Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Nick Clegg

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Even by the hon. Lady’s standards, it is a bit sour to try to undermine a policy that has not yet been implemented. It will be implemented in September and is a really progressive policy. All the evidence shows—as did the pilots conducted under the previous Government in Durham and parts of east London—that this will not only save families on low income a lot of money, but help to raise the educational performance of children from lower-income backgrounds and provide a powerful way of creating cohesion among young children as they share a meal together. We are working intensively with thousands of schools across the country at the moment, so I cannot give the hon. Lady a precise answer, but the overwhelming majority of those schools are already ready to provide this service. We are working with them over the summer to make sure that if there are any exceptions in the provision of those healthy school meals at lunch time in September, there will be only a very small number of them.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

My right hon. Friend recently visited Solihull college in my constituency, and saw for himself the brilliant work that it is doing with skills and apprenticeships. Will he join me in welcoming the Birmingham and Solihull LEP growth deal, which will, among many other things, make an aviation engineering training centre a reality, and help Birmingham international airport to become the go-to place for the world’s airlines when they need engineering, maintenance and repair work to be done?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I certainly join the hon. Lady in paying tribute to everyone who worked on the growth deal in her area. Over the next few years, growth deals collectively will represent a transfer of £12 billion of Government money away from Whitehall—out of Departments here in London—and into the hands of local communities and local enterprise partnerships. That is a really big, bold act of decentralisation, which I think will finally break the back of the excessive centralisation from which we have suffered for far too long.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Nick Clegg

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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Nick Clegg

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

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Nick Clegg

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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Nick Clegg

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I know that the right hon. and learned Lady has her prepared script which she sticks to religiously, but it is worth having a question and answer session; that is what this whole thing is actually about. What we are doing—the two parties that have come together in the coalition—is to sort out the banking system, which she left in a mess; to sort out the public finances, which she left in a mess; to sort out the economy, which she left in a mess; and to stop the arbitrary privatisation of the NHS, which she left in a mess. Do you know what? In government, the Labour party ran out of money; in opposition, it is running out of ideas.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

My right hon. Friend may be aware of the figures that were released this week, which show that there has at least been some progress towards the target of 25% of places on boards being filled by women by 2015. What will the coalition Government do to ensure that they meet that target and enrich our boards with a diversity of talent that will help to achieve the growth that our country needs?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is excellent news that there has been real progress in the few short months in which we have been in government—far more progress than was delivered in 13 years under Labour—to get more women on to our boards. I think that everybody now agrees with the consensus that having more women on boards is good for all companies. There has been a woefully unrepresentative mix on our boards. I very much hope that we will continue to apply the right kind of voluntary pressure to see the representation of women increase further.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Nick Clegg

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?

Constitution and Home Affairs

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Nick Clegg

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[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.