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Mr. Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD):
I congratulate the new hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Byrne) on his impressive maiden speech. Having been elected for the first time at the last election, my own maiden speech is fresh in my mind, and I remember what
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a nerve-racking occasion it was. I admire the hon. Gentleman's stamina. After fighting a stressful by-election he looks very fresh indeed. I once fought a by-election with considerably less success, but I recall what a stressful and tiring experience it was.
I wish to raise some matters affecting my constituency, which is a remote rural area comprising a large part of mainland Scotland and 26 inhabited islands. It is a beautiful place in which to live and work, but its remoteness and the cost of travelling to and from the islands present challenges to people who run businesses there. The cost of parcel deliveries is a frequent source of complaint among my constituents. If they place an order through a mail order company, they almost invariably have to pay a surcharge. Parcelforce has drawn a line across Scotland from Arrochar on Loch Long to a point on the North sea coast near Banff, and the cost of sending a parcel anywhere north of that line far exceeds the cost of sending one elsewhere in the country. It is a large surcharge: it costs almost double to send some parcel weights across the highland line. That imposes an extra burden on businesses in the highlands and islands, particularly those that rely on mail order deliveries.
The Government should extend Royal Mail's universal service obligation, whereby it must deliver letters to all parts of the country at the same price, to Parcelforce. When I raise the matter with Ministers, the standard reply is that Royal Mail delivers parcels at a uniform price to any part of the country. However, as with letters, parcels sent via the standard Royal Mail service are not signed for on delivery. Mail order companies want a signature on delivery, which involves an extra cost. The Royal Mail parcel delivery has a weight limit; it is therefore of limited value to them and, in addition, there is no guaranteed delivery time. However, Parcelforce parcels are signed for on delivery and the service offers a guaranteed delivery time. Businesses want to use Parcelforce, but highlands businesses are deterred from doing so by the extra costs. That is discrimination against a small part of the country and it should end.
Dairy farming is an important industry in the Kintyre peninsula. Ever since I was elected, farmers have been telling me that the farm-gate price for milk is nowhere near enough to cover their costs. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee recently investigated milk pricing in the United Kingdom and found that farmers' comments are correct. The report states in paragraph 24:
"Average farmgate prices are . . . not high enough to cover the farmers' costs"
and goes on to say in paragraph 26:
"UK farmgate prices are not only inadequate to recompense farmers for the cost of milk production, they are also consistently below the EU average."
The Select Committee investigation also reported, at paragraph 42, that the
"dairy market is not operating as it should"
"processors' costs appear improbably high".
Clearly, more investigation by the Government is needed into milk pricing. A regulator should be appointed to oversee the dairy industry; only that will enable us to find out why the market is not working as
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it should. The market should operate with greater transparency and we need an investigation into the Select Committee's belief that
"processors' costs appear improbably high".
We also need to look at UK competition law. Its practical effect appears to be to prevent milk producers from forming large-scale co-operatives. That is not the case in other EU countries, where large-scale dairy co-operatives have been formed. It means that in the UK the small farmer is fighting an unequal struggle against the big supermarkets and the big dairy companies. A regulator would be a good step forward.
I turn to vehicle taxation. The price of petrol on the islands is often about 15p more than the price at a city petrol station. On one occasion, having started the day in Glasgow and gone to Mull, I found that the cost was a staggering 20p more at a remote filling station on Mull, compared with Glasgow. The extra price has a devastating impact on the economies of island communities. It is also rather galling that in areas where there is no public transport alternative, the price of fuel is highest. The logic for high fuel prices is to encourage people to use public transport, but the illogicality of the present system is that the price of fuel is highest where there is no public transport alternative.
One short-term fix that I would support is a reduction in the duty on fuel sold at island filling stations. That would create a level playing field for island businesses. In the longer term we need to move from fuel duty towards a system of road pricing. That would be more sophisticated and would enable higher charges to be levied on roads where there was a public transport alternative, compared with remote rural roads where there is no such alternative.
Fuel duty is rather a crude way of taxing the motorist. In the past it had the beneficial effect of encouraging vehicle manufacturers greatly to improve the efficiency of their vehicles. That has certainly been effective, but I suspect that we are now at the point where further technological advances are unlikely to make much impact on fuel efficiency. The time is right to move to the more sophisticated system of road pricing.
Finally, I turn to a matter that various hon. Members have raised this afternoon—yesterday's defence statement. My constituency's local regiment is a well-known one, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. It is a famous regiment with more than 200 years of service to the British Army. The clear intention of the Government's defence review is to merge the regiment with other highland regiments.
Yesterday's statement from the Secretary of State for Defence announced the loss of a Scottish infantry battalion. However, the Government's plans to reduce infantry numbers are short-sighted. The Army is already overstretched. The Government's plans appear to assume no new commitments for the Army. I should have thought that one of the lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan was that while all the high tech might be very good at winning the war, the difficult task of winning the peace requires highly skilled and committed soldiers on the ground. That is a part of the battle that
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the British Army has proved to be very good at. It has carried out the task of winning the peace far better than the American army. It is important that we keep our infantry strength at its current level, because as well as fighting wars and peacekeeping in many parts of the world, the Army has to deal with unexpected matters at home such as foot and mouth and firefighters' strikes.
Recruits want to join local regiments with a long and proud tradition. Merging the Argylls into a new regiment called, say, the North Scotland regiment, is bound to have a negative impact on recruitment compared with keeping the famous, long-standing name of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. I remind the Government that 30 years ago a previous Government tried to abolish the Argylls. A massive campaign to save the regiment succeeded, and the Government gave way. I advise this Government not take on the Argylls, because I suspect that, like their predecessors, they will buckle under the weight of the subsequent campaign.
3.55 pm
Ann Taylor (Dewsbury) (Lab): I start, as have several colleagues, by congratulating my hon. Friend the new Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Byrne) on his speech and on the way in which he presented it. He paid tribute to his predecessor, Terry Davis. I echo his tribute and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mr. Hall), who, like me, worked closely with Terry over many years. We were all struck by the calm assurance and wit of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill. When he said that his predecessors had served Hodge Hill well, I think that all hon. Members immediately thought that he would follow in that tradition.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill talked about education, and said that people in his part of Birmingham had never had such good educational opportunities as they do at the present time. I hope that my hon. Friend continues his interest in education, because the changes that the Government have made in that respect have been among their greatest achievements and will produce long-lasting and significant consequences in terms of opportunities for all our young people in the future.
I am particularly proud of what has happened in education, from the Sure Start places, which are a breakthrough development helping youngsters and their parents, to the changes at primary level, including the significant impact of reduced class sizes. In Dewsbury, we have also seen significant improvements at secondary level. Many schools have achieved specialist status, there has been a new level of co-operation between some schools, and, although there have been a few hitches, school buildings have been significantly improved through public-private partnerships.
We have experienced many improvements in education locally, but despite all the good work that has been done and all the investment that the Government have put in, two problems have recently arisen. I am glad that today sees the publication of the report by the Select Committee on Education and Skills entitled "Secondary Education: Schools Admissions", because I want to say a few words about admissions in Dewsbury
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and the problems that have been created by the Lib Dem council's decision to review its admissions policy. Although I accept that that is not an easy matter and there are no easy solutions, one school in Dewsbury has received 50 appeals, 22 of which are from parents trying to get a child into the school to join their brothers and sisters. The constituent who first brought that to my attention, Tracie Kilburn, already has a daughter and son at the school, and her youngest child wanted to go to there too, but that is no longer possible because of the change in approach by the Lib Dem council. The Select Committee report suggests one or two ways forward, including that the House should be more prescriptive about admissions policies. It is not easy to get them right but I do not believe that the council should have changed the siblings rule and left so many young people and their parents in a difficult position.
My second reason for speaking about education is a problem that has got worse through the success in recent years of education in Dewsbury. We have a tradition of under-achievement; we have no tradition of staying on at school and going into post-16 and higher education. Nowadays, there is a significant increase in youngsters who do well at GCSE and throughout their school careers. The problem is critical after GCSE because we have so little traditional post-16 academic provision. Dewsbury college is very good for much non-traditional, non-AS and A-level work, but the majority of youngsters in Dewsbury have to leave the town for their post-16 academic education.
We have a Catholic high school, which has a limited number of places and gets good results. We also have Mirfield Free Grammar school, which, I am glad to say, is a comprehensive school down the road that takes some youngsters. However, the academically gifted of Dewsbury mostly have to go to Huddersfield and sometimes Leeds and Wakefield for post-16 AS and A-level education. They have to travel a long way—some take three buses—and that requires great commitment. We therefore need local, quality AS and A-level provision. All the heads of the high schools in Dewsbury agree about that. They tell me that many youngsters are put off staying in education because they cannot face the extra hassle travelling such a long way. They are achieving more and they want to achieve more, but such provision on our doorstep would enhance the staying-on rate and provide much greater opportunities.
Ministers are sympathetic to the cause. The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis) talked to heads and was impressed by their proposals. We have more post-14 co-operation between those schools and they all say the same thing: we need quality provision. The sixth form colleges in Huddersfield are of high quality and would be interested in providing satellites in Dewsbury, but unfortunately the Liberal Democrat council will not support that approach and is currently blocking such progress. It is inhibiting the opportunities of young people in Dewsbury. Given all the successes that we are enjoying in education, we must improve young people's aspirations and make it easier for them to stay in education and not block their hopes, as the Liberal Democrat council is doing.
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4.3 pm
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