Arms Export Licences (Saudi Arabia)

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 26th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Enviable eloquence, to be equalled by breathtaking brevity—Mr Barry Gardiner.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Indeed, Mr Speaker.

The Government did know; they just did not tell the Department for International Trade. Which Department knew? Which Minister had the responsibility to tell the Secretary of State, and why are they not sitting alongside the right hon. Lady, making an apology to Parliament?

The evidence presented during the court proceedings earlier this year and the recent revelation prove that the Government have failed to abide by their own undertaking. On two occasions since the Court of Appeal’s verdict, licences have been awarded in contravention of the determination precisely because a careful assessment was not carried out. Will the Secretary of State explain why the reports in 2015—the widespread reports that Saudi troops had been deployed on the ground and were leading the co-ordinated efforts of coalition forces in Yemeni territory—were not properly investigated and assessed by her Department? I note her letter to the Committees on Arms Export Controls; the inference is that no such investigation had ever been carried out.

The previous Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), advised that potential breaches were monitored in a number of ways, one of which was through on-the-ground military and diplomatic staff and our positive close relations with Saudi Arabian officials. The Saudi Arabian officials must have known that their country’s troops were on the ground, so why was that not communicated in the close positive relations that our staff had with them?

I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has launched a full inquiry, but it will not have escaped her notice that the arms export fair took place in London just a short while ago. Some £6.3 billion of arms have been exported to the coalition by this Government— £5.3 billion-worth to Saudi Arabia. What further deals were done there? The Secretary of State has said that it is possible that more illegal deals may have taken place, but does she actually think that instead of it being possible, it is highly probable?

International Climate Action

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 26th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before I call the shadow Secretary of State, it might be helpful if I indicate an intention to move on at 1.50 pm.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement.

The climate emergency is worse than we feared. Yesterday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its special report on oceans and the cryosphere, which set out the danger starkly. Sea levels threaten nearly 1 billion people who live in low-lying coastal regions, and tipping points in the permafrost could release hundreds of billions of tonnes of carbon. The report makes it clear, yet again, that we must do everything to reduce emissions as fast as possible to limit global warming to 1.5°, beyond which climate breakdown will be catastrophic.

The purpose of the UN climate action summit was to spur on greater climate ambition towards that aim, but none of the world’s large polluters met the challenge. China, India and the EU were all unable to announce tougher nationally determined contributions. Brazil and the USA refused even to turn up. Our country must step forward to fill that vacuum of political leadership on the world stage.

The UK’s commitments at the summit need close scrutiny. The new Ayrton fund that the Government have announced allocates £1 billion to help British scientists and innovators create new clean technology. That is great, but the funding has come from the aid budget. We should not siphon off overseas development assistance to spend on UK universities and firms. They should be funded by non-ODA finance, so will the Secretary of State explain why the funding diverts precious resources from mitigation in climate-vulnerable nations? If she claims that the money is classified as aid because it will help export clean technologies to the developing world, perhaps she can today commit to following Labour’s lead and pledge to provide to the citizens of the global south free or cheap access to green technologies that we develop here.

The Government’s pledge to double international climate finance, while welcome, also raises questions. Will the Secretary of State confirm that that money will be disbursed predominantly through grants rather than loans, which unfairly saddle the poorest nations with debt to pay the costs of a problem they did little to cause? Climate change is already wreaking hundreds of billions of dollars worth of damage on those communities. Will she commit to devoting any of the resources to covering loss and damage caused by climate disasters? After all, the Government perpetuate the fossil fuel economy for the poorest nations abroad, completely undermining our international climate finance. From 2013 to 2018, UK Export Finance gave £2.6 billion in export support to the energy sector, of which 96% went to fossil fuel projects, overwhelmingly in low and middle-income countries. Will she therefore commit today to ending taxpayer support for fossil fuels abroad, as so many other countries have done?

What we do abroad matters more than ever. The UK is hosting the UN climate conference, COP 26, in Glasgow next year. It is the most important climate summit since the Paris agreement. The right hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) is president of COP 26, but COP presidents are normally Ministers in their Governments, and she has indicated her intention to stand down at the next general election. I therefore ask the Government what staffing resources the office of the COP president will be provided with; how much funding the Government intend to provide for COP 26 preparations; what regular reports the COP president will be able to give to Cabinet; and what objectives the COP president has been set by the Cabinet.

Those resources must be provided because at COP 26 we will need to use our diplomatic leverage to persuade other nations to bring forward much tougher NDCs. I am deeply concerned that staffing levels are inadequate. In 2009, under the Labour Government, the Foreign Office had an army of climate staff 277-strong. Seven subsequent years of austerity halved that. When the Prime Minister was Foreign Secretary, the number of officials working full-time on climate change fell to 55. Do the Government intend to restore the workforce to levels last seen a decade ago in recognition of the diplomatic resource that is now required to support the agenda of a UK-led COP 26?

The failures of the UN climate action summit raise the stakes of COP 26 so much higher. We cannot afford for the talks, or those at COP 25 in Chile, to stumble. The issue of climate breakdown is far greater than the party-political divides that afflict this Parliament, and I urge all Members to find common ground in the pursuit of a healthy and stable climate. In that spirit, I make an offer to the Secretary of State: I and my colleagues in the Labour party are fully committed to doing everything we can in a cross-party manner to ensure that COP 26 delivers the highest possible ambition.

Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Well, if she does not blow it, it may well be that nobody else will blow the trumpet. It is perfectly right that we offer her the warmest congratulations on that new acknowledgement.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) for his timely question.

The right to protest is one of the foundations of our freedom. From the Chartists to the suffragettes, and from the civil rights movement to the anti-apartheid campaign, all those victories were won by citizens uniting against injustice and making their voice heard. Extinction Rebellion and the school climate strikers are doing just that. I, too, thank the police for the way they have policed the demonstrations: on the whole, they have done so with good humour. I was delighted to meet the demonstrators at Marble Arch yesterday and I thank them for speaking the truth.

Many of us listened to Greta Thunberg earlier today. She spoke about truth—the truth that we are in the midst of an ecological and climate emergency. She also spoke about our refusal—our fear—to acknowledge the truth that stopping this catastrophe requires a complete rethink in the way we run our economy, so that GDP growth is no longer the touchstone. We are on track for catastrophic levels of global warming, yet in the UK we pride ourselves on the 40% reduction in emissions that we say we have achieved on 1990 levels, while achieving a 72% increase in GDP. But the truth is out there. Schoolchildren are teaching it to us. Those figures do not include aviation or shipping emissions. They do not include our imports, our exports and they have largely come from the clean power directive in the European Union, which forced us to announce an end to coal-fired power stations. That is why thousands of our schoolchildren are on climate strike: they know that we are not acting with the speed and seriousness that the climate emergency demands.

Therefore, I ask the Minister: will she listen to the voice of Extinction Rebellion and of our own children? I echo the call from my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North: will she join my party in declaring a national environmental and climate emergency and commit to bringing forward the Government’s response to the Committee on Climate Change’s recommendations, which will be published shortly, to achieve net zero urgently? Will she do more to engage with the public in tackling the climate crisis, because it is clear that our citizens need to be in the driving seat for a sustainable future? Will she work with Treasury colleagues and the Bank of England to address what Mark Carney has identified as climate-related financial risks and make the emissions curve and natural capital the key elements of our future economic viability? We know that, however disruptive the climate demonstrations may have been in this past few weeks to businesses, they pale into insignificance against the capacity of climate disasters to wipe out human prosperity and human life itself.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Tuesday 19th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Fifty per cent. of Europe’s tidal and 35% of its wave energy resource are in UK waters, but the Government have still not provided the marine renewables industry with a secure route from experimental phase through to demonstrator phase through to full commercial development. Recent research from the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult shows that revenue support could enable marine renewables to create up to 50,000 new jobs and dominate more than 30% of a global market estimated at £76 billion by 2050. Does the Minister accept that the contract for difference auctions are not an adequate mechanism to support emerging technologies such as marine renewables at this stage in their development, and will she take action to provide a competitive funding pool in the energy White Paper to support the UK’s innovative marine technologies and enable the UK to gain its rightful share of this exciting global market?

[Mr Speaker]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman’s thesis will be peer-reviewed.

Points of Order

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 21st February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Item 4 on the list of written ministerial statements for today is about the continuity of trade deals. It would have been extremely helpful to have had that written ministerial statement before the debate that is about to take place, and I deeply regret that it has not been made available by the Department for International Trade. This is the second time that such an omission has been made, and I wonder whether there is anything that we can do to ensure that in future, such a lackadaisical approach does not happen.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman has made his point in his own way. I must say, on a personal basis, that I have always found the Secretary of State the very embodiment of courtesy. It does seem to me that if it was a deliberate decision that the written ministerial statement would appear later, that is less than considerate to the House as it embarks on this debate. If it was inadvertent, that is unfortunate and perhaps rather inept, but it certainly should not happen again. Whether the statement can be made available fairly quickly, so that Members could at least consult it in the course of the debate, I do not know. It is a regrettable state of affairs, but hopefully there will not be a recurrence.

Antisemitism in Modern Society

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

Would my hon. Friend, who invoked the national executive committee of the party, of which I am a member, like to give way?

[Mr Speaker]

If the hon. Gentleman wants to take the intervention, we will then hear the content of it. Does he wish to do so?

[Barry Gardiner]

I will, of course, take, as I said before, one final intervention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner]

I am not taking any more interventions, as I said.

It is only through education that we will protect future generations from falling into these insidious falsehoods—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Mr Ivan Lewis, calm yourself, young man. I am sure what you are saying is absolutely fascinating—riveting stuff—but we would prefer to hear you on your feet in due course, rather than from your seat. Do the Front Bencher the courtesy of hearing him.

[Barry Gardiner]

It is only through education that we will protect future generations from falling into insidious falsehoods and conspiracy theories. I had the privilege of hearing Gena Turgel, the holocaust survivor who was known as the bride of Belsen, speak to a group of children at JFS school a few years ago. She was the most wonderful, humane and powerful voice, educating successive generations about the horrors of antisemitism. I simply record with sadness her passing since our previous debate on antisemitism in this Chamber last year.

Those horrors are not yet a distant memory. Our colleague Lord Alf Dubs was one of the children who came to this country as part of the Kindertransport, which brought 10,000 Jewish children to safety in Britain. Alf’s work, both at the Refugee Council and in setting up safe passage for refugee children today, is just one example of the legacy that survivors have bequeathed to this country.

It is now 80 years on from Kristallnacht and we must amplify the voices of people like Alf, Gena Turgel and other holocaust survivors as they share their stories and educate the next generation. The holocaust happened. It counts as one of the greatest crimes in human history. This January, in Bushey, I was with the Secretary of State when 1,200 mourners attended the burial of those six unknown Jews—five adults, one child—murdered at Auschwitz. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis spoke powerfully at the funeral, saying:

“We need a strong reminder such as this to let us know what can result, even within a democratic society, what can result if anti-Semitism, if racism and xenophobia, go unchecked.”

Looking around the world, it is clear that to tackle this evil we must adopt an internationalist approach. A survey published by the European Union in December found that almost nine out of 10 European Jewish people feel that antisemitism has worsened in their respective countries over the past five years. Right-wing nationalist politics continues its forward march, with devastating consequences for minority communities. In France, the torching of synagogues and assaults on Jewish people on the Metro have resulted in thousands of Jewish people leaving for Israel.

The horrendous mass shooting of Jewish congregants at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life was the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in American history, and watching far-right protesters in Charlottesville chant “The Jews will not replace us” was quite simply chilling.

Last year, the Polish Government introduced legislation that reads:

“Whoever claims…that the Polish Nation…is responsible or co-responsible for Nazi crimes committed by the Third Reich…shall be liable to a fine or imprisonment for up to 3 years.”

That is an attempt to whitewash the holocaust.

Viktor Orbán’s Government in Hungary has deployed antisemitic rhetoric, and their campaign against George Soros has invoked obvious antisemitic tropes. I shall not talk about the support that the Hungarian Government received in the European Parliament, because the Secretary of State set the tone for the debate, which is that antisemitism is something that we need to tackle from every corner of this Parliament.

I thank all colleagues from all parties who are here to express their solidarity with the Jewish community. To all who may be listening and paying attention, I would like to say something very clearly: when Jewish people express their concerns about antisemitism, regardless of their background, their beliefs or where they sit on the political spectrum, they must be listened to. Their anxieties are genuine—they are real—and they should be a cause of concern for every person, for every socialist and for every anti-racist in this country. In this place, we create laws to solve the fundamental question of how, with all our differences, we can live together.

I wish to conclude by reading the words of one of Israel’s greatest poets, Yehuda Amichai. He said:

“Once I sat on the steps by a gate at David’s Tower, I placed my two heavy baskets at my side. A group of tourists was standing around their guide and I became their target marker. ‘You see that man with the baskets? Just right of his head there’s an arch from the Roman period. Just right of his head.’ ‘But he’s moving, he’s moving!’ I said to myself: redemption will come only if their guide tells them, ‘You see that arch from the Roman period? It’s not important: but next to it, left and down a bit, there sits a man who’s bought fruit and vegetables for his family.’”

Once we can stop seeing the race, the religion, the colour of the skin, and to see through the man or the woman, perhaps we will rid our world of antisemitism, wherever it is found.

Points of Order

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Wednesday 6th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The right hon. Gentleman is a bit like me; he likes to have the last word. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) is a precious delicacy in the House, and we should not squander him too early. I will come to him.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It has been widely reported that the Secretary of State for International Trade has advised industry representatives that he proposes to introduce measures in the event of a no-deal Brexit to reduce all import tariffs on goods to zero. The impact of that in job losses in our manufacturing and farming industries would be enormous. It would also undermine the Government’s much vaunted ambition to negotiate new trade deals by giving away what other countries would happily bargain access into their own markets to obtain. Have you, Mr Speaker, received any indication from the Government that a Minister is preparing to make a statement to this House on such a far-reaching and important matter?

[Mr Speaker]

No, not as yet, but who knows what is to follow. We live in hope. The hon. Gentleman’s grinning countenance suggests that he is satisfied with his efforts for now.

Points of Order

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Monday 3rd December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

First, I recall the hon. Gentleman’s inquiry. I would not have been able to pinpoint the date—I advise those attending to our proceedings outwith the Chamber—as I do not have that level of anorakish recall of his parliamentary contributions, but I do recall the fact of the question being put. It made an impression on me, as does so much of what he says. Secondly, as a matter of principle, the Foreign Secretary ought by now to have replied to a request of that date—if it was of that date—from the hon. Gentleman. Thirdly, as a matter of practicality, I say that it is somewhat unwise for a Minister—in this case, apparently, the Foreign Secretary, an extremely experienced and dextrous, as well as courteous, parliamentarian—not to have replied to the hon. Gentleman by now, for failure to provide one was bound to invite excoriation. The Foreign Secretary will now be on the receiving end of that as soon as he learns of the hon. Gentleman’s point of order. I hope that on all three counts I have brought some happiness into his life.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I will come to the Front-Bench spokesperson first, but we must try to bring matters to a close shortly.

[Barry Gardiner]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like to raise a point of order regarding a response I received from the Minister for Energy and Clean Growth at the last Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy oral questions. I asked the Minister why a roundtable with all the key fracking companies that she held on 21 May had not been declared on the transparency register. In response, she claimed that her officials did not disclose the meeting of 21 May because

“the ministerial code does not require Ministers to disclose meetings that they drop in on, as opposed to host in their office”—[Official Report, 20 November 2018; Vol. 649, c. 715.]

I have searched the ministerial code and can find no reference to a difference in disclosure requirements such as the Minister suggests.

It would also appear that the Minister’s involvement in the meeting may not have been as casual as she suggested. During a Westminster Hall Debate on 10 July 2018, the Minister in fact claimed:

“I did hold a very effective shale industry roundtable”—[Official Report, 10 July 2018; Vol. 644, c. 284WH.]

A freedom of information request querying the nature of that roundtable received a letter in response where the Department stated that this was indeed

“the Shale Roundtable that the Minister of State hosted on 21st May 2018”.

By the Department’s own admission, this was a meeting the Minister had hosted, rather than dropped in on. The agenda of the meeting was also released under the FOI request. It reveals the extent to which the Minister was present. The roundtable began at 1 pm and finished at 2.35 pm, lasting 95 minutes, and the Minister was present for at least 70 minutes. I contend that this would not, in any reasonable opinion, constitute dropping in on a meeting. I seek your advice, Mr Speaker. Has any request come from the Minister seeking an opportunity to come before the House to correct the record?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. The short answer is that, as far as I am aware, no request has been made by the Minister concerned or any other Minister to make a statement of correction or other statement on this matter. If a Minister believes that he or she has erred, it is not just open to that Minister to correct the record, it is incumbent upon him or her to do so. I have received no such indication. The hon. Gentleman is a versatile and experienced parliamentarian and can pursue this matter further, if he so wishes, in a variety of ways, whether in correspondence or through questions, but not further tonight by this mechanism.

Point of Order

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 13th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. At 9.55 this morning, ensuring it was then too late to question the Secretary of State at International Trade questions, his Department released a written statement saying it was concerned about breaches of export controls and the conduct of licence applicants. We have been challenging this Government for many months to tighten export controls in relation to military and dual-use goods in Saudi Arabia, Honduras and the Philippines. Is it not discourteous to this House to deny Members the opportunity to question Ministers on which companies have given rise to concern and which country destinations are suspected of illegitimate use? Have you, Mr Speaker, received any request from Ministers to come to this place and allow a proper discussion of these disturbing matters? There is now a three-week recess and many will feel that what I have referred to as a discourtesy is in fact an outrage.

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer to the hon. Gentleman is yes, it is discourteous, and it is highly regrettable that Members have not had the opportunity to question Ministers about this important matter. It would have been open to the Government to make an oral statement to the House and it might have been judged seemly for that to have happened, so I share the hon. Gentleman’s sense of unease and disappointment, to put it mildly, that we find ourselves in this situation, but unless an oral statement is volunteered there is no immediate remedy. Knowing the hon. Gentleman as I do—he and I came into the House together 21 years ago—I know that he is nothing if not persistent, and he will seek to use the Order Paper and the opportunities presented in the House upon our return fully to probe the Government on this subject. I am sorry that that will have to wait for some time, but his opportunity will come if he is patient.

Trade Bill

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 17th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[Mr Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 21—Right of devolved authorities to appoint negotiators—

“(1) Each devolved authority shall have the right to appoint one member of any delegation tasked with negotiating an agreement with another state on behalf of the UK if that agreement falls within section 2(2).

(2) A devolved authority shall not make an appointment under subsection (1) unless the person appointed is reasonably competent to carry out the role of a trade negotiator.”

This new clause would permit the devolved authorities to each appoint one member of any negotiating delegation and would ensure that the person appointed is competent to carry out the role.

Amendment 25, in clause 1, page 1, line 15, at end insert—

“(1A) No regulations may be made under this subsection by a Minister of the Crown, so far as they contain provision which would be within the devolved competence of the Scottish Ministers (within the meaning given in paragraph 7 of Schedule 1), unless the Scottish Ministers consent.

(1B) No regulations may be made under this subsection by a Minister of the Crown, so far as they contain provision which would be within the devolved competence of the Welsh Ministers (within the meaning given in paragraph 8 of Schedule 1), unless the Welsh Ministers consent.”

This amendment and Amendment 26 seek to ensure that regulations cannot be made without consent from devolved Ministers.

Amendment 26, in clause 2, page 2, line 40, at end insert—

“(7A) No regulations may be made under subsection (1) by a Minister of the Crown, so far as they contain provision which would be within the devolved competence of the Scottish Ministers (within the meaning given in paragraph 7 of Schedule 1), unless the Scottish Ministers consent.

(7B) No regulations may be made under subsection (1) by a Minister of the Crown, so far as they contain provision which would be within the devolved competence of the Welsh Ministers (within the meaning given in paragraph 8 of Schedule 1), unless the Welsh Ministers consent.”

See explanatory statement for Amendment 25.

Amendment 27, in clause 2, page 3, line 3, at end insert—

“(10) No regulations may be made under subsection (8)(b) unless the Secretary of State has consulted with the Scottish Ministers and the Welsh Ministers.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to consult with Scottish Ministers and Welsh Ministers before deciding whether or how to prolong the period during which implementing powers can be used.

Government amendments 49, 50 and 61 to 63.

Amendment 28, in schedule 1, page 7, line 24, at end insert—

“(4) This paragraph does not apply to regulations made under section 1(1) or 2(1) by the Scottish Ministers or the Welsh Ministers.”

This amendment would remove the constraints on Scottish and Welsh Ministers in making regulations under this Act which modify retained EU law.

Government amendments 64 to 67.

Amendment 29, in schedule 1, page 8, line 5, at end insert—

“(4) This paragraph does not apply to regulations made under section 1(1) or 2(1) by the Scottish Ministers or the Welsh Ministers.

Requirement for consultation in certain circumstances

3A (1) No regulations may be made by the Scottish Ministers or the Welsh Ministers acting alone under section 1(1) or 2(1) so far as the regulations are to come into force before exit day unless the regulations are, to that extent, made after consulting with a Minister of the Crown.

(2) No regulations may be made by the Scottish Ministers or the Welsh Ministers acting alone under section 2(1) so far as the regulations make provision about any quota arrangements or are incompatible with any such arrangements unless the regulations are, to that extent, made after consulting with a Minister of the Crown.

(3) In sub-paragraph (2) ‘quota arrangements’ has the same meaning as in paragraph 3.”

This amendment would follow amendments made to the EU (Withdrawal) Bill to replace a requirement to seek the consent of the UK Ministers before making regulations to be commenced before exit day, or regulations making provision about quota arrangements, with a requirement to consult.

Government amendments 68, 69 and 76 to 78.

[Barry Gardiner]

I rise to speak to new clause 4, which stands in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends.

The extent to which the Bill encroaches on matters of devolved competence and undermines the power of devolved authorities is of particular concern. I am proud that it was a Labour Government who delivered the devolution settlements. They were established with a presumption of full devolution, except in matters considered reserved to the Government of the United Kingdom. Indeed, amendments to devolution legislation contained in the Scotland Act 2016 and the Wales Act 2017 specifically put that presumption on to a legislative footing, stipulating that Ministers would not legislate on matters that fell within devolved competence without “normally” seeking the consent of the appropriate devolved Government. However, the Bill seeks to do exactly that.

The Public Bill Committee heard in great detail the serious consequences the Bill would have for the United Kingdom and each of the devolved nations and their respective Administrations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner]

I am concerned about what the Minister said. Does he not accept that if the provisions in clauses 1 and 2 are taken in conjunction with Government amendment 34, they will allow the Westminster Government to use Henry VIII powers to modify primary legislation or retained direct EU legislation in areas that are a matter of devolved competence? That is to go beyond “not normally”, which is why new clause 4 is essential.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I just emphasise that there is no obligation to continue up to the wire? I know that sometimes some people on the Government Bench say “Keep going till the cut-off point,” but it is not necessary to do so. There is a lot of other material to be debated. The Minister, who is a most courteous fellow, was extremely succinct earlier; he should not think that that was unpopular in the House.

[George Hollingbery]

You will be glad to hear, Mr Speaker, that I do not have a great deal more to say.

Let me engage with the shadow Secretary of State’s point. The powers that the Government are taking relate to where any regulations under section 12 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act are in force and intersect with devolved Ministers’ rights to modify retained direct EU law. We are carving out an area in which the UK Government believe it is right and proper that the interests of the wider United Kingdom have precedence. I think the shadow Secretary of State understands what I mean; indeed, from the look on his face I believe he probably secretly agrees with what I am saying.

Points of Order

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

1st reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You are a redoubtable champion of Members seeking to hold the Government to account. One of the things we sometimes resort to in doing that is the submission of freedom of information requests. On 20 July last year, I submitted a freedom of information request to the Department for International Trade, to which I have not yet had a response, nor indeed any acknowledgment, despite chasing it up in March and April. I submitted a separate FOI request on 14 March this year, which did receive a response, advising me that the Department would be unable to respond within 20 days but that a response would be forthcoming by 14 April at the latest. I have still had no such response, despite it now being May.

On 26 April this year, the Cabinet Office and the Office for National Statistics released the annual FOI statistics by Department. The Department for International Trade was the worst of all Departments, with 27% of requests either not being answered within the time limits or not answered at all. That failure prevents parliamentarians from properly scrutinising the Government’s trade policy at a time of intense public debate on these matters—something we have a duty to Parliament to do. I make no judgment of whether it is by intention or incompetence on the part of Ministers, but I seek your advice as to how we may redress the situation.

[Mr Speaker]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I hope he will not take it amiss if I begin my response to him by saying that, although it is an attempted point of order, in a very real sense it appeared to me to resemble an intellectual dissertation, which of itself is no surprise to those of us familiar with the cerebral quality of the hon. Gentleman. I think it is important to distinguish between parliamentary proceedings on the one hand, in respect of which I may have some modest powers and capacity to assist Members, and freedom of information requests on the other, in relation to which I am literally powerless, as those are not matters for me. However, the hon. Gentleman has raised a concern, and it may well be shared by others. It is on the record, and I hope, consistent both with the letter of obligation to those who submit such requests and with its spirit, that full account will be taken of the situation the hon. Gentleman has painstakingly highlighted. If I may, I suggest we leave it there for today.

Business of the House

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 17th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. In response to the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), the Leader of the House made the point, perfectly reasonably, that the Government have to balance the rights of Back-Bench Members against the sometimes necessary delivery of ministerial statements. There is not necessarily a perfect balance, but I entirely accept that the Government have to make a judgment on that matter. The House will know that I, too, have to make a judgment about the allocation of time. This is supposed to be a Backbench Business Committee day, and there are two Backbench Business Committee debates, the first of which was lost a few weeks ago, and the merits of which will not be disputed. The Leader of the House herself has referred to the important issue of plastics. The second of those debates, in the name of the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), is time-sensitive; it needs to take place today.

However, the Government have chosen to put on two ministerial statements today, which I accept is their right, procedurally, although whether that is altogether popular with the Backbench Business Committee is another matter. I have to make a judgment about balance, and I accept that the statements must take place and that there is interest in them, but we must get on to the Backbench Business Committee debates. More than my recent predecessors, I have tended to try to call everybody on statements, including at business questions; the record proves that beyond peradventure. Sadly, today is an exception, and that is the consequence of the management of the business, which is not in the hands of the Chair. I am trying to fight to defend the rights of Back-Bench Members, and I will always do so. I apologise to disappointed colleagues; they can try another time.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I think the hon. Gentleman’s point of order flows specifically from earlier exchanges and therefore, exceptionally, I will take it now if it is brief.

[Barry Gardiner]

I am grateful, Mr Speaker. At oral questions this morning, in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Karen Lee), the Under-Secretary of State for International Trade, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), advised the House that all export licences for military and dual-use goods are examined and issued on a case-by-case basis. In fact, his own Department’s website clearly shows that a considerable number of such goods are exported under open general export licences that specifically exempt the exporter from applying on a case-by-case basis. Have you received any request from the Under-Secretary of State for International Trade to come back to the House to correct the record following what I am sure was an inadvertent mistake?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman, the shadow Secretary of State for International Trade, has an air of expectation and a plaintive appeal etched on the contours of his face. The short answer is that I have received no such indication from a Minister, and the hon. Gentleman will not take offence if I say that, on this occasion, I think he was at least as interested in giving his views to the House as in hearing any views put to him. He has placed his concern firmly on the record and, having known the hon. Gentleman for over two decades, I can predict with confidence that he will pursue it with a terrier-like pertinacity.

If there are no further points of order—in fact, there cannot be—we come now to the oral statement from the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 22nd February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Given the Government Front-Bench team’s uncharacteristic failure to welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) to the Opposition Front Bench, I know that you would want me to do so, Mr Speaker.

Is the Secretary of State aware that the Food Standards Agency recently detained large quantities of out-of-date meat in a company called Norish Cold Storage? The meat is believed to have come from Ireland and South America. Given that Norish is the parent company of Town View Foods, one of the directors of which, Plunkett Matthews, was also a director of Freeza Meats, a company implicated in the Irish horsemeat scandal in 2013 and found guilty of meat-labelling fraud, will the Secretary of State urgently liaise with Ministers in the Republic of Ireland, the FSA here and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland to ensure the supply chain for this illegal meat is identified, that our sanitary and phytosanitary regulations are properly enforced and that those behind the illegal trade—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I say to the hon. Gentleman that if the meat was previously hot, it would certainly be freezing cold by now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 12th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Are we on topicals, Mr Speaker?

[Mr Speaker]

We are. The hon. Gentleman must try to keep up!

[Barry Gardiner]

Thank you, Sir; it is always good to have you keeping me up to pace.

Recent reports suggest that Boeing provided Monarch Airlines with 45 Boeing 737 MAX jets at a cut price and that Boeing used a complex sale and leaseback deal to provide Monarch with more than £100 million in cash against a paper profit. Given the Secretary of State’s earlier commitment to trade defence remedies, why has he left it to me to write to the EU Commissioners to ask them to investigate this as a matter of potential illegal dumping and anti-competitive behaviour?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 15th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

By insulting my wife’s taste in ties, the Secretary of State must await her reprimand, but she must wait in line because there are others who wish to reprimand him. The European Scrutiny Committee told off the Secretary of State for going to Brussels and agreeing the comprehensive economic trade agreement between the EU and Canada without first bringing it to the UK Parliament for scrutiny. He undertook to the Committee that he would bring CETA for debate in this House by the end of November, a deadline that he missed. The Committee then set a more generous deadline, but that deadline expired two days ago, on 13 December. Will he tell us whether he actually believes in taking back sovereignty from Brussels—does he or does he not? If he does, repeatedly denying the UK Parliament the right to properly scrutinise such an important trade agreement is a very odd way to go about it. Will he now commit to bring a debate and a vote to the Floor of the House before the European Parliament finally votes on CETA on 2 February?

[Mr Speaker]

May I very gently say to the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), whom I hold in the highest esteem, that I hope, in due course, his PhD thesis will be published?

Hinkley Point C

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 15th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for the 13 minutes’ advance notice of his statement. Let me be clear that this is an important project that must now go forward without any further interruption or delay. The Secretary of State is aware that by intervening on 28 July, after EDF’s final investment decision, the Government put at risk 25,000 well-paid and well-qualified jobs. He knows that delaying not only risked the £18 billion of investment in UK jobs and infrastructure, but rocked confidence in investors who now believe that the Prime Minister does not understand the significance that companies attach to taking a final investment decision. He is aware of the Ernst and Young index that shows that Britain has fallen from fourth to 13th in attractiveness for low-carbon investment. The delay has only unsettled investors further.

I have a number of specific questions for the Secretary of State. First, in her meeting with President Xi, did the Prime Minister attempt in any way to isolate the building of the Hualong One reactor at Bradwell from the deal at Hinkley Point C? Secondly, if she did, what was the Chinese response?

Thirdly, of course every Member of the House agrees that the Government’s primary responsibility is to safeguard our national security, but neither the Secretary of State nor the Prime Minister has ever been clear about what they consider to be the security risks associated with the current deal. Will he now set those out so that the House and the public can decide whether the modifications that he is proposing adequately reflect the risks he believes exist?

Fourthly, can the Secretary of State specifically set out whether the Government were concerned about the security of the intellectual property associated with the EPR reactor? If so, was he aware that two such reactors are already under construction in China, in the form of the Taishan 1 and 2?

Fifthly, were the Government concerned with the potential for a cyber-attack? If so, did the Secretary of State not consider that, given the importance to the Chinese of having Bradwell as a kitemark for marketing their Hualong One reactor technology around the world, such an attack would undermine the very reason the Chinese wanted to be involved in the project in the first place?

Sixthly, if the Secretary of State wishes to dodge these questions by pleading that he does not wish to discuss security matters, I would ask how he can assure the House and the public that the efficacy of the amendments he is proposing are sufficient to meet the risks and challenges that justified a near-fatal delay in the project?

We must address the sole argument that the Government have actually presented as well as those that they have not. They claim that they have introduced significant new safeguards into the package, in particular that they will be able to require notification from owners or operators of nuclear sites of any change of ownership or part-ownership, but the Secretary of State already has such powers. Will he acknowledge that he can currently prevent the sale of any element of the UK’s critical infrastructure? That being the case, can he explain why he believes the proposed new powers add significantly to the public interest regulations in the Enterprise Act 2002, or are they merely window dressing to make it appear that the Government’s intervention has achieved something, no matter how much appearances may indicate to the contrary?

Is the Secretary of State aware of the House of Commons briefing paper entitled “Mergers & takeovers: the public interest test”? It highlights that energy security is already covered by national security, and that the Government already have the powers to prevent such a sale. Is he also aware that in the House of Lords, during the passage of the Energy Act, my noble Friend Lord Puttnam introduced an amendment specifically to introduce energy security as a new public interest term? Government lawyers then advised that:

“In cases where a merger posed a genuine and serious threat to what is described as societal needs, such as energy supply, this would be covered by the existing provision in the 2002 Act regarding national security—so ministers would be empowered to directly intervene.”

The Government created a commercial crisis. They sent shock waves through the industry and unions alike. They risked a diplomatic dispute with one of our key future trading partners, and in the end all they have done is pretend to give themselves powers that they already possessed. This statement is window dressing. It is face-saving by a Government who talked big and eventually backed down with a whimper.

The Secretary of State should explain whether he has reviewed changes to technology that have occurred in the past 10 years, particularly smart grids, battery storage technology and energy efficiency measures to manage our electricity supply in such a way as to reduce our need for the baseload power that Hinkley supplies.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman has concluded his remarks, because his time is up.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 14th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mr Barry Gardiner.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman looks surprised. This could be a first—is this a question on which he does not wish to give the House the benefit of his views?

[Barry Gardiner]

I am always happy to abide by your ruling, Mr Speaker.

One year ago, DECC’s estimate for the total lifetime cost of the nuclear power station at Hinkley Point C was £14 billion. Recently, that estimate was revised to £37 billion. Following the referendum vote, the Government’s expert adviser has said that Hinkley C is extremely unlikely to go ahead. Does this mean that the Minister now does not have to worry about justifying the extra £23 billion cost to the Treasury, or does she just feel that she does not need to explain about the additional burden on taxpayers?

[Mr Speaker]

Splendid.

EU Referendum: Energy and Environment

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rory Stewart)]

I apologise for intervening so early, Mr Speaker. Will the hon. Gentleman please explain the precise relationship between the European Union issue and the questions that he is raising about flooding?

[Mr Speaker]

The Minister is not intervening that early, although some people might think that the hon. Gentleman was approaching the conclusion of his preliminary remarks.

[Barry Gardiner]

I am sure you are correct, Mr Speaker, in referring to “his preliminary remarks”.

I am happy to explain that relationship. Unless we have clarity about the post-Brexit scenario, unless we know where we will be able to secure funds to replace all the funds that fell within the common agricultural policy to finance measures to mitigate flooding, and unless we are able to deal with land management in the way that was allowed by the European Union, we will not have clarity on these matters, and clarity is vital to adaptation.

We are living at a time of increased risk, and robust planning is required to limit harmful impacts on British communities and businesses. I say in all seriousness that, following the devastation of communities and cities around our country by recent floods, this new assessment requires a new response from the Government. Cuts in the budgets, and in the staffing capacity of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency, have left the UK increasingly vulnerable, and the Government must take responsibility for that.

The UK’s ability to face up to energy and environmental challenges—more than almost any other area of policy—was strengthened by our EU membership. Given that the Treasury’s principal response to the leave vote so far is a U-turn on the Chancellor’s core election pledge to balance the books by 2020—

Points of Order

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 30th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order. I am not aware, as things stand, of any imminent intention on the part of a Minister to make a statement on this matter, but I have taken careful note of what she says. I rather imagine that her concern will be shared in all parts of the House. Suffice it to say that I think it not unreasonable to hope—and, perhaps, to expect—that a ministerial statement will be forthcoming early next week. If that proves not to be the case, or if there are those who seek an insurance policy in case it does not transpire, she will be aware of the instruments available to Members who wish to bring urgent matters to the attention of the House.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Today, Thursday 30 June 2016, is the final day for the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change to set the fifth carbon budget. Meeting the deadline is a statutory duty under section 4 of the Climate Change Act 2008. Today the Government laid a draft statutory instrument publishing their intention to set a budget of 1,725 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents, but as you will be aware, under section 8 of the Act, simply publishing the level of the budget will not suffice:

“The Secretary of State must set the carbon budget for a budgetary period by order.”

The Act also specifies that it is subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.

Simply announcing the Government’s intended carbon budget today, therefore, is not adequate to fulfil the statutory duties placed upon the Secretary of State by the Act. The Act requires the order to be set, not just a draft order to be laid. Mr Speaker, you will be acutely aware of the importance of investors having confidence in the statutory undergirding of our country’s energy and climate change policies. Have you received any notification from the Secretary of State of her intention to come to the House to explain why she is in breach of her statutory duty and to confirm that she will take the steps, which the Clerks advise me could still be taken, necessary to set the fifth carbon budget today?

[Mr Speaker]

The statutory instrument will come to the House, and one rather imagines that it will do so ere long. The point made by the hon. Gentleman from the Front Bench can be ventilated very fully—possible amplified by others—in the course of that debate. It is not for me to adjudicate on whether the Government are, or are not, in breach of their statutory duty, but he has made his point with considerable force, and it was earlier communicated to me in written form, so I know that he has thought through the matter very fully. I hope that he can elicit a response from the Government through the normal diplomatic channels that exist between the two Front Benches. If, however, he remains dissatisfied, I rather imagine that he will return to the matter early next week. Clearly, it is important that progress on the issue be timely. I hope that that point has been heard on the Treasury Bench.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Finally, I call Mr Barry Gardiner.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

It used to be said that an English family’s home was their castle, but following the Government’s Housing and Planning Bill, new tenants in social housing will be on fixed three to five-year contracts. Does the Prime Minister think it is right that a student beginning their secondary education may face eviction at the very time they are coming up to their GCSEs or A-levels?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 11th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I would be reassured to know that the Secretary of State does not literally address buildings.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Surely one of the most important things that the Secretary of State can do to limit climate change is publicly to state how she will meet the shortfall in our legally binding renewable targets for 2020. She knows that beyond 2017, her Department projects a 25% shortfall across the heating, electricity and transport sectors. The Eurostat data released yesterday show the UK to be missing its target by the widest margin of any European country. What assessment has she made of the potential fines the UK may face as a result of that failure?

ISIL in Syria

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and simply reinforces my point. I want to eradicate Daesh. Doing so requires an effective ground force that can co-ordinate with the existing allied airstrikes in Syria—airstrikes that, in the words of Lieutenant General Sir Simon Mayall, are

“not a war-winning…campaign”.

Airstrikes can create a temporary opportunity for territorial gain, but in default of a competent ground force, that opportunity is squandered—and at what cost?

The population of Raqqa who are subjugated under Daesh will not be allowed into the tunnels. They will not be whisked out of the city in armoured jeeps with Daesh commanders. They will remain in the city and wait for British bombs. All military action comes with the risk that innocent lives will be lost; I understand that. Sometimes that risk must be accepted, but only when the military and diplomatic strategy that is put forward is coherent and comprehensive and has a reasonable chance of achieving its objective. The Government’s motion does not.

The Government have argued that it makes no military sense to curtail our pilots at an arbitrary border. They correctly point out that we are already engaged in military action. That is in itself a reasonable argument about the efficient use of military resources—I accept that—but the Government cannot also try to argue that by voting against today’s motion, we are voting to do nothing. We are still engaged in Iraq, where the Kurdish peshmerga and the Iraqi army can provide a limited but credible ground force. The Government have also argued—it is a powerful argument—that in the face of a request from our allies, we should respond. Of course we should, but we should not respond by doing just anything. We should respond by doing something that is effective, and what the Government propose is not. I will vote against the motion tonight.

Finally, Mr Speaker, I applaud the fact that you have spent the entirety of this debate in the Chair. I also admire your bladder.

[Mr Speaker]

I am extremely grateful.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 11th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mr Graham Allen. He is not here. I call Barry Gardiner.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Woodland Trust has identified 43 ancient woodlands that are threatened by HS2. Will the Secretary of State advise the House of the measures he will take in the ambitious infrastructure roll-out programme he talked about earlier to protect further bodies of ancient woodland?

Undercover Policing

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I am not aware of those matters beyond what he has just said. Suffice it to say that I am in the Chair, and I am intending to remain in the Chair [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]—today and, I hope, subsequently. I hope the hon. Gentleman, whom I greatly esteem, will not doubt my competence or fairness in chairing such proceedings of the House as take place today. I am not going anywhere.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Further to the point of order raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), will you advise me, Mr Speaker, whether it is within your power or the power of the House to call to the Bar the previous Metropolitan Police Commissioner to answer questions arising out of today’s debate?

[Mr Speaker]

It is not possible to do that without notice. Lots of things are possible with notice—in the next Parliament. The answer to the hon. Gentleman in respect of the here and now is no.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Monday 2nd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

T2. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities. Will the Minister confirm that—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. It will not be long before we hear the hon. Gentleman’s dulcet tones. We can hold on just a moment. Let us hear Secretary Pickles, adorned in his waistcoat, first.

[The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)]

I can hardly wait, Mr Speaker. Last week, the Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission published its recommendations to ensure that the memory of the holocaust is preserved. The Government will commit £50 million to the creation of the national memorial, the learning centre and the endowment fund. My Department will sponsor the new Holocaust Memorial Foundation, which will take forward those recommendations. Its first task will be to undertake an urgent programme to record and preserve the testimony of British holocaust survivors and liberators. It is our collective responsibility to educate future generations about the horrors of the holocaust and never to forget why we need to challenge and combat the forces of hate.

Nuclear Management Partners (Sellafield)

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The great thing about a National Audit Office report is that it is consensually agreed between the Department and the NAO. I am afraid that rather disproves the points that the Secretary of State has tried to make. He tried to locate the original plan in 2008 under the now Leader of the Opposition, but the report says that the previous plan was designed in 2007. The Secretary of State called this the revised plan, but the NAO report is very clear that, in fact, the

“Authority accepted the revised plan in May 2011”,

so this is a revision of the revision that his predecessor approved. Finally, the report was produced in 2012, when the Secretary of State was in post, and states that there were significant uncertainties back then. Why did he not act on the uncertainties that he agreed with the NAO existed then and work up an improvement for the time break in the contract?

[Mr Speaker]

I think the hon. Gentleman is planning for a future career as a regius professor in which he has an attentive audience, no interruption and can expatiate at a length of his own choice. We shall see what happens.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that of the 1,400 schemes she has talked about, 1,119 are only partly funded and rely on 80% unsecured partnership funding and a 10% efficiency saving that nobody has yet identified? In fact, only 97 of those 1,400 schemes are both new and fully funded. She says that 300,000 households will have reduced flood risk, but this figure is the result of homes going from the category of “low risk” to that of “very low risk”, while the number of homes at “significant” and “high” risk of flooding will go up by 80,000 in the next six years. Will she also confirm that in order to get these figures to add up for the Treasury, she has had to value human life at zero?

[Mr Speaker]

Listening to the hon. Gentleman, I always feel that I am on the receiving end of a learned academic treatise, but a question would on the whole be preferred.

Business of the House

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I was hoping that we were going to hear about the Leader of the House’s judo and other exercise regimes, but there might be more of that anon—who knows?

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

May we have a debate on wildlife crime? The Leader of the House will know that two days ago Natural England published a report showing that of the 47 hen harriers that it has tagged with transmitters over the past seven years, only four are thought still to be alive. That shows that there are serious problems and I think that the House should debate them.

National Pollinator Strategy

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 16th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) on securing this important debate. She spoke with eminent good sense and with what I would characterise as quiet passion. Other Members who have contributed to this debate have made really telling points. I am talking about my hon. Friends the Members for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) and for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), the hon. Members for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams), and for Hendon (Dr Offord) and my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz). It has been an excellent debate.

When I was a child, my mother used to pay me half a crown to wash her car each week—you, Mr Speaker, will probably remember it as 12 and a half pence, as half a crown is probably before your time. I used to wash every bit of the car, except for one particular piece at the front, which was about 1 foot square. I kept that as a before and after shot to show my mother what a good job I had done, and I chose that particular spot at the front of the car because it was always covered in thousands of dead insects.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Either the hon. Gentleman’s mother was a notably frugal custodian of the family purse, or, alternatively, the hon. Gentleman is some years older than me. Possibly, the House might conclude, that both of those statements are true.

[Barry Gardiner]

My mother was certainly very frugal, but she did need her car washing every week, and it was, every week, covered in dead insects. Sadly, the cars are no longer covered in thousands of dead insects. We have cleaner cars today, but the insects are gone.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner]

I respect the right hon. Lady, and she will know that I have always tried to give credit where it is due in the Department. I have given credit to her, in particular, for the way she advanced the natural capital approach. However, I think that there are severe lacunas in the Department’s approach and that we need a much more joined-up approach, in relation to implementing an ecosystem-based way of working in the Department and to joining up across Government. I am sure that is a problem she has faced many times in trying to persuade colleagues across Government. The hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) talked about the importance of planning, for example, and I am sure that the right hon. Lady will have had her own run-ins with DCLG. I hope that she does not feel that the criticisms I am making are unfair.

The Lawton report summarised the step change that the previous Labour Government made in 2006 when we moved to an ecosystem-based approach, which was essential to mainstreaming our conservation priorities across Government. Sir John’s report spoke about the role of insects in the following way. It states that they are

“the little things that make the world work… vital components of natural food chains (as food for larger organisms and as pollinators for example) and many deliver other vital ecosystem services… It would be unwise to assume we can do without them. Basically, what we are doing is unravelling the fabric of nature. These are local examples on one small part of the planet, of the growing, global ‘biodiversity crisis’.”

In their response to the Environment Audit Committee, the Government basically set out a voluntarist approach that asked the House to trust them. They now have a draft of a pollinator strategy. There is an election coming and people want to be seen to be doing something positive. The 2015 general election is unprecedented. For the first time, people will be able to judge all the major parties on what they have recently achieved in government as well as on what they promise in their manifestos. I am confident that there will be a triumph of experience over hope—what Labour actually achieved in government against what the Conservatives and Lib Dems promised and then failed to deliver.

In 2010, the country did not vote for continuity, except in one thing: Labour’s approach to our environment. The coalition said that it was signed up to Labour’s Climate Change Act 2008. The Tories and the Liberal Democrats committed themselves to delivering on the Lawton report and the national ecosystems assessment that we commissioned on the back of it. They even said that they were committed to the Pitt review that Labour had commissioned after the 2007 floods. Well, we saw last winter what had happened to that.

The Environmental Audit Committee has an in-built majority for the Government parties, but on the basis of its environmental scorecard it looked carefully at what this Government have done and gave them a red card on biodiversity. Under this Government, with a Lib Dem responsible for the natural environment, essential work to improve our natural environment has become “green crap”, and we have seen the extraordinary spectacle of a former Secretary of State trawling around the broadcast studios telling all and sundry that he does not believe in half the policies that, as a member of the Cabinet, he was previously responsible for delivering. Unfortunately, this Government’s record on the environment does not lead anyone to trust them. The report, “State of Nature”, and Wildlife and Countryside Link’s report, “Nature Check”, show that the decline in biodiversity is getting worse. That is how we should judge this Minister’s party when it promises to give us a legal target for biodiversity. The Minister must accept that his draft pollinator strategy is neither adequate nor deliverable.

The EAC’s report correctly criticised the Government’s reliance on industry-funded research and voluntary measures. In fact, what it said was damning. It talked of

“excessive reliance on the commercial (rather than scientific) research priorities”—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I have no wish to interrupt the flow of the hon. Gentleman’s eloquence or, indeed, the eloquence of his flow, but I feel cautiously optimistic that he is approaching his peroration.

[Barry Gardiner]

I am certainly approaching my conclusion, Mr Speaker—thank you for your guidance.

The Committee talked of

“excessive reliance on the commercial (rather than scientific) research priorities”

of the industry bodies and said that that was

“symptomatic of a loss of DEFRA’s capacity to deliver its environmental protection obligations”.

There is no point in DEFRA’s merely reviewing the research that the agro-chemicals industry decides it wants to carry out when that is not the research that the public need. DEFRA must set out the type of data it requires and the parameters of such research in order to safeguard the environment. A Labour Secretary of State in DEFRA would set out clearly the need to establish baseline data on the health of our pollinator population and use those data to target a series of measures to reverse the declines in our ecosystem services capacity.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Emulation of the brevity of the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders) is now required. I call Mr Barry Gardiner.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary is very clear about the use of sanctions against Russia and about their potential efficacy. Why, therefore, has the Foreign Office consistently said in relation to Sri Lanka that it does not believe in applying sanctions there or in other parts of the world?

[Mr Speaker]

The French Government, arms sales, Russia; I am sure that there was some relevance to those subjects in the hon. Gentleman’s question. I am working hard to find it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

May I, too, welcome the Minister back to the Dispatch Box? I would be interested to have his assessment over a coffee some time of his old boss versus his new boss.

As the Minister will be aware, Ofsted said that at one school, children’s reading ability had regressed, and of another school that

“too many pupils are in danger of leaving the school without being able to read and write properly.”

This was Ofsted’s report on two free schools. What early warning systems exist to spot problems in free schools before they become entrenched, and how many free schools are currently under investigation by the Education Funding Agency?

[Mr Speaker]

That is enough material for at least one Adjournment debate, and possibly two. I have a feeling the hon. Gentleman will be putting in his applications before very long.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are very pressed for time, but I want to accommodate a couple of remaining colleagues.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I am grateful, Mr Speaker. In Brent we have the highest incidence of TB and of type 2 diabetes in the country. We have just received a cut of £450 million in the money allocated to the CCG. The Secretary of State says that this is fair, but my constituents want to know whether it is in accordance with need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 8th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

T5. Mr Shah and other wheelchair users in my constituency will be disappointed by the Minister’s response to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) in relation to the disability awareness training for bus drivers under EU regulation 181/2011. They tell me that drivers simply say, “Sorry mate, the lift is not working” or “the ramp is not working.” Sometimes they drive by with their thumb down and ignore them. Only 28% of drivers have received such training. When will the Minister get on and act on the regulation?

[Mr Speaker]

I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that his assiduity is not in question, but his ability to distinguish between a substantive and a topical question in terms of length perhaps is.

Business of the House

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 10th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I gently point out to the House that Members are supposed to be present at the start if they wish to participate in business questions? An hon. Member who happened to toddle into the Chamber, let us say, 32 minutes after the start—I mention that figure arbitrarily and in passing—would be indulging in a triumph of optimism over reality if they expected to be called.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

As we approach the wedding season, many British citizens who have extended family abroad will become increasingly concerned about visa arrangements to ensure that their relatives, particularly from India and Pakistan, can be here to participate. Will the Leader of the House speak to both the Foreign Office and the Home Office to ensure that the consular arrangements are in place and that there is good staffing of entry clearance officers to cope with the influx of visa applications for that purpose?

UK Nuclear Energy Programme

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Monday 21st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

How much of the £16 billion of construction costs will the developers of Hinkley Point C be able to offset in tax reliefs and capital allowances? Does the Secretary of State consider it ironic that EDF has insisted on an insurance clause against his own party’s future policy by stipulating that the strike price will rise to reflect any future tax on or shutdown of the industry? While he is at it, will he explain why the strike price for the Flamanville sister plant in France is only £64—some 30% of the £92.50 he has negotiated?

[Mr Speaker]

I think that the hon. Gentleman should seek an Adjournment debate on the matter; in fact, on reflection, I think he has already had it.

Energy Bill

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner]

I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) first, and then to the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat), if he wants to intervene again.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before the hon. Member for Ynys Môn intervenes, I should point out that although the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) is, as usual, entirely in order as there is no time limit, he is a sensitive fellow and I therefore know that he will wish to take account of the fact that several other Members might also wish to volunteer their opinions in the course of the debate.

[Albert Owen]

I will be brief, but my hon. Friend’s comments on the German issue have provoked me to intervene. He is right that there may be no new-build coal power stations in Germany, but German business is concerned that it will be importing nuclear from France or coal from Poland, and that carbon issues will therefore be imported.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 14th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

T7. What could be more topical than a challenge to the recently announced infallibility of the Minister of State, the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes). Indeed, there has been such a challenge—from Mitsubishi, Vestas, Alstom, Areva, Doosan and Gamesa. The Minister maintains that there should be no decarbonisation target until 2016; they have said that postponing the 2030 target decision until 2016 creates entirely avoidable political risks and slow growth in the low-carbon sector, handicaps the UK supply chain, reduces UK research and development and produces fewer jobs.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are grateful; we have got the gist.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Question Time must be conducted in an orderly way. It is not for a Minister to suggest that a Member should start getting up and answering questions. It is Ministers who answer questions, and that is the end of it.

[Barry Gardiner]

Will the Minister discuss with his colleagues in the Home Office and the Department for Work and Pensions the effect of the combined changes that those Departments and the Treasury have made, which mean that a young child in my constituency—a British child whose mother has leave to remain and work in the UK but who is estranged from their British father as a result of his domestic violence—will now not be able to receive child benefit for at least 10 years?

Points of Order

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Monday 19th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. My understanding was that the Government had announced a review rather than a specific policy. However, my expectation that Ministers make key policy announcements first to the House is both well known and unchanged. If the hon. Gentleman, who on the strength of his 33 years’ uninterrupted service knows these conventions, is dissatisfied with the Secretary of State, I have a keen sense that he will display his keenness to pursue this matter for days and days and days.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I believe that the Secretary of State for International Development said a few moments ago that she had made a statement—or the Department had issued a statement—on the decision to stop aid to India. I believe that that is not the case, and it is possible that it needs to be corrected.

[Mr Speaker]

I think I am right in saying that there was a written ministerial statement on the matter. I do not think that any erroneous statement has been made, but the hon. Gentleman, who is a former Minister himself, will know that Ministers are always responsible for the statements that they make to the House.

Bovine TB and Badger Control

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I always listen to the Secretary of State with the closest possible interest, but I am afraid that we do not have time on this occasion for a treatise in response to each question. We need pithy replies, if possible.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is right to say that we must address the problem of bovine TB. Will he, therefore, this year, while this delay is in place, use the funding that would have been made available for the cull to improve biosecurity in the cowsheds and byres of farmers, and set minimum standards for biosecurity, which the Krebs report said was a very important element in controlling the disease?

Business of the House

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Or even a week. I call Mr Barry Gardiner.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting is due to take place in Sri Lanka in December of next year. Given that President Rajapaksa is turning that country into a kleptocracy, that term limits on the presidency have been abolished—turning that country, potentially, into a dictatorship—and that there has been no adequate response to the UN Secretary-General’s commissioner for human rights, does the Head of our Government believe that it is still appropriate to hold the CHOGM there, and will the Queen attend?

Point of Order

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 26th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Have you received a request from the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport to come to the House to clarify previous statements made to this House? Those statements made reference to the supposed report for the London Olympics by the Commission for a Sustainable London as the justification for the appointment of Dow Chemical as a sponsor, when the resignation of Ms Meredith Alexander this morning has in fact proved that no such report was prepared by the commission at all. Indeed, 12 out of the 13 members of the commission knew nothing about it until the letter from Shaun McCarthy to my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell).

[Mr Speaker]

I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but the short answer to his question is no. I have received no such communication, but the concern that he has registered will have been heard by the Leader of the House and others on the Treasury Bench.

BILL PRESENTED

Financial Services

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, supported by the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, Secretary Vince Cable, Danny Alexander, Mr Mark Hoban, Mr David Gauke, Miss Chloe Smith and Mr Edward Davey, presented a Bill to amend the Bank of England Act 1998, the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and the Banking Act 2009; to make other provision about financial services and markets; to make provision about the exercise of certain statutory functions relating to building societies, friendly societies and other mutual societies; to amend section 785 of the Companies Act 2006; to make provision enabling the Director of Savings to provide services to other public bodies; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Monday 30 January, and to be printed (Bill 278) with explanatory notes (Bill 278-EN).

Energy Bill [Lords]

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Wednesday 14th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Have you received a request from a Treasury Minister to make an urgent statement to the House about the news that the Treasury is about to sue the European Central Bank, as that is being reported in the media at the moment?

[Mr Speaker]

No, I have not. The hon. Gentleman is ahead of me. He has heard of information of which I have not heard. I have, however, now heard of it, and I am grateful to him.

Third Reading

Queen’s and Prince of Wales’s consent signified.

Common Fisheries Policy

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 14th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I welcome Commissioner Damanaki’s proposals and ask the Minister to confirm that he will support the proposal to establish a legal obligation to set fishing limits at sustainable levels by 2015. On the question of discards, the requirement to land all catch of specified species and the catch limits will effectively act as a ban on discarding the species most commonly associated with the problem, but will not tackle the problem for all the species. Notwithstanding the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell), the Minister will know that if we are to assess stock levels and to obtain the scientific data that we need to consider on an ecosystems basis, that is the only way of achieving the legal—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 19th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call John Robertson. Not here.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Fifty per cent more CO₂ emissions savings could be made in the transport sector by adopting Greener Journeys’ ONE Billion challenge for a modal shift. Will the Minister look into the efficacy of the scheme and discuss the proposal with his counterpart at the Department for Transport?

Points of Order

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The ingenuity of the hon. Gentleman is almost boundless, and that fact will not have gone unnoticed in any part of the House. However, the initial observations that he made demonstrate to me that the second issue that he has raised is also one for consideration at our private meeting, which I feel sure he is eagerly awaiting.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You will know that during the parliamentary recess over Easter, a number of Members wished to see the recall of Parliament in order to debate Libya more fully. Indeed, that was borne testament by the number of contributions following the statement this afternoon. Is there a way that is in order to thank you for extending the statement by almost half an hour to enable all Members to get in?

[Mr Speaker]

Well, there is, because the hon. Gentleman has just proved that there is and done it. We are grateful to him for his point.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I want to be helpful to the hon. Gentleman and the House. The question is about airbrushed images of women. The Prime Minister is not a woman. [Interruption.] Order. That is the end of the matter. We will leave it there.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

7. What plans she has to support women in balancing their caring responsibilities with work.

Public Forest Estate (England)

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I tabled a parliamentary question for named day answer on 31 January, seeking to elicit information from the Minister. My office phoned the Department today only to be told that it was waiting for the Minister to—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. That is not a point of order for the Chair, and it is not a matter to be dealt with now.

Points of Order

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

In the assessment of the hon. Lady, that version has just been put on the record, and I am sure the House is indebted to her.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You graciously invited the Speaker of the Indian Parliament to be with us this week, and she has had a very successful visit. You may be aware, however, that she was subject to significant embarrassment yesterday when attending a meeting at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, chaired by the hon. Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson). A map of India was displayed incorrectly showing Kashmir as entirely separate from India, causing real debate and distress to some members of her delegation. Could an investigation be made into why such a map was in the CPA rooms and why that embarrassment was caused to that distinguished delegation?

[Mr Speaker]

I note what the hon. Gentleman has said, and the CPA will doubtless have a view about it. I echo entirely what he said about Speaker Kumar, whom it was my great privilege to meet, welcome and entertain, but I hope he will understand if I refrain from saying anything further today on the Floor of the House. I note his observations.

Higher Education and Student Finance

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am keen to accommodate some more colleagues, but brevity is now of the essence.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

At the beginning of his statement, the Secretary of State commended my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) for his integrity in resigning from the previous Administration. Given that the Secretary of State has now told the House that he will not honour his pledge, will he show similar integrity?

Points of Order

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is always a pleasure to hear the hon. Gentleman. In prefacing his inquiry with the words that he used, he reminds me of the person who begins a criticism by saying, “With great respect,” meaning nothing of the kind. I simply say to him that it is not appropriate—I feel sure that he will accept this—to discuss security on the Floor of the House. He is a very experienced parliamentarian. There are all manner of ways in which matters can be raised with me and with others, and that often necessarily must be done outside of the Chamber, so I rest at this point upon what I said in response to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey).

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. At Prime Minister’s Question Time on 21 July this year, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) asked the Deputy Prime Minister, in the light of the latter’s recently published letter to Mr Graham Honeyman of Sheffield Forgemasters, to correct the statement that he made to the House on 22 June that the owners of the company had not wished to dilute their shareholding in the business. The Deputy Prime Minister failed to do so on that occasion, and the impression was left that although a mistake had been made, it was an honest one.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am afraid that I must at this point interrupt the hon. Gentleman, because from what he is saying, my strong sense is that he has written to me on the matter. If I surmise correctly that he has done so, I assure him that I will respond in writing, but at this point, I shall leave it there. I am grateful to him for what he has said, and I know that he will be grateful to me for what I have said.

Points of Order

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

That is a sophisticated point of order, which is what I suppose one would expect from someone who has served for a long time in the Whips Office. On the whole, it is not a good idea for me to get into the business of advising on the means of transmission of pieces of information or advice from one part of Government to another. That said, the hon. Gentleman has made his point, and perhaps it will be heard and heeded by people on the Treasury Bench.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In outlining the benefits of the Office of Tax Simplification, the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury explained that tax simplification would result in greater revenues to the Treasury. However, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), he said that the effects of simpler taxation would be revenue-neutral. Given that the Minister is still in his place, would it be in order to ask him to reconcile those two positions?

[Mr Speaker]

Unfortunately the hon. Gentleman spoilt it a bit, as he was not able to keep a straight face towards the end of his attempted point of order, for the simple reason that he knows perfectly well that he was simply seeking to continue the debate.

I am conscious that we will shortly—not just yet, but shortly—have a ten-minute rule motion. The hon. Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) is waiting patiently—as, to be fair, is the Minister on the Front Bench—and we need to get on to that business before too long.

Information for Backbenchers on Statements

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner]

I rise simply to correct the assertion I made earlier that the Press Gallery was bereft. I have since noticed the not inconsiderable frame of one of the members of the press—I believe from the Jewish Chronicle—who—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman entered the House with me in 1997, and he is aware of the normal custom that one does not refer to people outside the Chamber. I allowed a modest latitude for the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), because what he was saying was central to the thrust of the argument that he wished to develop, but to get into the business of identifying individual journalists is not good for the House, and it is probably not good for the egos of the journalists concerned either.

Schools Funding

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State understand not only the anger but the confusion of the young students from Copland school and Alperton school, who, at the very moment when he was at the Dispatch Box making his original statement, were receiving an award from the organisers of Building Schools for the Future for their contribution to the design of the new schools that they then heard him announce were not going ahead?

Does the Secretary of State also understand that the manner of his dealing with questions on the statement—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I have cut the hon. Gentleman off at one and a half questions, but I think we have the gravamen of what he wanted to convey.

Finance Bill

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman responds to that intervention and resumes his speech, I remind him that he is perfectly entitled to talk about vulnerability if he so wishes, but he must relate it to the matters within the Bill and he has an extensive choice from which to select.

[Barry Gardiner]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am tempted to take up the length of time that the hon. Lady mentioned, but I fear that the House needs to come to a close. A clear choice has been made by the Conservatives to cut an extra £40 billion on top of the £78 billion announced in March. They have made a clear choice to cut £11 billion out of tax credits and benefits. A clear choice has been made by the Liberal Democrats not just to drop the VAT bombshell that they warned of, but to act as navigators and pathfinders for the Conservatives to deliver it perfectly targeted. That regressive tax does the most damage to the poorest. It is regressive, not progressive.

“We will not have to raise VAT to deliver our promises”,

said the Deputy Prime Minister before the election. Indeed not—the Liberal Democrats will have to raise VAT to deliver the Tories’ promises. What an apology for a fig leaf.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner]

My hon. Friend is entirely correct. I believe that the point may have been made earlier. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman continues, may I gently say to the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Mr Randall) that we do not need sedentary interventions from him and we do not want to get into a general debate about the merits or otherwise of Randalls as a department store, interesting though that may be?

[Barry Gardiner]

Mr Speaker, I will forgo that offer, tempting though it may be. However, I will try to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who is entirely correct to say that retailers will also suffer from this measure. Large retail operations, such as supermarkets, will particularly suffer because they have huge costs to meet in changing their tills over to cope with the VAT changes.

We made our choices too. They were hard choices, but they were not regressive choices, and they protected the poorest and the vulnerable. We chose to raise duty on cider to the same level as that on other alcohol. The Liberal Democrats opposed that choice in March—in fact, it was the only choice that they opposed then. Their choice is to reverse that duty in this Finance Bill, to put 8% less duty on cider and to increase VAT by 2.5%; scrumpy today, child poverty tomorrow is the Liberal Democrats’ great rallying cry for the 21st century. This is their tax priority for the new politics of collaboration. Albus Dumbledore was right: it is not our abilities in life but our choices that tell us who we really are. My choice is to oppose this pernicious Bill.

Education Funding

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that the excellent BSF applications from the previously Lib Dem-Tory council in Brent, which were supported at the time by the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), will be subject to the freeze? Could that be why the Minister refused to debate those issues with me at the Brent teachers association last week, and why she looks so bloody miserable today?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. My tender sensibilities have been gravely affected, but I am more concerned about people in the country, particularly young people. Will the hon. Gentleman please withdraw that unseemly term?

[Barry Gardiner]

Mr Speaker, I withdraw the unseemly term and replace it with “miserable”.

Speaker’s Statement

Debate between Barry Gardiner and John Bercow

Wednesday 30th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman will accept that that is a matter for the Chair, and I hope that he will be comfortable that I will discharge my obligations to the House appropriately.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. At 11.24 this morning I went to the Vote Office to ask for a copy of the second report by the independent Committee on Climate Change, on energy. I thought that appropriate, as this afternoon’s debate is about energy efficiency. Unfortunately, the Vote Office informed me that the report had not yet been made available to it, and that this followed a pattern from last year. Can we ensure that in future the reports from the independent Committee on Climate Change are made available to the Vote Office promptly?

[Mr Speaker]

It is important for the House and its opportunity to debate matters of public policy properly that relevant documents be made available in the Vote Office in time for debates. The hon. Gentleman has registered his point with his characteristic force. It is on the record, and those on the Treasury Bench—including appropriate Ministers—will have heard it.