Business of the House

Tom Brake Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman raises a really important point about the contribution disabled people make to our economy. I am absolutely delighted to thank and praise them from the Dispatch Box for the contribution that they make. We have seen over 600,000 more disabled people in work over the past three years, with 3.5 million people who have disabilities now in work. This Government have a proud record of supporting them and encouraging them.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Following yesterday’s victory in Parliament on the meaningful vote, will the Leader of the House make time available for a DExEU Minister to come to the House in advance of that meaningful vote to set out the impact assessment that they will have conducted on the impact of Brexit according to the deal that will have been secured with the European Union?

[Andrea Leadsom]

As ever, the right hon. Gentleman uses terms that I personally would not use. There will be ample opportunities for him to raise any questions that he has about the UK’s arrangements as we seek to leave the EU with the best possible deal for all of the United Kingdom and for our EU friends and neighbours. That is what the Government are determined to do to fulfil the result of the referendum that took place last year and took the very clear decision that the UK will be leaving the European Union.

Business of the House

Tom Brake Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I think that we all share the hon. Lady’s concern. We have seen an extraordinary rise in moped crime, which the Home Office is very concerned about. I am sure that the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee would be delighted to hear from the hon. Lady with a suggestion of a cross-party debate on the matter.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Will the Leader of the House make time available for a debate on why the Government have conducted an impact assessment into gravity foul sewers and lateral drains, but not into the UK leaving the European Union?

[Kevin Brennan]

Smells!

Business of the House

Tom Brake Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend raises an incredibly important point. Newark is a fabulous town, and I am quite sure that his constituents are very annoyed about what is going on. He will be reassured to know that Transport questions will be on 30 November, which will be a good opportunity for him to raise his real concerns.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Has the Leader of the House had time to read a leaked report by Irish embassies around the world, which paints a rather unflattering picture of the UK Government’s negotiating skills in relation to Brexit? It talks of feeling sorry for British ambassadors who are trying to present a coherent picture when there is confusion at home. Will she make time available for a debate on the Government’s incompetence and inability to deliver Brexit, increasing the risk of no deal?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The right hon. Gentleman might have noticed that there are quite a number of debates on Brexit going on at the moment. Perhaps he has not been present in the Chamber. I encourage him to stop talking the country down. We are extremely optimistic about the prospects for the UK as we leave the EU, and his constant pessimism is not helping.

Business of the House

Tom Brake Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My right hon. Friend raises what sounds like an extremely worrying development. He will be aware that all significant service change proposals must meet the Government’s four reconfiguration tests of support from clinical commissioners, clinical evidence, patient and public engagement, and support for patient choice. Additional NHS England guidance is that proposed changes should be tested for their impact on overall bed numbers in the area. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this issue. He may wish to take it up at Health oral questions or through an Adjournment debate for his hospital.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Will the Leader of the House make time available to discuss the 58 sectoral reports? I suggest this needs to be done before or shortly after 28 November, because if Ministers have not delivered by then, an allegation of contempt will be made against them. A debate would enable us to discuss why, far from there being extra money for the NHS, more money is being spent on lawyers, and more money will be spent on customs staff and on duplicating a whole range of EU regulators—none of which, of course, was mentioned by the leave campaign.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I have twice now given the response on the 58 impact assessment reports. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union will comply with the request of the House, but there is a balance between looking after the public interest and making sure we do not damage our negotiating stance, while at the same time complying with the House’s request.

Business of the House

Tom Brake Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend has been a real champion for drivers and has been extremely successful in his bid, in that over seven long years this Government have rejected the fuel duty increases that the last Labour Government proposed should occur automatically each year. Car drivers are now significantly better off as a result of lower fuel taxes. I suggest, however, that he makes his submission to the Chancellor in time for the Budget.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

As several Members have pointed out, there is rather a large gap in the Government’s legislative programme. I am sure that the Leader of the House would like to fill it, for instance with a debate on the £400 million needed for St Helier hospital or on the funding that Sutton’s schools lack. However, I would like to support the bid by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) for a debate on no deal and its impact. Such a debate would enable Brexit supporters on the Conservative Benches to talk in advance to the businesses that would be crippled by no deal, to the communities on the border in Northern Ireland that are worried about the security considerations, and to EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the EU for whom no deal would be a disaster. Who knows, perhaps some of those Brexit supporters might even change their minds by the end of the debate.

[Andrea Leadsom]

The right hon. Gentleman is well aware that the Government’s clear position is of seeking an all-encompassing agreement on free trade and other matters of co-operation with our EU friends and neighbours that will be to their benefit and certainly to the UK’s benefit. Unfortunately, his position is that we should seek to subvert the will of the people as expressed in last year’s referendum. As I understand it, the position of the official Opposition and the SNP is that we should accept whatever the EU offers, which clearly would not be to the advantage of the UK people. Britain’s interests are best served by sticking with the Government in their determination to seek a sound and comprehensive agreement with our EU friends and neighbours.

Business of the House

Tom Brake Excerpts

Thursday 12th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Hmm, yes.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Will the Leader of the House make time available for a debate, which I suggest should be led by the Cabinet Office, to enable Ministers from different Departments to set out the costs of Brexit? They could set out, for instance, the cost of the contingency plans, the cost to the 50 different sectors set out in the sectorial reports that we are not allowed to see and the cost of the Nissan deal and any other secret deals with car manufacturers. It would also enable Ministers, like the Leader of the House, to set out exactly what they had said during the EU referendum campaign about what the cost of leaving the European Union would be for the taxpayer.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I absolutely disagree with most of the right hon. Gentleman’s points. He is clearly seeking to fulfil the Liberal Democrats’ ambition of denying the public their say in last year’s referendum by trying to tie the Government up in knots talking about contingent possibilities that may or may not come to fruition. This Government, however, are getting on with the job of delivering on the democratic decision of the people of this country.

Government Policy on the Proceedings of the House

Tom Brake Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I rise to make what Members will be pleased to hear will be a mercifully short contribution. I am afraid that I must use some of my few minutes to correct something that was said by the shadow Leader of the House; I am sure that she would like that to be done at the earliest opportunity. She said that it was the Conservatives who introduced the Backbench Business Committee, but of course it was not. It was the coalition Government, consisting of Liberal Democrats and Conservatives. That followed the work that a Labour Member of Parliament, Tony Wright, had completed, but it is unfinished business. Let me pre-empt a possible intervention from the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who, I know, is pressing for the establishment of a Committee to resolve the way in which business is presented in this place. I hope that the shadow Leader of the House did not mind my correcting her on that point.

I thought that the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) was rather generous to the Leader of the House in saying that she could not possibly answer questions about business during business questions. That is her role, and I am sure that her predecessors Andrew Lansley and William Hague, with whom I worked, would have been very happy to answer a question on the subject of the business of the House.

The Government are clearly developing an addiction to closing down debate and scrutiny, or simply disregarding the outcome of any debates. We have heard a lot about Opposition day debates, so I will not touch on those. We have heard about the Government packing Committees to their advantage. We have heard a lot about the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, and rightly so, because of course there are Members of this place—they do not appear to be here today, with perhaps one honourable exception—who have preached at great length about the importance of parliamentary sovereignty, often repeating the same speech, but when it comes to that Bill their enthusiasm for parliamentary sovereignty appears suddenly to have evaporated and it is no longer the critical matter it used to be. We see that in the Henry VIII powers and in how much policy the Government intend to push through in secondary legislation.

I want to focus briefly on the 50 sectoral reports that the Government have commissioned on the impact of Brexit. Whether one is a remain supporter like me, or a leave supporter like the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), I think that we all agree that it is important that the Government go public on what the impact of Brexit will be. I feel that it will be very negative, and I am sure that he thinks that it will be very positive, but at the moment we do not know because we are not allowed to see those 50 reports, which the taxpayer has paid for.

I am afraid that situation is often reflected in answers to parliamentary questions on the subject. I would have thought that by now every Department would know how many pieces of EU legislation they were going to have to transpose into domestic law through the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill process. However, if Members ask that in a parliamentary question, what answer do they get? Some Departments are willing to hazard a figure of between 800 and 1,000, as the Department for Exiting the European Union has done, but others have no idea and do not give an answer at all. I think that the Government are very scared about allowing Parliament to scrutinise the Brexit arrangements in full possession of the facts.

In conclusion, the Leader of the House has had many opportunities in this debate to clarify the Government’s position on Opposition days, but she has chosen not to do so. We are left with the rather nasty suspicion that this is a Government who care little about parliamentary conventions, less about parliamentary scrutiny and nothing at all about parliamentary sovereignty.

Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards

Tom Brake Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That Kathryn Stone be appointed Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards on the terms of the Report of the House of Commons Commission, HC 294, dated 19 July 2017.

The motion is in my name, as spokesperson for the House of Commons Commission, and those of other commissioners and of the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Sir Kevin Barron), the recently re-elected Chair of the Committee on Standards.

In 2003 the House decided that the office of Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards should be held for a non-renewable term of five years. As the House will be aware, the commissioner’s principal responsibilities include maintaining the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and other registers; monitoring the operation of the code of conduct and proposing possible modifications to the Committee on Standards; and receiving and investigating matters relating to the conduct of Members and reporting findings to the Committee where appropriate. The appointment of the current commissioner, Kathryn Hudson, comes to an end on 31 December and the House therefore needs to appoint a new commissioner.

I should begin by expressing the appreciation of the House of Commons Commission for the work Kathryn Hudson has done during her tenure as the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. During that time she has handled a wide range of complaints against Members and has also contributed to the development of the standards system as a whole, including through instituting greater opportunities for training Members and their staff, and working on the respect policy and review of the code of conduct and guide to the rules.

Kathryn Hudson took up her post at the same time as the first lay members arrived on the Committee on Standards, and she has played a full part in ensuring the success of those new arrangements in addressing standards issues in the House. Throughout her time in office she has demonstrated great integrity, resilience, patience and persistence, and she will be remembered for her real dedication to public service. I am sure that the House would wish to join me in thanking Ms Hudson for her work.

The recruitment process for her replacement was rigorous. Advertisements were placed on the websites of The Sunday Times and The Guardian, and a range of other web-based methods were used to attract applications. In total, 81 applications were received. The process included the right hon. Member for Rother Valley, Dr Jane Martin, who was an external member of the recruitment panel and is a member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and members of the Commission. Full details of the recruitment process are available in the Commission’s report.

Kathryn Stone is currently the chief legal ombudsman of England and Wales, a post she has held since January 2016. Prior to that, Ms Stone held posts as an independent police complaints commissioner and as the Commissioner for Victims and Survivors for Northern Ireland. The Commission is confident that Ms Stone has the necessary experience and skills for the role, and that she will bring to it the authority, independence, discretion and strength of character required.

Ms Stone’s appointment will commence at the beginning of 2018, if the House approves the nomination. I am confident that Ms Stone will fulfil her responsibilities to the same high standard as her predecessors, and I commend this nomination to the House.

Business of the House

Tom Brake Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My right hon. Friend raises a very important issue. Approximately 850 UK-linked individuals of national security concern have travelled to engage with the Syrian conflict. We think about half of them returned to the UK, while over 15% were subsequently killed in fighting in the region. Our priority is, of course, to dissuade people from travelling to areas of conflict, and our Prevent strategy includes a lot of work to identify and support individuals at risk of radicalisation. This is clearly something for the commission for countering extremism, which is being set up, and I am sure the Foreign Affairs Committee will also be interested in this subject.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

The Leader of the House mentioned extremism in her opening remarks. Will she make Government time available for a debate on the report on extremism and the funding of extreme activity in the UK that the Government have not yet published? Members are entitled to know, for instance, whether that is because there are many references to the activities of the Saudis in the report. May we find time for such a debate?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that this is clearly something for the commission for countering extremism. It will be keen to look at reports of what has gone on already.