House of Lords: Allowance

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, I realise that I am unlikely to win the popularity stakes in your Lordships’ Chamber by the comments that I am about to make—but, having exhausted all other opportunities available to persuade those who hold offices in this House to change this system of allowances, I feel that I have no other alternative but to say a few words in this debate.

In 2010, shortly after I was introduced to your Lordships’ House, the system of allowances was changed. I have to say today that I am opposed to this Motion on two grounds. First, I am opposed to the increase; that will certainly not make me very popular. I do not believe that £300 tax-free, available to every Member of this House indiscriminately, is justifiable in terms of public opinion or the public purse. Secondly, I am opposed to it because it entrenches the discrimination that was introduced into the system in 2010.

For those Members of your Lordships’ House who have been introduced since 2010, I will remind the House of what the allowances were back then. The day allowance, which is effectively the equivalent of the £300, was £86.50. It was introduced for the majority of Members of the House, who went from £86.50 to £300 overnight. There was an office allowance—a secretarial allowance—of £75, available to all Members, and there was an overnight allowance of £174 for Members who lived outside London. That was a total of £335.50 for those Members who could legitimately claim the overnight allowance because they lived outside London and were paying sometimes up to £200 a night for a hotel in London.

In 2010, that was changed to £300 for every Member of the House, available every day that the House sat. The Members who lived outside London received a reduction of £35.50; the Members who lived inside London—even with the ending of the secretarial allowance—received an increase of £138.50. That system continues to exist today and is entrenched by the report of the House of Lords Commission that is in front of us. It was basically introduced because leaders in your Lordships’ House assumed that it was impossible to police a system that relied on the trust of Members living in London not to illegitimately claim an overnight allowance to which they were not entitled. So those who were legitimately incurring costs through living outside of London were effectively penalised because people who lived in London—it was perceived—could not be trusted. That is a shocking state of affairs: it should have been dealt with long before now.

There have been assurances again and again over the last eight years that, if there was any change at all to the allowance system, the first change would be to rectify this anomaly. The impact of this anomaly is clear: there are Members here today, in your Lordships’ House, who have moved their residence from outside London to inside London solely for financial reasons, because of the impact of the allowances scheme. People who were introduced in 2010, 2011 and 2012—because they lived outside London and because of the desire of the then Prime Minister and others to bring in more people from outside London to your Lordships’ House—have moved to London since then. There are Members here who have an incentive to move to London, when the incentive should be to increase the geographical diversity of this House: to get people here from the devolved Parliaments who have not served in Westminster and to get people here who spent their working lives in Northern Ireland, Wales, the north of England, the south-west and Scotland. This system acts as a disincentive to that objective. All the political parties say that they have that as an objective, and yet they will not take the one simple step, based on receipts, that would make a difference. So I am opposed to this report because it entrenches that discrimination: it is an unjust system and it is a disincentive to greater diversity in this House at a time when, I hazard to suggest, it is deeply needed.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, you can agree with my noble friend on the anomaly he highlights and the unfair system that penalises those who live—and remain living—distances from London, and still be in favour of passing the Motion this afternoon. They are not mutually exclusive. It is perfectly feasible to recognise that after eight years, a modest increase in the allowance is justified whether the media mislead the public or not about your Lordships’ House, and to want to look at changes in the future. I encourage my noble friend to support what is put forward by the Leader of the House this afternoon and then to work with others on seeing whether we can have a watertight system.

There are many other anomalies. One of the things we should greatly encourage is to get the work of this House better known and better connected across the United Kingdom. One small measure in that regard would be to pay the same allowance for activities outside this House that are paid when they take place inside the House. In other words, we do not discriminate, for instance, against committees that take themselves out of London to find out how the real world lives out there.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, I back my noble friend Lord Blunkett, and I have total sympathy with the concerns that were raised by my noble friend Lord McConnell and, indeed, by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, although perhaps he did so in a gentler way. As Members on all sides will know, I have raised this issue on a number of occasions. I pay tribute to the Lord Speaker—I hope that this does not sound too gratuitous and crawling; it is absolutely genuine—who agreed to meet a deputation of all parties and the Cross Benches, which I had the privilege of taking to him to make the arguments, including the argument my noble friend Lord McConnell made. The Lord Speaker has been working with deft diplomacy behind the scenes, and the result is what we have achieved today. It is the first step towards getting these considerations dealt with properly, and I look forward to meeting the Lord Speaker afterwards, with a deputation, to raise other issues that need resolving, particularly those raised by my noble friend Lord McConnell. I hope that on that basis, my noble friend will not vote against this. As my noble friend Lord Blunkett said, it is a small step in the right direction.

Palace of Westminster: Restoration and Renewal

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased and privileged to follow the former Leader of the House and to endorse her congratulations on the enormous amount of work that has taken place to get us to this point. I will not go down the road that she started on in relation to organs outside the body, but it is clear to all of us that the substantive Motion is the only one that will deal with the challenge ahead of us. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, talked about the disruption about which we are all extremely aware and—many of us—very apprehensive. If there was ever an example of why the Burns committee should be embraced by Downing Street it is restoration and renewal. Maintaining the balance in this House will require the kinds of recommendations that the Burns committee came up with in terms of the way in which people will perceive their future.

I am pleased that the Motion before us recognises the importance of accessibility for visitors with disabilities and special needs, although that is also true of those working in the Palace of Westminster and will be in the future, and of the important role of the Education Service, which is close to my heart. I hope that both the sponsor board and the delivery authority will also take account of the fact that this will be a very major infrastructure programme, using very large amounts of public money, and that it will be really important to reach out across the country so that the economic benefit that comes from that investment can be shared by the nations and regions of Britain as a whole and not just by the overheating that will undoubtedly take place in London and the south-east as this project competes for skilled labour with other major infrastructure programmes taking place over the next 15 years. Talking to people involved in those projects last week, it became very clear that we will need a skills development plan and a profiling of those projects if we are to avoid London and the south of the country benefiting enormously while the north and Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland feel little economic benefit.

Yes, of course this is a heritage site of enormous importance—iconic, as the Leader of the House said more than once—but it is also a symbol of our democracy and there is something reflective in the state of the plumbing and the wiring and the mechanics below us of the dangers that we face in not renewing our democracy at the same time as we renew the fabric and restore the workings of the Palace of Westminster. I want to make just two very quick points on that matter.

First, this might appear to be a tangential point but it is about the staff working in this building, particularly the lowest paid and those in insecure jobs, many of which will not be available while the decant takes place. I hope we will plan for their future and take care of their well-being as well as the physical conditions around us. The Times article at the beginning of January, which mocked what it described as the “subsidy” for issues such as catering, missed the point entirely. The subsidy was not for our food or drink; it was for the well-being of staff who would otherwise have unacceptable contracts, particularly when the House was in recess. The same will apply in the difficult years ahead of us with the decant.

My second point concerns the design for democracy itself. Yes, of course we are concerned about the physical fabric and the deterioration but, as Professor Matt Flinders and many others have illustrated, designing for the modern era a Parliament which will not be just a symbol of our democracy but a living, breathing organ of it will be really important if we are to reach out using new technology, using the skills that exist in this House among our staff in terms of the outreach to the regions and nations of Britain, setting up outreach centres across the country that will link into a newly equipped, modern facility here in the Palace of Westminster, so that engagement with the public and an encouragement of participation will be considered as important as getting the heating and the ventilation right. Renewing the fabric must be seen alongside renewing the fabric of and restoring confidence in our democracy. If the sponsor board and the delivery authority can take these matters on board, we have an opportunity to link physical renewal with democratic renewal, and I hope we will do that.

Devolution: England

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Noble Lords]

Blunkett!

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

Will the Minister discuss with her colleagues the fact that there is no structure whatsoever for any form of accountability or input by the electorate to the northern powerhouse because a framework does not exist to do so; and that, where there are combined authorities, unlike London, there is no assembly or direct democratic input? Without this, the legitimacy of the changes will not be sustained and people will become as mistrustful of what is happening at subregional level as they are of what is happening at national level.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, in terms of accountability with government, clear expectations will be laid out in the agreement between combined authority areas that have devolutionary agreements and the Government. This Government have absolutely no intention of revisiting the assembly model. It was made very clear in Greater Manchester that when it agreed to have a mayor, it did not want another layer of government but an eleventh leader.

Devolution (Implications for England)

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

There is a very strong case for these matters to be dealt with by Standing Orders. In the consultation we have had so far, some have made the case for a piece of legislation such as a “Statute of the Union”, but that brings the disadvantage of bringing in judicial considerations. There is a very good case for what my hon. Friend suggests, and when we are ready to advance a single option, I hope it will be possible to debate it here. Indeed, I hope the House will be able to vote on it, having due regard to my hon. Friend’s point.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

In the light of the contribution from the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood), perhaps the Leader of the House as a reasonable man would reaffirm that our constitution does not belong to any individual political party or any individual Government. Secondly, does he accept that the history of constitutional change over recent years has not exactly been one that we would wish to emulate. In view of the alternative vote or the shambles we saw over the House of Lords proposals, would it not be sensible to take a deep breath and address these issues for the long term in a way that I believe the right hon. Gentleman would agree with if we met after 7 May next year in genuine debate outside this House?

[Mr Hague]

I absolutely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that these matters do not belong to any one party or any one part of the United Kingdom. That is why we brought forward this Command Paper on a cross-party basis. I regret the fact that the Opposition did not want to supply their ideas and proposals to be considered on that cross-party basis. There will be continuing opportunities to do so, however, and we have set out a number of options in order to facilitate debate on them. Let us hear the argument about all the options; then the House can consider them together exactly as the right hon. Gentleman says.

Education for Young People with Disabilities (UK Aid)

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I do not know how long we have for our speeches, given that this is a long debate and there are not many of us in the Chamber. However, we are considering an important topic. The timing of the debate presented some challenges for Department for International Development Ministers, who are all over the world as we speak, but I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), are present, because it is important that we hear from the Government and the Opposition. I welcome this opportunity for the debate given DFID’s recent commitments, the progress made on addressing the issue of UK aid to education for young people with disabilities, and the report published earlier this year by the International Development Committee and the Government’s largely positive response to it.

I approach this matter as a former teacher—education is important to me, as it is to other Members of the House—and co-chair of the all-party group on global education for all. Education is fundamental to ending the poverty, discrimination and exclusion faced by disabled people in developing countries, but it is estimated that in most countries disabled children are much more likely to be out of school than any other group of young people. Disability has long been neglected as a niche area of development, deemed by many to be either too complex, due to the wide range of challenges that it presents, or too small to be core to development issues.

The millennium development goals fail to mention disability, but disabled people make up an estimated 15% of the global population, and disability is both a cause and a consequence of poverty. Some 80% of disabled people live in developing countries and the United Nations has labelled them the world’s largest minority. It is estimated that there are 93 million disabled children globally and, as I said, they are more likely to be out of school than any other group of children. In Ethiopia, less than 3% of disabled children have access to primary education. In some countries, being disabled more than doubles a child’s chance of never enrolling in school. Disabled children are also less likely to remain in school. There are huge challenges throughout the developing world in keeping children in schools, but that challenge is heightened for children with disabilities. Difficulties also present themselves when attempting to transition to the next grade of education.

The exclusion of disabled children not only denies them their core human right to education, but makes it impossible, unless we address the matter properly, for the world to reach the millennium development goal of universal primary education by 2015. Some 58 million children of primary age are still out of school. While it is undeniable that progress has been made, it has now stalled. It is estimated that disabled children could make up a third of the out-of-school population. Without specific targets to include disabled people, it is clear that many of the millennium development goals will not be reached.

I welcome DFID’s progress in recent years, including through several commitments made under this Government and the previous one. In 2000, DFID was the first donor to develop an issues paper on disability, and development guidance notes on disability-inclusive programming and education for children with disabilities. DFID also commissioned research to help to address some of the evidence gaps around disability. In 2008, under the previous Government, DFID was the first donor to support the Disability Rights Fund, and constructive progress has been made more recently. The Under-Secretary of State for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), has been championing the cause, in particular by announcing that UK aid will fund accessible school construction. DFID is working with partners to improve the data on disabled children and education in developing countries. The UK is playing a vital role in championing a post-2015 agenda that leaves no one behind, specifically by saying that no target will be considered unless it will be met for all social groups, including those with disabilities.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on obtaining this debate. It is appropriate that disability issues are being debated in the Chamber and Westminster Hall at the same time. It is good that we have an all-party, no-party approach on the matter. Does he agree that while there has been substantial movement from both the previous and present Governments—I pay tribute to the Secretary of State and Ministers, who are receptive to what is said about this issue—the notion of being a young girl in poverty with a disability in the developing world should concern us all, because those girls are literally at the bottom of the pile? Anything that we can do to focus attention on that in the post-2015 agenda is vital.

[Mr Williams]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his contribution. He speaks with passion on such matters in the all-party group. We have examined targets in the past, and he is right that part of the challenge has involved a narrow focus within the broad issue of getting out-of-school children into school. There are key issues affecting gender and disability, and there is often a critical crossover between the two. I concur with his generosity towards this Government and the previous one, but there is still a huge amount to do. If this debate serves one purpose, it is that of continuing to highlight the real need for action.

I welcome the UK’s position as a leading donor to education, including with the pledge of up to £300 million to the Global Partnership for Education in June, and the way in which DFID Ministers have worked with GPE to ensure that disabled children are prioritised. As co-chair of the all-party group, I have visited Nigeria, Zanzibar and Tanzania during this Parliament. I pay tribute to the DFID staff whom I met in those countries, as well as those throughout the world, who are working hard in the educational field to further our aims on the ground.

The Government published their response to the thorough International Development Committee inquiry early this year. DFID committed to publish a new cross-departmental disability framework, and the work to develop it is going on right now. I believe that the aim is to launch the framework in November. DFID has pledged to prioritise education in the framework, which goes back to the point that the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) made about a cross-sectoral approach. There is a package of issues relating to disability, education, inclusion and gender. I look to the Minister and DFID officials to reaffirm that education is prioritised as a key sector and that the educational needs of those with disabilities will be thoroughly addressed.

The framework is welcome. However, one of the past challenges has been that while DFID produced optional guidance for their country offices that said the right things, it did not incentivise action. The Department has just published a new inclusive learning topic guide for its staff, which is an excellent resource, but it is still just guidance. How will DFID ensure that the new disability framework is implemented after its publication? Will the framework include mandatory, action-orientated requirements for, with strong accountability mechanisms for reporting on, the inclusion of disabled people in aid programmes? That is the situation for gender, and that needs to be the case for disability, too.

Will the Minister outline what DFID will be do to support and train country staff on disability inclusion? That, too, is a key principle. We need to ensure that all teacher training programmes that are supported by UK aid promote inclusive teaching approaches, and that all education aid programmes will measure whether they are reaching disabled children and young people. While I commend the Minister for the positive commitment to ensuring that UK-funded school construction projects are accessible to disabled children, that is not all that is needed.

Physical accessibility to buildings must be complemented by an attitudinal change, and inclusive teaching and learning environments. During a visit to a school in Lagos, I remember that the head teacher was keen to show us the DFID-funded toilet block. There was a dire need for the block, as it was a big school and there were issues to do with water and sanitation, so DFID had addressed that. The head teacher proudly showed us the toilet block, with its accessible ramps and equipment, but I saw very few people with disabilities accessing the facilities in that school.

I also visited a school in Zanzibar that had a wheelchair ramp to assist with access to a classroom, but I then saw in that classroom 60 to 70 teenage children in front of the teacher with no desks and no seats, so there was no conceivable way in which a wheelchair user could have accessed it. We need to be mindful of the teaching and learning environments in which schools operate. A ramp is no good unless the needs of the children who would use it are also met through their education provision.

Children with disabilities have the same right to education as all other children and UK aid can help by supporting the resourcing of inclusive education that ultimately benefits all children, not just those with disabilities, and that helps to change negative societal attitudes and discrimination about disability. It is particularly important that we develop inclusive teacher training so that more teachers in developing countries are equipped to include children with disabilities. The UK is a world leader on aid to support teacher training, so we could make a big difference.

The challenge so far has been to address the shortage of teachers and the need to get more children into schools. Getting more children into schools means that more teachers are required, so we have seen short cuts in some parts of the world, especially in teacher training courses and the professional development that is offered. If challenges on teachers’ pay are not addressed, the teaching profession does not get the esteem that it does in our country. Those multi-faceted problems need to be addressed.

I ask the Minister to make a commitment that UK-funded teacher training will promote inclusive teaching methods and curriculums. That must not be lost in the big challenge of training more teachers in that valued profession to address the growing number of out-of-school children across the world.

Will DFID put in place disaggregated data for its programme and funding to measure how many, and to what extent, children with disabilities are reached and supported into education? The biggest challenge is to identify the scale of the problem that we need to address. Will DFID encourage an increase in its targeting of resources into the area of disability and education, such as through the creation of a disabled children’s education challenge fund? Such a fund would be similar to the laudable girls’ education challenge fund, which I remind hon. Members is an innovative £355 million fund to tackle the extreme marginalisation from education of the poorest girls. May we have something similar for disability? We all know that disabled children suffer from extreme marginalisation in developing countries and that they should be supported with targeted additional investment, as well as mainstreamed, in a twin-track approach. I would be grateful for the Minister’s thoughts on creating such a fund.

I welcome the commitments already made that DFID will work with partners to strengthen data. Lack of data at a national level both reflects and compounds the invisibility of people with disabilities in development efforts. That is a major barrier to the recognition of disability as a core development issue.

Information is often speculative and out of date. I am aware from my friends in the third sector—I pay particular tribute to Results UK, which was responsible for my trips and provided the secretariat for our all-party group—that DFID held a conference on disability data last week, so I would be grateful to know what outcomes arose from those discussions.

What is DFID doing to support the capacity of national Governments and international organisations to collect and use data on children and young people with disabilities. How many of them are in or out of school? We need to ensure that the UK champions the strengthening of data in developing countries so that our development efforts mean that no one is left behind, although I realise that that task is huge.

Let me set out two ideas that could well be used. In Nigeria, I saw that DFID had successfully promoted school-based management committees to try to create a community leadership in schools to encourage young people into school and to liaise with parents and stakeholders in the community. In effect, the committee would operate like a school governing body, but with tentacles that were more developed for attracting young people into schools. We talk about disability issues being hidden, so community engagement and empowerment should be a great tool in assisting those who are currently excluded.

I saw another project, albeit in a health context, in a rural part of Zanzibar, where we were looking at malnutrition and early-years education. Volunteers went out into villages and communities to talk to young mothers about malnutrition. They located children who were suffering from malnutrition and encouraged their mothers to go to the hospital or health centre to get the support that they needed. We know about the hidden problem of disability, so I am looking for strategies to empower communities to make information available so that action can be taken.

Research by the Global Campaign for Education has noted that DFID has undertaken some activities in Nigeria on the inclusion of children with disabilities in its education work. It has supported censuses of out-of-school children, with results aggregated by gender and disability. Good, practical work has therefore been done on the ground, but while the information contains three sub-indicators on inclusion, the Department’s business case makes scant reference to disability. Nigeria is one of the largest recipients of UK aid, including through the education sector support programme, which will provide up to £134 million between 2008 and 2017. The programme is delivered by a consortium headed by Cambridge Education. Given the scale of funding it receives, one would expect that children with disabilities would be a much more prominent element in it.

Finally, our attention turns to the post-2015 agenda. I welcome the Government’s championing of an agenda that leaves no one behind, and that should be our guiding principle, especially as it is expressed in the idea that no target will be considered to be met unless it is met for all social groups, including people with disabilities. As we know, the millennium development goals did not mention disability at all, but 2015 gives us a crucial opportunity to change that.

How are Ministers seeking to ensure that the needs and rights of disabled people are recognised as an agreed priority in the final goals and targets? We particularly need to consider a tangible measure of how we ascertain that no target is met unless it is met for all. International negotiations are always challenging, involving many different agendas, but I hope that the Minister will reassure us that DFID is working with other Governments to consolidate support and ensure that the “leave no one behind” target does not get lost.

I have not mentioned any individual examples and will refrain from doing so, but I should reiterate that behind every one of the statistics, there is a real human story. Handicap International came to see me last week and showed me a charming photograph of Fanta, a seven-year-old girl with cerebral palsy from the Kono district of Sierra Leone. The photograph shows her smiling because, as part of a DFID-funded GEC project, she had just received a wheelchair that will allow her to access her local primary school for the first time. That will be to the benefit of her school, of Sierra Leone, and, above all else, of that young lady.

Select Committee on Governance of the House

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

First, I think we owe a duty of care to Carol Mills. It is not her fault that she has been caught up in this controversy. We also owe a duty of respect to Mr Speaker and the office of Speaker. Whispering campaigns and media briefings of the types we have seen do no service to the House or its Members.

I commend the speeches made by the shadow Leader of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett). My right hon. Friend spelled out the limited changes that have been achieved against the odds over the past 20 years and, by doing so, illustrated the real challenge in bringing about radical change, improvement and simple modernisation. What she described were very simple, common-sense changes that were achieved against the odds. It is time that this House got itself well into the 21st century.

I do not often bow to parliamentarians or politicians from either side of the House, but on procedural matters I would do so, because I am not an expert. I am absolutely sure, however, that the procedures and constitution serve the process of democracy, rather than the other way around. We are here to serve our public and to bring about radical change—to be change makers—and we can only do that if the processes, procedures and efficiency of the House allow us to do so. We need screens to work and for computers not to go down all the time and—the public might not like this—for restaurants to actually be open when we are here: things we would expect in any business. Over the past 27 years I have always been amazed at how radicals come into this House and are incorporated and how business people come into this House but do not seem to bring their business experience to bear on the processes we are addressing.

I commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who has enormous experience over many years of advising, serving and leading in government. I wish him well, because at the end of his remarkable career the outcome of this Select Committee will determine how the process will work and how the House will function for years to come, and whether it will contribute to a reform of our democracy at a time of incredible change, when the United Kingdom faces critical issues constitutionally and for the future of our nation. If this House cannot modernise itself and get up to speed with what would be taken for granted elsewhere, we are doomed.

I have often thought that I had a desk at the Natural History museum. Learning from evolution is important, because this House is built on years of experience and it would not be appropriate to sweep it aside. We need a highly qualified and experienced chief Clerk of this House who is able to advise Members and the Government. We need to ensure that we get that right. It is perfectly feasible for that to happen through the expertise built up over years in this House—that is the expression that has been used—while at the same time having a chief executive who will lead us through the difficult task of changing the environment not only physically but democratically. We can get this right, but it deserves more than simple whispering behind hands—it deserves real reform and modernisation for the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Menzies Campbell]

But a chief executive has overall responsibility, and the finance director is below him. I do not have a great deal of experience of commerce or business, but the experience that I do have demonstrates clearly to me that, in the example given by the right hon. Gentleman, there is no doubt about who would have to give way. I simply do not believe that it is right, having regard to the controversy that has surrounded this matter up to now, for us to have a system that allows for further controversy in the future.

Let us return, very quickly, to the question of constitutional importance. I think that it is significant. That is why, in my mind, the primacy of the Clerk as the senior person ought to be preserved, and that is why I think that the suggestion of a chief operating officer makes a great deal of sense.

As I said earlier, it seems to me that the sooner these issues are resolved, the better. That is why I expressed disappointment about the fact that more Members with Scottish constituencies were not present. The length of time allowed to the right hon. Member for Blackburn is extremely short. When a special Select Committee was established to consider the right of the police to enter these premises, I, as Chairman, had to ask for an extension, but the right hon. Gentleman will not have that luxury. I think that we should all be conscious of the fact that we are imposing a considerable burden.

[Mr Blunkett]

rose—

[Sir Menzies Campbell]

The right hon. Gentleman was a member of that special Select Committee, so I will give way to him.

[Mr Blunkett]

And a very good Chair the right hon. and learned Gentleman was—but we understood, did we not, as we dealt with those issues, how crucial it was to have someone who had real oversight and managerial experience.

[Sir Menzies Campbell]

I do not want to reopen the question of the Serjeant at Arms, which formed a substantial part of that Committee’s consideration. I simply say that we need a chain of command that is clear and unambiguous, because anything other than that is likely to lead to controversy of the kind that we have thus far unnecessarily embraced because of the way in which this matter has been dealt with.

I have a great deal of sympathy for Ms Mills, who finds herself to be the subject of such controversy. However, I was powerfully affected by the observation made a moment ago that, had people understood that a chief executive-type person was to be appointed, many more people with those skills might have applied. If we have either separation or, as I prefer, a chief operating officer, it may be very interesting to see the extent to which the volume and nature of candidates is different from what it was in the first instance.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I say to my right hon. and learned Friend that I am ever optimistic, but, as he will have noticed during the exchanges yesterday, despite repeated requests, the Opposition were never able to put a figure on the number of days that they would have found adequate.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give way?

[Sir George Young]

Yes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Blunkett]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who is indeed a gentleman and always has been. Will he confirm what he said a moment ago in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle): that a timetable motion will actually be brought forward in the autumn by the Government, and as a consequence the only way in which this House can show its displeasure at this constitutional abomination of a Bill is to vote against it on Second Reading tonight?

[Sir George Young]

I respect the right hon. Gentleman, but I would not draw that conclusion. The issue on Second Reading is whether the House supports the principle of the Bill, and I very much hope that the House will do so. As I said, there will subsequently be a timetable motion, which the House will have an opportunity to debate and vote on, and it is at that point that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to express any concern that he may still have.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Eagle]

I have given way a lot and I want to get on to another worry that we have over the legislation, which we want the debate to focus on in the days and weeks ahead.

The Bill makes an interesting and controversial assumption on the powers of the second Chamber. We are asked to believe that, despite the shift to 80% election, there will be no change in powers. It is important to safeguard the supremacy of the Commons after any reform. Unless the powers and privileges of the two Houses in relation to each other and the conventions covering the way in which they interact are dealt with explicitly, there will be the strong possibility of more frequent conflict between the two Houses post-reform. A mere statement about the supremacy of the Commons in clause 2 is unlikely to be sufficient for the purpose.

Even as we speak, the Salisbury-Addison convention is crumbling away before our eyes. On previous experience, we can expect it to be disregarded much more when there is a Labour majority in the Commons than when there is a Conservative majority.

[Mr Blunkett]

This is a crucial point. Is it not the case that the preamble to the Parliament Act 1911 presumed that if there was election to the upper House in the future—what would be described as a popular mandate—it would inevitably regain further powers? Clause 2 eliminates the preamble, but not the point that it was making back in 1911.

[Ms Eagle]

My right hon. Friend is right that the move from a wholly elected Chamber to one that is almost entirely elected inevitably raises questions about the relationship between and the powers of the two Chambers which we should debate in this place.

With issues that do not feature in the party manifestos, the situation will be even more fraught. The situation with secondary legislation will also be problematic. This is uncharted territory. That does not mean that we should run away from reform, but we must not simply cross our fingers and hope that these issues will miraculously be resolved or will not crop up.

Business of the House

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend speaks for the large number of commuters in his constituency who need a fast train service into the centre of the capital. As a former Transport Secretary, I understand the importance of what he has said. My understanding is that the Department for Transport has to sign off any revised timetable, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will need to be satisfied that it meets the aspirations of my hon. Friend’s constituents. I will certainly pass on his concern to her so that she can be aware of it before any such validation takes place.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I think we would all agree that we owe the late Ted Short a debt of gratitude as a former Leader of the House and deputy leader of the Labour party.

May I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) for drawing my attention to the colour of the tractors and the trailers in Basildon? I now have a mental picture of the wheels coming off.

Will the Leader of the House tell us when the Government intend to make time available for a debate on the report by the Joint Committee that considered the beleaguered draft Bill on the so-called reform of the House of Lords? Given the comprehensive trashing of the draft Bill not only by those who are opposed to reform but by anyone who has any constitutional understanding whatsoever, it would be quite useful if we could have a debate to expose its weaknesses.

[Sir George Young]

Listening to that question, one would not have believed that the right hon. Gentleman stood for election on three manifestos committed to House of Lords reform. The Joint Committee reported a few days ago. The Government want to reflect on the recommendations in its report in order to see whether we need to amend the draft Bill that was published last year. There will then be a House of Lords reform Bill, and so there will be a debate on that. I anticipate that the Bill will be introduced before the summer recess.

Code of Conduct

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barron]

Yes, I understand that point, but I fear that the intention could be misinterpreted. I fully understand the issue that the right hon. and learned Gentleman raises, and I hope that the hon. Member for Broxbourne will tell us about the amendment in more detail. If it is withdrawn, it will be perfectly possible to return to the issue when the revised guide to the rules comes before us in the not-too-distant future. That revision to the guide will be more detailed than what appears in the current three-page code of conduct, which is out for consultation. If the Committee itself has not proposed that the commission should consult before opening an inquiry into personal and private matters, the House could insert such a provision, but I feel that the provision would be more helpful in the guidance than in a code of conduct that tends to contradict elements of it.

The other important clarification is the introduction of a new paragraph 15 making it clear that Members are personally responsible for the extent to which their use of expenses and allowances accords with the rules. Clearly there is nothing new in that. The current Members’ handbook warns Members that the facilities and services of the House are provided to assist Members in their parliamentary work and should be used appropriately.

Defining parliamentary purposes is, of course, not easy. Members’ roles are various, and we are, with very rare exceptions, elected as party candidates and uphold our parties in Parliament. That is very different from using public funding for party campaigning, or to support party organisations. Having considered the definition extremely carefully, the Committee recommends that the rules make it clear that public money should not be used to

“confer undue advantage on a political organisation”.

Most of the other changes consist of clarifications and re-ordering to make the code more coherent. One change that has attracted some comment is the proposal to remove paragraph 12 of the code, which refers to the need to be open and frank with Ministers, Members and officials. We suggest that it should be included in a new paragraph 13, which would also cover the declaration and registration of interests in the House. That would make it clear that Members should

“always be open and frank in drawing attention to any relevant interest in any proceeding of the House or its House or its Committees, and in any communications with Ministers, Members, public officials or public office holders.”

That is a clarification rather than a substantive change. Its roots lie in one of the more painful cases that the Committee has had to consider: the so-called Lobbygate, in which Members were drawn into discussing jobs that they might undertake after they had left the House. One of the cases arising from that involved the failure of my good friend Mr Richard Caborn to declare an interest in a meeting with the chairman of a health authority. At the time, it was argued that the rules governing declaration did not cover such cases, as the person concerned was not a Minister or a civil servant. Our judgment was that the spirit of the rules was clear: their purpose was to ensure that Members were transparent in their dealings with people who might be in a position to influence public policy or the spending of public money. However, we believed that the rules could be better expressed, and these changes achieve that.

One of the great sadnesses involved in dealing with standards cases is that we must deal with what comes before us. The Committee cannot simply refuse to look into a matter because it was a case of entrapment or a single transgression in a distinguished career, and there are a limited number of sanctions that it can recommend to the House. It is a mark of the respect and affection in which Richard Caborn is held that extremely senior people have asked the Committee to reconsider his case. We have considered the matter carefully on more than one occasion, but ultimately we decided that we had considered the rules carefully at the time of our original finding.

It may help, however, if I discuss some of the matters that were set out clearly in the original report and debate. The commissioner and the Committee agreed that the breach of the rules was inadvertent. As I said at the time, the penalty that we proposed was

“intended to be light, because we recognised that Mr Caborn did not intend to breach the rules or to bring the House or its Members generally into disrepute.”

An inadvertent slip should not obscure Mr Caborn’s long record of distinguished public service, and I hope that it does not do so.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

As one of those who made representations to my right hon. Friend on behalf of my former colleague the then Member of Parliament for Sheffield, Central, I welcome the tenor and nature of his speech. Does he agree that in future, and specifically in the guidance that is to be offered, there should be absolute transparency about the operation of the Committee and about basic rules of fairness? For instance, should the guidance not make clear what is a constituency matter and what is not? Richard Caborn has rightly argued that that was a problem in the interpretation of the previous rule.

[Mr Barron]

I do not want to go into any great detail, but the changes in the code are intended to do precisely that. They are intended to clarify areas so that they are not open to interpretation—or, some would argue, misinterpretation—in years to come.

The code does not need radical revision, but it does need to evolve to meet the changing expectations and circumstances of not just the House of Commons but the public outside, and, as I have said, it needs to be as clear as possible. On behalf of the Committee, I thank the commissioner for his thorough consideration of the code and the work that he has done to produce a clearer, more coherent document, which I commend to the House. I hope that those who tabled the amendment will reconsider their position, but we will be able to revisit it. The guidance will reassure the House that no commissioner will be able to forage into areas that would be unfair on Members of Parliament, and I hope that that will be acknowledged.

I also hope that the second motion will prove entirely uncontroversial. It introduces an additional register to record the interests of those who provide secretariats for all-party groups. It will deal with an anomaly between the registration requirements for staff of all-party groups and those for Members’ staff. It will make the arrangements easier to administer, and will reduce the risk that, owing purely to inadvertence, interests will not be registered. The proposal is the result of a paper from the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests, and the Committee is grateful to her for it. The staff of all-party groups are currently required to register only income from employment, whereas secretaries and research assistants are also required to register gifts, benefits and hospitality. The motion proposes that the registration requirements should be the same for both groups.

The motion also proposes the transferring of the requirement to register to the staff member from the Member who is the registered contact for the all-party group, who may not be closely involved in the group’s administration. That would make it easier to ensure that the registration requirements are complied with, as the relevant forms can be issued with pass applications, and it will not be necessary for an officer of the group to take such action. As Members may know, the Speakers of the two Houses have set up a bicameral working group to consider all-party groups. I am a member of it, as are others who are in the Chamber this evening. There may be more changes to come, but there is no need for us to delay this change.

I trust that the House will approve my modest proposal to streamline and tighten the registration requirements for staff of all-party groups. Indeed, I hope that it will agree to both motions. I look forward to ending any misgivings relating to one of the reports at a later stage in our proceedings.

Parliamentary Reform

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention. It points to the fact that one of the things that we are battling is something of a macho culture. Many people have asked, “If you’re not ready to sit till midnight and 1 o’clock in the morning, why are you doing the job?” That is not a good response.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I apologise to the hon. Lady because I will not be here for the whole debate. As well as an interest in this issue, I have a long-standing commitment to and interest in affordable credit, which is being debated elsewhere. I have something of a reputation in the north for being macho, but on this occasion I agree almost wholeheartedly with the hon. Lady and want to encourage her, not necessarily to pin down specific hours, but to look to provide certainty and to avoid what my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) described—by-elections every three months, which is what happened 24 years ago, when I came into the House.

If I may, I will encourage the hon. Lady not to get bogged down on hours, because other changes in this place could get us into at least the 20th, if not the 21st century, and allow us, with discretion, to vote more sensibly, provide certainty and, above all, demonstrate that we have understood the changes that have happened because of devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and our relationship with the European Parliament, all of which have taken shape since I came—

[Mr Joe Benton (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind right hon. and hon. Members that interventions must be kept as terse as possible. An awful lot of Members want to speak this afternoon, and I want to be as fair as I can.