Business of the House

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Tony Lloyd

Thursday 24th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding us of the imperative of simplifying the tax system. He will know some of the initiatives that we have already taken. The Finance Bill is before the House, so there may be an opportunity to table amendments to introduce some of the initiatives recommended in the publication he mentioned. There may be an opportunity for a further debate when the Finance Bill returns to the Floor of the House. I applaud the work of the Office of Tax Simplification, and I hope that in future Budgets, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will be able to make further progress in making the tax code easier to understand.

[Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House will be aware of early-day motion 55, which strongly opposes the concept of regional pay for public sector workers:

[That this House notes the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s decision to give Government departments freedom to localise public sector pay; believes this will undermine pay review bodies by shifting wholesale to local bargaining in the public sector; further believes pay review bodies nationally are a better way of delivering flexibility while keeping a lid on costs; considers the Government’s plans will set hospital against hospital and school against school; opposes unfair discrimination against nurses, teachers and civil servants according to where they live when they are doing the same job; recognises that many successful large national companies use national pay bargaining for their staff pay; further recognises that with record unemployment and more than five jobseekers per job vacancy across the UK there is little evidence the public sector is crowding out the private sector; further believes this policy will offer nothing to private sector workers in low pay regions; fears this policy will instead remove substantial sums from the regions and devolved nations with the least, and reduce spending power and harm local economies as a consequence; and calls on the Government to suspend this policy until a full and independent assessment takes place on the economic impact of the policy and to engage meaningfully with all stakeholders affected by this policy across the UK prior to implementation.]

He will also be aware that a significant number of those sitting on the coalition Benches have signed up to it. May we soon have a debate—in Government time, but on a free vote—so that we can work out whether the Cable tendency in the coalition is going to oppose regional pay, which would be of enormous advantage to the nation?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman will know that we have asked a commission to look at the whole issue of regional pay, so I think it would be premature to have a debate before that work is completed, which I believe is expected in the autumn. Thereafter it might be worth while to have a debate on the issue. So far as tensions within the Government are concerned, let me remind the hon. Gentleman that he was a member of a Government where the tensions within a one-party Administration were far greater than any tensions in the present two-party Administration.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Tony Lloyd

Thursday 20th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

Whipping matters, happily, lie in the capable hands of my right hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary, but I say to my hon. Friend that nothing in the manifesto on which I stood mentioned an in or out referendum. We stood on a manifesto of being in Europe but not run by Europe.

[Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House has always been very helpful in trying to make sure that Ministers meet Members of this House, but may we have a statement on what is expected so that we can prevent the situation whereby a Minister in the other place said to one of my colleagues that he is rationing his exchanges with Members of Parliament and offered an official instead, which, I think the House would accept, is outrageous?

[Sir George Young]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concern. The last time this was raised at business questions, I asked for a list of the Ministers who had declined to see hon. Members. I took it up with my colleagues, and I think we reached a resolution. I should like further details of the problems the hon. Gentleman mentions, and I will do what I can to resolve them.

Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Tony Lloyd

Monday 17th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman will know that paragraph 15 of schedule 6 to the CRAG Act states:

“Before making a scheme under paragraph 12 the IPSA must consult…the trustees of the Fund,”

so there is that opportunity for dialogue.

[Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)]

I should make it clear that I will support the motion, but something is causing alarm bells to ring. The Leader of the House rightly says that the motion means that the parliamentary scheme will not be better than those for other public sector workers, but will he make it quite clear that nothing in the motion has any implications for the negotiations that are taking place with other public sector schemes?

[Sir George Young]

The motion is purely declaratory, so the hon. Gentleman is quite right. The second half of it expresses a view, on behalf of the House, that we believe we should be treated no better or worse than those in other public sector schemes. It is important that our constituents know that that is our view and that we do not expect to be treated any differently from others in the public sector.

A further development is the increase in pension contribution rates for public service schemes, as already announced by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. The case for public service employees to pay more into their pensions and therefore reduce the burden on the taxpayer was made clearly in Lord Hutton’s interim report, which was published last autumn. The report states:

“In the short term, however, I consider there is also a strong case for looking at some increase in pension contributions for public service employees, to better meet the real costs of providing these pensions, the value of which has risen in recent years with most of these extra costs falling to taxpayers”.

The subsequent statement made by the Chief Secretary made it clear that each scheme would be required to find savings equivalent to a 3.2 percentage point increase, phased in over three years, with scheme-specific discussions to make proposals on how the savings were to be achieved.

If the House accepts the principle that hon. Members should not be out of step with changes that affect other public service schemes, we should also accept that our contributions should rise at the same time. I can therefore confirm that the Government propose to increase contributions to the ministerial scheme, with increases being applied from 1 April next year on a staged basis, and we will consult on that proposal as required by the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act.

Finally, I shall end where I began: the most important development of which account needs to be taken is the acceptance that MPs’ remuneration should be assessed, determined and administered independently.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Tony Lloyd

Thursday 19th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

On the question of paternity rights, there will be legislation in due course to change provision and my hon. Friend will have an opportunity to comment at that stage. We are reducing the stock of regulation through the red tape challenge. I was interested to hear about his meeting with the Coventry and Warwickshire chamber of commerce. We have an ambitious programme to reduce the flow of new regulation and are inviting the public to suggest existing regulations that could be scrapped or improved and then Government Departments will have to review their entire set of regulations.

[Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House refer his colleagues in the Department of Health to the situation of Southern Cross Healthcare, a company that owns care homes for the elderly, as 30,000 elderly people now face a very uncertain future? The company is in a parlous financial condition. It would be intolerable to see 30,000 elderly people put out on the streets. We need to know that the Health Ministers know about this situation and have a plan B.

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. The top priority must be the continuing welfare of the residents in the homes to which he refers. My right hon. Friend the Health Secretary and his Ministers are in contact with Southern Cross Healthcare. He will continue to keep in close touch with the situation and will work with local authorities, the Care Quality Commission and other providers to ensure an effective response that delivers protection to everyone involved. We know that the speculation in recent days has been stressful for those in the homes concerned and their relatives. We will do all we can to maintain the quality of care to which they are entitled.