Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the coalition Government are breaking new ground along European lines? Might we send a message to the rest of Europe that actually we do believe in coalition Government in this country?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I certainly agree that in other democracies in Europe and elsewhere the idea of two parties compromising with each other in the national interest is considered to be a good thing. Only backward-looking Opposition Members regard every compromise as a betrayal.

Departmental Business Plans

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 8th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

May I welcome the opportunity for Select Committees to scrutinise the business plans? This year in particular there is a lacuna with the annual departmental reports not being published. What will be the relationship of the business plan to such annual departmental reports in future?

[Mr Letwin]

These business plans are a vastly superior document to the annual reports. Of course, there will continue to be the publication of the accounts of each Department, but I hope my hon. Friend will forgive me the indelicacy if I say that on some occasions the previous Government’s annual reports from particular Departments contained a load of guff. One could not tell what the thing was about. I remember in opposition desperately struggling to find out what particular Departments were doing, and all I could get was a load of jargon. In these reports, one will be able to see the information—we are going to this, we will do it by this time, and this is the effect that we expect it will have. That is a jolly useful thing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I know that he chairs the e-crime reduction partnership, which was itself established by EURIM, and I welcome the fact that he has taken an interest in the subject. I assure him that the NFA will welcome his input and that of others on how it should take its work, which we value, forward. As I have mentioned, it has identified a global figure for the level of fraud, but it has also broken it down. Public sector fraud, for example, is estimated at some £17 billion, while identity fraud is estimated at some £2.7 billion.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

If Google and Hotmail are deemed to be less secure, what recommendation can the Government make to advise ordinary people who use those accounts to make them more secure and more aware of the potential for fraud?

[The Attorney-General]

First, the NFSA can supply information on how people can protect themselves against fraud, and it regularly does so. Secondly, as my hon. Friend will know, the Government have announced an extra £650 million for cyber-security, which will be used to look at how hacking, getting into people’s internet accounts and acquiring people’s identities can be properly countered.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

That is a matter for the Budget. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer has already announced, a former Secretary of State for Defence will be providing a review of public sector pensions. I think it is right to look at the fundamental balance between pension entitlements in the private sector, which have been cut back and have changed very dramatically—many people in the private sector, too, have been working shorter hours and taking, in effect, pay cuts—and the pension entitlements due to those in the public sector. It is the fair thing to do to look at pensions in the round. That is what this Government will do and what the hon. Lady’s Government failed to do for more than a decade.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

T6. The Deputy Prime Minister will be aware that every time we change the voting system, such as the introduction of proportional representation to European Parliament elections, the turnout goes down. That is probably one of the biggest challenges he faces. What solution can we find to ensure that turnout remains high when we introduce new electoral systems?

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Baldry]

I thank the hon. Lady for her kind words at the beginning of her question. There are clear majorities in the General Synod in favour of women becoming bishops, but, as the proposals by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York yesterday demonstrated, there are still efforts to try to find ways to reconcile those who have deep-held opposition to the measure. Under legislation, it is important that the Church decides the way forward, and we should give it the space to do so. However, it is also very important that the Church hears the voices of this House about how we see those matters, because ultimately the issue will have to come back to this House.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

3. What recent representations the Church Commissioners have received on the rates of value added tax applicable to church repairs.

[Tony Baldry]

The General Synod at its February meeting made it clear how important it feels the listed places of worship scheme is. The scheme has managed to rebate some £12 million back to listed churches each year, and that is particularly important when a system has not yet been found for the European Union to remove VAT on repairs to listed places of worship.

[Miss McIntosh]

May I congratulate my hon. Friend on his appointment and pay tribute to his predecessor? Will my hon. Friend look at removing the anomaly between the high rate of VAT on church repairs and the zero rate of VAT on new buildings? Will he, indeed, campaign for a lower rate of VAT throughout the European Union—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman replies, I must say that there is still quite a hubbub from Government Back Benchers, and it is being contributed to by members of the Government. Surely they want to hear the answers from the Second Church Estates Commissioner.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, but it is a bit rich coming from a member of a Government one of whose last acts involved the breaching of the compact by the then Minister for the third sector. The compact is an important framework for the relationship between the state and the sector at a very important time in its development. We want the sector to work more closely with the state and the compact has an important part to play in making sure that that relationship works productively.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

5. What plans he has to visit the emergency planning college at Hawkhills.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Hurd)]

The emergency planning college is in my hon. Friend’s constituency and does extraordinarily valuable work in training people to support this country’s resilience in all types of emergency. I have no current plans to visit the college but my hon. Friend is, I am sure, about to tell me why that is a missed opportunity.

[Miss McIntosh]

May I take this opportunity to invite my hon. Friend, whom I congratulate on his appointment, to visit the college? I know that he would be very welcome. Such a visit would act as a morale booster to the college. Will he extend its role to make sure that we can in future pre-empt tragedies such as we have seen in Cumbria and to ensure that all the emergency services are put through their paces at regular intervals to prepare for any such incidents in the future?

[Mr Hurd]

I welcome my hon. Friend back to the House and I thank her for her question. Clearly we need to be proud of the college, which is a national centre of excellence and has won awards, including, I believe, a best in the world award, for its work? I understand that it has been through a recent reorganisation. If it would welcome a ministerial visit, I would be happy to do so. [Interruption.]

Constitution and Home Affairs

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Straw]

I welcome the hon. Lady to the Chamber—I am glad to see her return to the House, albeit, through no fault of hers, a little late. I shall give way in a second.

The European elections system was very controversial. It was subject, unusually, to the Parliament Acts. In my view, it is not a good system and will almost certainly have to be changed in due course. However, no one could have said—no one did say—that it was introduced for partisan advantage. Such advantage has palpably not happened.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Straw]

Indeed—perhaps it is the only way of keeping him. However, I invite my hon. Friend to stay and I will deal with the point later.

[Miss McIntosh]

I am delighted to be returned to represent the new constituency of Thirsk and Malton, and I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. He referred to the new electoral system for the European Parliament. Does he accept that, in each European election since the new election procedures were introduced, turnout has dramatically reduced. What would he have proposed had he remained in government to increase the turnout for those elections?

[Mr Straw]

One suggestion—I might even have made it—was that the new system might increase turnout. Even Homer nodded, and that has not been the case, although I think that turnout has gone up a little recently. I am in favour of either an open list, or what is called the semi-open list, which is one of the proposals for the new, reformed House of Lords. I am happy to discuss that further with the hon. Lady in or outside the House.

I have set out the importance of constitutional change being made, whenever possible, by consensus. I therefore greatly hope that the Deputy Prime Minister will resist calls from his side to use the Government’s majority to ram through change for party advantage. That would be wrong—[Laughter.] I say to those who are obviously tempted by that that, with one exception, which was never to my party’s advantage, we worked hard to achieve cross-party consensus because the constitution should not be a partisan weapon in the hands of any party.