Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am very disappointed in what the hon. Gentleman says, because I would hope that Members of this House would attach immense weight to the primacy of this House in determining the franchise for this House and reject a move by the unelected House to seek to interfere with the previously settled will of this House.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Although Members in the other House might not care what voters think, because they do not have to face them, surely other colleagues in this House must care that all their electors would like the cost of Parliament reduced and for all votes to count as much as each other.

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend makes a good point well. Anybody who votes to agree with the Lords or not to disagree with them on this amendment will, I fear, have to explain to their electorate why they are not reducing the cost of politics when we are asking the public services generally to do that.

In what is colloquially known as the Hart-Rennard amendment we have not only an abuse of parliamentary process, but a democratic travesty. The unelected House is seeking to frustrate the precisely expressed will of this Parliament—not a previous Parliament—to deny fairness and equality in the franchise and fundamentally to manipulate the basis on which this House is to be elected.

Business of the House

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am beginning to think that the best preparation for business questions would be to listen to LBC radio on a Thursday morning. I clearly missed out. I find it incredible that the Department for Education could have responded to only one freedom of information request. Any Department that I have been in has replied to freedom of information requests by the dozen on a weekly basis.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

At a time of great change in the EU and in Britain’s relationship with it, has my right hon. Friend given any thought to improving scrutiny in this place, for example by improving the use of specialist Select Committees to scrutinise EU legislation, promoting the post of Minister for Europe to a Cabinet position and periodically considering European business in this Chamber, rather than always considering Westminster business?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend will be aware that the European Scrutiny Committee is conducting an inquiry into European scrutiny, which Her Majesty’s Government have welcomed. She makes an important point about the wider use of the expertise of departmental Select Committees in European scrutiny. I hope that that will be taken forward. We look forward to seeing the report of the European Scrutiny Committee. Questions on European business may be asked of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In addition, European legislation impacts on the policies of many Departments and so can be raised at many Question Times.

General Matters

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Tuesday 18th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

I am delighted to have the opportunity to talk about some specific issues that affect my constituency. First, I would like to pay tribute to the Government for their determination to move to a greater localist agenda, to give communities a far better say over what happens in their area. That can only be a good thing.

Northamptonshire was certainly subjected to enormous amounts of top-down bureaucratic management under the previous Government, who were determined to concrete over the green fields and to implement regional strategies for everything, which bore no relation whatever to what local communities wanted. We have definitely moved in the right direction as a Government. There are, however, some very specific problems that concern my constituency, and I shall raise just two of them today.

The first concerns wind farms. Northamptonshire is not known at all for being a windy place. In fact, it is one of the least windy counties in the country. Clearly, we are not given to providing enormous renewable energy resources—yet we have had so many wind farms approved in our county that we have contributed more than what could be seen as our fair share towards any renewable strategy.

I shall specifically mention the Spring Farm ridge development, in and around the villages of Greatworth, Helmdon and Sulgrave—historic villages with great character. The application by the developer, Broadview Energy, to build a wind farm in the area was rejected by South Northamptonshire council on 30 June 2011. The case went to appeal, and the appeal was upheld on 12 July 2012. On refusing the application to develop Spring Farm ridge, the council found

“that the development would have a major impact on the landscape as it currently exists, have considerable impact on some of the many heritage assets within 5km of the proposed wind farm, result in the loss of a perception of tranquillity to the well-used public rights of ways network, dominate the outlook, be unpleasantly imposing and pervasive to a neighbouring resident and be contrary to several local and regional planning policies”.

What is interesting is that the planning inspectorate accepted all those findings, but still upheld the appeal.

Since then I have had an exchange of letters with the Department for Communities and Local Government and with Sir Michael Pitt, the chief executive of the Planning Inspectorate. I explained how appalled local residents were to find that the planning appeals inspector had upheld the appeal despite accepting all the council’s contrary findings of invasiveness. The response of the DCLG, in July 2012, was

“local plans are the keystone of the planning system. Our aim is for every area to have a clear local plan which sets out local people’s views of how they wish their community to develop, consistent with the Framework and against which planning applications for planning permission will be judged.”

That is clearly in the interests of localism and takes account of the views of local communities.

Sir Michael Pitt’s response to the same question about how local views could have been so overruled was

“the recently published National Planning Policy Framework… provided an important and up-to-date expression of national renewable energy policy, and this has… been taken into account. Such decisions”

—appeal decisions—

“involve a careful balancing exercise. In this case, considerable weight was given to the Framework and the economic and environmental benefits of the proposal were considered to outweigh the adverse impact of the scheme.”

Therein lies the problem. Whereas we, as a Government, are in favour of greater localism and of people’s ability to have their say, the inspectorate—while not rejecting those findings, but accepting and welcoming them—is clearly determined to insist that the national desire for renewable energy outweighs those local concerns.

My first question to the Deputy Leader of the House is this: how can we enable local communities to feel confident that it is worth their while to express their views? In this instance, many thousands of pounds were spent and hundreds of hours of local communities’ time, energy and intellect were invested in establishing the planning-related reasons why the wind farm application might be turned down, only for those reasons to be completely overturned. What hope can we give local people that their voices will be heard—indeed, not just heard, but actually listened to—and that they will be able to resist developments that are completely contrary to local wishes?

My second question to the Deputy Leader of the House is very specific. When will the regional strategies finally disappear? According to a second response from Sir Michael Pitt,

“Planning law requires that Inspectors determine an appeal in accordance with the adopted Development Plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise. The weight afforded to plan policies reflects both their progress in terms of formal adoption and whether more recent policy, either local or national, has superseded them to some degree. In this case the Inspector carefully considered the relevant Development Plan policies and also other material considerations as well as the views of local residents.”

I have the impression that the inspectors were looking more to the past and the regional strategy of the last Government than to the future and the present Government’s desire to let local people have their say. When will that change?

My final question to the Deputy Leader of the House is this: will the existence of a regional plan or, indeed, a neighbourhood plan allow communities to reject either the principle or the siting of a wind farm? Will the implementation of the new local plan under the Localism Act 2011 enable them to reject such an unwelcome siting successfully?

Already, in my small area of south Northamptonshire, a wind farm application has been approved on appeal for Spring Farm ridge. Applications have been approved for Winwick, near Daventry, and for Boddington, and are pending for Ml, Roade, Stoke Goldington and Milton Keynes. The Tove valley and Ml application is proposed, and a new wind farm is proposed for Wappenham. How shall we ever convince local communities that they can fight their corner with some prospect of success?

The second point that I want to make is slightly different. It concerns the west Northamptonshire joint planning unit, which was set up under the last Government to force the local planning authorities of Northampton borough, Daventry and South Northamptonshire, with the support of Northamptonshire county council, to implement the last Government’s regional spatial strategy. In other words, it was the tool to implement the previous Government’s top-down RSS, without a great deal of consultation with local people, but the WNJPU still exists under the new Government. Although theoretically it is made up of democratically accountable councillors, each of the four councils that take part in its leadership have only two representatives on the committee. There is no democratic accountability, therefore—in fact, quite the opposite, as each council planning authority is incentivised to stitch up their neighbour and avoid looking holistically at the entire area. That has been incredibly divisive in South Northamptonshire and Northampton, where we have ended up with proposed developments and approvals for development sites that have run entirely counter to local community requirements and wishes.

One such example is at Collingtree, which is in my constituency but on the outskirts of Northampton. The WNJPU is proposing to approve in principle a plan for 1,000 new homes there, despite the local community’s concerns. It has concerns about traffic congestion caused by vehicles coming to the site, where delays of up to half an hour already occur at peak times. It also has concerns about flooding, because there has regularly been flooding of previous developments that were supposed to have proper flood defence plans. Public transport provision is a worry, too. The estimates for this 1,000-home development include only 1.5 cars per property. Unless public transport is superb, that will not be adequate. Yet another major concern is school provision. The residents of Collingtree feel these concerns are not being taken into account by the WNJPU, which is a relic of a previous Government with a top-down ethos.

I ask the Deputy Leader of the House to advise me on what I can do to help my constituents ensure that their voice is heard. Can he help me to get the WNJPU disbanded and have planning powers given back to the local planning authorities, where they should be? Does he agree that local plans should be accepted and recognised as good for the community only if they are supported by that community and that it is therefore unacceptable for organisations such as the WNJPU to continue operating undemocratic area-wide plans?

Sittings of the House

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dame Joan Ruddock]

I am sympathetic to what the hon. Gentleman says, but in the past six weeks just 15 of the 35 Select Committees have met on a Tuesday morning.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

I agree with everything that the right hon. Lady is saying in her excellent remarks. The Treasury Committee, on which I sit, meets in private at 9.45 am on Tuesdays for a 10 am start. I take my daughter to school and am here by 8.30 am. Why not start then?

[Dame Joan Ruddock]

I share the hon. Lady’s enthusiasm for real change, but we have on offer what we have on offer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Joan Ruddock]

That is an interesting suggestion, but the hon. Gentleman would have had to put it to his Government business managers before the debate to see whether they would have done it. We are too late for that now, because we have the motions on the Order Paper.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I want to reiterate, with the right hon. Lady’s support, that this is absolutely not about Members working fewer hours. Unfortunately, the media tend to focus on MPs trying to vote themselves fewer hours, but that is not the case here. This is, exactly as she says, about the precise moment of interruption, when we are required to be here 99% of the time. If that moment is at 10 pm, people are given very little flexibility. If it were to come earlier, we would be able to make the choice to be working at home or in our offices. I entirely support the right hon. Lady.

[Dame Joan Ruddock]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady.

I now wish to discuss the Friday sittings. I have heard what the Chair of the Committee has said and I will be considering that as the debate goes on. It is very important that we discuss Fridays. The Friday proposal appears to be the most contentious, because we have heard dire warnings of reputational damage to MPs and the suggestion that MPs are going to be skiving off. Those of us who want to see private Members’ Bills moved from Friday to earlier in the week are not advocating a four-day week. On the contrary, all the evidence shows that MPs’ hours are already, as I have said, double those of a standard working week. MPs are rightly in their constituencies working for their constituents on a Friday.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

7. What recent progress he has made on his plans to ensure the UK has the best superfast broadband network in Europe.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

13. What recent progress he has made on his plans to ensure the UK has the best superfast broadband network in Europe.

[The Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

I have now approved 37 out of 43 local broadband plans—that is, almost 90% across the whole country—and nine are in procurement. A number of those are almost ready to begin delivery, and the other projects are being prepared for procurement with support from Broadband Delivery UK, which is also finalising details for the broadband delivery framework contract.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hunt]

The comfort that I can give my hon. Friend is that our ambition, which is vastly higher than anything that we had from Labour, is that by 2015 90% of the country will have access to superfast broadband. However, it will not stop there, because we will have a plan in place for the other 10% which means that they will have a very good prospect of getting superfast broadband. In many cases—for example, in my own county of Surrey—plans are being put forward whereby there will be 100% access to superfast broadband by 2014. Good local authorities are thinking about the other 10% and making sure that they are not left behind, and we are doing everything we can to help them.

[Andrea Leadsom]

In my constituency we have lots of rural areas that are not going to be part of the superfast broadband roll-out. In one area in particular—in fact, it is where I happen to live—there is a large community of parishes where two thirds of people are home workers or involved in small businesses. What reassurance can my right hon. Friend give that we will be able to achieve access to the existing national infrastructure of fibre optic cabling to avoid having to reinstall new cables? In this area, there is a rural grouping who are trying to gain access to existing infrastructure and being denied that by private companies.

[Mr Hunt]

The best reassurance for the people who live near my hon. Friend is probably the fact that she lives there; I am sure that means that the issue will receive a lot of attention. People in remote areas who do not have access to good broadband are at the top of our minds. We are determined to put in place a structure that makes sure that even if they are not in the 90% covered by 2015, they will be covered very soon afterwards or we will have a structure that allows them to be covered within that framework.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hunt]

I am incredibly proud of our progress on the creative industries in the past two years, including through tax credits for the video games industry, the animation industry and high-end television production, and through putting in place plans for the best superfast broadband network in Europe. That is vastly more than anything that the right hon. and learned Lady’s Government achieved. We will continue with the legislative programme to ensure that Parliament passes a communications Bill before the end of the Session to give our creative and digital industries the best possible competitive future.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

T4. Many parents across the country are very concerned about the content of sex and relationships educational videos that are being shown to children as young as six and which have had no external rating whatever—in fact, they are being sold for profit by organisations. Will the Minister consider requiring the rating of such videos by the British Board of Film Classification?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

I certainly share my hon. Friend’s concerns. As a result of the point she has made, I will arrange to meet the British Board of Film Classification to discuss the issue, and she would be welcome to attend.

Public Bodies

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

Obviously, that was one consideration. Against that should be set the question of who is best placed to know the operations of bodies within the remit of an individual Select Committee, and what the Department’s objectives are in bringing forward an order. It would be very difficult for any other body in the House to have the same level of expertise. In the initial stages it is a matter of determining whether further scrutiny is required. That is the trigger that we are asking the Select Committees to pull, and they are very well positioned to do so. There is also a finite number of bodies for any one Select Committee in the Public Bodies Act 2011. It is not an open-ended Act, as I know full well, having assisted with the Bill’s Committee and Report stages. There is therefore a reasonable expectation that the task will not be too onerous for Select Committees. I certainly discussed that consideration with the Liaison Committee and others, and we felt that at the end of the day no other body was as well suited as the departmental Select Committee.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

What procedure, if any, might a Back Bencher be able to use to propose further scrutiny by a Select Committee over and above what it is tasked with doing? For example, if we wanted the Treasury Committee to scrutinise some of the EU financial services legislation that passes through the House, which is normally, rightly, in the hands of the European Scrutiny Committee, would there be a way in which one could put that forward?

[Mr Heath]

That takes me away a little from the matter of orders relating to the Public Bodies Act, but it is always open for Select Committees to consider their work programmes and to put forward proposals, and it is equally open to hon. Members to make suggestions to Select Committees. Part of the Liaison Committee’s role is to try to prevent any undue overlapping of work among Committees and, where there is a potential trespass, to police it, adjudicate and find a successful way forward. There is probably no obstacle to my hon. Friend's suggesting that the Committee look at something, but equally the Officers, Clerks and Chair of that Committee have a responsibility to ensure that they do not inappropriately usurp the work of another Committee.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Sport and the Olympics (Hugh Robertson)]

Yes.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

T3. Has the Minister seen a demonstration of TalkTalk’s HomeSafe system, which enables families to keep their children safe not only from internet porn, but from sites on suicide and on bomb-making, and all sorts of unsuitable sites? Does he agree that unless internet service providers do more to enable family-friendly systems to protect children, the Government will have to legislate?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I have seen the TalkTalk system. I have said to ISPs again and again that I prefer self-regulation to legislation, but the mood of the House is for action and legislation. This is not about censorship, but about giving families the tools to protect their children from inappropriate content, and we rely on ISPs to come up with solutions.

Business of the House

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

Of course I understand the concern of anybody who is confronted with the possible loss of their job. I will raise the matter with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and ask him to write to the hon. Gentleman.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

In the light of the Prime Minister’s renewed commitment to strengthening families and the fact that the Northamptonshire Parent Infant Project has now opened in my constituency, may we have a debate on the crucial importance of the foundation years and early intervention in families who are struggling to bond with their new babies?

[Sir George Young]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I hope that she will apply for an Adjournment debate, where we might be able to debate the matter at more length than the Speaker is likely to allow me now.

Draft Financial Services Bill (Joint Committee)

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[John Mann]

The hon. Gentleman is not an hon. Friend of mine—to use the parliamentary language—so he is not privy to the debates and discussions in the parliamentary Labour party. However, I assure him, and the House, that this is an issue that I have raised. It is one of the traps that the House has set for itself, in the same way as it has with this motion. How do we achieve gender balance? I intend to make some suggestions about what we can do if the amendment is passed, and why that is so important.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman will recognise that his party has just had the opportunity to appoint a new member to the Treasury Committee, but it did not take the opportunity to appoint a woman. We were joined by another Labour man for the first time today. The hon. Gentleman claims to be concerned about gender balance, but this rather spiteful amendment would have been better if it had proposed such a balance, rather than being a veiled attack on one hon. Member.

[John Mann]

There is nothing veiled or spiteful about it. I think that the hon. Lady should withdraw her allegation. As she should know, being a woman on the Treasury Committee, the power is not there—

Use of the Chamber (United Kingdom Youth Parliament)

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

I applaud my hon. Friend’s honesty. In effect, he appears to be accepting the point that I have been making in dealing with interventions—that there is nothing unique about the UK Youth Parliament and its composition that means that it should uniquely be able to use this House—but exercising his judgment in believing, taking everything into account, that theirs is a different and special case compared with everyone else. That is a perfectly valid point and a perfectly respectable argument, but I am delighted that he appears to be agreeing with the thrust of my argument that there is nothing unique about the make-up of the UK Youth Parliament that means that it should uniquely be able to do this.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that at this hour, and bearing in mind how many hon. Members have now left the Chamber, it seems a little unfair to be monopolising the debate when he has been such a strong proponent of a clear, honest and open debate about this very important subject? Does he agree that there may be others in the Chamber who wish to look at this more as an opportunity for young people to promote democracy and to understand their democratic rights, and less about his desire to keep this Chamber specifically for the benefit of its Members?

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend makes a curious point. She says that I am monopolising the debate, but what I am actually doing is giving way to Members who want to intervene. It seems strange to make the case that I am monopolising the debate by allowing Members to intervene. If I were trying to monopolise it, I suspect that I would not allow any interventions.

If my hon. Friend looks at the motion on which we divided earlier, she will see that she supported a motion to allow this debate to last until any hour. I think I am right in saying that she walked into the Aye Lobby to vote for that. It is no good voting to allow a debate to continue until any hour and then complaining when it lasts until any hour. I suspect that in future, she might wish to vote no so that the debate does not last until any hour. I am sure she will look more closely at the Order Paper in future.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I would just make the point that the motion that we carried earlier was not to allow my hon. Friend to speak until any hour.

[Philip Davies]

I think I am right in saying that it was to allow any Member to speak until any hour. I will be delighted to allow my hon. Friends to speak until any hour later on. I am sure, Madam Deputy Speaker, that if anything I have said so far had been out of order, you would have told me so. From the fact that you have not, I suspect that you are content that the things I am saying are relevant to the debate.