General Election Television Debates

Debate between Gregory Campbell and Greg Clark

Wednesday 11th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

The hon. Gentleman will have his chance.

The Leader of the Opposition does not want the scrutiny of other party leaders, including the leaders of other parties who are entitled to their say—the point that the right hon. Member for Belfast North made.

The Leader of the Opposition has already had his chance. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was debating with him again today. I have calculated that they have spent nearly 40 hours facing each other across this very Dispatch Box over the past four and a bit years. The latest instalment of this long-running televised head-to-head debate took place just a few minutes ago, and it will continue up to the moment that Parliament is dissolved. I can understand that the Leader of the Opposition might like one more chance to get it right—he tends not to come off the better in these head-to-head debates—but if it has not happened yet, I suspect it never will.

I read in the papers that the latest wheeze from the official Opposition is a law to make the TV debates mandatory. It is hard to know where to begin, or where the legal action from excluded parties would end. If participation in the debates is to be made compulsory, then, goodness me, are we to make watching them compulsory too, as part of the edification of voters? Indeed, it sometimes seems that the Opposition’s way of thinking is: why achieve anything through voluntary action when we can use the power of the state to enforce our will? It is very revealing of the instincts of the Labour party that, faced with a difficulty, it reaches for legislation and compulsion rather than agreeing a consensual way forward. In making this ludicrous proposal, the Labour leader has done more to reveal the likely chaos that would ensue from the election of a Labour Government than any number of debates could achieve.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

On voluntary or compulsory participation, does the Minister agree that the ideal solution would be some form of independent commission for the next election five years hence, which every party is obligated to agree to, and with fairness as the essence of the decision about how the debate would be constructed? In that way, no one would have any excuse for running away from the debate.

[Greg Clark]

I listened with respect to the proposal from the right hon. Member for Belfast North and his party. I understand the frustration they feel and why they are proposing this, but it is rather late in the day. I put on record my concern that compelling voluntary organisations to participate is not in the spirit of the way we have conducted these things. I accept the spirit in which the proposal has been made, however, and I do not think the intention is to put this on the statute book, but rather to explore the issues.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gregory Campbell and Greg Clark

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is right. It is important that we make sure that our young people have the skills available, and the expansion of the apprenticeship programme is a key feature of that. It is important to send the right message to young people, which is that there is a 90% chance that a young person who joins the jobseeker’s allowance scheme will have a job within a year, and a 60% chance that they will have a job within three months. It is very important that that message gets out and that young people should not be demoralised by the Labour party.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

In parts of the United Kingdom that are highly dependent on the public sector, such as Northern Ireland, does the Minister agree that we need to maximise the private sector to ensure that the hard core of young people who are unemployed get into skills and training programmes so that when jobs become available they are best placed to get them?

[Greg Clark]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. What he says for Northern Ireland applies to the rest of the country as well, and that is what we are pursuing with our policies.