Oral Answers to Questions
Ian Murray Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Prime Minister
It is for each party to explain how it wants to see the process of devolution continue in the wake of next year’s referendum. Let us first settle the question of whether Scotland will remain a part of the family of nations that makes up the United Kingdom, and then decide as different parties. Speaking on behalf of my party, we will always be at the forefront of arguing for greater devolution within a United Kingdom.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
T5. The Deputy Prime Minister said, in launching his party’s 2010 green manifesto, that the Tories“talk the talk on green issues only to align themselves with climate deniers”.Will he explain to the hundreds and hundreds of constituents who contacted me why he and his party voted against the decarbonisation target in the Energy Bill?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Gentleman would know if he followed the debate, we will be taking powers to introduce a decarbonisation target when the next carbon budget starts. There are different opinions on this. Some Members suggested recently that we should abolish the Department of Energy and Climate Change—indeed, that we should abolish my office, too—and any mention of climate change. Needless to say, I think they are wrong on all counts.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ian Murray Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
Order. Mr Gray, I was thinking of calling you to ask a question, but if you continue to misbehave, I might not.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
Q8. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree with me, the late Baroness Thatcher, senior Government members on the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, the Liberal Democrat manifesto, the Minister in charge of the Royal Mail and his own Government, and does he still agree with himself, that the privatisation of the Royal Mail is a step too far?
The Deputy Prime Minister
We should welcome the innovative way in which we are seeking to give workers in Royal Mail a stake in the company. The hon. Gentleman’s party used to believed in worker ownership, but as on so many other issues it is still a blank sheet of paper when it comes to public policy of any significance. The Government are moving forward; the Opposition are standing still.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ian Murray Excerpts(12 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
1. When the Government plan to bring forward proposals on the recall of hon. Members.
The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
Happy new year, Mr Speaker.
The Government published our proposals on the recall of MPs last year, and the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee then published its report in June last year. We submitted an interim response reaffirming our commitment to establishing a recall mechanism and are now taking the proper time to reflect on the Committee’s recommendations.
Ian Murray
Happy new year, Mr Speaker. I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for that unvarnished answer. Given that one of the justifications for introducing recall is improved confidence in our democracy, what is his view of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee’s statement:
“We are not convinced that the proposals will increase public confidence in politics”?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The Committee made a number of recommendations about our proposals, but equally it accepted that all parties had made a manifesto commitment to introduce some kind of recall mechanism and acknowledged, as I think everyone does, the difficulty in trying to define serious wrongdoing precisely and determine who should define it and who should set off a trigger for a recall by-election. It is precisely those kinds of difficult dilemmas that we are now trying to address, because we do not want to resile from the commitment to legislate to introduce some kind of recall mechanism.
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I sought to explain to my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) earlier, we are removing one specific, highly discriminatory provision from the law, on the faith of people whom heirs to the throne may marry. That discriminatory provision was introduced in the early years of the 18th century in response to the activities of Louis XIV of France, and I simply do not think it is necessary now in 21st century Britain.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
T10. The Deputy Prime Minister is starting to have the same trait as the Prime Minister of not answering questions. May I try again? Is it not the case that after the vote this evening, 3,900 people in my constituency who claim in-work benefits and do the right thing will be worse off while millionaires get a tax cut of £2,000 a week?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I said before, the Labour rate for top taxpayers was 40p, so the hon. Gentleman needs to justify his support for 13 years for a lower rate applied to millionaires than will be introduced—[Interruption.] I know Opposition Members do not like it, and they are shrieking at the top of their voices, but the record shows that for the whole time of the Labour Government, apart from 30 days towards the end, the upper rate was 40p. We are introducing an upper rate of 45p. That is the first point.
The second point is that I hope the hon. Gentleman would celebrate with his constituents the fact that as of April this year, every single basic rate taxpayer in his constituency will be £600 better off because of the changes in the income tax allowance that we have introduced since the general election.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ian Murray Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
9. What progress he has made on making it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises to win public procurement contracts.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Miss Chloe Smith)
Since the general election we have introduced radical measures to make it easier for SMEs to win Government business. These will support growth and innovation. Gone are barriers like unnecessary pre-qualification questionnaires. New opportunities are published on our contracts finder website and SMEs can challenge obstruction through the mystery shopper service.
Miss Smith
The public procurement policy for central Government is to award contracts on the basis of value for money, which covers a combination of cost and quality, as my hon. Friend would expect. Our mystery shopper service provides an outlet for challenging poor selection requirements, such as those he might have experienced in his constituency. I say once again that value for money is something that the Government like.
Ian Murray
The Minister claims that direct spend with SMEs has increased since the general election, but will she confirm that the recorded increase at the Ministry of Justice, the Department she claims has had the highest increase, is in fact due to officials starting to include small law firms providing legal aid services? Should those not be stripped from the figures?
Miss Smith
I can confirm that the spend on procurement with SMEs has gone up. I say again that it was this Government who bothered to count that spend, unlike those now on the Opposition Benches, and I think that that is something we should be proud of.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ian Murray Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Prime Minister
I receive the hon. Gentleman’s season’s greetings in the spirit in which they were intended. As he knows, appropriate arrangements would be made in that very unfortunate event. I must say, however, that his morbid fascination with the premature death of his own party leader is a subject not for me, but for the Chief Whip.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
T9. Senior high school pupils have just three and a half weeks remaining to submit their applications for university. Does the Deputy Prime Minister think that applications will rise or decrease, given his broken promise on introducing £9,000 tuition fees? What impact does he think that will have on social mobility?
The Deputy Prime Minister
What I, of course, hope is that as people focus on the reality and substance of the new system rather than the misleading polemic about it, they will come to appreciate that at the moment thousands of students on part-time courses, under the system introduced by the hon. Gentleman’s Government, pay fees as students whereas under the new system no student will pay a penny of fees at all while they are studying at university. The method of repayment, which is in effect a form of time-limited graduate tax, is more progressive, not less, than the more regressive system that it seeks to replace.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ian Murray Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Hurd
I am not going to take any lectures on leadership and Big Society Capital from the Opposition, because they talked for 10 years about setting it up but did not actually do it. We are doing it because we want to make it easier for social entrepreneurs to access capital. It is on track, and we are very proud of it.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
8. What steps he is taking to encourage employee mutuals to develop and run central Government services.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
As we set out in the “Open Public Services” White Paper, we are committed to an ambitious programme of mutualisation, allowing staff to break free of bureaucracy and to spin out from the public sector. To support that, we have put in place the mutuals support programme, the mentoring of mutuals by groups such as John Lewis, the mutuals task force chaired by Professor Le Grand and the mutuals information service, and we are increasing the “right to provide” scheme.
Ian Murray
The Minister for the Cabinet Office expects there to be an extra 1 million workers in organisations taking over the running of public services by 2015. Will he update the House on how many he expects to be doing so by the end of this financial year?
Public Services (Social Value) Bill
Ian Murray Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Thomas
My recollection is slightly different; we remember that in the 1980s there were substantial cuts in bus services after privatisation. Arguably, that is not the point. The key point is whether the assets should remain in the ownership of the public sector or, if not, in that of members of the public who are combining in a social enterprise. The asset lock clause seeks to achieve just that.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for allowing me to make a small contribution on this point. The publicly owned bus company in Edinburgh, Lothian Buses, has won bus operator of the year for five of the past 10 years. It is 90% owned by the city of Edinburgh council and 10% owned by each of the surrounding authorities in the Greater Edinburgh area, including Midlothian, East Lothian and West Lothian. That investment in public buses has made it one of the best bus companies in Europe—holding fares down and being responsive to local communities. I wholeheartedly agree with what my hon. Friend has just said.
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend makes the interesting point that public sector-run organisations can be extremely successful and often are extremely efficient. The key issue we focused on in Committee is that when assets are transferred out of the public sector we need to ensure that if they have been built up over the years as a result of taxpayer investment, there will be proper protection for the social value that the assets have generated. My revised definition of social enterprise seeks to achieve that objective.
The last amendment on which I want to focus is amendment 1, as the others are all consequential on the three new clauses. Amendment 1 would ensure that the one part of the original Bill to which we know the Government are committed is widened in scope. The Government want and the Opposition support further reforms to the public procurement process to encourage the Government in their various forms to take account of wider economic, social and environmental well-being in the commissioning process.
Trade Union Officials (Public Funding)
Ian Murray Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Burley
The very simple answer to that is front-line services, not full-time union officials.
The legal background to the matter is that under section 168 in part III of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, a union representative is permitted paid time off for union duties. According to ACAS, those duties relate to anything including the terms and conditions of employment, the physical conditions of workers and matters of trade union membership or non-membership. However, under the same Act, any employee who is a union representative or a member of a recognised trade union is also entitled to unpaid time off to undertake what are called “union activities”, as distinct from duties. As defined by ACAS, union activities can include voting in a union election or attending a meeting regarding union business, but there is no statutory requirement to pay union representatives or members for time spent on union activities. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) is chuntering from a sedentary position, but I cannot hear what he is saying.
Union duties and union activities both fall under the remit of a union representative. Some union representatives are therefore currently being paid for undertaking both activities and duties, and I think that is wrong.
Mr Burley
I will in just one minute.
The upshot of all the extra money provided to the unions is that a huge amount of money is freed up, whether from the direct grants or the union fees, that the unions can use on political campaigns. If their other costs are paid at the taxpayer’s expense, the unions can use the rest of their income for political activities.
Mr Burley
I will not give way.
That would be many people’s preference. By way of an example, the excellent, independent and non-taxpayer funded campaigning website order-order, or the Guido Fawkes blog, has been highlighting the practice of paying union officials out of the taxpayer purse. Following its campaign, full-time taxpayer-funded trade union officials have become known as “Pilgrims” in the media, after Paul Staines exposed one such full-time union rep named Jane Pilgrim as a full-time trade union organiser working in the NHS for Unison. She came to public attention in 2011 after criticising the Government’s health policies. Despite being billed as a nurse, she was found to be a full-time trade union official, being paid £40,000 by the hospital. She is now under investigation by both St George’s hospital and Unison for running a private health consultancy—called The Pilgrim Way—on the side, creating a conflict of interests.
As the website states:
“There is no justification for the taxpayer paying a lobbying organisation to fight for an unsustainable mess in the interests of a vocal minority group. We don’t pay the arms dealers and the tobacco lobbyists’ staffing bills”.
Let us consider this classic example, which was flagged up by none other than the black country’s Express and Star:
“Judy Foster…is employed as an administration officer by the fire service…But for the past seven years the Labour councillor has been devoting all her working time to Unison, representing 280 fire workers…The fire service has now insisted that Councillor Foster…spends half her…time…on fire service duties and half with the union…But Unison has appealed against the offer and says her union work should be full time and funded entirely by the taxpayer.”
My question is why and on what grounds?
Public Confidence in the Media and Police
Ian Murray Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)
I will try to be as brief as possible. The debate is very welcome; it is good for the public to see that we are taking these issues seriously. In the past few weeks we have seen perhaps an unprecedented interest from members of the public, who have suddenly realised, perhaps because of the Milly Dowler situation, exactly what has been going on in some sections of the media.
I want to add a couple of remarks on the family of Milly Dowler. When a scandal becomes associated with the victim of a crime, it is extremely difficult for them to move on and live their lives. I hope that when all these matters are dealt with, that family will recognise that we have tried to do the best thing in their interest and in the interests of other victims of crime, so that they are allowed to move on.
As hon. Members may be aware, I was not able to participate in the evidence given to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee yesterday, but I watched it carefully. I was astonished to hear some of the evidence from both Rebekah Brooks and the Murdochs. By any stretch of the imagination, in the capitalist world, that corporation is a successful one in terms of profit and turnover, but those people simply did not know who had authorised the spending of money at various points. That beggared belief. It also beggars belief that within that system, they could not identify who had authorised illegal payments to the police. It seems that there was no oversight or governance in relation to those payments.
At any time, an intrusion into people’s privacy is a delicate matter. There will be times, in the interests of national security or of tackling serious and organised crime, when intrusions will be made. Hon. Members will know that when those serious actions are taken, a range of measures must be in place. They are right and proper, because responsibilities go with such intrusion. In the interests of allowing the press to conduct investigations and so on, the press must take its responsibility seriously. However, I cannot conceive of a situation in which any reasonable person would say that it is proper for the press to undertake some of the so-called investigations that have been undertaken, or that it is proper for the press to make illegal payments to do so. It worries me when we slip into the shorthand and talk of “hacking” or “blagging”, because “hacking” is accessing people’s private information illegally, sometimes by paying money. The word “hacking” should not slip off the tongue without further consideration. Blagging, of course, is trying to obtain people’s private information—usually financial information such as bank account details—illegally by assuming someone else’s identity.
I mentioned that I found it difficult to understand why nobody in News International seemed to know who had done what. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who asked this question: if News International and News Corp have got so big that nobody knows what is happening, how could they possibly countenance taking on another company and looking after it with any proper governance?
I welcome the inquiries that have been set up and the Prime Minister’s assurance today that the inquiry will cover Scotland. Of course, this is not simply about one part of the UK, and neither is it just about News International, so I welcome the fact that the inquiry will extend to other police forces and that it will look at all newspapers and media. However, I am a bit of a pedant for the detail. The Prime Minister said that “relevant forces” would be included in the police inquiry. In his winding-up speech, will the Minister confirm whether all police forces are relevant in that context?
I asked a question earlier in relation to the Scottish Government, who I am sure will want absolutely to co-operate with the inquiries. I hope that they immediately publish information about their contacts with News International.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
What are my hon. Friend’s thoughts on why the normally robust and vocal First Minister of Scotland has been very quiet on this very serious issue?
Cathy Jamieson
I would never seek to put words into the mouth of the normally loquacious Mr Salmond, the First Minister of Scotland—I am sure he can speak well for himself—but it is important that that information is put into the public domain and that it forms part of the inquiry.
I conclude by making a couple of points about the Press Complaints Commission and whatever will replace it. A member of the public—not a politician, a lawyer or someone involved in this from day to day—who finds themselves on the wrong end of a newspaper report will find it extremely difficult to take that matter up. Whatever we do, we must ensure that the body is accessible to the public.
It will, of course, take time for the inquiries that are under way to report to the House. However, it is important that that does not send the signal that nothing should change in the meantime. I therefore call on all police forces to go through their records to ensure that there has been no illegality regarding the receipt of payments. I also call on newspaper editors and owners to do exactly the same. If they find that illegal payments have been made, they should cease that practice forthwith. If any of their reporters or staff have been involved in so-called blagging, they should make it clear publicly that that illegal operation will cease. Politicians have a role in this, but so do the press and the police. It is up to us all to take our responsibilities seriously so that we give back to the public the confidence that they deserve.
Public Confidence in the Media and Police
Ian Murray Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
There is quite a contrast—let me put it like this—between the speech that the right hon. Gentleman made last week and the evidence that we heard yesterday.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
If the Prime Minister refuses point blank to tell the House the name of the company that vetted Andy Coulson, will he place the documents with regard to that vetting in the Library of the House?
The Prime Minister
Let us be clear. The responsibility for hiring him is mine and mine alone. That is the responsibility I take. The hon. Gentleman might not like the answer, but that is it.