Sir Stephen Timms
MP for East Ham · Labour · United Kingdom
“I agree with the hon. Gentleman. If he would like to send me details of that particular case, I will happily look into it. On the subject of people with hearing impairments, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities and I will be meeting the British Sign Language Advisory Board this afternoon.”
“Better outcomes require early identification and support for girls and young women with special educational needs, including dyslexia. That is the aim of the SEND reforms and the development of national inclusion standards.”
“Autistic people and people with ADHD have been struggling to get the right support at the right time. Recommendations from Professor Karen Guldberg’s neurodivergence task and finish group directly informed the SEND reforms that were published earlier this year.”
“The Equality Act 2010 places a duty on public bodies to make reasonable adjustments, so that disabled people are not put at a disadvantage by accessibility challenges.”
“The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. This benefit is there to contribute to the additional costs of disability. Too often, what has happened—my hon.”
“I think we can take the hon. Member’s question as a tacit recognition that in 14 years the previous Government should have done something to fix these problems. The steering group is clear that the provision of cash to meet the additional costs of disability is vital.”
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“Governments across the world are now reviewing their policy on bilateral investment treaties. I understand that Norway and South Africa are terminating their treaty, and Australia and the US have decided to restrict the scope of their treaty. I am delighted to see the Minister in his place this afternoon as I know he has other pressing business, and I hope he will use this debate to set out the British Government’s thinking. I would welcome a review in the UK along the same lines as we are seeing elsewhere. The UK-Colombia bilateral investment treaty will be laid before Parliament shortly and will provide far-reaching rights to foreign investors in Colombia. I am worried that the treaty might not take into account the potential risks it poses to securing human rights in Colombia.”
“I notice that on 30 September 2013, the tribunal decided to stay the enforcement of that fine for the time being, but it is not clear that handing a technocratic tribunal the power to impose fines in that way is necessarily the right thing to do. By the end of 2012, corporations had launched more than 500 cases under bilateral investment treaties against 95 Governments. Compared with the preceding three decades, the number of disputes since the year 2000 has risen two-and-a-half-fold. The treaties seem to be evolving into something rather different from what they were originally intended to be. We need to reflect on how we want the treaties to be used, on what is appropriate to put into them and, indeed, on when it is appropriate to enter into such a treaty.”
“Bilateral investment treaties allow investors to sue elected Governments if policy changes adversely affect their profits, but neither the host Government nor the communities affected by the investment have reciprocal rights. There is at least a question on whether that balance is correct. Last October, under a bilateral investment treaty, a tribunal established by the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, which is part of the World Bank, fined Ecuador $1.8 billion—a sum equal to Ecuador’s entire annual education budget—for terminating a contract with Occidental Petroleum Corporation after reaching the view that Occidental broke Ecuadorian law when selling its production rights.”
“I am grateful to Mr Speaker for selecting this debate. Bilateral investment treaties are a long-standing mechanism to protect foreign firms and investors undertaking risky overseas investment from the danger of expropriation or policy changes in the destination country that could reduce the financial return from those investments. Bilateral investment treaties have generally been seen as benign, technical instruments, but developments in their use in the past 10 years or so have raised doubts about their benign character. Those doubts certainly arise in the case of the UK-Colombia bilateral investment treaty, which I understand is due to be ratified in the next few weeks. I will air some of those doubts in this debate and press the Minister to clarify the Government’s thinking in response to some of the concerns that are being raised.”
“I accept that part of the responsibility on the subject rests with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, but the Foreign and Commonwealth Office clearly has a key role as well. I look forward to what he has to say in response.”
“Finally, there is at least a question mark about whether the treaties do, in fact, succeed in attracting additional foreign investment into signatory countries. A number of studies suggest no significant correlation between a country’s level of foreign direct investment—we all want to increase such levels in developing countries—and the decision to adopt treaties that include those broad investor protections. I hope, therefore, that the Government will review their policy on bilateral investment treaties, in view of the lack of transparency, the use of the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, the imbalance of rights and responsibilities, and the potential to undermine human rights in countries where investment is taking place. I am grateful to the Minister for his readiness to respond.”
“There is concern that the system has led to bad decisions, which is particularly important given that an arbitration tribunal can make unlimited monetary awards. In 2012, dispute settlement compensations awarded to corporations ranged from US $2 million to, in the Ecuadorean case that I mentioned, nearly $1.8 billion; lots of pending claims total billions of US dollars. Disputes between multinational companies and Colombia under the UK-Colombia treaty would be confidential and heard by the international tribunal, despite the growing recognition worldwide, not least on the part of the UK Government, that transparency is vital to democratic processes, good governance and the rule of law.”
“is demanding US $250 million in compensation from Canada for introducing a moratorium on fracking, because of environmental risk concerns. Corporations have used investor-state settlement provisions to challenge environmental, land use, energy and other laws. Thirdly, I am worried that such claims bypass domestic courts and are heard in private—behind closed doors—in tribunals made up of three arbitrators, behind closed doors at the International Centre for Settlement of Investor Disputes. My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan reminded the House that any such decision is extremely difficult to change. In some instances, the existence of the cases is barely known at all; even when they are known, the reasons for decisions or the level of awards by a tribunal are not always disclosed.”
“I share that concern about the restriction on the ability of developing country Governments to pursue policies that have worked elsewhere—such as land reform or requiring investors to give preference to local suppliers. The concern, however, does not apply only in developing countries. The US tobacco firm, Philip Morris, is suing Uruguay and Australia over their anti-smoking laws. The company argues that warning labels on cigarette packs or plain packaging prevent it from displaying its trade mark effectively, causing a loss in market share. The threat of legal action against the UK under a bilateral investment treaty might be a factor in thinking about the introduction of plain packaging proposals here, so developing countries are certainly not the only ones in the frame. The US company Lone Pine Resources Inc.”
“The review that I am suggesting would enable the Government to make good on that commitment in the specific context of bilateral investment treaties. Secondly, there is a worry that investment rules in bilateral investment treaties could restrict the ability of Governments to set policies in the interests of their public. The investor-state dispute settlement mechanism allows foreign firms to sue Governments when and if they feel that their interests have been violated by a new law or policy. That is a pretty big limitation on the right of citizens to elect a Government to change the policy of the preceding Government. I am chair of the trustees of Traidcraft, the fair trade organisation, which has drawn the issue to my attention—I declare that interest, although the role is unpaid.”
“I gather that a treaty with Ethiopia is likely to come up next, which raises a similar set of issues on land and rights, so there is a pressing case for carrying out a policy review. My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) has reminded the Chamber of the action plan on business and human rights, which the Government published last month and which, as she says, has been widely welcomed. The action plan makes the point that investment agreements should, “incorporate the business responsibility to respect human rights, and…not undermine the host country’s ability to…meet its international human rights obligations or to impose the same environmental and social regulation on foreign investors as it does on domestic firms.” That is welcome reassurance.”
“I will address the action plan on business and human rights in a couple of moments. My hon. Friend is absolutely right on the need for people to be able to obtain redress, and I would certainly welcome a comment from the Minister on that topic. ABColombia, the consortium comprising Christian Aid, the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development, Oxfam and others, is particularly worried about the potential threat to land restitution. The UK-Colombia treaty risks making it impossible for Colombia to restore land that has been stolen from its previous owners, thereby potentially restricting the implementation of future peace agreements with the guerrillas and limiting reparations to victims of human rights violations. Land injustices have been at the centre of the long-running conflict in Colombia, as the Minister knows.”
“I am grateful for the way in which the Minister is responding to the debate. Will he explain the significance of the timing, given that he said that competence has moved to the European Union? I am told that the Colombia treaty was drafted almost 20 years ago. What is the significance of the timing, given that ratification will take place shortly?”
“I have heard that recently, in East Ham high street, someone smashed up a machine and there was no report to the police for exactly the reason that my right hon. Friend has mentioned: the betting shop chain wants to minimise the number of reports to the police of antisocial behaviour.”
“I welcome the Minister to her new brief, and the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), to his. The invitation to tender for the Work programme said that, if there was no programme at all, 15% of people on employment and support allowance, to whom my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) has just referred, would be in a sustained job outcome within two years. With the Work programme, the number has been about one third of that. Surely that underperformance is unacceptable.”
“The Minister should ask her civil servants about pathways to work. In his spending review on 26 June, the Chancellor of the Exchequer called on the Secretary of State to make a hard-headed assessment of underperforming programmes in his Department. What progress is there with the hard-headed assessment of the Work programme?”
“I will have something to say about the performance of previous programmes if I catch you eye later, Mr Walker. However, I want to pick the hon. Gentleman up on his point, which I agree with, about the programme’s performance at the beginning being particularly disappointing. With the benefit of hindsight, would he agree that the cliff-edge approach of shutting down the previous programme and immediately trying to set up the Work programme—inevitably, it took many providers quite a long time to get going—was not a good way to go about things?”
“The hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) raised an interesting point. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it could be useful if eligibility to the new enterprise allowance were to be extended to participants in the Work programme? It is not available to them at the moment.”
“Member for Aberconwy is right to say that the Work programme got off to a slow start, which was predicted and could have been avoided, but unfortunately was not. I hope that we will see a significantly better performance over the coming months, but of those referred in that first month, more than 50,000 were badly served, with a few of them getting only a couple of face-to-face meetings and a phone call or two, as the hon. Member for Eastbourne described. I am sure that is part of the reason why we saw such a big rise in unemployment at that point.”
“I hope that we will get a little hint from her this afternoon that she recognises the extent to which the Work programme is underperforming at the moment and the fact that it needs change, as the hon. Member for Eastbourne said. I am not denying that good things are happening in the Work programme, but it is underperforming and needs change. We need to look for a major change when the current contracts end. The hon. Member for Eastbourne talked about those who had left the programme. There were 74,630 people referred to the Work programme in its first month, June 2011, but 53,720 of them returned to Jobcentre Plus after two years without a job. That is a disappointing outcome after two years’ effort. The hon.”
“I apologise for missing the first minute or two of the debate. I very much welcome the Select Committee report and the telling observations made by the Chair of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), in her opening speech. I also welcome the contributions from the other members of the Committee—my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) and the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd); and indeed from the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb). I share the Chair’s disappointment that the Government’s response was so cursory and did not address many recommendations fully, but we cannot blame the new Minister for that. I warmly welcome her to her new role. I congratulate her on her appointment. I look forward to debating these matters with her in the coming months.”
“Some of it can be addressed quite quickly, and the Select Committee report can be a real help. I wish the Minister well in her new role and I look forward to her reply.”
“In Australia, I was told that 50% of provision is from the voluntary sector, and I think in the Work programme it is about 20% and going down. As others have said in this debate, some good resources are not being utilised. St Mungo’s is a very good example. It had a contract with several prime providers in London, which was signed when the Work programme started in June 2011. By April 2012 it had not had a single referral, and it had to pull out and give up. I agree with the suggestion that we should have a proper jobseeker classification model, which we do not have at the moment. There are many things that should be said, but I will conclude with this. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is right: the programme is underperforming. The Minister, who I welcome once again to her new role, has the opportunity to address that underperformance.”
“St Mungo’s has sent us a briefing for the debate, which tells us that 54% of homeless people surveyed for St Mungo’s, Crisis and Homeless Link reported seeing their Work programme adviser once a month or less frequently. It is not surprising, therefore, that very few of those who face serious hurdles—people with health problems and people who are homeless—have got into work. I was in Australia last week, where I talked to people about those issues. There are quite a few providers that operate both in Australia and in the UK, and they said that the Work programme model was wrong and that “creaming and parking” was endemic; the hon. Member for Eastbourne has touched on that. I agree with the Select Committee that specialist voluntary sector providers have not been used enough. They have been squeezed out.”
“Member for Eastbourne was absolutely right to highlight concerns about the performance of the Work programme for people on employment and support allowance. The Work programme invitation to tender stated that if nothing was done, 15% of those people would find a sustained job outcome within two years. The minimum performance standard was set at 10% above that, which is 16.5%. Paragraph 3.18 of the invitation to tender states: “DWP expects that Providers will significantly exceed these minimum levels.” They have actually achieved, as the hon. Gentleman stated, 5.8%. The Royal National Institute of Blind People tells me that 690 people with sight impairments were referred to the Work programme in its first 22 months, and 20 of them got sustained job outcomes.”
“The Select Committee called, quite rightly, for regular surveys of user satisfaction on the Work programme, which would be valuable information. The “Open Public Services” White Paper had an effusive foreword written by the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, in which they signed up to its goals. We should understand the user experience on the Work programme. The Government’s response to that recommendation is simply to tell us that there will be a couple of surveys of people who have been on the Work programme. That is not what the White Paper stated was going to happen. There should be much more information about what people are experiencing. The fact that there is not is one of the reasons for the underperformance that the Chancellor has pointed out. The hon.”
“The Government’s “Open Public Services” White Paper says: “To make informed choices and hold services to account people need good information, so we will ensure that key data about public services, user satisfaction and the performance of all providers from all sectors is in the public domain”. Actually, we had a complete ban on any data at all for the first 18 months of the Work programme. There are still no data, as the Select Committee has pointed out, about subcontractor performance. The “Open Public Services” White Paper, published by the Cabinet Office, uses the phrase “all providers from all sectors”, but we have still had nothing at all from the subcontractors. From that quote, I want to pick up the point about user satisfaction, which the Select Committee report also mentions.”
“The ban was introduced—let us be frank—to safeguard the career prospects of the then Minister who introduced it, to whom I recall that the present Minister was Parliamentary Private Secretary, and in that it was successful. The right hon. Gentleman was promoted to his current post in September 2012 and a few weeks later we saw the first Work programme performance data, by which time he was safely off the scene. The ban means that information about what works well has been disseminated much too slowly and the underperformance that concerns the Chancellor, and I suspect all of us, would have been less if providers had been free to publish their performance data, as they were in the past.”
“The Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion has been commissioned to carry out the official evaluation of the Work programme, and I think that it will produce an interesting piece of work. In its analysis of the 26 September on the most recent performance data, it points out that two years in, the Work programme is not performing as well as the flexible new deal. The percentage of those over 25 entering the programme who secured a job in two years is 35%; it was 38.9% under the flexible new deal. The Minister’s predecessor but two used to castigate the flexible new deal. It turns out, according to CESI observations, that it was better than the current programme. One thing that would help, and that the Minister could do quickly, would be to lift the ban on providers publishing data about what is going on in their areas.”
“The numbers I have are slightly different, but we can look up the figures. Certainly, 50,000 people spending two years going back to the jobcentre is a disappointing start, but I hope that we will see better figures in future. I was struck forcefully by something that the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in his spending review statement about the task facing the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. He said: “That will require a difficult drive for efficiency, and a hard-headed assessment of underperforming programmes.” —[ Official Report , 26 June 2013; Vol. 565, c. 314.] The Select Committee is right to address key issues underpinning the underperformance of the Work programme identified by the Chancellor.”
“T2. My constituents who work at Tate & Lyle have been very appreciative of the Secretary of State’s efforts to secure a level playing field for cane sugar refiners in the European market. His former ministerial team were very diligent on this issue. I welcome his new team and wonder whether he can reassure the House that they will be equally determined on this issue.”
“The Minister has told us that the price of a second-class stamp will be regulated, but that will not reassure people who pay regulated energy bills. What grounds does he have for his assurance that price control will be effective in the case of Royal Mail?”
“11. The National Audit Office has exposed lamentable failings in the rural broadband programme, including the absence of competitive provision, which we have discussed in the Chamber. Its report tells us that BT is to be handed £1.2 billion for this project, but, for example,“The Department does not know how much contingency BT has included.”Will the Secretary of State insist that BT provide full 20:20 cost-transference before public money is handed over?”
“The National Audit Office has told us that the rural broadband programme is already running 22 months late. It also states that “the Department does not have strong assurance over the appropriateness of the levels of contingency”. May I press the Minister again to ensure that adequate cost data are provided by BT before money is handed over, not least so that there is a fair opportunity for community initiatives such as the one we heard about a few minutes ago?”
“Q9. Would Mr Adrian Beecroft have been asked to provide a report for the Government on employment regulation if he had not been a major donor to the Conservative party?”
“In May, the King’s Fund report,“Paying for social care” warned that local authority spending is continuing to fall and that fewer people are getting help. It is my understanding that last month an internal NHS document recognised that pressure on social care budgets meant “more delayed discharges”, increasing the problem in accident and emergency. Therefore, cuts to care budgets are increasing delayed discharges. What will the Minister do to tackle that problem?”
“Q3. There was demand for food banks from 30,000 households in the year before the general election, but the figure was 350,000 households last year. Will the Prime Minister acknowledge, unlike his noble friend Lord Freud, that rocketing demand for food banks shows we have a problem?”
“There were half a dozen organisations at the meeting on international development, including Jewish Care, Parish Nursing, Khalsa Aid, the LifeLine Network and Muslim Aid.”
“For each meeting, FaithAction put out a call for evidence to member organisations, other networks and partners, and asked for groups to make contact if they wanted to present evidence at one of the roundtable meetings. At the meetings, we asked each group to present for five minutes on their current work, setting out what they are doing and the barriers they face. At the welfare-to-work roundtable, for example, we spoke to the Nishkam centre, which is an impressive Sikh organisation in Birmingham. We also heard evidence at that meeting from Spear, which is based at St Paul’s church in Hammersmith. At the children and young people’s meeting, we heard from the Hawbush project in Dudley and the Pathway project in the west midlands.”
“The all-party group on faith and society, supported by FaithAction, which provides its secretariat, was formed in April 2011 and aims to promote understanding of faith-based organisations engaged in social action in the UK, to promote recognition of their value and to consider regulatory and legislative arrangements that can make the most of the potential contribution of faith-based organisations around the UK. The group took evidence from some innovative faith-based organisations in this country. We had four meetings focusing on the following areas: welfare to work, in respect of which faith-based groups have been doing impressive work; meeting the needs of children and young people; health and well-being; and international development.”
“If we had had this debate five years ago and asked what would happen if hundreds of thousands of people suddenly found that they were unable to afford enough food for themselves and their families, I am not sure that we would have identified faith groups as the institutions that would come forward to meet that need, but they certainly have done. The Trussell Trust reports that 750,000 people resorted to one of their food banks last year. It is currently opening one new food bank per day, such is the scale of the need, which it is meeting impressively.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom)on securing this important, welcome debate. Like her, I congratulate Christians in Parliament—and the Evangelical Alliance, which did much of the work—on the “Faith in Community” report. It is an enjoyable read. I want to contribute to this debate on the basis of my work with the all-party group on faith and society. The hon. Lady makes an important point: a wide range of contributions are made to communities from a starting point of faith. She is right to draw attention to the work of street pastors and Christians Against Poverty, whose headquarters in Bradford I visited last month. She also mentioned food banks.”
“Such religious illiteracy has led to local authorities being hesitant to work with faith groups. One organisation that presented to us described how there was often scepticism about whether its services are professional, even though the organisation in question is accredited by Ofsted. Another organisation found that its local authority is reluctant to work with a single faith group in case doing so offended other faith groups. Such problems are often the result of a misunderstanding, rather than malice. Thirdly, some local authorities are just not aware of the work undertaken by faith-based organisations in their area.”
“That would result in a lack of integrity on their part, because faith is the heart and driving force of what they do. Secondly, it is difficult to explain what the faith-based organisations call “faith logic” to local authority service commissioners. Jewish Care, for example, talked to us about its struggle to express the faith needs of the Jewish community in a particular local authority area to local authority officers in an understandable way—and that is in a community in which 20% of the population is Jewish. Similar concerns were raised in other discussions, and there is a widespread perception, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, of religious illiteracy among local authority officers—not malice, I do not think, but difficulty in understanding what such organisations are about and how best to relate to them.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes some important points. The all-party group has identified three main areas of concern, the second of which, religious literacy, he has highlighted. Many, if not most, of the concerns are about the relationship with local authorities. First, local authorities and grant-making bodies often seem to be pretty uneasy about faith playing a part in service delivery, as is highlighted in the report that prompted this debate. Consequently, faith-based organisations often feel that they ought to downplay the role and importance of faith in their work. Such organisations are absolutely clear that they cannot take faith out of their faith-based work, and if they attempted to do so, there would not be much left.”
“I hope we will be able to make some specific proposals along those lines quite soon. The previous Archbishop of Canterbury said: “The trouble with a lot of Government initiatives about faith is that they assume it is a problem, it’s an eccentricity, it’s practised by oddities, foreigners and minorities.” It should not be like that, and if that impression has been given by authorities in the past, it must not happen in the future—we cannot afford for that to happen in the future. A clear and fair covenant that recognises the unique position of faith groups may go some way towards addressing those problems. I warmly welcome this debate, and I very much hope that we can make considerable progress in this important area.”
“The all-party group proposes to draft a covenant that could act as the basis for a fresh conversation between local authorities, and public authorities more generally, on the one hand, and faith communities on the other hand. Similar things have been considered in the past, and I know that the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) has done some good work on that. The idea of a covenant would be to commit the faith communities that sign up to it to playing their part in addressing some of the pressing community needs and to meeting a set of very high standards, including providing assurances that they would not do the things that sometimes people suspect they might do, while also permitting them to be faithful to the convictions that are the reason for what they do.”
“It found that faith groups are “highly motivated and effective” in instilling a public service ethos, and that they “often serve as the permanent and persistent pillars of community action within local communities.” Demos also found that faith groups are “acutely aware of the need to be inclusive, keep religion ‘in the background’ and not abuse the power imbalance between service provider and user.” That captures well the reality of what such organisations are doing. Finally, we can all see that there are big challenges ahead for our communities. The pressing question is how we can make the most of the potential contribution of faith-based groups in addressing those challenges.”
“I have also been chairing the Demos inquiry into faith, society and politics. Demos has published two of the three volumes in its series of studies, the second of which, “Faithful Providers,” considers faith group involvement in public service delivery. In particular, Demos has considered the concerns that are sometimes raised about what faith groups do when they deliver public services, and from its discussions with a number of groups it found no evidence to support such fears. As Demos is not a faith-based organisation, it is worth drawing attention to what it says.”
“I would favour local authorities being encouraged to undertake a faith and service audit, which would potentially identify areas for collaboration between different faith groups. It was emphasised in our meetings that such research is potentially important in discovering good initiatives that may otherwise go unnoticed and unsupported. It is important to underline that the groups that attended the roundtables have long-term goals. They expressed their commitment to continue serving the needs of their areas, even when funding is hard to come by. Sometimes that is made easier by the resources that come with faith-based organisations, such as a large base of volunteers, resources, motivation and drive to do the work they are doing, which is unique to such faith groups.”