Data Protection Bill [Lords]

Debate between Anne Main and Matt Hancock

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I support the Salisbury convention: if something is in the party of government’s manifesto and this House passes it, the other place should be very careful about sending it back. Indeed, the Salisbury convention says it should not. I hope that the vote of the House today is respected, because we will then have considered this question twice. We have made concessions, taking on board legitimate concerns, but ultimately the House will have decided its view, having considered the question twice, so I think my right hon. Friend asks an important question.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Can the Minister confirm that the noble Baroness is factually wrong and that the House does have enough of a majority? It was passed in this House and it is not the business of the unelected Members of that House to tell the elected Members of this House whether they have done a good enough job.

[Matt Hancock]

I have a lot of sympathy with what my hon. Friend says. The best course of action now, given where we are, is to vote for the Government’s position and make the point incredibly clear.

Data Protection Bill [Lords]

Debate between Anne Main and Matt Hancock

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 9th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend also confirm that the new scheme will allow for a higher maximum level of damages of up to £60,000 and that it can be run for as little as £100?

[Matt Hancock]

That is absolutely right. The minimum access cost will be £50, which means that everybody has access to justice at low cost. There is more to it than that, however. Some people argue that the £60,000 limit on damages is too low, but the arbitration scheme does not stop somebody going to court, so there is access to justice where damages should be higher. The arbitration scheme is an addition to, rather than a replacement for, going to court. It introduces a robust and fair system that is easy for everybody to access, so everyone can have access to justice.

The section 40 amendments would, ironically, have the opposite effect, because anybody with the means to take small newspapers to court could stop them publishing stories for fear of having to pay the costs, even if they get everything right.

BBC Pay

Debate between Anne Main and Matt Hancock

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We should use whatever tools are at our disposal to ensure that we have the right level of transparency. We want to ensure that this work takes place across the board at the BBC and other places, and it is important that every case is looked at, rather than just individual cases. There might be individual circumstances in which an NDA is appropriate, but we need to be careful to ensure that a systemic problem is not hidden by the overuse of such agreements.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I am sorry to disagree with the Secretary of State in his first few hours in office, but I would not reinvent the BBC as it is now. It resisted all the way taking the threshold down to £150,000, so that we would actually know what was going on. The fact that it tried to solve the problem with Carrie Gracie with a bung of £45,000 says to me that there is an endemic problem: the BBC does not understand and it does not get it. Some of the men are overpaid. The fact that the BBC did not wish to address this issue until it was forced into it shows that we need a root-and-branch analysis of what is going wrong in the BBC.

[Matt Hancock]

I agree that a root-and-branch analysis is needed and must happen. There is of course much more to the BBC than just the high pay. There are the local stations and the local work, which receive far less scrutiny than many of these issues at the top. We must ensure that the solutions brought by transparency for top pay apply throughout the organisation, and apply to presenters and off-air staff right across the BBC, and not just at the top.

Voter Registration

Debate between Anne Main and Matt Hancock

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

Again, I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s support. On the question of bringing forward legislation, we are still in discussions with the Electoral Commission. It has stated that it would support a legislative approach, which I warmly welcome. It is important to remember that the unprecedented success of our registration drive led to the amount of people trying to register late last night, which caused the technical problems.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

At 9 o’clock last night the Prime Minister debated with the leave side for an hour, which caused a surge at 10 o’clock in people wanting to vote. Extending the registration period for a short time would be far better than trying to bring through rushed legislation. Give it a few hours today, give people notice of it, and get on with it.

Points of Order

Debate between Anne Main and Matt Hancock

Monday 29th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

That is a matter for the Government. Legendarily, the Minister for the Cabinet Office is always keen to address the House—indeed, in the past he has likened himself to Disraeli, who had a notable enthusiasm for addressing the House. If he wishes to respond to the hon. Lady with that legendary succinctness for which he is renowned, we are happy to hear from him, but he is not under any obligation to do so.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Matthew Hancock)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I think I answered that point. The question is how we make sure that the guidance means that civil servants follow the Government position, including on the in/out question, which is the only question on which Ministers can move from the Government position. So it is a question of whether something is an in/out question or is normal EU business. I think I set that out earlier; I might have said the same.

[Mrs Main]

indicated dissent.

EU Referendum: Civil Service Guidance

Debate between Anne Main and Matt Hancock

Monday 29th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

I would argue the contrary. The constitutional difficulty would arise if civil servants were being asked to support a position that was not the position of the Government. The civil service is there to support the Government. I would argue that this is precisely in order to stick to the constitution, as set out by the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 but as carried out in practice for decades and decades before that. The job of the civil service is to support the Government, and that is what it should do.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

The British public could be forgiven for thinking that, if someone such as the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is not permitted to see all the relevant documents, he may be unable to advise the Government. The Government may then come to a fixed opinion on a particular view such as benefits without having all the facts. A question and answer document from the Cabinet Office says:

“Can dissenting Ministers see Department papers on matters that aren’t directly about the Referendum, but may have a bearing.”

The answer is:

“They can see or commission any papers produced by their Departments in the normal way except those that have a bearing on the referendum question or are intended to be used in support of their position”.

It is not a simple black and white matter; it is a matter of interpretation. Special advisers are being handcuffed and told that they must keep things from the Secretary of State. That is appalling. Are the Government afraid that the facts might change the minds of the public and some Cabinet members?

[Matthew Hancock]

My hon. Friend’s question was focused on what the public think. I believe they will think, “Please can we get on to debating the substance of the question rather than the process of how to make sure that Ministers are allowed, unusually, to depart from the Government position while the constitutional position of the civil service remains in place.”

National Minimum Wage

Debate between Anne Main and Matt Hancock

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

No, because every year the Government present evidence to the Low Pay Commission of what level of pay the economy can support. In fact, I can go further. Today, we are publishing the economic evidence that is going in to the Low Pay Commission. It shows what level of pay the Government believe can be supported. It shows that the recovering economy is creating jobs, with unemployment falling faster than any country in the G7. Indeed, the Low Pay Commission has said that it can raise the national minimum wage in real terms this year only because of that recovering economy. Government analysis underpinning today’s evidence projects that on the Office for Budget Responsibility’s economic earnings forecast, the minimum wage is set to reach £8.06 by 2020—only because of the recovering economy.

[Mrs Main]

Did the Minister note—I am sure he did—that the shadow Secretary of State said that there would be some “flexibility” in the plans, but without saying what that flexibility entails? It seems to me that this is a fudge; there is not really any particular figure that he is looking towards.

[Matthew Hancock]

I was going to come on to that. The hon. Member for Streatham made an important admission today. I think it is the first time that Labour has admitted that if the £8 target was going to damage the economy, there would be “flexibility”, as my hon. Friend said. Within a month the hon. Gentleman has completely undone the promise that was made with such loud cymbals at the party conference. It was a promise made for a party conference by a desperate party leader who is struggling to get his message across. Today, it has been completely undermined by the man who wants to replace him as party leader after Labour loses the next election.

Gender Balance on Corporate Boards

Debate between Anne Main and Matt Hancock

Monday 7th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills (Matthew Hancock)]

I beg to move,

That this House considers that the draft Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on improving the gender balance among non-executive directors of companies listed on stock exchanges and related measures (European Union Document No. 16433/12 and Addenda 1 to 3) does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity for the reasons set out in Chapter 1 of the Twenty-third Report of the European Scrutiny Committee (HC 86-xxiii); and, in accordance with Article 6 of Protocol No. 2 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, instructs the Clerk of the House to forward this reasoned opinion to the Presidents of the European Institutions.

The motion is in the name of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. This debate gives the House a welcome opportunity to discuss gender balance among non-executive directors of listed companies, and to decide whether to send a reasoned opinion on the European Commission’s recently published proposal, improving the directive, to the Presidents of the EU institutions. In short, we are here to debate women on boards.

The aim of the draft directive is to increase substantially the number of women on corporate boards throughout Europe. The directive sets an objective of ensuring that, at a minimum, 40% of non-executives on the boards of listed companies are female by 2020. It aims to do that by ensuring that companies have transparent, gender-neutral appointment processes in place for their boards. Member states would be required to have a range of sanctions in place for companies that failed to do that. For companies that are listed, over which public authorities have a dominant influence, the proposed objective is to reach a minimum 40% representation by 2018.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that there is confusion here between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome? If we are not careful, we could have the same few women on different sorts of boards, rather than genuinely offering opportunities for many women to apply.

[Matthew Hancock]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. A number of objections have been raised, and that adds to them.