Historical Sexual Abuse in Football

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. I know that the Secretary of State talked to Simon Bailey, who is the national policy policing lead for ACPO. Each individual is going to have a single police lead. Of course, these will be shared—in fact, five police forces will be engaged in this. As I said, Simon Bailey is very much on this, and is talking to the Secretary of State. I think that that is the way forward.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that we need to have the highest possible standards of child protection in sport, but this review must not undermine how it is done by volunteers with children on a weekly basis? The last thing that we want to see is adults removing themselves from this position.

Civil Service Fast Stream

Lord Watts Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I entirely agree with the noble Lord. He obviously speaks with a great deal of experience. As the nephew of a diplomat, I am somewhat biased but I completely agree. On his final point about language skills, more needs to be done, as always. We need to make sure that we are getting the best diplomats who are not just aware of the culture of the countries to which they are posted, but are also able to speak the language. I am delighted that the Foreign Office language centre reopened in 2013 and is doing much to address this.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister explain the purpose of collecting these data if we do not do anything with them?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

First, let us see what the data say; then, if they say that there are talents in pockets of society who are not applying and we think should be applying, we will redouble our efforts to ensure we get more applications from those groups.

Government Contracts: Steel Industry

Lord Watts Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

That is slightly going beyond my ken, my Lords. As regards the energy costs that the steel industry is looking for, £100 million will be saved over the financial year and £400 million by the end of this Parliament, thanks to the action that the Government are taking to give the industry relief.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

If the Chinese are found to have been dumping steel in the UK, what action will the Government take to penalise them for doing so?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

Let us wait and see. These investigations are obviously under way as we speak.

Debate on the Address

Lord Watts Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister obviously has no idea about the poverty that exists now in our communities. Will he visit one of my local food banks, when it is open, to see what damage his policies are doing to Britain?

[The Prime Minister]

What I would say about the hon. Gentleman’s constituency is that the claimant count—the number of people claiming unemployment benefit—has come down by 23% in the last 12 months. That is what is at the heart of the Queen’s Speech: work is the best route out of poverty. That is what we should be supporting.

I have been very clear about what we are legislating for.

European Council

Lord Watts Excerpts

Monday 10th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right. As I have said, we have these frozen conflicts that we still struggle with across Europe. We are making a concerted effort to ensure that this does not turn into another one. We have to accept that there will be real and quite painful consequences for European countries if we have to go ahead with sanctions, but we should do so because it would be a greater evil to allow this situation to continue.

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Has the Prime Minister carried out any review of whether Russians are already moving their assets outside the UK before any freeze is introduced?

[The Prime Minister]

I have not seen any evidence of that. Sometimes the City of London is unfairly painted as somewhere that does not have tough rules on money laundering. It does. It is painted as somewhere that does not have tough rules on transparency. It does. Part of the G8 agenda was aimed at making sure that we get greater transparency, particularly on issues such as tax. We will take the necessary steps, if that becomes appropriate, and the City of London will play its full part.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Watts Excerpts

Wednesday 11th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he says. As the economy recovers, it is vital that it is a recovery for all—that it is a recovery for north and south, for young and old. There is always a danger in an economy that young people who are not in the work force will be locked out of it, and that is why the change that the Chancellor announced about abolishing the jobs tax on those young people to make it cheaper for employers to take them on can have a real impact on ensuring that young people participate in our growing economy.

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Given the fact that the Work and Pensions Secretary was left alone on his Benches when he made his statement on universal credit, does the Prime Minister still have confidence in him and in the universal benefit changes?

[The Prime Minister]

I think the Work and Pensions Secretary has probably done more than anyone else in British politics to transform the debate about welfare. That is happening because of his dedication to the issue. We see fewer people out of work and the number of workless households at its lowest since records began. He is introducing a system that includes the benefit cap that Labour voted against and the household benefit cap that Labour voted against, and that is making work pay. We should be proud of that work.

Tributes to Nelson Mandela

Lord Watts Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

I am grateful to be able to pay my tribute to Nelson Mandela. He was a great leader and statesman and a wonderful loving human being. Despite having to endure 27 years in jail he remained committed to his cause, forgave his past enemies, and led his country from the dark times of apartheid to freedom, democracy and equality under law. As I look back on his life, I cannot but believe that that 27 years was wasted in prison. Imagine Nelson Mandela as President as a young or middle-aged man. Imagine the difference that he would have made to South Africa. Imagine the inspiration that he would have been to the whole of Africa and the world. We can all learn lessons from Nelson Mandela. My sympathy goes out to the people of South Africa, especially to his family and friends, who have lost not just a great leader, but a husband, a father, a grandfather and a loyal friend.

It was Desmond Tutu who said that Nelson Mandela had one big fault, which was that he was sometimes loyal to his friends who let him down badly. I do not think that is a bad fault. For anyone who had Nelson Mandela as a friend, he was there on the good days and the bad days. He was a real friend at all times, and I do not think that that is a bad quality in a man. Desmond Tutu also said that he was a gift to South Africa. Certainly he was a gift to South Africa, but he was probably a gift to the whole world. He made us aware that despite any atrocities that we might face in our lives, it is possible for people to forgive, to reconcile and to move on and build a better world.

Nelson Mandela was a modern politician, although he was in his 90s. He was always smart and people noticed when he was in the room. He was great on the soundbites, and knew how to get his message across to the public and the media. He was a man of principle, a great leader and a statesman, and, as I said, a wonderful human being.

In case people believe that he will be forgotten, I finish with a more light-hearted view. My six-year-old grandson went to school on Friday and made a speech on the impact that Nelson Mandela had had on the world. However, he did not get all the facts right, because he said that he had been in a dungeon and not fed for 27 years. But overall he made the point that Nelson Mandela was a great man. It is nice to think that a six-year-old going to school remembers the great qualities of this individual, and that he will not be forgotten in the future.

Hillsborough

Lord Watts Excerpts

Wednesday 12th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What my hon. Friend says is important. I have answered the question about how others need to face up to their own responsibilities. The newspaper reporting, the false police narrative and all those who coalesced around it not only did damage to Liverpool and the families but led to many in the rest of the country accepting that narrative. So this is not only an apology to Liverpool and Merseyside. It is an explanation to the rest of the country that these families were right and have been vindicated. They should be proud of that.

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Is the Prime Minister aware that the author of the article referred to, “The Truth”, Kelvin MacKenzie, is still going around Britain standing by that story and has been employed by the BBC and other media outlets? Does the Prime Minister think that he is a suitable person to be employed by anyone?

[The Prime Minister]

Kelvin MacKenzie needs to face up to his own responsibilities. I have not had time to look at the detail of the media aspects, but we now have an account of what happened, where these false allegations came from, how they got into the newspapers, and what the newspapers, particularly The Sun, did to give them that prominence. Now it is all there, anyone with responsibility needs to face up to their responsibilities, and I very much hope that they will do so.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Watts Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. She reminds us that there are still a number of major deficiencies, which will need to be looked at in Committee, if the Bill is to be improved. Our support for giving the Bill a Second Reading should therefore not be taken as a blank cheque.

We have many concerns—many of them major—about the content of the Bill, but I shall concentrate on three areas.

The area of powers and conventions deserves our greatest attention. With all the focus on form, the Government have neglected function. On primacy, the Government have sought to rewrite the inadequate clause 2 of the draft Bill and dropped any reference to the conventions governing the relationship between the Houses. It remains to be seen whether this will deal satisfactorily with the issue; constitutional experts are no doubt poring over this as we speak. As the Bill will be debated on the Floor of the House, and as new clause 2 was not considered by the Joint Committee, there has been no pre-legislative scrutiny. We simply do not know whether the provision is adequate. Labour Members want to ensure that the Commons maintains its primacy even when a second Chamber becomes elected.

It is impossible to predict what changes might develop in the culture of the House of Lords following reform, but it seems likely that elected Members will expect to play at least a fairly assertive role and that voters may share that view. When the European Parliament went from being an appointed to an elected body, it demanded more powers to reflect its democratic mandate. Why should elected Members of the second Chamber be bound by conventions that bind a Chamber of hereditary and appointed peers? The Bill effectively washes its hands of this issue.

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend explain why it is good enough to have a referendum when we are electing a mayor in a city, yet not good enough to have one when we are changing the constitution?

[Sadiq Khan]

I heard the Deputy Prime Minister desperately trying to answer that question, but on four or five occasions when such questions were put to him by his hon. Friends, he failed to answer them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Allen]

I very much hope that Government Members exercise their independence in pursuit of parliamentary sovereignty and a wider democracy rather than in pursuit of any special interest—I am sure that will happen.

In all those areas, reform is a relatively simple matter, but the most centralised state of all western democracies is blocking the way—the sclerotic relic of an empire, with England as the last country to throw off its yoke. The regime is so suffocating and so clueless about the alternatives that some of our blood relatives in the nations of our kingdom feel driven to break free of it.

There is an alternative, as there always has been, and as the best elements of the philosophies of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal parties have always known and for which they have always fought: the ballot box. No one, and above all hon. Members, needs to be afraid of the ballot box or of spreading electoral possibility. The ballot box is the weapon feared most not by those outside the House, but by Executive power, whether in the House or elsewhere. The vote can deliver devo-max not just for the nations of the UK, but for this Parliament and for locally elected councils, and above all for individuals in our country.

Today, we will see whether this elected House, this poor, whipped, dwarf of a legislator, can reconnect with its historic mission to extend the franchise, or whether we decide to pull up the drawbridge so that none can share our meagre status. Can we outgrow this fairytale of parliamentary sovereignty and our self-delusion about the primacy of the first Chamber? The cold, harsh reality is that we have Executive sovereignty and the primacy of Government. That is what dominates British politics, not some fairyland where Members of Parliament dominate the political scenario.

[Mr Watts]

As an ex-Whip, my hon. Friend will know that we have had more rebellions in the past 10 years than we had in years before that. Does that not prove the independence of the House of Commons?

Debate on the Address

Lord Watts Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I listened very carefully. There was almost nothing in terms of a costed, credible alternative. The Opposition have now had two years to work out what their alternative is, and we heard absolutely nothing apart from a string of press releases put together, which we have all read over the last few weeks.

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Can the Prime Minister explain to the nation why he is pursuing economic policies that have led to a double-dip recession and have frozen every inch of growth out of the economy?

[The Prime Minister]

As I have said, we have been dealing with an economy that had the biggest boom and bust in our banks, the biggest deficit in Europe and the longest and deepest recession in anyone’s memory. What we have to do is get our economy to rebalance, and I will explain exactly how the Queen’s Speech is going to help, because it is a Queen’s Speech for the doers, the strivers and those who work hard and play by the rules.

On cutting the Budget deficit, all across Europe the countries being hit are the ones that do not have proper plans in place. In the last Session, we cut the nation’s overdraft—the gap between what we receive in tax and what we spend—by £30 billion. With this Queen’s Speech we continue that work with, for instance, the vital public service pensions Bill. Not only does that offer guaranteed pensions that are still more generous than those in the private sector, but it saves tens of billions of pounds over the coming decades. Through this Queen’s Speech we are also making sure the UK is taken out of the eurozone bail-out fund. We are not in the euro, we are not joining the euro, so we should not be bailing out the euro.

The reason why we are doing these things on the deficit is simple: we want to keep interest rates down for hard-working families up and down the country. Let us be clear: higher interest rates would mean higher mortgages, lower employment and more of people’s money, which they have worked so hard to get, wasted by being spent on interest on our national debt. Two years ago, Britain had exactly the same interest rates as Spain; today, its interest rates were touching 6% and ours were below 2%. That is because we have a credible plan to get the country out of the mess it was left in by the last Government.