Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s view of my career trajectory. I will not ask him about his—perhaps we can agree about it afterwards. I learned some important lessons from the Home Affairs Committee report I worked on, including on the priority we give in tackling drugs to education and treatment. Those are the two key arms of what needs to be done. However, I do not believe we should be legalising drugs that are currently illegal. On current legal highs and problems relating to substances such as khat, which was mentioned in a previous question, we need to look carefully at the evidence on what will work best.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

Q11. In Solihull, more than 80,000 people have benefited from our policy of raising the threshold at which people start to pay tax. This morning, the Institute for Fiscal Studies confirmed that that policy is right, and that those who have the broadest shoulders are bearing the greatest burden of tax. In the light of that, will the Government commit to raising the threshold at which people pay tax to £10,000 in the Budget?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question—she is absolutely right about raising the threshold before which people start to pay tax. It means that the tax bill for someone on the minimum wage working full time has been cut by one half. That is a huge change to help people who work hard and want to do the right thing. This Government are rewarding them. She mentions the IFS green budget, which came out this morning. I have not had that much time to study it, but one thing stood out. On fairness, it states:

“The whole set of tax and benefit changes introduced between the start of 2010 and 2015–16 will hit the richest households hardest.”

This Government are fair, and we are helping the hardest working.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

If the right hon. and learned Lady dislikes the PCC elections so much, why did her party put up candidates across the country? [Interruption.] I hear “She had to” from a sedentary position, but no one forced her to put up as candidates the recycled Labour ex-Ministers who then failed to get elected. No one obliged her to do that. I really think the Labour party has to get out of this habit of criticising things that are quite close to its own proposals. As I understand it, the Labour party’s position is for directly elected members of the police authority—not a million miles away from the police and crime commissioners. As it happens, that was not my or my party’s policy, but it was a contest that we all entered in good faith. I am only sorry that it did not turn out as the right hon. and learned Lady had rather hoped.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

2. What progress he has made on introducing a process of recall for hon. Members found guilty of serious wrongdoing.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

7. What progress he has made on introducing a process of recall for hon. Members found guilty of serious wrongdoing.

[Lorely Burt]

For some, life in politics can be a bit like a jungle, and a popular vote may help to decide whether or not someone should stay. When a Member of this House is found guilty of serious wrongdoing and does not walk away themselves, should not a popular vote by their constituents provide a chance to “get them out of there”?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Obviously, the devil is in the detail, and the issue is how we as a House define what serious wrongdoing is. I never thought that disappearing to a jungle on the other side of the planet would be one of the things we would have to grapple with on this recall issue. I very much hope to make progress, and we are certainly working actively in government to achieve it. It was a manifesto commitment of all the main parties in this Parliament to introduce a recall mechanism, but to do that we need to arrive at a common understanding of what constitutes serious wrongdoing and what does not.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Not for the first time, the hon. Lady has entirely twisted what I said. I said—I would be interested to know whether she agrees with this—that it would be wholly illiberal and wrong for this House to seek to compel any editor to determine the content of their newspapers. If that is the kind of authoritarian nonsense she believes in, then I am perfectly content to say that we entirely disagree.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

T13. In addressing concerns over the operation of the European arrest warrant, does my right hon. Friend agree with our police that we must not throw out the baby with the bathwater and that rather than scrapping the arrest warrant we should be reforming it?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I think that there is widespread agreement in all parts of the House that the European arrest warrant is not perfect in its operation. There is clearly a legitimate concern about its disproportionate application to what are essentially judicially frivolous cases, and that is why it needs reform. The disagreement is between those who argue that we should reform it while remaining a full signatory to it, which is the Government’s current position, and those who feel that we should abdicate from it altogether. The reason I am strongly opposed to the latter position is that criminals do not recognise borders. Paedophiles, murderers and terrorists need to be chased across borders. It is not about whether one is pro or anti-European or likes or loathes Brussels; it is about whether one is for or against going after nasty, wicked people. That is why I support continuing to be a full signatory to the European arrest warrant while, of course, continuing to argue for its reform.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

If one did that, one would hard-wire party political imbalance into the House of Lords, and that would not be acceptable without allowing the British people any say in its composition. There has clearly been a setback for people such as the hon. Lady, who believes in and has been articulate in her advocacy of democratic reform of the House of Lords. However, I do not think that it is the end of the story. The current trajectory of the House of Lords, even if the Lord Steel Bill were introduced, is impractical and unsustainable. I hope that, if not now, then in the next few years, we can return to the matter and both reduce the size of the House of Lords and make it more legitimate.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware of a recent quote from Lord Prescott, who said:

“The House of Lords is a bit like a job centre, you have to go down there to get paid expenses, and it just gets totally tiring”?

Is not it a shame that we have been unable to help the noble Lord out of his and our misery?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

No wonder he wants to be a police and crime commissioner, given all the hard work that he clearly puts into the House of Lords. It is one of my many regrets that we have not been able to make progress on the matter, and that I have been unable to put Lord Prescott out of his misery in the House of Lords.

Party Funding

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

If that is the best the hon. Lady can do, it is a little bit sad. We have said that what Peter Cruddas said was wrong. It was obviously unacceptable, and much of it simply was not true, and that is why he is no longer treasurer of the Conservative party.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

Sir Christopher Kelly concluded in his report that

“the only safe way to remove big money from party funding is to put a cap on donations, set at £10,000.”

Does my right hon. Friend agree?

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I spoke to the First Minister shortly before the announcement was made at the Commonwealth meeting in Perth. He is also reflecting on whether there should be other, wider changes, but he welcomed this as a significant step, in and of itself.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

May I express my delight that the coalition Government have at last ensured fairness and equality in succession to the throne? Does the Deputy Prime Minister share my disappointment, however, that although I and others raised this matter many times under the previous Government, they put it in into the “too difficult” box for 13 years?

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore]

I thank my hon. Friend for that information, because it adds to the important case that we are presenting. The people who find this highly amusing clearly have not had the experience that we had. It is incumbent on a Government who said that they would want to look at the evidence and make decisions on the basis of hard facts to listen to the evidence being given by people who have been through this process and who understand the complexities of devolution in a situation where we still have a UK Government. We have had experience of this, as have the elected bodies, which have given their view very clearly to the UK Government but have been ignored. They were not consulted before this, but they gave their view and told of their experience, so it is not asking too much of any Government to say, “Perhaps we have not got this right.”

Perhaps the simplest thing for the Government to do is not to try to see whether they could slip the election by a month, as has been suggested by some people. That would represent the worst of all possible worlds for the voters, let alone for the political parties. The simplest thing would be to say, “We have got this wrong, but we believe in fixed-term Parliaments.” The Labour party proposed fixed-term Parliaments in its manifesto and the Liberals believe in them too. I am not sure whether the Conservatives believe in them, but they introduced this legislation so presumably they now do. We all seem to agree that there should be fixed-term Parliaments. On that basis, why are we having this debate? Because the coalition Government are so determined to stick to their first thought, which was to have five years.

The Government may be doing that only for advantage and to feel that they have the longest possible time in which to be the Government. I have to say to the hon. Member for Epping Forest that she and others on the Government Benches may feel that they have an entitlement to sit for five years, having been elected, but a lot of people in the country have a very different view. The majority party in the coalition did not get a majority for its policies. The junior partner in the coalition went to the people on a different set of policies, so the people who voted for the Liberals did not vote for the programme of this coalition Government. The Government’s approach seems particularly unfortunate for democracy in this country, given that the Government do not have a mandate to rule in the majoritarian fashion that they are doing.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

Is the hon. Lady therefore saying that her party does not accept that a coalition of two parties is sufficient to run the country? Does she believe only in first-past-the-post majority rule, and must we keep having elections until we get some sort of majority Government by default?

[Sheila Gilmore]

Coming from Scotland and having seen both coalitions and minority Governments in operation, I am very open to various ways of running a Government. I would not for a minute want to suggest that it always has to be an absolute majority, that first past the post is what we need or that we need majorities.

[Sheila Gilmore]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, with which I wholly agree.

Ordinary electors thought that a hung Parliament would be a good idea, because they genuinely believed that there would be openness and that people would listen to different points of view. That has not happened. The strong views of the elected Governments of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have not been listened to. The bulk of the evidence given to the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, of which I am a member, was clearly in favour of four-year fixed-term Parliaments. Why should that weight of evidence be ignored? Was that what people expected from a more consensual and open approach? I think that a lot of people thought that coalition meant that we would get the best bits from everyone and that everyone would sit around and have discussions—

[Lorely Burt]

We did.

[Sheila Gilmore]

The hon. Lady seems to think that they did get the best bits from everyone, but that makes it clear to me that she did not believe in the manifesto on which she stood because so many parts of it seem to have been ditched in favour of the policies of the other party.

A small and simple change—a very small concession—that would not in any way interfere with the principle of fixed-term Parliaments would make it far easier for the Bill to be passed relatively quickly. It would allow national elections in all parts of the United Kingdom to go forward in the best possible way and our devolved Parliaments and Assemblies to present their policies to the electorate in the way they want to.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Commons Chamber

Politicians will end up crossing the line and answering referendum-related questions in a context that is meant to be election-related. National networks will find it difficult to deal only with the AV referendum and not with the elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the regional networks will be in serious trouble in covering the campaigns properly. For instance, how will they cover the election campaign in Northern Ireland? Will they have to tell people that they are not allowed to ask a panel of candidates about the referendum? If candidates in the election talk about the referendum, they might influence matters. Regional networks will have to try to run separate coverage, so that those of us who wish to campaign in both the election and the referendum can do so separately and can show that we did one thing in relation to one campaign and another in relation to the other campaign. That will create an impossible position, and the difficulties will include trying to rein in the excesses of the big networks and dealing with the dilemmas for regional broadcasters in covering the parliamentary and Assembly elections.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

I am trying to follow the hon. Gentleman’s argument and wondering how his constituents might feel about different types of election being held at the same time. I do not understand why he thinks that they are not capable of understanding that. Can he not give them the credit for being able to comprehend the difference?

[Mark Durkan]

I fully recognise that the electorate in my constituency and elsewhere in Northern Ireland can cope with having different elections on the same day. Irish people can cope with elections and referendums on the same day, as we have seen in the south of Ireland. However, the electoral body in the south learned the lessons from that and pointed out the serious issues that arose, including in relation to programmes that were meant to be about the referendum campaign, with a representative from the yes side and one from the no side. But some parties involved in the election on the same day were not included in the broadcasts, and that caused serious controversy about the balance of the coverage. The legislation that this House has previously passed about the obligations in referendums and election campaigns is already difficult to observe, but it will be even more difficult to observe it when both are held at the same time.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

If the hon. Gentleman will first allow me to make this point, I shall give way.

The Library alerted me to what Asquith said in February 1911, and so I asked for the whole of the speech, which I have here. As the information from the Library and Blackburn both show, Asquith was talking about the idea that a Parliament would normally last for four years. There is not a word in Asquith’s opening speech on the Second Reading of the Parliament Bill along the lines that the right hon. Gentleman who is now leader of the Liberal Democrats tried to tell us that there was. He should not busk on these points. Asquith said that the Act would lead to a normal length of four years and that was what he meant. Overall, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has pointed out, that has been the average length of a Parliament.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Straw]

May I finish this point, and then I shall of course give way? Indeed, the hon. Lady might wish to answer a question that I am about to pose to her right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister.

Alongside the position adopted by a former Liberal Prime Minister—the last but one, it must be said, and look what happened to him and to his successor, although we need not detain the House on either of their fates—I want to refer to recent Liberal Democrat policy. I know that that apparently does not matter, but if the roles were reversed and if, just three years ago, the Labour party had said that there should be fixed Parliaments that should last four years, we would soon hear something about that from those on the Liberal Democrat Benches. We would hear suggestions that we were selling out and standing on our heads and that we did not know what we were talking about, and would be asked what was the point of making commitments—especially as simple a commitment as that—simply to tear them up. However, that was the Liberal Democrat position. They published a position paper—I am happy to take an intervention from the Deputy Prime Minister on this point—called “For the People, By the People”, which said that the term should be four years and not five. Let me gild that lily: David Howarth, the excellent former Member for Cambridge, introduced a ten-minute Bill to the sounds of cheering from the Liberal Democrat Benches that set a term of four years and not five. He made very good arguments that were absolutely right.

I am glad that the Deputy Prime Minister has at long last spotted that coinciding the date of a general election with that of national elections in Scotland and Wales is crazy and he is about to seek to go through hoops by which the people of Scotland and Wales and the political parties that are an essential part of the process—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Straw]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, but I promised the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) that I would give way to her first. I shall then give way both to him and the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea).

[Lorely Burt]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Between the two sides this evening, we are having an interesting history lesson. Perhaps I might point him towards a more recent piece of history: the passage of the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009, which covers the regulations for election campaign spending and also refers to five-year Parliaments. That Act was supported by many of our colleagues who are now on the Opposition Benches.

[Mr Straw]

I do not know whether the hon. Lady was in the House at the time, but I was responsible for that Bill, which emerged from cross-party negotiation. It was an agreed measure. As for the reference to five years, we were not setting the length of a Parliament in the Bill. We were accepting that as a fact and then determining how we dealt with party funding within that frame. There was no commitment whatever in principle in favour of five years rather than four.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lorely Burt]

I enter this nationalist debate with some trepidation because, as an English MP, I have not been involved in this type of situation. Does my hon. Friend not think that the electorates in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland have the ability and intelligence to differentiate between two different elections and to make their minds up appropriately on the day?

[Mr Williams]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. I am drawing a distinction between a general election and a referendum. Fighting two general elections on different boundaries will potentially create huge problems. I have never doubted the intelligence of the electorate of Ceredigion to make judgments on all sorts of things, but some of the concern is legitimate. Like the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth), I have not had any letters about fixed-term Parliaments, but I guarantee that people outside polling stations will be very concerned if we have these two elections on the same day. There will be a lot of concern and anxiety about it. It might not have manifested itself yet, but it will if the two elections go ahead on the same day.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lorely Burt]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Laing]

I would like to do so, but I cannot, because other Members are waiting to speak.

The Opposition have been self-righteous in their criticism of the way in which the Government are introducing constitutional change. Let us not forget the piecemeal way in which the Labour Government brought about constitutional change. Indeed, the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill that they introduced received about 18 months of pre-legislative scrutiny. It was introduced in the House, and completed all its stages in plenty of time. Half an hour before Third Reading, the Labour Government introduced about 100 pages of amendments. The Bill went to the House of Lords, and just before its final consideration, they added an entire new Bill on a referendum on the alternative vote. The Opposition should therefore be careful in their self-righteousness about the way in which we conduct pre-legislative scrutiny. Having said that, I agree with the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), the Chairman of the Select Committee—he had no responsibility for the previous Government, or very little, I think.

It is wrong to introduce constitutional change in a piecemeal fashion. We should look at the overall effect of the legislation before us, not just the particular issue that is under consideration. It is wrong, at any time, to do constitutional change in one place, then in another. We ought to look at the whole constitution to see how it is balanced. It is, however, our duty in the House to do not what is the short-term expedient but what is in the long-term right. I am willing to put aside that important principle this evening for the greater good of the stability of the coalition and the stability that that brings to our country. I therefore urge my hon. Friends to support the Bill.

Constitution and Home Affairs

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr McCrea]

rose—

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

rose—

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I feel that I have answered the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea), so I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt).

[Lorely Burt]

I am grateful. Before my right hon. Friend concludes, may I raise a matter that has been of concern to Members in all parts of the House, which is that of extending anonymity to defendants in rape cases? Will he make a few remarks on how he sees the Government being able to incorporate the views of all Members in taking the matter forward?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The Deputy Leader of the House tells me that there is an Adjournment debate about the matter tonight. It is a difficult and sensitive issue, which my hon. Friend is right to raise. It has been raised many times and I read some articles in the press about it again this morning. Everybody is united in wanting the conviction rates for rape to increase. Everybody wants more support to be provided to victims of rape so that they come forward in the first place, while also wanting to minimise the stigma attached to those who might be falsely accused. However, I want to make it clear that, although the Government have proposed the idea, we want to listen to everybody who has a stake or expertise in or insight into the matter. If our idea does not withstand sincere scrutiny, we will of course be prepared to change it.

Today is only the start of many hours of lively debate on the issues that I have mentioned, and I welcome that. We have a hugely ambitious programme to transform our constitutional and political landscape so that we achieve a better balance between Parliament and the Executive, clean, transparent politics and power handed back to people. Given the scope of that package, we will inevitably disagree about some of the detail. However, let us not lose sight of the things about which we agree. Let us not forget the scale of the damage that this Parliament needs to repair, and not take for granted the chance that our constituents have given us finally to get it right.