Enterprise Bill [Lords]

Debate between Anna Soubry and Bob Stewart

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

I am not going to give way because I just want to put on the record my thanks to Lord Smith for his letter, which was sent out by my excellent Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey), to all Members of this House. I hope all hon. Members, on both sides, have had the opportunity to read it, because it could not be clearer about why what the Government have proposed will ensure and protect those green purposes, and why legislation in this area is absolutely not necessary. One reason why we do not want the Opposition’s new clause 4 to be successful and to put this provision into legislation is that we feel the Office for National Statistics will take the view that what we seek to do will not be achieved in this way—the bank will not be off the books—and that is why it is so important that this is done in the way we propose.

[Bob Stewart]

In support of what my right hon. Friend says, let me read from Lord Smith’s letter. He says:

“We are 100% committed to delivering the full intent of the amendment passed in the Lords. I hope that by committing to implement this plan, and doing so transparently, we can secure the necessary confidence of shareholders, and members of Parliament that a special share solution can be delivered without the need for it to be mandated in legislation.”

[Anna Soubry]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for reading from the letter. Obviously, I am not going to read it out. You will be pleased to hear that, Madam Deputy Speaker, as we would be here for half the afternoon if I did so. I have, however, placed a copy of it in the Library, as it best explains why this new clause is no longer required and why it is so incredibly important that we get the right device to ensure we keep the green principles of the bank.

Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Anna Soubry and Bob Stewart

Monday 9th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

This Bill—it has now been amended and we have accepted the amendments—changes the ombudsman’s remit but not her powers. Somebody who brings a complaint to Nicola Williams can be absolutely confident that it will be thoroughly and properly dealt with, and that she will be in a position to make her recommendations. She has access to Ministers and to others in the chain of command, and can go to them at any time. That chain of command is not under threat because of her. Indeed, I am confident that the creation of the ombudsman will give the chain of command the understanding—the hon. Member for Bridgend or the hon. Member for North Durham made this point—that it has nothing to fear from the ombudsman, nor from a better system, because if complaints are dealt with properly and expeditiously, and fairly and justly, we will have a better team and group of people. This will only strengthen the chain of command’s ability to conduct its business.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Although we have heard a lot about complaints, may I put it on the record that the chain of command deals very properly with most of the problems in the units for which it has responsibility and that we are talking about only a relatively small percentage of people? I just wanted to make that point, because all we have heard is complaints, complaints, complaints. There are not many complaints from the vast number of people who are dealt with properly by the officers in charge of them.

[Anna Soubry]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. I thought I had made it, but there is no harm in his repeating and endorsing it. Of course the majority serve without any complaint, but sometimes, as my hon. Friend knows, in any organisation there are bad apples, and even in a modern world there are times when people are undoubtedly bullied, and are undoubtedly the subject of discrimination and harassment; there are times when we get it wrong. The hon. Member for Bridgend knows of a very good example of not bullying or harassment but what she called double jeopardy, where something has been done wrong. That may well be to the detriment of certain people, in which case they are right to raise that complaint and we need good, strong systems. No organisation gets things 100% right, and when they go wrong people must have confidence that their complaint will be dealt with fairly and justly, and that if it is not they can go somewhere else—to the ombudsman, in this instance. Now that we have agreed to the amendments tabled in Committee, it will not only be maladministration that can be taken into account. The merits of the case and the matter of delay will also be considered.

I know that we are not going to vote on the amendments, but I should like to tell the House why the Government resist them. Amendment 23 would require anyone appointed to decide on a complaint or on an appeal that related to harassment, discrimination or victimisation to have a proven understanding of such matters. We all acknowledge that these can be among the more complex complaints, as they involve relationships that have gone wrong in one way or another. However, no record is or could reasonably be kept of those who may have an understanding of such matters so that they could be called upon when required, as the amendment proposes. I understand the principle behind the amendment, and there is no doubt that it is entirely well intentioned, but I cannot agree to it—certainly at this stage—for the reasons I have just stated.

Amendments 24 to 26 would require there to be a gap of five years between a person ending their service in the regular or reserve forces and becoming eligible to be appointed to the post of service complaints ombudsman. The provision in the Bill simply requires that the individual to be appointed to the post should not currently be a member of the regular or reserve forces or of the civil service. Our people will rightly expect the ombudsman to carry out the role with impartiality and professionalism. That person should also of course be demonstrably independent of those whom they seek to hold to account for the way in which complaints have been handled. For that reason, the ombudsman will be outside the chain of command and will have access to Ministers and to all levels of the chain of command whenever he or she deems it necessary. I make no apology for repeating that the ombudsman will be able to approach the chain of command and Ministers at any time, at any level and on any issue, should they need to do so.

Being in offices that are outside the defence estate and recruiting their own staff in line with civil service recruitment guidelines will further reinforce the ombudsman’s independence from the services and from the Ministry of Defence. A further mark of the role’s independence and the security of the post holder’s tenure is the fact that the Bill provides that the post holder’s appointment will be subject to approval by Her Majesty the Queen. Yet another measure of their independence is that the House of Commons Defence Committee will conduct a pre-appointment hearing with the MOD’s preferred candidate.

Our aim is to attract high quality candidates and to get the best person for this important job. These amendments would restrict the field of possible candidates and exclude those who might have recent, relevant experience. We want therefore to retain the flexibility provided under the Bill’s current provisions, and I must stress that any previous armed forces experience can and will be scrutinised and fully assessed for any impact it might have on perceptions of the candidate’s independence. For those reasons, these proposals are resisted.

Amendment 27 would require the length of the ombudsman’s term in office, and a statement that it was non-renewable, to be set out in the legislation. It would require that the ombudsman not be appointed for fewer than five years or longer than seven, and that the term could not be renewed. The amendment’s aim is to ensure that the person appointed to be the ombudsman would not be influenced in their assessment of how the complaints system was operating or, in their investigation of maladministration claims, by concerns about whether they would be reappointed. It also aims to give the ombudsman, and those whom they serve, some certainty about the length of time they would be in post and to make that term of office a reasonable enough length for the post holder to get to grips with the role and to see through changes.

I fully acknowledge all those aims, but I do not accept that those provisions need to be set out on the face of the Bill in order for those matters to be enforced or to give certainty and confidence. The matters have been set out in the letter of appointment for the current commissioner, and we believe that to be the right approach. We want to retain the flexibility to amend those terms of appointment if experience suggests that that might be necessary. The amendment is therefore resisted.

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[Anna Soubry]

The amendments make the changes to the Bill agreed in Committee and ensure that they work correctly from a drafting point of view. I do not mean to insult or to criticise anyone, but we had to ensure that these amendments had the effect that the majority of the Committee wanted. I also want to make it clear that the Government accept the changes made in Committee and that nothing in these amendments seeks to row back on what the Committee agreed. I hope that hon. Members will accept that, because I have seen all the key players—I now see that my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) is sitting at the back. He might take offence at that, but I hope that he does not. We have done that quite deliberately so that everybody knows why the amendments have been proposed. They fill in significant gaps left by the amendments agreed in Committee and, in particular, ensure that the ombudsman can make recommendations following an investigation into a service complaint, giving her decisions the necessary teeth.

The amendments agreed in Committee reflect some of the recommendations made by the Defence Committee in its report on the Bill, which was published last October. I am grateful for the Defence Committee’s work on the Bill and it is clear that the changes agreed in Committee now have cross-party support, as they did in the Defence Committee. The Government have listened to the arguments made in Committee and by others on Second Reading and have accepted them. I therefore hope that the amendments will be supported across the House.

The Public Bill Committee agreed that the role of the ombudsman should be extended in three ways. The first was that the ombudsman should be allowed to look at the substance or merits of an individual complaint and not just whether it had been handled correctly by the services. In other words, she should be able to consider not just maladministration. The second was that the ombudsman should look for any maladministration that had occurred, not just that alleged by the complainant. If during the course of examining that complaint she comes across any other maladministration, she should be able to consider that.

Those are changes to the ombudsman’s remit, but it is important to emphasise a point that has sometimes been lost in our debates. The ombudsman will ordinarily become involved in individual complaints only once the consideration of them by the services has finished. It is important to reiterate that if an individual makes a complaint it should go through all the necessary stages and processes and if there is no finding in the complainant’s favour, meaning that he or she feels that the grievance has not been met—that they have not won, if you like—they can go to the ombudsman. If complaints are successfully dealt with by the services, there is no need for those complaints to go to the ombudsman. Most complaints are satisfactorily resolved, as one might imagine they would be in any complaints system.

It is important to make a point because the third change agreed in Committee is to allow the ombudsman to investigate allegations of undue delay, as I said to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) earlier, in three different respects: as part of a maladministration investigation, in relation to an ongoing “live” complaint, and pre-complaint. As I am sure you have worked out, Mr Speaker, I mean that when somebody has made a complaint that has got stuck and has not been got on with, even though it has not been completed, that person can go to the ombudsman. Even before a complaint has got into the system, if it is thought that there has been some prevarication or undue delay, the complainant can go to the ombudsman to unstick whatever is gluing things up.

It is in everyone’s interests to have a complaints process in which roles and powers are clear so that there is no confusion. It is also important that the wishes of the individual remain at the heart of the process, given that this is an individual’s grievance procedure. It is about that individual and his or her grievance. It remains the case that the services will in every case still be left to decide how to respond to any findings or recommendations made by the ombudsman, even in relation to the extended remit that the ombudsman will now have.

We have dealt with the amendments made in Committee with those points firmly in mind and the Government’s amendments today make the necessary additional changes to the rest of the Bill’s provisions, which were left untouched by the amendments in Committee, so that there can be no doubt about the precise scope of the ombudsman’s powers. That is why proposed new section 340H(1), as amended by our amendments, will set out in good strong terms that the ombudsman can investigate the following: a service complaint when that complaint has completed the internal system, making it clear that the ombudsman can look into the merits of a complaint; an allegation of a mishandling of service complaints, including undue delay, when that complaint has completed the internal system, which deals with maladministration; and allegations that a service complaint has been unduly delayed before the complaint has completed the internal system or, as I have explained, that there was undue delay before a service complaint was made.

[Bob Stewart]

Do I assume that if the Service Complaints Commissioner looks at a matter and says that there is no case to answer, it can finish there, rather than there being a long process? Can the commissioner say, “There is no case to answer; this matter is finished”?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Anna Soubry and Bob Stewart

Monday 24th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. Negotiations continue, but the MOD Police Federation takes the view that it is looking for retirement at 65. It is not quite as simple as straight parity with the civilian forces, but we continue to negotiate with everyone.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

As a friend of the Forces Children’s Trust, which you, Mr Speaker, very kindly host in your apartments every year, may I ask the Secretary of State whether the children of service widows will have a guaranteed pension until the age of 18 despite the fact that their mothers may have remarried?

[Anna Soubry]

I do not know if I can give an answer to that; it is a new one on me, if I may say so. No doubt my hon. Friend will want to discuss it further with me, and I am more than happy to do so. Again, this is where the power of the covenant comes in, because if people can establish a disadvantage, then the covenant can deliver justice.

Military Covenant

Debate between Anna Soubry and Bob Stewart

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

I would, of course, be more than happy to discuss that issue with my hon. Friend and see whether we can sort it out.

The armed forces covenant is a clear statement of how members of the armed forces community should expect to be treated, no matter where they live in the country. That reflects the moral obligation we have to all of those who have given so much for their country.

Over the past four years, the Government have delivered a comprehensive programme of activity to rebuild the covenant around the country. We have delivered improvements in health care—both at home and on operations—and in education, housing and, more broadly, the way we support all members of the armed forces community. For example, additional funding by the Government now ensures that our injured personnel have access to the latest world-leading prosthetic limbs, and that the high standard of care they receive in the armed forces continues after they leave. I am not suggesting that everything is perfect, but we have certainly made considerable progress.

[Bob Stewart]

I speak as a disabled ex-serviceman—I am 30% disabled. The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee report states:

“Priority NHS treatment—in England, Scotland and Wales there was priority NHS treatment for veterans with Service-related injuries subject to the clinical needs of others, but in Northern Ireland there was no such priority.”

I assume we are trying to get it for Northern Ireland.

[Anna Soubry]

We are. Members will have noticed that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence has come to the Chamber specifically to listen to the debate. He has reminded me—I should have known this—that he has already visited Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) is not in his place, but I remember him inviting me to Northern Ireland some time ago when I had a different ministerial role. I assume that that invitation still stands—his colleagues will no doubt ask him about that for me. I would be more than happy to come over—in fact, I would love to—and not only see the examples of which we have heard, but help in any way I can so that people in Northern Ireland understand what the covenant is all about.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Anna Soubry and Bob Stewart

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anna Soubry)]

I pay tribute to the work done on this issue by my hon. Friend, as well as by my hon. Friends the Members for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) and many others. They have done a huge amount to remove the taboo associated with mental health. We are funding the “Time to Change” campaign, with up to £16 million being put in from 2011 to 2015. The programme works to support and empower people to talk about their mental health problems and to tackle the discrimination that so many of them face. It includes for the first time a tailored programme of work for children and young people.

[Bob Stewart]

How confident is my hon. Friend that general practitioners are able to make rapid assessments of potential mental health problems, particularly clinical depression, when patients present themselves perhaps for other non-related matters?

[Anna Soubry]

We know that a third of GP appointments are mental health-related, so GPs have a lot of experience in tackling mental illness. We also know, however, that it is not covered extensively in GP training, which is why the Royal College of General Practitioners has identified improved care for people with mental health problems as a training priority—this is to be welcomed—through its enhanced GP training programme.

Green Belt (England)

Debate between Anna Soubry and Bob Stewart

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Anna Soubry]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. I have certainly taken the view—I may be wrong, so I am pleased that another Member agrees with me—that local authorities are absolutely not bound by the RSS figures, and if they have the courage, they can break free of them. Indeed, I was going on to give the example of Rushcliffe, which has taken exactly that route. For some reason, however, my local authority, along with other local authorities, has decided to accept the figures, even though it can break free of them. It is not waiting for the great powers the Localism Bill will give local communities or for the planning policy framework to come fully into force.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

My constituency is in London and has a heck of a lot of green belt and green land. My constituents and I are particularly worried that when regional strategies come to an end in the rest of the country, our constituency will still have to comply with the London plan, which imposes a lot on local planning. We are extremely worried that the London plan will impose things on local people that they just do not want. I am thinking, in particular, of councils.

[Anna Soubry]

Again, I am grateful for that contribution. I may be wrong, but I think the planning policy framework and the Localism Bill will encourage councils to work together, which is critical. It might be asked whether Broxtowe is not working with the city of Nottingham, Erewash, parts of Ashfield and Gedling council to form the joint planning advisory board, and it is right that they are working together. However, it is a question of getting the balance right so that councils are not in the pockets of a metropolitan area or more powerful councils. It is about councils having equality among themselves and working together in the manner I tried to describe in relation to the development of the A453. It should be about the county council and the borough and district councils coming together and taking a broad, sensible view for their mutual benefit. They should look at how we can have housing and how we can improve our environment and our infrastructure—in other words, proper sustainable development.

To return to the issue of Broxtowe for a moment, whatever the council might say now, it has in effect accepted the 5,765 figure, which is in all the documentation, in the press releases and in the letters that were sent out to some residents. It has actually designated its preferred sites. There are to be 800 homes on the green belt between Toton and the town of Stapleford. If we look at a map, we see that that green belt perfectly defines communities and stops sprawl, but the borough council says it is the preferred site for the development of 800 homes. Another site is to the north of Stapleford, near the village of Trowell. Many say that Trowell has lost much of its wonderful village status, which could be seen in the 1950s, when the village was chosen to mark the festival of Britain celebrations. That green belt land defines those communities, as well as providing beautiful open green spaces and wonderful views for people to enjoy. The irony is that the borough council says this is a preferred site for hundreds of new homes.

My other beef is the complete lack of real consultation. In this day and age, authorities cannot just impose homes and new housing on people in an authoritarian way; they have to consult people and work with them. I went to a number of public meetings in my constituency, and people’s overwhelming cry was that the proposals were a done deal, and they felt cheated of any form of consultation. Real anger was expressed in those meetings, and rightly so.

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[Anna Soubry]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. That is absolutely right. There are many examples of that. My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) is heading up a neighbourhood plan in her constituency, where there has, understandably, been resistance to the spread of Truro. She tells me that if people in that part of Cornwall are to get the growth and jobs they want and need so much, they will have to take a more imaginative, co-operative view, which is exactly what she wants to achieve. In keeping with the approach the hon. Gentleman rightly identified, she is working with communities, not alienating them, as has been the tendency in the past and as is the case, I am afraid, in my constituency.

[Bob Stewart]

On that point, why can we not take the words

“presumption in favour of sustainable development”

out of the planning policy framework and insert the words “presumption in favour of local consultation before some planning decisions”? That would be a great idea, although others might disagree.

[Anna Soubry]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I am sure the Minister has heard his comments, and he will no doubt respond in his speech. However, I wish to bring my remarks to an end.