Public Disorder

Daniel Kawczynski Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Of course, I do not accept that, but I do accept what the hon. Gentleman says about the Union. It is important that forces come to each other’s aid, and if there were problems in Scotland, English forces would do the same thing.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

Many of my constituents in Shrewsbury have watched in horror the events in some of our cities, and they have written to me overwhelmingly to ask when we will have tangible and enforceable penalties for parents who do not discipline their children.

[The Prime Minister]

As I said earlier, there are parenting orders. They can be used, they can involve parents paying quite hefty fines, and I very much encourage their use at this time.

Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Daniel Kawczynski Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The police must absolutely do that. They know that that is what everyone in this House wants and what the country expects. They now have a properly resourced police investigation, it is under new leadership, and we all wish them well with what they are doing.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

One group of people that we have not discussed today is the hugely powerful trade union bosses, who have an extraordinary influence over the Leader of the Opposition. Will the inquiry look into their contacts with Rupert Murdoch and his organisations?

[The Prime Minister]

I think it is ingenious, after 136 questions, to come up with something entirely new, so I pay tribute to my hon. Friend. I am sure the judge will be able to look at all vested interests and the power that they wield in our country.

Phone Hacking

Daniel Kawczynski Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman. That consultation simply was not possible in the time that was available to us. Let me stress, however, that these are draft terms of reference. In the end the judge must be comfortable with them and agree to them, but if the hon. Gentleman wishes to raise devolved issues with the Government and the judge, I am sure that we can ensure that that happens.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

Some people find it difficult to sue newspapers that have lied about them because of the complexity and cost that that would involve. I hope the Prime Minister can assure me that the inquiry will look into how people on low incomes can be supported so that they can sue newspapers when they have been lied about.

[The Prime Minister]

Obviously one of the things that the inquiry will have to look into is how people can obtain redress from newspapers when they have been wronged. That has been looked into for many years, but the problem is that Governments have not acted. I believe that part of the solution is an effective regulatory system. If people end up having to sue a newspaper, things have gone too far. It ought to be possible to obtain proper redress through a regulatory system that has not just the confidence of the press but the confidence of the public: I think that is the key.

Volunteering Bill

Daniel Kawczynski Excerpts

Friday 10th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

Perhaps it is my fault, Madam Deputy Speaker, for sitting right at the back so that others have to turn around. Nevertheless, I am grateful for the interest that the debate is generating among my hon. Friends.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to emphasise the importance of responsibility. The Minister for Equalities, who has been dealing with the Protection of Freedoms Bill in Committee, has made it clear on a number of occasions that the ticking of boxes cannot be a substitute for people taking responsibility for their charges or for volunteers who should be under their supervision and control, and whom they are responsible for recruiting.

Why have we suddenly got into the situation whereby it is thought necessary to have a Criminal Records Bureau check for tens or hundreds of thousands of volunteers? I examined the coalition agreement after the general election and saw that we were promised the Protection of Freedoms Bill. That has now come forward, but I am not sure that it goes far enough in introducing simplicity and common sense. There is a lot of talk about common sense and, indeed, “A Common Sense Approach” is the title of the report carried out for the Government by Sunita Mason, the independent adviser for criminality information management, on the impact of the vetting and barring system on volunteering and other activity. She recognised that there was far too heavy a hand in relation to all this, but I am not sure that the solutions that the Government have come up with in their Bill are not still unnecessarily complex.

We know that 95% of people who have CRB checks are cleared. An individual knows whether they have a criminal record, so they should be quite capable of signing a declaration of whether they do. If they do not, and they sign a declaration to that effect, on the face of it that should be sufficient evidence that they are a fit and proper person to engage in volunteering activity.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

I totally agree with the sentiment that my hon. Friend is outlining, but I very much hope that his Bill will also explain how volunteers can navigate through all the health and safety red tape that has been put into place over the past 13 years. A lot of people in my constituency are put off voluntary work because of the inordinate amount of health and safety regulation and the tick-box mentality that they have to go through in order to volunteer.

[Mr Chope]

The subject that we are discussing at the moment is the need for people to get a criminal record check before they can even have their application considered, and that is one of the biggest deterrents to volunteering. I do not know whether my hon. Friend has had the chance to read the text of my Bill, but my approach to Friday Bills has always been, as far as possible, to keep them simple. Like most of my Bills, this one is on one side of paper. It basically proposes the fit and proper person certificate as a substitute for a CRB check, which takes time—many weeks—and costs money. The price has gone up to £44, and somebody must pay for that.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973

Daniel Kawczynski Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will make some progress, and take a few more interventions before the end.

There are also some who say we are just stirring up trouble for the future. These people say that Arabs and Muslims cannot do democracy and that more freedoms in these countries will simply lead to extremism and intolerance. To me, this argument is not only deeply condescending and prejudiced, but is utterly wrong and has been shown to be wrong. Let us remember that people made this argument about Egypt only a short month ago. They said that the departure of Mubarak would lead to a dangerous vacuum in which extremists would flourish. Of course, I deplore—and the House will deplore—the attack on Mohamed e1-Baradei at a polling station, but the overwhelming picture from Saturday was one of millions of people queuing up patiently and proudly to exercise their democratic rights, many for the first time. As democrats in this House, we should applaud what they did.

Inevitably, information about the Libyan opposition is not complete, but the evidence suggests that it consists predominantly of ordinary Libyans from all walks of life who want freedom, justice and democracy—the things we take for granted.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

Should the Gaddafi regime finally be toppled, will the Prime Minister assure us that his Government will do everything possible to help the Metropolitan police to conclude their investigations into who killed PC Yvonne Fletcher?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend, who has considerable expertise and has taken a great interest in this matter, makes an important point, which is that if the Libyan people choose a new future for themselves and their country, there might be huge opportunities to find out not only what really happened to PC Yvonne Fletcher, but about the support for Northern Irish terrorism that did so much damage in our country.

People will be rightly concerned that we should have a clear plan for what happens next in Libya—both in humanitarian terms, and also politically and diplomatically—following the successful conclusion of the no-fly zone. On humanitarian issues, the UK was one of the first to respond to the humanitarian needs arising from Gaddafi’s actions. We provided tents and blankets from our stores in Dubai for the thousands of migrant workers crossing the borders to escape the regime’s violence. We were the first country to provide flights to enable 12,000 migrant workers to return to their homes. This timely assistance prevented what was a logistical emergency from becoming a humanitarian crisis. The International Development Secretary announced last week that we will now support the International Committee of the Red Cross to deploy three medical teams. They will help to provide both medical assistance to the 3,000 people affected by the fighting, and food and essential items for 100,000 of the most vulnerable. From the beginning, we urged the United Nations to lead international pressure for unfettered humanitarian access within Libya. We are now planning for new humanitarian needs that may emerge as a result of the conflict.

--- Later in debate ---

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), who correctly highlighted the importance of energy policy to all the issues that we are discussing.

I welcome the fact that debate is taking place today and that there is to be a vote. The traditions of the House have often meant that there have not been parliamentary votes on such matters. I would have preferred a vote to have taken place before troops were deployed, even if it meant the House convening on a Saturday. We need to consider that for the future. However, it is clear that there will be a full debate today, and there was a statement on Friday, when many aspects of the issue were discussed.

I have found the issues very difficult. I am disappointed that the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) was not selected, as it highlights some of the matters that concern me. Yet again, arms that have been supplied by British companies are being used against people internally by tyrants, and weapons that British companies have sold to Libya will probably be used against our own troops. We need to review that again and look at our policy on the arms trade,

The Arab world is going through revolutionary change, with uprisings in country after country, and we must look at the issue in that context. I of course support all those struggling for democracy and against tyrants and have always been appalled by the actions of Gaddafi. I fully understand the unwillingness to stand aside while the innocent are being slaughtered and so have every sympathy with those who feel that we must intervene. However, I have concerns about what we will actually be supporting the Government to do if we vote in favour of the motion. That is partly because the conflict is taking place in north Africa and previous interventions in that part of the world, including the middle east, have been very difficult for the west and inspired huge amounts of hatred towards it. The debate might be quite different if the conflict was taking place in a different part of the world.

I am also concerned because I genuinely fear that we might be entering what could be a long war. The wording of the UN resolution is very wide, and the reference to “all necessary measures” in some ways gives a blank cheque to the powers taking action. In other ways, however, it probably does not give those taking action the ability to do what they really need to do in Libya. We could easily end up being involved in a very long conflict but with Gaddafi remaining in power.

Although I find the issue difficult and think that there are many potential difficulties, as has been highlighted by colleagues on both sides of the House, I think that the key to the decisions we take over the coming period must be our relationships not only with Arab states, but with Arab peoples. Like many colleagues, I am particularly interested in what the Muslim and Arab communities in this country are saying at the moment and what Arab states and peoples will be saying over the coming period. In my short contribution, I wish to encourage Members on the Treasury Bench to listen to the messages coming from the middle east and north Africa, which should be taken on board when key strategic decisions are made.

I have deep concerns about this action and particularly about how long this war might last. We must look at it in the context of the war on terror. My fear is that if we continue with military action, particularly if it is conducted over an extended period by western powers, we might be giving ammunition to the fundamentalists in the middle east and the Arab world whose values are very different from those held by us in this House.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Immediately after the 1986 bombing of Tripoli there were an estimated 12 coups against Colonel Gaddafi. He is deeply despised by the Libyan armed forces. Does the hon. Lady not share my confidence that, given an equal footing and western intervention, he will soon be toppled by his own people?

[Katy Clark]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s contribution and very much hope that he is correct. We must be very alert to the extent to which what we are seeing in Libya is a genuine uprising by all the people or a civil war. When we look at what has happened in Iraq in particular, and also in Afghanistan, we will see that many in the west do not understand the tribal loyalties, but we must be very alert to them.

I have deep concerns about what is happening and very much hope, as the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) has indicated, that it will lead quickly to the overthrow of Gaddafi. Like many people in this country, I am concerned that that might not be straightforward, because previous conflicts have not been. There will be serious political and financial implications if the House decides to endorse the Government’s motion. Domestically, we are seeing huge cuts in public spending, including spending on military equipment. We need to think carefully about the extent to which our constituents will feel that a long and expensive war, which follows on from previous conflicts, is something that they will support Parliament in pursuing. It is important that we take all those factors into account. I welcome the fact that this debate is taking place and that the Government are putting resources into looking at what is happening in the region, but I have concerns that, even if those taking the decisions do so with the best intentions, there might be consequences that we will live to regret.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Daniel Kawczynski Excerpts

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I am afraid I completely disagree with the Minister’s interpretation of events over the past few months. I wholeheartedly congratulate their lordships on the process they have engaged in, and I make no apologies for the fact that Labour MPs have been holding the Government to account in this House, or for the fact that in the House of Lords there are people who were elected previously and who are able to bring a degree of expertise to the debates when discussing elections.

I note that yesterday Sky News was reporting that the Prime Minister, David Cameron, would take revenge on Labour peers. Bring it on. In legislation on the reform of the national health service, the reform of schools and public services that everybody depends on, Labour peers down the other end will do as robust a job as they have done on the Bill. If there was anything that showed that the Government have not been acting entirely in good faith, it is today’s programme motion, which allows only four hours for 104 amendments to be considered, including the time taken for votes.

I am not sure that my interpretation of what has happened is the same as the Government’s. I say to all hon. Members in all seriousness that I fear that many Members who end up voting for the Bill will regret the day that they did so. The Government have bulldozed their way through every convention so far, ludicrously combining two pieces of legislation that should never have been in one Bill—only because that was a way of keeping the coalition together—pushing forward with no pre-legislative scrutiny of a measure that had no electoral mandate, curtailing debate in this House, for the first time ever threatening the guillotine in the House of Lords, then packing the Lords with pliant new Conservative and Lib Dem Members every day and suspending all the normal rules in the House of Lords.

We will rue the way in which the Bill was pushed through and the legislation itself, because we are not legislating on the basis of long-term democratic health for this country, or on the basis of sound principle, but solely so as to meet the partisan needs of the coalition.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be suffering from a certain amount of amnesia. When his party was in office in the previous Parliament, there was guillotining all over the place.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman sometimes suffers from amnesia himself. I was talking about guillotines in the Lords. It has been a fundamental principle of the constitutional settlement in this country that the House of Lords is a self-governing House and never has a programme motion.

When there was a Labour Government of just one political party, we never had a majority in the House of Lords. By virtue of how the Government are progressing at the moment, with a large number of new peers being appointed—117 since the general election—they are approaching the point at which they will have an absolutely majority in this House and the other House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Kawczynski]

The hon. Gentleman is being cynical. If the people of Acton Burnell, who are in my constituency, wish to remain there, they can feed that information through to me and I will put that view at the public meeting.

[Chris Bryant]

I am impressed by the hon. Gentleman and I am sure that all views expressed by anybody in his constituency should undoubtedly, at all times, be expressed solely through him. However, there is another version of democracy, whereby sometimes people disagree with their local Member of Parliament and might want to adopt a different position.

EU Council and North Africa

Daniel Kawczynski Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I did have discussions with Baroness Ashton about this, it was also discussed around the table and I had a very good meeting with Hillary Clinton in Munich. Obviously, there are concerns that instability in Egypt will make progress on the middle east peace process more difficult, but I strongly believe that we should not take our eye off the ball and that we should keep the pressure up—that means pressure on both sides. It means pressure on Israel to make progress on issues such as settlements and pressure on the Palestinians to return to meaningful talks. Britain will play a very key role in this, and I commend Baroness Ashton for her work.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

Trade between the United Kingdom and north African countries has historically been lamentable; we are way down the list on bilateral trade compared with our European partners. Will the Prime Minister do more to make sure that UK Trade & Investment plays a leading role in helping British companies to increase trade with countries such as Tunisia and Egypt to support democracy there?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a good point and the Foreign Secretary will be going to Tunisia later today. We want to have good trading relationships with those countries, but that should never be bought at the price of trading off our values. We should have had a clearer red line about what was and was not appropriate, but Britain has to trade itself out of recession and links with fast-growing countries all over the world are absolutely what we are trying to put together.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Daniel Kawczynski Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

I would like to have such faith. My faith in the Conservative party’s ability to pursue its own interests and survival and to consume other, minor parties—mainly ones beginning with ‘L’—is always high. My faith in the Liberal Democrat party’s ability to secure its own survival was never particularly strong and has completely plummeted following the coalition deal. Shortly after the election, a Conservative peer told me—literally licking his lips at the prospect—of how he would happily predict that the parliamentary Liberal Democrat party would go the same way as previous Liberal parties, once they had been embraced by the suffocating hug of the Conservative party, and disappear for a number of decades into oblivion. I am glad to see that the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) is, if not quite licking his lips, smiling in approbation at the prospect.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman neglects to mention the Lib-Lab pact in the late ’70s, which I am sure he will remember, and that the Liberals got through unscathed.

[Mr Straw]

But the pact was not with the Conservative party. Sadly, in some ways, the Labour party is far less ruthless than the Conservative party when it comes to worrying about its own survival. I am happy to discuss the details and the highways and byways of the Lib-Lab pact, because I worked as a special adviser, as they were pompously called and, I think, still are, to the great Peter Shore at the time—and necessary it was, too. In those days, at least the Liberals had some sense of which side they were on, but they have abandoned even that idea since.

I shall speak specifically to amendment 4 in the name of the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) and many of my right hon. and hon. Friends, which would delete clause 2(1)(c), the measure providing the two-thirds trigger for a Dissolution. The hon. Lady made a slip of the tongue that, as often with such slips, held a revealing truth. She talked of a motion of “no consequences”, rather than a motion of no confidence, and, apart from the fact that I object to the idea of special majorities in the House, it seems to me that the trigger is wholly redundant, unnecessary and, indeed, offends the role of the House in holding the Executive to account. Now that the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives have had to abandon the completely naked idea of a 55% trigger, which would have enabled the most extraordinary circumstances to arise, they should abandon the provision before us, including the two-thirds trigger, altogether.

The provision was included in the Bill as a copy-out from sections 3 and 46 of the Scotland Act 1998. The Deputy Prime Minister first tried to make up the arguments for the measure on the hoof, and somebody pointed out to him that such a trigger existed in the 1998 Act. He suggested that it was a completely rigid trigger, and that the only way in which an election for the Scottish Parliament could be called was by a two-thirds majority of every MSP. Closer examination of sections 3 and 46 of the 1998 Act shows that that is simply not the case, however.

Section 3 does, indeed, provide for an early election if

“two-thirds of the total number”

of MSPs vote for one or, as subsection (1)(b) goes on to state, if

“any period during which the Parliament is required…to nominate one of its members…as First Minister ends without such a nomination being made.”

Under section 46, the First Minister’s nomination is by a simple majority. If it transpires that nobody in the Scottish Parliament can command a simple majority—in other words that no confidence in either party is declared and the Government in Scotland cannot continue—there is by virtue of that fact an election, and that is entirely right.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Daniel Kawczynski Excerpts

Monday 25th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

Well, the hon. Gentleman should be. He carries himself as if he were right honourable—if not most reverend as well.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

He was magisterial.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

I agree. That is why I have been trying to argue that Members such as the hon. Gentleman who have taken a long-standing interest in constitutional issues should feel free not necessarily to vote with their Front Benchers. I know that he has already exercised that right on several occasions.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

The hon. Gentleman says that having a large group of PPSs will make it more difficult to hold the Government to account, but some might argue that when Mr Blair was Prime Minister it was the rebellion among PPSs threatening to resign that finally forced him to go.

[Chris Bryant]

I know too much about that episode to want to divulge exactly what went on. The hon. Gentleman is a PPS now, is he not?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Yes.

[Chris Bryant]

Right, but he is not yet listed on any publicly available list of PPSs. [Interruption.] Well, I am sure that the country is grateful and that people will welcome the hon. Gentleman with acclaim and instantly start putting up red and white bunting in honour of his historical associations with Poland.

My point is that the payroll vote has increased. It has increased because of the dramatic increase in the number of PPSs, which partly happened under our rule but I think is happening again at the moment. The increased payroll vote is not just because of that, though. It is also because of unpaid Ministers. I was an unpaid Minister for a while and sympathise with the Deputy Leader of the House, who is one now. We now also have a particularly interesting concept, which is a Liberal Democrat Whip who is not even an unpaid Minister but an organiser of the Liberal Democrats, but who is sort of on the payroll as part of the ministerial team. Clearly, because their job has the word “Whip” in it, they are expected to vote with the Government at all times.

In addition, a vast extent of patronage is still available to Prime Ministers. They can make Members chair an ad hoc committee or ask them to be a delegate to some conference here or there. The whole business of patronage can be profoundly dangerous to how we do our business. I have already referred to how that applies to Opposition parties.

I will be warm towards the Government briefly and say that they have made some moves to remove one element of that patronage, which we had suggested before and for which I remember fighting when Robin Cook was Leader of the House. They have done that through the election of Select Committee Chairs. That has been entirely beneficial and I support it fully. I can see at least one Committee Chair in his place, and he is a splendid chap. He might not have become Chair of that Committee if it had been a matter of patronage, or if he had become Chair by virtue of patronage, he might not have felt so free to use his voice in these debates over the past few days. He has pointed in the direction of the new politics, but we can still go much further.

Of course we must consider the financial costs of ministerial office that can be saved, although I do not want to go too far down the populist route attached to that. Sometimes it is valuable to have Ministers who are properly supported and can do their job well. When I was in the Foreign Office it had only three Ministers in the House of Commons, which made it very difficult for foreign delegations to be met by a Minister from the Foreign Office. I do not know whether that did the United Kingdom any favours. I do not wish to adopt every populist measure that is thrown in front of us, or to kick it in the net, but I do want to ensure that the House has sufficient Members with Back-Bench independence to be able to hold the Executive to account.

Many of those who have made the most significant contributions to the House over the centuries have not only never sought ministerial office but actively declined it, from Andrew Marvell, who turned down office on five or six occasions, to Plimsoll, Bradlaugh and a series of others. They made dramatic changes to the lives of many ordinary people in this country, and they did not need ministerial office to do it. They were able to do it from the Back Benches.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

Again, the hon. Gentleman seeks to draw me back to debates that we have had on other parts of the Bill. However, I repeat that I do not think that there is a simple arithmetical relationship between the number of Ministers in the Government and the number of Members in this House, other than the view, which is my view and that of right hon. and hon. Friends, that we need to reduce the scope of Government patronage. That is something in which we are already engaged.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

My hon. Friend made a very important point a few moments ago about the staggering number of special advisers that the previous Labour Administration had. I believe that they even had one for timber products and for rain forests, as well as having special envoys for Cyprus and for Sri Lanka. It is slightly hypocritical of the Labour party to accuse us of patronage of this kind when there was so much in their Government.

[Mr Heath]

Well, the hon. Gentleman must not tempt me into spelling out in graphic detail the degree to which what the Labour party is now saying is the opposite of what it did in government, but of course it is the case.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Daniel Kawczynski Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield]

I accept that point entirely. On the calculation of unregistered households in my constituency, I estimate that there are about 25,000 people who are eligible to vote but who would not be counted into the constituency on the basis of a strict redefinition of boundaries by the electoral register. I think that we should—

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

Take your hand out of your pocket when you address the Chamber.

[Paul Blomfield]

I apologise for any offence that I have caused the hon. Gentleman, but I think it would be more useful to focus on the issues under debate. In that context, I want to support amendment 125, which provides for the Boundary Commission to develop a much more accurate assessment of numbers, drawing on information from the Office for National Statistics. I would have preferred it if amendment 229 was also being considered, as that specifically covered census information and would have provided another excellent way of redrawing boundaries.