John Healey
MP for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough · Labour · United Kingdom
“Mr Spock, I think some would say, Mr Speaker! My hon. Friend is right. Despite global conflicts, trade tensions and rising threats in the world, which are pushing up inflation, bearing down on growth and pushing up borrowing costs, the UK economy is demonstrating huge resilience.”
“The Prime Minister and I have been clear that we must cut the costs of welfare. On levels of taxation, we had a period of Conservative Government, with low growth and high debt. They crashed the economy with the mini-Budget, and we had levels of taxation that were putting pressure on business, adding to the cost of living.”
“The hon. Lady is talking to the person who led the work to establish a defence and security partnership with the European Union and bilateral agreements with other countries, on which we now build both our economic strength and our national security strength. On the question of the Budget, I ask the hon.”
“Since day one in the job, the Prime Minister and I have been in lockstep in our determination to meet Britain’s fiscal rules. This is the bedrock on which we build good growth and help give a bit of breathing space to families and businesses.”
“May I start by paying tribute to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West and Pudsey (Rachel Reeves)? I am proud to have been a member of a Government with the first female Chancellor in 700 years.”
“My hon. Friend speaks up very strongly for his local area. He is right about the importance of pubs, social clubs and live venues, and about the importance of the 20% cut that we announced in July. These are the things that make the places where we live the places that we also love.”
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“Will the Schools Minister welcome the willingness of Rotherham council to add to the money that the Department is providing under the basic need funding to allow Cortonwood infants school and Brampton the Ellis junior school to expand their places? Why is it that half the free schools open already are in areas where there is no need for extra places?”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the economic implications for the UK of an EU-US Trade and Investment Agreement. I was glad to secure this debate, with the support of the hon. Members for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) and for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards), and I am glad to open it within a week of formal negotiations starting in Washington on a comprehensive trade deal between the European Union and the US or, as we have been led to refer to it, a transatlantic trade and investment partnership. It is fitting that the debate should be taking place in Back-Bench business time, because I think that underlines the strong cross-party support for a full and fair trade deal, so long as it is clear that there will be benefits to British consumers and workers as well as British businesses.”
“We are working closely with the well-established and well-regarded British-American Parliamentary Group, of which Mr Speaker is the distinguished chair. We have set up working relations with the TUC, the CBI and Which?, and we have now been offered welcome administrative and policy support from BritishAmerican Business, which of course is the joint US-UK chamber of commerce. The aims of the all-party group are: first, to provide a focus for UK parliamentary cross-party support for a comprehensive trade and investment agreement; secondly, to contribute to better public understanding of the potential benefits that such a deal could bring to consumers, workers and businesses across Britain; and thirdly, to strengthen the scrutiny that Parliament can exercise over Government actions towards securing such a successful agreement.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He is right that the UK has for some time been one of the prime movers in the argument for a comprehensive transatlantic trade deal, which is a point I will return to later. The fact that this debate has been initiated by Back Benchers from both sides of the House does not absolve the Government from the responsibility to ensure that the public are properly informed about the negotiations and the potential for this deal, or that the House has a regular opportunity to debate progress and scrutinise the actions the Government are taking to secure a successful agreement. That cross-party, and indeed all-party, support and interest was evident two months ago when, as the hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) mentioned, we set up the all-party group, which I am fortunate enough to chair.”
“I am grateful for and interested by that intervention. I will come to the general questions of the relationship between the UK Parliament and the UK Government and the requirement for a better and more formal system of scrutiny of decisions and involvement in the European Union. I will be interested to hear the hon. Gentleman’s remarks when he contributes to the debate. Finally on the all-party group, we see this as active but time limited to the period of negotiations towards what we hope is a successful conclusion of the deal. Personally, I hope that Presidents Obama, Van Rompuy and Barroso are right when they declare that they want this deal done within two years.”
“If the hon. Gentleman looks, for instance, at the Bertelsmann Institute’s report, he will see some interesting evidence on the assessment of the potential impact of a comprehensive deal. It points out that the countries that are in Europe but not part of the European Union are likely to lose out the most. Britain could gain tens or even hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the long term through an agreement. In contrast, countries such as Iceland are set to lose at least 1,000 jobs, while Norway is set to lose about 11,000 jobs. In other words, the countries in Europe that are not party to the agreement are likely to lose out in future. The evidence is rather different from that which the hon. Gentleman cites.”
“I will, and then I will make some progress, because I am conscious that the Deputy Speaker might want me not to delay the House for too long.”
“Really serious work has been going on for almost two years since the high-level working group on jobs and growth was set up between the EU and the US in November 2011. It is important to remember that this is potentially a deal on trade and investment. Although the two-way trade between the EU and the US is worth about $1 trillion a year, the two-way investment flow is worth about $3.5 trillion each year. Of course, trade and investment have both been sole competences of the EU since the 2009 Lisbon treaty.”
“Together, the European Union and the US account for about 30% of global trade and almost half the world’s output. The more reliable of the studies and assessments suggest that if the deal is done, it could bring a boost to the UK’s national income of between £4 billion and £10 billion, and a boost to our exports of between 1% and 3% a year. Why are they the most ambitious negotiations? The transatlantic trade and investment partnership aims not just to remove the remaining tariff barriers to trade between the EU and the US, but to reduce the non-tariff barriers by aligning the regulations, rules and standards to which we operate. It also aims to open the markets in services and public procurement. Finally, why are they the best prepared negotiations?”
“No one’s asked about this before.” The Library subsequently produced a very good briefing, as well as a very good briefing for hon. Members for this debate. That briefing, combined with the research that the Centre for Economic Policy Research has produced for the European Commission and the impact assessment produced by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, underlines just how important and ground-breaking this deal could be. Simply put, these are the biggest, most ambitious, best prepared bilateral trade negotiations ever. This would be the first ever such deal between economic equals. In other words, the partners have no significant imbalances in power or wealth. Why do I say that these are the biggest negotiations?”
“My hon. Friend has a great deal of expertise and experience in this area, and he makes a strong case. I think that there is a cross-party view, irrespective of views on the British place within Europe, behind the value of well-negotiated and fair trade deals. The example of the Korean deal demonstrates that a deal negotiated through the European Union has particular benefits to Britain. This debate is welcome though somewhat overdue. About three months, ago I contacted the House of Commons Library to ask for a briefing on the EU trade and investment deal. I said to the researcher, “I’m sure you’ve got something on the stocks; perhaps you could just update the standard briefing that you’ve got.” The response was, “We don’t have one.”
“Investment is already an EU competence. The deal is not about controlling the flow of investment, but about creating the conditions in which greater investment can flow across the European Union, including to Britain. All the impact assessments, including the one that the hon. Gentleman cited earlier, suggest that that would happen if we secured a comprehensive agreement.”
“Secondly—this may break the sense of cross-party unity—I see the deal as a way of regulating global capitalism. It is indisputable that the EU and the US have some of the highest standards of consumer safeguards, environmental protection, employment rights, legal process, trade rules and regulations. Together, as the two biggest economies, we have the opportunity to set standards and regulations that could become the benchmark, or gold standard, of any bilateral and multilateral deals.”
“I suspect that in my hon. Friend’s area, as in mine, many of the important and good small and medium-sized companies depend on trade and export for their success. The agreement certainly has the potential that he mentions, but realising it requires the Government to ensure that it does benefit small and medium-sized firms. One or two of my friends have said to me recently, “Look, you are a Labour politician on the centre left. Why on earth are you supporting a deal that looks set to reinforce the cause of global capitalism?” I have three answers to that. The first, quite simply, is jobs. The success of many good south Yorkshire firms depends on increasing opportunities for export and trade. This deal could bring that boost to jobs and the economy in south Yorkshire, as well as the whole of Britain.”
“The hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) mentioned the negotiating mandate that has not been formally published, but has, in an unorthodox way, been made available. That certainly does not talk about a Marxist global system. However, given the size of the economies and the potential scale of the agreement, setting mutual recognition standards on workers’ rights, environmental protection, consumer safeguards, trade rules and legal process can set the standard we expect, and lead other parts of the world on, in future deals.”
“My right hon. Friend makes a strong and vivid point. It will be interesting to see the degree of unified purpose and support on the Opposition Benches, and the divergent, not to say conflicting, views on the Government Benches.”
“Indeed. In this post-global financial crisis period, and the global downturn in trade that followed, there is a crisis in citizen and consumer confidence in business. Reasserting that confidence will require standards and agreements that people believe will benefit them, their families and their areas, and are not just deals done by politicians and big business in the backrooms of Brussels.”
“I am grateful for that continuing cross-party support at least. [ Interruption. ] The Minister is chuckling away; I look forward to hearing what he has to say a little later. I have a third answer to my friends who ask why I am backing the deal, and it is this. I am pro-European and pro-internationalist, and I think this potential agreement underlines more clearly than anything the benefits for Britain of being part of the European Union. Those benefits would be simply unavailable if Britain left the European Union and tried to go it alone.”
“We can start on this European trade and investment agreement. Today we are at the start of the negotiations on what could be a groundbreaking US-EU trade deal. We are at the start of the debates that this House will have and the scrutiny that we must offer of the Government’s contribution to those debates. This is the first such debate but—I hope and expect—certainly not the last.”
“In the US and the European Parliament, the negotiators are holding briefing sessions—in the Parliament and with the Parliament—before and after each set of negotiations. They are also doing that with wider interest groups and making public some of the position papers as they go into the negotiations. I would like much more formal reporting and accountability of the UK Government to Parliament on EU matters. Other countries, such as Germany, Portugal and Denmark, have formal legal agreements with their Governments and Parliaments covering negotiation mandates, the provision of documents, and notification and reporting arrangements. It would help to build wider confidence in, and strong democratic influence on, our involvement in the European Union if we followed that sort of model.”
“Thirdly, the Government should deal with the fears that will arise during negotiations that could derail public or parliamentary support for the agreement. These include concerns about the NHS being opened up to big US health care companies and concerns about employment, consumer or environmental standards being weakened. There might also be concerns about the investor-state dispute system—even though the EU and the US have long established traditions and well proven systems of due process, the rule of law and respect for property rights—particularly when an ISDS is being abused in the way that Veolia, the French company, is abusing the system in trying to sue the Egyptian Government for raising the national minimum wage. Fourthly, the Government should make the process open and transparent to the public and Parliament.”
“First, they should swallow hard, accept that we are in the hands of the European Union and throw their weight behind the Commission’s negotiators. That means—I say this to the Minister—no public criticism, no freelance discussions with the US and no distancing ourselves from the deal while it is being negotiated. Secondly, the Government should map and publish the jobs linked to foreign direct investment and exports in every area of Britain. The US does that on a state-by-state basis for every member of Congress and every Senator. Even the British embassy in Washington, together with the CBI, has produced a state-by-state analysis of the jobs there that are linked to exports to the UK. Surely we can do that for ourselves in Britain as well.”
“Unanimity, and not just a qualified majority, may well be needed in the Council of Ministers to approve some parts of any future agreement in, say trade in services, intellectual property, foreign direct investment and anything to do with social, education or health services. There is also a case for expecting any agreement to involve mixed competences. In other words, there could be a contestable case that member states, rather than the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, will have to ratify any elements of such an agreement dealing with, for instance, intellectual property, transport or investor-state dispute mechanisms. Let me begin to wind up. There are four things that the Government could do to help to secure a successful, well negotiated agreement that commands wide support.”
“Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) that some of the research suggests that European countries that are not part of the European Union would lose out most in the event of such an agreement. However, this agreement must be well regulated and command public confidence. It will not and cannot be a deal done in the diplomatic backrooms, because Congress and, now, the European Parliament must approve the terms of any agreement. The European Parliament has already shown its mettle in rejecting the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement that was recently negotiated, including with Japan, Australia, Canada and the US.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I will indeed. I think I have spoken for probably not quite 15 minutes, given the interventions I have taken, but I am conscious of what you have said. When President Obama was with our Prime Minister in Washington in mid-May, he put it very delicately: “I think the UK’s participation in the EU is an expression of its influence and its role in the world, as well as, obviously, a very important economic partnership.” However, his officials were much blunter. They made it clear that there would be little appetite in Washington and no deal for Britain if it left the European Union. I have already said to the hon.”
“As we heard from the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) and my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), these negotiations are a stage-by-stage process that require in this House stage-by-stage reporting from the Government and scrutiny. This debate is a marker for the months ahead, and this subject is one to which we must return. Question put and agreed to Resolved, That this House has considered the economic implications for the UK of an EU-US Trade and Investment Agreement.”
“This debate has confirmed a strong cross-party interest in the negotiations—specifically, in the areas that will loom large in any deal, in how we make sure that we get the strongest benefits for Britain, in the historical and political background to free trade, and in Government reporting and accountability to Parliament during the process. It is clear that these negotiations will be tough, that an agreement is not certain, and that the benefits will depend on the content of any agreement. That is all the more reason for Parliament getting behind the negotiations and following them closely. We have heard 13 Back-Bench speakers. I apologise to those who were unable to give us the full benefit of their expertise because of the time limit. As the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) said, it is clear that scrutiny starts with this debate.”
“19. If legal aid cannot be paid unless permission is granted for a judicial review, does the Justice Secretary accept that lawyers will be unable to take on some of the strongest cases such as when local authorities might refuse to recognise their duty to house a homeless family? Those are exactly the kind of cases where they will offer an early settlement or a no-cost settlement.”
“Ordered, That John Healey, Mr Gareth Thomas, Lucy Powell, Sir Peter Bottomley, Andrew George, Lilian Greenwood, Ian Mearns, Mr Steve Reed, Clive Efford, John Pugh, Derek Twigg and Natascha Engel present the Bill. John Healey accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 18 October, and to be printed (Bill 83).”
“I believe that a new system of mid-market local letting agents, run by the public service, would help drive up standards and drive down fees. Councils could run such operations under their existing trading powers, so local tenants and landlords would benefit and local council tax payers could too. Our home is our biggest financial outlay, whether we buy or rent. The basic regulation now in place for estate agents is still missing for letting and managing agents. The private rented market is now failing too many despairing tenants who feel let down by low standards and ripped off by high fees. This sector has been called the property market’s wild west. It is high time Parliament brought the rule of law to bear on the cowboys, and my Bill would do just that. Question put and agreed to.”
“For those rightly concerned about the cost of regulation, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors has used the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills impact assessment model to show that such basic legislation would have an initial cost of £46 million but would bring net benefits of over £20 million a year. However, the changes simply cannot be done from the centre. Local authorities must be at the heart of improvements in the lettings market. That is why my Bill would also give councils strong enforcement powers and new powers to set up their own local letting agencies as public sector comparators and competitors to their private sector counterparts. That model of market challenge by the public sector already works well for low-end rented properties in places such as Derby, Lewisham and Newham.”
“That is exactly what my Bill would do. The Government were recently forced by Labour in the Lords, led by Baroness Hayter, to agree to introduce a redress scheme. That is widely seen as necessary but nowhere near sufficient. It will only offer help after the damage has been done. Therefore, the legal changes in my Bill would include a legal right to a written tenancy agreement, a ban on agency charges beyond a deposit and rent in advance, a comprehensive redress scheme when things go wrong, and mandatory national licensing for all agents, with core standards and a “fitness to practise” test.”
“Even people who own their own home as leaseholders can suffer when managing agents acting for the freeholder adopt the same high-cost, low-standards business model that plagues so many other parts of the sector. The worst drag down the reputation of the rest, which is why many of the legal changes I propose are backed by the associations representing letting agents, managing agents and landlords. The Association of Residential Letting Agents, the Association of Residential Managing Agents, the Southern Landlords Association and the British Property Federation have all joined Shelter, Crisis, Which? and the National Union of Students to support my call for regulation to raise standards in the sector. Self-regulation has failed. Legal regulation is required to improve choice, competition and standards in the market.”
“reported last year that none of the 32 letting agents it surveyed had information about their fees on their website. One lady in Shelter’s report speaks for all private renters. She was charged £540 in administration fees alone. She said: “The rental market is a horrible place right now… While I’m not on the cusp of poverty, this sort of thing could easily spiral. Frankly it is terrible that the government does not see this sort of thing as a priority matter.” She is right. This affects not only people on low incomes, but people like her on middle incomes. However, it would be a mistake to think that only tenants suffer from sharp practice. Landlords often report letting or managing agents failing to provide the services expected or hitting them with hidden and excessive charges.”
“Now that the majority of private tenancies are let through agencies, anyone can set up as a letting or managing agent, even if they have a bad track record or a criminal record. There is no system of licensing or standards, no requirement for a money protection scheme or a system of redress, and no legal right to a written tenancy contract. In addition, tenants are often hit by huge and hidden up-front fees. Multiple charges for administration, inventories, references, credit checks, deposit handling, contract preparation and tenancy renewal are common. In our local area in Rotherham, the council reckons that tenants are being asked to pay hundreds of pounds for such fees. Research recently released by Shelter reveals that the average cost of up-front fees charged by letting agents is almost £350, and Which?”
“I am now making the case for change anew, with cross-party support and backing from housing charities and industry bodies. There is a silent crisis in the private rented sector. More than 9 million people now rent their home from a private landlord, a higher proportion than at any time for almost half a century. It is no longer just the young and mobile biding their time until they can buy their own home; half of those in private rented homes are over 35 and more than 1 million families with children are basing their lives on landlords who can evict them at a month or two’s notice. “Generation rent” has no organised voice and little market muscle. We have better consumer rights when buying a fridge or hiring a car than we do when renting a home.”
“As Housing Minister in the last year of the Labour Government, my priorities were driven largely by the extraordinary economic circumstances we faced: helping people keep their homes, preventing the collapse of private house building and launching a new wave of social house building, especially council housing, to kick-start the economy in the wake of the global financial crisis. All of that we did successfully. However, I ran out of time to reform the private rented sector and, in particular, deal with the growing problem of the housing market middle men who answer to no one—letting and managing agents. The detailed plans for reform that I set out in 2010, following the Rugg review, did not make it into legislation and were all dropped by coalition Ministers.”
“I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish a national mandatory licensing scheme for letting and managing agents, with established standards and redress for landlords, tenants and leaseholders, and prohibition of letting and management agent fees; to enable local authorities to administer and enforce the scheme; to require that tenants, landlords and leaseholders have written agreements; and to empower local authorities, either alone or in partnership, to trade as letting and managing agents. The Bill is unfinished business for me.”
“The Minister said that such cases are rare. How many are there each year, and how quickly will they be dealt with under the system proposed in new clause 7 as compared with now?”
“It is helpful of the Minister to give the House an indication of the scale in terms of the number of cases. Can he also indicate the scale in terms of the amount of tax at stake in such cases?”
“My right hon. Friend has put his finger on it. There is not an economic rationale for the policy, but a political one. Essentially, it is a stealth redistribution from poor areas to wealthier ones with a more active, buoyant and successful housing market.”
“May I tempt my right hon. Friend to reflect on one other aspect of the subject he just touched on? If his figures are right—I am sure they are—by 2017-18 this will cost £7.5 billion in total. That cannot be described as a top-slice from local government as it represents almost a third of the total local government expenditure in England. The proposal will fundamentally destabilise the whole system of local government funding within five to six years.”
“These end of day Adjournment debates are normally confined to the Member, the Minister and, of course, you, Mr Speaker. The Minister will note the strong presence of my Labour colleagues tonight, especially from South Yorkshire, but also from Merseyside, which I welcome. All the points of concern and criticism about Barnsley and Rotherham, and our position in relation to the new European Union funding, apply equally across South Yorkshire, the Sheffield city region and the Liverpool city region. In our area, and for the rest of South Yorkshire and for Merseyside, we face cutbacks in European funding that are much more severe even than our worst fears—massively deeper than in any other area in the UK.”
“There is no logic and no equity in that and we have seen no effort to be even-handed.”
“It is no good the Minister shaking his head, because we face a cliff-edge cut in the funding for the new European funding period as compared with the previous ones. The European funds are designed to give a boost to the economy of flagging regions. I have to say that it is an outrage that areas of the UK with more wealth, more jobs, more business and more prosperity are also getting more European funding in the period ahead. Let me tell the Minister that it aggravates our anger to learn that the major factor in this unfair distribution and the cuts that our areas will uniquely take is the Government’s plan to direct top-up funds from South Yorkshire and Merseyside in order to support Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—to limit their losses to 5% when we face cuts of more than 50% in our funding for the next period.”
“My hon. Friend is right to voice the view from the chairman of a local enterprise partnership, which has been echoed by the Liverpool City Region’s LEP. Both are concerned that the potential for boosting our economies will be lost in Barnsley and Rotherham, as in our other two city regions.”
“No. My hon. Friend is right; I was saying that these decisions defy equity and logic, and there appears to be no attempt to be even-handed in the allocation of this funding.”
“The Minister will have a chance to respond in full, but he is perfectly aware—I have had meetings with him and written to him on this point—that the comparison I make is regarding the special protection put in place for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland has a GDP higher than that of South Yorkshire, Northern Ireland has a GDP higher than that of South Yorkshire and Wales has a GDP roughly on the same level. That is not fair, and it does not make good policy sense.”
“Cheshire and Warrington has not a GDP of 84% like South Yorkshire but a GDP of 119%, and will receive EU funding of not €117 a head like South Yorkshire, but €157 a head.”
“Friend the Member for St Helens North (Mr Watts), that is about €117 per head in an area with a population of nearly 1.8 million and a GDP that is 84% of the European average. It represents a cut of more than 50% in South Yorkshire’s funding for the current seven-year period. Ours is one of the 11 transition regions in the United Kingdom. That means that our GDP is between 75% and 90% of the European average. Which economies have been earmarked for extra funding to boost jobs, skills and businesses? All the more developed regions have a GDP of at least 90%, and nine of them will receive more, not less, funding than the Sheffield city region. They include Worcestershire, Leicestershire and, as my hon. Friend said, Cheshire and Warrington.”