Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Nick Clegg

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I have learned to try to be a bit wary about opinion polls. The only poll that counts is the poll that will take place on 18 September. I very much hope, and people such as me who do not have a vote—those of us south of the border—fervently hope that the Scottish people will decide to remain part of the family of nations that makes up the United Kingdom, because there is so much that we can do together that we simply cannot do apart. That is very much the argument that I hope will prevail on 18 September.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Can the Deputy Prime Minister ensure that not just local councils’ work, but economic development through the local enterprise partnership, is centralised? Will he give the House an assurance that York will remain with York, North Yorkshire and East Riding local enterprise partnership?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Many of the decisions about exactly where the lines of the maps are drawn in respect of the remit of local enterprise partnerships should, wherever possible, be driven heavily by local consensus—by people agreeing among themselves, rather than having some diktat imposed from above. Inasmuch as my hon. Friend’s view reflects local opinion, which I do not know as well as she does, we would like to reinforce that in Whitehall as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Nick Clegg

Tuesday 25th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I certainly agree with the hon. Lady’s latter point. There is absolutely no way that a multinational such as Siemens would invest that amount of money if we were on the brink of pulling out of the European Union single market. I have been in several discussions with Siemens board members, as have many members of the Government, to persuade them to make that decision, and I am delighted that they have finally done so. She is quite right that Hull city council and the councils in the area—it is a triumph not only for Hull, but for the Humber area more generally—have worked together, and it has been a cross-party approach. None of that would have been successful if we had been on the brink of pulling out of the single market. That is why Siemens has continued to invest in our country.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I am delighted to say that I have a distant family connection with Hull, as my great-grandfather practised medicine there. Will my right hon. Friend explain how city deal regeneration will help rural and coastal areas, such as Thirsk, Malton and Filey, where we have flagging fishing and tourism industries that desperately need boosting?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. City deals are a template for the further decentralisation of powers and control over money and policy to local areas. Of course that should not be confined to urban areas, which is why we are extrapolating the approach through the local growth deals, which will be available to all areas—coastal or inland; rural or urban—and which we hope to conclude over the summer.

Rio+20 Summit

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Nick Clegg

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady for her recognition of what I think is our shared commitment to the agenda discussed at Rio. I totally share her support for the zero hunger initiative; I attended a session in Rio at which the initiative was discussed. She asked about the hunger summit that will be held this summer. I do not know the precise agenda, but she referred to the importance of legal rights to property and land, which are crucial to dealing with hunger sustainably.

The hon. Lady asked about the interaction between sustainable development goals, ill-defined though they were at the Rio summit, and the work on the post-2015 agenda. The Government’s strong view is that the sustainable development goals as defined by the group of 30 representatives, which will be established in September, must feed into the wider review of the millennium development goals through the high-level panel that has been established by the Secretary-General.

I will not disguise from the hon. Lady the fact that within that procedural complexity, there are a lot of sensitivities. Candidly, some developing countries have hitherto felt that their voice is not strongly enough heard in some UN processes. The Prime Minister and his co-chairs will work hard to ensure that the voices of the developing world are properly listened to in the review of the MDGs to allay the concern that precisely the part of the world that will benefit most from the process is shut out from it. We need to do quite of lot of work to ensure that the different acronyms and processes do not start becoming rival acronyms and process—that is a danger.

The hon. Lady mentioned the sustainable energy for all initiative, which I am glad she supports; it is an outstanding initiative. I hosted a preparatory meeting of the group on the initiative in London some months ago. We had hoped that the Rio declaration would adopt the initiative as a core conclusion. In the event, because of the nervousness of some participants on what the initiative means and its implications, it was “recognised” in the declaration. We would have inserted a stronger verb, but none the less, as with all those initiatives, we now need to exploit that recognition and work on it.

The hon. Lady complained that the proposal on greenhouse gas emissions reporting does not go far enough. We have to start somewhere. We are the only country doing this. Some people complain that we have already gone too far and are imposing too many burdens on business. Other business groups, such as the CBI, have welcomed the proposal. I think we are breaking new ground, and I hope she will welcome that rather than cast aspersions on it.

The hon. Lady will know that the Darwin initiative is a robust initiative that we are using to monitor the plight of endangered species. Finally, she rightly said that these summits make sense only if one acts consistently with them at home. We are rightly proud of our record: we are the first country to establish a green investment bank; the green deal, which will be up and running in the coming six to eight months or so, will be the largest initiative of its kind for installing energy efficiency measures and bringing down energy bills in homes up and down the country; and the green sector, the green economy, is growing by about 5% a year, employs close to 1 million people in this country and actually runs a trade surplus. That is something we should cherish and celebrate. The carbon floor price is another major innovation of the Government, while the electricity market reform, which is one of the most ambitious legislative and regulatory overhauls of an electricity market I am aware of anywhere in the developed world, is explicitly designed to ensure that we have a sustainable energy mix for future generations.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I congratulate everyone involved on what was a genuine team effort. Will the Deputy Prime Minister assure the House that one of Rio’s lasting legacies will be the agreement to reaffirm a universal, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system for food and agricultural products? Will he give an undertaking that we will really push for Doha to deliver this through the World Trade Organisation?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

No one is in any doubt that one of the greatest boosts to prosperity across the world would be a successful completion of the very, very, very, very long-awaited Doha development round. It is immensely frustrating that getting agreement on it has proved so elusive. Many have written it off altogether, and it is difficult not to be pessimistic about it, but that does not mean that we should not continue to pursue the cause of multilateral trade liberalisation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Nick Clegg

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

T3. May I congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister on the excellent and distinguished wise men and one wise woman he has appointed to the West Lothian commission? Will he extend the terms of reference so that they will look at the potential consequences of devo-max on this Parliament?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The commission is to focus on the procedures and practices of this House as they are affected by devolution as we know it right now. The case for further devolution to Scotland, which I happen to believe in as the leader of a party that believes in home rule, can be made but not until we know whether Scotland is going to be part of the United Kingdom in the first place. That can and should be resolved only by a decisive, clear, fair and legally binding vote in a referendum.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Nick Clegg

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I do not agree that moving to individual elector registration in the way we are—in the way advocated by the previous Government, too—will necessarily lead to the outcome he suggests. That is why we are putting so much time into data matching, making sure that there is a period of grace so that people can re-register on the other side of an election, and ensuring that people go from home to home to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to be individually registered.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

The Deputy Prime Minister told the House that he is responsible for constitutional and political reform. If the ambitious programme that he has set himself proves too ambitious, will he allow a little bit of slippage in reform of the Lords and the equalisation of boundaries?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is important to be clear about our ambitions, and we have been, right from the outset, when the coalition Government were formed. We have five years to deliver the changes. Yes, they are major changes, but as we saw with the reforms to the Act of Settlement, even the most intractable issues that people believe are not susceptible to reform can be reformed if there is sufficient debate, and sufficient consensus in all parts of the House that reform is desirable. Most people believe, for instance, that reform of the House of Lords is long overdue; it is 100 years since it was first debated.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Nick Clegg

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The size of the legislature has not been reduced right now, so it is not something that we need to do right now. We have accepted the principle. It is now 2011; we have four years until 2015. We will reflect on this and we will act.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Will the Deputy Prime Minister agree to extend the link to the shadow Administration, and does he share the concern of Government Members about the growing number of those serving in the shadow Administration?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I have lost count of who is doing what in the shadow Administration, as my hon. Friend calls it, except for the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), who has an increasingly long list of responsibilities to her name. The serious point is the relationship between the legislature and the Executive of the day, and the point that I seek to make is that there is an absolute link in principle between the size of one and the other, and that is something that we will act on in the years ahead.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Nick Clegg

Tuesday 5th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We have learned all the lessons about the flaws in the electoral register here. That is exactly what we are seeking to address, not least by looking at the experience in Northern Ireland and elsewhere.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

T12. I wish to place on record my admiration for the ambition shown by the Deputy Prime Minister, but does he not agree that if he sticks to his present programme and allows the first elections to the House of Lords to be held in 2015, it is over-ambitious—even according to his own test—to hold them in the same month and year as the next rural district elections and the next general election?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

“Ambition” was clearly intended as faint praise, and I will take it in that spirit. I think we have shown in past elections that the problems involved in the principle of combined elections can be overcome, as long as there is a clear distinction between the mandates for the bodies that are being elected on the same day.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Nick Clegg

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Well read and well rehearsed! I will tell the hon. Gentleman one thing that I am not going to flinch from for one minute, and that is to clear up the mess left by Labour. Because of the sheer economic incompetence of the Labour party in government, this country, on the backs of our children and grandchildren, is borrowing £400 million a day. He might think that is okay; I do not.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

T2. Can the Deputy Prime Minister give the House a timetable for his proposed reforms of the House of Lords? Will it be during the life of this Parliament, and how flexible are the proportions? Would he consider 30, 30 and 30?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The timetable is that the Joint Committee of both Houses first needs to complete its work, and we hope that it will do so in the early stages of next year, with a view to the Government then publishing a Bill in the second Session in order to see the first steps in a reformed House of Lords and the first elections taking place in 2015.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Nick Clegg

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the coalition Government are breaking new ground along European lines? Might we send a message to the rest of Europe that actually we do believe in coalition Government in this country?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I certainly agree that in other democracies in Europe and elsewhere the idea of two parties compromising with each other in the national interest is considered to be a good thing. Only backward-looking Opposition Members regard every compromise as a betrayal.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Nick Clegg

Tuesday 22nd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

That is a matter for the Budget. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer has already announced, a former Secretary of State for Defence will be providing a review of public sector pensions. I think it is right to look at the fundamental balance between pension entitlements in the private sector, which have been cut back and have changed very dramatically—many people in the private sector, too, have been working shorter hours and taking, in effect, pay cuts—and the pension entitlements due to those in the public sector. It is the fair thing to do to look at pensions in the round. That is what this Government will do and what the hon. Lady’s Government failed to do for more than a decade.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

T6. The Deputy Prime Minister will be aware that every time we change the voting system, such as the introduction of proportional representation to European Parliament elections, the turnout goes down. That is probably one of the biggest challenges he faces. What solution can we find to ensure that turnout remains high when we introduce new electoral systems?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am not sure whether there is such an intimate link between electoral systems and turnout. Turnout seems to me to be dependent on whether the contest is close and whether there are issues being debated in the election contest that engage people. That is something that those on both sides of the House should always strive to do at election time.