Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is entirely apt that you are in the Chair, given your interest in this issue.

In some sectors, apprenticeships are not a new development, but have been around for a long time. For many years plumbers, construction workers and electricians have undertaken apprenticeships, whether centrally led or employer-led. Their industries have long acknowledged that learning on the job, building up knowledge and skills, gaining qualifications and earning money, all at the same time, is valuable and appealing to many young people.

Other sectors have been much slower to cotton on. Some remain entirely in the dark. It has been argued that companies are not taking on trainees because of the difficulty of offering places when there is no set qualification to work towards, but that has not actually been the case. I checked the National Apprenticeship Service website today. The “types of apprenticeships” are broken down into 10 categories covering everything from agriculture to the arts and from leisure to law. There are now hundreds, if not thousands, of different apprenticeships, which rather prompts the question to the companies “What is missing?”

I did find “Building Energy Management Systems”. Let me go off at a tangent for a moment in order to demonstrate that it is not just up to the Government to tackle this problem.

I recently met Scottish entrepreneur Sir William Haughey at an event in my constituency. He was wearing a gold “H” lapel pin, and I presumed, correctly, that that was not just because it was one of his initials, but because it related to his Youth with Hope scheme, which I am happy to support today by wearing a similar pin. Sir William is known for his straightforward ways; in his words, “2.9 million publicly listed companies. 1.3 million unemployed youths. You do the maths.” He seeks to motivate and inspire organisations of all capacities to play their part in addressing the needs and aspirations of the young. One flagship idea that he has launched is that of “green champions”, whereby young people are employed by large companies to promote sustainable building management, and energy and resource efficiency practices. Given that 40% of the UK’s carbon emissions are down to the way in which our buildings are lit, heated and run, it is easy to see how the green champions could soon pay their own way. In 2009, the audit of Government buildings—264 of them—found that they had an average F rating, with only two Departments managing a rating of D or above. So I hope I can tell the Youth with Hope team to expect a call from the Minister.

In a lot of industries, including competitive ones such as public relations, advertising, marketing and third sector fundraising, young people have been encouraged to work with companies to gain experience—it is just that they have expected the youngster to work for free. Indeed, many in this Chamber have been guilty of offering similar places—the opportunity to gain experience in a competitive field, with the incentive being a possible job at the end of it—and some possibly still do that. I am not claiming to be whiter than white; I offered a couple of short unpaid internships in my first year in the House. I was uneasy with that and I quickly moved to using the Speaker’s parliamentary placement scheme and the New Deal of the Mind’s parliamentary academy.

One of my apprentices, Alice Hannam, has given me a quote that states the benefits far better than I can:

“Being an apprentice has completely transformed me. It has given me a real boost in confidence. I have felt empowered to take on challenges which I would not have thought possible—such as a degree and securing a job in Parliament.

I really cannot stress enough how great it has been to receive on the job training whilst being paid to do a job I enjoy and receive a qualification at the end of it.”

May I finish by urging all hon. Members, both those in the Chamber, and those who are not here, to find out about these schemes, which give opportunities to people who, because of their background, would not normally be able to take up unpaid positions? I urge hon. Members to promote such schemes, not only in their own constituencies, 
but much closer to home. Until we put our own house in order, it is far more difficult to urge others to do the same.

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It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Havard, and I, too, thank the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) for securing this debate.

I should start by declaring an interest that has already been mentioned. For the past six months, I have been running a “no to nuisance calls” campaign with The Sunday Post in Scotland. In that time, we have secured about 20,000 signatures on a petition, which I presented to Downing street two weeks ago. Nevertheless, the number of signatories is still growing, and I am sure that it will grow in the aftermath of this debate.

As a brief aside, I am also in the process of forming an all-party group on nuisance calls. Many Members will already have received an invitation to join me in that group, and I ask anyone else who wants to join to contact me.

The overwhelming response that I have received to the campaignis a clear demonstration of how strongly people feel aboutnuisance calls, and by nuisance calls I mean unwanted live marketingcalls, as well as silent calls, abandoned calls, spam texts and recorded messages. My constituents have contacted me in great numbers to share with me their stories of unscrupulous callers, as well as to complain about the companies that pester them day in, day out. Indeed, only yesterday, I discussed this issue with a colleague, whose young children now shout, “It’s PPI,” whenever they hear the phone ring. Clearly, we are a country under siege and something has to change.

I have not come to Westminster Hall today with an exact proposal about what structures should be changed, what legislation should be amended, what Department should be responsible or even what powers are missing, although I hope that the proposed all-party group will look at those issues. However, what is clear from talking to Ofcom, the Information Commissioner’s Office, BT and Ministers is that absolutely no one thinks that the present system is working. So of all the potential solutions to this problem, doing nothing is not one of them, but neither is working more collaboratively, which I fear is where the Minister is heading. Consequently, I welcome the opportunity that we have today not only to discuss the problems, but to highlight some of the work that has already been done to address them and to agree a way ahead.

I want to quote a couple of short paragraphs from those who have signed my petition. First, one signatory said:

“You just can’t get through to these people to stop hassling you. I get phone calls when I’m driving, eating, working, even in the shower.”

It is unclear whether he actually had his phone in the shower with him. He went on:

“They ring day after day and won’t take “get lost” for an answer. You ask them to take you off the database and they don’t.”

Another signatory said:

“I am signed up to the TPS, but am fed up with calls from PPI firms, car warranty companies who seem to have access to my name and type of car, “Microsoft” callers...and silent calls. Time to ban these. I don’t need to claim PPI, have never had an accident, don’t need to sort out my pension or anything else they phone about.”

Those two responses are fairly typical of the comments that we have received.

Nuisance calls, spam texts and other forms of unsolicited contact are an annoyance for most people, but as has already been said, for many vulnerable and elderly people, they are also a menace, and one that puts them at risk of fraud just as much as though a crook or a pushy salesman turned up at their door. So I want one single, simple point of contact—a regulator—to take in all forms of unsolicited contact, and a single, simple point of contact for any individual who wishes to protect their privacy from unwanted calls, texts and faxes.

Ofcom has recently attempted to make it clearer to consumers how they should make a complaint if they are bothered by nuisance calls. When I heard about that, I imagined a small A5 or even A6 guide that I could keep next to my phone for when the inevitable call came, perhaps something like the document that I am holding now, which I compiled for constituents in Edinburgh West, to put on the inside of their doors in case they were confronted by unwelcome cold callers. Instead, I found this document—[Interruption.] I cannot imagine a better example of why reform is so badly needed.

There should be a simplified, single regulator with a single point of contact. The public seem to have the appetite for that. The current web of regulations allows companies constantly to find new ways to contact people who have opted out of receiving such information. The Minister has said in meetings that we need to give consumers greater clarity, so that they know who to turn to, but putting the responsibility on consumers is unacceptable when the regulations are such a maze.

Far from the situation outlined by other hon. Members, the ICO has begun to show its teeth. It issued fines for cold calling to three companies for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Last year, the first fines were issued for spam texts for a company that was part of the growing industry that texts numbers to promote PPI and personal injury claims. The ICO is doing much more, with a few initiatives in the pipeline, including working with global phone companies to agree a memorandum of understanding to allow information to be shared, as it has already done with the claims management regulator, and considering intervention points relating to personal data—all the points at which data from someone who, for example, completes a survey while shopping online are used. Working together, regulators can trace the data from the start to the end of the process. That will give a better understanding of where the intervention points are and will highlight any gaps in legislation. There is also an investigation into what changes need to be made in terms of data protection, to allow the ICO to use complaints collected by consumer groups, such as Which? and citizens advice bureaux, rather than having to collect individual complaints.

People throughout the UK are worried about nuisance and silent calls and spam texts. We have an opportunity soon, in the Communications Bill, to make significant inroads into dealing with this problem, but only if the Minister is prepared to be bold and act in consumers’ interests. I hope that we will hear from him about bold intent and not merely timid tinkering at the edges.

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I will start on a positive note. The motion states that “the most sustainable way for households to cut their energy bills is to make their homes more energy efficient”.

I could not agree more, as I said in my speech on Second Reading of the Energy Bill. To recap:

"Energy saving is the quickest and cheapest way to cut carbon emissions and so should be at the heart of…reform."

However, I struggle with much of the rest of the motion, as Labour’s record on fuel poverty was appalling. Between 2004 and 2009, the number of households in fuel poverty rose from 2 million to 5.5 million, with the burden falling disproportionately on vulnerable households. If we accept the shadow Secretary of State’s logic, this was entirely—or at least mainly—down to choices made by the then Government. Under Labour, fuel poverty among vulnerable households trebled in just six years, with an increase of 500,000 from 2006 to 2007, just before the financial crash. In 2008, the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group went as far as to say:

“The Government appears to have given up on the legally binding 2010 Fuel Poverty Target”.

I am prepared to admit that a lot of that was due to wholesale energy prices, and that is what one does in a grown-up debate when one is searching for solutions and consensus. But it is a pity that Labour Front Benchers do not seem capable of that.

In Government, we are introducing measures to help millions of low-income and vulnerable households to meet the cost of heating their homes through the energy company obligation and the warm home discount scheme. There are winter fuel payments for more than 12.6 million pensioners in 9 million households and additional cold weather payments. We have welcomed the report by Professor John Hills that suggested a move away from the current definition of fuel poverty. The review is right to say that we should direct support to those who need it most rather than merely those with very large, difficult-to-heat houses, regardless of their income. I am pleased to say that we are not taking, and will not take, our lead on the issue from Labour, because this Government are committed to sustainable and affordable energy reform that will help people today while protecting our planet, our jobs and the economy in future.

In the medium to longer term, unfortunately, pressures on wholesale energy prices will probably mean that household energy bills go up. However, we have introduced new measures to ensure that energy companies are up front with people about the tariff they are on, and we are making suppliers more accountable to consumers by strengthening Ofgem’s role. Let us be clear: wholesale energy prices are a reason for increasing our investment in renewables to increase our energy security and help to insulate this country from the unpredictable wholesale market instead of running headlong towards the mirage of cheap shale gas. These reforms are radical and positive, and they will ensure that people get the best value for money.

Measures announced by the Government to ensure that consumers get the best deals on their energy prices reflect our determination to tackle rising energy bills. This is not just for fuel-poor households. Which? has stated that 82% of consumers list the cost of energy and fuel as a top financial concern, and it is even worse for those who are off-grid. We are therefore encouraging increased competition in the sector, and we have also made sure that providers are up front with consumers about whether they are on the cheapest tariff. Only yesterday it was announced that the £5 million made available by this Government to set up collective switching schemes has been awarded to 31 successful bids. One of those is Changeworks, which has formed a group of several Scottish local authorities, including Edinburgh, as well as Kingdom housing association. I welcome the £414,000 that they have received to assist with that.

As I have said here before, the best way for most consumers to reduce the impact of rising bills is through energy efficiency measures. The green deal will have a positive impact on the energy efficiency of households. As the report of the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group states, it provides

“an opportunity to establish an effective framework that can deliver against the twin objectives of eradicating fuel poverty and significantly reducing carbon emissions”.

Time is beating me.

Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mike Crockart: No, I will not, because if the hon. Lady listens for a moment, she will learn that I have missed out on the opportunity to speak at the end of debates in the past because other hon. Members have taken interventions, so I will not do that.

Finally, the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group notes a lack of public knowledge and awareness of Government schemes aimed at improving energy efficiency. That is certainly a concern and I am sure that the Minister is taking it seriously. As local Members, however, we need to assume our own responsibility, so I encourage each and every Member to set an example by becoming an early adopter and having our own houses assessed and improved under the green deal.

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It would be difficult enough to cover this matter in six minutes, Mr Deputy Speaker, but in five minutes it is virtually impossible. I will canter through my speech as quickly as I can.

The Energy Bill represents the most complete and complex reform of the energy market to date, reflecting the Government’s ambition to be at the forefront of a green revolution. It sets out a series of steps that will change our energy footprint and our energy future, shaping our energy sources for the foreseeable future.

I never miss an opportunity to mention the green investment bank, and this is one such opportunity. The green investment bank, which opened for business last week, is leading the way in establishing the UK as a leader in low-carbon technologies and positioning us as a nation with a modern, energy-efficient economy capable of attracting investment and creating jobs while reducing emissions and bringing down energy bills. Those are fundamental changes to the way our economy is driven, but we also need to drive a change in the way people view energy and use it.

Energy saving is the quickest and cheapest way to cut carbon emissions and so should be at the heart of electricity market reform. To quote the Energy and Climate Change Committee’s report:

“Demand-side measures… are potentially the cheapest methods of decarbonising our electricity system… reducing overall demand”.

I welcome the Government’s move to consult on measures to reduce demand for electricity but urge that we clarify our ambition in that area, because without a clear target we are immediately on the back foot.

In business it is often said that what gets measured is what gets done. The Government’s analysis shows that demand for electricity could be cut by 40% by 2030, but the current policies will achieve only 15% of that demand reduction potential, and that is based on DECC official figures. The figures also show that, at 119 TWh, the residential sector made the largest contribution to the UK’s overall electricity demand of 328 TWh in 2010, so it is essential that we work with energy providers to maximise the potential for residential demand reduction.

The green deal is a step, or rather a leap, in the right direction. Allowing homeowners and businesses to pay for energy efficiency improvements over time through their electricity bills should see a greater take-up of efficiency measures. I hope that we will soon hear an announcement about green investment bank funds being available to finance the green deal.

As was acknowledged in a written ministerial statement today, smart meters are the best tool we have in energy reduction. They have the potential to give customers accurate, real-time information about how much energy they are using and how much it costs. In my constituency, British Gas has already installed 837 smart meters. With the average home saving 5% through the use of a smart meter, that is a potential saving of £54,405 in one constituency alone. It is essential that smart meters have the capacity for real-time management as well as the ability to record the energy that is fed back into the distribution network from co-generation sources, such as wind turbines and solar panels.

Small businesses could also benefit from that. However, the Federation of Small Businesses has raised concerns that under current proposals small businesses could face paying their energy supplier to access their energy consumption data. As the helpful FSB briefing paper states:

“This will seriously undermine the credibility of the programme as well as limiting its potential economic and environmental benefits.”

I agree. If we add to that the sharp practices of some energy companies in relation to the renewal of small business contracts, it could act as a significant brake on progress in that area.

Measures announced by the Government to ensure that consumers get the best deals on their energy prices reflect our determination to tackle rising energy bills, and I am pleased that we have taken action to help people with the cost of heating their homes. Which? has stated that 82% of consumers list the cost of energy and fuel as a top financial concern. The major way to deal with that, of course, is to open the energy market to more independent providers. At present, it is difficult for small players to enter the sector, so I hope that measures in the Bill will help deal with that.

We have a unique opportunity to reform our energy market and state our ambition, but setting a decarbonisation target is as much about stating our ambition for a green future as it is about delivering the kind of certainty that industry requires. Although targets already exist under different legislation, they are economy-wide. I believe that it would be beneficial to set sector-specific reduction targets, and not just in the energy sector, but in aviation and shipping. I am disappointed that today’s ministerial statement failed to do that and has moved the decision to 2016.

The Bill is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to decarbonise and ensure a more competitive green sector in the future. I hope that the points I have raised today will prove helpful in raising areas in which an already very strong Bill can be improved further.

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I am very pleased, as a former member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, to have the opportunity to speak in this debate. Importantly, I was a member when its report on the Bill was written and published. We spent a large amount of time examining the Bill, which was a difficult thing to do as a non-lawyer, but it has been a worthwhile, though arduous, journey from the first time I asked what Norwich Pharmacal actually meant.

When the original justice and security Green Paper was introduced in October 2011, there was understandable and justifiable concern about the proposals. In their original form, it was clear that they were very broad in scope, and some in the Government talked up the need for the powers through rather apocalyptic speeches about the danger to national security—a danger that, once examined, clearly did not exist. There was, as has been said, a perception of a danger to national security—there is one that needs to be dealt with in relation to Norwich Pharmacal—but an actual danger did not exist.

Since then, it is welcome that the Minister without Portfolio has issued many reassurances about the intended narrowness of the Green Paper’s application. It is unfortunate that, whether as a result of lax drafting or conflicting views within the Department, the circumstances allowed confusion to develop about what the Government’s intentions were for closed material procedures. It is clear that there is a theoretical need for change. One can imagine a situation—many such situations have been mentioned today—in which a fair trial of a civil claim cannot proceed because of the amount of material that cannot be disclosed on the grounds of public interest immunity. It has, however, been exceptionally difficult, even with access to many interested and experienced witnesses, to establish the likelihood of such a theoretical possibility actually materialising. The Bill is undoubtedly an extremely complex and difficult balancing act, but the judgment that must be made requires us to understand whether a problem exists and, if so, its scale, and whether this response is proportionate to the problem.

The Joint Committee was clear in its view that the proposed balance was not correct and, therefore, suggested amendments, which were tabled in the other place. I pay tribute to the excellent staff of the JCHR, who helped us to marshal the evidence and formulate the amendments to improve the Bill. In spite of those significant changes, the Bill’s proposals, particularly those in part 2 relating to closed material procedures, still constitute a radical departure from the UK’s constitutional tradition, which is one of open justice and fairness.

The JCHR report questioned whether the Government had

“persuasively demonstrated, by reference to sufficiently compelling evidence, the necessity for such a serious departure” from those fundamental principles. Our conclusion was that the Government had “failed to discharge that burden of justification”.

The Joint Committee suggested amendments to make the Bill compatible with the bedrocks of justice, openness and fairness, while recognising the national security concerns put forward by the Government. Our aim was to achieve a fair—or at least a fairer—balance. The Bill considered by the JCHR did not achieve the right balance. The Bill before us today is much closer to sitting within the parameters of natural justice and fairness protected by the common law, because of the excellent work in the other place. The amendments recommended by the JCHR and adopted to date are, as my noble Friend Lord Lester of Herne Hill said,

“designed to keep faith with the fundamental principles of justice and fairness in our common law system, within the rule of law, and national security protected by the independent judiciary.”

I do not intend to go through the entire list of amendments suggested by the JCHR, but I will mention the most substantive amendments that have led to successful changes. First, a judge will decide whether a closed material procedure should be used in any given case and the decision will not be taken in form or substance by the Secretary of State. Secondly, a CMP will be available only as a procedure of last resort if fairness cannot be achieved by other means. That allows judicial discretion first to consider alternative methods, such as the public interest immunity system and requiring the court to consider whether a claim for PII could have been made. Thirdly, the court will be required to balance the interests of national security against the interests of fairness and open justice in deciding whether to agree to the use of a CMP at the outset. Finally, it will be open to either party to apply for a CMP and the court will also have the jurisdiction to consider the request on its own motion.

If the Bill had come to this House without some of those measures, the case for throwing out part 2 would be significantly stronger. CMPs are not perfect justice, but they may have a place. David Anderson, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation who has been quoted extensively today, has said that there is

“a small but indeterminate category of national security-related claims, both for judicial review of executive decisions and for civil damages, in respect of which it is preferable that the option of a CMP—for all its inadequacies—should exist.”

A number of the JCHR’s recommendations have not been adopted at present. The first is the introduction of a sunset clause. The second is the compulsory reporting on and review of the use of CMPs by the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation. The third is an undertaking that any litigant who is excluded from the open hearing by the CMP will be given, at the very least, a summary and the gist of the closed material sufficient to enable them to give instructions to their legal representative and the special advocates, so far as is possible. The absence from the Bill of such a disclosure obligation seriously limits the opportunities for special advocates to mitigate the unfairness caused by the Bill’s departure from open and, more importantly, adversarial justice. I hope that those issues will be given further consideration by Members of this House in Committee. I am fairly confident that that will happen.

Had it not been possible to write effective safeguards into part 2, I would share the concerns that are still being raised by many organisations such as the Bar Council, the Law Society of England and Wales, Liberty and Justice. Their concerns demonstrate that there is still significant review work to be done by a Committee of this House. In as reasonable a way as I can, I caution the Government against any attempt to remove the improving amendments that have been made in the other place.

 I support the Bill’s passage into Committee, but with the words of Judge Learned Hand in mind:

“Justice is the tolerable accommodation of the conflicting interests of society, and I don’t believe there is any royal road to attain such accommodation concretely.”

The administration of justice is undoubtedly a balance, but it is the most important balancing act that the state carries out. We should proceed carefully in changing that balance.

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I add my congratulations to the Members who secured this debate, not least because the motion is supported by a large number of Members across the whole House. I should declare a particular interest, as Edinburgh airport—voted best European airport 2011 in the 5 million to 10 million- passenger category—lies within my constituency. As a result, I recently took part in the all-party aviation group’s inquiry, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr Donohoe). Its report made 15 recommendations, four of which related directly to air passenger duty and mirror the tone of the motion.

When APD was introduced in 1994, I do not think that anyone foresaw the likely levels that it would reach 18 years later. The problem is that in those intervening years insufficient notice has been taken of whether those levels were reaching what Gordon Dewar, the chief executive of Edinburgh airport, has described as a tipping point at which they have a detrimental impact on the economy as a whole.

As the hon. Members for Crawley (Henry Smith) and for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) said, it is sometimes argued that APD is an environmental tax. Perhaps before the inclusion of the aviation sector in the EU emissions trading scheme, that was a valid argument, but it is far more difficult to make it now. If

the tax were levied on a per-plane basis to encourage higher occupancy, or if its levels reflected the fuel efficiency of the planes involved to encourage airlines to upgrade their stock, then perhaps that argument could be made again, but as it stands APD is simply a revenue raiser—and an attractive one to the Treasury, at that, because it is easy to administer, has low collection costs, and to a large extent it is hidden from the end consumer. Nevertheless, the Treasury must examine it to ensure that its overall impact on the UK’s tax take is positive, not negative, as seems to be the case.

Mr MacNeil: Would the hon. Gentleman support the devolution of air passenger duty to Scotland, as some Labour Members seem to do?

Mike Crockart: I almost thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, but it is a bit of a broken record and tangential to this debate. Devolution of this tax would merely recreate the problem that existed between Belfast and Dublin; my constituents would get in their cars and drive for two hours to use Newcastle instead. We have already heard the argument about regionalisation of APD, which is a far better and more efficient way of dealing with the problem.

Levels of increase in APD over the past five years stand at between 160%, for the bottom rate, and up to 360% for band D long-haul flights. Many submissions to the APPG’s inquiry, and others made since, including one that I received yesterday from the Federation of Small Businesses, make the case that levels of APD are now putting the UK at a competitive disadvantage in relation to other European and global destinations. The evidence is that that shows itself in a number of ways.

First, APD acts as a disincentive to foreign carriers using UK airports as destinations. A number of hon. Members have mentioned the report by the Scottish airports on their perceptions of the effects of APD. It shows that Scotland’s connectivity grew from servicing fewer than 40 destinations in 2001 to almost 150 in 2009, but the figure has slipped back in recent years to about 130. That hampers not only establishing new business markets, but bringing in new tourists to Scotland. The figure also compares poorly with other small European states. Of course, some of those states have major hubs, but Belgium has links to 220 international cities and Denmark has more than 150 such links.

If APD levels hold back local airports and their connectivity, they will also hold back the surrounding local economies. The Edinburgh airport campus employs 5,000 people and its activities support a further 2,000 across Scotland. It estimates that its contribution to the Scottish economy is £146 million, of which £118 million entered the Edinburgh city regional economy. The question must be: could it do more, if allowed?

One of the key debates on the impact of APD is about price elasticity, a phrase that takes me back to 1984, when I was studying economics at Edinburgh university. Different products have different elasticities—the rate at which demand is lessened by an increase in price. On the impact of APD rises, the report prepared by the three Scottish airports estimates that, accumulatively, by 2016 Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen will carry 2.1 million fewer passengers each year than if APD had not risen since 2007. Price elasticity is lower in Aberdeen, so the impact would be less, but it might still lose

200,000 passengers. Edinburgh’s higher number of low-cost carriers will result in a far higher potential impact—it might lose 1 million passengers per year.

Those are not just numbers; they are business men making connections and sales, and tourists spending money. The 2009 Civil Aviation Authority’s passenger survey suggests that about 36% of international passengers are visitors to Scotland and that 40% of domestic passengers are similarly inbound to Scotland. If we combine the drop in actual and projected numbers with the CAA figures and apply VisitScotland’s average tourist spend, we will see that the results are very worrying.

The 2007 drop in passenger numbers appears to have amounted to a £90 million per annum loss with regard to Scottish tourism. Following the 2009 APD rise, that figure has risen to £160 million and, if projections are correct, it will rise to £210 million per annum by 2016. This simply cannot continue.

Much of what I have said has come from the industry and some might say, “Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?”, so I did a small internet survey last night via booking sites. I imagined myself as a business man trying to establish trade with some of the BRIC countries and looked at flying direct to Sao Paulo. A flight on 14 November from Heathrow would cost me a best direct price of £768, the APD for which is about £184. However, a direct flight from Paris, where the APD equivalent is €4, would cost £642—a saving of £126, which is more than enough to cover a Eurostar ticket. If I chose to start a business with Chennai, I could fly there with Gulf Air for £475, but the cost of a flight from Paris would be £240, which is almost half the price.

If I was a tourist heading to Las Vegas—this is the worst example—I could get the 11.20 Virgin Atlantic flight for £644, but if I travelled to Dublin for £17 I could get the exact same flight from there for £453. That is a saving of £191, for which, once I arrived in Las Vegas, would buy me the “hound dog” package, whereby Elvis would sing three songs to me and I could get a rose bouquet and be walked down the aisle. That would be an interesting use of £191. I think we can do better. When the taxation system causes such anomalies, it is not only Elvis who has left the building; common sense has left as well.

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2 years ago Liberal Democrats entered into the Coalition to put our nation’s economy back on track; and of course that has been our major focus. But of course we also entered Government so that we could put Liberal Democrat policies into action...

Liberal policies which improve our communities; Liberal policies which make our society fairer and Liberal policies which we know revolutionise the rehabilitation of those who offend...

It was a much wiser man than I who said that “to know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice” [Confucius]

So I am proud to stand here today and say to you that in justice we knew we had the right ideas; and that in coalition we are doing the right thing.

Instead of talking tough on crime while being soft on the treatment of criminals we are taking decisive steps to cut reoffending and deal with those caught up in the revolving door of prison. Turning them away from crime. Setting them on the straight and narrow.

We know that short term prison sentences are expensive but ineffective. That’s why we want to see a presumption in favour of robust community sentences and restorative justice.

For those who do end up with a custodial sentence we want them to actually leave with a chance to turn their lives around by:
• Focussing on giving individuals job skills
• Diverting mentally ill offenders away from the criminal justice system and towards treatment
• And introducing drug recovery wings within prisons for those caught up in re-offending because of drug abuse.

And there’s an unexpected upside to this because while we are keeping Gordon Ramsay busy teaching prisoners how to be chefs he can’t inflict another series of the F-Word on us.

But there needs to be balance – and we’ve not forgotten the victims – those whose lives are affected by the selfish acts of the minority. Since entering Government we have offered greater support to victims; giving them and their communities more of a say about punishment through restorative justice – things like community resolution panels.

Coral Kent the victim of a road rage incident which ended with her husband being slashed with a knife took part in restorative justice and has become a spokeswoman for the scheme. She said:

"The first question I asked my husband's attacker was 'Why?...He looked me in the eye and apologised profusely...Some will say he had to be there but it was what I got out of it, it's all about the victim...If I'd not taken part in the scheme I'd still be angry today."

Here in Brighton the police are working with those who offend because of drug dependency –making them tackle their problems head on by talking about them.
In the last 6 years 500 addicts who would previously have gone to prison have instead gone into treatment.  These 500 individuals had already gone through the traditional Criminal Justice System for their total of over £20K at a cost of over £27.5 million – so the Crime Reduction Initiative is well named and delivers a massive economic saving.
 
These policies, working in practice, are pages lifted straight from the Liberal Democrat manifesto.

Of course this approach can’t be used to deal with serious crimes or for repeat offenders. But it can help where a person has admitted their guilt, shown remorse and is willing to make amends.

So we’ve made a good start but why stop there. Our Home Affairs Justice and Equalities Committee under Tom Brake’s leadership has looked to build on the foundations of the Coalition Agreement, crafting Liberal Policies which we hope you will adopt today.  

We want to see courts making even greater use of community sentences, opting to use them rather than costly and ineffective short prison sentences.

We know that these are not soft options, rather a means of punishment which helps offenders to change their behaviour, and helps victims to move on.

But we need our judiciary to see the value of their decisions too which is why we think that judges should visit restorative justice and community sentencing schemes so that they can see the positive effects for themselves.

We also want providers of probation services to keep records of the education and employment of ex-offenders’ so that we have evidence of the success of community sentencing.

When custodial sentences are appropriate, we need our prisons to be places of true rehabilitation as well as places of punishment. Those released must be prepared to contribute to society which means that they have to be given relevant life skills.

So we need a greater focus on literacy -because it is a life-changing skill.

 We need to embrace innovative schemes like Stories Connect in Channing Wood Prison which has been so successful inside prison that it’s now moved into the community with ex-offenders. 

For prisons which fail; those which consistently release people who reoffend, we need to hold them to account just as we do schools and hospitals of they fail to operate as they’re supposed to. A prison’s main task is to prevent re-offending not just to remove liberty. Prisons must be more than just restbite care for blighted communities.

That’s why this motion calls for greater accountability for those companies which deliver services in the criminal justice system; making them eligible for FOI requests for example.  A 'payment by results' pilot at Doncaster Prison is already in place.

We also want to make sure that there is scope for smaller companies, charities and voluntary organisations to provide services.

So we want to introduce mandatory rotation of service providers as well as contract sharing between large and small firms, charities and voluntary organisations. Increasing competition will encourage innovation, drive standards up and force service providers to change if their results are not up-to-scratch. 

So I hope that you agree with me that our record in this area is liberal and proud;

And I know that you will agree that the Lib Dems have never been the type to fold our arms, admire our handy work and rest on our laurels.

A lot has been done, but the real crime would be to fail to seize the opportunity that we have in Government to continue to really make a difference to the lives of all those affected by crime.

I hope that you will support the motion and also the excellent amendment.

Thank you.     

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I wish to tackle the important issue of nuisance calls. Like many Members, I am fed up with receiving nuisance calls on my mobile and home telephone, and unsolicited texts sent to my mobile. It is a real problem for many of my constituents, much as cold-calling in person was many years ago. It was mainly energy companies who indulged in cold-calling in person, but thanks to many local campaigns across the country, most of the big six energy companies have stopped the practice. It is time to turn our attention to the issue of nuisance calls and texts.

There were 650 million silent calls made in the UK last year, and 45 million spam texts sent in Europe last year and every year. Some 3 million UK adults will be scammed out of £800 each this year by fraudulent marketing calls. It is clear that we have an industry in crisis and a country under siege. People should not have to put up with this menace, which puts many vulnerable and elderly people at just as much risk of fraud as if the crook or pushy salesman turned up at their door unannounced. Yet the two Departments responsible for various aspects of the industry—the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Ministry of Justice—do not seem to think that there is a need for any change in legislation.

In response to a letter that I sent him, the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) said that although the Government do not believe that sweeping changes are necessary to the regulatory framework, the Ministry of Justice continues to keep the Information Commissioner’s Office powers under review. Thousands of people disagree and are backing my campaign to restrict this nuisance. They say that their experience shows that the current situation is simply not good enough. Many people have shared their horror stories with me. I would welcome the chance to meet Ministers from DCMS and the Ministry of Justice to discuss the issue.

The Sunday Post in Scotland has helped to promote my campaign nationally, and a spokesman for the newspaper recently told me:

“It's clear from the overwhelming response we have had from our readers this problem plagues our daily lives.

And yet regardless of asking for them to stop—and sometimes taking steps to halt them—the onslaught continues.

The will is there from people to put on an end to this once and for all. Now is the time for the Government to act on that will and strengthen existing legislation.”

I could not agree more.

Since launching my campaign only four weeks ago, over 10,500 people have signed the campaign petition at no2nuisancecalls.net—sorry for the plug. Like many others, I know that I have not had a fall in the last five years and am not entitled to any more payment protection insurance compensation, and I certainly do not want a payday loan. Nevertheless, I am continually contacted by text and phone by companies offering me those things.

I am registered with the Telephone Preference Service for both home and mobile numbers, but even that does not stop the onslaught. According to Ofcom figures, complaints to the TPS about unwanted marketing calls jumped to almost 10,000 for the month of July. That compares with just over 3,000 in December last year. In an online poll of 4,000 individuals for Which? magazine, 76% of respondents said that despite signing up to the TPS, they still receive many nuisance calls. Only 1% rated the service as excellent and said that they no longer received nuisance calls. Once again, the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Wantage, seemed to miss that point; he said that the TPS was generally successful in reducing the number of unsolicited marketing calls received. That is not the experience of the majority of people registering with it.

Ofcom suggests that increased activity by PPI and accident claims companies is partly to blame for the rise. The problem is partly the result of the fact that PPI calls are not classed as sales calls but as a service or marketing calls. On texts, the law says that there must be an unsubscribe option such as “Reply STOP to this number”. However, there are two problems with that. First, there are serious worries about how much it would cost to send such a text. Secondly, such a reply tells the sender that the number is genuine and in use, which might merely engender further contact from that company and from others.

Recent research by the Association of British Insurers has found that more than three quarters of people—78%—have been contacted by a claims management company asking if they have been involved in an accident or mis-sold payment protection insurance. The ABI found that 92% of those who received such a message from a claims management company said that it was not relevant to them.

Complaints about abandoned or silent calls trebled in 2012, rising from 957 in December 2011 to 3,390 in July 2012. That is probably only the tip of the iceberg. In May 2011, the Information Commissioner’s Office was given powers to fine companies up to £500,000 if they broke the rules on unsolicited texts and phone calls. To date, however, the ICO has failed to prosecute any company for breaking the rules, in spite of the fact that it has received more than 7,000 complaints this year—a 43% increase on last year, when fewer than 5,000 complaints were received for the entire year.

I understand better than most the difficulties involved in carrying out complex police investigations, but we must understand what prevents those investigations from leading to prosecutions and fines. Until an example is made, those companies will carry on unfazed.

The ICO has done great work on fining companies that fail to look after their data properly, but the strongest action so far on breaking of the legislation governing unsolicited calls and texts was a strongly worded statement in July this year which talked of the ICO “baring its teeth”.

All of that points to a huge problem that is on the increase—indeed, it is out of control. Some companies offer a service to help protect people from unwanted calls, but it can be costly—anything from £35 to £100—and often those companies are not up front about the charges. To be frank, why should we have to pay for such a service anyway? I believe, as do the 10,000-plus people who have signed up to my online campaign, that we have the right to be free from such calls without having to pay for the privilege.

As I have said, the problem is out of control, and requires urgent action. The Information Commissioner desperately needs to have the power to end this menace. I am therefore calling for the Information Commissioner’s powers to be strengthened to take in all forms of unsolicited contact, and for a single point of contact for any individual wishing to protect their privacy and block unwanted calls, texts, faxes and e-mails. That express wish should be taken seriously and acted upon.

I simply do not understand why we continue to allow this to happen, and why we are so permissive about our telecoms contact. If Barclays or HomeServe—two companies that, between them, were fined £5 million for silent calls—were knocking on our vulnerable granny’s door every day, then running away before she answered, we would be appalled. Instead, we tell those companies that they can do that only one day in 20: 5% of their calls are allowed to be silent. If claims management companies were knocking on her door, then bullying her into making PPI claims or taking payday loans, we would be up in arms. Instead, we hide behind the claim that those are merely surveys. If, because of all of that, we had to hire a doorman at significant expense to filter all the unwanted people at the door and only allow real visitors in, that would be completely unacceptable, yet that is the awful, frightening telecoms reality for many older, vulnerable members of society. It simply cannot continue. It simply must stop.

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Six hundred and fifty million silent calls were made in the UK last year, many of them to vulnerable older people. Forty-five million spam texts are sent in Europe every single year, 92% of which are estimated to be fraudulent, and 3 million UK adults will be scammed out of £800 each this year by fraudulent marketing calls. May we therefore have an urgent debate on the effectiveness of the powers of the Information Commissioner’s Office, as it is now clear that we have an industry in crisis and a country under siege?

Mr Lansley: I am interested to hear what the hon. Gentleman has to say. I think that all Members and people outside the House will, almost without exception, have been the recipients of such nuisance calls, which can be very distressing, particularly for older and vulnerable people. He will know that this is exactly the sort of issue that it is helpful to raise, for example, in the pre-recess Adjournment debate, not least because that will focus the mind of the Information Commissioner. In any case, I will make sure that the issue, which touches on the responsibilities of Ofcom and the ICO, is raised with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

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It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I thank the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) for securing this important debate and for giving me my first opportunity to speak about social mobility since becoming one of the vice-chairs of the all-party social mobility group.

It is entirely appropriate that the debate takes place in Westminster Hall, as it was here, nearly 500 years ago, that King Henry VIII’s closest aide came to put a Bill for the relief of the poor before Parliament. The causes of poverty listed in that Bill included unemployment and bad upbringing. It provided for a works programme that compelled the able-bodied to work on projects such as road building, maintenance of fortresses and harbours and cleansing of watercourses, in return for a fair wage. Even child beggars were to be hired as apprentices to skilled craftsmen, offering them a chance of a future that they would otherwise never have had. The proposals were radical, but that quality was perhaps more pronounced because they were the brainchild of Thomas Cromwell, who was the King’s chief Minister, Earl of Essex and Master of the Rolls—but also the son of a blacksmith from Putney.

We should be clear about what we mean by social mobility. We are not talking about creating equality of income, or equality of experience. Our aim is to achieve equality of opportunity and a society in which individuals who grow up in poorer families can use their talent and effort to move up the socio-economic ladder. The problem is that people from low-income backgrounds find it extremely difficult to get on in life through education and employment. Now, as in 1535, poverty is the greatest barrier to social mobility and equality.

The all-party group’s report on social mobility showed that the prospects of half of all children born in the UK can be almost entirely linked to their parents’ socio-economic circumstances. Perhaps contrary to outward perception and certainly counter to the American dream, America and Britain have the highest intergenerational correlations between the social status of fathers and sons—47% in America and 50% in the UK, whereas, by comparison, in Denmark it is just 15% and in Australia 17%. I have no doubt that that is in large part down to educational attainment.

The BBC 1 programme “Who Do You Think You Are?” has sparked many people’s interest in examining their backgrounds and finding out about their predecessors—often with surprising results. I, too, have looked into my predecessors. I found it quite easy, helped by the fact that my father, Robert Crockart, had a father named Robert George Crockart, whose father was Robert Crockart—you can guess the rest, Mr Rosindell. My father was born in Methven, a small village outside Perth, and I have traced his direct predecessors back almost 400 years to the 1600s, when they all worked manually on the land around Methven, so there was no degree of geographic mobility, never mind social mobility—yet here I stand. The only difference is education and my being the first in my family to achieve a degree—and not even that good a degree, it has to be said. That is only one example, but one that I am sure is repeated many hundreds of times across the country. That is why I regard access to education and especially higher education as key in this debate.

Two days ago, as part of my party’s attempts to increase representative diversity, I was shadowed by a potential Liberal Democrat candidate from a poor background, who blogged about the experience afterwards and reminded me of a certain quote:

“I believe that access to higher education is a key enabler of social mobility and the best way to narrow the gap between the richest and poorest in society.”

It is a wonderful quote. It is from me. I do not want to open old wounds, but those words were written in my letter of resignation from Government over the increase in tuition fees. I did so not because of any pledge, but because of a personal understanding that knowing that a figure indicated a contingent liability rather than an actual debt was a differentiation that would be lost on many young people from backgrounds like mine.

Nevertheless, I think the Government are right to view the problem more widely and to take a life-cycle approach by examining issues and interventions from the early years all the way through to adulthood.

The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts): The hon. Gentleman rightly expresses the anxieties that people had at the time of our tuition fee and loan proposals. Does he take some encouragement from the UCAS evidence that applications from school leavers and 18-year-olds at college have barely fallen? Indeed, we are running at the second highest rate of applications ever, and, in particular, we cannot find any differential fall in applications. If anything, applications from young people from low-income backgrounds have held up slightly better than those from other groups.

Mike Crockart: I accept what my right hon. Friend is saying. The difficulty was always selling the detail of the proposals. I looked at the detail of the measures and there was much there to commend them and much improvement on what was there before. My worry was that this large amount known as a debt would turn people off. If that has not happened, because of the huge efforts made by many hon. Members in this place and elsewhere, that is to be welcomed, but it was a huge concern at the time.

Lots of other proposals are going ahead, such as universal credit and the Work programme, which the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has said:

“have the potential to really move things on…and to provide a better basis to help people into work.”

I hope that our policies to ensure that the tax system is fairer will also play their part in lessening the gap between the richest and poorest. Other initiatives coming from the youth contract aim to provide secure, fairly paid jobs for people with the real prospect of progression.

At this point, I have to state that I stand here a repentant sinner. On arrival at Westminster with a very tight budget and an unforgiving Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority standing behind me, I did what everyone else was doing and took on unpaid interns. However, my actions sat increasingly uncomfortably with me. Despite the quality and easy supply of people, it was simply indefensible to me to give opportunity in such a way that only a small minority of people were able to take advantage of it. I now have two paid apprentices, both of whom are sitting in the Public Gallery today: one is from the Speaker’s parliamentary placement scheme and one from the parliamentary academy’s new deal of the mind. I urge all hon. Members here and others who read Hansard tomorrow to find out about such schemes to widen opportunities to people who, because of their background, would not normally be able to take up positions here. As I say, those people could not be here if they were not paid. The good side of that is that my conscience is now at peace once again.

I am doing what I can to help in my constituency. A similar scheme to that outlined by the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles has joined with the Department for Work and Pensions, Skills Development Scotland and Edinburgh Guarantee, which is run by the local council, to work with approximately 50 employers so far to create 100 paid training places for young people in 100 days. Youth contract funding makes such initiatives possible, and I urge hon. Members to get involved.

As the report on the seven key truths about social mobility states, the fact remains that

“the point of greatest leverage is at 0-3.”

Things such as a child’s development score at just 22 months can serve as an accurate predictor of educational outcomes at 26 years of age. Boys deemed to be at risk by nurses were two and a half times as likely to have criminal convictions as those in the not-at-risk group by the age of 21. It is clear that we must do much more to identify those at risk, intervene and ensure that they reach their potential.

I am anxious to allow the person speaking after me to have the full 10 minutes, so I will skip ahead and sum up by saying that social mobility is not only a matter of justice or fairness to individuals. Our country as a whole would benefit massively from increasing the fluidity of our society. When people are excluded from opportunities because of their background, we waste their talent and potential to contribute to our society in a meaningful way. We also risk being hugely out of touch with the majority of people if politicians, chief executives, judges, leading business figures and civil servants all have similar backgrounds, life experience and beliefs. Ninety per cent of MPs elected in 2010—my intake—went to university, and more than a third of them attended either Oxford or Cambridge. That contrasts with the general population: according to 2010 figures, only 31% of working-age adults in England were educated to university level.

In the 21st century, we are still discussing the issue that Thomas Cromwell’s draft Bill sought to address—changing the life chances of those born into poverty. Let this Parliament tackle the lack of social mobility in the UK with the same revolutionary zeal that he did—although perhaps without the beheading. Today’s debate is a good start.

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Mike Crockart: I am confused by this continuing slur of “getting into bed with the Conservatives”, because in Scotland we now have coalitions of every possible hue, including Labour and Tory coalitions. Does the hon. Gentleman attack those coalitions with the same vigour that he attacks this one here?

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Mike Crockart: I welcome the amendments to the Scotland Bill, which—I am proud to say—was brought forward at the earliest possible opportunity in the coalition’s programme by a Liberal Democrat Minister, reflecting our 100-year commitment to home rule. The Bill is the outcome of an inclusive and iterative process, and reflects the devolution journey embarked on in 1999. I am sure that it will not be the final iteration.

The Bill devolves huge further powers to the Scottish Government, which will make that Government much more responsible to the Scottish people for the taxes they raise and the money they spend, and that is hugely welcome. Powers should reside at the best level for them to be exercised, and in accordance with that sentiment, the original proposed reservation of powers relating to insolvency and the regulation of health professionals—as well as the powers relating to Antarctica, as we would not want to forget those—was a sensible part of that iterative process. I happily supported them as they reflected the key Liberal Democrat principle that powers should reside at that level of government where they most sensibly lie.

I understand the reason for removing those parts of the original Bill, given the assurances that the Minister has now received from the Scottish Government, but I am left confused by the situation that remains for the SNP and the Scottish Government. We now have assurances that insolvency will be treated similarly cross-border, and that regulation of health professionals will also be maintained in the same way. Those issues are added to the currency, monetary policy, the monarchy and, yesterday, income tax levels as areas in which there would be no change if Scottish independence were achieved. In the same vein, NATO membership may even be up for grabs.

The Bill and the amendments are the result of a sensible consultation and compromise, and that is surely the correct and proven way to move the devolution settlement forward. I know we will see further iteration of that once the distraction of independence has been put to bed as quickly as possible.

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I prepared my speech for this debate but was not called. You can watch the debate online - you'll probably see me standing up and sitting down, trying to catch the Speaker's eye.

I welcome the opportunity to speak in today's debate. This is certainly a very serious issue for the UK and I agree that some action is needed to tackle it.

Metal theft costs the UK economy in excess of 770 million pounds each year and, as we have heard today it is on the rise - British Transport Police estimating 2,000 incidents in 2010/11 compared to 1,500 in 2009/10. It is a significant increase and with metal markets expected to rise further its prevalence is likely to rise again.

Whilst it is right that we try to tackle the issue, I am concerned that the latest Government proposals and some of those put forward in today's motion are punitive to the trade as a whole and the very many reputable dealers operating in the UK.

We know that we need to address the issue and deal robustly with those who do deal illegally, but we must ensure that our response is proportionate and intelligently targeted.

So I welcome the announcement made by the Chancellor in November that 5 million pounds of Treasury funding will establish a new multi-agency national metal theft taskforce. The taskforce led by the British Transport Police will develop a coordinated approach to disrupt criminal networks.

As part of that I hope they will be working with the many companies and organisations affected by metal theft and already operating in new ways to deter criminals. Preventative measures like CCTV and using forensic marking techniques to security mark metal. BT and Network Rail are good examples such action in practice.

This coordinated proactive approach is a sensible way to tackle both the thieves and also the criminal market. Crucially it will not penalise those in the trade operating responsibly and legally.

I question the rationale for legislation. Sustainable and effective enforcement is a far better approach to take than legal reform. I have concerns about the existing burden of regulation on the trade. We have said that we will seek to reduce the burden on business in our drive to grow the economy and, in the scrap trade specifically�the 2011 DEFRA led Government Review of Waste Policy (England).

Its remit...to streamline "the overlapping powers, controls and obligations as currently set out...and the record keeping requirements of waste legislation with a view to improving enforcement and reducing opportunities for criminals."

Is further legislation at this time not then premature? Should we not let wait for the assessment of the progress made due in March before we tie the trade up with yet more red tape?

We must remember that there are already significant directives for the industry:
- waste regulation which requires dealers to have planning permission
- exemption from the Environment Agency to operate a scrap site under the Environmental Protection Act 1990
- registration as a waste carrier for those wishing to transport metal to a scrap metal site for profit
- the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964 which places controls on dealers which include registration and record keeping
And there are voluntary measures too with the British Metal Recycling Association Code of Practice.

Indeed, conversations I have had with those in the scrap metal trade have indicated to me that it is this plethora of regulations which has in part contributed to the growth in metal theft by muddying the waters around who deals in what was previously scrap or rubbish but rightly is increasingly regarded as a valuable recyclable commodity.

The introduction of the Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011 now defines waste dealers, waste brokers and waste carriers and lays out many responsibilities for each. DEFRA has issued extensive guidance on applying the waste hierarchy.

The regulations implement the revised Waste Framework Directive which requires a new permit waste hierarchy permit condition and introduce a two-tier system for waste carrier and broker registration, which includes those who carry their own waste, and introduces a new concept of a waste dealer.

It also introduces some legal obligations for businesses or organisations such as producing and handling waste.

These include taking all such measures as are reasonable in the circumstances to apply the waste hierarchy to prevent waste, and to apply the hierarchy as a priority order when you transfer your waste to another person. A declaration must also be added on Duty of Care Waste Transfer Notes and Hazardous Waste Consignment Notes confirming the duty has been complied with. There is a legal duty of care to take all reasonable steps to keep your waste safe.

If you give your waste to someone else, you must be sure they are authorised to take it and can deal with it or dispose of it safely. But what is less clear is where the responsibility lies to investigate the provenance of the 'recycled' material.

The anecdotal evidence is that this has opened more avenues for the disposal of ill-gotten gains, some of which may not have the many years experience in this field or ability to recognise dodgy deals.

In Scotland we have a Metalbrokers License which regulates dealers to the minimum amount/weight that they can buy. All dealers with a turnover of less than 100,000 pounds are included in the scheme.

As part of the License a seller's name and address are required and they sign for any cash payment. Last year Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill launched a consultation to look at expanding the metal dealers licensing scheme by requiring all dealers with a turnover of less than 10 million pounds to be licensed. I should say that police also have the power to inspect without a warrant the premises of someone with a Broker's License.

This kind of regulation seems to be in line with much of that recommended in the Transport Committee's report published last month:
- improving the audit trail for purchasers, by requiring sellers to prove their identity
- Providing powers for police to enter and inspect both registered and unregistered sites
The Committee suggested 'exploring the possibility of a trial of cashless trading'. I have significant concerns about the banning of cash transactions because it is unduly punitive to reputable dealers and will have limited success.

I am not alone, The British Metals Recycling Association concluded that banning cash transactions will not solve the problem - it will "simply push the trade to illegal scrap yards". As a former police officer I share this sentiment.

I would urge us not to bring in such burdens as a knee-jerk reaction. The Committee's suggestion for a trial may be a sensible compromise and allow the impact to be properly and carefully assessed.

One final point I wish to make is about competition. By creating bureaucracy there is a strong likelihood that small and medium sized metal broking businesses will be forced out of the market. Many operating in the trade, legally I should add, demand cash payments. It is the nature of the business. If these smaller merchants are priced out of the market by legislation and red tape then I think that is a sad state of affairs.

The BMRA has said that a move towards cashless transactions could disadvantage small well-run sites unless there was "effective enforcement against unregulated operators...without this legitimate metal recyclers stand to lose substantial volumes of legitimate trade to illegal operators".

We should not bring about unnecessary monopolies, and we should not bring in excessive legislation. We need to tackle the problem head-on, but I am yet to be convinced that primary legislation is the best way to do that.

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I welcome the opportunity to speak in today's debate. I should declare my interest as a Member for a constituency facing the loss of an historic headquarters, and a resident of a city facing the loss of an additional two barracks. I have been calling on the Ministry of Defence to rethink their proposals. I made the case for a future for Craigiehall to the Secretary of State for Scotland in November, and my contribution today restates that call.

The SNP may, now at least, be happy with the basing plans for Scotland, especially given their absence today, but I am not. The plan put forward is to replace Dreghorn, Redford and Craigiehall, the three historic Edinburgh bases, with a new purpose built super-barracks for a multi-role brigade at Kirknewton, a command headquarters to be incorporated into the new formation headquarters at Leuchars, and an expansion of Glencorse barracks near Penicuik.

The basis for the Ministry's proposal is financial - the sell-off of land for prime residential development to produce attractive capital receipts. A super-barracks will, I am told, be more cost-effective in the long term, saving taxpayers' money and boosting Treasury funds. It is an understandable and laudable aim, but I am extremely dubious about whether the plan has been properly prepared, or is capable of delivering the savings envisaged.

To date, I have asked almost 100 parliamentary questions to try to understand the financial reasoning behind the decision. Not one answer has given any details of likely costs or possible capital receipts from disposal of the Edinburgh estate. Instead, time and again I am told, "It's too early," or "Comprehensive planning is under way," or "The information is not held in the format requested." The Minister was "not able to provide a cost estimate" for the building of the new barracks at Kirknewton. Running costs for the base seem equally unclear. He wrote: "it is not possible to confirm budgetary requirements or allocations."

How, then, is it possible to do a comparison with the costs of the undoubted modernisation work needed at Dreghorn and Redford? No audit seems to have been carried out to establish the modernisation costs.

The story is not much better on capital receipts. I asked the Ministry what value it had placed on Craigiehall. The answer indicates that no recent valuation of this or the other sites had been carried out. The proposed capital receipts were, I believe, based on valuations done in 2007, when the property boom was at its height. A further report was commissioned and carried out in March last year by GVA Grimleys, but despite tenacious attempts, there seems to be a great reticence to publish any detail from that.

If Craigiehall is to be used as a new business site, I have bad news. The industrial capacity in Newbridge and the, as yet unstarted, international hub development next to the airport are close locations that would be far more desirable. There are also development limitations cased by the listed building status of large parts of Craigiehall and also Redford barracks, which may make the sites difficult to sell. The depressive effect of all of those sites coming on to the market at the same time is likely to limit their value severely.

The financial case is, as we say in Scotland, on a bit of a shooglie peg.

It is not just the financial case that is lacking in detail. On an array of important factors there is worrying ambiguity. The Minister cannot tell me what transport infrastructure is needed in and around Kirknewton to allow an Army base to function, but "comprehensive planning work is now under way".

The reply to questions about the effects on schools, housing and health services for Army personnel is always the same: "Comprehensive planning work is now under way." In fact, that is the reply to almost all my questions about the proposal. Surely comprehensive planning work should have taken place before the decision to close three historic bases and commit to 600 million pounds of new spend.

The Army, too, has its concerns. I have spoken at length with the commanding officer and understand that Glencorse barracks is near capacity. There are serious concerns about the feasibility of moving the Army to a super-barracks, and about the recommendations of the review in general.

There is a desire for Leuchars to remain a back-up airfield for Typhoon operations in case of adverse weather conditions in the north of Scotland. The work needed to make the base at Lossiemouth operational, and dates for the completion of that work, are unclear.

There is also strong concern among the civilian population in areas of Edinburgh where Army families are currently based. A move away by the Army would put local shops and schools in jeopardy, as roll numbers would fall significantly. Local businesses would be affected and a tight-knit community would be destroyed.

The MOD has indicated that the current service family accommodation in Edinburgh will be kept and used for personnel based at Kirknewton, but it is difficult to see how that will work in practice.

I attended a road show about the proposals, at the invitation of the Army Families Federation. The families have been given very limited details about their proposed resettlement, and the uncertainty is understandably causing a great deal of stress.

Particularly worrying is the period between 2014, when Redford and Dreghorn will close, and 2017, when Kirknewton is likely to become operational. The units currently based in Redford and Dreghorn are light infantry and, as such, not the type that would form part of a multi-role brigade, so at some point they will be relocated and other units will need to move in, but it is not clear which base they would operate from.

As I have said, the proposal is also significant for my constituency. The closure of Craigiehall confirmed that, despite a 3,500 increase in Army numbers and a major restructuring exercise currently under way, Scotland will lose its command headquarters, although a welcome senior Army presence will be kept to provide representation and communication with the Scottish Government and others; a two-star officer, to be known as General Officer Scotland, will be based in Scotland with a small support team.

Nevertheless, replacing the divisional headquarters with a single support command headquarters will reduce the opportunity for the Army to engage with high-level regional and local partners in Scotland.

The closure of Craigiehall HQ would also have a significant impact on post reductions, which would affect civilians currently employed. In Edinburgh West, 103 civilian roles would be lost in addition to 89 military posts, which would mean the loss of experienced and skilled staff at a time when two further HQs are planned to move into Scotland to Leuchars and Kirknewton. I believe that there are clear efficiency savings to be made in co-locating headquarters at Craigiehall. It would not only work at a command and cost level, but save the experience and skills of those already at Craigiehall.

I think that the current capacity review will reveal that many aspects of the present proposals are simply undeliverable, and that Craigiehall might be best placed for a multiple HQ base.

If the case is financial, accurate and up-to-date figures are needed to demonstrate its cost-effectiveness. When accurate figures are available, and not before, a decision can be made on the future of the Army estate in Edinburgh, taking into account all the issues.

I urge the Ministry to think again.

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I welcome today's debate and the opportunity to discuss this most important issue. When thinking about my contribution today, I was reminded of the following headline in The Guardian in 2009: "Empty, unlet and unloved: the new British high street."

Over the past few years, we have become very aware of the demise of our high streets. Challenging economic circumstances, stretched consumers and a new breed of large out-of-town shopping centres and supermarkets are all part of the problem, but we in central and local government must also shoulder some of the blame.

Above all, we must take the problems seriously and act now to halt the damage already done. I therefore welcome the independent Portas review and its recommendations on the future of our high streets. The findings seem sensible and offer a pragmatic, systematic way forward.

When choosing where to shop, many people become flippant about the struggle our high streets face. I, too, am guilty of that. We do not automatically associate our shopping transactions with the survival of the high street. We think someone else will shop there or use its services. That attitude needs to change.

My constituency of Edinburgh West is a collection of communities close to a major city centre. Corstorphine is at the heart of the constituency and has what would probably best be described as a traditional high street: linear in appearance and with all the usual amenities one would expect, including a butcher, a baker - but no candlestick maker -hairdressers, dentists, estate agents, charity shops and pubs.

Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire): Does my hon. Friend agree that another facility we would expect to find on our high streets is a branch of a bank? However, in my constituency Barclays has closed its branch in Rhayader high street and HSBC is going to close its branch in Presteigne. Such closures pull our high streets still further downwards. We should let banks know that we expect them to respect the communities they serve.

Mike Crockart: That is an important point, but we can hope that that problem will be addressed by the welcome widening of competition through Virgin Money, the Co-operative Bank and others opening on our high streets.

High street businesses and the services they provide would be missed if they were to go, but the majority of people still do their shopping at the Tesco Extra, or other superstore, down the road. It has parking, everything is under one roof and for some products it is more competitively priced. I fear that many high street shops do well because of an older generation for whom they provide a social amenity. That is worrying for their future.

The high streets in Kirkliston and in Davidson's Mains, which are also in my constituency, are surviving but they are arguably not thriving. People can walk to the shops and businesses, which are friendly and provide a focal point for the community, but not many new businesses are moving in; growth has stalled, it would appear. But in another area, South Queensferry, the high street is bustling.

Why is that? It is because it is a completely different entity. It is a tourist attraction, where small independent shops are found alongside well-respected one-off hotels and restaurants. It has a clear strength and is playing to it. In the other areas, it would be a positive step if the local communities, authorities, planners and business leaders were given the opportunity to talk frankly about the direction in which they should and could move.

The Portas review makes 28 recommendations, covering many things that I do not propose to discuss in any great detail. All of them are important parts of the solution, but the experience in Edinburgh shows that the solution for each area - each separate high street - will be different and will need different elements of all these suggestions and many others if there is to be success. Local involvement will be key to delivering that.

In England, the focus will be on the national planning policy framework, but in Scotland I await the national planning framework 2 monitoring report from the Scottish Government to see whether progress will be made.

Finally, I wish briefly to discuss new technologies, which were mentioned by the previous speaker, and their role in the success or decline of our high streets and town centres. The growth of online shopping has often been associated with the decline of familiar high street names -Woolworths and HMV, to name but two - and I cannot argue wholly against that view. Indeed, Interactive Media in Retail Group forecasts from last year suggested that high street spending would drop by 2% over Christmas while online spending would increase by 16% and that 25% of seasonal shopping would take place online, with 12% being made via a mobile. Some 58% of large stores now have mobile websites; m-commerce is beginning to have a huge impact.

However, modern technology is not always the enemy. In the more rural part of my constituency, residents and business owners face cripplingly slow broadband connection speeds. I am campaigning for improvements, because not only do residents have a right to fast, reliable internet connections, but businesses need them in order to flourish and grow.

I have been contacted by numerous business owners who say that the poor connection slows down card transactions in their restaurants, that without a website that they can update quickly and easily their business suffers and that any subsidiary online shopping facilities are limited because of the poor provision. If the connection could be improved, the online might not always lead to off-street sales.

The key to saving our high streets lies in allowing them to diversify to meet diverse demand. In some areas, such as South Queensferry, this will be achieved through tourism, whereas in others, such as Corstorphine, it will occur through meeting local needs. I believe that this Government are willing to work with local communities, authorities and businesses large and small to turn the tide. It is a refreshing and very welcome attitude.

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I welcome this debate and the opportunity to discuss the role that zoos play in our regional economies. I thank my hon. Friend Andrew Rosindell for his work in securing the debate.

In my maiden speech last year, I laid claim to represent more penguins than any other hon. Member. I am proud to able to add to that list, and I must, obviously, mention Scotland's new arrivals. While I am not the only hon. Member here today to represent exotic species, I am very proud to be the only hon. Member with two giant pandas as constituents: Tian Tian and Yang Guang, or Sweetie and Sunshine. They arrived last week and I understand that they are settling well into their new home. I hope to be able to visit them in the coming weeks. I am pleased that Scottish Enterprise has wasted no time in commissioning a report to help to understand the pandas' potential impact on tourism, and the economic impact at local and national level. I await its findings with great interest.

Today's zoos are much more than entertainment; they are centres of conservation, education and research. Yes, zoos continue to draw huge numbers of tourists, and so add directly to a region's economy through tourist revenues, supply chain jobs and roles in the service industries. However, their ability to deliver wider and more dramatic results has been somewhat curtailed by a failure to recognise them as businesses, centres of innovation and hubs linking cutting-edge scientific research, education, technology and commercialism. I hope that today's debate marks a step change in that respect. With our focus on growth and rebalancing the economy, it is essential to capitalise on all areas to drive future development and sustainability.

Edinburgh zoo, in my constituency, is home to more than 1,000 rare and endangered animals. It is also one of Europe's leading research centres for conservation and education, working collectively with many other zoos and conservation agencies in coordinated programmes. The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland has also worked for recognition by the university of Edinburgh as an accredited research associate, and has signed a memorandum of understanding with seven major Scottish universities to ensure co-operation in research. As my hon. Friend the Member for Romford said, the UK's zoological institutions are uniquely positioned to act as shop windows, championing the cutting edge research being undertaken in our universities. He mentioned excellent examples in Wales, Plymouth and Edinburgh.

In Edinburgh, pairing with St Andrews is producing excellent output in primatology. The work is not just in biology, but is pushing boundaries and discoveries in chemistry, physics, engineering, maths, design and aesthetics. Interestingly, the Budongo trail, an excellent facility hosting the chimps, also has corporate rooms available for conferences, overlooking the chimp enclosure. It is perhaps arguable who is more bemused by what they see: the chimps or the conference participants.

Such research work should not be shut away in our universities and research laboratories, but shared and celebrated with the public and visitors from overseas. It seems clear that, in that way, our zoos and similar institutions can and should act as a hub, translating primary research and scientific excellence into something of commercial and educational value. In Edinburgh, that education extends not only to school visits but to the excellent summer school run for 15 and 16-year-olds from throughout Scotland. Another example of local engagement is seen in this year's 175th birthday celebrations for Bristol zoo, where sculptures of gorillas by local artists were placed on a mass public art trail for 10 weeks this summer.

As my hon. Friend said, zoos and aquariums contribute 645 million pounds each year to the economy. A recent American report suggests that zoos have been doing better since 2008, as people increasingly look for affordable entertainment. With appropriate support and encouragement, however, such sites can become even more dynamic engines for regional growth and development, boosting local jobs, driving long-term tourism growth, championing environmental technology and enhancing regional leisure opportunities, thereby encouraging inward investment. The sector itself recognises that it has more to offer, if only its unique position were recognised by others, Government in particular. To quote Dr Miranda Stevenson, director of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums:

"Zoos and aquariums have a great deal of potential which is not being exploited by the government. They are not only a significant tourist attraction, but are of great conservational, educational and economic value in terms of local economic development and wealth generation."

She added that a recently produced BIAZA report was

"the first step towards establishing the value of zoos to the wider economic and social good."

The mention of social good is interesting and I want to touch on that briefly.

In no other sector are visitors so equally spread across ethnic group, age, socioeconomic background and level of education. The tradition of a family day out at the zoo blithely transcends social and economic barriers, and includes nearly every child at a formative point in their education. The BIAZA report showed that in 2010, 25 million people, more than a third of the UK population, visited one of its zoos or aquariums over the year; more than 1.2 million of them on an educational visit. That is not unique to the UK.

A report on Australian zoos found that more Australians visited zoos each year than any other form of cultural entertainment, apart from watching films. Yet the chance to use zoos, safari parks and the like as a place to deliver key messages on education and opportunity is often overlooked. The UK is not alone in that respect. The same Australian report concludes that:

"the contributions that governments make to the zoos sector is very low compared to the way in which society values zoos."

I hope that today's debate will mark the beginning of a new era for the UK's zoos, recognising them as institutions that can help us to grow economies and address skills gaps. As such, I hope that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will open practical and frank discussions with BIAZA.

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Mike Crockart: Key to the strategy announced today is the ability to translate primary research into early adoption and commercial outcomes. Does the Secretary of State agree that Edinburgh's BioQuarter is uniquely placed to do that, as it already shares a campus with the state-of-the-art royal infirmary of Edinburgh and is hopefully soon to be joined by the excellent sick children's hospital, providing a base for the commercialisation of the innovative work being carried out by Edinburgh's universities?

Mr Lansley: My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and far be it from me to comment further. He explained very well the benefits associated with investment and developments in Edinburgh and how the universities, the pharmaceutical industry and the NHS are working together there. That is also happening in locations in England, and across the United Kingdom we are providing real opportunities for international investment in biosciences.

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I, too, begin by welcoming the debate and congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) on securing it. Last week's debate in Westminster Hall and the number of hon. Members present tonight show the strength of feeling on this important issue. It is absolutely right that it is debated on the Floor of the House.

Some 140,538 individuals have added their signature to the "Free Babar Ahmad" epetition, which is rightly the catalyst for this debate, although the problem is much wider, as has been shown. I am glad that such cross party support exists; even the Daily Mail, which I do not normally read,supports the campaign but it was not always so. The Liberal Democrats have been vocal in our criticism of the lopsided extradition arrangements between Britain and the US for many years. Indeed, my hon. Friends the Members for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) and for Southport (John Pugh) were the only Members to vote against it in a scrutiny Committee. In 2006, we proposed amendments to the Extradition Act 2003 to protect the freedom and fair judicial treatment of British citizens, but, sadly, the previous Government refused to accept them.

I am pleased that the Liberal Democrats are acting on this issue in government and that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) will lead a Liberal Democrat review of UK-US extradition arrangements. I await the findings of his report with interest.

No one is denying that extradition remains a necessary process in pursuing the ends of justice. It is rightly founded on the concepts of reciprocity and mutual respect among jurisdictions, although it recognises differences between them. However, extradition also deals with the most basic human right; that of liberty and as such we must ensure that it is not entered into lightly or without proper process and oversight.

The affect of extradition on that basic right has been examined in detail regularly and recently by the Joint Committee on Human Rights and other Committees of both Houses. Reform is now advocated by Members on both sides of the House, which is to be welcomed. Both in the House and outside, it is recognised that extradition has changed. The process altered significantly in the wake of 9/11, as my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton said. Although the aim of such change was undoubtedly positive, the reality is that arrangements continue to be open to abuse.

A few high-profile cases have demonstrated that to all. The lack of discretion to allow the UK to decline extradition when the case should be prosecuted in the UK has become synonymous with the case of Gary McKinnon; problems with the European arrest warrant and trust in suitably high standards of justice in Europe are synonymous with the case of the British student Andrew Symeou; and the lack of a prima facie safeguard, previously an integral part of UK extradition law, is synonymous with the case of Babar Ahmad. High Court rulings even today give examples of further concerns, on, first, the definition of a "judicial authority" and whether that authority is truly independent; and, secondly, on whether extradition should be allowed when no charges have been laid, or whether it should be limited to being for the purpose of trial or sentence.

Those concerns add to the feeling that there is no reciprocal arrangement in practice. For every person extradited to Britain from the EU, we surrender nine back. We have surrendered 50 per cent more of our citizens than the US. Today's motion would implement the JCHR recommendations, which offer basic safeguards to prevent miscarriages of justice and deal explicitly with the concerns highlighted by those cases. The Committee suggests a forum clause that would allow UK courts to refuse extradition when an individual should be tried in our country; a requirement for any requesting country to show a prima facie case; and proportionality checks to ensure that EAWs are not issued for minor offences.

As well as proportionality, the presumption that human rights are respected equally in EU member states is another significant issue with EAWs. The JCHR was minded to agree that judges are reluctant to refuse extradition on human rights grounds because of that presumption. As such, we agreed with evidence given by Liberty that highlighted the clear difference between equal protection of all rights in practice and protection in law, which means that there is a need to give defendants the ability to rebut the presumption of equality.

The Committee is clear that we need to deal with significant EAW issues, even if that means renegotiation of the framework decision. I am heartened by the Government's willingness to act on that.

Charlie Elphicke: My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he support the principle of renegotiating things in Europe to get the right balance in our relations with the EU?

I do indeed. That is exactly what the JCHR report asks for. It supports that unequivocally, as do I - [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear!"] That does not make me anti European, however.

I am not saying that the use of EAWs has not been beneficial to the UK and Europe in the fight against serious and organised crime, or, to a certain degree, helpful in establishing a common area of freedom, security and justice, but we should not ignore the problems to support such advances.

The independent Baker review focused on five areas of extradition. Although I disagree with many of its findings, I share many of its points. On the Home Secretary's power to extradite, I instinctively have grave reservations in giving Ministers further powers when the distinction between state and judiciary becomes blurred. I believe that human rights considerations are more appropriately examined by the judiciary rather than a Minister, with proper consideration of relevant case law.

The Baker review also calls for a strengthening of legal representation in both issuing and executing states; an improvement in the process for the removal of EAW alerts, which was highlighted by the dreadful treatment received by Deborah Dark; and the prevention of excessive pre-trial detention. As a side comment, I would say that seven years is almost certainly excessive. There is a degree of unanimity on the need to act on those points.

One fundamental consideration is lost in the detail: whether our constituents, British citizens, have sufficient protection in respect of their safety and human rights. As Liberty eloquently wrote in its 11 November letter to the Home Secretary, that is a balancing act:

"There is, of course, a balance to be struck in any system of extradition between the public interest in expeditious extradition to enable prosecution of crime and the provision of essential safeguards to ensure procedural fairness for the accused...the Extradition Act 2003 secures the former at the dangerous expense of the latter."

I agree that the balance is wrong, and commend the Government's willingness to readdress it and secure the fundamental rights of the nation's citizens. However, I trust that the Minister will put a time scale on the willingness to act that is more precise than the one he articulated in last week's debate. Such affronts to justice have waited too long. We must put them right and do so soon.

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I start by adding my congratulations to the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) on securing the debate. I recognise that she has long been a champion on the issue. 

As someone who sat on the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill Committee, I welcome the Government's announcement that they will table amendments in the House of Lords to offer disabled victims of crime the same protection as those who are targeted because of their race, religion or sexual orientation. The provisions were pushed for by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston and by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard).

Although I am particularly pleased to learn that the Government will be tabling those amendments, I hope that they will seek to build on experience north of the border. In 2010, Scotland became the first country in Europe to have specific disability hate crime legislation on its statute book. The Offences (Aggravation by Prejudice) (Scotland) Act 2009 makes provision for statutory aggravations that can be attached to offences motivated by prejudice towards disabled or lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and requires courts to say what impact, if any, those aggravating factors have had on sentencing.

In Scotland, any criminal offence that is partly or wholly motivated by prejudice on such grounds is to be dealt with as a hate crime all the way through the system. For example, the offence could be assault, vandalism, verbal threats, abuse that could be charged as breach of the peace, or any other crime. If the person committing the offence uses disability-prejudiced language, or if there is any other evidence of a prejudiced motive, that makes it a hate crime. If anyone witnessing a crime thinks it was a hate crime, the police must record it as a hate incident. If there is any evidence of a hate motive - for example, prejudiced language - it will be charged as a hate crime. If the person charged is found guilty, the hate motive will be taken into account in sentencing, and the court must say publicly what difference the hate motive made to the sentence.

Kate Green: It is interesting to hear about the experience in Scotland, from which I am sure we can learn. I was very interested in what the hon. Gentleman said - that if anyone identifies the crime as a hate crime it must be treated as a hate crime. Is it not also important to recognise that although victims themselves often specifically exclude the possibility that it was a hate crime, that in itself should not be taken at face value, because there may be all sorts of pressures on them not to identify it as such?

Mike Crockart: I absolutely agree. In fact, the hon. Lady's intervention feeds very nicely into my next point. Twenty years ago, when I was going through basic training as a police officer, racial incidents were going through the self-same process. When someone was the target of a racial incident and did not necessarily feel that it was one, the fact that someone else had witnessed the incident was sufficient to make it a racial incident. That was the test that I was taught to use 20 years ago. I have to admit that at the time it felt excessive, but it was only thus that such crimes and incidents became generally unacceptable. In that way, there was a move to general agreement that much of the racist language of the '70s and '80s, which was tolerated by the silent majority, was derisive and abusive. 

Such a move is required in attitudes to disability hate crime, and is massively overdue. I trust that the Minister will be able to assure us that the amendments that the Government have now promised to table in the Lords will go further and build on the experience in Scotland, affording a similar level of protection in England and Wales.

The announcement from the Government signals recognition, welcome to us all, of the need to tackle those despicable crimes. It is also heartening for me to help push forward the agenda that my predecessor in Edinburgh West worked on in the previous Parliament. Responding to a parliamentary question tabled by my predecessor, John Barrett, in April 2008, the then Home Office Minister, the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) said:

"The Home Office is responsible for the police recorded statistics. Statistics are collected on the number of racially or religiously aggravated offences but no information is available on those offences which are specifically 'disability hate' crimes." - [Official Report, 29 April 2008; Vol. 475, c. 330W.]

I welcome what the Government have already done, specifically the coalition commitment to improve the recording of such crimes. Since April 2011, all police forces now report hate crimes centrally. Published data from the Association of Chief Police Officers show increases in the number of disability hate crimes reported in 2010 - a 21.3% increase on the recorded figures in 2009. This must be one of the few areas where we can welcome a large increase in reported crime, as it shows that the push for people to report the crimes is having an effect.

I await the promised hate crime action plan and the Government response to the Equality and Human Rights Commission inquiry, but it is positive that the issue is finally receiving the attention that it deserves, although of course it is a shame that this or any Government have to tackle it at all. Such horrific cases as the killings of Brent Martin, Steven Hoskin or Fiona Pilkington should assault our consciousness as a decent society and daily remind us how serious the situation can become if left unchecked. As the Equality and Human Rights Commission noted in its "Hidden in plain sight" inquiry, we need to look at preventive strategies alongside any legislative changes, ensuring that we nip in the bud such attitudes and behaviours before they escalate. We also need to address the wider geographical, social and economic factors, identified in the Commission's research, that can leave disabled people and others at greater risk.

A change of attitude in this country is vital. After all, it is not disabled people who create their oppression, it is others. As previously said, and as Sir Ken Macdonald so eloquently argued in one of his final speeches as Director of Public Prosecutions, we must overcome a prevailing assumption that disabled people's intrinsic vulnerability explains the risk that they face, an assumption unsupported by evidence. At best, that had led to protectionism, constraining rather than expanding the individual freedom and opportunity that greater safety and security should provide. Only by extending the same expectations of safety and security to disabled people as to everyone else can we truly address the deficits in our current approach and wake up to the need to act. I look forward to hearing the Minister's comments on those points as well.

I am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. We are currently finishing an inquiry into independent living, which has looked at various aspects such as access to welfare, housing and employment and the differences in provision between different local authorities and nations. We have even had the Minister along recently to answer various questions about Government policy. However, I now realise that we have omitted investigation of a basic element. A constituent part of ensuring access to independent living is laid out in article 3 of the universal declaration of human rights:

"Everyone has the right to life, liberty and" - crucially - "security of person." 

What is clear from many of the dreadful examples that we have heard today is that that security is put at risk daily by the criminal acts of a few, which are unfortunately tolerated by many more.

As a member of the JCHR, I have also taken note of the EHRC's endorsement of the mechanisms of the Human Rights Act 1998, which it says are essential for the protection of human rights in the United Kingdom. The EHRC also argues that the existing law is well crafted to balance Britain's international obligations with its constitutional conventions. In particular, the existing Act preserves parliamentary sovereignty and the role of British judges in interpreting the legislation, and has allowed many people to exercise their basic rights without the time and expense of taking a case to the European Court of Human Rights. I hope that the Minister can reassure me and other members of the Joint Committee that any revision of the Human Rights Act will not change that crucial lifeline for those who are disabled.

In conclusion, I welcome the issue finally receiving the attention it deserves. I await further concrete steps by the Government to deal with this hidden crime.

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In the interests of brevity I shall speak only to amendment 116 to which I have added my name. It has been more than 30 years since the National Consumer Council referred to access to advice as the fourth right of citizenship. It was ahead of its time in predicting the coming of an information age in which people's ability to live full lives as responsible citizens would depend on access to organised, specialist information in order to navigate complex consumer choices, labour markets and state bureaucracy and law. 

In no area could that be more important than in relation to legal advice in a police station, where the presence of a lawyer acting for a defendant is crucial, although I might not have thought that between 1990 and 1998 when I was a serving police officer in Edinburgh. 

Solicitors are there to ensure that suspects' rights are respected, that they are not physically abused, that their confessions are not forged and that they are not detained for longer than is legally allowed. The presence of a lawyer not only protects defendants from police abuse but protects the police from false allegations by defendants about what happened during an interrogation, for example.

Clause 12 provides the Secretary of State with the flexibility to subject legal aid in police stations to a system of means-testing. The Ministry of Justice has made it clear that such proposals would be modelled on the system currently operating in Scotland, where people who earn more than a certain amount - in Scotland, a weekly disposable income of 105 pounds - have to pay a contribution towards the cost of their legal aid. The current system of police station advice in Scotland is only a year old, but the Law Society of Scotland has already stated that it is complex process to operate and to explain to clients, many of whom are in a vulnerable situation.

The experience north of the border also shows that the provision of adequate verification undoubtedly lengthens the suspect's time in a police station and that the solicitor often has no evidential proof that the client is eligible or of what their contribution should be.

Solicitors also find that the prospects of claiming the contribution from the client are limited when the detention ends without criminal charges. Consequently, in Scotland in the past year, uptake of advice in police stations has fallen to around 25% of cases - roughly half that in England and Wales.

The Minister will also know that the Scottish situation has been somewhat complicated recently by the judgment in the Cadder case. Previously, when I was a serving officer, suspects could be detained without charge for up to six hours and questioned without the presence of a solicitor. Following that case in the Supreme Court last year, the Lord Advocate issued guidelines, and emergency legislation has since been enacted, to provide suspects who are detained by the police with the right to "a private consultation with a solicitor".

That can be either before questioning or at any stage during questioning. Moreover, experience has shown that it is often more expensive to administer means-testing than to operate it. Cutting out legal aid in police stations will lead to false economy, not least because the courts will be clogged up with unmeritorious or unprepared cases, or proceedings without a solicitor present will be open to legal challenge.

Early advice in a police station may save many social and economic costs, most of which must be picked up by other public services. Moreover, who will ask what someone's earnings are, or how much their mortgage is? Those questions will have to be asked in extremely stressful situations. Will the Minister explain how the proposals will work without the whole process becoming extremely unwieldy?

Furthermore, will the Minister explain why such a provision is in the Bill when I and colleagues received assurances that there was no intention of the clause ever coming into effect? If the Government have no intention of using the power, why leave it in the Bill? The Minister has effectively asked us to sign a blank cheque, but assured us that he will never have to cash it. Much as I trust the Minister, that is no way to propose or to implement new legislation, because it leaves pointless regulation in statute, which because of assurances from Ministers might never have been properly scrutinised. That is a bad precedent, and a dangerous one, which should not allowed to continue.

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I congratulate Alun Michael on securing the debate. As members of the Parliamentary Information Technology Committee, now the Parliamentary Internet, Communications and Technology Forum, we have attended some fascinating discussions over the past year on many of the areas under discussion today.

The IGF in Nairobi covered a wide area and was entitled, "The Internet as a Catalyst for Change: Access, Development, Freedoms and Innovation." In my short speech today, I should like to focus on just one area - access, which has already been touched on by my hon. Friend Stephen McPartland. This one topic includes many elements, covering traditional wired access, the mobile internet, accessibility to the internet and the right of access of many people to the internet.

The most readily understood element of access is the wired access provided by phone lines and fibre-optic cabling. This country has a relatively strong position in that area. My home city of Edinburgh is among the best. According to a recent Ofcom study, it has an average maximum broadband speed of 10.1 megabits per second. Only 4.5 per cent of people receive less than 2 megabits a second. I think that we can guess who represents all of them.

Many rural and urban areas still lag behind. Kirkliston, a village barely 10 miles from the centre of Edinburgh, has speeds on its copper infrastructure of generally less than 1 megabit a second. Such speeds make real functional access for both individuals and businesses nigh on impossible.

I welcome the 68.8 million pound pledged by the Government as a contribution towards upgrading Scotland's infrastructure. However, that money now sits in a bank account waiting for a strategy from the Scottish Government to emerge some time next year, which is not a great help to my constituents.

To be honest, the problem, or indeed the opportunity, is not really wired access but the mobile internet, a technology whose growth has outstripped all others and which, worldwide, will transform how the internet is accessed and, therefore, governed. Today, about half of all internet users, and a seventh of the world's population, have already moved to mobile internet.

A recent industry survey estimated that mobile broadband subscriptions would reach 3.8 billion or about half the world's population by 2015. Another report predicted that by 2015, traffic from wireless devices would exceed traffic from wired devices. To date, the mobile internet has possibly been the fastest growing technology in history, but even that takes us only partially towards the access envisaged by the title of the IGF debate this year.

Everything I have talked about so far deals merely with the pipes and not with what comes out at the end. By that I mean the obvious difference between access and accessibility, which in itself covers many areas. There is an urgent need to consider how information is presented on the internet. There was much talk at the IGF of a move to a more multilingual internet and one that looks to put all users of the internet on an equal footing.

Taking that down to local level, I am having a new parliamentary website designed with the help of the plain English campaign. In doing that, I have to take into account accessibility for users with varied needs. That is something that many companies and Departments need to spend a great deal more time on.

Equality of access across the world raises even more basic questions. The UN rapporteur on human rights has called for access to the internet to be a human right, giving individuals, as it sometimes does, their only access to an unfettered flow of information and a right to freedom of expression. That poses an interesting question for me, sitting as I do on the Joint Committee on Human Rights and on PITCOM; I am straddling both those strands.

In the past, many countries, Kenya included, have faced challenges to shut down or limit access to the internet. The internet in general and the social networks in particular have heightened our awareness of many such issues. For example, they were used to co-ordinate many of the uprisings in the Arab spring and the riots in this country.

We must stand by free, unlimited internet access in this country and abroad. The internet is fast becoming one of the key engines of economic and social transformation and growth across the globe. The internet governance framework will be an important way of ensuring that we focus not only on physical access but on access to freedoms of expression and association.

I hope the Minister will rapidly do all he can to push forward both sides of that access agenda.

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I draw the House's attention to my entry in the Register of Members' Financial Interests, which details my paid employment in the pensions industry prior to my election last year. I must admit to being a little confused by today's debate. As a new Member, I had been under the impression that Second Reading was an opportunity for debate on the general principles of a Bill. I am also somewhat confused by the Labour party's position. On the basis that some of the detail in the Bill is not yet right, it is prepared to throw the entire subject out and delay the reform that is necessary to move this country to a sustainable pensions system. It is worth spending some time looking at those general principles.

As has been noted, the present state pension age of 65 for men was set by the Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act 1925, which was passed 86 years ago. That brought the pension age down from 70, which had been set in the excellent Old Age Pensions Act 1908. At that point, barely 40% of men lived long enough to claim it. The women's pension age of 60 was set 71 years ago by the Old Age and Widows' Pensions Act 1940, so change has not exactly been rushed into. As the hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) said earlier, this country's demographics have meant that for decades we have faced a ticking pensions time bomb, but we have unfortunately been very slow to deal with it. We may well have started to do so in the past 10 years, but countries such as Sweden grasped the problem 20 years ago and introduced auto-enrolment back then.

Life expectancy is far from static, having gone up for those aged 65 by five years between 1920 and 1990 and, crucially, by a further five years between 1990 and now. Men can now expect to live until 77 and a half years old and women for four years longer than that, but not only are we paying state pensions longer; we can expect to pay them to far more people. As the baby-boomer generation of 1946-47 reaches retirement in 2012, 800,000 people will celebrate their 65th birthday�150,000 more than did so this year. It is now abundantly clear that our current state pensions system and its funding are entirely unsuitable and unsustainable. That is why I welcome the general thrust of this Bill and, indeed, much of its detail, but as we go forward it is clear that we have to sort out four elements to ensure a sustainable system.

First, we must be certain of what the state will provide. I welcome the current consultation, looking at the possibility of a single-tier universal pension, because, although it is not in the Bill, it is clearly part of the solution to the puzzle. With certainty about what they can expect from the Government, people will be able to decide whether the basic provision on offer is sufficient, although it is more likely to make it easier for them to decide to top up what is on offer.

Secondly, we must establish a level of state pension provision that is sustainable in the longer term and is regularly reviewed to ensure that it matches life expectancy. We simply cannot afford to find ourselves in this position again, having ignored the warning signs that our state pension offering has become unaffordable.

The current acceleration timetable for the state pension age will unfortunately, I fear, almost certainly fail to deal with the funding gap that I have outlined, but that does not mean that I support the Government's current proposals, as it is quite clear that they will badly affect many women. It is simply wrong that those women, who are fast approaching their expected retirement age, will now be given as little as six years' notice in order to plan how to cope with a delayed state pension. Some are already unemployed, caring for older relatives or working substantially reduced hours due to ill health.

The proposal hits especially hard those women who had already been told that their planned retirement would be delayed by four years. They are now being hit with a second delay. It will cause many to suffer unexpected financial pressures with insufficient notice, and it seems inequitable given the different outcomes for them and women of similar ages. An age difference of days could result in a pension two years later.

Unlike the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), however, I believe that there are signs that the Government may be prepared to move on the issue, and I urge them strongly to do so. The current acceleration timetable will not deliver sufficient progress, but, as Members have already said, a fairer way might be to accelerate the progression of the pension age to 67 and/or 68 years old and, by doing so, at least to give people 10 or more years in which to plan how they deal with it. That idea could find a great deal of support, given that Saga and Age UK have already proposed it, but I suspect that my support may well ensure that I am not a member of the Public Bill Committee.

On the third part of the pensions puzzle, we must make it as simple as possible for people to contribute to their own pensions provision and to take ownership of funding their own retirement. As we have heard, 7 million of us are not saving enough for our own retirement and 44% of working-age employees are not contributing at all towards a private pension.

That brings me to the fourth element of the solution - employers' contributions. It is clear that to fill a funding gap of the size we are facing, we must strike a balance of responsibility between the state, the individual and employers. Mandatory auto-enrolment, as confirmed in the Bill, exemplifies that balance. The changes in the Bill will, I hope, do exactly what they aim to do in making automatic enrolment work, in the words of the title of the independent review. I hope that the provisions to raise the earnings threshold for auto-enrolment, to introduce the optional waiting period and to simplify the system of self-certification will increase employee and employer buy-in of the system.

Although raising the earnings threshold would certainly ease the financial difficulties of the lowest paid, it would effectively lock out of auto-enrolment those most in need of extra pension provision. Will the Minister reconsider that to see whether auto-enrolment could continue, merely delaying employment contributions until an earnings threshold is reached? Many examples of such graduated schemes already exist in the private sector. It is well known that even 1 pound invested earlier on for 40 years is likely to yield far greater returns than any amount invested 10 years later, once income has risen sufficiently to cross that threshold.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) that the proposals in the Bill are insufficient to deal with this immense problem. The auto-enrolment contribution level of 8% that is floated in the Bill is a start, especially from the low - indeed, at times non-existent - base that we have at present, but in many other countries the level is double that; in Sweden, for example, it stands at 18.5%. The proposed level is a good start, but only that.

More than five years ago, the Pensions Commission stated that "there is�general acceptance that future policy needs to be based both on significant reforms to the state system and on a new approach to private pension saving which goes beyond a wholly voluntary approach."

Having expressed my one concern about the Bill, I believe that it finally makes radical steps towards advancing that consensus, and I hope that the whole House will unite in supporting it.

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