All-party Parliamentary Groups

Debate between Martin Vickers and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I agree with many of the points made—particularly those made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton)—and fully support the report’s aims in respect of transparency and financial accountability. However, I have a few concerns, similar to those expressed by my hon. Friend. For example, I am the trade envoy to the western Balkans, which is six countries. I happen also to be an officer or a member of those six country APPGs, which I think is advantageous to my role as the trade envoy. It may be that showing an interest in those countries before I was appointed to be an envoy played a part in my appointment. I do think it is important that I take an interest in those all-party groups because they give me wider knowledge and an interest in aspects of those countries other than their trade and economy.

I am also an officer of a number of other APPGs, usually because of a personal interest or because they are relevant to my constituency. I am a vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Iceland because my constituency is heavily reliant on its trading relationship with Iceland; thousands of my constituents who work in seafood processing are totally reliant on supplies of fish from Iceland. There seems to be a particular logic to that. I am a member of those APPGs because of the trade envoy role, interest in the countries or relevance to my constituency, but why should that stop me from being the treasurer of the all-party parliamentary group on heritage rail? I happen to have a passion for steam railways, some of which are in Wales, I say to the Chair of the Standards Committee. The restriction on membership to six APPGs is perhaps over-egging the pudding to some extent. There is an issue with transparency in some APPGs, but we are perhaps looking for problems that do not exist.

On the issue of 20 Members being a member of an all-party group, on the face of it, that would seem perfectly possible. However, some all-party groups deal with illness and disease—virtually every illness or disease known to man probably has an all-party group. There are the headline ones such as strokes, cancers and so on, but some are rather obscure illnesses that may have affected Members, or their families, who have a particular passion to deal with that and to work with the charities and support groups. To find 20 members could be challenging and make it a little more difficult to do that important work.

The report says:

“There appears to be the real possibility of APPGs having been set up at the suggestion of, and as a result of lobbying by, a commercial interest.”

I set up the all-party parliamentary group on freeports a number of years ago because it was a policy concept I wanted to push that would be beneficial to my constituency and others. We have seen the Government adopt the freeport policies around the country. I set that up because I thought it was advantageous to my constituency, not because I was being lobbied by any commercial interest. However, I was aware that commercial interests were interested in the establishment of freeports—port operators being the obvious candidate. I agree wholeheartedly with the vast majority of what is proposed, but, in respect of the points I have made, it goes too far. I certainly support the suggestion by the Father of the House that we delay a final decision on this.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Standards Committee.

Levelling Up

Debate between Martin Vickers and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his visit to my constituency on Monday. He will recall the excellent fish and chip lunch that we shared. During that lunch, a number of points were raised. First, can he ensure that LNER delivers on its promise of a direct rail service from Cleethorpes through to King’s Cross? Urgent decision making was also referred to, and the way to help delivery of that would be to create a level 3 authority in the county.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

One question at a time.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Martin Vickers and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Monday 5th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I warn colleagues that this statement will finish at 6 o’clock due to the need to get back to the debate on the Bill, so I urge colleagues to be brief.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

The majority of my constituents will welcome the Secretary of State’s statement, but NHS Digital data shows that the case rate in the council area is 591 per 100,000. That is considerably ahead of the national average and is causing inevitable concern, particularly among elderly and vulnerable groups. I have full confidence in the local NHS, the council and other officials dealing with the situation, but if it continues to worsen, will my right hon. Friend meet me and my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici) to discuss whether additional support and resources are required?

Britain’s Railways

Debate between Martin Vickers and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Thursday 20th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call Angela Crawley. Not here, so I call Martin Vickers.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con) [V]]

Unlike Labour Members, I welcome the Secretary of State’s focus on what works rather than just on ownership, but we should not lose sight of the fact that competition is a spur to improved services. Open access operators have provided services to towns that were not included in franchises. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that these services will continue? Paragraph 25 of the White Paper states:

“New open access services will also be explored where spare capacity exists.”

Can we be assured that the default position will be to do everything possible to ensure that we do not reduce existing services and that we extend and improve services? As chairman of the all-party rail group, I can tell my right hon. Friend that an invitation to address the group is already winging its way to him, and I hope he will be able to do so in the next few weeks.