Business of the House

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Yvonne Fovargue

Thursday 19th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

My right hon. Friend the Chancellor might be looking for new ways of broadening the tax base but whether that one would be easy to implement I very much doubt. My hon. Friend makes a good point. When the House is not sitting, MPs are not on holiday. His hyperactive work during the Easter recess shows just how hard MPs on both sides of the House work during the recesses.

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

In light of the Commons vote on Tuesday to remove from scope the majority of social welfare law, which will have a major effect on the viability of many advice agencies, will the Leader of the House tell us when the long-awaited advice review will be published so that we might at least have some attempt at a strategic approach instead of just allowing advice deserts to flourish?

[Sir George Young]

What I will undertake to do, now that the Bill has gone back to another place, is see that when the other place considers the amendments we made an answer is given by the Minister responsible to the hon. Lady’s question about the date of the help she has just mentioned. As she knows, some concessions were made on Tuesday in view of the concern that she and others had expressed and it is now a matter for the other place to see whether they accept our amendments.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Yvonne Fovargue

Thursday 7th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I would like to be as co-operative as I can. The coalition agreement sets out commitments to public service mutuals that are being taken forward by the Cabinet Office, and I hope that there might be an initiative in that direction before the House rises.

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

With the Committee stage starting next week on the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill—a Bill that will have major consequences for not-for-profit advice agencies—can the Leader of the House tell us when the review of advice services is likely to be completed and when a statement will be made to this House?

[Sir George Young]

The short answer is that I do not have that information at my fingertips, but I will get an answer from the appropriate Minister and communicate it to the hon. Lady.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Yvonne Fovargue

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I wholly agree with my hon. Friend’s point about the release, and I know that the British Government share that concern. He will have an opportunity on 16 November to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs about this. Alternatively, he can apply for a debate in Westminster Hall or through the Backbench Business Committee.

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

I would like to ask the Leader of the House for a debate on the real consequences for women of the proposed loss of child benefit—just one example of which would be the effect on their state pensions.

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Lady raises a legitimate point about whether the loss of child benefit will have an impact on the entitlement to a state retirement pension in the wife’s own right, and that is something that we will want to consider.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Yvonne Fovargue

Thursday 10th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. If she reads the Wright Committee report, she will see that it says right at the beginning that the proposals need to be implemented “in stages”. There is a real issue with moving straight to having 35 days in the Chamber: there would be implications regarding the amount of time for which the House sits and, more seriously, it would run the real risk of squeezing out time for the Report stage of Bills—an issue that concerns hon. Members on both sides of the House. I hope that we can debate the matter more extensively on Tuesday, but I can say that at least 27 of those 35 days will be on the Floor of the House. That is an improvement on the 12 days for set-piece debates that we have at the moment.

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

I have recently received a letter from my local Age Concern expressing its deep concern about the axing of the future jobs fund. When can an early debate on the issue be timetabled?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Lady might have seen today’s written statement from the Minister with responsibility for employment, which sets out our strategy to move away from the current raft of different schemes, many of which do not provide good value for money, to a single work programme this time next year. We have set out our strategy. There is a debate on poverty that she might be able to use ingeniously to raise the issue. There are 5 million people on out-of-work benefits. We inherited a situation with rising long-term unemployment and we genuinely believe that the single work programme that we are introducing, with a tailor-made package for individuals, is a better way forward than the raft of regimes that we inherited.