Business of the House

Adam Afriyie Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. The Deputy Leader of the House and myself travel almost everywhere by bicycle, so we are making our contribution to energy saving, and we have a very small carbon footprint between us.

May I begin with the serious issue that the right hon. Gentleman raised? Yesterday’s debate marked a sea change in the House’s perception of certain sections of the press, which I think reflects a much broader change in how the public now view the allegations. They have been made even worse by the allegations in the press today that the families of soldiers who have fallen had their phones tapped. It was a good debate, because the mover of the motion and many others who spoke from throughout the House understood and recognised that it was not a party political issue.

The Government are now looking at two inquiries. The first is on the specifics of the original police investigation and why it did not uncover some of the allegations that are now emerging, and the second is on the wider issue of media ethics, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. There is a relationship between those two inquiries, which means that we will have to give careful thought to their terms of reference and their relationship with the ongoing police investigation. We will consult widely on the terms of reference, including with the Joint Committee on privacy, party leaders and the Cabinet Secretary. We want to get this right, and we plan to make an announcement to the House before Parliament rises for the summer recess. I will pass the right hon. Gentleman’s questions on to the Home Secretary, who will be in the House today for Second Reading of the Police (Detention and Bail) Bill.

On BSkyB, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport is acting in a quasi-judicial way, and it is quite right that he carries out his role in that manner without any interference from anyone else in the Government. As the right hon. Gentleman will know, my right hon. Friend was on the Treasury Bench for the debate yesterday and will have heard what the House said. Yesterday’s debate was about newspapers not being above the law, and it is quite right that Ministers are not above the law either.

On Bombardier, the right hon. Gentleman sought to dismiss the way in which the procurement process was designed and initiated by the previous Government. As I have just said, newspapers are not above the law, but Ministers are not above the law either. We are bound by the criteria that the previous Government set out, and we must continue with the decision that has been made according to those criteria. Of course, any job losses are regrettable, but Bombardier had previously advised the Government that it expected to make 1,000 redundancies at this time, regardless of the outcome of the Thameslink procurement, as several of its existing orders had reached completion. Derby is a priority area for the European regional development fund under the east midlands programme. I understand that a large amount of the £6.6 million ERDF funding available for Derby to use for suitable projects is still available, and there are six bids from Derby for the regional growth fund.

Turning to the Department for International Development, the shadow Leader of the House will have seen the written ministerial statement by the Secretary of State for International Development on 6 July. He is holding a briefing on the horn of Africa at 5 pm this evening in room 15 and will update colleagues if they go along. The shadow Leader of the House will have seen in the ministerial statement that the Government have contributed help with food for 1.3 million Ethiopians for three months as well as helping to tackle the problem of hundreds of thousands of starving children.

The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has replied to the shadow Secretary of State and placed the letter in the Library. The letter deals with all the questions raised by the shadow Leader of the House. I note in particular that Secretary of State says that

“since it was written, the Government has said it will be looking at transitional arrangements for particularly hard cases. We are putting in a series of policy measures to assist local authorities with that transition, and to provide considerable financial support to tackle homelessness.”

He goes on to say:

“I…hope Her Majesty’s Opposition can support”

the benefit cap,

“not least since it was in the Labour Party’s general election manifesto.”

The matter of Conservative MEPs and climate change was covered in the exchange that just took place in Department of Energy and Climate Change questions. Of course, we are disappointed about the European Parliament vote, but I am sorry that when it came to voting on the amended report as a whole, Conservative MEPs mostly voted in favour, and Labour MEPs largely voted against.

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

On 12 May, the House tasked the Members’ Allowances Committee to review the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009. I welcome the Leader of the House’s support in doing so, but there is a motion on today’s Order Paper that suggests, on the face of it, that the remit of the Committee should be restricted to looking at expenses. It looks that way, but I feel sure that that is not what the Leader of the House is seeking to do, and that he wants to ensure that a full review takes place. I just invite him, to save time this afternoon, to make it absolutely clear that the motion will not restrict the Committee from conducting a full review into all aspects of the 2009 Act.

[Sir George Young]

Following the debate that my hon. Friend initiated, we had informal discussions with him, and I tabled a motion earlier this week that, as I understood it, met all his concerns and provided the right remit. I was very sorry that the motion was blocked on two occasions, and of course, amendments to it have been tabled, which automatically blocks it. I cannot undertake to find time between now and the end of the Session to debate this particularly important issue. I very much hope that those who blocked the motion or tabled amendments to it will think again, and enable us to make progress and set up the Committee as it was originally envisaged.