Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Andrew George and Sadiq Khan

Tuesday 24th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

Of course the Minister is right, but if there is to be a review of the impact on those who suffer from this disease, we will expect the impact of the Jackson changes on the level of damages to serve as a benchmark, rather than the changes affecting victims per se. We hope that the pause will lead to a rethink by the Government.

We hope that the review will consider the impact on access to justice—some say that lawyers may be unwilling to take on such cases, and that as a result they may not be heard—and the interaction of the reforms with the new employers liability insurance bureau. We also believe that the data should take real-life experience into account.

[Andrew George]

The right hon. Gentleman will have heard my intervention on the Minister, when I sought to distinguish between a mere delay in the implementation of the policy and a genuine review. I hoped that the Minister would give me some indication that if the findings of a review required the Government’s policy to be amended in some way, there would be an opportunity for a rethink.

[Sadiq Khan]

Given the calibre of the Ministers involved and that of the Members of both Houses who have engaged in discussions over the last few hours and days, I believe that this will be a genuine review. I am sure that not only sufferers from the disease but colleagues who have been involved would be devastated if it were not.

We welcome the review, but the report needs to be based on proper evidence, and the genuine concerns that exist must be addressed. We support the proposal for a pause, and we are willing to work with the Government to ensure that we get this right.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Andrew George and Sadiq Khan

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I want to make some progress.

Democratic Audit, a think-tank attached to the university of Liverpool, has argued that greater flexibility is needed in the system for a number of reasons. It would lead to far fewer county boundaries being crossed, a reduction in the number of wards being split, a lower chance of towns and villages being divided between constituencies and better community cohesion. Let me throw into the mix that such flexibility would also mean that the clarion calls from Cornwall for the preservation of parliamentary representation west of the Tamar would be satisfied—no doubt to the relief of those Members who represent the fiercely proud people of that part of the south-west.

I emphasise that the amendment is not partisan, so it ought to find favour on both sides of the House.

[Andrew George]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sadiq Khan]

I want to finish my contribution so that others can speak.

The wording in Lord Pannick’s amendment is designed to prevent exceptional circumstances from simply becoming the norm—a concern that the Minister has articulated—and the Opposition do not question Lord Pannick’s legal judgment. His amendment is deliberately drafted to allow the boundary commissions very narrow discretion to depart from the electoral norm by up to another 2.5% either way. They could do that only if they believed that two criteria were satisfied. First, further departure would have to be “necessary”—not reasonable or desirable, but necessary. Secondly, the departure would have to be necessary in order to address “special geographical considerations” or local ties of an “exceptionally compelling nature”.

Lord Pannick has already forcefully demolished the arguments that the Minister put forward in his lengthy contribution today. It is worth reminding the House that before Lord Pannick drafted the amendment, he met the Leader of the House of Lords, the Government spokesman on these matters Lord Wallace of Tankerness, the Minister himself, and the Bill team. He then sought to address constructively in his amendment the concerns they had raised with him. I urge Members on both sides of the House to recognise the inherent sense of realism that the amendment brings to the Bill and I hope that they will see fit to support it in the Division Lobby.