Business of the House

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Leader of the House will not need me to tell him that all of us are very concerned about vulnerable young people in this country. The protection of childhood is something that most of us hold dear, as do the children’s charities. May we have a debate about what we would lose if childhood was shrunk by giving children—16-year-olds—the vote? I am not against that or for it; what I want is a serious discussion in this House before we take away protections from children up to 18 and push adulthood down to 16.

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman may be aware that this issue is being considered by the Backbench Business Committee, on the basis of representations made to it by a number of hon. Members. Clearly I am happy for the Committee to consider whether time should be made available for such a debate.

Business of the House

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who did indeed raise this with me. I will ensure that he gets as full and complete a reply as I can secure for him from the Home Office as soon as I can.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The House will remember the triumph of the Olympics. The only slight blemish was the security company G4S, which got into serious trouble and could not deliver the security that we expected. We were saved by our great troops, who stepped into the breach. Is the Leader of the House aware that G4S is now trying to ameliorate its financial position as regards the Olympics by failing to pay its supply chain and sub-contractors? Is not that a disgrace given that many of those sub-contractors performed absolutely to their contracts?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman raises an issue that I freely confess I was unaware of, although it may have been evident to the Home Affairs Committee consequent on its inquiries. From the House’s point of view, one of the routes to inquire into what happened in relation to G4S is through that Committee.

Business of the House

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I heard what my hon. Friend said when he responded to questions on that matter on behalf of the Church Commissioners. He knows that the Government fully support the Bill tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway). Members throughout the House will know, as I do from my constituency, of the damage, distress and expense caused by metal theft. That is true not only in relation to churches but perhaps particularly in relation to the theft of metal from memorials in the run-up to Remembrance Sunday. I cannot give him the undertaking that he seeks, not least because I am hopeful that the Bill will attract the House’s support on the day in question.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Has the new Leader of the House seen the Chartered Management Institute’s commissioned report on the quality of management in Britain, which shows that 38% of managers—public and private sector—are awful, and that only 40% of managers in our country have any training at all? Does he find it worrying that very few of those GPs who will be running clinical commissioning groups have any management training?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman may like to look at the composition of clinical commissioning groups with great care. They combine managerial and clinical expertise, and he should not diminish the importance of clinicians being directly involved in the commissioning process. Securing the right medical and clinical services for patients in an area is not simply a managerial task; it is both managerial and clinical.

General Matters

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), who is a personal friend. We have campaigned together on many things over the years.

I am saddened by the issue I have to raise this afternoon. As a Member with reasonably long service, I have been very disturbed over recent months about the low morale among the people who make this place work. For the information of the House, over the past few days I have talked to chefs, kitchen staff, cleaning staff, visitor assistants, maintenance men and women, Library researchers, Doorkeepers, Committee staff, procedural Clerks, finance and legal workers, human resources staff, drivers, porters, attendants, curatorial staff, Hansard reporters, members of the media and events teams, accommodation staff and so on. I have done my homework, and I have never met a group of people so demoralised by what they have to put up with as employees of Parliament.

We all rely on the staff in this place; we cannot provide a good service to our constituents without their support. This Parliament should be an exemplar of the best kind of employer, but I am afraid we are not the best employer. As I talked to members of staff, they constantly said, “It isn’t what is happening, it’s not knowing what’s happening.” There is poor communication.

I am keen on management and I chair the all-party management group. I know a little about good management. If managers do not keep in touch with their stakeholders—all the people who make this place a success, and make it amenable to good working for Members of Parliament—and if they do not keep communication open and tell people what is happening, staff become disillusioned and unhappy in their role.

Over recent months—perhaps longer—there is every sign that certain people who are influential in the management of this place believe that it is a business. It is a funny old business where people do not know quite when the House will be sitting. In 2007, we sat for 151 days, and in 2008 it was 150 days. In 2009, we sat for 134 days, in 2010—election year—128 days, and in 2011, 149 days. This is a hard-working House, but it works funny hours, because a lot of our job is done out in the constituency, where we look after our constituents and find out the information that we need to be effective parliamentarians. We cannot run this place as though it were a commercial undertaking; indeed, the House voted by a majority for changes in the sitting hours, which will make it even more difficult to run this place.

We speak to members of staff who say, “All of us in this department, after 20 years of service, have been asked to reapply for our jobs”, and to people in catering who say, “We all hear that they will privatise this, and we will all be out of employment.” That is either true or false, but whatever is happening should be communicated to our members of staff, so that they have some assurance.

[Helen Goodman]

I am appalled and amazed by what my hon. Friend is saying. Does he have any sense of which departments are involved, and how many staff are being treated in this way?

[Mr Sheerman]

The research is quite difficult, but there are 78 senior managers involved in one way or another in the management of this place, and a range of interesting people are involved. We have in the House a business change manager, a director general of human resources and change, an assistant corporate risk management facilitator, and an implementation manager. We have an awful lot of managers—and I am sure that, according to their lights, they are doing a good job. What I am saying to the House is that we should take the welfare of the people who make this place work very seriously indeed.

There is another really worrying thing, apart from the welfare of the people who work here and have, over the years, put so much into their work. I am not talking about well-paid people, or people who have the most comfortable life in this country, in terms of their pay and conditions. I am also talking about the people in the Palace involved in security, who believe that security is threatened by the lack of morale here. They are trying to do the job with staff cuts, and with a declining number of people involved. I had a hand in improving the education offering in this place. It is so nice to see many more people visiting, and lots of children on educational visits. Interestingly enough, as was pointed out to me when I tried to do my research, the downside—if there is a downside—is that this becomes a busier place to manage, in terms of numbers and security. It cannot be all one way.

The reason I asked to speak in this debate is that there are very grave concerns about security, if some of the voices that I have listened to are right. Is it not about time that the management of this place got better, so that we can communicate with people in all the jobs that I enumerated? We serve our constituents best if we are served well by those people. We now have time to reflect on what we are doing to the people in all these departments, and to communicate and manage better. We Members of Parliament are the ones who will benefit from that change.

Business of the House

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I understand my hon. Friend’s interest. He will know that the Minister for the Armed Forces is undertaking a review, which I think was the subject of an exchange at recent Defence questions. A good opportunity to have a debate on that issue will be when that review is completed.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Leader of the House will know that many young people will be leaving schools, colleges and universities this summer, and many will be in danger of joining an already large number—almost 1 million—of unemployed young people. He knows that I have asked for greater attention, imagination and leadership on this issue for a long time. Has he considered the call that I have heard outside this place for the Duchess of Cambridge to have a particular role looking at and leading on the issue of young people who need our help this summer?

[Sir George Young]

I will certainly ensure that the Palace is aware of the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion. He will know that in the last quarter, youth unemployment was down by 29,000, and I hope very much that we can maintain that downward trend. He will also know that there are a range of initiatives on apprenticeships, the youth contract and the Work programme, which we hope will further reduce the rate of youth unemployment.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have been impressed by many of the speeches today and yesterday. I felt rather ashamed of the House last week—the debate on the banking crisis was not the greatest day for the Chamber—but these past two days have made me very proud to be a Member because the quality of the contributions has been rather fine, whether I have agreed or disagreed with them.

The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh)—he and I served as Chairmen of Select Committees on the Liaison Committee and know each other well—said that he was a Conservative and that people would not expect him not to be one. I came into politics as a radical, and hon. Members would expect me to continue as one. I have therefore been worried about my choices for this evening. I ran on the Labour manifesto, which contained a commitment to reform of the House of Lords. Like most hon. Members, I do not like voting against my party, but the fact is that the more I contemplated the situation today, the more I convinced myself—this happened quite early in the debate—that the House of Lords reform pledge in the Labour manifesto would not have resulted in this Bill. I am under no obligation tonight, then, to vote for a piece of legislation that no Labour Government, had we won the last election, would have brought before the House. So I shall not be voting for Second Reading.

Being a radical, I believe that the Liberal Democrats must be given a lot of recognition and admiration. Every way we look, political culture in our country is in a pretty bad way. In 1950, 85% of people were engaged in politics, but now that figure is down to 65%, and 6 million people do not even bother to register. Even in this time of crisis, with the economic challenges creating a serious situation for the people whom we represent, very few people vote in local elections. In general elections, too, there have been very low levels of participation.

Furthermore, membership of political parties is at an all-time low, as Members on both sides know. Labour and the Conservatives have the same miserable membership figures—there is not much between us—and the numbers of active members in our constituencies are not what they used to be. The Liberal Democrats are also struggling. Our political culture is in crisis, yet nothing in the Bill will radically tackle the malaise in our country and political system. In fact, the Bill takes our minds off the worrying aspects of our political system. We have to do something. Being old-fashioned, I would have liked either a constitutional commission or—dare I dig up this idea—a royal commission, the latter being much favoured by former Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson.

We ought to give the Liberal Democrats credit, however, for recognising the malaise and coming up with a couple of answers. The first was proportional representation, although they were defeated on that and I did not think it the quick fix, or even the difficult fix, they thought. They have also come up with Lords reform. I think they do it with the best of motives.

[Chris Huhne]

The alternative vote system can never be described as proportional representation. It is a majoritarian system. PR has never been put to the people of this country.

[Mr Sheerman]

I was trying to be kind to the Liberal Democrats, but obviously it has not worked.

By their own lights, the Liberal Democrats are trying to do something about the malaise in our political culture. The rest of us, in the other political parties, have to recognise that there is something deeply wrong with the levels of participation and democratic activity.

[Ian Swales]

This is not a Liberal Democrat Bill, but a coalition Government Bill.

[Mr Sheerman]

I understand that perfectly. I know the system and what the coalition Government are about, and I sympathise with the position that the two parties are in. They have to work together and make these agreements, and they are having a problem at the moment, but the fact is, as we all know, that the Liberal Democrats have persuaded the Conservatives to include certain things in the coalition agreement.

I want to look back over my time as an elected representative in this House. We have had more constitutional change in this Chamber in the past 30 years than at any other time in the history of our country, and everyone has become an expert on the constitution. The previous speaker, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), is an expert on the constitution. We have had many experts on the constitution. I can remember when people on both sides said that referendums were not British, and I can remember criticising the first referendum on membership of the European Union promoted by Tony Benn. I called it, “Tony Benn out of Benito Mussolini”, because dictators love referendums. They are a way out of the problems of weak leadership. The House does not need referendums for everything.

The Bill could have been amended to constitute a positive reform of the House of Lords. There is no need for an elected Lords filled with party apparatchiks similar to those down here. The danger of the Bill is not that the other place will get strong and flex its muscles and that we will become weaker; my concern is that it will simply become a pale and timid shadow of this place. Nobody wants that. I want a strong, reformed upper House. With the time and the opportunity, we could have reached an agreement on an all-party basis, but tonight I will not be voting for Second Reading.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Business of the House

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend raises a key issue. We hope to publish very shortly the White Paper on social care together with a progress report on funding. I hope that when we do that, there may be an opportunity for a debate either at that time or subsequently. The issue needs to be addressed as soon as possible, and I think that Members on both sides of the House would welcome a debate on the future regime for social care along the lines my hon. Friend suggests.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Leader of the House realise just how angry Yorkshire Members of Parliament from all parties are about the announcement that the Leeds children’s heart unit will close? There has been a vigorous campaign—the hardest fought that I have ever known in this House—and we have been ignored. Yorkshire has been downgraded in terms of this very important service for children.

[Sir George Young]

Of course I understand the concern of Yorkshire Members at the outcome of the independent review, which was established by the previous Government at arm’s length from Ministers and has now reported. The key motivation was to drive up outcomes for children who suffer from congenital heart disease. There was powerful evidence that the more operations a surgeon performs, the better the performance, which improves the outcome for children. The review has been supported by the royal colleges as well as national charities. Although I understand what the hon. Gentleman has said, I think that the prime objective for us all ought to be to improve the outcomes for children who suffer from this serious disease.

Business of the House

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I understand the perplexity of my hon. Friend’s constituents. There is a consultation on ticketing that ends towards the end of the month. I encourage him and his constituents to make representations to that review of ticketing policy. There is a separate consultation exercise on devolving more autonomy to local organisations to resolve issues such as ticketing for local journeys. There are therefore two opportunities to influence the fares structure to which he has referred.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Leader of the House consider having a debate on the quality of management in our country? A recent Chartered Management Institute report suggested that 38% of the managers in this country are not very good at all. That affects every aspect of our lives and ultimately leads to our country underperforming. Given the low morale of staff in this place, which I remarked on only two or three weeks ago, is he doing something about raising the standard of the management of this place so that the people who work here actually feel that we care about them?

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister will know that young people are inspired to get into sport by top sportspeople. Does he share my concern about what happened yesterday with the bidding for the Premier League broadcast rights? The empire of people who some of us do not think are fit and proper to have senior positions in the media has yet again got the bulk of Premier League matches.

[Hugh Robertson]

That is an interesting point, but it is a very complex matter. One of the very first things that I did as a new Minister was to secure an agreement from all UK sport governing bodies, to which the Premier League voluntarily signed up, to invest 30% of their UK broadcast income into the grass roots. If the league makes more money, that means more money for the grass roots, which we should support. The interesting point about yesterday’s announcement was the arrival for the first time of BT as a partner. I hope that that produces more competitive tension in the market.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

We are very sympathetic to that view. In fact, we said in our response to the Procedure Committee’s report that we supported its proposals for a pilot. It is for the Procedure Committee to present such proposals in Back-Bench time, but we are working well with the Committee to enable the House to reach what I hope will be a swift decision.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I think that the Deputy Leader of the House will accept that our old friend Tony Wright, who was responsible for the recommendations of the Public Administration Committee, would want the House continually to evaluate the way in which their implementation is working. There is no doubt about the success of the Backbench Business Committee, but e-petitions seem to have been taken over by elements of the popular press such as The Sun and the Daily Mail. How are we going to react to that? It is not the way in which the system was intended to work.

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman has raised an important point. This was never intended to be simply a cut-out-and-send-back element in a tabloid newspaper’s campaign, but there is no evidence that all e-petitions are of that type: in many cases, they constitute a genuine expression of public sentiment on a subject. Besides, we have the filter of the Backbench Business Committee, which considers whether the House has already debated the issue in question, or will have an opportunity to do so in the near future. When the Committee considers it right for a debate to take place, it will stage one, and I think that it is doing a very good job in that regard. However, we are constantly evaluating what has happened, and we are keen to learn from the experience in order to make the arrangement even better.

Business of the House

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I commend what Gallay has been doing in my hon. Friend’s constituency, in winning exports for air conditioning equipment in a very competitive market. I understand that the order to which he refers involves Egypt, where the internal security situation is giving rise for concern. I will ensure that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and BIS process the application for a licence as quickly as they can, consistent with their obligation to ensure that such equipment is not put to the wrong use.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am sure that the Leader of the House will agree that, for at least 200 years, local newspapers have provided a vital communication link between those elected to this House and our constituents. In today’s Culture, Media and Sport questions, I was disappointed by the complacency of the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) in his response to two questions on the subject. Papers such as The Huddersfield Daily Examiner are crucial to the democratic process, yet many of them are under threat. This month, for example, the Halifax Courier changed to weekly and online publication only. This decline in our local newspapers represents a real threat to our democratic process.

[Sir George Young]

I am sure that every hon. Member would agree about the importance of his or her local newspaper. The Andover Advertiser is certainly an important publication. I am sure that there was no complacency at all in the reply from the Minister who replied to those questions a few minutes ago, but, as the hon. Gentleman will know, there are trends throughout the country—and, indeed, throughout the world—that are making local newspapers less viable. I will get back to my hon. Friend and see whether there are any further steps that we can take, but hon. Members can also play their own part in making local newspapers readworthy by writing columns in them that make compelling reading.