Canterbury City Council Bill

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Obviously I accept your ruling, but the hon. Member for Nottingham South was being extremely helpful in at least setting out the case for why we need the legislation, and I think we are all grateful for that. It is just a shame that this is the first occasion on which we have heard any of these matters discussed.

I do not wish to cover ground that was covered during the debate on the City of Westminster Bill, but I must return to one point. The Minister made a second very helpful speech earlier, and I commend his comments and the approach that he has taken. He is still indicating that the Government wish to introduce a national framework by some means, and I still do not see any point in reviving private business for particular towns and cities when it seems that the Government, in good faith, are going to make some provision in that regard anyway.

I ask the sponsors of the Bills whether what the Minister has said today—which was much more proactive than anything that we heard from the last Government—has made them change their minds. I entirely understand why, during the last Parliament, people were keen for these private Bills to proceed, because the Government kept saying that they were going to do something and then never did. I have much more confidence in this Minister. I think it far more likely that he will proceed with something much more sensible in a much more timely way, and I think that in the light of what he has said, we should question whether we need to revive the Bills.

I do not wish to detain the House, which has debated these matters for some time, but the issues are important. Again, I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, who has made a fantastic contribution. Without him, we should not have seen any concessions. I shall leave this with him. I shall be happy to follow his lead, and I shall give some thought to whether these Bills should be treated differently. However, I hope that when they go to the other place—if that happens—they will receive the scrutiny that they deserve, and that we will celebrate pedlars who are trying to make something of their lives rather than attempting to do them down.

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wonder whether any Education Minister has approached you following our discussion on the statement made earlier today about the future of the Building Schools for the Future programme. You were in the Chair, Mr. Speaker, and you may recall that there was considerable discussion about the propriety of what the former Secretary of State for Education had done with respect to capital expenditure, about whether the previous Government’s proposals had been affordable and, indeed, about whether the former Secretary of State had acted in a way that was consistent with Treasury rules.

If you remember, Mr. Speaker, the former Secretary of State asked the Secretary of State if we could have a letter from the accounting officer—in other words, the permanent secretary to the Department for Education—stating whether the former Secretary of State had acted appropriately with respect to capital expenditure, and whether he had received a ministerial direction. As you know, Mr. Speaker, he would have had to receive such a direction had the former Secretary of State acted in a way that was inappropriate with respect to that money.

We now have that letter, which I shared with you, Mr. Speaker. I will not read all of it, but it describes the ways in which end-of-year flexibility and decisions on capital expenditure were handled, all of them appropriately. The last paragraph states,

“If any actions on this, or any matter, were in breach of the requirements of propriety or regularity, I would have sought a ministerial direction. I can confirm that I made no such requests during your time as Secretary of State.”

The issue is extremely serious, Mr. Speaker, and I wonder whether you have had any request from an Education Minister to explain it to the House.

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer to the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) is that I have had no request from a Minister to make a statement on the matter. The second point I would make is that he has clarified the position in terms of his understanding and in defence of the former Secretary of State, and as he will know as he is an experienced Member who has been in the House for 13 years, his views are now clearly on the record.