Making Britain the Best Place to Grow Up and Grow Old

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Paul Beresford

Monday 16th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)]

I must congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mrs Hamilton) on her speech, which she delivered with such feeling. I was sitting here waiting for clapping from the Gallery above—she must warn people not to do that, but she would have deserved it. Her speech was absolutely brilliant.

Given the time strictures, I will touch on just one little Bill. It would not be hard for people to work out that it is a trade Bill—the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill, which will help to make Britain the best place in which to live. There is great kith and kin support between the United Kingdom and the antipodes. Most of my parents’ generation used to talk about this country as home, even if they had never been here. Many a New Zealand coffee table of that generation displayed a copy of one of those amazing books of beautiful photographs of the United Kingdom. The amazing thing was that they were all taken on a sunny day!

The deal with New Zealand and Australia is the UK’s first new free trade agreement since leaving the European Union. It is long overdue. New Zealand and Australia were sore when we went into the Common Market. I am a member of the UK National Farmers Union and, locally, there has been some concern about the deal as both Australia and New Zealand are agricultural juggernauts. The biggest dairy farmer in my Mole Valley constituency has about 350 cows. I think my largest sheep farmer probably has about 1,000 sheep. A couple of dairy farmers in the north of the South Island are milking 1,500 and 2,500 cows. The farm I left to come here, after lambing, had 30,000 sheep. Fortunately, the balance of timing means that we can work together. Moreover, the New Zealand NFU equivalent is looking to work with our farmers to assist in fulfilling some of the bids going into Europe.

The economic opportunities under the agreement will be considerable across a range of sectors and businesses. Any visitor to New Zealand or Australia will be struck by the fact that cars, trucks, and agricultural machinery—I do not just mean tractors—are dominated by south-east Asia, particularly by Japan. There is a desire to buy British trucks, cars and so on, but they are too expensive. The tariff change should give us an opportunity, but we need to get in there. I have been urging the appropriate Minister to get onto the manufacturers and to promote our goods in Australia and New Zealand. I have already suggested a campaign and have offered to translate. I hope that with the Government stimulating our industries we will get in there, open the doors and work towards going into the trans-Pacific partnership.

Given the time limit, I will stop at that point, but I reiterate that I am willing to help and need to help. This is an opportunity for huge sales to make Britain the best place in which to live.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

The hon. Gentleman has been exemplary in watching the time limit but, although he has set such an excellent example, I am just going to make sure that everyone else adheres to the five minutes by setting a formal time limit. It is still five minutes, which is a long time if you speak quickly.

Local Government (Disqualification) Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Paul Beresford

Report stage
Friday 14th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Paul Beresford]

I will be very succinct. I have mentioned the taxi cab, and I can hear it behind me—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman might like to ask the leave of the House.

[Sir Paul Beresford]

My apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker. After all this time, I should have remembered that. I ask the leave of the House to say a few words.

I thank the Minister for her support, and I am grateful for the support from right across the House. Even my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) is behind the Bill, although he was going to add all sorts of thorns to it—much, I think, to the dismay of local government. My hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) and the Minister mentioned MPs. If my hon. Friend had spent some time on the Standards Committee, he would have heard of the ghastly accusation of bringing the House into disrepute. That would apply to any MP in this situation, and the door would be shown to them.

I thank everybody again, and I hope that the Bill will progress swiftly through the other place, led by another ex-leader of Wandsworth Council.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Points-based Immigration System

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Paul Beresford

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I appreciate that the Home Secretary is providing full answers to very serious questions, but the House will have to forgive her if she gives quicker answers, and not criticise her for not providing full explanations; otherwise, everyone will not get a chance to speak—they will probably not get a chance to speak anyway.

[Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)]

I welcome the move that is being promoted today. As an ethnic minority immigrant who came here to work in the national health service, that is to be expected. After I arrived here, the system changed. There are now opportunities for all Commonwealth English-speaking—well, sort of English-speaking—people from the top universities in the old Commonwealth. Should we not be campaigning to bring them here especially for our national health service?

Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Paul Beresford

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Wednesday 18th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)]

I am delighted to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith). I can offer him the name of an extremely competent hypnotherapist who will help him through his flight problems, if he would like. With a special word, she will keep her fee to about half the normal one.

I support the Bill for all the positive reasons that everyone has given, but I have an additional personal reason for doing so. About two summers back, I was undertaking a parliamentary police course with the Met police. Late on one pleasant summer evening, I was a passenger in a Met police helicopter flying over Kingston, close to the Heathrow flight path. All of a sudden, the pilot shouted, “Duck, laser beam!” He swung the helicopter round through 90° so that the light could not come into the cabin, but before that had happened, unfortunately, the light had hit my left eye. The point has been made that this dazzles, but it does more than that—it damaged my eye.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) pointed out, these police helicopters have fantastic cameras. The film is put up on to a screen which, in effect, has the “A-Z” on it. We hovered around and guided two police cars, which were carrying four police officers. Two of them went in the front door of this individual’s property and two went over the fence at the back. They collected the gentleman with his laser beam—I am exaggerating when I call him a “gentleman”. It was just like the movies.

As this individual was collected by the police, another voice broke in over the air traffic radio. It was the voice of a pilot on an incoming Virgin jumbo jet, which presumably had hundreds of passengers on board. He said, “I have broken in to say thank you. It happens to us as we come into Heathrow time after time after time, and they don’t get caught.”

The following day, I attended a clinic at the Moorfields Eye Hospital, where I was informed that my eye had been damaged, but that it would heal. As I have said, these lasers do not just dazzle; they do damage to the eyes. Wherever someone is, if they are hit by one of these lights, they get their eye damaged.

I found it astonishing that anyone would be stupid enough to deliberately risk damaging another person’s eye, let alone that of a pilot in a plane or helicopter flying over a tightly built-up area such as Kingston. Additionally, I am amazed to find that police helicopters are targeted. I would have thought that people would have to be remarkably stupid to do that, particularly knowing that these cameras are there; the word “Police” is written right along the helicopter and this person must have seen it. So stupidity reigned, and that resulted in this person being collected.

Beyond that is a point that has been made several times: I am staggered that anybody would want to damage the eyesight of a pilot of a passenger plane running into Heathrow, as this Virgin plane was. As I said, there will have been hundreds of people on that plane, and if that idiot had targeted the pilots, he could have damaged the landing of that aircraft, with the potential loss of hundreds of lives.

I was not told the name of the individual, because I would have liked to have paid him a visit. On seeing the film—my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby mentioned this—he pleaded guilty, but the fine was not effective enough. The Bill will help to address that, so I have my own special reason for supporting it. [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Will there be more speeches with such impact as the one we have just heard?

House of Commons (Administration)

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Paul Beresford

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to consolidate and amend provisions about the House of Commons Members’ Fund; and to make provision about the House of Commons resources estimates.

This is not a Government Bill or a Government hand-out Bill; it is a minor House of Commons management Bill. The Bill is not new: there were at least two similar private Members’ Bills in the last Parliament, which fell owing to lack of time.

I suspect few Members will be aware of the fund, apart from through the note of a small monthly deduction to be seen on their monthly Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority pay slip. The fund was established before the second world war, when there was no parliamentary pension to help former Members who had fallen into financial difficulties. It has been used to top up pensions for widows of Members who left the House when widows received a lower entitlement, and for a few isolated cases of hardship of former Members.

As the House will recognise from that description, as time has passed the demand has dropped. In the last financial year, payments worked out at £137,000, but the fund has grown to a considerable £7 million. At present, the fund is drawn from compulsory contributions from Members, earnings from its investments and an annual contribution from the Treasury of £215,000. That compares with Members’ contributions of £15,000 per year.

The Bill will remove the requirement under existing primary legislation for Members to make monthly contributions of £2. In effect, the trustees will be empowered to cease deducting contributions. Given the figures I have just stated, they intend to do so immediately, since the fund has, to put it simply, a considerable surplus. However, the Bill enables the trustees to recommend resumption of contributions, if needed, up to a maximum of 0.2% of pay. The trustees can, if they agree, return any surplus funds to the Treasury. The trustees have requested this particular discretion.

The Bill will extend the class of beneficiaries to assist all dependants of former Members who experience severe hardships. It will also remove the requirement for trustees to be current MPs. I am sure the House would agree that it seems sensible for the trustees to ask, for example, the Association of Former Members of Parliament to nominate one trustee. In addition, that will enable the trustees to get over the problem that arises when, at a general election, a number of Members who are trustees lose their seats. The Bill will allow such former MPs to remain as trustees temporarily, until they are formally replaced.

For efficiency reasons, the Bill will amalgamate various Acts governing the fund to create a comprehensive set of governing legislation. That will remove unnecessary or outdated costs, procedures and restrictions, and provide a streamlined service with reduced costs.

Finally, clause 10 will amend the description of the House of Commons administration estimates set out in the House of Commons (Administration) Act 1978. This amendment will enable the House to merge the administration and Members estimates into one at some future date, if that is deemed desirable. That decision would be taken by the House of Commons Commission, subject to discussions with the Treasury. There is cross-party and trustee support for this small tiding-up Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Sir Paul Beresford, Mr Nicholas Brown, Mr Peter Lilley, Mr Clive Betts and David Mowat present the Bill.

Sir Paul Beresford accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 4 December, and to be printed (Bill 91).

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

We now come to the Opposition day motion—I am purposely speaking rather slowly, but I cannot go much more slowly than this—in the name of the Leader of the Opposition.