Graham Stuart
MP for Beverley and Holderness · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I hope and expect that we can move forward in the right way and get the balance right between being overly prescriptive to the banking industry and setting a clear sense of direction to make sure that no one is left behind, as so many Members have set out.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) on securing this debate.”
“Is my hon. Friend as astonished as I am that the Minister—I know she is new to her post—has come here to propose a six-month extension of the movement of costs from bills to the Exchequer and cannot tell the Committee how much money that will cost?”
“The Minister is being most generous again. I did not ask her about protecting consumers from energy price shocks; I asked about a clear, unequivocal manifesto pledge to reduce household energy bills by £300. She, like her predecessors, refuses to address it directly. It was a clear promise.”
“Banking hubs themselves came out of an industry response from the NatWest executive. Does the Minister agree that we must present the information from the Lloyd review to the banking groups, be clear about what we want, and give them the opportunity to respond and provide a solution, as they did with banking hubs, so that we can perhaps a…”
“I am pleased to say that Lloyds listened and, as of this morning, people can deposit cheques at those places. These issues being raised by Members across the House today are important. I trust that given the timing of the Richard Lloyd report, the Minister in her seat will make sure that they are be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.”
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“My hon. Friend is right. It is important when considering statutory services, which have an important role to play, as I said during my speech, to remember that there is a vast range of other services, such as sports clubs—Beverley rugby club, Beverley cricket club, the Meridian gym, which my younger daughter attends, and the Eastside gym which serves more than 700 children at Hedon in my constituency. I pay tribute to people such as Andy Dickinson and Steve Crane who do such a good job of providing services on a voluntary basis.”
“The hon. Lady is very fair-minded and will want to recognise the fact that mass youth unemployment has been a reality for the entirety of the time that we are talking about. From the beginning, it was pretty solid. It did not move in the boom years of the previous Government. After the financial crisis, it went up. Although there was a temporary drop before the last election, the upward movement was there. It is a systemic issue, which we need to tackle. It is certainly not the result of any immediate policies of a Government who have been in power for 22 months.”
“The East Riding of Yorkshire was, for a long time, the fourth lowest funded authority in the country and is now the eighth lowest, despite the demonstrable increase in the cost of delivering education in a sparsely populated rural and coastal area. It is not obvious, however one looks at the complex formula, how to work out whether it properly recognises the needs of an area. The pupil premium has the elegant benefit of directly targeting an additional sum to help schools provide educational support for children on free school meals.”
“The Minister is spending a disproportionately inordinate amount of time on something that is not central to the issue, but I would like to correct him. The process was that we took evidence from young people on panels in multiple oral evidence sessions, and we also conducted the student forum. As we are a parliamentary Committee, young people cannot form part of the team that puts the report together, but we had massive engagement with young people throughout the whole process—for example, by using the student forum and so on. I thought that I had written to the Minister to set him right on that issue because he was clearly so misinformed. If I failed to do so, I apologise for allowing him to continue in such a position of ignorance.”
“Will the Minister tell us how he would streamline that, because I am sure that if we talked to Ministers 10 years ago they would have said the same thing, and five years ago they would have said the same thing? Whoever was in government, they would have said the same thing. We need practical ways of making it happen. For example, will he speak to his colleagues in the Cabinet Office to try to ensure that we get streamlining?”
“I am grateful for that answer, which addressed inspection, but perhaps not accountability. I know that the Cabinet Office has considered how we can use digital platforms to deliver Government for less and more effectively. I wonder whether small charities and youth services could have one website where everyone comes together to say what they want—or at least are able to go to one place—which provides one set of accounting for themselves in a way that answers the questions that are collectively required by all those who fund them.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for resiling from his earlier remarks about the disproportionate attention the report paid to the NCS, because in six chapters I think that half a chapter deals with it. It is also worth noting that, at the time, it was the only youth policy the Government had, but none the less we looked more widely. The Minister says that he does not recognise the figures in our report—a statement consistently made by the Government about our figures. However, the Government have not provided us with their own. Will he please do so now?”
“The Minister is wrestling with his understanding of what the Select Committee is for. The purpose of the inquiry was to focus on youth services. Perhaps we could address what the report contains. Can the Minister share with hon. Members the numbers, which we know are far from definitive, on the national citizen service? This Government are committed to transparency and openness, not least on public expenditure. Could we have some of that today on the NCS as it stands to date—and the Minister’s best understanding?”
“The Minister is generous in giving way, but I am still at a slight loss as to why he is so hostile. Our job is to probe this. We did not say it would cost that much. We said that, if it was scaled up at the current cost, it would cost the amount we stated, and we did so precisely to invite—we hoped—a polite, respectful response from the Ministry about what it thought it might move towards. Derek Twine, chief executive of the Scout Association, noted that “for the same cost per head that the NCS is anticipating spending in the first tranche of pilots we could provide two or three years’ worth of the experience, week by week, for young people in the same age range”. Evidence of that sort led us to probe the matter, hoping that we would get a proper, civil response from the Government in due course.”
“There was a line in the Government books that they used for years to say how much they were spending on youth services, but when we quoted it the Government and the Minister said, “That number is completely wrong.” What is the right number? Where do we look to find it?”
“With the leave of the House, it is a pleasure to serve—if one serves in this Chamber—and to debate under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I am grateful to all those who have participated in the debate. More than half the members of the Select Committee were present today, and we had excellent speeches from the hon. Members for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) and for North West Durham (Pat Glass), from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), from my hon. Friends the Members for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) and for Wells (Tessa Munt) and from the Minister himself. We have repeatedly put one question, so although the Minister might be breathing a sigh of relief on ending his speech, I ask him, if possible, to respond now or to write to me about how much is being spent on youth services.”
“I am grateful to the Minister. The figure that we used was provided by Select Committee staff from Government figures, which I understand had been used for many years. That sounds like a different figure. Is that because of the early intervention grant, and pooling it? Can the Minister throw any other light on the matter, because it does not seem to fit with our understanding?”
“We hoped that the process of conducting the inquiry would make it less likely that ill-thought-out and disproportionate cuts would be made by local authorities in a tough situation—caused by the profligate behaviour of the previous Government, to reinforce the Minister’s point and to make a tiny rebuttal of so many partisan remarks from Opposition Members. Despite the Minister’s occasional tetchiness at our probing—”
“The Committee will look forward to pursuing that further with the Minister, but if it is a correction I am grateful for it. The purpose of our inquiry was to recognise that so many youth services struggle to show their impact—we criticised them for that and also sympathised with them because of the impossibility of doing so—but we know anecdotally from young people that those services are important. We wanted to provide a platform for youth services to be heard to ensure that time was found to focus on them.”
“I say “occasional”, but we are working together, and the Minister is committed. One of the best things that the Prime Minister is doing for the governance of this country is keeping Ministers in place for a decent period, at least so far. Notwithstanding the Minister’s tetchiness, I hope that Ministers remain in office for longer periods, because that will lead to better understanding of the issues with which they are wrestling. Select Committees, which probe and challenge, and write reports such as ours, do so because they care about the issues. I hope that any heat, as well as light, that we might generate will strengthen the Minister’s arm. I know that he is personally committed to the matter, and works tremendously hard to look after the interests of our young people.”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that we must reverse the disastrous collapse in the number of graduates coming out of universities with computer science degrees, which took place over the last decade in which the previous Government were in power?”
“Does the hon. Lady agree that as we are a global leader in embedding natural capital in the national accounts, which I hope will be a central feature of the summit in Rio later in the year, the Prime Minister has a strong story to tell? He will be able not only to boast of our work in that area, but to share it and further strengthen our alliance with the Brazilians, who are an emerging and important power.”
“If parliamentarians are properly engaged, we can deliver on our nation’s promises, give weight to the needs of future generations, not just our own, and deliver sustainable development not as a soundbite, but in reality.”
“That radical yet sensible agenda can be presented by our Prime Minister at Rio in person, I hope. I urge him to attend personally, following the G20 in Mexico, and I believe that the international process would benefit from his contribution. I also urge his personal support for President Dilma in that undertaking, as Brazil and the UK have the potential to be much closer allies. I urge the Government to support the world summit of legislators and ensure that it is appropriately acknowledged and recognised in the leaders’ communiqué at Rio+20. I know that the Secretary of State has been asked to meet GLOBE to discuss the issue.”
“Likewise, it is with the support of the mayor of Rio, Eduardo Paes, that the summit will have a home in Rio. In concluding, let me say that the UK has an extremely important role to play at Rio+20. The UK has made a series of significant commitments to incorporate the value of natural capital into its accounts—a radical step, and one that shows that the Prime Minister is delivering on his promise to lead the greenest Government ever. In fact, that step alone has the potential to be one of the most radical changes to the way in which we operate our economy. I am delighted that it is under this Chancellor that the UK natural capital committee build on this experience, which provides concrete and practical actions that can be taken at national level.”
“Legislators will then be asked to reconvene in Rio every two years to monitor progress in implementing the Rio+20 outcomes, as well as to share best legislative practice. It is therefore with great pleasure that, on behalf of the President of the Brazilian Senate, I formally invite Mr Speaker to lead a delegation from this House to attend the summit of legislators. I shall be pleased to present the President’s invitation after the debate. The world summit of legislators would not have been possible without the commitment of legislators from the Senate and Congress of Brazil. With the support of the President of the Brazilian Congress, Senator José Sarney, and the relentless efforts of the President of GLOBE Brazil and First Secretary of the Brazilian Senate, Senator Cicero Lucena, that process would not be taking place.”
“Recognising the role of legislators in developing and passing laws, the summit will provide a platform to advance and share best legislative practice, as well as to promote a mechanism in international processes that can recognise national legislation. The third objective is on natural capital. Recognising the role of many countries’ Parliaments in approving budgets and national accounts, the summit will examine how the value of natural capital can be integrated in our national economic frameworks, to enable legislators better to monitor the use of natural capital. Based on those objectives, the summit participants will negotiate a Rio+20 legislators’ protocol. They will be asked to make a commitment to take it back to their respective legislatures to seek support for, or formal ratification of, the protocol.”
“It will mark the beginning of a new international process for legislators that is dedicated to establishing a mechanism that scrutinises and monitors Governments on the delivery of the original Rio agenda and the conventions on climate, desertification and biodiversity, as well as any further commitments made at Rio+20. The summit will have three core objectives. The first is scrutiny. Recognising the role of legislators in monitoring and scrutinising the work of Governments, the summit will establish a mechanism at the international level to monitor the implementation by Governments of commitments made at Rio+20. The summit will develop a set of Rio scrutiny principles to strengthen legislators’ capacity to hold Governments to account. The second objective is legislation.”
“The international presidency of GLOBE International rests with the UK parliamentary group, and the right honourable John Gummer, now Lord Deben, is serving as the president of GLOBE. As the president of GLOBE in the House of Commons, I am delighted to say that the Government of Brazil and the United Nations Secretary-General have both recognised that a new process is required at Rio+20 to remedy the underlying weaknesses that I have mentioned. That process will be overseen by the global legislators’ organisation, GLOBE. With the support of the United Nations Secretary-General and the Government of Brazil, as well as the visionary mayor of Rio, Eduardo Paes, the world summit of legislators will be launched. The summit will involve more than 300 Speakers of Parliaments, Presidents of Congresses and Senates, and senior legislators.”
“We need to ensure that in Chambers such as this across the world, we hold our Governments to account and ensure that they deliver on the promises they make in high-falutin’ speeches at high-falutin’ summits. As the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at the formal announcement of the Rio+20 world summit of legislators: “Parliamentarians have a profound influence. You enact legislation. You approve budgets. You are at the heart of democratic governance. And in today’s increasingly interconnected world, you are also a link between the global and local—bringing local concerns into the global arena, and translating global standards into national action.” I am not sure that we have been good at translating global standards into national action.”
“Perversely, we still focus on GDP as the indicator of national wealth, when clearly it is only a partial measure that does not take into account the stock of natural capital on which we all depend and all economies rely. One reason for the failure to look after and steward natural capital is the absence of effective recognition within the national accounts of what capital there is. A country can grow while becoming poorer as it destroys the natural capital on which its future prosperity depends. If Rio+20 is to be a success, we must address these three challenges. That is why I am so pleased that we have this opportunity to discuss Rio+20. We should not leave it to Governments, who have not done a particularly strong job. As previous speakers, not least the Chairman of the Select Committee, have said, we need to step up as legislators.”
“If we are to ensure that Rio+20 warrants the participation of leaders again, we need to recognise that three key parts of the Rio jigsaw were missing, so that that implementation was always likely to be difficult. First, there was a lack of domestic legislation to underpin the Rio principles and conventions; secondly, there was a lack of credible and independent international scrutiny outside the governmental processes to monitor and scrutinise governmental delivery; and thirdly, the international community failed to convert the Rio agenda into a language that would hold sway in the most powerful Ministries in each Government—namely, the Treasuries and Finance Ministries.”
“The state of the environment has worsened significantly, with many of the natural resources on which we all depend under ever-increasing strain in many areas, including oceans and forests, biodiversity and rising greenhouse gas emissions. Yes, we can all point to significant advances in parts of the world—for example, the significant decrease in deforestation in Brazil—and to political processes such as the recent outcome of the Durban climate negotiations, but all the scientific indicators are flashing red. The question is why? It is not that we committed to the wrong policies at Rio 20 years ago and in Johannesburg 10 years later; it is that Governments have failed properly to implement their commitments.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the previous speakers. The Earth Summit in 1992 was a timely and significant international event that brought together 172 countries, more than 100 of which were represented by their leaders. It led to the creation of the UN conventions on biological diversity, the framework convention on climate change, the principles on sustainable forestry and Local Agenda 21, all of which were designed to tackle the unsustainable use of natural resources and reduce man’s impact on the environment. Twenty years later, however, as leaders are about to meet again in Rio, we have to be honest about where we are.”
“Will the hon. Gentleman confirm my understanding that in a rural coastal area such as the one I represent, which has a high number of elderly people and quite a low take-up of this benefit, if there is a big increase in take-up and there is protection for the elderly, the impact on the council or on the other people entitled to the benefit would be rather large and profound?”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again, as I have to leave the Chamber in a moment to meet the chairman of the Commission for Rural Communities. People in rural areas earn on average less than people in urban areas, pay £100 a head more in council tax and see urban areas getting 50% more in central Government grant than rural areas. There is also a higher average age of population in rural areas, so the impact on the rural poor of further skewing could be particularly profound. Will the hon. Gentleman comment on that?”
“The hon. Lady talks about a grim familiarity. Does she acknowledge that every Labour Government in history ended with higher unemployment than they started with? After a 40% rise in youth unemployment under the previous Government, some humility is required on both sides of the House, but not least on hers.”
“The picture that my hon. Friend paints is an accurate and grim one. There are 100,000 IT vacancies in this country at the moment, and the people are not there to fill those posts, because the number of people taking computer science courses at university has halved since the year 2000, and the number of drop-outs has risen. That is because the basic science in schools is not being taught, which is why I think the Secretary of State’s speech today is timely, if not long overdue, as my hon. Friend would say.”
“I am grateful to the Minister. I, too, have met, in recent months, representatives who have made an impressive case. Can he explain—because I do not know the answer—why, until last year, there was not a single computer science GCSE? All we had were programmes of study and qualifications in, as he has said, operating programmes. The actual educational material was not in the courses. Why was that? How did we get into that position, and how will we make sure that we will not allow such things to happen in future?”
“The whole House will wish to associate itself with the Prime Minister’s tribute to the fallen. May I ask the Prime Minister to join me in congratulating Cranswick Country Foods on its £15 million investment creating a state-of-the-art facility in my constituency, which is licensed for exporting to the US Department of Agriculture, exports throughout the EU and employs more than 1,200 people? Unfortunately, the Food Standards Agency is blocking exports from that excellent plant to the far east. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that job-destroying and unnecessary regulation will not be tolerated by his Government?”
“I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) for his work on early intervention and applaud the efforts made by the Minister to recruit more health visitors, but when will the Government be able to deliver the additional health visitors on the ground, trained and in service, in order to reverse the cuts in the health visitor service under the previous Government?”
“As president of GLOBE in the House of Commons, may I thank the Secretary of State for attending the launch of the second GLOBE climate legislation study, which shows tremendous action taking place in many countries and most of all in developing countries? Does he agree that there is an enormous benefit to the UK economy from closer bilateral work with India and, perhaps in particular, China in the light of the visit, hosted by GLOBE recently, of Xie Zhenhua, the Chinese Minister with responsibility for such matters?”
“I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s sentiments towards public sector workers and the excellent work they do, but they were a part of unsustainable Government spending, even in years of boom revenues. Does he accept that they deserve an apology for the role that he and his party played in giving us unsustainable public funding, which has now led to hard decisions having to be made by the Government?”
“Will the hon. Gentleman share with the House his party’s views? I know that he is putting off an awful lot until near the next general election, but, given his level of criticism, will he explain why he did not vote against the RPI-CPI change, as he has singularly failed to do, and whether he thinks that the system of public sector pensions which this Government inherited was entirely fit for purpose and in need of no reform whatever?”
“My hon. Friend’s point about support for public sector workers is absolutely correct. The fundamental question is about fairness. Opposition Members are saying that people on lower earnings in the private sector should work longer hours and pay more tax in order to guarantee the pension being provided to public sector workers, while those lower-earning private sector workers often have no provision at all. It is about fairness, and that means that this Government have to take the tough decisions, however unpopular, to put the situation right.”
“In areas such as Wales and the north of England, where the discrepancy is particularly notable, small businesses and enterprises need people but they are struggling to recruit because of the level of salaries in the public sector. If we are to rebalance the economy, we need to make sure that our dynamic small businesses have equal and fair access to the labour market.”
“The Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families held an inquiry into young people not in education, employment or training. It showed that before the economic crisis, the number of unemployed young people was on a level plane with the number when the previous Government took office. That shows that in all those years of economic growth, young people were left behind by the Labour Government before the spike after the financial crisis. What the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) said was absolutely false.”
“I represent the most beautiful race course in the world, in Beverley. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need Government action to provide a new settlement that will get us over the endless grief caused to the former Minister and, I am sure, to Ministers in this Government? We can get the framework right, giving certainty for the future. We would send out a cross-party message that there will be no further legislative interventions, and then ask the commercial partners—bookmakers and race courses—to sit down together and sort out the differences, rather than looking constantly to us to provide a solution for them.”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a central Conservative insight that we can lower the rate and up the take so that small companies in rural areas such as mine are able to do more work, earn more, pay more tax and keep the economy going?”
“As my hon. Friend knows, I am sympathetic to the Government’s intentions in this regard as well, but I am concerned about press freedom and I would be grateful if he could set out the case for teachers alone being given this exemption from publicity. Such allegations could be equally devastating to members of a different profession. Might this provision prove to be the thin end of the wedge in that there could be a great deal more press censorship and the public will not be able to know about allegations made against people in their local community?”
“The Minister is absolutely right to have proportionate inspection. We need to be careful to ensure that outstanding schools that may end up coasting or dropping their standards are picked up. If the shadow Minister is suggesting that it would be a better policy to inspect every school, however outstanding, all the time, he is completely wrong. A proportionate approach with the right safeguards and triggers in place and with constant review of those triggers is the right way to go. The Government are right on this issue.”
“In the Lords, the Government accepted various amendments to limit the impact of such fines on global companies, which is welcome, but the measure was introduced with very little consultation. What is the evidence that we need fines to get awarding bodies to comply with Ofqual? What is the evidence that there is a problem to which fines provide an answer?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for setting out the Government’s thinking, but I am not entirely persuaded. The currency on which awarding bodies trade is their reputation. Notwithstanding the problems this summer, they needed no fine or massive regulatory hammer to bring them to book. All awarding bodies would immediately seek to improve their systems following such errors—I believe they did so. It feels as if we are introducing sanctions that are unnecessary for the workings of that market. The Government have pledged to eschew unnecessary regulations unless there is an overwhelming case, but I am not sure that the errors last summer make that overwhelming case.”
“The hon. Gentleman talks about extending the provision to other staff in schools. Do he and his party believe that it should be extended further to other workers? For example, a social worker dealing with children at risk could be equally devastated by publicity surrounding allegations against them—”
“As I debated the abolition of independent schools only a couple of weeks ago with the hon. Gentleman, who supported the motion, it is a pleasure to find something on which we can agree. He is right: we need to hear more from the Government to justify the measure. It is like the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. Legislating instantly following an incident in the summer, rather than checking and thinking through the principles behind the proposed legislation, could be a mistake.”