Business of the House

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The Government are determined to get the Bill through in time to hold the referendum on the proposed date. I very much regret that there have been some very loquacious interventions down the other end which have impeded the progress of the Bill. The point I was making was that in order to have fewer MPs in the next Parliament, we have to pass legislation now, but that we do not have to pass any legislation now to reduce the number of Ministers in the next Parliament.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

May we have an urgent debate on the provision of literacy and numeracy training for MPs? Successive shadow Chancellors have certainly struggled with the latter and cannot recognise a structural deficit even when they see it.

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It is indeed the case that we were running a substantial structural deficit before we hit the financial recession and the problem with the banks. Anyone who denies that there was a structural deficit denies the reality.

Business of the House

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend will know that there is a Health Bill before the House at the moment. It is the intention of the coalition Government to do away with the bureaucracy that he mentions and put the resources into front-line care. He gives a graphic exposition of where economies can be found.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House allow time for a debate on economic confidence, especially in light of this morning’s ComRes poll, which clearly shows that my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Chancellor are far more trusted on the economy than their shadows?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend draws attention to the poll in today’s edition of The Independent. My own view is that until Opposition Members accept some responsibility for what went wrong, they will have no credibility with the general public.

Business of the House

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I have to say to the hon. Lady, who was Deputy Leader of the House, that we could have done what the previous Government did and allocated five hours for tuition fees, including the business motion. Any time spent on the business motion would have come out of that five hours. The previous Government did that, but we have more respect for Parliament than to do that on this issue.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

The main problem with common sense is that it is not always as common as we would like. This week, it has been reported that farmers in Suffolk have not been allowed to clear snow from the highways because their agricultural vehicles are running on red diesel, which does not attract full road fuel duty. Will the Leader of the House advise on how we can get an immediate derogation for farmers involved in essential snow clearing? What can we do to ensure that the ridiculous situation does not happen again with the next snowfall and the next national emergency?

[Sir George Young]

It would be absurd to penalise or arrest farmers for clearing snow with tractors that use red diesel. I hope that common sense will prevail, but I will draw my hon. Friend’s remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to ascertain whether, if a derogation is necessary, one might be issued.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

As I said, the library service is a local authority service so it is up to local authority services to deliver it. I can also tell the hon. Gentleman with my BIS hat on that the excellent Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning has preserved a substantial amount of funding for adult literacy programmes.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

In my county of Leicestershire we are seeing increased use of our libraries. Will the Minister reaffirm his commitment to support the important services they provide?

[Mr Vaizey]

I would certainly support the important services that Leicestershire libraries provide. I have visited Leicestershire libraries. May I also take this opportunity to praise Leicestershire’s excellent music service, which I hope the county will preserve?

Business of the House

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I have no knowledge of any hair stylist being employed at No. 10, and as the hon. Gentleman can see I would have no need of such a service. On the specific issue, he is entitled to a response to his letter. Any recruitment to No. 10 or, indeed, elsewhere in the public sector has to follow the due procedures.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

When can we expect the much awaited localism Bill to begin its passage through Parliament? I am particularly keen to see our planning system reforms introduced quickly. In my constituency and, I believe, those of many other hon. Members, developers are quite keen to exploit what they perceive as the grey area of planning before the Bill is introduced. When will we have settlement on the matter?

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 25th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose]

No, I do not. If the right hon. Gentleman looks at the Department’s overall settlement, he will see that we did pretty well compared with many. As mentioned twice already, the increase in funding from the lottery will help to allay the effects of some cuts, so this means that, overall, we hope to have managed to focus the cuts away from the front line and protect as much as possible the nation’s culture and heritage.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

5. What recent progress has been made on the roll out of broadband to rural areas.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

10. What plans he has to roll out next generation broadband to rural areas.

--- Later in debate ---

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

We are making excellent progress in broadband roll-out. Last week, the Chancellor announced four superfast broadband pilots in rural locations in the Highlands and Islands, Cumbria, Yorkshire and Herefordshire. There will be further announcements before the end of the year on how we will roll this out to the whole country.

[Andrew Bridgen]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. In view of the potential cuts to rural bus services on top of the disastrous cuts in rural post offices under the last Labour Government, does he agree that the roll-out of broadband to our rural communities is absolutely vital in the fight to prevent rural isolation?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Superfast broadband in rural areas offers huge opportunities for things such as telemedicine, home education and working from home. The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts estimates that when this is done, it will have created about 600,000 jobs. The difference between Government and Opposition Members is that when Labour were in government they had secured £200 million for broadband roll-out, whereas we have secured £830 million. I think the public know who is doing better.

Summer Adjournment

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

I add my compliments for the three fine maiden speeches that we have heard today from my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) and the hon. Members for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) and for Livingston (Graeme Morrice). I am sure that they will make excellent representatives for their constituencies.

Before we break for the recess, it is important for the House to have an opportunity to discuss how localism and the big society are affecting my constituency. Localism is being welcomed and embraced by my constituents. In North West Leicestershire, as in many other constituencies, the biggest local issue in the run-up to the general election was the Labour Government’s top-down housing targets. It was decided that my constituency should have an extra 12,200 houses. The district council was set an impossible task of consulting the local population. The main problem was that there was very little to consult about. The figure was set, and it was decided already that the clear focus for the main thrust of development was to be concentrated on the town of Coalville. I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that there is nowhere in North West Leicestershire where building more than 12,000 houses would be acceptable to the local residents. That level of housing growth, if implemented, would have changed the character of my constituency for ever.

I am very pleased, and my constituents are mostly delighted, that these top-down targets have been dropped. This means that all powers to decide housing numbers, types, densities and where they will be built, now rest where they belong, with locally elected, locally accountable district councils. Many community groups were set up to oppose the top-down targets, and their work is worthy of mention. The Whitwick action group, the Don’t Destroy Donington campaign, the residents against inappropriate development in Ashby and the friends of Thringstone are particularly worthy of mention. It is also worth mentioning that it is easier to lead someone forward than to push them, and this is very much the difference between this Government’s policy and that of the previous one.

For too long, local government and local opinion have been ridden roughshod over by central Government. The Government are often the final arbiters of planning appeals, which have huge effects on local communities, often acting as judge, jury and executioner. Ministers have in the past, with the mere flourish of a penned signature, condemned communities that they do not know, and people they have never met, to years of anguish. For example, the overturning of decisions taken locally with regard to the opencast mine at Ravenstone in North West Leicestershire has, quite literally, undermined the influence of, and respect that residents have for, the locally elected council and councillors. This dumbs down the role of the council, and I believe that it discourages many able people from standing for election. This Chamber, Members will be glad to hear, will be hearing more from me about opencast mining in the very near future. This Government will, I hope, give local councils the chance to show real leadership—something so sadly lacking in the past, when they were mostly there to enact top-down national policies.

I have also seen during the past few weeks how localism feeds into the big society in my constituency, which we so much want to encourage to flourish. I have met some of the selfless people who work in the voluntary sector and seen the work that they are doing to improve and turn around the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in my community in North West Leicestershire. I have been to the Marlene Reid centre, a social enterprise based in Coalville, and to the Turning Point office, also in Coalville, where staff and volunteers are helping those affected by drug and alcohol misuse, and I have been to Home Start, which provides dozens of volunteers to support parents and families struggling to cope who are in need of a little support to get them through their lives. This is the big society in action, and I will be doing all I can to see that these groups have all the support they need from the Government to carry on with their essential work. It is vital that those groups are not subject to undue interference from government.

I want to share with hon. Members an interesting experience. I visited the local air ambulance, which flies out of East Midlands airport in my constituency. The service is funded totally by charitable donations. When I asked whether it would not rather be funded by the Government, surprisingly it said that it definitely would not, as then it would be subject to all the bureaucracy, red tape and targets that would go with that. It would rather keep its independence and raise its own funds. That says a lot about the dedication and commitment of the volunteers and fundraisers who work for the Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Rutland air ambulance, but it also says a lot that is not good about government.

I reiterate that North West Leicestershire has some fantastic selfless people working in the community. The challenge for government is to create the conditions to ensure that their efforts reap the maximum benefits for society. We can do this by devolving powers to the people who recognise what local communities need. Those people do not need the state to interfere with their lives. The time of big government is over: it did not work, and it was far too expensive. Anything that government take responsibility for, individuals and voluntary groups tend to withdraw from. The Government need to relinquish ground back to volunteer groups and individuals. This is the time of localism and the big society, and we will be able to build economically, socially and spiritually stronger communities because of it.