Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Mann and Claire Perry

Thursday 29th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

3. What assessment his Department has made of level crossing safety in Bassetlaw constituency.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

Network Rail assesses the risks at the 6,200 level crossings on main lines, with oversight provided by the regulator. The UK already has the best level crossing safety record in the EU, but Network Rail—supported by this Government, with dedicated funding—is working to reduce that risk still further.

[John Mann]

What a load of waffle. After the Beech Hill tragedy in Bassetlaw in 2012, Network Rail said it would get rid of all eight level crossings on the east coast mainline in Bassetlaw. It has had a public consultation on the schemes, but what has happened in recent months? The money has been pulled. Will the Minister and the Chancellor meet Network Rail, to ensure that the money is put back in? It is good for business, good for the economy, good for safety and good for the people of Bassetlaw.

[Claire Perry]

The tragic accident that resulted in the loss of life of Emma Lifsey happened in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. Anyone who has read about it will know that it was a dreadful tragedy. After that incident, the rail accident investigation branch made four recommendations that meant that such an accident could never happen again. I have been told they have been implemented across the network, but I want to follow up on that and make sure.

The hon. Gentleman refers to the plan to close the 73 crossings on the east coast mainline. That work has been progressed, but we cannot just shut off communities that rely on some of those contacts.

[John Mann]

indicated dissent.

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Gentleman shakes his head. He should do my job and listen to people campaigning to keep level crossings open. The work will happen. It is absolutely right to focus on it and we will continue to fund it. There is no shortage of money for it—£109 million will be spent on making level crossings safer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Perry]

I would be delighted to review that matter with my hon. Friend. The new stations fund announced in the Budget is of course open to all applicants.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

T4. The Sheffield city region, now strengthened by Derbyshire Dales, is a real hub for manufacturing in the rail industry. Does the Secretary of State agree that this presents a real opportunity for forward planning to get the manufacturing companies together to prepare bids for HS2?

Draft Financial Services Bill (Joint Committee)

Debate between Lord Mann and Claire Perry

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[John Mann]

We take the view that all Members of the House are equal, which is an important principle, so the ability to participate and influence should be equal. It is ironic, therefore, that when it comes to the selection of Committee members some are more equal than others. It seems to me that as we have started a modernisation process that is very slowly beginning to trickle through the House, after many years of waiting, that issue needs proper attention.

It is rather a shame that someone needs to table an amendment even to get the issue on to the Floor of the House. The Government were not going to allocate any time to debating this important Committee, its make-up, whether we should have it at all, the timetable allocated to it, the role of the House of Lords within it, whether the Lords should have a role in financial matters, or the issue of England versus the rest when it comes to the membership of the Committee. None of that could have been debated had not my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) and myself chosen to learn the rules and object at 10 o’clock on a number of occasions over the past week, and then to table an amendment. By its nature, that amendment has forced the Government to create time for this debate.

It is a little odd that the Government are seeking to have unlimited time for this debate, which can continue till any hour, when we have just debated major energy statements—a fundamental issue for each and every hon. Member and our constituents—with speech limits of five minutes per Member. That seems to me a poor allocation of time, but it is another example of the impotence of the Back Bencher in attempting to influence what goes on in here.

I do not court favour, and I never have, with any side of the House. Indeed, on some issues, on some occasions, I have been in a vocal but rather small all-party minority. When the expenses issue was first emerging, and this House was refusing to deal with it and was still not totally on top of it, the usual channels—or what I termed the “gentleman’s club”—were a hindrance to democracy and to our relationship with our voters.

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be taking a very high moral tone, but as a person who has been serially rebuked by the Standards and Privileges Committee, is he therefore ruling himself out of any future Committee membership?

--- Later in debate ---

[John Mann]

Mr Speaker, I do think that it would be appropriate to respond directly to the inaccuracies in the comments just made. However, there is an important point—

[Claire Perry]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Mann]

I shall give way in a minute.

There is an important point about who should be a Back Bencher and who should remain a Back Bencher, because within the House, some will always be fated to be Back Benchers, often at the behest of their party leader. In power, party leaders love to exercise the power to choose who will be in ministerial positions or sit on Committees and the rest. However, on occasion there is perhaps a democratic requirement that some people should choose to be Back Benchers, or be chosen to be Back Benchers, for the length of a Parliament. It can be quite cathartic, as a politician, to spend one’s time—

Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Debate between Lord Mann and Claire Perry

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[John Mann]

We hear the same kind of abuse that I got following that debate—some of it to my face; some was behind my back. My proposal then—new Members might want to listen carefully to this—was that the House should debar the practice of flipping. If that had been agreed, it is eminently predictable that the issue of mortgages would not have been resurrected in the way that it was the year after. An acceptable solution would have been in place as would a coherent system of mortgages. However, the House was not interested in listening to that, because, despite the fact that my resolution was passed, even though I could not get a seconder—I had read “Erskine May” and I knew the procedures—the powers that be managed to bury its implications. It was not enacted and a high price was paid.

The principle at issue is simple—this is why I back the independence of IPSA: should we cede our ability to determine how the rules on expenses are set and managed to an independent body or not? I can criticise how things are done; indeed, I have and some of my criticisms were listened to but some were not. We can all take a view on what the system should be, but the principle remains: should we cede the authority to determine these matters to IPSA—an independent body—or not? That was the basis on which we legislated, and the motion, which would have been improved by my amendment, which unfortunately has not been selected, breaks that principle.

I oppose and shall vote against the motion because it says that MPs should have the power to determine such matters. That was the fundamental weakness in the previous expenses system. There is a lot of history and reason behind all this, but there is also reason for the state we are in. I remind the House that we are about to go through a series of court cases and that others might follow. The media will be full of that and so will our constituents. We are in that state of play because of the previous expenses system. The fundamental weakness was not just in the detail but in the principle: the public rightly hated the fact that we set our own terms and conditions.

We rightly broke with that principle and it was inevitable that a new system starting from scratch would have a lot of problems—some of us said so at the time and feared it. Whoever set up the system, whether it was this chap Kennedy with his IPSA, Sir Christopher Kelly with his committee and his review or any other body, it would have had significant problems because of the complexity of the arrangements. Arbitrary decisions will be made, as they are in every expenses system. When I ran a business, I set the system for my employees and contractors, and when I was a union representative, I negotiated and tried to improve expenses systems. Of course, there were arbitrary decisions that I thought unfair when I was operating within other systems, but there always will be in any independent system. This all comes back to whether we set the system. That is the breach point; the motion would break that principle and that is why it is fundamentally wrong.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

Many new Members on the Government Benches have no issue with the principle of an independent, transparent organisation. As someone who publishes all her expenses on her website, I entirely support the move. The hon. Gentleman talked about creating something from scratch. Rather than going out and buying an off-the-shelf system that could have been provided by numerous companies around the world, we have been compelled to reinvent the wheel and we have ended up with a square wheel that is gold-plated at best. Surely, the hon. Gentleman, with his business experience, will have come across multiple organisations that could have done that for 650 Members. We are not a multi-million pound organisation with hundreds of thousands of employees. We are a small organisation that is struggling to do the best thing by British taxpayers and our constituents. I totally support the motion that my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) has tabled as a way of doing it better.

[John Mann]

If the hon. Lady supports the motion, she supports a break in the fundamental principle on which we legislated. [Hon. Members: “Read it! It doesn’t say that. You can’t read.”] Would hon. Members like to listen? [Hon. Members: “Can’t you read? Read it!”] Hon. Members choose to shout abuse. Yes, I can read, I have read the motion, and I have seen what the principle is. Hon. Members should read the 2008 debate and see the problem with the culture of MPs trying to determine the detail of their own expenses.

I refute the point made by the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie), who moved the motion, that MPs cannot do their job under the new system. I can do my job under the new system as well as I did it in the past. Nothing is restricting me in the range of things I do, or in how I interpret and do my job. I put it to him that mine is not the least busy of offices, and I am not taking on the least onerous amounts of work. In my estimation, IPSA has improved month on month, and will continue to do so. That is the salient point when starting a new system. I can see only a few areas where further improvement would have a significant impact.