Barry Gardiner
MP for Brent West · Labour · United Kingdom
“Sir Desmond, imagine that the top brains in the country’s security and intelligence community produced a report that told you how to save the world. You would want to see it, right? Well, the report we are discussing is not about how to save the world; it is about what happens if we do not.”
“The nuclear threat will rise as clashes between nuclear powers become more frequent. Those are the cold assessments of the Joint Intelligence Committee. The Government were right to think that those assessments might scare people—they scare me—but they were wrong to think that they could hide them from the public.”
“The Minister will know that the grant structure on which UKRI is based gives out grants for a maximum of three to five years. Very few are for five years—most are for three years or under—yet the sort of long-term scientific development that my hon.”
“My hon. Friend is making a superb case for the importance of funding for her deep earth facility. I had the privilege of going to the National Oceanography Centre’s deep oceans facility, and the innovative science there on carbon sequestration is superb.”
“The Prime Minister has spoken powerfully about the devolution of power and giving back control. Will he therefore ensure that the proposals for commonhold and leasehold reform, for which 5 million leaseholders in this country are waiting with bated breath, do give that power and control back to those people, through the right to enfranchi…”
“We know how much land there is in the UK, and we know the extent of our inland waters and seas, so we can know how much we have to do to protect them, as we are required to do by target 3 of the global biodiversity framework.”
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“Does the Minister of State agree with the consumer report published by Which? at the end of last year which said that consumers had been put out by £4 billion a year since 2010? If he does agree with that report, does he think it is consistent with the regulator having done a good job, as he has just assured the House it has done?”
“The Secretary of State rightly spoke of the importance of last week’s IPCC report on climate change. Will he tell the House of any new policy he is considering in the light of that report as a way of advancing progress from the UK on these matters?”
“I am sure the Leader of the House would agree that the matters being investigated by Ofsted in certain Birmingham schools are deeply worrying. Will he ensure that the Ofsted and Birmingham reports are published swiftly, and that thereafter there is a swift statement to this House?”
“I came to the House prepared to attack the Minister because I thought she was going to kick this into the long grass. I am absolutely delighted that she has assured the House that she is not going to do that. In the light of the reception from her own Back Benchers, which I am afraid has not been friendly, she can at least be assured of the friendliness from those on the Labour Benches. She is doing exactly the right thing. My father died of lung cancer when I was eight, so I never took up smoking, but many of my friends did. They are now dead and I am still going. What the Minister is doing today will mean that more children will not take up smoking in the first place.”
“This weekend, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will publish its fifth assessment report on the impacts of climate change. Given that the final draft of the report covers disruption to the economy, disruption to water availability, changes to the food supply and adverse health impacts, I am not quite sure which Secretary of State it would be best to get the Leader of the House to ask to make a statement: it could equally be the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, for Health, for Energy and Climate Change, for International Development or for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. If there could be a conscious uncoupling between the Deputy Prime Minister and Mr Farage next week, the Deputy Prime Minister might come to the House to give a statement on the impact report.”
“Having said that, can he explain why, when the profits made by the companies in Europe are between 2% and 3%, whereas in this country they are between 5% and 7%, he will not do anything now?”
“May I extend my sympathy to the Secretary of State, as it must be galling for him to have to make this statement to the House, particularly with his minder, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), present? The Secretary of State has known for many years that what the Labour party has been saying, and what the Select Committee has been saying, has been correct, but he has been prevented from doing anything by the Treasury. Now he has had to come to the House to accept that all the things we were asking for—the Competition Commission referral, a proper examination of this situation and addressing vertical integration—are going to come to pass on his watch.”
“The Minister spoke of the “bold” pension proposals in last week’s Budget. Now that the Chancellor has allowed people to cash in their pension pot instead of purchasing an annuity, can the Minister confirm that, under his Department’s rules on care costs, local authorities will now be able to insist that they do cash them in, thereby pushing them over the threshold where they have to contribute to their own care costs?”
“They say, “Oh, but there were 14 players in the market before it was reduced to the big six by the Labour Government through the new electricity trading arrangements, or NETA.” There were 14 regional monopolies, not six national players; I wanted to nail that one before the Minister had the chance to say it. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith has already said what Labour will do differently and that is clear. I am running out of time, but I must add that the decision of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has proved prophetic, and it will prove right.”
“Well, with the fixing of that benchmark price for gas, unusual trading activity reduced the price of gas just before the end of the financial year, and that was reported to the Financial Services Authority by a company responsible for setting so-called benchmark prices, ICIS Heren. The practice was indeed reported to the FSA at the time. That type of activity enables the big six to reduce the cost of gas relative to the price paid by independents, creating further barriers to market entry and ensuring that the big six retain their unhealthy monopoly. I know what the Minister will say about competition in the market, because he has said it on a number of occasions in the House. It is the Government’s prepared agenda.”
“Ofgem, however, will not act on the proposal, because, it stated, that would have meant the need to change company structures and Ofgem does not have the powers to require such a change. That is, in part, because four of the big six are not UK companies, but it also shows that Ofgem is far too weak to effect the changes needed to our energy market. It is worth noting that EDF opposed recommendation 2 of the improving reporting transparency inquiry—that would require an independent auditor to provide an opinion on segmental statements—and that the trading arms of the vertically integrated energy companies were implicated in the fixing of the benchmark price for gas. The hon. Member for Warrington South said, “Where’s the evidence?”, and asked us to produce it.”
“Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) asked for evidence—thank God he left his speech at the pub, because he managed to take twice as long as your recommended time limit without the speech, Sir Roger; goodness knows what would have happened had he brought it with him. He said that if anyone knows about such things, they should report it, so let us look at what evidence there is and at what has been presented. BDO found that the vertically integrated companies were using four different accounting standards. The improving reporting transparency review conducted by BDO for Ofgem recommended that Ofgem “Require the reporting of trading function results, including disclosure of the risk each trading function assumes”, as part of companies’ segmented accounts.”
“In 2014, 61% of companies surveyed by EEF cited input costs as a risk to their growth plans. That figure was up four percentage points on the 57% of just one year earlier. That is fundamental for business. Bills are going up because when the price of energy increases, energy companies pass that on, although they are reluctant to see the change passed on when prices go down, or at least they are not nearly so quick about it. Why has that been possible? Why has it been allowed to happen? The answer is limited competition and weak regulation by Ofgem. Evidence presented to the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change showed that the big six were engaged in inconsistent accounting. The hon.”
“Alistair Phillips-Davies said, “If that’s what the customer wants, we are very happy to participate in that agenda.” Labour party policy, it seems, has moved from the unimaginable and unacceptable to the mainstream in just a few short months, and that has to be welcomed. If the second largest company in the UK is saying that it is happy to participate in that agenda, it seems that it has seen the writing on the wall. Energy bills have risen by almost £300 for families and businesses. More importantly than simply that, however—this should be of specific concern to the Minister, whether he is listening or not—the employers’ federation, EEF, in its “Executive Survey 2014”, highlighted rising input costs as the primary risk to growth: I repeat, the primary risk.”
“It is a pleasure to speak in the debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) on securing it. “The party’s over for the big six.” Those are not my words, but those of Evan Davis on the “Today” programme this morning. I was delighted to hear that, but was even more delighted to hear the comments of Alistair Phillips-Davies, the chief executive of SSE. He made them quite calmly, given all the furore when a few months ago my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition announced that we would impose a price freeze and break up the vertical integration of the big six.”
“I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend’s comments. She is doing very well. Will she comment on the fact that in the UK the profit margin for shareholders has been between 5% and 7%, whereas on the continent it is between 2% and 3%? The hon. Member for Warrington South did not mention those figures when he compared the UK with the continent.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for eventually giving way. He has spoken about competition a great deal. Does he accept that the whole purpose of vertical integration by a company is precisely to be a bulwark against competition and, although what he has said about introducing greater liquidity into the long-term market is absolutely right, does he not accept that that would be achieved by breaking up that vertical integration?”
“Many Government Members, both this afternoon and in the preceding days of this debate, have said that it has been a Budget for savers. That is an irony, coming from a Government who have pumped more than £375 billion into the economy to buy Government bonds. That has been singularly responsible for reducing the yield to savers. The Bank of England working paper 442, on the impact of quantitative easing on the economy, states that the 8% increase in money holdings is estimated to have depressed yields by an average of 150 basis points. That was in 2012. Quantitative easing now is not £122 billion, or 8%; it is more than £375 billion.”
“Greater freedom for savers should not be a back-door way of enabling Governments to get their hands on people’s pension pots. Nearly one in five of our young people is now without a job. The pity—and, I hope, the shame—of this Government is that they preferred giving tax cuts of £42,500 to the very richest in our society to giving a job guarantee to the young and long-term unemployed. Do the coalition partners truly believe that the families of this country would rather see bankers keep their exorbitant bonuses than see their children assured of quality training and serious jobs?”
“I am even more worried that the ability to access one’s pension pot should not become a way for the Government to tip people over the threshold of £23,500, where they will have to start contributing to their care costs. At today’s rates, a £25,000 pension pot would generate an income from an annuity of approximately only £1,500 a year. On top of the state pension, and even a modest works pension, an elderly person in need of care would not normally be pushed over the contribution threshold in such circumstances. Previously, the pension pot could be used only to purchase an annuity. Now that it can be converted into cash, I fear that a local authority could insist, under the rules, that it is converted into cash, thereby forcing someone to contribute to their care costs. I ask the Minister to give us a clear reassurance about that.”
“I am deeply concerned that unfettered access to pension pots undermines the whole basis for tax relief on pension contributions in the first place. We give people tax relief on pension contributions precisely because we want to ensure that they do not become more of a burden on the state in old age. We may well be seeing the birth of the next great financial mis-selling crisis. Independent financial advice is all well and good, but in the past many advisers have shown themselves to be better at ensuring that their clients’ money serves their own purposes and interests rather than the interests of the clients whom they are supposed to be advising.”
“In the 2013 Budget, the Chancellor abolished stamp duty on AIM shares. By uniting share and cash ISAs, the Chancellor has boosted what is inevitably a riskier element of the City and is encouraging people to undertake less secure investments with their savings. It is important that that sort of incentivisation should be considered most carefully by Treasury Front Benchers. My hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) spoke of it being beyond the capacity of ordinary people, who include most of Labour Members’ constituents, to accumulate £15,000 in one year to put into an ISA. That suggests that the Government, in framing the Budget, have again been out of touch with the reality for many people.”
“I am not suffering from amnesia, selective or otherwise. I do recall that the process started in 2009 under the Labour Government, so I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point. Equally, we have to accept that the Bank of England’s own figures show the impact that that has had on savers over the lifetime of this Government. Elderly savers have had to bear the brunt of that. The Chancellor is trying to win them back with changes to the rules on individual savings accounts, and, for those approaching a decision on their pension pot, the prospect that they need not purchase an annuity. It is, however, QE that has in large part kept savings rates so low. Government Ministers need to reflect on the changes to ISAs. They are a boost to mid-caps and the alternative investment market. Alternative investments are riskier.”
“Who benefits? We are asking about more than mere distribution. We are asking about fairness, about equality and about justice. On that question, the Government have failed.”
“No wonder the Government are spending £13 billion more on welfare than the Labour Government did in 2010, and no wonder they are spending £30 billion more than the Chancellor himself predicted in 2010. Is it not incredible that a coalition Government who came to power saying that borrowing was the problem have borrowed more in three years than the Labour Government did in the 13 years during which they were in office? People do not forget that it was this Government and this Chancellor who said that they would balance the books by 2015. Now, in the Budget, the Chancellor has had to admit that in 2015 there will be a £75 billion deficit, and that, in addition, he will be borrowing £190 billion more than the amount promised in 2010. The Government need to answer the single question that should be asked about all Budgets. Cui bono?”
“The hon. Gentleman has made a reasonable point. It would be a very strange Budget if all its measures were objectionable to the Opposition. My purpose is to flag up the areas of disagreement, and the areas that I believe will pose serious problems to the economy in the future. The reality for my working constituents is that they are earning less, and earning less in jobs that are less secure. As their real wages have fallen, they have had to rely all the more on housing benefit. That is why the welfare bill under this Government is rising rather than falling. More people are having to claim housing benefit because their wages have simply failed to keep pace with inflation.”
“My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. May I assist him by saying that Richard Cobden might have thought the price freeze less important than the restructuring of the vertical integration in the market, which it was buying time in order to do?”
“Will the Minister answer the question that I put to her in my speech about whether local authorities will be able to insist that pension pots are converted into cash to put people over the threshold for care costs?”
“The Minister initially said that the Government would spend £400 million supporting low-emission vehicles. Answers to parliamentary questions have shown that £170 million of that will not be spent by the end of this Government’s life. Last year, the Chancellor cut the first-year capital subsidy for low-emission vehicles, as a result of which no right-handed vehicles are being produced in the UK. What will he do to incentivise this industry, and to ensure that the emissions causing the deaths of 29,000 people each year are cut down?”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on his statement. He rightly referred to a move from lowest cost to best value. He will, of course, be aware of legislation passed by the last Labour Government, which stipulated that all public bodies should procure only legal and sustainable timber. Did the Committee carry out any investigations of the progress that local authorities are making in that respect?”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Before the statement, you were good enough to explain the procedures—which are rather novel for the House—that would govern its delivery and the subsequent questions. Can you tell me whether it is in order, when such a statement is made by the Chair of a Select Committee, for no Minister from the relevant Department to be present?”
“What impact and what offence does the Secretary of State believe have been caused to Jewish and Muslim businesses by the statement from the chief veterinary officer today, threatening to ban the practice of shechita and halal?”
“May we have a debate on the importance of public consultation in the setting of Government policy? This morning, with no consultation and on the basis of a very small and flimsy scientific report which is hotly disputed, the chief veterinary officer announced that the Government might be minded to ban the practices of shechita and halal. May we have a debate on precisely why that has not been subject to any public consultation on the Government’s part?”
“The Foreign Secretary has rightly welcomed the vetoing of the legislation downgrading the Russian language in Ukraine, but he will understand that the fact that the Parliament was prepared to pass and propose such legislation caused severe concern to the 20% of the population in Ukraine who are ethnically Russian. What further measures does he believe the Ukrainian Parliament should take to give reassurance to that part of the population that they are not under threat?”
“Here is what the Ministers both know and believe, as set out in the Select Committee report: “Funding has not kept pace in recent years with an increased risk of flooding from more frequent severe weather events, and the relatively modest additional sums to be provided up to 2020 will not be sufficient to plug the funding gap.” They signed up to that in the light of the disastrous decision to cut the flood defence budget in 2010. The Labour Government had left a budget of £670 million. After the election, the coalition partners agreed to reduce that current 2010-11 budget to just £573 million.”
“Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice)—and I were appointed to our current roles, we sat under the watchful eye of the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) who introduced this debate most excellently as Chair of the Select Committee. It is the report of that Select Committee that we all discussed, agreed and signed up to. The question is whether Ministers have effectively translated the views and recommendations of the Select Committee, which we know they believed and accepted before they submitted to the yolk of ministerial office, into effective departmental policy. Have they followed through on what they actually think and have they done what they said was needed? Well, they have not.”
“Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) made some excellent points about land management and, as is his wont, spoke powerfully about dredging. I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) who spoke powerfully about climate change and the recent report, the launch of which he had attended. It is a rare occasion indeed when one can know with certainty in advance of a debate in this Chamber that there will be absolute unity among all three parties and that the Minister and the shadow Minister will agree with the Chair of the Select Committee and each other about matters under discussion. Today we have what may in other circumstances be called a prenuptial agreement. Before the Minister—and indeed his colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon.”
“What a serious and well-informed debate this is, and what a serious and well-informed speech the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) has just made. This has been an excellent debate and I pay tribute to many Members for their contributions, including the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). I echo the remarks made by the hon. Member for Totnes about fishermen and the fishing communities. She made a very important point. We often think about farming communities and businesses, but overlook what is happening in the fishing communities. That point was also made in the good debate that we had in Westminster Hall on Wednesday morning, but it was good that the hon. Lady made it again here today. The hon.”
“I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for his remarks, because he speaks from personal experience. None the less, the Prime Minister is saying now that money is no object. Many people who have been affected by the floods may feel that it would have been better to say that that money should have been spent not on clearing up the mess but on preventing the flooding from being so devastating in the first place by ensuring that the defences were in place.”
“They can even be corroborated on the website of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the correction it had to put out after the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister both “mis-spoke”. As the UK Statistics Authority reported last week, the flood defence budget has seen a real-terms cut of £247 million in this spending period. The Committee was absolutely clear about the risk from the reduction of flood defence funds. Last October, in their official response to the report, the Government said: “In the context of the wider need to pay down the deficit, we believe this is an excellent outcome and demonstrates the priority this Government attaches to managing flood risk.” Well, yes, it certainly does.”
“I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that the figures belie that. In 2011-12, there was a budget of £573 million; in 2012-13, £576 million; and in 2013-14, £577 million. The budget for 2014-15 is £615 million. Over the four-year spending period, the Government have allocated just £2.34 billion to flood defences, compared with £2.37 billion over the previous spending period. Those figures are not the ones that the Prime Minister used two weeks ago at Prime Minister’s questions, but they are the ones set out clearly by the independent Committee on Climate Change in its policy note on 21 January, used by the House of Commons Library in its briefing on flood defence spending and set out by the UK Statistics Authority just six days ago.”
“The hon. Lady will recall my own contributions to the report. I was very keen that we put far more reliance on green infrastructure, and I will come on to that a little later. She will know that the Committee’s report was absolutely clear about the importance of partnership funding. Of course she will recognise—I think she did remark on it in the House a few days ago—that the £148 million that the Government had originally included in their spending figures when Ministers mis-spoke on this issue has not in fact been produced. It was actually £67 million of partnership funding that has been produced, not the £148 million that they counted for the period.”
“In a policy note of 21 January, the adaptation sub-committee of the Committee on Climate Change did precisely that. All its figures are based on real terms, according to 2010 prices. The capital is lower in every year of this Government than when they started with £360 million in 2010-11. The figure falls to £261 million in 2011-12 and to £269 million in 2012-13, before rising slightly to £294 million in 2013-14, and finally, at £344 million, falling £16 million short of where it started in 2014-15. As my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) noted in her speech to the House last week, those spreadsheet figures translate into real projects. The loss of £274 million has resulted in 290 shovel-ready projects being cancelled and 996 being delayed.”
“In the interests of transparency, the Government need to disaggregate the element of their capital spend budget that is for new defences and the part that is for the major repair and maintenance of assets. Secondly, as the Government have used the capital spend as a proxy for spending on flood defences, they might confuse people who think that they are building more defences when, in fact, because of climate change and storm damage, they are simply spending more on major repairs to existing defences. In other words, there may be no increase in the number of defences or, indeed, the number of properties and homes defended, just an ever-increasing capital repair bill to maintain them. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion made that point earlier. It is therefore important that we examine the fine detail of the EA’s budget in this respect.”
“I am under pressure of time, so I will proceed. Let us be clear: the Government need to do two things. They need to construct more flood defences that will bring more homes and properties into a lower risk of flooding, but they also need to maintain those new and existing flood defences in proper condition so that they continue to provide protection. Unhelpfully, the Government chose to categorise all major maintenance or repair work to existing flood defences as capital spend. Uniquely in the debate so far, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton alluded to that point. I want to make two points in that connection. First, it is not sensible to increase the new build flood defences without a corresponding increase in the budget for major repairs.”
“What is of enormous concern is that those skills and expertise might be lost with these redundancies, with the corresponding loss of service and safety to the public in the future.”
“He was pressed for time in his summing up and was unable to explain how he considered that the EA could give people the sort of assistance that we have seen over the past two months and to which many hon. Members have paid tribute this afternoon, and I join them in doing so. How will the EA do that with 550 fewer staff? Today, I ask him to tell the House what roles the people in those posts currently perform. Are some of them the people who actually manage the flows of water in the waterways, by monitoring and operating the sluice gates, the weirs, the locks and the pumps? Do they include the people who survey and assess the condition of flood defences. Do they include the people who prepare the maintenance schedules for those defences? Do they include any of the people who have been helped with the clear-up operations?”
“I am sorry; the Minister is wrong on that point. The 290 projects that I referred to are those that were shovel-ready and scheduled within that four-year period; the 996 projects are the ones that were not. Significantly, 13 of those schemes were in the north-east Thames valley, where more than 350 homes have been flooded, and 67 of them were in the south-west, where 100 homes have been flooded. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition made the further point at Prime Minister’s questions that the EA is planning to make 550 flood defence posts redundant. I specifically questioned the Minister in the Westminster Hall debate last week on whether those redundancies will go ahead.”
“Landowners always seek to dredge the river as it passes through their land. That is the quickest way to try to ensure that their own land is not flooded and the problem is passed downstream. This approach was contained in the Pitt review under recommendation 27. When will this most important element of flood risk management, adverted to in the Select Committee report, be implemented?”
“The Committee stated: “We regret that the current regulatory framework does not permit innovative investment in natural flood defences by water companies and expect Ofwat’s next Price Review to rectify this.” All too often, we reach for concrete and steel solutions to the problem of flooding instead of looking at soft, green infrastructural approaches. There are notable exceptions, and Wessex Water, for example, operates a catchment management system that pays landowners to manage the uplands in a benign way that retains water and purifies it, instead of allowing contaminated water in need of treatment to run swiftly down the catchment. Land management plays a vital role. The retention of flood water upstream through woodland and ground cover in the uplands is every bit as important as dredging in the lower levels of the catchment.”