Investigatory Powers Bill
Debate between Andrew Murrison and Diane Abbott(7 years, 8 months ago)
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Ms Abbott
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his, as usual, very wise observation. There is no question but that the amendments that the Government have been forced to table, and the work of Members on both sides of the House, have made this a much better Bill than the one that was originally presented to this House.
Dr Murrison
It is not a question of being forced. The hon. Lady may recall that this measure was subject to a Joint Committee on the draft Bill. There can be no Bill in recent memory that has had more scrutiny than this one. Will she also note clause 232, which establishes a review of this measure after five years—a most unusual mechanism for a Bill of this sort—and give the Government credit for doing everything in their power to reconcile the need to protect our liberties with the need to protect the press?
Ms Abbott
Right at the beginning of this debate, I made a point of acknowledging the very hard work of hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber, including hon. Friends of mine, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman was not here at that stage. The first thing I did was to acknowledge the diehard work of Members on both sides of Chamber. There is no question but that this is a better Bill than the one that was originally presented to us. We are very grateful, and, more importantly, the stakeholders are very grateful, for the possibilities for a review, but I would not be performing my role as a member of Her Majesty’s Opposition if I did not put on the record the reservations that still exist among some of our stakeholders.
A number of stakeholders, campaigning groups and other bodies have expressed their continuing dissatisfaction with elements of the Bill. They include Amnesty International, Article 19, Big Brother Watch, the Centre for Investigative Journalism, Don’t Spy On Us, English PEN, Index on Censorship, Labour Campaign for Human Rights, Liberty, the National Union of Journalists, OpenMedia, Open Rights Group, PEN International, Privacy International, Scottish PEN, the Society of Editors and the World Wide Web Foundation. In addition, I have held meetings with the TUC and a number of other trade unions that still have concerns about this Bill. I would be grateful if the Minister explained why, despite all the efforts that have been made to improve the Bill, there continue to be concerns among such a wide array of stakeholders.
NHS Sustainability and Transformation Plans
Debate between Andrew Murrison and Diane Abbott(7 years, 10 months ago)
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Ms Abbott
It was the NHS England director of STPs, Michael McDonnell, who said that they
“offer private sector and third sector organisations an enormous amount of opportunity”.
We know that PricewaterhouseCoopers has been heavily involved in the formulation of a large number of these plans, and we know that—as was mentioned earlier—GE Healthcare Finnamore, which was taken over by General Electric in the United States, has been heavily involved in the formulation of plans in the south-west and possibly more widely. The strong suspicion is that a combination of cuts, the reorganisation of services on a geographical basis, and the growth of hospital “chains” will facilitate greater privatisation of the NHS.