Business of the House

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I understand my hon. Friend’s concern, which he has expressed on several occasions at business questions. I understand that a meeting is taking place in Enfield on 4 July and I encourage residents who are opposed to what is planned to go along to that meeting. So far as the Government are concerned, we have removed the policy of setting charges to discourage the use of cars and we have introduced the policy that parking enforcement should be proportionate but, crucially, we expect local authorities to have regard to the impact of parking charges on businesses in the town centre. I commend my hon. Friend for the vigorous campaign that he has launched.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

May we have a debate on honesty in prison sentences? According to a parliamentary answer from the Ministry of Justice this week, someone who is sentenced to prison for six months can be released in six weeks, someone sent to prison for 12 months can be released after three months, and someone sent to prison for two years can be released after seven and a half months. A debate would allow the Government to explain to my constituents why that is a satisfactory state of affairs, and if they do not think it is a satisfactory state of affairs, perhaps they could explain what they will do about it.

[Sir George Young]

In the previous Session we had extensive discussions on the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. During the passage of the Bill, my hon. Friend raised many of those issues. Some of his suggestions were dealt with by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Justice in response. We have no plans for another debate on sentencing policy, but it is open to my hon. Friend, as a former member of the Backbench Business Committee, to seek a Back-Bench debate in Back-Bench time.

Business of the House

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

This is the big society in action. I commend what is happening in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, and I hope other groups will also do what they can to improve the environment in our canals and rivers. I cannot promise an early debate on this topic, but there will be an opportunity to raise it later today in the debate on matters to be raised before the forthcoming Adjournment.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

The overwhelming majority of the British public will have been delighted with the Prime Minister’s response to the question about votes for prisoners from the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) during yesterday’s Prime Minister’s questions. Can the Leader of the House confirm that, as far as the Government are concerned, this matter is closed and that the Government will accept the verdict of this House in its vote in the previous Session and will not introduce any further legislation or proposals to give prisoners the right to vote?

[Sir George Young]

As my hon. Friend said, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister gave a robust response yesterday to the question he was asked on prisoner voting. We welcome the fact that the Court has accepted our arguments that each state should have a wide discretion on implementation. We will be considering the judgment carefully and its implication for the issue of prisoner voting in the UK.

Privilege

Philip Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Whittingdale]

I hope that the full facts will continue to emerge, not just through the work of the Committee but through that of Lord Justice Leveson and the police investigation and the possible charges to follow. I have to say that the Committee reached that conclusion in our work. Initially, it was suggested that the “For Neville” e-mail might have been going to any old Neville in the News of the World. We made inquiries and discovered that in fact there was only one person called Neville in the employment of the News of the World, and he was its chief reporter. Therefore, in 2009 the Committee concluded:

“Evidence we have seen makes it inconceivable that no-one else at the News of the World, bar Clive Goodman, knew about the phone-hacking”.

In relation to the previous assurance about the rigour of the inquiry, we said:

“The newspaper’s enquiries were far from ‘full’ or ‘rigorous’, as we—and the PCC—had been assured. Throughout our inquiry, too, we have been struck by the collective amnesia afflicting witnesses from the News of the World.”

We published that report and nothing happened. It is perhaps a matter of regret that no further action was taken for another two years. However, evidence then started to emerge from the civil cases being brought by the victims of phone hacking, which led to the initiation of Operation Weeting—the police inquiry—and an Adjournment debate introduced by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), in which he suggested that the Committee had been misled. Those events, plus the decision of James Murdoch to close the News of the World and to make a statement saying that the evidence and statements given to Parliament were wrong, caused the Committee to decide to reopen the inquiry.

We took evidence from a wide range of people, including John Yates, then of the Metropolitan police, Rupert and James Murdoch, Rebekah Brooks, Jonathan Chapman, Daniel Cloke, Tom Crone, Colin Myler, Les Hinton and Julian Pike. We were assured at the time that News International was extremely keen to co-operate with the Committee and to establish the facts, but during the course of our subsequent inquiry three crucial documents emerged. It is worth noting that none were supplied to the Committee by News International, and that they actually came from various lawyers acting for the personalities involved.

The first document was the letter sent in March 2007 by Clive Goodman to Les Hinton, the then chairman, objecting to his dismissal. The reason Clive Goodman gave for his objection to his dismissal was as follows:

“This practice [phone hacking] was widely discussed in the daily editorial conference, until explicit reference to it was banned by the Editor. The legal manager, Tom Crone, attended virtually every meeting of my legal team and was given full access to the Crown Prosecution Service’s evidence files. He, and other senior staff of the paper, had long advanced knowledge that I would plead guilty.”

The second document we obtained was an internal e-mail sent from Tom Crone to Colin Myler before a meeting with James Murdoch to discuss the terms of the settlement with Gordon Taylor. The e-mail states that

“this evidence, particularly the e-mail”—

the “For Neville” e-mail—

“from the News of the World is fatal to our case.”

Tom Crone went on to say:

“Our position is very perilous. The damning e-mail is genuine and proves we actively made use of a large number of extremely private voicemails from Taylor’s telephone in June/July 2005 and that this was pursuant to a February 2005 contract.”

Of course, that was written almost a year before Mr Crone appeared before the Committee and suggested that the “For Neville” e-mail was of no real significance because they could not remember where it had gone or find any record of it.

The third document was the opinion obtained by Michael Silverleaf QC, who advised News Group Newspapers that it should reach a settlement because, as he said:

“there is a powerful case that there is (or was) a culture of illegal information access used at News Group Newspapers in order to produce stories for publication.”

The Committee, in its conclusions, comments on several specific issues that I will not go into in great detail, but they include such matters as the decision to authorise payments to Clive Goodman following his conviction; the importance of confidentiality in the size of the Gordon Taylor settlement; and the commissioning of surveillance of at least some members and former members of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. These are matters that we describe in detail, and I hope that the Standards and Privileges Committee will also consider them.

Our overall conclusion was that the evidence that we had obtained made it clear that the evidence given to us in our previous inquiry, when the individuals involved had once again attempted to assure us that there was no real suggestion or evidence that anyone else at the News of the World was involved in phone hacking other than Clive Goodman, was not true. They certainly did have documents that indicated very clearly that that was not the case. It was for that reason that the Committee concluded that we had been misled by Les Hinton, Tom Crone and Colin Myler—

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend for the skilled way in which he has chaired the Committee over a long period, including during these very difficult inquiries, on which there was not always agreement. Will he just reiterate that, despite all the controversy over other parts of the report, on the chapter we are discussing today the Committee was united in finding that these people had misled the Committee, and there was no disagreement about any part of this chapter?

[Mr Whittingdale]

My hon. Friend is correct: on whether the three individuals whom I have just named misled the Committee we were unanimous in our finding. It is for that reason that I was very pleased that the Committee agreed to support the motion that I am moving.

We took evidence from other individuals, and the Committee deliberately decided that we would reach no conclusion on the evidence given to us by people who have since been arrested and could face criminal charges. The Committee reserves the right to return to that question once proceedings are concluded, but the three individuals we identified have not been arrested, and we therefore felt it was right that we should draw the conclusions that we have and bring them to the attention of the House.

We are under no illusion: these are serious matters. The conclusions we have reached bear profound consequences. I am not entirely clear what those consequences are, but there is no question but that these are very serious matters. It was also brought to our attention that those individuals should have a right to rebut the charges and to respond to them. We respected that, and we therefore felt that the right procedure was to refer the matter to the Standards and Privileges Committee, so that it had an opportunity to consider the evidence that led to our findings and to consider the responses that have already been given by two of the individuals named. On that basis, I ask the House to refer the Committee’s report and the evidence we received to the Standards and Privileges Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I rise briefly to commend once again my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) for the way in which he chaired what has been, at times, a challenging and difficult Committee, not just in this Parliament, but in the previous Parliament, when our conclusions were not always unanimous and we had a number of disagreements along the way. He, as ever, chaired the Committee expertly.

I would also like to take the opportunity to commend the other members of the Committee. We did not always agree on these matters, but everybody put a lot of hard work into the report. There was a lot of dedication over a long period, and even though we may well have had an honest disagreement at the end of it on some matters, people should not underestimate the efforts that Committee members on both sides of House put in to get to where we are today, not least the hon. Members for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) and for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly), who put in a lot of time and effort to uncover the wrongdoing that clearly took place at News International.

I absolutely endorse the case that was put by my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon at the beginning of the debate on why the matter should be passed on to the Standards and Privileges Committee. I want to emphasise that the Committee did not come lightly to the decision that Tom Crone, Colin Myler and Les Hinton had lied to the Committee in its previous inquiry, and, it might be said, in this one too. I do not think that any Select Committee would lightly decide overtly to state that certain named individuals lied to it in the course of its inquiry. I want to press that point to the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee so that he appreciates that the decision was not entered into lightly. Those conclusions did not come flippantly, but after much serious consideration and deliberation.

I also want to emphasise how our inquiry was repeatedly impeded by News International, not just this inquiry, which, to be perfectly honest, showed for the first time elements of News Corporation co-operating with the Select Committee, but particularly the previous inquiry, when News International repeatedly, consistently and corporately made it clear that it was impeding our inquiry. In case people are not aware, I have to report that News International attempted to have the hon. Member for West Bromwich East and me thrown off the Committee during the last Parliament because it thought that we would not be particularly favourable to them in our deliberations. As the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) made clear, it would be absolutely unacceptable if people could come to Parliament and know that they could get away with repeatedly lying to the Committee. If that did happen, it would open the floodgates for witnesses not to tell the Committees about anything that might be inconvenient to them.

Let me make one brief point to emphasise how we did not enter into these matters lightly. The lies were not just little white lies, but deliberate attempts to mislead the Committee on serious matters. For example, my hon. Friends the Members for Maldon and for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) mentioned the letter that Clive Goodman sent to appeal against his dismissal to Les Hinton, saying that this practice was widespread in News of the World and that it was discussed on a daily basis. Yet Les Hinton made it clear that he had seen no evidence at all to suggest that the practice was more widespread, which was quite a palpable lie.

We must also remember that on the back of the letter that Les Hinton received, he was responsible for making sure that, one way or another, Clive Goodman received a payment totalling around £250,000. That happened only for him to say quite flippantly that there was no evidence at all; there was certainly sufficient evidence for him to authorise £250,000 to be paid out from News International to Clive Goodman—somebody who was convicted of a criminal offence, caused huge embarrassment to the company and could have been dismissed for gross misconduct. I would like to press upon the House, and the Standards and Privileges Committee, the fact that that was not only repeated, but very serious and blatant.

Finally, I would like the Standards and Privileges Committee to consider the motives of the people who lied to us—my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Louise Mensch) touched on this in her contribution—because it is not entirely clear why certain people lied. Was it to protect themselves, which might have been the case for some people, to protect colleagues, or was it to protect the company and its reputation as a whole? The Committee might like to consider what motivated those people to lie and whether different motivations should come with different punishments. I am not offering any particular opinion, but I think that that is something that should be put on the record.

The reason I mention motives is that it was perfectly apparent during the previous inquiry in the last Parliament that witnesses from News International came to the Committee with a corporate game plan: nobody knew anything, nobody could remember anything, and nobody knew anybody who might know anything, and that was everybody’s defence at every possible turn. Whatever question was asked, that was the corporate defence from everybody who appeared before us under the News International banner, and it was particularly striking. I recall asking Les Hinton during that inquiry whether he had received any coaching before the evidence session so that we would know where we stood and whether News International had employed someone to advise them on how to answer the questions.

That is something the Standards and Privileges Committee might want to look at, because to my mind, and that of the Committee as a whole, the three individuals we named palpably lied to us, and it is very interesting to consider how on earth that came about. Were they told to give those answers, or did they make that decision themselves? I certainly have a feeling that on some occasions they were told what to say and that it was a corporate decision, rather than one they made themselves.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, the Committee and its Chair for the way they have conducted their inquiry and today’s debate. Will he reassure me that, as this ever-changing situation evolves, if any other witnesses are found to have misled or lied to the Committee, it will take the same action and call for them to be referred to the Standards and Privileges Committee?

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend but fear that his question is slightly above my pay grade, as those are not decisions I can take for the Committee as a whole. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon, the Chair of the Committee, listened carefully to his intervention. He is probably the best person to direct that request to. I would certainly be sympathetic to the idea of the Committee looking again at certain individuals, if the legal situation allowed, who might also have lied to us, if that is what we conclude.

In conclusion, these are very serious matters, matters about which the Committee was absolutely unanimous, with regard to the three individuals concerned, and that we did not enter into lightly. We might have had some very well-publicised disagreements about parts of our report, but on this we were absolutely united. On the report as a whole, and on the inquiries as a whole, there was far more that united the Committee than divided it.

Business of the House

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am very sorry to hear of the problems that confront the hon. Lady’s constituents. It so happens that a constituent of mine was killed in Greece last year, and their family is having exactly the same problems of finding out when the trial is to be held and what status and role they will have in the proceedings. I will raise the matter with a Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister and ask him to contact her and see what assistance we can give to the family in the tragic circumstances she has just mentioned.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I very much support the Government in putting public sector pensions on an affordable and sustainable footing. In that spirit, may we have a debate on the pension contributions of judges? Judges are being asked to make a contribution of just 2% towards their pension, which is neither affordable nor sustainable. Surely my right hon. Friend agrees that it is wrong that judges pay less in total towards their pensions than other public sector workers, who are being asked to pay increased contributions?

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

We engaged a great many companies, but we cannot invent competition. However, at least three organisations are still involved in the bidding, and I firmly believe that the way we went about it—ensuring that local government had a say and that the contracts were awarded across local government areas, rather than regionally or nationally—promoted competition and offered up the opportunity for community broadband providers, for example.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

How many jobs does the Minister expect to be created or lost in the gambling industry as a result of the changes in the Budget, how many online betting businesses that are currently offshore will come back onshore, and how many jobs will come back with them?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (John Penrose)]

I am delighted to have a chance to answer at least one question. Unfortunately, the answer is that I do not know, because this is an issue for the Treasury.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

The House of Lords (Amendment) Bill is a constitutional Bill, and it is normal that the Committee stages of such Bills are taken on the Floor of the House. I have no reason to suppose that this Bill will be an exception. We will of course provide adequate time for debate.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

May I propose a change for the Government when they are considering their legislative programme for the next Session? Will they bear it in mind, just for a change, that they are in coalition with the Conservative party?

[Mr Heath]

I doubt that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House ever forgets that fact.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose]

I completely share my right hon. Friend’s concern about gambling addiction. Although it affects only a small number of people, it can ruin lives and is a very serious issue. Many colleagues on both sides of the House have raised it, as did Mary Portas in her recent review of the health of high streets throughout the country. However, my right hon. Friend will agree that we have to ensure that any policy or regulatory changes that might be considered are based not just on concern and anecdote, but on firm evidence and factual foundation. Therefore, my invitation to him and any other colleagues concerned about this issue—on either side of the House—is that if they can bring me hard evidence and facts, I will of course consider them extremely carefully.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Despite what the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) says, does my hon. Friend the Minister not accept that the percentage of problem gamblers using FOBTs declined from 11.2% in 2007 to 8.8% last year, and that the availability of gambling on the internet drives a coach and horses through the ridiculous limits we now have on the use of betting shop terminals? Given that people can use only one at a time—or perhaps two at best if they are particularly proficient—whether there are four, six or eight in a betting shop makes absolutely no difference at all to an individual’s problem gambling.

[John Penrose]

I accept that the causal link between FOBTs and problem gambling is poorly understood, which is why I asked for better evidence and facts to back up any suggested changes in regulation. I also agree with my hon. Friend that remote gambling is changing how people gamble. We need to make sure that such gambling is properly controlled and regulated, which is why we propose to introduce new regulations on it in due course.

Business of the House

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, not least for the plug for business questions on his blog earlier this week. I am also grateful for what he said about the Somalia conference. Compensation is available for those who suffered loss in the riots, either from the police authority or from local government. I will chase up the issues that he has referred to and see whether we can make progress to help his retailers.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Can we have a debate on employment tribunals? A large number of businesses in my constituency are concerned about the number of vexatious complaints that are taken to employment tribunals, which they find very expensive to defend against, particularly in these times. I know that the Government want to help with this, and a debate in the House might help them in that regard.

Business of the House

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I understand that there will be an opportunity to ask that question of Ministers in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on 15 December. I also understand that the hon. Lady represents her party on the Front Bench so she is well placed to ask that question. I shall convey the question to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and see whether we can get the information—I am pretty sure that it has been asked for before—on the relationship between the areas that buy the tickets and those that get the lottery investment. I shall do what I can to secure that information.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

May we have a debate on penalties for swearing at police officers? The excellent new Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, has said that people should be properly punished for swearing at police officers, whereas the rather ridiculous Mr Justice Bean has recently quashed the conviction against somebody who swore at a police officer, saying that it was the kind of thing that they should expect. Given the widespread concern about the lack of respect in society, surely people should not be able to swear at police officers without punishment. A debate in the House could decide the will of the House.

[Sir George Young]

I understand my hon. Friend’s concern. Having been on the police parliamentary scheme, which I am sure that many other hon. Members have been on, I understand the frustration that policemen experience when they are subject to abuse. My recollection is that it is not an offence, as such, to swear at a policeman, but that if, after someone has been warned, they carry on, they are liable to be arrested. However, I am not a lawyer and I shall get an authoritative response from the Lord Chancellor, which will be conveyed to my hon. Friend.

Business of the House

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am sorry if the hon. Lady has not received any information that she is entitled to. I will chase this matter up the moment these business questions finish, and make sure that she gets an answer from the appropriate Minister.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

The TaxPayers Alliance has recently published a new and compelling report called “Industrial Masochism”, which demonstrates how the carbon floor price threatens the jobs of tens of thousands of British workers as energy-intensive businesses relocate overseas. Could we find time for an urgent debate on the impact of the Government’s climate change policies on British industry, so that workers in these vital manufacturing sectors can learn why their jobs have been sacrificed on the high altar of global warming?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. As he will know, following the statement by the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change a document was published setting out the impact of climate change policies on households and industry. I think my hon. Friend will find that that document comes to a slightly different conclusion from the TaxPayers Alliance. I would welcome a debate on this matter, as would my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) who spoke a few minutes ago, but I cannot promise that we can find time for that in the near future.

Business of the House

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I look forward to welcoming the UK Youth Parliament to this Chamber tomorrow and to making a short preliminary address along with you, Mr Speaker, and the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle). I hope that many of those young people will return in due course as Members when the Chamber is sitting, rather than on a non-sitting Friday.

We are to debate youth unemployment on Wednesday on an Opposition day. I remind the hon. Lady that youth unemployment went up by 40% under the previous Government, at a time when the economy was doing better than it is currently. The Opposition therefore have little to lecture us about on that.

The Localism Bill does not actually include the national planning policy framework. I hope that the hon. Lady will welcome what is happening on Monday, when we will spend a whole day on localism. There are a number of Government amendments that I hope will be welcomed on both sides of the House because we have listened to the debate on the Bill and made some changes.

On forecasts, the hon. Lady ought to know that the Government do not make economic forecasts. That is done by the Office for Budget Responsibility. Its next report will come out on 29 November when the Chancellor makes his autumn statement. Some of the issues that the hon. Lady raised in relation to the IMF have just been dealt with by my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary.

I am sorry that the hon. Lady did not find time to welcome the news from earlier this week about the revival of Stanley dock in north Liverpool, as a result of the regional growth fund, which will help to reduce unemployment in and around her constituency.

Finally, on executive pay, it is worth reminding the House that the average chief executive of a FTSE 100 company earned 47 times the amount earned by the average employee in 1998 and 115 times that amount in 2009, so the gap actually widened under the last Labour Government. I agree with the hon. Lady that there is an unsustainable disconnect between how our largest listed companies perform and the rewards that are on offer. Concern on that comes not just from Government, but from investors, business groups and others. We are considering ways to reform remuneration committees and to empower shareholders, for example by making shareholder votes on pay binding and ensuring that there is shareholder representation on nomination boards. We are consulting on a number of issues, but at the end of the day, it is up to shareholders rather than the Government to determine executive pay.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

May we have a debate on transport funding? A recent survey showed that Bradford was seen as one of the most congested cities in the country. My constituency is probably the most congested part of the Bradford district. I am not asking for extra funding for transport, given the terrible financial legacy that this Government were left by their predecessor. What I am asking for is that Yorkshire gets a fairer slice of the transport cake and that Bradford gets an even fairer slice than that.

[Sir George Young]

I understand my hon. Friend’s anxiety that a larger share of the transport budget should be allocated to his constituency to deal with congestion. There will be an opportunity at Transport questions on 10 November for him to press the case for more funding for his constituency with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, whom I will forewarn that my hon. Friend is on the way.