate is higher than that in other countries with severe winters, such as Sweden."--[Official Report, 2 December 1986; Vol. 106, c. 834-35.]
Nothing has changed. If the Prime Minister and his Government have not learnt the lessons in the intervening 10 years, I hope that he will take the time to read the debate and to listen to the voices of the numerous voluntary and professional organisations campaigning to eradicate the obscenity of fuel poverty.
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