27/11/2017 Monday in Parliament

Hello and welcome to Monday

in Parliament, our look at the best

of the day in the Commons

and the Lords.

On this programme.

Fresh out of the blocks.

The new Defence Secretary

takes aim at Labour.

A party whose leader does. Believe

in a deterrent to be lectured on

defence spending is a little bit

rich.

But Labour is unimpressed

with the Government's latest

industrial strategy.

This will do nothing to help those

who work in large low wage sectors

or people who do not live in London,

Cambridge and Oxford.

And the long-running debate

over university funding.

Some MPs say, don't place

the burden on the students.

Both students and universities are

victims of the Government's chaotic

policy and free-market ideology.

But first.

Just in case you haven't heard.

Prince Harry and the United States

actor Meghan Markle have

announced they're engaged.

The couple made a fleeting

appearance in the gardens

at Kensington Palace in London,

when Harry, the fifth

in line to the Throne,

said that Meghan was 'the one'

from the first time they met.

The couple are expected

to marry in the Spring,

but don't expect a Bank Holiday.

Naturally Parliament couldn't be

left out of the celebrations.

Congratulations came swiftly

from, as you might

expect, the Speaker.

I should like to make

a short statement.

Following the announcement

from Clarence House

today of the engagement

of Prince Harry to

Meghan Markle I am sure

that

members from both sides

of the House will join

me in congratulating

the

couple on this most happy occasion,

and wishing them all the very best

for their future together.

Hear, hear.

A few seconds later came the very

first words in the Commons

of the new Defence Secretary.

May I start by congratulating,

on behalf of

those who work in our Armed Forces,

his Royal Highness Prince

Harry on his engagement

to Meghan Markle?

Prince Harry has acted

as a proud champion of service

men and women in the Armed Forces.

Most notably with his commitment

to the Invictus Games.

I am sure we would all

like to echo your words,

Mr Speaker, in wishing the two

of them the very best

in their shared future together.

On to the issue of when the new

Queen Elizabeth-class

Aircraft Carrier will be

brought into service.

Does my right honourable

friend agree with me

there is a sense of urgency

as we are not only planning a global

future for ourselves,

and this will require

a greater presence around

the

world, but with the royal wedding

coming as early as next year, and

with the absence of the yacht

Britannia, is there the possibility

that the new Prince and Princess

will require something to sail

around the seas with?

LAUGHTER.

Mr Speaker, I certainly wasn't

anticipating that line of

questioning from my honourable

friend, the chair of the Foreign

Affairs Committee,

but he is absolutely right,

that this new class of aircraft

carrier will give a

powerful expression of national

ambition and intent

Harriett Baldwin answering there.

But all eyes at Defence

Question Time were focused

on the performance of Gavin

Williamson.

His job move at the start

of the month from Government chief

whip to Defence Secretary had

attracted plenty of comment.

And in recent days, there've been

reports of Conservative discontent

over threatened spending cuts

to the armed forces.

So what conversations had

the new Defence Secretary had

with the Chancellor?

I have regular meetings

with the Chancellor.

I am yet to have a formal

meeting with the Chancellor

but I am looking forward to doing

so to discuss our shared future.

I want to congratulate

my right honourable

friend on taking up office

in this vital position.

When he does speak to

the Chancellor will he take the

opportunity of reminding him that

in the Cold War years we spent 5% of

GDP on defence?

Now we spend barely

2% of GDP on defence.

And perhaps a target

nearer to 3% of GDP on

defence might prevent our Armed

Forces being further hollowed out.

I will always listen intensely

and very carefully to what my right

honourable friend says.

I have always seen 2% as a base,

as against a ceiling, and I

will be taking on board his thoughts

and comments going forward, in terms

of further discussions that I have.

I welcome the Secretary

of State to this place

and I echo his and your good wishes

to his Royal Highness

Prince Harry and Meghan

on their engagement.

Mr Speaker, you cannot do

security on the cheap.

With expert after

expert highlighting

serious gaps in defence

funding it was surreal

last week to hear

the

Permanent Private Secretary say that

the man in charge had made no formal

pre budget requests

to the Chancellor for more money.

It is one thing to

ask and not get, but

another not even to bother asking.

Did I hear correctly today?

Would the Secretary

of State confirm for

us that he actually did not make any

representation to the Chancellor

before the budget?

What we have to do is to

ensure that we understand

what the needs are for our defence,

our Armed Forces, going forward.

The honourable lady may wish to rush

into things and actually just demand

and demand and demand.

What I want to do is to

make sure that we have

the arguments ready,

understand the threats

that this country faces,

and

make sure that we deliver

for our Armed Forces.

That is what the focus

is going to be.

I have many conversations

with the Chancellor.

I am looking forward

to many more going forward.

I think I will take that as a no.

This is serious.

We are hearing that

the Marines may be cut

by 15%, and the Army reduced

to 70,000, something which would

seriously put our international

credibility at risk.

With his own backbenchers

in open rebellion and

one of his ministers

threatening to quit over cuts

just how bad do things

have to get before the Secretary

of State does his job, stands up for

defence, and tells the Prime

Minister and Chancellor that enough

is enough?

I will take many lectures

from many people.

But from the party that

is led by a man that

doesn't even believe

in the British Army, from a man,

from a party whose leader doesn't

actually believe in

the continuous at sea nuclear

deterrent, to be lectured

about defence spending

is a little bit rich.

This is the party,

the Conservative Party, that

is making sure that

we deliver on 2%.

We are the party that is making sure

that we are increasing defence

spending.

Gavin Williamson.

The Government has called

the alleged tampering of forensic

evidence a "highly serious matter."

Two scientists at the Randox Testing

Services in Manchester,

which works for police forces

across the UK, were arrested

earlier this year on suspicion

of manipulating data.

More than 10,000 cases,

including violent crime

and sexual offences,

may have been affected.

Some 50 drug-driving

prosecutions have been dropped.

A Minister was called

to answer an urgent question.

Criminal investigations

by Greater Manchester Police

into alleged manipulation

of toxicology results

are still ongoing, therefore

the House will understand why I must

be cautious in my response.

I do want to assure members

on all sides of the House

that the matter is being treated

with the utmost seriousness,

given the need to retain public

confidence in our justice system.

The Government's immediate priority

is to work with the police

and the independent forensic science

regulator, to establish

scale of this issue,

and the potential impact

on the public.

Does the Minister accept that this

is the biggest forensic science

scandal for decades?

Does he further accept that

involving, as it does,

data which includes evidence used

in sex cases, violent

crimes, driving cases,

and unexplained deaths,

and the liberty of the subject,

does he understand how concerned

both victims and people possibly

convicted on unsafe data are?

Is it true that minister did not

consult the chief scientific adviser

on the decision to privatise

the Forensic Science Service,

merely informed him of the decision

two weeks before announcing it?

And does the Minister accept that

many forensic scientists and other

stakeholders believe

that the problems that we're seeing

now, the allegedly faulty

data we are seeing now,

flowed directly from

the misconceived decision

to privatise the Forensic Science

Service?

She is trying to squeeze this

into a Labour political narrative

around public good, private bad.

What I would simply say

to her is what the independent

regulator has expressed in her view

that no reasonable set of quality

standards could guarantee to prevent

malpractice by skilled

but corrupt personnel.

I would go further, I think

there is general understanding

and agreement that there has been

increased stringency in standards

and quality requirements

for the forensic service.

There is muttering on the benches

opposite but this has been driven

by the forensic science regulator.

The minister does himself no credit

when he sees it as a tribal issue.

Can I refer him to three,

three, not one or two

reports of the Science

and Technology Committee,

all party, that criticised

the Home Office, his

Government's Home Office for not

consulting Professor Silverman who

was the adviser to the Home Office?

Can I suggest he reads

the evidence three times

from Dr Tully, now the regulator

of the Forensic Science Service

who said, murderers and rapists

will go free because of the changes

that his Government made?

Not one party, all parties

came to that conclusion.

Does the Minister agree that

privatisation of vital elements

of the justice system without proper

oversight can lead to errors

or deliberate tampering and the cost

to both individuals affected

and to confidence in the justice

system outweigh any money saved?

In order to reassure my constituents

can the Minister confirm that

for most serious family and criminal

cases it is highly unlikely that

a decision would have been made

solely on the basis of one

individual toxicology test?

I do believe that to be true

and my understanding also in some

of these family cases there would be

more than one test taken.

However I don't take away

the uncertainty that may be out

there in terms of people who have

been involved in these cases.

You're watching our round-up of the

day in the Commons and the Lords.

Still to come.

The Government unveils

its new industrial strategy.

The Government's rejected a demand

that student tuition fees in England

are cut by nearly 70%

and revert to £3,000 a year.

MPs have been debating an online

petition calling for the reduction.

It was signed by 164,000 people.

In Westminster Hall,

a number of Labour MPs

backed the petitioners

and some went further,

pressing for fees to be

scrapped altogether.

Universities are seeing

a real terms funding cut.

Students are paying for the majority

of the system, but seeing cuts

to university funding

from central Government.

Both students and universities

are victims of the Government's

chaotic policy and free-market

ideology, which means

the Government take no

responsibility for the destruction

and dismantling of our once renowned

sense of education, but degrade

our institutions by starving

them of state funding.

According to the Sutton Trust,

eight out of ten students will never

fully repay their tuition fee loans

and the decision to raise

the minimum earning level

at which loan repayments kick

in from 21,000 to £25,000 means 81%

of graduates will not

pay back what they owe.

Their report called Fairer Fees

dentified typical debts

on graduating as being around

£46,000,

rising to 52,000 for those entitled

to take out maintenance loans

to cover the cost of living.

There are so many students leaving

university with such high debts

they will never pay them back.

Therefore, the loss to the Exchequer

is quite transparent.

That would suggest the balance

is wrong and there needs

to be adjustments.

I wonder if he in those days foresaw

cases like that of Siobhan.

She is on £27,000 and she pays £58

a month of repayments

but if she does any overtime,

that goes up to £115.

She says, I feel like I am

being robbed every time

I try to better myself in society.

She wants to get

on the housing ladder.

She's being penalised.

Her loans go up and up.

It is the Student Loans Company

who are taking what she earns.

I accept there is a challenge here.

I accept many people are concerned

but the reality is many more

students are going to university

and many more students on low-income

backgrounds are going to university

compared to a number of years ago.

So we have to be careful to have

these debates on the facts.

He argued that fees where fair.

When I went to university

in 1999, I was the second

year of tuition fees.

I paid £1,000.

I recognise that is nothing

like the amount of money

being asked for today.

I do accept that if you are

going to benefit from it,

if you are likely to achieve

a greater amount of pay over

the period over your working life,

therefore you should be

expected or should be hoped to pay

a greater share of the amount

that the cost to get

you into that position.

Funding per student,

per degree up 25% since

the the funding reforms came

in at the beginning

of the last Parliament.

The university system

is better funded than it has

been than at any point

over the last 30 years.

It is the progressive nature of this

system that is ensuring higher

education is at the same time open

to all people who have the potential

to benefit from it.

And in all of this, the Government

is ensuring that the costs of our

system are split fairly

between graduates and other

taxpayers, with graduate

contributions linked to income.

The latest debate over

student tuition fees.

The Government's published

its latest industrial strategy,

with a promise to tackle the problem

of low-productivity that's holding

back wages and living standards.

The Business Secretary said his aim

was to make Britain the world's most

innovative economy by means of an

infrastructure upgrade.

And he dismissed the notion that

governments should not draw up

industrial strategies.

There are still those who hear

the words industrial strategy

and associate it with the mistakes

of the past, about twarting

competition, shielding incumbents

and continuing with the status quo.

This is not the approach

that we will take.

Our modern industrial strategy

is not about protecting the past,

it is about taking control

of our future as a nation.

He said leading scientists had

identified for challenges.

Artificial intelligence

and data driven economy,

clean growth,

the future of mobility and meeting

the needs of an ageing society.

Whether we like it or not,

these challenges are sweeping

the world and if we act now,

we can lead them from the front.

If we wait and see then other

countries will seize the initiative.

Which of the policies detailed also

focus on spending any handful

of specified sectors in which the UK

already has comparative advantage.

This will do nothing to help

the millions who work in large,

low wage, low productivity sectors

like retail, hospitality and care

or people

who do not live in the

Golden Triangle made up

from London, Cambridge and Oxford.

The problem of the Labour

front bench is they think

it is all about money.

Money is important but it is how

and when you spend it that matters.

What you need is an industrial

strategy that is bold

and has a huge vision.

That is what this document has.

Does the Minister realise

that it is possible to convince

the country that a Tory Government,

a Tory Government, has got

the capacity to introduce

a decent industrial strategy?

In 18 Tory years

whilst I was here, they closed down

most of the shipbuilding industry,

they got rid of the lot of the steel

industry, they closed every single

pit, now they are buying

40 million tonnes of coal

from countries

we don't even trust.

This is the actions

of the Tory Government and remember,

stop this nonsense about trying

to tell the people that

unemployment now is less

than after a Labour Government,

because the Labour Government

after the Second World War,

it was down to 2.2%,

440,000, and when it was

a million, it was Ted Heath

who was in Government.

What a lousy bunch.

What I would say to the honourable

gentleman is it is the case

that every time there

is a Labour Government,

it is this Government that has

to reverse the chaos that has been

caused and revive the economy.

Greg Clark.

Meanwhile, the Government's

industrial strategy was also being

discussed in the House of Lords.

The reports by the IFS

and the Resolution Foundation

and the OBR after the budget,

forecast stagnant

growth for the next 10 years -

it is a truly frightening prospect.

There was very little

in the statement about the urgent

need for more skills training.

I am sure he will agree

that we are not going to achieve

growth productivity or implement

this industrial strategy amassed

we are able to greatly improve

the level of skills amongst

the workforce, especially

in the area of construction

where Brexit is going

to be certainly damaging

in that we will have

fewer European workers able

to operate in this country,

or those who will be

likely to be willing to.

I welcome the white paper

that is so critical

to the nation's fortunes.

I hope it will gather consensus.

This period of continuous political

gloom, so it often seems,

this is a reason to be cheerful.

I welcome the industrial strategy

Council, that the select committee

on science and technology

was pushing very hard for.

Universal Credit is a success story

producing remarkable outcomes,

in the words of a top civil servant.

The new welfare system,

sometimes called UC,

wraps up six different benefits

into a single payment and is

designed always to make work pay.

Despite strong criticisms,

the new system was defended

at the Commons Public Accounts

committee by Sir Robert Devereux.

He's about to retire

after seven years as the chief

official at the Department

for Work and Pensions.

The committee chair

started the session.

I wanted to cover some of the issues

around your department but starting

off with Universal Credit which has

been the biggest project that any

secretary has had to implement.

In

short, would you say it has been a

success so far? Yes, the reason that

the Government introduced Universal

Credit is to get more people into

work and all the academic evidence

to pier reviewed by external

parties, three times now, does

demonstrate that it is getting more

people into work.

We have 8% of the

population on Universal Credit. Is

that right?

Yes, the point I am

making is that for a limited period,

while you are still running the old

system alongside the new system, you

cannot properly compare whether this

new system is better than the old

one. Particularly for the benefit of

some of your visitors glistening,

the regime we are changing has been

consistently assessed as the best in

the world, to over achieve against

that is a remarkable outcome.

As the

system agile enough to make changes

as it is buffeted by the very real

experience of people on the ground?

And how quickly will be changes be

implemented? Is the whole system

able to change and how quickly will

these changes be implemented?

Any

programme that is as massive as this

will encounter changes along the

way. The fact that we have embarked

on Brexit, we have had Grenfell

Tower, lots of things happen in life

and you have to adjust it.

Did you

give advice of the payments of the

housing elements to Ministers?

We

advise Ministers and all of their

policies to stop did you highlight

that aspect? I have had for

secretaries of State and the last

three have been aware of the issue.

Can I thank you... Can I just take

two minutes to say something back to

the committee? I have appeared 30

times now.

It will not take me very

long. I will be indulgent but I am

aware of time.

I have been here a

long time. First of all, more than

you might imagine, the system you

provide overdoes work. -- the system

you preside over. Publicly

accountable to Parliament does keep

everyone on the straight and narrow.

Everybody knows that day to day

decisions have got to be right and

it does not typically getting out

the real work. Secondly just in the

method of scrutiny, I do think

possibly the committee might want to

think of one thing. All of the

hearings I have done has been about

the certain project, and very rarely

do you ask me about the

circumstances and totality of many

of the things I have been doing.

Lastly, I would say that despite all

of that, I am incredibly proud of

the stuff of the things my

colleagues have done. In the last

six years, we average is to our

costs and staffing by 60,000 people

as we have become more efficient and

taken out 50 million phone calls per

year and become more digital, all of

which has improved our customer

service and reduced our complaints.

We managed to become finalists along

with Shell for project company of

the year. The thing that underpins

all of that and I would leave as the

most important thing to my

successor, ultimately the success of

the department relies on the

motivation and hard work of the

people who are employed by me. It

has gone up by six percentage points

and it is that engagement and their

pride in what they do and belief and

making a change to people's lives

that has been the change and that is

going to be true to the success long

after I have retired. Thank you for

listening to me.

Sir Robert Devereux

in reflective mood.

And that's it for this programme.

Mandy Baker will be here

for the rest of the week.

But for now, from me,

Keith Macdougall, goodbye.