Virtual Participation in Debate
Debate between Lord Beamish and Valerie Vaz(4 years ago)
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Valerie Vaz
I agree with the hon. Member. He will know how important it is for people with other responsibilities that there is a different way of voting. The motion states:
“The Speaker shall draw up and publish a scheme to permit Members who are certified by a medical practitioner as clinically extremely vulnerable (or equivalent) according to relevant official public health guidance issued in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, to participate virtually in such debates as are designed for virtual participation by the Speaker.”
Why is a certificate required? Hon. Members are not children. We are not going to school with a sick note. The Leader of the House has frequently said that he has needed that for PE, even though—we hope—one of his children might well play for England at cricket. It is concerning that hon. Members who are serious and want to take part in proceedings have to produce a certificate from a general practitioner.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is also incredibly sensitive? Many Members may have a mental condition that is possibly not known to constituents or even to family members. Why should they have to divulge that? I have no problem personally with this, but particularly with mental health conditions, people may want not to make that widely known. Why should they have to do that?
Valerie Vaz
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I have frequently asked from this Dispatch Box, during the urgent questions and debates that we have had on this issue from the start, why on earth we should have to do that. We are all equal; we are all hon. Members. We were all elected on 12 December, equally. Why should we have to produce something to say that we wish to take part in basic proceedings and our basic democratic rights?
Valerie Vaz
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I know how assiduous he is in his work as the Chair of a Select Committee. That is a key point, is it not? Chairs of Select Committees cannot be here. I do not think it is our business to say who can be here and who cannot be here. All Members have to be treated equally. As the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) said, there is a hierarchy of hon. Members and we have strived not to have that hierarchy in this House.
Let me go back to the motion and deal with the point relating to “clinically extremely vulnerable”. This is not a happy way to deal with right hon. and hon. Members. It places them in a difficult situation. It is not that they do not want to be here, but that they cannot be here. It is about what they say about their families. They do not want to bring their families into debates. They do not want to bring their families into the limelight or to this place. They want to keep them away from it. However, hon. Members are having to say— sometimes in public, Madam Deputy Speaker—why they cannot be here and they are having to bring their families into it. I say that, because the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay cannot be here. He tabled the amendment, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). He co-signed the amendment and he cannot be here for a very, very good reason.
Mr Kevan Jones
The motion from the Leader of the House refers to Members who are clinically extremely vulnerable, but I know of at least one case in my own region where a Member has not been here because her husband is undergoing cancer treatment. She cannot attend because he is very vulnerable. They live in a house that does not have an east wing to enable him to isolate from her. The motion would not cover extreme cases like hers, would it?
Valerie Vaz
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. He hits the nail on the head and explains the difficulties for hon. Members who want to do their job but cannot. They have to make the difficult choice of whether to be here and balance family with their work.
Defence Reform
Debate between Lord Beamish and Valerie Vaz(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Jones
The last Labour Government were committed to looking for efficiencies and reviewing the procurement contracts. So some of the things that were planned would not have been procured, which would have closed that black hole to which the hon. Gentleman refers. [Interruption.] He asks me what the size of the black hole was. He and others have kept saying it is a £38 billion black hole, but if that is the Government’s sole justification for what they are doing, they should have the guts to explain it to the public.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
One of the battalions that recruits from my constituency, 3rd Battalion the Mercian Regiment, is one of only two specialised mechanised infantry battalions. It is due to be disbanded under the current proposals, so is it a proper use of public money for it to be disbanded only for these specialised services to have to be recruited again?
Mr Jones
There are so many leaks coming from the Ministry of Defence, some official and some unofficial, and it is not helping the process. We are seeing a ludicrous situation whereby in order to claim that the headcount of MOD civil servants, in particular, is being reduced, people are being made redundant only then to be rehired as consultants, at huge cost to the taxpayer.
Last month, the Secretary of State told the House that he had brought the MOD budget “back into balance”. Every announcement or decision made by the Government is based on that claim; he says that he has “balanced the defence budget”. However, unless we get hard evidence soon, it will remain impossible for us to believe those claims. Ministers must be honest with our armed forces men and women, who deserve to know the full picture of the MOD budget so that they can understand why they are having to undertake the pain that they are taking under this coalition Government.