Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Wendy Chamberlain and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (James Cartlidge)]

The structure of the electricity market means that the price of electricity is tied to the wholesale gas price. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered an unprecedented increase in gas prices, driving energy prices to eight times their historic levels. As a result, many energy generators’ profits are well above pre-crisis levels. As announced at the autumn statement, the Government are introducing a temporary 45% tax on extraordinary returns made by some UK electricity generators from 1 January.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Wendy Chamberlain, whose birthday it is today. Happy birthday.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Shell announced worldwide profits of £8.2 billion and £9 billion for the three-month period between July and September and the three months to June. BP announced more than double its profits for the same period. They have increased their dividend payments and spent billions buying back their own shares from the market. Shell says that it does not expect to pay any windfall tax at all this year and BP said that it would pay £678 million. Does the Minister agree that, if the Government had implemented a proper windfall tax that captured these things, we could be supporting offshore customers such as my own in North East Fife?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Wendy Chamberlain and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The British Sign Language interpretation of proceedings is available to watch on parliamentlive.tv.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 19 January.

Prayers

Debate between Wendy Chamberlain and Lindsay Hoyle

Friday 14th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Many Members will have been shocked to see the newspaper headlines this morning, not just because of the terrible revelation that there were not one but two additional parties at Downing Street in 2021, the night before the Queen sat mourning alone at her husband’s funeral—the defining image of lockdown—but because the story in one newspaper this morning appears to be a leak of the outcomes of Sue Gray’s inquiry into those parties. On Wednesday the Prime Minister promised that on the publication of the report into the Downing Street parties, he would make a statement to this House. Mr Speaker, you have previously made clear that the Government should make important policy announcements to this House first, so that we can fulfil our job representing our constituents who will, of course, want to question the Prime Minister over these findings. For an issue of such importance, what guidance can you offer to ensure that Government Ministers and officials do not leak the outcomes of the report in advance, especially if those attempts to do so look as if they are exonerating the Prime Minister before we in this House see the contents of that report?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving notice of her point of order. The issue she has raised is a very important one, on a matter in which the House is extremely interested. It would be entirely inappropriate and discourteous to this House for any findings of the inquiry to be released to the media before being announced to this House. I cannot be clearer on this matter: I expect the Government to announce the findings of the inquiry to this House first, and I would treat any failure to do so as a gross discourtesy to this House.

Committee on Standards: Decision of the House

Debate between Wendy Chamberlain and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 8th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for securing today’s debate on standards. When I was first elected to this House, the mother of all Parliaments, I was incredibly proud because I thought that Members conducted themselves with honour and integrity, and that we were not ruled by a Prime Minister who was a tinpot dictator and who is himself now mired in sleaze—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We have just said that we want to show the House at its best. I do not think that the term “tinpot dictator” aimed at an individual is going to bring unity. I want to see us at our best, to show that we take this seriously. We want to show the House in the best way possible, so please, let us moderate our language and moderate our thoughts. Let us do this right.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

I think there is a point here: this is the kind of behaviour we would expect to see in the Duma in Moscow or the National People’s Congress in Beijing, not in the House of Commons. Previous Prime Ministers and previous Governments have all had their failings, but it is a long time since we have seen issues such as these and an absolute lack of resolve to do anything about them. They say that a fish rots from the head down, and I am disappointed to see that the Prime Minister has chosen not to turn up today to answer our questions, given that the Leader of the Opposition is in his place. I cannot help but feel that he thinks the rules do not apply to him.

The Government have recently failed to properly investigate allegations, failed to declare relevant meetings and, arguably, attempted to rig the system to cover their own back. This is the Prime Minister who flew to Afghanistan to escape a vote on Heathrow when he was Foreign Secretary, and he has driven to the north-east to escape questions today.

Committee on Standards

Debate between Wendy Chamberlain and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 4th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I seek leave to propose that the House should debate a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely the matter of the consequences of the decision of the House on 3 November relating to standards.

This morning, Lord Evans, Chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life said:

“In my view yesterday’s vote on the report of the Commons Standards Committee was a very serious and damaging moment for Parliament and for public standards in this country.”

We would all do well to reflect on those words.

The consequences of yesterday’s vote are clearly far reaching. Matters referred to and emerging from the Commons Standards Committee should never be a matter for the Government; they should be the business of this House and this House only. The Government’s decision not just to meddle in an independent process, but then to whip Conservative Members to get what they wanted is one of the worst overreaches of Executive power that this House has seen in its history.

It is vital that there are clear and high standards that are upheld, particularly by those in positions of responsibility. For example, as a former police officer, I, and others across the House, have been engaged in recent weeks on the conduct of those within the police service. It is shameful that this Government will not apply the same standards of scrutiny to behaviours within their own party. We have seen an attempted U-turn by the Government this morning, but the fact that the Leader of the House is proposing a different review of processes, without the scope for debate, demonstrates even further the contempt with which this place is being treated. The Government want to silence us.

The remarks by the Leader of the House this morning mean that we do not yet know the full consequences of yesterday’s vote, but we do know that we have already seen a Government Minister on television this morning questioning the future of the current independent Commissioner for Standards. I am hugely concerned that the Leader of the House is leaving the door open for further attacks on this independent process.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) talked yesterday about a need for consensus, and there are areas where I agree with the Leader of the House. There must be standards that are fair and robust, and which are seen to be fair and robust, but the Government’s short-sighted intervention to protect a colleague, using a political process to overturn in two hours an independent investigation that took two years is the complete opposite of fair and robust. That is why this House must have a debate on the consequences of yesterday’s vote. The statement by the Leader of the House this morning left far more questions than answers. The system will only be fair and robust when this debate has taken place.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member asks leave to propose a debate on the specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration—namely, the matter of the consequences of the decision of the House of 3 November relating to standards. I have listened carefully to the application from the hon. Member and I am satisfied that the matter raised is proper to be discussed under Standing Order No. 24. Has the hon. Member the leave of the House?

Application agreed to (not fewer than 40 Members standing in support.)

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Wendy Chamberlain and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Wendy Chamberlain was online, so let us go to Wendy. Welcome, Wendy.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD) [V]]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. When I return to my constituency of North East Fife, I will cross into Scotland, where the mandating of face masks is likely to continue. Is it the Government’s expectation that passengers will wear a mask only when they cross into Scotland—or, indeed, Wales? What consultation has happened with the Home Office in relation to guidance to the British Transport police? Do the Government accept that a lack of a four-nations approach to such measures is not helpful?

Sittings in Westminster Hall (Suspension) (No. 2)

Debate between Wendy Chamberlain and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD) [V]]

This debate has clearly demonstrated the value of Westminster Hall debates and private Members’ Bills for very many Members on both sides of the House, and, most importantly, for the constituents we represent. They allow Back-Bench Members to make their own contributions and advocate for specific topics on behalf of those constituents, as well as helping to shine a light on issues that the Government would not usually be held to account on.

Like other speakers in this debate, I would like to see Westminster Hall become fully virtual, allowing all Members to take part. I understand the broadcast capability constraints that have been reported previously, but I wonder whether an option might be to facilitate virtual participation in Westminster Hall and to record those sessions for later uploading and access by members of the public on the parliamentlive.tv site rather than via live broadcast.

During the autumn, before the Westminster Hall debates were back up and running, the Petitions Committee ran a series of Westminster Hall-style virtual debates that were accessible to those who had not been able to attend the House in person. They were invaluable to many of those hon. Members. I wonder what conversations the Leader of the House has had with either the Commission or the Petitions Committee and its Chairperson about to what extent it is possible to get those up and running again in the short term, or to adapt them to cover a broader range of debates while we look at how we bring Westminster Hall back in a virtual form.

Now that Westminster Hall debates and private Members’ Bills are to cease for the next few weeks, it is true that the avenues by which Members of Parliament can scrutinise the Government will be reduced. It is therefore vital that the Government ensure that those means that are available are working as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Regarding the Chamber, I agree with those hon. Members who have said that the Backbench Business Committee should be allocated a generous amount of time on the Floor of the House to enable it to address the long-standing backlog, which clearly the closure of Westminster Hall does not help. That is one of the few remaining mechanisms by which Back-Bench MPs can get an issue debated in this House, so I ask the Leader of the House to consider allocating further time to the Committee on that basis.

Beyond events in the Chamber, there are questions that we table and letters that we write to Ministers, and there are still real delays in answering parliamentary questions, even when they are named day questions. When they are answered, too often the answers we currently get give insufficient detail or are out of date.

I have concerns about the responses to those letters, and I highlight the Treasury in particular as a Department where we are still receiving stock replies. That is very frustrating for my constituents, who are often seeking a specific response to their query—that is why they have contacted my office in the first place—and I would be grateful if the Leader of the House could speak to the Chancellor about why that delay in particular is ongoing still within the Treasury, more than nine months on from the initial outbreak of coronavirus.

Finally, I pay tribute to the essential members of staff who are present in person on the parliamentary estate, who are allowing proceedings to continue in their current form. I ask the Leader of the House to set out whether any decision has been made in relation to testing for those that are on the estate, an issue I have raised before, to ensure that any outbreak, when it does happen, is caught before it spreads further.

[Mr Speaker]

As I said, we have got to bring the Leader of the House on at 7.50 pm, so please try to share out the time. There are five people to come.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Wendy Chamberlain and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 25th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I add my thanks to the people of Scotland for the effort they are making, particularly those who are already volunteering and providing vital services to those in their communities who are vulnerable.

In the past 24 hours, I have been contacted by several different local businesses in the self-catered accommodation industry. They thought they would be eligible for covid-19 grants for small and medium-sized businesses in retail, leisure and hospitality, but yesterday they discovered that they had explicitly been listed by the Scottish Government as not being eligible. Anyone who operates a chalet, a caravan or a B&B is eligible, but self-catering accommodation is specifically excluded, alongside ATM sites, jetties and pigeon lofts, among others.

If my constituents operated elsewhere in the UK, they would be supported. The message from them is clear: without these grants, the self-catering accommodation industry in Scotland is in peril. We cannot let this happen. I appreciate that this is a really difficult and challenging time for Governments, but will the Secretary of State make representations to the Scottish Government to reconsider their exclusions, in order to ensure consistency of support and the future of this industry?

[Mr Speaker]

We are asking questions, not making speeches.