Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Meg Hillier and John Bercow(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
With exclusive reference to Dover, given that the Dover road does not go through Hackney.
Meg Hillier
It is not just the Dover district that is having these problems but businesses up and down the country, particularly in London and the south-east. I met small businesses in Hackney—not that far from Dover—on Friday. The reality surely is that the system is bust and that small businesses with a small turnover are being hit with huge and unsustainable bills, so what is the Secretary of State going to do to make life better for businesses in Dover, Hackney and around the country?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Meg Hillier and John Bercow(7 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. This is about Peterborough and England, not Kilmarnock and Loudoun—or even Scotland. I am going to save the hon. Gentleman up for a later occasion. We look forward to that with eager anticipation.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
For many in my constituency, home ownership is but a pipe dream, with more people renting privately than owning their own homes. What steps is the Minister considering to encourage private landlords at least to offer longer tenancies for these very many private renters in London and in Hackney South?
Points of Order
Debate between Meg Hillier and John Bercow
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Public Accounts Committee has summoned witnesses from the Department for Communities and Local Government to come before it tomorrow to explain reports that the troubled families programme has not been achieving its aims. Since 5 October, my Committee has been asking the Department to release six evaluation reports on the scheme. After much delay, they were finally published on the Department’s website at 6 o’clock yesterday evening. The reports amount to 800 pages of evidence. I am very concerned that, with the tardy release of that important information, the Government are trying to obfuscate proper parliamentary scrutiny of an important Government flagship programme and the money spent on it.
I seek your support and guidance, Mr Speaker, on how we can ensure that Ministers are reminded of the importance of providing proper information to this House so that we can carry out our task for citizens and taxpayers in scrutinising the Government’s business.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, both for her point of order and for her courtesy in providing me with advance notice of it. There is a clear expectation that Government Departments should co-operate fully with Select Committee inquiries, not least inquiries of the Committee of Public Accounts, and that they should furnish information in a timely fashion. That does not appear to have happened in this case. If for any reason there is a problem, the Department should communicate it promptly to the Committee so that it can, if it so wishes, adjust its schedule. I am sure that the hon. Lady’s concerns have been heard on the Treasury Bench and that they will be conveyed to the relevant Ministers. Meanwhile, she has made her point clearly, and she has done so on the record.
Quite how the hon. Lady and her Committee wish now to proceed in the light of the untimely provision of a vast tranche of information is, of course, for them to consider. Upon the whole, one would expect that a Committee would undertake its work without also considering Chamber devices for scrutiny of Ministers. The two, however, are not automatically and necessarily mutually exclusive, so if at some point the hon. Lady, a member of her Committee or any other Member wishes to probe a Minister in the Chamber on the substance of the issue or the reason for what appears to be an excessive delay, it is open to them to seek that route. I make no promise as to whether it would be successful, but it is open to Members.
The key point is that Committees hold the Government to account, and it is up to the Government to co-operate with the Committee, not only in accordance with the letter, if you will, but in accordance with the spirit.
Prayers
Debate between Meg Hillier and John BercowThis information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In Treasury questions on Tuesday, in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff), the Chancellor of the Exchequer cited the recent report by the Public Accounts Committee on corporate tax as having given Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs a “clean bill of health” with regard to the tax settlement with Google. That is, in fact, wrong. I could not believe it at the time, because I could not believe that the Chancellor could have made such a mistake, but I have checked the record. In contrast to what the Chancellor said, the Committee raised a number of concerns about the settlement and said that we could not conclude whether it was a fair deal. It was a “don’t know”, rather than a clean bill of health.
I am concerned that a senior Cabinet Minister could have cited a cross-party report of a Committee of this House so wrongly. I seek your advice, Mr Speaker, on how to make sure that this sort of thing does not happen again.
Mr Speaker
Preventing recurrence is very difficult in the House of Commons, and I am not sure that the Chair, any more than anyone else, can commit to that. The hon. Lady has taken the opportunity to correct the record from her vantage point and that of the Committee which she chairs. That fact will be communicated to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and it is for him to decide whether, in the circumstances, he wishes to say anything on the matter. If he does, so be it. If he does not, knowing the hon. Lady as I do, I have a sense that she will use the resources available to her to draw attention to the matter.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Meg Hillier and John Bercow(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
10. What assessment he made of the effectiveness of the Major Projects Authority prior to January 2016.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Meg Hillier and John Bercow(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
No one can doubt the comprehensiveness of the hon. Gentleman’s response, for which we are extremely grateful.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
The National Audit Office, the Public Accounts Committee and the Select Committee on Justice have been critical of the Government’s lack of understanding of the knock-on costs of their reforms to legal aid. Is it not now time that the Government reviewed them to ensure that cost shunting does not happen and that effective justice is available to those who need it?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Meg Hillier and John Bercow(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Ah! We are graced with the presence of the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, from whom we will now hear.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister has just extolled the virtues of his Department’s support for people with mental health problems, but in reality we know that too many people with mental health issues are coming through the Work programme and not getting work. Is it not time that, for the benefit of those people and of the taxpayer, some of his Department’s money was devolved to local areas so those people can get better support and get into proper jobs?