Oral Answers to Questions

Anne Begg Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

I have concerns about people missing from the register, but I am also concerned about extra people on it. What obligations will there be on EROs to ensure that those on the register are real people? Concomitantly, does that mean that people will have to prove their identity when they vote?

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank the hon. Lady for a very good question. The purpose of IER is to match people on the register through the Department for Work and Pensions matching service and local matching. Currently, 80% of people on the register have been matched, but the job of EROs is to ensure it is as complete and accurate as possible, and that involves writing to people and, where there is not a match, getting further proof of identity.

Debate on the Address

Anne Begg Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I thank the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) for saying that he wants us. We want to be here too. It is important that people from across the whole UK, not just in Scotland, but in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, realise that any changes to the constitution in Scotland with regard to independence can affect the whole of the British isles, and we want to continue to be part of the UK.

I pay tribute to the hon. Members for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) and for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) for their excellent speeches in proposing and seconding the Loyal Address. The hon. Member for Portsmouth North reminded us all about my predecessor Lady Tweedsmuir, who proposed the Loyal Address way back in 1957. I did realise that my constituency had produced a number of MPs who had proposed or seconded the Loyal Address, but I did not realise that Lady Tweedsmuir was the only one who had proposed it—the other four, including me in 2000, all seconded it. So Lady Tweedsmuir was the first and only woman until today to have proposed the Loyal Address. It was interesting to hear what the hon. Member for Portsmouth North said about what the then Opposition had said about Lady Tweedsmuir—I believe the phrase was “softly spoken”. I never met Priscilla Tweedsmuir, but everything I have heard about her suggests she was an indomitable woman and “softly spoken” would not necessarily have been the phrase that would have sprung to mind to describe her. Interestingly, she proposed the Loyal Address in her maiden speech in 1957—I learned that only today as well—and she lost the seat in 1966 to a young whippersnapper of a lawyer who came up from Glasgow and defeated her. His name was Donald Dewar. So we have had a nice history lesson.

I was looking for a bit more in the Queen’s Speech on the Government’s welfare reform and was disappointed to find only one indirect reference, and that was to the overall welfare budget being capped. That is a bit of a red herring because all Departments of all Governments set limits on their spend, which often have to be kept to. This was not what I was looking for. I was hoping the Government might give us some indication of how they are going to rescue their flagship policy of welfare reform in this Parliament. It needs to be rescued because a lot of it is falling apart, particularly universal credit and its roll-out. Its implementation has been disastrous and I would like the Government to be up front and say that the IT simply is not working, and that the roll-out is a farce and is not really happening at all. Universal credit is still in only very few areas and only about 6,000 people have been on it, whereas 8.5 million are expected to be on it eventually. Yet the Government are still not facing up to just how difficult it has been and will be, and the fact that the system is not working at all. Great hope is still being placed on some kind of digital solution that will come in later in the year, but then we are getting close to the general election. At the moment it is not working at all and I would prefer it if the Government had some idea of how it might be put back on track or, if that cannot be done, what should replace it.

My other concern is that the roll-out of the personal independence payment, which is being implemented at the same time, seems to be going the same way. That is not because the IT systems are a problem but because the assessment process seems to be taking far too long. The Government have rightly slowed down and stopped the migration of those currently on disability living allowance on to the new PIP, but new claimants, for whom there is no alternative but the new benefit, are waiting six, seven, eight, nine months before they get their determination, and sometimes even longer than that. I had an e-mail from someone who had applied last June and still had not heard whether they were going to get the payment. Clearly, there are serious problems with the implementation of the personal independence payment.

We did not hear what the Government will do to replace the work capability assessment. That has been a disaster for a number of years, but it has now reached a crisis point with the contract being taken away from Atos, which is still limping on and delivering the programme until a new contract can be let. As a result, nobody is being reassessed. For the people who were facing the trauma of a work capability assessment, not being reassessed might be quite a good thing. The Government have not said anything about what will replace the WCA or about what would be a better way of assessing people, because we will have to assess them, to see whether they are fit for work.

I was hopeful—perhaps it was a vain hope—that the Government might see sense on the bedroom tax. The policy has been a disaster, and I hope that they realise that it was ill considered and ill thought out. They should follow the example of Scotland, where, thanks to my Labour colleagues in the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish National party Government were dragged kicking and screaming to the table. John Swinney had said that the SNP Government did not want to do anything about the bedroom tax because they did not want to let Westminster off the hook. Finally, though, they agreed to mitigate the problem. It was felt that people who rent social housing are not the same people who rent in the private sector. Renting a social house for life is not the same as temporarily renting a house in the private sector. The tax was never going to work or achieve its policy aim of ensuring that people were appropriately housed because the right-sized houses for which people on housing benefit could qualify did not exist in the right areas. Many Back-Bench Members, particularly on the Government Benches, thought that whole areas of disabilities would be exempt from the bedroom tax but in reality they were not. I had hoped that this Government would look again at that policy, which, as I have said, was ill thought out and vindictive and malicious to people who had no choice but to continue to live in the same house.

Another issue is in-work poverty. We used to say that the best way out of poverty is work—in fact, we used to say that the only way out of poverty for someone of working age is work—but that is no longer true. Some 52% of families who are deemed to be living in poverty have at least one adult in work. Although there are welcome measures about the enforcement of the minimum wage, we need the Government to look again at the level of the minimum wage to ensure that work pays. If work pays, benefit does not need to be paid out to supplement the gap between what is earned and what is needed to live. That is the best way for any Government to save money, because they would be saving on the welfare spend. Money would no longer be used to subsidise employers who are not paying their employees a high enough rate, and the burden of that payment falls on the taxpayer in the form of welfare spend.

Let me raise the issue of the two pension Bills. I am not sure whether there will be two separate Bills, or just one pensions Bill, but, as it stands, the Bills appear to be pulling in different directions. Today, the Prime Minister mentioned only one part of pension reform, which was related to accessibility and liberalisation. The policy is welcome, but there are concerns about whether it will turn pension savings into savings rather than just pensions. People who are left with a pot will have to make very difficult decisions. If they have the right information, it could help to narrow down the choice. Clearly, the advice and help that people are given to make these decisions will be crucial.

At the same time, the Government want to introduce something that the Pensions Minister used to call defined ambition, which is now called collective defined contribution schemes or even target schemes, which spread the risk across a much wider range. In principle, that is a good thing. That is what the old final salary schemes did; they shared risk across the members—in fact, they mostly put the risk on the employer—rather than the risk falling on individuals. Certainly, one concern about the Government’s liberalisation plans is that the risk falls on the individual to make good choices about what they will do both in terms of investment when they are building up the pension in the accumulation stage and once they retire and are made to draw down. Any kind of collective risk is a good thing. However, it is difficult to understand how, if people have access to their individual pots, they can give up some of that power and access in order to be part of a collective scheme. The Government are talking about liberalisation at one end, but they are also making it less easy for people to have individual control over their pensions at the other. The collective DC schemes would have to be big in case a large number of members decided to draw down their own pot. How we define our own pot becomes much more difficult when we get into collective schemes.

Briefly, I welcome the child care proposals. Extra help with child care is always a good thing. However, they only fill the gap that was left by the Government when they made cuts to child care support, particularly to child care tax credits. An awful lot more could be done in that area.

Finally, it is good that the Government are to introduce a Bill to deal with modern-day slavery and human trafficking. My constituents, particularly from women’s groups, feel very strongly about the issue. They see it as a black mark against us, and a shame on us, that we still have in our society humans who are trafficked, who are forced into slavery and to work in the sex trade or, as happens in my constituency, in a domestic situation or in the agriculture or fishing industry. That Bill is absolutely welcome, and I am glad that the Government are taking action.

Civil Service Reform

Anne Begg Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

I wholly agree. I am extremely grateful for my right hon. Friend’s support for the proposal, and for her indication of willingness to serve on the commission should the House of Commons invite her to do so.

The launch of GovernUp today—to coincide with the debate—by two of the sponsors of the motion is something to celebrate, but it is also further evidence of the urgent need for a commission. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) and the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), but I am sure they will agree that too many excellent think-tank reports on the civil service have sunk without trace. Only Parliament can put the necessary authority behind a programme of reform: a parliamentary commission could not be ignored.

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

Will the commission’s remit include the Scottish civil service, which after all is the responsibility of the home civil service? It is not clear at the moment where the demarcation lines lie, or, indeed, where accountability lies, especially as there is quite a fevered political atmosphere in Scotland at the moment and it is not always clear that the Scottish civil service is acting with the impartiality one would expect.

[Mr Jenkin]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s intervention, and I can in fact inform the House that the Public Administration Select Committee is doing something very specifically on the impartiality of the civil service—and we still only have one civil service in the United Kingdom—in respect of the conduct of referendums. I am going to avoid being distracted by that topic, however.

Debate on the Address

Anne Begg Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

I am glad to be given the opportunity to speak in this debate.

There have been a few comments, particularly from Opposition Members, suggesting it is a rather thin Queen’s Speech, containing not many Bills, but one of its meatier measures is the pensions Bill, which will set up a single-tier state pension. I hope you do not mind, Mr Speaker, if I spend all my time talking about that Bill, partly because my Select Committee, the Work and Pensions Committee, was asked to carry out the pre-legislative scrutiny. It is the one Bill in the Queen’s Speech that is greatly relevant to my Committee’s work, and I understand it will be published tomorrow, so today is my last chance to record some of the Committee’s observations. I understand that the Government’s response to our report will be published as a Command Paper at the end of the week. I suspect that both the Bill and the Command Paper have already gone to the printer, so what I say this afternoon will probably not change the Government’s intention, but it is worth rehearsing some of the arguments that my Committee found important enough for the Government to take into account during the deliberations on the Bill in both Houses.

Why is the Bill so important? Anybody who is under state pension age as of April 2016 will be affected by it. The only people who will not be affected by the introduction of the single-tier state pension are those who will have already reached their pensionable age. The fact that 2016 is the year in question is a bit of a bone of contention, because when my Committee undertook its scrutiny and asked for evidence from a range of people, including the industry, individuals and anybody who wanted to have a say, we thought that the starting date would be April 2017. When we took oral evidence, including from the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), at the end of our inquiry, we still thought that the implementation date would be April 2017. It came as a bit of a shock, and was a wee bit to our annoyance, that the Chancellor announced in the Budget that the implementation date was to come forward a year to April 2016.

We interrogated the Minister thoroughly about whether even April 2017 was an achievable time scale or would slip, because we thought it was a pretty tight time scale in which to implement the changes. It therefore came as a bit of a shock to discover that the Government hoped to do it a year sooner. We had not been in a position to ask the industry and employers, in particular, whether they would be ready to implement the changes in 2016.

Notwithstanding the fact that we generally welcome the introduction of a single-tier state pension, it is inevitable and obvious that the Government have continued to roll out auto-enrolment, for which they should be commended. Given that more and more people will have their own second-tier occupational pension, some kind of reform of the first-tier basic state pension has become almost imperative. However, it will not be easy to get from the extremely complicated and convoluted pensions landscape of today, which has a second tier through the state earnings-related pension scheme or the state second pension as well as occupational pensions, to something straightforward and simple. That is what the Government are attempting to do in the pensions Bill.

As the Government have brought forward the implementation date by a year, the Committee thinks it is even more important—we thought it was important anyway—that a proper impact assessment of the changes is done sooner rather than later. We hope that when the Government publish their response to our report at the end of this week, there will be a promise to that effect.

Different sectors will be affected differently, and some groups will inevitably lose out. In any major change there are bound to be winners and losers, but it is not yet clear who they will be under these changes. I hope that a further impact assessment will be performed because we need to know how the changes will impact on individuals, the pensions industry, and particularly employers.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

May I record my appreciation of the work done by the Work and Pensions Committee in scrutinising our Bill on a compressed timetable? We will publish a new impact assessment on Friday alongside the Bill, and a response to the Committee. I assure the hon. Lady that the Bill will be amended in the light of her Committee’s recommendations.

[Dame Anne Begg]

I am delighted to hear that and perhaps we will come back to the Bill if it is not amended enough.

We welcome the single-tier pension because it will generally mean more state pension for those who have the least. Groups that have lost out in the past with regard to the state pension will benefit—they will generally be women, carers, people with broken work records, and those such as the self-employed who have been unable to build up any kind of second state pension. They will see the immediate benefits of the introduction of this system.

There will, however, be those who lose out, and one main change will affect those who have already made decisions about their retirement. At the moment, someone can qualify for a full state pension after 30 years of national insurance contributions. The Bill increases that to 35 years, but there is already a group of people who have decided to retire although they have not reached pensionable age. They will not necessarily be in a position to build up 35 years of national insurance contributions before they reach the new single-tier pension. The Committee makes recommendations about buying back national insurance years and contributions, but a huge communications job will be necessary to ensure that people are aware that the number of qualifying years has now changed. I will say more about communications in a minute.

It was interesting that the Minister went on the airwaves earlier this week with regard to one group of people who will definitely lose out—women who get only a pension derived from their husband’s contributions. I am not sure why the Minister spoke about that in terms of the wives of expats, but it was possibly because a large number of those who will be affected by this measure live abroad. The measure will, of course, also affect women in this country. That seems to have come as a complete surprise to many and perhaps explains why a lot of people think they will be better off under the new system when in fact they will not because their spouse will not qualify for any of the new derived rights. Basically, what used to be known as the married woman’s allowance is going for everyone.

The Committee has a recommendation for the Government:

“We welcome the Government’s sensible transitional solution to the potential adverse impact on employed women who chose to pay reduced NI contributions under the Reduced Rate Election—”.

That was often called the small stamp or the married woman’s stamp. It was a long-running sore that had never been cured, so good on the Government because it has now been solved. They have come up with a transitional arrangement that will allow women who paid the small stamp to get full credits and qualify for the single-tier extension.

That does not apply, however, to those who will get nothing as a result of the abolition of their derived rights. The Committee report states:

“We believe that it should also be possible to find a solution for another small group of women: those who did not build up their own NI record because they had a legitimate expectation that they would be able to rely on their husband’s contributions to give them entitlement to a Basic State Pension. One option might be that women in this position who are within 15 years of State Pension Age should be able to retain this right. We recommend that the Government assesses and publishes the cost of providing this option for the relatively small number of women affected. We believe that, for those further from retirement, there is sufficient time for them to plan on the basis of the new rules.”

One reason we chose the period of 15 years from retirement was that it had to be more than 10 years. The Bill says seven or 10 years, but the Committee recommends that it should state anything up to 10 years, because people will probably need to have 10 years’ worth of contributions before they get any state pension—they will get nothing for less than 10 years’ worth of contributions. The Committee believes that people within 15 years of retirement with no national insurance contribution, who would have expected to get their pension through their spouse, should be protected, and that there should be transitional arrangements for them. Anyone further away can make up some of the shortfall—not all of it—in the intervening time.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way and for the reasonable way in which she makes her points. Without trying to jump ahead, what does she make of suggestions that the Government will prevent spouses who have never set foot in the UK from receiving a state pension? I suspect most Government Members fully support those proposals, but does she support them?

[Dame Anne Begg]

The Committee did not say that we were against the abolition of derived rights in principle for future pensioners. We accept the Government’s argument that people should have a state pension in their own right, and that they should accrue their own credits to get it. The consequence is that there will be no married woman’s allowance in future. The problem I have addressed is how we get from the current position to that one without being unfair on the group of women who are within 15 years of reaching their pensionable age. As the Bill stands—we hope it might change by tomorrow—that group of women will get nothing from April 2016. The Committee believes that that is a particularly harsh cliff edge. We have no problems with what happens in future. Because women work or because of changes made by the previous Government in how national insurance can be credited for caring—not only for children, but for disabled adults or elderly relatives—women are more likely to have credits towards their own pension, which previous generations did not have. We accept that the world and society have changed and that, as a result, women who have not been in this country and who have not been in a position to build up credits will not get a pension in the long run.

The Government face a problem in getting over to people exactly what the pensions Bill means. They have concentrated on saying that the new arrangements are much simpler and easier to understand, which is understandable. They have said, “The new single-tier pension will be £144, and that’s it. That’s all you need to know.” However, as a result of that simplification of the message, people have got the wrong end of the stick with regard to what it means in their individual cases. That is why it is crucial that the Government think again on a clear communication strategy. That should start as soon as possible, and not wait until the Bill has become an Act of Parliament. In anything to do with pensions, planning is so long term that people have to be sure about what they may expect. If things are going to change, people have to know they are going to change. That is especially true of the group of women born in 1952 and 1953, as they have suffered a double whammy with the increase in the state pension age. Many of them are worried that they will lose out, but they may not. The point is that they do not know, and the Government have not been able to give them enough information or explain what will happen.

This week I got a letter from a lady who was convinced that she will get only £144 a week because she will reach pension age after April 2016. She has paid SERPS all her life and she is convinced that the Government will steal her SERPS from her. She does not know that she will get whichever is higher—SERPS or the single-tier pension. One gentleman thinks that it is really unfair that he has paid SERPS all his life, but will get only £144, whereas his next-door neighbour, who was contracted out and gets an occupational pension—and has been paying less national insurance—will also get £144, but of course that is not true. The person who has been contracted out will lose out, depending how the calculation goes. The calculation is a complicated one and the headline message has continued to be that everyone will get £144 for their state pension, so many people think that the introduction of the new scheme is unfair.

I have to say that initially some people who had already reached pension age were keen to get on to the new system until they realised that they would not necessarily be much better off. They are not quite so keen now to get on to the single-tier pension. It is worth pointing out that the Govt are doing this only because it is cost-neutral. The Treasury does not have huge extra wads of money sitting around somewhere to pay to people who reach pension age after April 2016. The worry of many women born in 1952 and 1953 is that they would have qualified for pension credit anyway.

The Committee was concerned that the single-tier pension was being set only £1 above pension credit levels. We thought that the Bill should include a provision that would always ensure that the single-tier pension would be above the level of pension credit. We were disappointed that the gap between pension credit and the single-tier pension was so narrow. It would help to allay some of the fears if there was a guarantee that the single-tier pension would always be above the basic level.

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend has always been a great champion of ordinary working people. Will she join me in urging Ministers in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to investigate why Tesco proposes to reduce the terms and conditions of staff by a third, in transferring them from distribution centres that are closing in Harlow and Weybridge and moving them to new sites in Barking and Dagenham at wages lower by £7,000 to £12,000? Surely Ministers should use their considerable influence to urge Tesco to think again.

[Dame Anne Begg]

I am sure the Minister heard my hon. Friend’s plea with regard to Tesco. There is still a concern that some employers might take the introduction of auto-enrolment as an opportunity to top-slice what they would be paying into a pension fund, as part of auto-enrolment, off the salary they are already paying. There does not seem to be any evidence of that, but perhaps some of what my hon. Friend talked about is the restructuring by some big companies with high employee turnover that are maybe looking to find a way of cutting what they pay. There is no doubt that, with the introduction of auto-enrolment and the pension, the single-tier pension was inevitable. It is the right thing to do, but, as with anything this complex that affects so many people, the Government have to ensure that they get it right. If they get it wrong, there will be an awful lot of angry people out there. I am sure the Minister is listening.

Mental Health (Discrimination) (No. 2) Bill

Anne Begg Excerpts

Friday 14th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

I rise—of course I rise—to speak very much in support of the Bill, which seeks to repeal provisions that are a throwback to a time when mental illness was hidden away and not dealt with. I will confine my remarks mostly to section 141 of the Mental Health Act 1983, in my role as vice-chair of the Speaker’s Conference, but I support all the provisions in the Bill.

As the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) pointed out, the Speaker’s Conference strongly recommended that section 141 be repealed. With your indulgence, Mr Speaker, I will read the relevant part from the extended summary of the Speaker’s Conference report. It is headed, “Attitudes to mental illness and the disqualification of MPs”, and it reads:

“Society’s response to those who experience mental illness can discourage such people from putting themselves forward as candidates for Parliament. We heard that section 141 of the Mental Health Act 1983 presents particular problems for this community. Section 141 provides that a Member could lose his or her seat in Parliament if detained under the Mental Health Act for a period of six months or more. The provision has never been used. There are arguments both for and against section 141. It may be said that the reason for this law is not the illness itself but the detention of the Member by law, and the effects this detention may have upon the Member's ability to work for his or her constituents effectively. On the other hand, the law is not consistent or logical in its treatment of various types of illness or disorder. If a Member suffers from serious physical illness—say a stroke—that can leave constituents effectively un-represented in much the same way as if a Member has a serious mental disorder. Yet there is no parallel provision to section 141 for cases of physical illness or impairment. Many people told us that section 141 wrongly suggests that mental illness is in some way fundamentally different in its effects from physical illness. The House, through its medical services, can provide care and assistance for those with mental illness, just as it can for those with physical illness. We believe that section 141 of the 1983 Mental Health Act should be repealed as soon as practicable. There should be a review to examine whether alternative measures should be taken to protect the interests of constituents, and the House, when a Member becomes seriously physically or mentally ill.”

I am truly grateful that section 141 does not apply to people with physical disabilities, because, as you know Mr Speaker, after a recent accident I was away from the Chamber for six months. Had this provision applied to me, I would have been asked to step down as an MP, but thanks to your indulgence, and that of the House and my constituents, I was able to recover and return these past two weeks the House has been sitting. Interestingly, I do not think my constituents necessarily felt that they were being disadvantaged, because obviously an MP has lots of other things to do. Even someone with mental health problems can answer e-mails and direct their staff and casework. So it is rare for someone to be completely out of the loop.

Section 141 singles out mental health as a particular problem, but I believe that it misunderstands the whole nature of mental health. The Speaker’s Conference found that the provision created two main barriers. First, it might deter anyone elected from disclosing and so drive the issue of mental health underground. Secondly, people thinking of becoming or aspiring to be an MP who have a history of mental health problems might not put themselves forward, fearing the consequences if they did.

In the past, Members have not disclosed. That was so until the recent debate when the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) and my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) spoke bravely and openly about the issues that have affected them. No one can dispute that they are, and have been, very effective MPs, and their experience has actually made them better MPs, because often they can better understand the issues affecting many of their constituents. It also shows that mental health can be an issue for anyone anywhere, from all walks of life, at any time. It does not necessarily have to be permanent either. Like with any chronic condition, it is how someone adapts and learns to live with the condition that makes them able to participate in society.

Non-disclosure was never a problem for me when I was standing for election—the wheelchair was a bit of a giveaway—so I do not know what it would be like if I had a hidden disability, whether physical or whatever. In the run-up to the 1997 election, would I have said to the electors and political parties, “By the way, I’ve got this hidden health problem”? I do not think so. So I can understand why people with a history of mental health problems might not want people to know about it—after all, it is private, it is their health record.

Nobody asks potential candidates, “By the way, are there any health problems we should know about?” That would be unacceptable in the selection process. I understand, then, why it would be difficult for someone who is new and does not know how it will be taken to tell the world that they have had—they might be perfectly all right now—an episode of depression, post-natal depression or whatever. There is always the nagging suspicion that perhaps their opponents or local press might use it to their detriment.

There were probably people in my constituency in 1997 who did not vote for me—surprisingly enough some people did not vote for me. Actually about 60% of them did not! But some did not vote for me because they thought I could not manage. While out canvassing, one of my campaigners knocked on the door of someone who said, “Oh, I won’t be voting for her, because I don’t see how she’ll manage.” My campaigner said, “Well, if you met her, you’d realise that that’s not the case.” But the man replied, “Oh no” and shut the door. Of course, when I heard about this, I went straight up and knocked on the door, but he did not come to the door. I am fairly sure that he still did not vote for me.

In 1997, some people will have had a niggling doubt at the back of their mind about whether someone with my level of disability could manage. In elections since, many people still have not voted for me, but now it is because they do not like my politics—and that is as it should be. People should base their decisions on the individual’s ability and on the thing that divides us in the House, and that is our approach to certain policies.

The second reason section 141 has acted as a barrier is that anyone who thinks they could be a good MP might be reluctant to come forward. One of the problems was that they could not see anyone in this place who had any kind of mental health issue—no one had shown this “weakness”. However, we know that this is simply not the case, which gives the lie to the idea that MPs do not have mental health problems.

If we look back to history, we remember people saying that a deaf person could not be an MP. “How could they possibly hear the debates and participate in them?” But along came Jack Ashley. Then people said, “Well, somebody who’s blind certainly couldn’t be an MP. How could they read all the papers and see the non-verbal things that happen in the Chamber? How could they manage?” Along came my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett). Then people said, “Well we can’t have somebody with cerebral palsy being an MP, because if they had a speech impediment, you wouldn’t be able to understand them when they spoke.” Along came the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard). And then, of course, they said that somebody who was mobility impaired would not have the stamina and the strength to get around in a wheelchair, including getting around this Victorian mausoleum, never mind anywhere else. Modesty forbids me from saying who could have come along to dispute that.

On each of those occasions, the House of Commons—indeed, the Houses of Parliament—adjusted. I think Jack Ashley and my right hon. Friend would say that it was a bit of a struggle in the early days. However, in each case the House authorities managed to make the necessary adjustments—as is right and proper—to allow all of us with these various disabilities to participate fully in the work of the House of Commons; and so it should be for people who might have problems with their mental health.

The Speaker’s Conference found that section 141 of the 1983 Act had erected an extra barrier, which was that MPs who were perhaps experiencing stress and falling into a spiral of depression would not seek help immediately. Although the section had never been used, its mere presence on the statute book was enough to make MPs who might have sought help at an early stage—and who might thereby not have deteriorated as far as they did—reluctant to seek that help. Of course, the irony is that if someone does not seek appropriate help at the earliest stage, the problem can deteriorate to the point where it is more likely that that kind of legal provision could be invoked. That was a particular problem we looked at.

Parliament has to set an example. We have to reflect life outside this place if we are going to be able to legislate for that life. We need people with all sorts of experience. The presence of section 141 is a barrier to those who may have had mental health problems in the past or who may still be grappling with them, when those individuals should be welcomed into this place with open arms, because their experience is valuable. This House must reflect all of society. If it does not, we are a lot less effective and we will therefore not make good legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Anne Begg]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, so long as we discriminate against MPs, jurors or company directors, it is much easier for employers to discriminate against someone with a history of mental illness, which flies in the face of the Government’s avowed intention of getting people who are presently being declared fit for work into work when actually the biggest barrier is not their history of mental illness, but the attitude of the employer who refuses to employ them?

[Mr Buckland]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that important point. She is entirely right. It is a question not just of removing legislative barriers, but of encouraging a change in culture. Owing to a lack of understanding, frankly, far too many businesses and organisations still display that outdated and unfortunate response to those with mental health conditions.

Individual Voter Registration

Anne Begg Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I have seen evidence for what he mentions, and the local authority has confirmed that it increased registration rates from 2,500 to 3,500 because of the use of that threat and a rigorous approach. As my hon. Friend suggests, the removal of the fine will diminish the ability of electoral registration officers to do their job effectively, risking damaging consequences for our democracy and society. Although the penalty for not fulfilling the current legal duty is not often imposed, it is not without effect, as has been said. It contributes to a general sense that registering to vote is a civic duty—a responsibility—and not merely an individual right or a lifestyle choice.

The Parliamentary Secretary and the Deputy Prime Minister have both declared from the Dispatch Box that the threat of the £1,000 fine is not being removed, since under their new proposals the offence of failing to respond remains for a household canvass. However, the House needs to understand the proposed changes in detail. There will indeed continue to be a form for the head of the household to complete, which is called a “household enquiry form” or HEF, and a £1,000 fine will remain for failing to comply with the request of the electoral registration officer to complete that form. Whereas completing the household registration form as it stands currently leads to those listed being registered to vote by the local authority on the processing of the form, under the new system the HEF is simply a way of capturing data on who might be eligible to vote in a property. That data will then be used by the local authority to follow up each of the named individuals with a personal approach containing a voter registration form. However, there is no legal duty to comply with a local authority request to complete an individual registration form and there is no threat of a £1,000 fine for not responding. We believe that that is a dangerous anomaly in the proposed legislation, which we fear could have a damaging effect on registration levels.

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that although some people purposely do not want to be on the register, large numbers might be excluded from it because they have not been helped? I am thinking particularly of those with learning disabilities. Often, those who might be helping people with learning difficulties have a strange view about whether they should be allowed to vote. It is crucial that everyone in our society be enfranchised and that no one is ruled out because they are not given the support that they should receive to ensure that they are properly registered.

[Sadiq Khan]

My hon. Friend makes her point far better than I would have made it. She will be aware of the representations made by Scope and others. There could be confusion at an early stage when somebody completing the household form assumes, as in the past, that they are automatically on the register, without realising that the individual form they receive also needs to be completed. If we take into account the fact that many people have learning difficulties, that for others English is not their first language and that that these changes are being contemplated at a time when the register arguably needs to be at its most accurate, the position becomes very worrying—even more so if we reflect on the diminution of resources to which my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) referred.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne Begg Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Clearly the Gurkhas will enjoy the same right as everyone else who makes the United Kingdom their home to vote for Governments in this country.

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

I hope that the Deputy Prime Minister is not tempted to do away with proxy votes, given that he is lengthening the time between the close of nominations and elections. It is not just servicemen or overseas voters but my constituents who work offshore for whom postal voting is not an option, and they really do need a proxy vote.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I strongly agree. In fact, we are seeking to accelerate the provision of proxy votes for those who are deployed briefly just before a general election, so that servicemen and women who are deployed at short notice are not caught out by the rules and can use proxy votes.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Anne Begg Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Pound]

It is a delight and pleasure to serve under you, Miss Begg. This evening has been an extraordinarily educative process. We have looked very far back into the past and I should like to imagine some time in the future. I imagine a group of fresh-faced young students in some constitutional history class at some as-yet-unbuilt school—perhaps the Tony Blair faith academy, the Ann Widdecombe college of dance and drama or, hopefully, the Eleanor of Epping college of education for the daughters of gentlefolk. In one of those as-yet-unbuilt but glorious buildings, some pernickety pedagogue will turn to the class and say, “Let us go back to November 2010 and see what the House of Commons was debating.” The pedagogue will say, “They were discussing the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill,” and someone will ask, “What was the context?” The Government amendments before us refer specifically to compromise, but the key point is the context in which the Government are bringing the Bill before the House tonight. It is based on expediency, not ethics. Just as no good fruit can grow from a diseased tree, the coalition is like the upas tree, poisoning the soil all around it. They are trying to poison our very constitution with this appalling Bill.

[The Temporary Chair (Miss Anne Begg)]

Much as I do not want to interrupt the hon. Gentleman’s flow, I remind him that we are in Committee and that he must address his comments to the amendments before us, rather than the Bill in general.

[Stephen Pound]

I stand abashed, ashamed and corrected, but, as ever, eager to serve, Miss Begg. I was about to turn specifically to the amendment of the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards), who speaks for Plaid Cymru. The amendment is supported by a broad coalition of the better brains in the House, including the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), whose constituency is possibly the most unpronounceable in Scotland. The amendment offers an alternative to the centralist, Stalinist, steel-like structure of a five-year Parliament. It offers something that we are prepared to support for the good of the nation although not all of us believe in it entirely in our hearts—a four-year fixed-term Parliament.

To see the amendments in the specific context, we have to think of what happened in May this year, when two groups of people were trying to buy a house. They were trying to bid for that great mansion of state that is this United Kingdom, and they found that even as the previous occupants were leaving with dignity from the front door, neither of them had enough money to buy the house, so they both moved in at the same time. Maybe they daubed the soffit with a bit of yellow and put a touch of blue on the eaves, but they had no choice.

You will no doubt be asking yourself, Miss Begg, how this relates to the amendments before us. That is precisely what I was coming to. I do not wish to comment on the sleeping habits of Liberal Democrats. That is far too exotic an area for me, but the camp bed in the living room and, in the master bedroom, surrounded by damask silken curtains, the great four-poster bed that the Conservatives occupy represent a compromise, which is the basis of the coalition.

The Bill on the Floor of the House today at the Committee stage refers to the creation of a structure that will bind together two disparate groups of people—the people who virtually bought the house and the lodgers on the camp bed in the front room. You may think that that is not relevant, and I would have to say, Miss Begg, that I agree with you, but the point that I am trying to make is that the Bill must be seen in the context from which it comes.

[Stephen Pound]

rose—

[The Temporary Chair]

Order. The hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) will have seen from my body language that he is not pleasing me. He is continuing with a Second Reading speech. He must address the amendments—not just mention them, but address the content of the amendments.

[Stephen Pound]

Miss Begg, I am, as ever, attendant to your body language and I am interpreting every flicker of that elegantly sculptured eyebrow, even as we speak.

The Septennial Act 1715, as amended by the Parliament Act 1911, is the Act that we will lose, should the Bill reach the statute book. The key point is that if, in the interest of expediency and of pleasing the coalition, we bring in a five-year fixed-term Parliament in contra-indication and contrast to the existing legislation, we place this country in peril indeed. The Bill at present on the Floor of the House at Committee stage, which I read with great care a few moments ago, is hedged around with all sorts of caveats so that an election may not be held on a day of national mourning or thanksgiving or on Christmas day. The Bill is limiting.

I support the amendment because that limitation restricts the right and privilege of the House to decide, under certain circumstances. There are emergencies or there may be some dramatic situation where an election has to take place. The removal of the royal prerogative, on this day of all days, is not something that I wish to comment on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Pound]

Today is Eid al-Adha, and that is an important factor that should be taken into consideration. At the risk of offending my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) and being too London-centric, there are different times in different parts of this United Kingdom when an election may not be appropriate. Judging by the results, it seems we may have had an election on Hallowe’en on a few occasions, but there are certain days on which demonstrably we should not be doing so. However, by limiting ourselves in this way, by applying this template of centralism to the whole structure, we put ourselves in danger, which is why new clause 4, an elegantly crafted piece of work, which stands by itself in all its wonder and majesty, is something that we should happily support.

Clause 2(4), to which the amendments relate, shows the dreadful problems that we have. It states:

“Before issuing a certificate, the Speaker of the House of Commons must consult the Deputy Speakers (so far as practicable).

What thought has gone into this, when it says “so far as practicable”? The amendment addresses that specific point.

[The Temporary Chair]

The amendments that we are debating relate to clause 1, not clause 2, so I ask the hon. Gentleman to return to the amendments on clause 1.

[Stephen Pound]

You are absolutely correct, as in all things, Miss Begg.

Individual Electoral Registration

Anne Begg Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I made it clear that I, too, think that registration is a civic duty. However, making it a legal requirement presents the challenge of deciding what sanctions should apply to those who do not register. I do not think that, in a free society, it would be right to imprison someone who chose not to register to vote, or to hit them with a huge fine. In a free society, people should be free not to register to vote without incurring a criminal penalty.

[Miss Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

I cannot help thinking that we are making voting more difficult for people, and placing more and more barriers in their way, when we ought to be making the process easier. We have all observed that during general elections. It applies not just to the young, the elderly and the disabled, but to people who lives in houses in multiple occupation, especially those living in flats in Glasgow and some industrial areas. It will be difficult to carry out data-matching in such circumstances. I am glad that it is to be piloted, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris) pointed out, unless it is followed up and the electoral registration officers are much more proactive than they have been so far, it will be a wasted exercise.

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. One of the reasons for the data-matching pilots is to enable electoral registration officers to identify people who may be eligible to vote but are not on the register. They can then focus their efforts on that. As I have said, there is evidence that specific procedures to target younger voters and others who are not currently on the register have been very successful in Northern Ireland.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne Begg Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am not sure whether there is such an intimate link between electoral systems and turnout. Turnout seems to me to be dependent on whether the contest is close and whether there are issues being debated in the election contest that engage people. That is something that those on both sides of the House should always strive to do at election time.

[Miss Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

T7. I have heard the Deputy Prime Minister say that he is concerned that 3.5 million people are missing from the register, including groups such as those with learning disabilities, but I have not heard what he is going to do about it, apart from individual registration, which might make the problem worse. What is he going to do to ensure that those numbers go up on the electoral register?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is clearly a complex problem or, I assume, the hon. Lady and her Government would have done something about it in the past 13 years. I think that individual electoral registration is the absolute key, but as we said in the debate here on another occasion, it is crucial to make sure that individual electoral registration is properly resourced and is conducted with care. If it is done too quickly and is not resourced properly, she is right that there is a risk of making the problem worse. That is something that we must avoid at all costs.