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Mr. Darling: May I correct the hon. Gentleman on that point? We are proposing that, from 2003, payments should increasingly be made by automated credit transfer, but at the same time we are giving the Post Office the ability to provide banking services, which it did not have in the past. That means that, if they want to, people will be able to get their benefits from either the Post Office or the bank, so we are helping the Post Office network.
Mr. Syms: I thank the Secretary of State for making that clear, but, as he will acknowledge, there is concern among sub-post masters about that change. For many areas, particularly rural areas, the sub-post office provides a social service as much as anything else.
The royal commission on long-term care has reported, but we do not know what action the Government will take. We all know that there are costs--certainly to the taxpayer--whatever Governments do about long-term care, but I hope that the Secretary of State may be able to give us some idea of when proposals will be introduced. I represent Poole in Dorset, where a lot of retired people live, and many of them have to go into care.
Long-term care is a key and growing issue with which the Government will have to grapple and the matter of elderly people having to sell their homes to pay for care is arising rather more often these days. It is inevitable that that problem will grow, because people are living longer and there are more owner-occupiers, but there is a strong feeling that the current system is unfair. Someone who has not contributed a penny and is fully supported by the state could end up in a home next to someone who has had to sell his house to pay for his care. Australia has a system under which a percentage of the value of any home is protected and I was interested and pleased to see that, in "The Common Sense Revolution", my own party has started to address that issue--perhaps through an insurance scheme--to ensure that some of the assets produced by a lifetime of hard work are maintained for the individual and his family. That is a key issue.
I shall not discuss parental leave at length, but no doubt the Secretary of State is aware of the campaign to persuade companies to pay for parental leave. We all have to take account of the fact that letting employees go on parental leave represents a cost for companies, even if they do not have to pay those employees, because they have to be replaced and their jobs covered. If there is any argument for paid parental leave, it is that responsibility lies with the Government rather than a particular company. If companies are forced to pay for parental leave on top of paying for cover, they will be paying twice. The consequence will be that women of child-bearing age or those married to such women will not be as successful in the labour market because employers will be wary of taking them on. Long-term care is the biggest issue for my constituents and the Government have to introduce proposals with a degree of urgency because whatever proposals they make, it will take some time to implement them.
Mrs. Linda Gilroy (Plymouth, Sutton):
I join those who have expressed good wishes to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and Cherie on the announcement of an addition to their family. I suspect that the phrase "Blair's babes" will never have quite the same meaning again.
I had the great pleasure of visiting Downing street yesterday with three young constituents--Kerrie, Stacey and Frederick, from Hyde Park junior school--and Members from both sides of the House representing seats in the south and the west. It was a memorable afternoon for them.
Mr. Bercow:
I join the hon. Lady and other right. hon. and hon. Members in congratulating the Prime Minister and his wife. However, in the light of the announcement, does the hon. Lady think that that was what the Prime Minister meant when he talked about the year of delivery?
Mrs. Gilroy:
I am not sure that he meant precisely that, although given the number of Bills in the Queen's Speech that build on the good work that we have been doing to tackle child poverty and eliminate it in the next 20 years, the Prime Minister and the Government have the concerns of children very much at heart.
The Government's first 30 months--924 days--in office have resulted in some very positive developments for people in communities and businesses in my constituency. Those developments were grounded in legislation outlined in the first two Queen's Speeches and will be built on by this year's Queen's Speech.
Conservative Members really are grasping at straws by saying that Britain needs any type of revolution. Revolutions are about radical transformation, but Conservative Members are simply doing what they are best known for doing: looking at the past, not the future.
There have been significant transformations in my constituency in the past two years. We had some of the United Kingdom's highest unemployment rates, but they have been slashed to the average. At the previous general election, more than 10,000 people were unemployed in the two key Plymouth constituencies, but that figure is now down by almost one half, to about 5,000. On fast-track punishment for young offenders, we are nearly down to the national target of 72 days.
My constituency is achieving the Government's targets on class sizes for five, six and seven-year-olds. More than 3,000 young people in my constituency were in classes exceeding 30 pupils, but that number is now down to fewer than 300, and we are well on track to getting it
down to zero. We also have the benefits of a stable economy, low inflation and low interest rates, ensuring the highest-ever number of people in employment.
Significant transformations are bringing a new confidence, sustaining Plymouth's public-private voluntary partnership--the 2020 partnership--to plan, over 20 years, the pathfinder strategy to halve the number of Plymouthians living in the most deprived wards in England. The strategy will enable people to harness the opportunities of our triple-zone status, and promotes the spirit of partnership for which Plymouth is becoming so well recognised nationally.
One aim of the pathfinder strategy is to ensure an exceptionally pro-business climate for all those who are prepared to invest, and in which particularly micro and small to medium-sized enterprises flourish and contribute to the city's success. I agree with hon. Members on both sides of the House that, as the Government continue to make progress, we should ensure that the door is always open to small businesses so that they have an opportunity to express their views on regulation and many other aspects of business.
I assure sceptical hon. Members, who might think that the catalogue of progress I have described amounts to no more than warm words, that the pathfinder document produced by our partnership describes a highly focused package that is not only practical but seeks to do the right things well. However, the partnership--like the Government--does not seek now to do everything. Some people always want more proposals to be included in the Queen's Speech than could possibly be considered and implemented.
I welcome the Queen's Speech, as the desperately needed transformation of my constituency has only begun. I do not know where Conservative Members get the idea that they left a golden legacy. In 1995, one of the wards in my constituency was listed in the index of local conditions as the poorest in England. Although she apologised for her absence, I am sorry that the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) cannot be here now. She lives in the same county as me and it would have been good to hear her apologising for the previous Government's record, which caused those problems in my constituency.
It is a sad reflection on nearly 20 years of Conservative government that, in 1998, 19 per cent. of the Plymouth population--about 46,000 of the city's total of about 250,000--were among the most 10 per cent. deprived in the country. Our pathfinder strategy seeks to tackle that problem.
Today's debate is on those aspects of the Queen's Speech that deal with trade and industry and social security, which are two sides of the same coin. We recognise that social justice and economic efficiency go hand in hand. The proposals in the Queen's Speech are about enterprise and fairness. They are about enterprise in the measures to modernise company registration, to give flexibility to partnerships through limited liability status and to set down a framework that will allow electronic trading, e-commerce and e-communications to flourish. They are also about fairness, with measures coming from a Department that is bringing hope to many in my constituency who at long last can afford to work. The minimum wage, which was introduced in the previous Session, is an important part of the jigsaw that makes work pay.
A utilities Bill will be introduced this Session. It will seek to put consumers first and competition in its rightful place, which means serving consumers. In my constituency, paying for the two basic necessities of life--warmth and water--takes up a huge proportion of the income of the poorest constituents. Together, the bills for those items commonly gobble up 20 to 30 per cent. of their apparent income. Anything that brings further downward pressure on prices is, therefore, greatly to be welcomed.
As I have said, one in five of my constituents are in the poorest 10 per cent. of the country's population. Big bills hurt many more of my constituents than they do those of most Conservative Members. Perhaps that is why Conservative Members do not grasp that a real revolution and a real transformation is rooted in long-term difficult decisions rather than in quick fixes and knee-jerk reactions. Such difficult decisions require leadership with eyes fixed on a 20-year horizon rather than myopically on the next tabloid headline. They will be difficult decisions that require an understanding of when the vested interests of the few are playing to the gallery and pressing the buttons that play on fear and ignorance rather than showing how the changes that are opposed can be made to work for the many as well as, often, for the few.
Utility regulation is one aspect where such decisions must be taken. Under the Conservatives, there was often total confusion about the relative roles of regulators, Ministers and Parliament. As a result, there was uncertainty for business and consumers alike and higher costs of capital. Some consumer councils were too closely connected to the regulator, with too few rights and too little access to information. We need to do something about that. The utilities Bill will seek to remedy those problems.
I was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) say that we did not know much about what will be in the utilities Bill. There has been very extensive consultation on its contents and there are now high expectations about what it will deliver. I am confident that it will place the interests of consumers first, will introduce new duties to help low-income utility consumers and will prompt further competitive benefits in a way that will achieve a fairer deal for consumers. It will develop competition that is a means to an end, that serves rather than dictates and that recognises social and environmental obligations.
The utilities Bill will set the framework for modern, transparent and accountable regulation. It will be modern by depersonalising the regulatory function and introducing a regulatory board. That should reduce the risk premium and the cost of capital and bring further downward pressure on prices. It will be accountable through new social and environmental measures to ensure that the industry takes its responsibilities seriously and that, where the market fails, regulation will surely follow. We desperately need those measures to wage war on fuel poverty.
I welcome much of what the Government have achieved in their first term in respect of fuel poverty and the introduction of the home energy efficiency scheme. However, given that 8 million households experience fuel poverty, and that double the national average in my constituency live in poor private rented housing--a key cause of that poverty--we need to harness all the means available to tackle the problem.
There will be a transparent framework which, as the hon. Member for Twickenham said, is needed to clarify the links between directors' pay and performance. I also hope that it will provide clarity when regulators explain their decisions and reveal their forward work programme and their means of consulting people and taking decisions.
As the hon. Gentleman said, we need more information in respect of the consumer voice which must be empowered to help achieve redress. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry said, far too few consumers are changing companies and becoming aware of the advantages that different companies can offer in the utilities sector. One reason for that is the fog of information, or indeed the lack of information, which makes it difficult for people to take decisions that are in their interests. I hope that the consumer councils will have access to independent information of a robust nature and will not be dependent on the regulators for that information. If the regulator is allowed to control access to any information, that information should be clearly defined and the regulator should be required to give full, clear and timely reasons for withholding information.
My constituents and I set great store by the delivery of Labour's manifesto promise to reform and modernise the regulation of our utilities. The utilities Bill will achieve that. First and foremost, it will deliver a fair deal for consumers, but it will also deliver a fair deal for businesses, for their aspiring competitors, for employees and for communities. It is important, too, that there should be a fair deal for future generations for whom we hold the resources of those communities in trust.
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