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House of Commons
Tuesday 14 June 2011
The House met at half-past Two o’clock
Prayers
[Mr Speaker in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Secretary of State was asked—
Palestinian State (UN Membership)
1. Margaret Curran (Glasgow East) (Lab): What his policy is on UN membership for a Palestinian state. [59271]
12. Sandra Osborne (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab): What his policy is on UN membership for a Palestinian state. [59282]
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague): Membership of the UN by September is one option under consideration by President Abbas. We believe that Israelis and Palestinians should return to negotiations. We will make a decision on UN membership only at the appropriate time.
Margaret Curran: Time and again, the Secretary of State has said that he is in favour of an independent Palestinian state based on 1967 borders. Surely with events going apace in the middle east, the time is right to show solidarity with the Palestinians, support them at the United Nations and prove, once and for all, that we are on the Palestinian side.
Mr Hague: We have lent a great deal of support to Palestinians at the United Nations. For instance, as the hon. Lady will know, in February we voted for the Palestinian resolution on settlements. We voted the opposite way to the United States on that occasion, which is unusual for this country. We strongly support a future state based on 1967 borders, and we welcome President Obama’s recent speech in that regard. We must remember that the way to a viable and secure state is through negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. It is to those negotiations that we want both parties to return.
Sandra Osborne:
I am disappointed in the Foreign Secretary’s answer. If we wait for negotiations to resume, we will wait for ever, given how things are going. President Obama made self-determination the focus of his speech to the middle east and made reference to the brave
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people struggling for freedom in the Arab world. Does that not also apply to the Palestinians, and would UN membership not take us a step forward?
Mr Hague: The hon. Lady will have to be disappointed with the position of all European countries, because we have all withheld a decision on the question of Palestinian recognition and membership of the UN. It is vital to remember that the way to a secure Israel and a viable, prosperous Palestinian state is through negotiations between the two. She is right to be frustrated or exasperated by the time that the negotiations have taken. Nevertheless, there is no way to lasting peace in the middle east other than through those negotiations.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind (Kensington) (Con): Will the Foreign Secretary impress upon the Israeli Government in a friendly but firm way that the only manner by which they can avoid an overwhelming vote in favour of a Palestinian state at the General Assembly is if the Israeli Prime Minister gives an unequivocal commitment in support of a two-state solution, as proposed by President Obama, and a commitment to enter into early and meaningful negotiations to that end?
Mr Hague: Yes, I agree with that. My right hon. and learned Friend is right that it is important for Israel to show a readiness to negotiate in the light of President Obama’s speech and what could happen at the United Nations in September. Indeed, one advantage of the United Kingdom and other EU nations considering our position on this matter over the next few months is that it will maximise the pressure on both Israelis and Palestinians to enter such negotiations.
Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD): Does my right hon. Friend agree that an essential feature of statehood is identifiable and recognised borders? Will he therefore confirm that there will be no compromise on the principle that any settlement must be based on the borders of 1967?
Mr Hague: My right hon. and learned Friend will know what the President of the United States has said about 1967 borders. We have always said that we mean 1967 borders with mutually agreed swaps of land. I therefore do not think that we can be as categoric as my right hon. and learned Friend, but based on those borders, subject to agreement, there will be a good deal of latitude.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op): What is the Secretary of State’s assessment of the moves towards Palestinian unity? Does the reconciliation process between Fatah and Hamas make it more or less likely that the United Kingdom will support UN membership for Palestine?
Mr Hague: Our stance on that, if it comes to that point in September, will depend on many things, including the issues that I have commented on. It is important that the reformed Palestinian Authority—we still await many of the appointments to that body—uphold non-violence, are committed to a negotiated two-state solution, and uphold the previous agreements of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Those are the factors by which we will judge the Palestinian approach.
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Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con): Mr Speaker,
“peace cannot be imposed on the parties to the conflict. No vote at the United Nations will ever create an independent Palestinian state.”
They are not my words, but those of President Obama. Might not moving too quickly towards a unilateral declaration of statehood undermine moves towards peace entirely, and should we not be seeking negotiations towards an agreement between the two parties outside the UN?
Mr Hague: My hon. Friend will have heard in my answers that we have placed our emphasis strongly on that. There is a need for a return to negotiations by both sides, and now that President Obama has made his speech about 1967 borders, I hope that Palestinians will take that approach. We have already talked about the Israeli approach.
Mr Speaker: John Cryer: not here.
Piracy (Horn of Africa)
3. Eric Joyce (Falkirk) (Lab): What recent assessment he has made of the threat to UK shipping from piracy off the horn of Africa. [59273]
7. Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con): What recent progress his Department has made on its work to counter piracy off the horn of Africa. [59277]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Henry Bellingham): Thanks to international navies and the self-defence measures used by large sectors of the shipping industry, there have been no hijacks in the critical gulf of Aden trade artery since November 2010. However, piracy continues to pose a significant risk to shipping and seafarers in the Indian ocean, with 18 successful hijacks having taken place this year, so we are not complacent. Britain is playing a leading role in the counter-piracy operations at sea, and we are leading the international work with regional countries to help put in place penal and judicial facilities to deal with this evil.
Eric Joyce: The Minister is no doubt aware of the role of many British service personnel, and indeed ex-service personnel, in protecting shipping off Somalia in particular. Does he agree that in the end, only when Somalia has a high degree of law and order, which it does not at the moment, will the problems be properly solved?
Mr Bellingham: That is exactly why Her Majesty’s Government are putting so much effort into leading the international initiatives to help rebuild that failed state. Indeed, the Department for International Development has a four-year, £250 million programme for Somalia, which will focus on building regional judicial and penal structures, strengthening the police, strengthening regional coastguards and trying to help coastal communities find alternative livelihoods. As the hon. Gentleman says, the problem will be solved only on land.
Laura Sandys:
We need to have a deterrent to piracy, and currently the British Chambers of Commerce states that 80% of those who are captured are then released.
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What measures can we put in place, and can my hon. Friend expand on the international agreements that we need to counter piracy?
Mr Bellingham: I share my hon. Friend’s great concern, because catch-and-release simply encourages further piracy. I recently visited the EU Operation Atalanta naval headquarters at Northwood, and the Minister for the Armed Forces made it very clear to me that the Royal Navy and other navies are doing all that they possibly can not just to capture pirates but to gather sufficient evidence for them to be put on trial in courts in the region. That is why I and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary are working very hard with regional countries to build the vital penal and judicial capacity.
Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab): I regret that the Minister’s reply was rather complacent. At a conference in Singapore last month, his colleague the Defence Secretary will have heard several Asian Defence Ministers express alarm at the considerable rise of piracy in the Indian ocean. Suggested solutions have included a greater use of convoys, Q-ships and private security; particularly importantly, changed and toughened rules of engagement; and possibly exclusion zones. The international community is united on the need for the matter to be brought to a head. As we are a major maritime nation, when will the Government get a grip and take a lead to combat this menace, particularly by getting international agreement and changed rules of engagement?
Mr Bellingham: I can understand the right hon. Gentleman’s frustration. As I explained, there has not been a successful hijack in the gulf of Aden artery this year, because activity has been displaced into the ocean, and we are having significant successes. I can tell him that the EU agreed in May to amend its operational plan to deliver more robust action. I cannot discuss that publicly, but it is largely the result of efforts being made by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that we are very much on the case.
Balkans
4. Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con): What recent assessment he has made of the political situation in the Balkans; and if he will make a statement. [59274]
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague): We welcome Croatian’s progress towards EU membership, and the arrest of Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic. We are seriously concerned by the political situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where there remains a need for sustained EU focus and a clear international strategy. There is also major work to be done on the dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo; to resolve the issue of Macedonia’s name; as well as in restoring a functioning political dialogue in Albania. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe visited the western Balkans last week to discuss those and other issues.
Harriett Baldwin:
At the recent NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the noble Lord Sewel presented a draft report on Kosovo, which described a dire economy with weak institutions, ethnical divisions, corruption and organised
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crime, and poor relations with neighbours. Kosovo is not universally recognised as a state, but does the Foreign Secretary believe that it will one day be a viable European democratic state?
Mr Hague: Yes, I believe it will be, but bringing that about requires a great deal of work. We have been encouraging other nations to recognise Kosovo, but it is important that work takes place on economic development and the rule of law. It is also important to develop a positive track record of compliance with the requirements of the IMF programme. We look to Kosovo to do all those things.
Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab): May I welcome, as I am sure the Foreign Secretary does, the arrest of Ratko Mladic and his dispatch to The Hague? Eight thousand Europeans were taken out and shot one by one in the biggest single mass murder since Katyn. It was not, if I may say so, Britain’s finest hour in foreign policy.
As we move forward in the Balkans, will the Foreign Secretary join me in urging President Tadic and responsible Serb politicians to recognise Kosovo, and to stop the blocks to Kosovo trading in the region and to its joining international institutions? The reason that Kosovo has the economic problems to which the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) referred, is that Serbia will not allow it—
Mr Speaker: Order. I think we have the thrust of the question. We are most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman.
Mr Hague: I went to Belgrade last summer to discuss those issues with President Tadic, and urged him to enter into an EU-facilitated dialogue with Kosovo. That was the essential first step towards what the right hon. Gentleman is talking about. President Tadic agreed, and I now urge the Governments of Serbia and Kosovo to engage with each other constructively. With good will on both sides, a dialogue can help to move both states towards EU accession.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con): Does my right hon. Friend agree that the scourge of organised crime in the Balkans is one of the biggest obstacles to good politics developing there?
Mr Hague: Yes, absolutely—it is extremely important to tackle those things to maintain the European perspective of the western Balkans countries. That is why in Croatian accession negotiations chapter 23 is of such importance. That will be true of all those states, and they should heed my hon. Friend’s words.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab): Does the Secretary of State believe that Croatia’s membership of the EU would act as an effective catalyst for other states? Will he offer a time scale on that?
Mr Hague:
We hope that Croatia’s membership will encourage other states, although we also hope that they will draw the lesson that it is important to meet the conditions of EU membership. That is vital if the accession process is to have credibility in future. We are now in the closing stages of the negotiations on EU
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accession, and the Commission has made a positive recommendation. The matter will be discussed at the European Council next week; it would be premature for me to discuss dates ahead of that.
Popular Protest (North Africa and the Middle East)
5. Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab): What recent assessment he has made of the likelihood of further popular protests in north Africa and the middle east. [59275]
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague): Demands for greater political, social and economic participation will continue in the middle east and north Africa unless Governments work to fulfil the aspirations of their people. Through our Arab partnership initiative, the review of the European neighbourhood policy and the Deauville partnership announced at the G8, we are working with partners in the region to support those who seek political and economic reform.
Graeme Morrice: Given that Governments have disrupted access to the internet during protests on a number of occasions in recent months, what specific measures have the UK Government taken to support peaceful demonstrators organising online?
Mr Hague: Of course, we always support access to the internet politically and diplomatically. Indeed, one measure in our draft resolution on Syria, which is before the UN Security Council, seeks freedom of access to the internet. We sometimes also take practical measures to try to maintain access to the internet or give people advice on how they can access it. I do not want to give any technical details of that, because it would of course make it easier to frustrate them.
Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con): One of the features of the popular protests is the flow of information from organisations such as the BBC World Service. I know that the Foreign Office is having another look at the budget for the BBC World Service, but when are we likely to get a decision about its future shape?
Mr Hague: The Government have taken full note of the debate in the House two or three weeks ago calling for a review of that decision, and we are accordingly looking at the subject, along with the World Service, which is also considering its allocation of priorities. I think that by early July we will be able to come back to the House.
Mr Douglas Alexander (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab): Owing to the popular protests in north Africa and the middle east, the Opposition have been arguing for months that the European Union’s External Action Service budget should be rebalanced in favour of post-Ben Ali Tunisia, post-Mubarak Egypt and, we hope, a post-Gaddafi Libya. Following the Deauville announcement, of which the Foreign Secretary spoke, will he tell us whether he now feels that the EU contribution is adequate to the challenge and risks, and what proportion of that money is new money?
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Mr Hague: The crucial thing is the money available for development and economic partnership, rather than the budgeting of the External Action Service. As the right hon. Gentleman will be aware, the proposal published on 25 May by the Commission set out a plan that included €750 million of additional resource in order for the EU to work with the economies of north Africa. That is subject to further discussion at the European Council next week, but that is the Commission plan.
Mr Alexander: Let me ask about one country in particular—obviously, Libya. On 13 April, the Foreign Secretary told us that
“the United Nations should take forward lead planning for early recovery and peace-building in Libya.”
Last Tuesday, he told the House that rather than the European Union or the United Nations,
“Britain is in the lead in post-conflict planning.”—[Official Report, 7 June 2011; Vol. 529, c. 38.]
Given his further worrying statement last week that planning is only at “an embryonic stage”, can he tell us who precisely is responsible for post-conflict planning? Is it the United Kingdom, the United Nations or the European Union? Furthermore, when will they come forward with something more than an embryonic plan?
Mr Hague: The right hon. Gentleman is conflating several different subjects. What I said needed fleshing out in more detail was the immediate planning of the national transitional council in Benghazi for the day after Gaddafi—if we can express it like that. It is doing a lot of that work, and we are looking forward to it communicating that. That is taking place, and we are in the lead in terms of looking in detail at the stabilisation response. Our stabilisation response team has been in Benghazi and is now writing its report, but we have been working with Italy and Turkey on that. So the UN will have that responsibility for co-ordination of humanitarian assistance and for the future, but Britain has taken the lead in putting people on the ground and doing the thinking. None of those things is inconsistent with the others.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD): Will the Foreign Secretary take up with the Bahraini Government the specific case of Ayat al-Qormozi, the young woman who has now been imprisoned for nothing worse than reading out a poem to freedom at the Pearl roundabout, and can he do that as part of a more robust approach to the Bahraini Government and their Saudi guardians?
Mr Hague: Yes, of course we take up and express to the Bahraini authorities the need for universal respect for human rights, including for due process, and that is what we look to them to bring about in their judicial process. I have strongly expressed that view to the Crown Prince of Bahrain, and we will continue to make those representations to the Bahraini authorities.
Belarus
6. Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab): What representations he has made to the Government of Belarus on standards of governance in that country. [59276]
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The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington): We have made direct representations at ministerial, ambassadorial and senior official level on a number of occasions, and of course we continue to condemn the imprisonment of Opposition politicians in Belarus, as well as the persecution and harassment of civil society leaders and human rights defenders there.
Pamela Nash: President Lukashenko’s Administration are responsible for a series of enterprises, the profits from which are kept within the presidential Administration, including the KGB. Owing to clear close financial links between state oppression and such enterprises, is it not time that the UK looked at prohibiting British trade and investment with those companies?
Mr Lidington: As the hon. Lady knows, together with our European Union partners we have agreed a set of sanctions targeted against leading members of the Belarusian regime. There is also a review of the possibility of additional economic sanctions. Not every EU country has expressed itself in favour of that course, and we must take account of the need to get the balance right between harming the regime and not trying to impoverish further a people already oppressed. However, I take seriously the point she makes.
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con): The Minister will be aware that, in light of its economic failures, Belarus has requested a further £5 billion bail-out from the IMF. What discussions has he had with the Treasury to ensure that Britain will not support a bail-out package unless it comes with a firm commitment from the Belarusian regime to recognise the basic rights and freedoms of its media and civilians?
Mr Lidington: My hon. Friend puts her point well. As she rightly says, the economy of Belarus is in a dire state, and the Belarusian Government’s economic policies, as well as their internally repressive policies, are making a bad situation even worse for the people of that country. We are considering—both internally in the United Kingdom and in concert with international partners—what our approach might be in the event of Belarus applying for further help from the IMF.
Tunisia
8. Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab): What recent assessment he has made of the political situation in Tunisia. [59278]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt): We believe that the relationship between the interim Government and the growing number of political parties in Tunisia is a stable one, as we head towards the democratic elections in October. There are challenges—partly in the technical arrangements for a nationwide election and partly, of course, in the economic challenges that the country faces because of the events of recent weeks—but we believe that the building blocks for democracy will be in place as we get to October.
Graham Stringer:
I am generally less optimistic about the Arab spring than the Government as a whole. However, given the unique history of Tunisia as probably
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the most progressive country in north Africa, it could act as a beacon of hope, yet there are reports of interference from fundamentalists in the proposed Tunisian democratic process. What further help can the Government give to the democratic forces in Tunisia?
Alistair Burt: The hon. Gentleman’s caution is well balanced and understood. It is right to recognise the good things that are happening—he is right about Tunisia’s background—but there are risks attendant. We have already committed about £1.5 million of the original £5 million of the Arab partnership initiative to work in capacity building, strengthening political institutions and other such issues as we head towards the election. There will be more money available through the partnership, but we are also looking to swap expertise and help to build up the embryonic political parties in just the sort of areas in which the hon. Gentleman would expect us to be involved.
Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con): I congratulate the Foreign Office on setting up the Arab partnership fund to enable the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and other participators to help the emerging political forces in Tunisia to march towards democracy. However, does my hon. Friend agree that it is also important not to overlook the moderate Arab states—Morocco, alongside Tunisia, and, a little further away, Jordan—which have not had a revolution but which are doing the right thing and moving towards democracy? We should be supporting them, too.
Alistair Burt: Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right, and we will do that. Relationships with both Morocco and Jordan are good. They appear to have put themselves ahead of the curve by responding to the aspirations of the people in what we would all consider to be an appropriate manner. We are looking to the WFD to deliver quite substantially on its obligations. Helping the political parties to develop is a heavy responsibility, but one in which the WFD can play an important part.
Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance): The Minister will obviously also be aware of the growing humanitarian pressures at the border between Tunisia and Libya. What offers of assistance, either technical or financial, have been made to try to address the issues of clean water and access to sanitation in that area?
Alistair Burt: We are very conscious of those pressures. First and foremost, most of them are being absorbed by the Tunisian people themselves; indeed, it is remarkable how many families have taken into their own homes those fleeing from neighbouring Libya. However, DFID has also been at work providing exactly the support that the hon. Lady would expect from us. Millions of pounds have already been committed, and this support will continue to assist people.
Legal Fees (Offences Abroad)
9. George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con): In what circumstances his Department considers providing financial assistance for legal fees of British citizens charged with offences abroad. [59279]
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The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Jeremy Browne): The Foreign and Commonwealth Office does not provide financial assistance for legal costs for British citizens arrested overseas. We provide information about the local legal system, including whether a legal aid scheme is available. We can also provide a list of local English-speaking lawyers, and we work with non-governmental organisations that might be able to offer support.
George Eustice: The Minister will be aware of the plight of my constituent, Stephen Scarlett, who remains in prison in Senegal despite the fact that his sentence ended in February. His family have been unable to get any financial support from the Foreign Office to help them to navigate the local legal system. Does the Minister agree that, in such extreme cases, the needs of such people are the most acute of all? Will he look into providing financial assistance in this case so that Mr Scarlett can be reunited with his family?
Mr Browne: I understand the distress felt by Mr Scarlett and his family over the length of time that it is taking to resolve his case. He has been assisted by the British embassy in Dakar, and by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as a whole. However, the responsibility for ensuring that he receives the best possible outcome rests with his lawyer. I can add that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office supports and part-funds three groups: Prisoners Abroad, Reprieve and Fair Trials International, all of which assist British citizens. We are aware that Fair Trials International has offered its services to Mr Scarlett’s family.
Middle East (Business Initiatives)
10. Michael Dugher (Barnsley East) (Lab): What support his Department is providing to co-existence projects and joint business initiatives between Israelis and Palestinians. [59280]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt): The Department for International Development spends about £73 million in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories on a range of measures to promote peace through the conflict prevention pool and on economic development. The Foreign Office is spending some £70,000 this year on the kind of co-existence projects that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, ranging from language development to courses and work inside Israel to help to bind communities together.
Michael Dugher: According to answers to written questions in January, only 1% of European Union aid to the Palestinians goes to civil society projects. What are the Government doing to ensure that a greater proportion of EU aid is spent on developing the co-existence projects that are so vital to the peace process?
Alistair Burt:
The hon. Gentleman is right about the proportion spent, which I picked out for the answer that I have just given him. Sometimes it is difficult to separate these things out, category by category. For example, the £30 million that goes into the promotion of Palestinian economic development feeds into work on prosperity and co-existence issues. The Foreign and Commonwealth
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Office is open to more project applications coming in for exactly such projects, and I will certainly work with the posts involved, in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, to see what more we can do to encourage the activities that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con): Will the Government make it clear to the Israeli Government that an attack on any future humanitarian flotilla would be met by international condemnation?
Mr Speaker: May I gently remind the Minister that we are talking, narrowly, about co-existence projects and joint business initiatives?
Alistair Burt: I believe that I would be right in saying that we see events such as the reopening of the Rafah crossing in Gaza as an opportunity to help economic development and to encourage co-existence, because the greater the economic development on the west bank and in Gaza, the more opportunity there will be for both, and the less need there will be for anyone to be tempted to try to use a flotilla as a means either of bringing in produce or of making a political point.
Corporations (Conflict Zones)
11. Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab): What steps he is taking to increase international legal protection for those affected by corporate abuses in conflict zones. [59281]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Henry Bellingham): The Government totally deplore any company anywhere in the world that ignores human rights. It is especially important that companies set the highest possible standards when operating in failed states or conflict zones. That is why we support the excellent work being carried out by Professor John Ruggie, the United Nations expert on business and human rights. We particularly welcome the final version of his guiding principles, which deals with this subject.
Grahame M. Morris: I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, but will he go just a little further? Given the effect that legal protections could have on the lives of ordinary people in countries such as Peru, Indonesia, Mexico and even the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, where there have been cases of abuse, torture and even killings when citizens have protested against large-scale private sector projects, will the Government confirm that they are supporting Professor Ruggie’s recommendation that the UK Government explore additional legal protections for victims of corporate abuse in conflict zones?
Mr Bellingham: I had the chance to meet Professor John Ruggie the other day, and I am working hard to ensure that the guiding principles are incorporated and endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, as that would provide extra clout and credibility.
Afghanistan
13. Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab): What recent discussions he has had with his US counterpart on the political situation in Afghanistan. [59283]
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The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague): I last met Secretary Clinton on the eve of President Obama’s state visit. We had a productive discussion on a range of issues, including the political situation in Afghanistan.
Owen Smith: I am grateful for that answer. Will the Foreign Secretary tell us whether those discussions also touched on the prospect of British troops remaining in Afghanistan post-2014, and if so, how many and with what remit exactly?
Mr Hague: Yes, such matters were included in our talks, but they are also a matter of our public policy position. As we have said, British troops will not be engaged in a combat role after 2015 or in anything like the numbers that are involved today. We have set out our intentions in line with the prospects and aims for transition to Afghan security control throughout Afghanistan by 2014.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con): Given that it is highly unusual to set a withdrawal date in the middle of a counter-insurgency campaign, has my right hon. Friend received any indication from the Americans that they are considering the retention of a long-term strategic base or bridgehead area in the region so that real pressure can be exerted on both sides to reach an appropriate settlement?
Mr Hague: The long-term relationship—after the insurgency and after the transition in 2014—between the United States and Afghanistan is subject to negotiation at the moment between those countries, so it is not possible to give a precise answer to my hon. Friend now, but it is possible to say that such matters are under discussion.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab): Last week, members of the Home Affairs Committee visited the border of Greece and Turkey and the detention centre at Filakio, where we were told that 50,000 Afghanis had crossed the border between Turkey and Greece last year. In his discussions with the Americans, will the Foreign Secretary talk about the mass migration—the illegal migration—of hundreds of thousands of Afghanis from Afghanistan into western Europe?
Mr Hague: The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point, which underlines the need to bring stability to Afghanistan in the future so that those who wish to be in the country can have their homes and livelihoods there. I will certainly give attention to his point.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con): Given that the Taliban will not be beaten and that the situation does not seem to be getting any better, despite the surge, may I press on the Foreign Secretary again the need for the Americans to open meaningful, non-conditional talks with the Taliban, because the Americans need to realise that, as we proved in Northern Ireland, it is possible to talk and fight at the same time?
Mr Hague:
Yes, I think that point is well understood. In her speech of 18 February, Secretary Clinton called for a political surge alongside the military surge. That is
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very much in line with our country’s approach, so that is of course the case. At the same time, another thing that is changing, for which my hon. Friend should give credit, is the huge expansion and intensive training of the Afghan national security forces. That bodes well for the longer term.
Syria
14. Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con): What recent reports he has received on Syrian protests on the borders of Israel; and if he will make a statement. [59284]
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague): We are deeply concerned by reports that a number of protesters have been killed and others injured. We recognise Israel’s right to defend herself. Any response must be proportionate, avoiding lethal use of force unless absolutely necessary, and the right to protest should be respected. I call on all parties to do everything they can to protect the lives of civilians and to avoid provocative acts.
Mark Menzies: I thank the Foreign Secretary for his answer, but what does this incident tell us about wider foreign involvement in Syria and the Syrian Government’s handling of protest and unrest?
Mr Hague: I am not sure what this incident in itself tells us about international involvement in Syria. I certainly believe that Iran is engaged in giving direct support—both advice and technical equipment—to Syria in the suppression of the peaceful protest, which is an extraordinarily hypocritical position given Iran’s support for protests elsewhere in the Arab world. I cannot say that that is connected with this particular incident, but since the area on the other side of the Golan heights is under the direct control of the Syrian authorities, people can draw their own conclusions.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op): Does the Foreign Secretary agree that the recent incidents on the Syrian-Israeli border were organised by the Syrian Government in an attempt to distract attention from the brutal way in which they are dealing with their own internal rebellions?
Mr Hague: I do not want to add to what I said a moment ago about that. It is a remarkably convenient distraction from the point of view of the Syrian Government. The position requires both sides—Israel in its response to such provocations, and Syria in any role that it may play in such provocations—to exercise much greater restraint.
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab): On a point of fact, have there been any Syrian protests on the Israeli border? I thought that the protests were in the Golan heights, which, last time I looked, were Syrian territory illegally occupied by Israel.
Mr Hague: The Golan heights are occupied territory, but no one can dispute the fact that the territory on the other side is unequivocally under the operational control of Syria. That is the point I am making.
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Libya
15. Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con): What recent assessment he has made of the political situation in Libya; and if he will make a statement. [59285]
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague): When I went to Benghazi I was impressed by the progress being made, by the sense of optimism, and by the belief in a democratic future that I heard about from ordinary Libyans and the leaders of the national transitional council. The Gaddafi regime is isolated and on the defensive, and, through a combination of military, economic and diplomatic means, we are ramping up the pressure for a genuine political solution for the Libyan people.
Mr Jones: Does the Foreign Secretary not agree that further defections from the highest level of the Gaddafi regime, further loss of ground to the opposition forces, and the growing authority of the national transitional council all point to an inexorable squeeze on the regime?
Mr Hague: My hon. Friend sums up the situation very well. All those are indeed increasing pressures on the regime. The high-level defectors included a number of generals and the head of the state-owned National Oil Corporation, and we have reason to believe that many others would defect if they could do so safely, or if their families would not be under threat if they did so. Certainly the morale of the regime is much lower than it was some weeks or months ago, and, as I saw myself, the morale and organisation of the national transitional council have improved considerably.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab): Will the Foreign Secretary confirm once and for all that the purpose of Britain’s military, economic and political involvement in Libya is regime change? Will he also confirm that, for that reason, it has been impossible for any traction to be applied by the European Union, NATO or Britain to bring about an urgently needed political solution and a ceasefire to prevent any more lives from being lost, before the war gets worse?
Mr Hague: Our military role is defined by United Nations Security Council resolution 1973, and it is our implementation of that resolution that has saved thousands of lives. I know that the hon. Gentleman is an opponent of the resolution, but if we had not had it, far, far more people would have died than have done thus far in the situation in Libya. It is, additionally, true that we believe Colonel Gaddafi should go, but that is the belief of the vast majority of nations in the world—even many around Africa now, and even Russia at the G8 summit—and, judging from what I saw in Benghazi, it is the belief of a vast number of Libyans as well.
Syria
16. Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab): What recent reports he has received on the use of violence against pro-democracy protesters by the Syrian Government; and if he will make a statement. [59286]
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The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague): The Syrian Government continue to use unacceptable violence against pro-democracy protesters. Syrian security forces have launched an offensive against Jisr al-Shughour and neighbouring villages. There are reports of a military build-up in other towns in Syria, including, overnight, Deir ez-Zur in eastern Syria. There are credible reports that more than 1,000 people have been killed since the beginning of the protests. The violence is unacceptable, and it should stop.
Diana Johnson: Has there been any progress in giving the Red Cross access to civilians who have been attacked by the military in Syria?
Mr Hague: That is a good question. Sadly, the answer is no. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development discussed the matter directly with the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross a few days ago. One of the things that we have called on the Syrian Government to grant is humanitarian access, which remains a prime consideration in Syria. I will discuss tonight with the Turkish Foreign Minister what further work can be done with Turkey— Syria’s closest and, perhaps, most important neighbour in terms of diplomatic relationships—to try to persuade the Syrians to grant such access.
Japan
17. Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab): What recent assessment he has made of the state of bilateral relations with Japan; and if he will make a statement. [59287]
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Jeremy Browne): The United Kingdom has a strong and broad bilateral relationship with Japan, encompassing long-standing commercial, cultural and official ties. These relations have been enhanced in recent months with the visit of the Japanese Foreign Minister to London and the Business Secretary to Japan. I also plan to visit Japan next month to develop the relationship further.
Tom Blenkinsop: I thank the Minister for his response. Will he update the House on what the UK Government are doing to support British businesses that work in, and with, Japan, and particularly to ensure that supply chains operate effectively?
Mr Browne: The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely valuable point, because there are literally hundreds of thousands of people in Britain whose jobs depend either directly or indirectly on direct inward investment from Japan, and about 17,000 Britons work in Japan. We therefore constantly turn our attention to how we can deepen the commercial relations between our two countries, which are, after all, the third and sixth biggest economies in the world, so this is crucial to the prosperity of our country.
Topical Questions
T1. [59296] Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con): If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
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The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague): In addition to the many situations we have already discussed, I am deeply concerned by the worsening situation in Sudan. We call upon all parties to cease hostilities and return to negotiations, and to allow full humanitarian access. We are working very closely with the African Union to support the peace negotiations currently under way in Addis Ababa.
Stephen Hammond: Further to those remarks, when does the Secretary of State expect those negotiations to resume, and what further action do the British Government intend to take in this regard?
Mr Hague: Our special representative is intimately involved in those negotiations. A few days ago, I spoke to former President Mbeki, who is leading the conduct of the negotiations. In recent days, I have also spoken to President Kiir on the south Sudanese side and the Foreign Minister in Khartoum for the north, so we are highly active in trying to push for a solution, and that includes working with Ethiopia. It is not possible to say when the negotiations will resume, but real progress needs to be shown before 9 July, which is, of course, the date for the independence of South Sudan.
Mr Douglas Alexander (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab): The whole House will be aware of reports that more than 5,000 Syrian refugees have registered with officials on the Syria-Turkey border and that many more are poised to flee Syria. I welcome the statement the Foreign Secretary has just made, informing the House that this evening he will be speaking to the newly elected Turkish Government about the situation in Syria. How hard will he, as a friend of Turkey and its EU membership aspiration, be pressing for that country to step up its regional leadership role, particularly in relation to Syria?
Mr Hague: I will, of course, be doing that, and the Prime Minister has already spoken to the Prime Minister of Turkey since the Turkish election results on Sunday night. Turkey plays a strong leading regional role, and, despite its own election campaign, has made many efforts in recent weeks to persuade the Assad regime to adopt a different course. I am sure it will want to redouble its efforts now, given the worsening situation on its border, and I will strongly encourage it to do so, as well as take its advice about the wider international handling of Syria.
T5. [59300] Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con): The whole House will share the concern felt by many British nationals at the spread of violence and unrest in the Sudan. Will the Minister therefore update us on the current situation?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Henry Bellingham): I certainly share my hon. Friend’s concern about what is happening in Abyei, South Kordofan and Unity state. To add to what my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said, we are keen to see action at P5—the permanent five—level and for the issue to be raised at the United Nations Security Council in the very near future, hopefully this week.
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T2. [59297] Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab): My constituent, Mr Jamal Teer, was evacuated from Libya as part of the British evacuation, along with his pregnant Libyan wife. They have now received a bill from the NHS for £1,255 for the birth of their child. Is this any way to treat a family fleeing Gaddafi, and will the Minister undertake to look into the matter with his ministerial colleagues here and in Wales?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt): I am clearly unaware of the precise circumstances described by the hon. Gentleman, although of course I will happily look into this matter. The case might be to do with regular UK status, and would therefore be hit by certain benefit regulations about being ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom. The decision might have more to do with that than anything else, but at this stage I would be very happy to look at the circumstances and see what can be done.
T6. [59301] Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con): What measures will we put in place to support the French at the G20 on food security? It is an issue that links foreign policy with prices in supermarkets for my constituents.
Mr Bellingham: We welcome the French presidency’s aim to tackle high food prices through the G20. Since 2010, prices have pushed 44 million more people across the world into poverty and they are being driven fundamentally by a shortage of supply and increased demand. I urge countries such as Sudan and Zimbabwe, which used to be net exporters of food, to start producing food again, not least for their own people.
T3. [59298] Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op): The Secretary of State will be aware of the case of my constituent, David Petrie, who is one of a number of British citizens who, for more than 20 years, have been trying to secure equal pay under their European rights in Italy. I understand that the Minister for Europe will meet his Italian counterparts in a few days’ time. Will he take up this case again and try to bring the sorry saga to a conclusion?
The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington): Yes, I intend to visit Italy in the next week and this is certainly one of the items that will be on the agenda for discussion.
T7. [59303] Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con): Will the Foreign Secretary please confirm the UK’s policy on the use of Predator drones and, in particular, its legal and moral basis?
Mr Hague: Our policy is that the use of drones is a matter for the Governments of the United States and Pakistan.
T4. [59299] Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab): Will the Foreign Secretary join me in welcoming the release of the Iranian trade unionist, Mansour Osanloo? Despite this encouraging step, Iranian trade unionists Reza Shahabi and Ebrahim Madadi are still in jail in Iran simply for belonging to a trade union. Will the Foreign Secretary agree to meet me and other interested MPs on this issue?
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Mr Hague: This is another example of the appalling human rights record of the Iranian Government. Either I or one of my ministerial colleagues will meet the hon. Gentleman, if that is acceptable to him. Iran’s human rights record has deteriorated steadily, even throughout this year. There are more journalists in prison in Iran than in any other country. The two leading opposition leaders have been detained. It is an appalling record of human rights abuse and the hon. Gentleman gives just another one of those instances.
T8. [59304] Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con): Will my right hon. Friend comment on the worrying situation in South Sudan and the considerable increase in violence in the disputed states of Abyei, South Kordofan and Unity, which are of course the subject of talks today in Addis Ababa between the Presidents of north and South Sudan, the former President of South Africa and the President of Ethiopia?
Mr Bellingham: I certainly share my hon. Friend’s concern. That is why we have called on all parties to end this violence, to respect their humanitarian responsibilities and to allow access to urgently needed international assistance. It is essential they take action and do so immediately.
Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab): The Minister will be aware of the legislation passed in March in Egypt restricting the right to strike and criminalising protests. Will the Government raise concerns with the Egyptian authorities about restrictions on the right to protest and to take part in industrial action?
Mr Hague: This is the kind of issue that I discussed with Egyptian authorities on my visit to Cairo last week. Clearly, we want to see a much more normal state of affairs in Egypt. We hope that the onset of elections and greater political freedom will bring that about. People having basic rights, including those to which the hon. Lady refers, is an important part of that.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD): Europe stands united in condemnation of the atrocities perpetrated by the Syrian regime, but progress in getting the Security Council similarly to declare condemnation of these abuses is frustratingly slow. The support of countries such as Brazil, South Africa and India could reduce the likelihood of a Russian or Chinese veto, which highlights the importance of these emerging powers. What steps are the Government taking to strengthen further the ties between Britain and the emerging powers, in terms not just of trade but of shared interests, such as human rights?
Mr Hague: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw the wider conclusion about the need to elevate these bilateral relationships. A good example of that is the UK-South Africa bilateral forum that we held here in London on Thursday, which included four South African Ministers discussing with their counterparts from the UK a whole range of issues and emphasising in particular the shared values between our country and a country such as South Africa. We will take forward that work energetically in the years ahead.
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T9. [59305] Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab): Last week, many of us met constituents who took the time to have tea with us and discuss overseas aid. Many Members of Parliament have been concerned for many years about aid in return for trade. Will the Secretary of State confirm that his Department would never get involved in negotiations about overseas aid, in line with the commitment to give 0.7% of gross domestic product in overseas aid, in return for the privatisation of public utilities or contracts for British companies?
Mr Hague: The hon. Gentleman might want to ask this question at International Development questions to get the authoritative answer. As he knows, across the House we are in favour of giving development aid on its merits and not for the kind of deals or arrangements that he talks about.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con): The recent elections in Nigeria exceeded international expectations as a fair process and a true democratic choice. Will the Minister encourage the Nigerian Government to extend that in the business sphere by tackling corruption and supporting a pro-entrepreneurship agenda, as that is the best way to secure a true and economic future for the Nigerian people?
Mr Bellingham: I had the opportunity of representing Her Majesty’s Government at President Goodluck Jonathan’s inauguration in Abuja last month and I was very struck by his determination to root out corruption, to lift the burdens on business and, above all else, to put in place a road map for oil and power sector reform.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP): Can the Minister update the House on the progress that has been made in getting Palestinian leaders, including in Hamas, to recognise the right of the state of Israel to exist?
Mr Hague: Clearly, at the moment Hamas does not recognise the right of Israel to exist. Hamas will remain a proscribed organisation from our point of view until it commits itself to a negotiated solution and a peaceful approach. The criteria that we apply to the new Palestinian Authority are those that I set out to the House earlier and last week, including accepting the previous agreements of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con): What discussions were had with President Obama when he was here concerning recent US calls for negotiation on the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands? Was he persuaded to support democracy in the south Atlantic as well as in the middle east?
Mr Hague: There was no discussion about the Falkland Islands with President Obama on his recent visit. The UK’s position remains absolutely the same as it has been under successive Governments since 1982 and it will not change.
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab):
Ahead of Channel 4’s screening this evening of “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields”, what recent assessment have the Secretary of State or Ministers made of the credibility of the
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Sri Lankan Government’s lessons learned and reconciliation commission and its new deadline to report in November this year?
[Official Report, 16 June 2011, Vol. 529, c. 9-10MC.]Alistair Burt: I spoke this morning to the Foreign Secretary of Sri Lanka, who had the opportunity to update me on some positive measures that were being taken in relation to Jaffna. I was in a position to remind him of the importance of having a credible and independent investigation of the various allegations that are now very much on the table from the United Nations and others. It is essential that those are dealt with. We note the new timetable for the LLRC to report in November, but, however long this takes, it will not be possible for Sri Lanka to move forward unless it has addressed some of the horrors of the past.
Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con): Returning to the western Balkans, the Foreign Secretary will be aware of the large and growing Serbian expatriate community in London. What positive message can we send to them about the prospect of visa requirements being eased in future and about how and when Serbia could eventually join the European Union?
Mr Lidington: As my hon. Friend knows, British visa requirements are a matter for the Home Office, and Serbia’s wish for visa liberalisation will be considered by Home Office Ministers when they next review the visa waiver scheme. I think that the message to Serbia is that this country strongly supports its ambitions to join the European Union and wishes President Tadic every success in taking through the very demanding programme of reforms that will be needed for it to meet the conditions for entry.
Mr Speaker: Order. We are very time-constrained. Brevity is of the essence.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op): Is the Foreign Secretary aware of why his German counterpart went to Benghazi and said that the German Government were now recognising the transitional Government there? Does that represent a welcome shift in Germany’s position, given that the Germans abstained on Security Council resolution 1973 and opposed NATO action?
Mr Hague: Actually, Germany has been supportive of what we have been doing. Although, as the hon. Gentleman points out, Germany abstained in the Security Council in March, it has since then been part of the contact group, and the German Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, attended the London conference that I hosted at the end of March. Although Germany has not made a military contribution to the NATO effort, it has been helpful in many other ways and given political support to what we are doing. What the hon. Gentleman points out is further evidence of that consistent approach.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con): In far too many parts of the world, freedom of religion and belief either does not exist or is being severely undermined. Will my right hon. Friend establish a commission on freedom of religious belief to advise the Government on these important issues?
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Mr Hague: I have already established a human rights advisory group, and at its second meeting last week we had a specific discussion about that very subject—freedom of religion and freedom of worship. The Foreign Office paper for that discussion will be discussed at a Wilton Park conference to be held shortly. This is a vitally important subject in which the Foreign Office and many other people are now engaged.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab): The Foreign Secretary said that he had a conversation with the Crown Prince of Bahrain and that he is in favour of dialogue. It is all very well saying that, both here and in the United States, but at the same time the Government in Bahrain are crushing dissidents and locking up the people who should be part of the dialogue.
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Mr Hague: The right hon. Lady makes a very powerful point. The point I make in return is that, yes, we should be highly critical and condemn human rights abuses in Bahrain, but it is very important for us to play what role we can in encouraging the most constructive and moderate figures on both sides of the sectarian divide in Bahrain to make a success of the national dialogue that is now meant to resume on 1 July. The Crown Prince made a sincere effort in that dialogue at the beginning of the crisis, and I should like to see the moderate members of the regime do so again.
Mr Speaker: Order. As usual, interest has exceeded the time available and we must now move on.
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Waste Review
3.32 pm
Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab) (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State if she will make a statement on the waste review in England.
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman): Apropos of the written ministerial statement listed on today’s Order Paper, I have laid in the Library copies of the waste review, to which we received 1,800 responses.
The Government’s waste review has looked at all aspects of waste policy and delivery in England. We want to make it easier for people to do the right thing and recycle more, so today’s review is good news for householders, businesses, councils and industry.
We will make it easier for people to recycle, and we will tackle measures introduced by the previous Government that encouraged councils specifically to cut the scope of collections. We will remove the criminal sanctions applying to householders, so that households are not menaced for simple mistakes. We also propose to introduce a “harm to local amenity” test to tackle “neighbours from hell”, ensuring that enforcement is targeted at those who deliberately and persistently break the law.
The review is good for business. We are abolishing landfill allowance trading schemes, because they create a perverse incentive for local authorities not to collect waste from business. We are giving them certainty about landfill tax; the escalator will move annually by £8 to a floor of £80 by 2015. We are announcing a voluntary agreement so that small and medium-sized enterprises can better access recycling services. We are providing business with a clear signal that energy from waste will be a key technology in the future.
Today’s review is good for the environment. We will start consulting on restricting wood waste from landfill and go on to review the feasibility of bans on metal, textiles and biodegradable waste. We shall also consult on increased recycling targets, to 2017, for packaging waste.
The review changes the way we look at waste by unlocking the economic opportunities for transforming waste into resource. We have set out a clear direction for cutting landfill, preventing waste and increasing recycling.
Mr Reed: That is barely credible, and it is no wonder that DEFRA is rapidly being seen as the equivalent of the mad woman in the attic. As usual, today’s announcement was spun to the media before it was laid before Parliament. Among the spin was yet another broken promise, this time on weekly bin collections. The Secretaries of State for both DEFRA and Communities and Local Government spent their time in opposition promising the public that weekly bin collections would be introduced, but today we discover that this is not the case. Before the election the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government said, to much acclaim from his own party:
“It’s a basic right”—
I emphasise the words “a basic right”—
“for every English man and woman to be able to put the remnants of their chicken tikka masala in their bin without having to wait a fortnight for it to be collected.”
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Perhaps the Secretary of State can explain why the Government’s position has changed. Is she happy that the waste review contains no recycling targets at all for England, and that the UK’s recycling commitments under the European Union’s waste framework directive will therefore be met on the backs of recycling targets in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland? Is that right?
Will the right hon. Lady also tell us why she chose, on becoming Secretary of State, to abandon the Labour Government’s consultation on stopping wood going to landfill, only to waste a year and today reintroduce it? Instead of taking the chance to boost recycling, reduce waste and create jobs, the Government have abandoned Labour’s target of moving to a zero waste Britain. Under the previous Government recycling increased from 10% to 40%, but there is still more to do.
Today’s announcement fails to establish a framework for the green growth that the country needs and through which thousands of green jobs could be created. The waste review is a huge missed opportunity that looks set to do little for our environment or our economy. The Secretary of State should explain why it took so long and looks set to deliver so little.
Mrs Spelman: First, I wish to make it clear that the written ministerial statement was available to Members before I spoke to the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management. Of course the Government will work with all parties to increase recycling rates, but the recycling target is a European one of reducing waste by 50% by 2020. I am confident that we are on target. This is a devolved matter for the other nations.
It is a bit rich, coming from the Opposition, who had 13 years to get to grips with landfill. They could, if they had so wanted, have got on and banned wood, materials, textiles and metals. I fear that the Opposition are still in denial about the dreadful economic legacy that they left to the Government.
Finally, the hon. Gentleman asks about green growth. I have just spoken to the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management and shared with them the fact that we estimate that there will be a growth of 3% or 4% per annum in green jobs through the waste industry because of the positive framework that we are setting out to help people do what they want to do—the right thing: waste less and recycle more.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con): I welcome the statement that the Secretary of State laid before the House today. May I share with her the fact that the district council serving my part of north Yorkshire will be well on its way to meeting the target that she has set. There will obviously be some perverse implications from abolishing LATS—landfill allowance trading schemes—because rural communities have done very well out of that.
I welcome the fact that anaerobic digestion is to be increased. It deals primarily with waste food. What are the implications for other energy from waste facilities in the next few years?
Mrs Spelman: I thank the Chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee for her warm welcome for the Government’s waste review and her recognition that LATS fulfilled a role whose impact the landfill tax has largely overtaken in helping us reduce the amount that goes to landfill.
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At the same time as publishing the waste review, I have published the Government’s anaerobic digestion strategy. We see the future for anaerobic digestion as very important. The Select Committee Chairman makes an important point. It is not just food waste that can be used as a feedstock for anaerobic digestion, and we must be careful that food crops are not caught as feedstock for anaerobic digestion. We should be using waste.
Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab): I suspect that the Communities Secretary eats rather more chicken tikka masala than the right hon. Lady. Does she agree that the chicken tikka masala remains would be much better put into a food collection than into a black sack? Will she make some progress on further recycling? What does she think of the Friends of the Earth target, which I very much support, of halving black sack waste by 2020?
Mrs Spelman: I have to feed teenagers who are rather partial to chicken tikka masala, and there is very little left at the end of the day. The Government will be working with local councils to increase the frequency and quality of rubbish collections and make it easier to recycle, to tackle measures that encourage councils specifically to cut the scope of collections and to support them where they wish to provide a weekly collection for smelly waste.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD): I welcome the publication of the review today. Does my right hon. Friend agree that if we are to address the challenge of the regularity of waste collection, we need particularly to look at pages 58 onwards of the report in relation to the management of food waste? What will the Government be doing to reassure people that we will meet ambitious targets to reduce food waste going into the chain?
Mr Speaker: Order. I ask colleagues to ask short questions. There is a lot of interest and there is little time.
Mrs Spelman: I thank my hon. Friend for a question that obviously shows that he has read the review. He will know that it contains the startling fact that we waste £12 billion-worth of food a year, which we can ill afford to do. We need to work with all involved in food production and packaging to try to minimise the amount of food waste.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab): Why is the right hon. Lady sparing the blushes of the Communities Secretary? Was it not always nonsense for a Government to pay lip service to localism but then to try to force local authorities to reintroduce weekly collections? Will she confirm that most of the local authorities that have alternate weekly collections are Conservative-controlled, and that there is a strong correlation between high recycling rates and alternate weekly collections?
Mrs Spelman: It is important to encourage councils to respond to what local people want and need. That is the very essence of localism. Therefore, we will proceed with a new commitment from councils to redouble their efforts to listen and respond to the wishes of their residents on refuse collection.
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Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): Does the Secretary of State agree that it is unacceptable to have rotting food waste hanging around for up to two weeks in bins, and will she tell councils that she hopes that they will have at least weekly collections so that we do not have the danger and risk of that situation?
Mrs Spelman: I said in response to an earlier question from the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) that we believe that it is important to support local authorities that want to provide a weekly collection of the smelly part of the waste, and DEFRA will make available £10 million to assist them in that.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op): The Secretary of State is obviously quite adept at U-turns, but why is she so selfishly hanging on to this U-turn when she could have let the Communities Secretary make his very own U-turn today?
Mrs Spelman: I remind the hon. Gentleman that we are a coalition Government, a Government of two parties, and he might like to read the coalition agreement commitment that said the Government will
“work towards a ‘zero waste’ economy, encourage councils to pay people to recycle, and work to reduce littering.”
There will also be measures to promote a huge increase in energy from waste through anaerobic digestion as set out in our review today.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con): I thank my right hon. Friend for her statement and for her flexibility, in contrast to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood). My local authority works with the private sector and provides a two-weekly service, but a weekly food waste service. The key factor has been the flexibility of a good contract with the private sector. Does she agree that those local authorities that have been dogmatic about not using competitive tendering should think again?
Mrs Spelman: I agree with my hon. Friend that waste services are a matter for local authorities and that they should develop fit-for-purpose local solutions. However, the Government believe that better procurement and joint working can improve the efficiency of collections while improving the front-line service for the public in an affordable and practical manner.
Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab): Five years ago the Conservatives in Newcastle-under-Lyme made exactly the same promise on weekly collections and then promptly broke it. They then spent £2.5 million with their Liberal Democrat friends on a complicated recycling scheme with 10 different bins, boxes and bags, which has turned Newcastle into a curiosity. They now cannot afford to reinstate weekly collections—
Mr Speaker: Order. I did appeal for short questions.
Paul Farrelly: Is the Government’s pickle over this not reflective of—[ Interruption . ]
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Mr Speaker: Order. I call the Secretary of State.
Mrs Spelman: The most important message is that the Government are trying to make it easier for people to do the right thing. Whether they are at home dealing with household refuse, at work or on the go, we need to make it easier for them to waste less and recycle more.
Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD): Does the Secretary of State accept that developing technologies can turn waste into biofuels and chemicals? Will she encourage such plans and support those currently being put forward by INEOS at Seal Sands on Teesside?
Mrs Spelman: I am not aware of the specific technology being developed by INEOS, but I would be delighted to learn more about it. It is important that we embrace all new technology. I have today mentioned anaerobic digestion, for which I have set out a strategy, but new technologies are coming on stream all the time to turn waste into resources and we should explore them all.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op): It is all very well hiding behind the language of local choice, but the Government promised that they would bring back weekly bin collections across the country. Will the Secretary of State apologise to families who have been led up the garden path by what she said?
Mrs Spelman: I have made it clear that the coalition consists of two parties that struck an agreement, including on provisions relating to waste, which we are fulfilling today. I have set that out very clearly.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con): In stark contrast to the strong-arm tactics of the previous Government, in what ways has the Secretary of State encouraged incentives to drive up recycling rates?
Mrs Spelman: Absolutely. This is such an important point. The previous Government, with their punitive approach, lost public confidence by punishing a little old lady for making the genuine mistake of putting the wrong waste in a recycling container. They lost the plot. Today, we are restoring a proportionate response to the penalties that should apply and are going after the real waste criminals.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab): I am sorry that the right hon. Lady is acting as a human shield for the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government—I have heard that no Liberal Democrat is available to do the job. One of the key issues at local level that encourages cleaner communities is the proper containerisation of waste, particularly trade and household waste. Will she confirm that the fines that councils can impose on businesses will be retained, and what does she suggest to a council—
Mr Speaker: Order. I am grateful.
Mrs Spelman:
There were perverse incentives in the regime in place under the previous Government. As I have mentioned, LATS actually deterred the collection and recycling of business waste, so their abolition, which was a coalition agreement commitment, will
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re-incentivise councils to collect and recycle more business waste. We want to help to make it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular, to benefit.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con): In contrast to Cumbria’s recycling rate of 37%, Suffolk’s is more than 60%, no doubt helped by regular weekly food waste collections. We are also giving planning permission for anaerobic digestion. Will the Secretary of State work with me to ensure that the Department of Energy and Climate Change gets through those issues so that more such facilities are available across the country?
Mrs Spelman: It is right to applaud householders and the way they have actively become involved in trying to increase recycling rates. That is what people want to do, and the Government’s job is to make it easier for them, including through food waste collections if that is what local people want. I have already said that we will support authorities that do that and I will work with DECC to make that easier.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab): If the cuts mean that councils cannot collect rubbish once a week, what chance is there for the NHS or other services?
Mrs Spelman: I am not the Secretary of State for Health, but I think that the hon. Gentleman, just like everyone in his party, is still in a complete state of denial about the mess in which it left the nation’s finances.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con): I welcome the fact that small businesses can now have their collected waste count towards recycling targets. Will my right hon. Friend therefore lobby her friends in DECC in the hope of introducing a renewables obligation certificate for recycled cooking oil that could be used as a biofuel?
Mrs Spelman: I will of course discuss that possibility with DECC. The DCLG, DECC and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills work together very closely, and that is helpful in drawing together this review.
Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op): I have the largest incinerator in the country in my constituency, and it reaches the end of its useful life in 2014. The replacement anaerobic digestion plant was cancelled because private finance initiative credits were withdrawn. What reassurance can you give to my constituents that your strategy will lead to the ending of incineration in my constituency?
Mr Speaker: Order. I have no strategy on this matter, but the Secretary of State might.
Mrs Spelman: I have made it clear that energy from waste has its place in turning waste into resources. I have also made it crystal clear today that the Government are committed to helping local authorities that want to use anaerobic digestion, and we will make funds available to achieve that.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con):
Will the Secretary of State congratulate Malvern Hills district council and Wychavon district council? The former
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kept weekly bin collections, the latter moved to two-weekly bin collections, and both were recently soundly re-elected as Conservative councils for a further four-year term.
Mrs Spelman: That demonstrates that good local authorities that respond to the wishes and needs of their residents and supply refuse collection services of good quality and sufficient frequency receive their reward through the ballot box and are returned to office.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab): In the Secretary of State’s opinion, does the Prime Minister require a weekly bin collection to dump rubbish policies such as the NHS reforms?
Mrs Spelman: I do not think that that is a proper question about the waste review. The Prime Minister enjoys a very good refuse collection service in his Oxfordshire constituency.
Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab): If the Secretary of State wants to meet her waste targets and tackle recycling, why has the availability of feed-in tariffs been reduced?
Mrs Spelman: That is more accurately a question for DECC, and I suggest that the hon. Gentleman addresses his question to a Minister from that Department.
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NHS Future Forum
3.53 pm
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley): With permission, Mr Speaker, and further to the written ministerial statement I laid in the House earlier today, I wish to make a statement on the Government’s response to the NHS Future Forum.
We established the independent Future Forum on 6 April, under the chairmanship of Professor Steve Field, to look again at our proposals on the modernisation of the NHS. Yesterday it published its report and recommendations. I would like to thank Professor Field and his 44 senior colleagues from across health and social care who have worked so hard these past eight weeks. I would also like to thank more than 8,000 members of the public, health professionals and representatives from some 250 stakeholder organisations who attended some 250 events across the country—and also the tens of thousands who wrote to us with their views. I want also, if I may, to thank the many officials in my Department who supported this unprecedented engagement across the country.
Two months ago, I said to the House that we would pause, listen, reflect and improve our plans. Our commitment to engage and improve the Bill has been genuine and has been rewarded with an independent, expert and immensely valuable report and recommendations from the Future Forum. I can tell the House that we will ask the forum to continue its work, including looking at the implementation of proposals in areas including education and training and public health.
In his report, Professor Field set out clearly that the NHS must change if it is to respond to challenges and realise the opportunities of more preventive, personalised, integrated and effective care. The forum said that the principles of NHS modernisation were supported: to put patients at the heart of care, to focus on quality and outcomes for patients, and to give clinicians a central role in commissioning health services.
The forum set out to make proposals for improving the Bill and its implementation, to provide reassurance and safeguards, and to recommend changes where needed. As Professor Field put it, it did this not to resist change, but to embrace it, guided by the values of the NHS and a relentless focus on the provision of high-quality care and improved outcomes for patients.
We accept the NHS Future Forum’s core recommendations. We will make significant changes to implement those recommendations and, in some cases, offer further specific assurances that have been sought. There are many proposed changes and we will publish a more detailed response shortly. However, I would now like to tell the House some of the main changes that we will make.
The Bill will make it clear that the Secretary of State has a duty to promote a comprehensive health service, as in the National Health Service Act 1946, and is accountable for securing its provision and for the oversight of the national bodies charged with doing so. We will also place duties on the Secretary of State to maintain a system for professional education and training within the health service, and to promote research.
One of the most vital areas of modernisation to get right is the commissioning of local services. For commissioning to be effective, the process of designing
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services must draw on a wide range of people, including clinicians, patients and patient groups, carers and charities. We will amend the Bill so that the governing body of every clinical commissioning group will have at least two lay members, one focusing on public and patient involvement and the other overseeing key elements of governance, such as audit, remuneration and managing conflicts of interest. Although we should not centrally prescribe the make-up of the governing body, it will have to include at least one registered nurse and one secondary care specialist doctor. To avoid any potential conflict of interest, neither should be employed by a local health provider. The governing bodies will meet in public and publish their minutes. The clinical commissioning groups will also have to publish details of all their contracts with health service providers.
To support commissioning, the independent NHS commissioning board will host “clinical senates”, which will provide expert advice on the shape and fit of health care across wider areas of the country. Existing clinical networks will be developed and will advise on how specific services, such as those for cancer, stroke or mental health, can be better designed to provide integrated and effective care.
Building on that multi-professional involvement, clinical commissioning groups will have a duty to promote integrated health and social care with regard to the needs of their users. To encourage greater integration between social care and public health, the boundaries of clinical commissioning groups should not normally cross those of local authorities. If they do, clinical commissioning groups will need to demonstrate to the NHS commissioning board a clear rationale for doing so in terms of benefit to patients.
I have always said that I want there to be “no decision about me, without me” for patients when it comes to their care. The same—[ Interruption. ]
Mr Speaker: Order. Let us hear the Secretary of State’s statement with some courtesy.
Mr Lansley: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.
We will further clarify the duties on the NHS commissioning board and clinical commissioning groups to involve patients, carers and the public. Commissioning groups will have to consult the public on their annual commissioning plans and involve them in any changes that would affect patient services.
One of the main ways in which patients will influence the NHS is through the exercise of informed choice. We will amend the Bill to strengthen and emphasise the commissioners’ duty to promote patient choice. The choice of any qualified provider will be limited to areas where there is a national or local tariff, ensuring that competition is based solely on quality. The tariff development, alongside a best-value approach to tendered services, will safeguard against cherry-picking.
Monitor’s core duty will be to protect and promote the interests of patients. We will remove its duty to promote competition as though that were an end in itself. Instead, it will be under a duty to support services integrated around the needs of patients and the continuous improvement of quality.
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It will have a power to tackle specific abuses and restrictions of competition that act against patients’ interests. Competition will be a means by which NHS commissioners are able to improve the quality of services for patients.
We will keep the existing competition rules introduced by the last Government—the so-styled “Principles and rules for co-operation and competition”—and give them a firmer statutory underpinning. The co-operation and competition panel, which oversees the rules, will transfer to Monitor and retain its distinct identity. We will also amend the Bill to make it illegal for the Secretary of State or the regulator to encourage the growth of one type of provider over another. There must be a level playing field.
We will strengthen the role of health and wellbeing boards in local councils, ensuring that they are involved throughout the commissioning process and that local health service plans are aligned with local health and wellbeing strategies.
In a number of areas, we will make the timetable for change more flexible to ensure that no one is forced to take on new responsibilities before they are ready, while enabling those who are ready to make faster progress. If any of the remaining NHS trusts cannot meet foundation trust criteria by 2014, we will support them to achieve that subsequently. However, all NHS trusts will be required to become foundation trusts as soon as clinically feasible, with an agreed deadline for each trust.
We will ensure a safe and robust transition for the education and training system. It is vital that change is introduced carefully and without creating instability, and we will take the time to get it right, as the Future Forum has recommended. During the transition, we will retain postgraduate deaneries and give them a clear home within the NHS family.
The extension of “any qualified provider” will be phased carefully to reflect and support the availability of choice for patients. Strategic health authorities and primary care trusts will cease to exist in April 2013. By that date, all GP practices will be members of either a fully or partly authorised clinical commissioning group, or one in shadow form. There will be no two-tier NHS.
However, individual clinical commissioning groups will not be authorised to take over any part of the commissioning budget until they are ready to do so. Individual GPs need not take managerial responsibility in a commissioning group if they do not want to, and April 2013 will not be a “drop dead” date for the new commissioners. Where a clinical commissioning group is not able to take on some or all aspects of commissioning, the local arms of the NHS commissioning board will commission on its behalf. Those groups that are keen to press on will not in any way be prevented from becoming fully authorised as soon as they are ready.
I told the House on 4 April that we would secure proper scrutiny for any changes that we made to the Bill. In order to do that without trespassing on the House’s time to review the Bill as a whole on Report, we will ask the House to recommit the relevant parts of the Bill to a Public Bill Committee shortly.
Through the recommendations of the NHS Future Forum and our response, we have demonstrated our willingness to listen and to improve our plans; to make big changes, and not to abandon the principles of reform, which the forum itself said were supported
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across the service. However, we are clear that the NHS is too important, and modernisation too vital, for us not to be sure of getting the legislation right. The service can adapt and improve as we modernise and change, but the legislation cannot be continuously changed. On the contrary, it must be an enduring structure and statement, so it must reflect our commitment to the NHS constitution and values and incorporate the safeguards and accountabilities that we require. It must protect and enhance patients’ rights and services, and it must be crystal clear about the duties and priorities that we will expect of all NHS bodies and local government in the future.
Professor Field’s report says that it is time for the pause to end. Strengthened by the forum’s report and recommendations, we will now ask the House to re-engage with delivering the changes and modernisation that the NHS needs. I commend this statement to the House.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab): I thank the Secretary of State for an advance copy of his statement, although I learned more from the Prime Minister’s press conference than from the statement.
Humiliating! The Health Secretary has had health policy taken out of his hands. He spent the last nine months telling anyone who criticised the Government’s health plans that they were wrong, and that they did not understand. Today, he admits that he is wrong. How can he argue for this latest blueprint for the biggest reorganisation in NHS history with any credibility or integrity? The man who messed up so badly last year is telling us how he will mess up next year too.
Why no apology to NHS patients and staff for the wasted year of chaos, confusion and incompetence? Why no apology for breaking the coalition agreement to stop top-down reorganisations? Why no apology for patients, who are already beginning to see the NHS go backwards again because of this reorganisation? More than one in 10 people now waits 18 weeks for operations, three times the number of patients wait more than six weeks for tests, and casualty waits are at a six-year high.
This is the first Prime Minister who has been forced to ask 45 experts for a report on how to protect the NHS from his own Government’s policies. Now he is reorganising his reorganisation. The Future Forum report yesterday was a demolition job on the Government’s misjudgments and mishandling of the health service. Why is he wasting £800 million on redundancy payments when some of the same people will be re-hired to do the same job? Why is he holding back £2 billion promised for patient care when it could fund 55,000 nurses? Why is he ploughing on with the Health and Social Care Bill when what he announced today could largely be done without legislation, and certainly without the risk and cost of the biggest reorganisation in NHS history?
This is a political fix, not a proper plan for improving care for patients, or for a better or more efficient NHS that can meet the big challenges that it must face for the future. Make no mistake, today’s plans will mean that the NHS is mired in more complex bureaucracy, more confusion and more wasted cost in the years to come. In the battle of spin, with all parts of the divided Government claiming a win, the big losers will be NHS patients. The Opposition and the public will judge the Government on what they do, not on what they say.
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I lost track of the bureaucracy that the Health Secretary announced in his statement. Will he admit that this reorganisation creates five new national quangos, set to spend tens of billions of pounds? Will he admit that this reorganisation replaces one local body—the primary care trust—with at least five others, all of which will play a part in commissioning? Will he admit that the plans still cut hospitals loose from the NHS, with no limits on treating private patients while NHS patients wait longer, and no support from the NHS if they run into financial trouble? Will he admit that hospitals will no longer have the protection as a public service from the full force of competition law?
What was a very bad Bill will still be a bad Bill. This House should be allowed to do its proper democratic job, as the only elected House, and scrutinise in full in Committee the whole Bill. At its heart, the Bill will still be the Tory long-term plan to see the NHS set up as a full-scale market, and the NHS broken up as a national public service, so that patients increasingly see the services on which they depend subject to the lottery of where they live.
The public have rumbled the Prime Minister. They know that they cannot trust him with the NHS. Fewer than one in four now trusts him to keep his NHS promises, and more than half believe that the Conservative party’s plans for the NHS are just a way to privatise the health service. Today, the Government have recycled their plans for the NHS when they should have been scrapped. People are right to conclude that they cannot trust the Tories with our NHS.
Mr Lansley: Well, I was hoping that, having got past the abuse, the right hon. Gentleman would tell us whether he agreed with the NHS Future Forum, but he did not even mention it. He welcomed the listening and engagement exercise that we announced—he said it was the right thing and that it would be good government to do it—but then when an independent group of experts reports and makes recommendations, he ignores it and says he will oppose the Bill regardless. He did not listen to what people in the NHS were saying. I think it was shameful how he dismissed everything that has happened over the past year as though it did not matter at all—a year in which the coalition Government said we would increase resources to the NHS. We have done that and are committing to investing an extra £11.5 billion in the NHS over the next four years. That is money that, as we will continue to remind the British public, the Labour party told us we should not give to the NHS.
In the past year, the coalition Government and the NHS across the country have implemented a cancer drugs fund from which 2,500 more patients have benefited, and in the past four months, we have cut the number of breaches of the single-sex rule by three quarters, and the number of hospital infections by 22% and C. difficile infections by 15%. Some 750,000 more people are accessing dentistry, and waiting times for people going into hospital are down compared with March 2010. We said that we would reduce management costs, and we will do so, and we have taken 3,800 managers out of the NHS since the election, while the number of doctors has gone up. Six months ago, the right hon. Gentleman said that he supported the reform principles in the Bill. All he said today was sheer opportunism, but it will come back to haunt him, because the NHS will benefit from the
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changes we are proposing today. It will take greater ownership of its own service; patients will be empowered; and clinicians across the service will be empowered and will deliver better outcomes for patients, and when that happens, we will be able to say, “The Labour party would have denied the NHS the resources and the freedom and responsibility to deliver those better outcomes.”
Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con): Is not the key challenge facing the national health service today the need to reverse a decade of declining productivity bequeathed to us by the Labour party? Does my right hon. Friend agree that his statement today provides the basis for us to do that based on the evolution of effective commissioning engaging the entire clinical community, which will address the fragmentation of service and progress the integration of service around the needs of individual patients?
Mr Lansley: Yes, I agree with my right hon. Friend. It is precisely that process of engaging clinicians, who will come together to design services around the needs of patients in a way that delivers not just improving productivity, but improving quality of services for patients, that is at the heart of the shift from primary care trusts and strategic health authorities. Let’s face it: the Labour party spent a decade presiding over declining productivity, while the costs of bureaucracy and management in the NHS doubled. We will empower people in the NHS to deliver improving services and reduce bureaucracy. [ Interruption .]
Several hon. Members rose — [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker: Order. The Opposition Front-Bench team should not be yelling at the Secretary of State when he is answering. [Interruption.] Order. On both sides of the House, right hon. and hon. Members, whatever the passions they feel, need to simmer down just a little. A fine example of that calm and stoicism can now be provided by the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson).
Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab): Does the Secretary of State recognise that forcing the national health service to start implementing his changes before the law had been changed has resulted in vast expense to the NHS, in chaos to services and in the diversion of NHS staff from the treatment of patients? Does he also recognise that just cobbling together a few amendments to the Bill will not make things better but worse? Will he not recognise—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker: Order. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to finish his sentence. We must press on.
Frank Dobson: Does the Secretary of State—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker: Order. I will have the question finished. I do not require any help from any Member.
Frank Dobson: Does the Secretary of State not recognise that pretending to produce a collaborative silk purse from a competitive pig’s ear will not work?
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Mr Lansley: It is slightly confusing, because the right hon. Gentleman’s right hon. Friend on the Opposition Front Bench, the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), was just telling us—erroneously—that we could have done this without legislation anyway, but now the right hon. Gentleman is accusing us of proceeding without legislation. It is not true: we are doing things in the NHS by way of changes that are absolutely essential in any case. I have to tell him and the House that sustaining the structure that we inherited from the Labour party, with all the strategic health authorities and all the primary care trusts—this vast bureaucracy— could never have happened. We had to take out administration costs in the service, and empower clinicians and patients, and we are doing it now regardless of whether the legislation has made progress.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD): I welcome the statement and the change. I have a list here. The Government’s response has satisfied 70% of the demands for change on that list, but it is seemingly not enough—nor can it be enough—because ironically, it is the list of amendments tabled by the Labour party in Committee. Why does the Secretary of State think that it is so hard to build consensus? Given that in many cases the amendments are ones that Labour has asked for, why is the Labour party being so pointlessly churlish?
Mr Lansley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. There are many things that are beyond many of us to understand. One of them is the Labour party and the way it approaches policy. As he and the House will know, the fact is that the Labour party has no policy; it simply had opposition for opposition’s sake.
Mr Speaker: Order. I want to say two things. First, questions and answers must focus on the policy of the Government. That is the parliamentary position, and Members know it. Secondly—[ Interruption. ] Order. Secondly, I want to accommodate the level of interest in this statement, but Members must help me to help them, by being brief.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab): In fact, the last Labour Government left record low waiting times and record levels of public satisfaction with the NHS. I welcome the fact that Professor Steve Field has said what many of us in the Opposition have been saying for at least a year. How much has this year’s shambles cost the NHS, and how much has it damaged patient care?
Mr Lansley: It has not damaged patient care. The right hon. Gentleman should not denigrate the NHS. In May 2010, at the last election, patients waiting to be admitted to hospital waited 8.4 weeks for their treatment; on the latest figures, that went down to 7.9 weeks. Out-patient waiting times for May 2010 were 4.3 weeks on average; that went down to 3.7 weeks, and that in the midst of rising demand on the NHS and continuously improving performance.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con):
This is clear evidence of a listening Government. Does the Secretary of State agree that what the NHS now needs is consensus
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across all political parties, and for everybody to put their money where their mouth is and support the NHS and these changes as we move forward?
Mr Lansley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes a very good point. The Future Forum made the point that what people across the NHS want now is the certainty of knowing what the policy is and to move forward to make that happen.
Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab): In view of the NHS Future Forum’s comments about the
“importance and relevance of the NHS Constitution”
in guiding its work, does the Secretary of State accept that the seven principles set out in the constitution were more effective in protecting the NHS from a hostile Government than the Prime Minister’s five pledges?
Mr Lansley: No, I do not accept that. The Prime Minister’s commitments are absolutely what the public and the people working in the NHS expect and wish to see. They are vital, and they would not have been true under a Labour Government. For example, a Labour Government would not have increased resources for the NHS. The only part of the United Kingdom where there is now a Labour Government is Wales, where resources for the NHS are being cut this year by 5% in real terms compared with last year. When I went to north Wales in the middle of the recess, I saw on the front page of the Liverpool Daily Post that the number of patients waiting more than 36 weeks for their operations had risen from 16 to 989.
Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con): I welcome the proposals, but will the Secretary of State give details of the safeguards against cherry-picking of the kind that, if unchecked, could fatally undermine rural district hospitals such as the West Suffolk hospital in my constituency?
Mr Lansley: Yes; we have to ensure that commissioners are increasingly able to use a tariff involving an established national or local price to determine the service that they commission, and that that does not allow the private sector—or anyone else, for that matter—to cherry-pick services by undercutting on price. We also need to ensure that that price reflects the cost of the treatment for the conditions involved, including complex conditions. This is why we have committed to carry out work, not least with the Royal Colleges, to identify where we need to develop tariffs in order to ensure that that happens.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab): I welcome the statement, not least because it pays tribute to the future of the NHS commission. What is the Secretary of State’s thinking on the forward planning for the commission?
Mr Lansley:
If I may, I will interpret the hon. Lady’s question in relation to the NHS Future Forum. I freely acknowledge that I wish that we had instituted the Future Forum after the publication of the White Paper last year. Although we had a full, formal consultation process at the time, to which 6,000 people replied, the character of the engagement that has been achieved
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over the past two months has been superlative. As we make further progress on the development of education and training proposals, for example, I want to ask the NHS Future Forum to continue that process of engagement in that and other areas across the service.
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con): I have a great deal of time for most GPs—in particular for the one sitting in front of me, my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston)—but what part of the Bill would allow communities to rid themselves of underperforming GP practices?
Mr Lansley: That would need to be initiated by the NHS commissioning board. Under the legislation, the board would respond to the health and wellbeing board in the local authority in question, or to the local clinical commissioning group. In my hon. Friend’s area of Hertfordshire, the health and wellbeing board will provide a new and powerful means by which the voice of the public can be expressed to challenge all the poor performance that occurs in the service.
Mr Speaker: Order. May I remind the House that Members who came into the Chamber after the Secretary of State began his statement should not expect to be called?
Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab): The Secretary of State must know that the biggest threat to the stability of the national health service is the introduction of competition law into clinical services. Will the clause that says that the mergers of NHS trusts will be a matter for the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission be removed from the Bill?
Mr Lansley: The right hon. Gentleman should be aware that the Future Forum has recommended that the powers to be held by the Office of Fair Trading or the Competition Commission should be exercised by Monitor. That is because it believes it to be in the interest of the NHS for them to be exercised by a health service-specific regulator that is sympathetic to and has an understanding of NHS interests.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con): Primary care trusts and strategic health authorities are part of a top-down management structure that has led to waste and bureaucracy and tolerates poorer patient outcomes. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that they will be abolished, and that the £5 billion that that will save over this Parliament will be ploughed back into front-line medical services?
Mr Lansley: Yes, I am grateful to my hon. Friend; I can do that. It is essential to move to a world where we reduce administration costs, relieve bureaucracy in the service and free those providing services by offering them the resources to deliver improving care without the burden of bureaucracy, cost and waste inflicted by a Labour Government in the past.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab):
Does not the Secretary of State understand that when the Labour Government were in power, they increased spending
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from £33 billion to £111 billion in one decade, and that we are now witnessing, at a cost of £2 billion, a new Frankenstein monster all to pacify these tin-pot Liberals? Judas only got 30 pieces of silver.
Mr Lansley: I have a mission for the hon. Gentleman— he should head to Wales. In England, this coalition Government have committed to increasing the NHS budget in real terms in the life of this Parliament. The King’s Fund reported the other week that in Wales, a Labour Government intend to reduce the NHS budget in real terms by over 8%.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD): I believe that the very act of listening to patients and the public will have done a lot to improve these proposals—as, I suspect, once the dust has settled, it will have done for the Health Secretary’s reputation, too. Given the requirement for greater local accountability in these proposals, will the right hon. Gentleman make the same recommendation to local clinical commissioners in the changes they are yet to make for health services in their areas?
Mr Lansley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind remarks, but I have to tell him that I am not looking to achieve anything in terms of reputation; I just want a positive outcome for the NHS. I have said before that this is not about me; it is about achieving for the NHS the opportunity to deliver better services for patients. That is all I am interested in.
The proposals on public and patient involvement illustrate what we needed to do—and will now do in response to the Future Forum—as many people wanted to see set out in detail in the legislation how patient and public involvement would work in the respective NHS bodies. The legislation had set out the fact that these bodies existed, but the detail was not prescribed. There is always a balance to be struck in legislation between the degree of prescription and the degree of freedom. Clearly, through engagement with the NHS, we have approval for putting much more of the detail into the Bill, now that it is clear that it will engage patients and the public.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab): Along with the vast majority of the public, I welcome most of the changes announced today. I always welcome U-turns when they bring about the right thing. I am very concerned, however, that the bureaucracy that will be around after all these changes have gone through could be worse than what we have at the moment. I would genuinely like to be reassured on that point.
Mr Lansley: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her support for the majority of the recommendations. The bureaucracy will reduce in the NHS as a consequence of the changes for one very simple reason—because we are shifting the ownership of commissioning and the responsibility for the design and delivery of services from what is essentially a distant managerial organisation into one that is locked into the clinical decision making of doctors and nurses across the service. Let us be clear: this is about delivering benefit to patients by empowering the doctors and nurses who care for them. That in itself will cut the bureaucracy.
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Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con): Can the Secretary of State confirm that the Government have no plans to decrease the budget for the NHS—unlike the plans of the Labour party to slash it by £30 billion?
Mr Lansley: Yes, my hon. Friend makes an important point. If we had listened to the Labour party last year, we would have cut the NHS and would not have increased the resources going into it. The £20 billion efficiency savings required to respond to demand and cost would have been £30 billion, which would have put an unsupportable degree of pressure on the NHS. As it is, we are giving the NHS not only resources but the opportunity to deliver improving care.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab): After the White Paper was published in July last year, 6,000 representations were received from health professionals and from the Select Committee on Health asking the Secretary of State to think again about breaking up the NHS, so this “listening exercise” has been a waste of public money. Either the Secretary of State was wrong then, or he is wrong now. Which is it?
Mr Lansley: I am afraid I have to say that that was all nonsense. As the hon. Lady knows, we responded positively to the consultation last year and made changes then. However, as the details of the Bill have been emerging, people have been trying to work out how they will make it all work in the future. They have been saying, “We want to set out in the legislation precisely how it will work.” There is no better way of making that process effective than talking to people in the NHS, engaging with them, listening to them, and then implementing the changes.
Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con): I am sure the Secretary of State agrees that the single biggest challenge facing health care in the United Kingdom is the economic and human challenge of looking after an ageing population. Does he also agree that the key to that is better integration of health care services—better integration of hospital services with community and social services—and that these reforms are a good way of going about that?
Mr Lansley: I agree very much with that. The Future Forum’s report, particularly the part that deals with clinical advice and leadership, has given us a robust structure for engagement with the range of professions that are capable of delivering that kind of integrated, joined-up and more effective care.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab): Can the Secretary of State reassure us that no services or hospitals will be taken over by the private sector?
Mr Lansley: There are no plans in the legislation or, indeed, in the Future Forum’s recommendations that would lead to that. In particular, as the hon. Lady will see in the detail published with the written ministerial statement this morning, we have proposed that Monitor should have no power to allow the private sector access to NHS facilities for reasons of competition and to take them away from NHS providers.
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Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con): We have a Prime Minister who loves the NHS, a Secretary of State who is the most experienced Member in the House when it comes to the NHS, and a coalition Government who have done something that the Labour Government never did. They listened, and they were willing to improve their Bill. This is a great day for democracy. I congratulate the Secretary of State on that, and on referring the Bill back to a Committee—and if he is looking for volunteers for the Committee, I am available.
Mr Lansley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It is because I believe in the NHS and the people who work in the NHS that I think it right to listen to and engage with those people, and to give them much greater control of the service that they provide for patients.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab): What can we conclude from the fact that the Prime Minister is not here with us this afternoon to support the Secretary of State, but is involved in a PR stunt at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust? It was once said on the other side of the Atlantic that you could put lipstick on a pig, but at the end of the day it was still a pig. Is that not true of the Bill?
Mr Speaker: Order. We are starting to get involved in issues perhaps not of order, but certainly of taste.
Mr Lansley: If you will forgive me, Mr Speaker, I do not think that I will favour that question with an answer.
Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con): Will the Secretary of State expand on the support that organisations such as the Spinal Injuries Association can expect through specialised commissioning?
Mr Lansley: I believe that as a result of our proposals the NHS commissioning board will be able to provide more consistency in much specialised commissioning, and I hope that that will apply to people with spinal injuries. I am well acquainted with the work of the Spinal Injuries Association: I think that it has done terrific work, and we have already worked closely with it in trying to ensure that we improve commissioning and services for those with spinal injuries.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab): It is utterly disgraceful that Liberal Democrats and Tories are scrapping with each other to claim credit for the alleged listening exercise. Will the Secretary of State now apologise to my colleagues and me for not listening to us when the Bill was in Committee?