Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Cryer and Lord Pickles

Monday 8th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

I must say that I was very shocked to hear the laughter from the Opposition Benches. I think it is a disgrace that the full panoply of the state should fall on a disabled person in this way. I urge Ealing council to look at the file again right now, to rescind the parking ticket, and to treat that disabled person with a degree of respect.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

Will the Minister make dealing with flooding a statutory duty for all fire services, or at least undertake to consider doing so, and then report to the House?

[Mr Pickles]

I have had an opportunity to see this very close up and am very firmly of the opinion that the way in which this is dealt with now, through gold command, and with the firefighters, the Environment Agency and the police working together, is by far the best system.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Cryer and Lord Pickles

Monday 30th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

That is excellent news; congratulations.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

Can the little Liberal answer the questions that were asked by my hon. Friends the Members for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) and for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), which he failed to do earlier? While he is running around the country trying to reinforce integration, there are people in charge of free schools—Christian and Muslim fundamentalists—who are trying to push their communities in the opposite direction. While I am at it, can I welcome him to the Dispatch Box? It just goes to show where unmitigated grovelling can get people.

Flooding

Debate between Lord Cryer and Lord Pickles

Monday 10th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

I am very familiar with the area to which my right hon. Friend refers, which has a sizeable proportion of holdings below sea level. I know the nature of the river and the historic floods that have taken place around Beverley and across to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) towards York. People have suffered from flooding there in the past and he is right that there is a fear of floods. For years afterwards, people who have been flooded worry every time it rains. It is almost like being burgled: it is not just cleaning up the mess, but the psychological damage. The Government have a responsibility to ensure that residents are kept dry and that we do all we can to alleviate flooding. As my right hon. Friend rightly points out, we were playing, very heavily, catch-up.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State now answer the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and tell us what assessment he has made of making flood attendance a statutory duty on fire services? If he has not made that assessment, will he do so and then report back to the House?

[Mr Pickles]

That is contained within the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, with the local resilience forum. With enormous respect to the hon. Gentleman, I saw in Croydon what I have seen at all major incidents: a number of services working together very well. The local resilience forum, as I saw today in Croydon, is an exemplar of the way to do things. Making this a statutory duty would not help anything and would not make a single community safer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Cryer and Lord Pickles

Monday 20th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

Of course I agree with my hon. Friend. I believe that the trust is doing a series of films, and organising events, where the children of holocaust survivors are taking up witness. One of the most effective things I have ever seen was a film where the daughter of a holocaust survivor took up her father’s testimony. When he was a child, his mother had said, as her final parting to him, “I have lived a long life. You’ve barely started. Do what you need to survive.” It occurred to me that not only was the voice of the father being heard; we were also hearing the voice of a grandmother whom the daughter had never met. That is the final victory over Hitler and over the obscenity of Nazism.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

I agree with everything that the hon. Member for Watford (Richard Harrington) has just said about the Holocaust Educational Trust. Will the Secretary of State continue a close working relationship with the trust and with Karen Pollock in the future, because for many decades they have done exactly the sort of work mentioned in the question on the Order Paper?

[Mr Pickles]

I am happy to give that assurance. Karen Pollock has done a remarkable job in casting fresh light on not only the holocaust that took place in Europe, but on Cambodia and Rwanda. One of the key focuses of the Prime Minister’s holocaust commission will be to ensure that what happened in the holocaust is not forgotten when survivors are no longer able to give personal testimony.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Cryer and Lord Pickles

Monday 20th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

I am delighted to tell my hon. Friend that a survey by one of the trade papers showed that chief executives’ salaries have dropped by 14%. In my view, that is certainly a very good start. We have asked chief executives who are earning more than £150,000 to take a 5% cut, and those earning more than £200,000 to take a cut too. They need to do that so they can look their front-line staff in the eye when taking these difficult decisions.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that the level of transparency being applied to the public sector should also apply to the private sector, and how can that be achieved?

[Mr Pickles]

That is a matter for companies and their shareholders. However, I am sure that somebody who has been a champion of the low-paid, such as the hon. Gentleman, will be very pleased that we are extending that transparency. It will apply not only to highly paid people but to low-paid people in the public sector, so that we can clearly see the level of remuneration that local authority workers receive.