This Week in Westminster - January 23rd-26th

This week has seen a mixture of debates on the impact of budget cuts and the economic problems we are facing, particularly for young people and families. I was able to make three separate interventions on these debates, in one case receiving an incomprehensible answer from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. On Thursday, I was able to raise the concerns of small and medium sized businesses and I took part in a debate on the Strategic Defence and Security Review talking about our lack of maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft. Elsewhere there was an urgent debate on Iran following the introduction of further sanctions. Amongst some members, there seems to be a distinct ramping up of pressure to push for more action.

In the Lords, the Government’s Welfare Reform Bill suffered further defeats, this time on the proposed benefit gap and plans to charge single parents to use the Child Support Agency. Finally, we were all reassured by the reports that the Palace of Westminster is not about to slip into the Thames.

• Youth unemployment, food poverty and universal credit (23rd January)

Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab): Unemployment among all 16 to 24-year-olds on jobseeker’s allowance in the Bridgend constituency is 8.8%. Would one way forward be to grant a one-year national insurance holiday, so that small business could take on young people, give them employment and the opportunity to experience work?

Rachel Reeves: My hon. Friend is exactly right. That is why, as part of Labour’s five-point plan for jobs and growth, we include a national insurance holiday for all small businesses taking on new workers—a policy that would help small businesses and the more than 1 million young people who are desperately searching for work.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201212/cmhansrd/cm120123/debtext/120123-0003.htm#12012330001423

Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab): Bridgend food bank covers four of the 10 most deprived wards in Wales, so the service it provides is critical. In its recent report, it said that the people who applied for food there did so because of

“low income or ill health…repossession of their home…job loss or desertion by the…breadwinner, or”
burglary,
“house fire or unexpected benefit cuts.”

People who go to food banks go for a variety of reasons, but is it not appalling that in 2012, when we are celebrating the Olympics and spending millions of pounds, people are still starving?

Mary Creagh: I agree. Charities such as the Salvation Army and HelpAge are seeing an explosion in demand as incomes fall, working hours are cut and prices rise.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201212/cmhansrd/cm120123/debtext/120123-0001.htm#12012313000688

Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab): Before Christmas it was announced that, at least initially, local authorities would have no role in the universal credit assessment. Will the Secretary of State tell me what impact that will have on those working in housing benefit departments in local authorities? Will his Department be helping with redundancy costs if large numbers of people working in housing benefit departments lose their jobs?

Mr Duncan Smith: The reason is that we will be talking full time, all the time, to local authorities. We receive a huge amount of information from them, so we are not talking about stand-alone assessments being made; rather, the functioning of universal credit requires that, at its best, it should be done in one location. However, we will be in constant contact with local authorities about the needs in their areas, and we will be with them all the way through in the way this is applied.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201212/cmhansrd/cm120123/debtext/120123-0001.htm#12012313000503

• Iran (January 24th)

Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con): I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, and to the Foreign Secretary.
Iran is at crisis point. It is the new Soviet Union, of the middle east. It supports terrorism, undermines democracy and is trying to stop the Arab spring in Syria, but now we are threatened by an Iranian nuclear bomb, which risks the security of the Gulf states, Israel and the whole region.
Two weeks ago, Iran admitted that it had begun enriching high-grade uranium, and the regime is now threatening to close the strait of Hormuz, which deals with more than 20% of internationally traded oil. The UK Government could not have done more to try to contain the problem, with unprecedented action to isolate Iran’s financial sector by the Chancellor, and the extra EU sanctions imposed this week by the Foreign Secretary, but the question must now be asked: are we facing the prospect of a nuclear dictatorship in the middle east?
In the past, nuclear deterrents worked because of mutually assured destruction, but for MAD to work one has to be sane, and the Iranians have said that they would be happy to use nuclear weapons. Will my right hon. Friend set out to the House what military action Britain and the allies are planning in the strait of Hormuz? Will he explain what will happen if the latest economic sanctions do not work? What more is being done to bring Russia and China to the UN table?

Most people would accept that Britain has shouldered its fair share of the burden in tackling dictators, but it seems clear that the free world must send a message to Iran that, if it continues with its nuclear plans, it will lead to military action. No one wants war, but tragically it is looking increasingly possible. As The Times says today:
“One of the greatest civilisations in history has been superseded for a generation by an extremist regime perpetrating repression at home and aggression beyond its borders.”

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201212/cmhansrd/cm120124/debtext/120124-0001.htm#12012451000004

• SMEs hamstrung (January 26th)

Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab): N-ergy is a social enterprise working across more than 40 prisons in England and the five Welsh prisons, offering vocational and employability programmes to offenders and ex-offenders. However, like many successful SMEs working in specialist areas, it is unable to bid for public procurement contracts because its turnover is not seen as being high enough. May we have a debate on developing a separate public procurement process for SMEs, so that some of their innovative and new ideas can be brought into Government contracting?

Sir George Young: I commend the work that many voluntary organisations do to help those who are in prison get the skills that they need to cope when they leave. There will be an opportunity to raise that specific issue with my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office, who has responsibility for procurement, on 8 February, but in the meantime I will raise with him the option that she mentions of having a separate category so that organisations such as the one to which the hon. Lady refers might be able to bid for public contracts.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201212/cmhansrd/cm120126/debtext/120126-0001.htm#12012667000003

• What we are missing (January 26th)

Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab): I fear that the strategic defence and security review was a cost-cutting exercise rather than an exercise that focused particularly on the defence needs of this country. As those who know me are aware, I have a particular worry about maritime patrol capability.

Following the decision to scrap the Nimrod MRA4, we have been left with no maritime patrol capability. The £6 billion Nimrod fleet is now ancient history and resting in a scrap yard somewhere. I do not want to spend any time discussing that again, but I want to consider where we stand without the capability that it would have provided. The former Secretary of State for Defence, the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), summed up the problem in his infamous letter to the Prime Minister:

“Deletion of the Nimrod MR4 will limit our ability to deploy maritime forces rapidly into high-threat areas, increase the risk to the Deterrent, compromise maritime CT (counter terrorism), remove long range search and rescue, and delete one element of our Falklands reinforcement plan.”

I want to examine each aspect of that assertion—first, the rapid deployment of the maritime forces into high-threat areas. The maritime patrol aircraft is there to protect our nuclear deterrent. In mid-December, The Scotsman reported that a Type 42 destroyer had to be dispatched when a Russian navy battle group appeared off the coast of Scotland, as have a number of Russian submarines. In addition, Russia is building a new fleet of submarines. In the past a Nimrod would have been dispatched to keep a watchful, discreet eye. Instead, we sent a Type 42 destroyer. Without the MPA, we do not know who is out there or what risks we face.

Scotland is a part of what we should consider our back door—the high north. We spend very little time focusing on that region, but we ignore it at our peril. We tend to forget that we are a northern European country, and that the high north is growing in significance. Without a comprehensive maritime patrol capability, we cannot address the strategic and economic importance of the high north. As the ice melts in the Arctic ocean, the 160 billion barrels of oil that are assessed as being in that region are becoming more accessible. No one dreamed of those sea routes being opened up, or of the 40-day saving on travel made possible by the Suez canal being available for our shipping lanes. Without the MPA, we cannot keep an eye on those shipping lanes to watch for military deployments or respond to any disasters, whether they are environmental, security-related or human.
I turn to maritime counter-terrorism. On a visit to Northwood, information was given to me that having one Nimrod, a maritime patrol aircraft, was the equivalent to having 12 ships. We have only 19 ships, and we no longer have MPA capability. We have the increasing problem of countering piracy, which is a form of criminal maritime terrorism. Naval command said last year that 83 warships were needed to ensure a one-hour response time to merchant ships attacked in the high-risk area, yet in October only 18 vessels were deployed. The area of risk is huge—2.5 million square miles—and over the next 20 years, the volume of trade going by sea will increase by 50% and Navy cover will drop by 30%. Tracking rogue ships over such a wide area needs maritime patrol capability, which we do not have.

Counter-piracy operations conducted through NATO and through EU NAVFOR—Naval Force Somalia—rely on the resources provided by members. The availability of MPA fluctuates according to demands elsewhere, and operations in Libya meant that those limited resources were diverted. We face increasing numbers of attacks in the Indian ocean, the strait of Hormuz and now off the west coast of Africa.

Our reliance on the sea is enormous. In 2010, 35% of our total natural gas imports arrived by sea. By 2020, 70% will be imported in that way. Some $952 billion of trade a year passes through the Suez canal, and piracy costs the international economy between $4 billion and $7 billion a year. Those figures are being passed on to taxpayers through the rising cost of the goods transported through the region.

There are huge problems with the proposal to post armed guards on merchant ships. I have particular concerns about the rules that would be needed to govern the licensing of firearms on UK-flagged vessels, and about what would happen to the pirates who were captured. Kenya is no longer willing to help. How will pirates be transported to third countries for trial, and what will the legal position be of both the pirates and the maritime security company that transports them there? Are we in danger of giving rise to the issue of rendition?

I turn to our long-term search and rescue obligations. In 2010 our Nimrods were called out between 30 and 40 times to assist with search and rescue. We have an international responsibility for search and rescue covering 1.2 million nautical miles, but in a collection of letters in The Daily Telegraph in 2010, one writer said:
“I advise mariners to avoid requiring rescue more than 250 miles from shore.”

Without a maritime patrol capability, our capacity to rescue our seafarers is removed.
I wish briefly to consider the Falklands. I remind the House that when the invasion started on 31 March 1982, a Nimrod arrived at Ascension island on 6 April. A battle group of Harriers did not arrive until 1 May. That maritime patrol capability gives us the flexibility that we need, and it is a matter of great urgency that the House is advised on when it will be restored.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201212/cmhansrd/cm120126/debtext/120126-0002.htm#12012667000002

• Not bound for the Thames (January 23rd)

Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con): On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Following the weekend reports that the Houses of Parliament may be slipping into the River Thames, will you give a statement to the House, just so that we know whether or not to buy ourselves lifejackets?

Mr Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, in particular for his concern for all those who work, or even live, within the precincts of the Palace of Westminster. I have known him for over 20 years, and I have never regarded him as an inveterate worrier. As he can see, I am not worried. He should not believe everything that he reads in the newspapers, or in those even more downmarket rags that in so describing themselves are almost certainly breaching the Trade Descriptions Act. Getting overexcited is their stock-in-trade; keeping calm and doing the right thing is ours.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201212/cmhansrd/cm120123/debtext/120123-0001.htm#12012313000003