Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Edward Leigh(2 years ago)
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Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough)
The restoration and renewal programme is considering a range of innovative methods to support future works on the Palace, including making use of the river access. No decisions have yet been taken, but consideration will be given to minimising impacts on the environment, the local area and those working in and visiting the Palace.
Mr Sheerman
I would never want to pinch or punch the right hon. Gentleman, but may I ask him to wake up to the real opportunity we have of giving the River Thames a renaissance, putting much more traffic on it and bringing it back as the main concourse of London? This is a real opportunity, both for this place and the new holocaust memorial building.
Sir Edward Leigh
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question. He is a formidable campaigner for making use of the river. Along with others on the Sponsor Body, I am putting pressure on that body, and on the new Committee that will be meeting from January, to make full use of the river. Indeed, the delivery authority is already undertaking full feasibility studies on how we can make much more use of the river. So I say to him, “Well done.”
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Edward Leigh(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Sheerman
Thank you for that compliment, Mr Speaker.
Is the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) aware of the real challenge, which has been brought to my attention by the excellent team at Huddersfield royal infirmary, that it is rare cancers that are the problem because they are very expensive to develop drugs for? There is a special case to be made for the treatment of and supply of drugs for these rare cancers. Is the hon. Gentleman aware of that minority group?
Sir Edward Leigh
I am aware of that group, and the hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We all hear in our constituency surgeries the heart-rending cases of people who are denied life-saving drugs. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committee are fully aware of this issue and are going to continue to put pressure on the Government with regard to the cancer drugs fund to ensure full transparency so that we are always aware of the problems and can assure affordability for all our citizens.
Budget Resolutions
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Edward LeighTuesday 14th March 2017
(7 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I have heard a few Budgets in my time. The first was delivered by Sir Geoffrey Howe, who was a thoroughly decent man. Denis Healey unkindly said that Sir Geoffrey had been round the country stirring up apathy, but he was a decent man and I remember his Budget.
This Budget is deeply, deeply disappointing. In the context of the miserable votes last night, with this country heading headlong into a hard Brexit, I expected an imaginative Budget that prepares the country for what Harold Macmillan called, “Events, dear boy, events.” Well, we have already seen one such event from the First Minister of Scotland, and there will be many more from left field and right field. This country is going to be rocked by events over the coming years, and this Budget does not help anyone—nationally or regionally.
I represent Huddersfield, which is almost the average town in Britain, and it is in a dreadful state. They are going to close the accident and emergency services at our local hospital, and they are going to close the whole hospital. There is chaos across our country, not just in Huddersfield. Two thirds of the health services in our country are in dreadful trouble.
Most of the local authorities I know, especially the ones with indecent levels of deprivation and poverty—the ones in the average, real parts of our urban communities in Britain, not the ones in the leafy suburbs that some Conservative Members represent—are in deep trouble and are unable to bear the cost of social care and health. I was expecting something imaginative from the Budget, and we did not get it.
We also got very little indeed on education. Some earlier speakers asked where we could get alternative funding. The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and I used to sit together on the Liaison Committee, and I used to call him, very unkindly, a member of the “barmy army,” but he actually thinks a lot. He has always been quite provocative, and he always has something to say. The fact of the matter is that we need imagination and passion to solve our country’s problems, but I heard little passion from the Government Front Bench today. I feel passion because I believe that every little child in this country has a spark of potential. If we, as politicians, cannot create a system that liberates that spark, we are not doing our job.
As Sir Michael Wilshaw said, the disaster of our education system is that we find bright little kids in our primary schools and we lose them after the age of 11. What sort of country and what sort of school system is that? All parties have underachieved, but we have seen some real change. There are signs of improvement, and I shall briefly give the test that most primary school teachers use to assess a young person’s work. They use “two stars and a wish,” and these are my two stars. First, I give a star for the good fundamental policy approach to skills in this Budget. We have been languishing on skills policy for so long, but there is now some imagination there. Who would have thought it? They used to say that John Prescott was a crazy man of the left who wanted a levy for training. Conservative Members used to say that was an absolutely disgraceful left-wing horror. Well, we now have an apprenticeship levy, as we should. It comes in in April and I hope it will succeed.
The Government actually went about policy making in a sensible way. They took evidence and consulted. They put Lord Sainsbury in charge, along with the former Minister the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), who actually got to know something about skills and training. He has gone now, but some of us will miss him, because he listened. He introduced Lord Sainsbury to the skills commission that I chair, and I gave evidence to them both about what I wanted to see in skills policy. Some of that stuff is in the policy that came through in the Budget. I welcome such evidence-based policy. When I was Chair of the Education Committee, we used to applaud evidence-based policies, along with policies that seemed to work in countries like ours. So, there is something in the Budget in terms of skills, Alison Wolf’s recommendations to the Select Committee, and the work done by the Sainsbury review to talk to businesses, employers and practitioners on a cross-party basis. That is the way to make policy.
Sir Edward Leigh
The hon. Gentleman is speaking with great passion and is doing his best to provide some solutions. May I give him another one? Perhaps we should end the fiction that national insurance contributions can pay for all social care. We should merge national insurance and taxation, simplify things, and try to raise more money that way.
Mr Sheerman
I have already complimented the hon. Gentleman on being a good, out-of-the-box thinker, and that is another interesting suggestion to debate.
My second star is for productivity. Actually, it is only half a star, because we cannot really check. The Budget includes additional high-value investment, the national productivity investment fund and world-class infrastructure investment. I like most of that, except I am one of those quirky people who still cannot believe in High Speed 2 and in the fact that all that national treasure is being put into a railway that will be out of date by the time it opens in 2033. I think the money should be spent on the national health service, but I know I am in a minority on that.
The Budget also includes £300 million for the future development of the UK’s research talent and to attract talent from the research powerhouses of China, Brazil and Mexico. I like all that—it is all quite good stuff, so it gets half a star. All the stuff about disruptive technology investment to transform the UK economy, electric vehicles, artificial intelligence and robots is good stuff, but there has not been enough private sector research and development for a number of years. Co-operation between business and universities has not been good enough. We will never get the levels of productivity we want until we have the right kind relationships.
Finally, I come to my wish: for goodness’ sake, where is the evidence that grammar schools and free schools do anything to find the spark in children that we want to release? There is no evidence and no research. Not one reputable research institute or organisation in this country believes that a return to selective education will help anyone—quite the reverse. Look at all the research and the experience in other countries. Just look at Kent, for God’s sake! It is the most selective place in the country and it has the worst performance across all schools in the country. That is selective education. It has no research base and no experience base, and there is no global comparison of which we can say, “Isn’t it wonderful?” They do not have it in Denmark, Sweden or Finland. I doubt it is even the latest fashion in Shanghai.
I like policy that is based on good research and good evaluation, and yes, sometimes we should work across the party divide—that is the way to make policy. This Budget has not delivered it. We want that spark to be found and promoted—we want the country to be rich and successful in the challenging disaster of Brexit—but it is not in this Budget.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Edward Leigh(9 years ago)
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Sir Edward Leigh
That is an excellent question. I am proud that when I was Chair of the Public Accounts Committee we forced the BBC to accept, for the first time, that the NAO should do value-for-money accounts. There has been no complaint since then that the PAC has ever involved itself in any editorial decision whatsoever. The fact is that the BBC is a public body. It taxes everybody and has to be held to account. The Comptroller and Auditor General must be given full financial powers to go into the BBC and hold it to account for value for money.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
May I beg the hon. Gentleman not to get carried away with the vendetta against the BBC that is being carried out by the Murdoch press and members of the Conservative party? The Public Accounts Committee has an honourable heritage of being fair minded, and I hope it will keep to that.
Sir Edward Leigh
May I say absolutely clearly that the PAC will not get involved in any “vendetta” against the BBC? This is simply about value-for-money inquiries. For instance, the Comptroller and Auditor General, who certainly is completely outside politics, has expressed in public his concerns about the current arrangements. He does not have a statutory right of access to information. His staff are entirely dependent on what information the BBC chooses to give them in answer to their questions. His reports are badged with the BBC logo and they are always prefaced by a preamble prepared by the BBC Trust. The fact is that the BBC is a public body. It must be like other public bodies and held to account for value for money.
Repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Edward Leigh(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Sir Edward Leigh
The whole point is that the American system is completely different from ours, so it would be unwise for me or anyone else in this House to lecture President Obama on when he should go. Actually, the United States does have a system whereby a President can be removed through impeachment, and President Nixon took that route.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but I think his comment about the former Prime Minister Tony Blair was a little unfair. I cannot see that particular relationship with the United States, but does the hon. Gentleman see such a relationship in respect of the search to import other constitutional effects? I have never liked the idea of referendums, for example. Does he agree with me on that? In addition, of course, the idea of a recall is very much derived from the American experience.
Sir Edward Leigh
I take back that cheap shot against Tony Blair—it was perhaps unnecessary—and I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Over the centuries, we have established a pretty good system. I think we are the only country in Europe never to have been a police state or had a police state imposed on it. We should be pretty proud of our slow constitutional growth.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Edward Leigh(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
4. What steps the Public Accounts Commission is taking to encourage improvements in the quality and standard of training in the accountancy and audit professions.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The Public Accounts Commission has a number of statutory functions in respect of the National Audit Office, including approving its corporate strategy, agreeing and laying its estimate and appointing non-executive members of the NAO board. Naturally we have no direct responsibility for training, but we always press the NAO to fulfil fully its obligations on training.
Mr Sheerman
I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware that many of us who had employees in the banking sector and friends who had a stake in the banking sector were horrified by the lack of ethics of the accountancy profession when it came to the basic job of auditing the banks and auditing other big corporations where they did it badly. Surely we should speak up through the Commission about ethics, responsibility and moral certitude in accountancy.
Sir Edward Leigh
That is a very interesting question but it is rather wide of our responsibilities. I wish we had those responsibilities, but we are responsible only for the budget and the annual report of the National Audit Office, which audits accounts in the public, not the private, sector, so I am sorry I cannot do more for the hon. Gentleman.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Edward Leigh(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the hon. Gentleman send the House’s congratulations to NAO staff, who do such a good job, particularly in bursting the bubble on High Speed 2? They have shown what an absolute waste of public money it will be. It will cost approximately £50 billion, which could be spent regenerating our towns and cities.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Edward Leigh(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
5. What assessments he has received from independent sources of the quality of the work carried out by the National Audit Office.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough)
A number of external reviews are in place to provide independent assessments of the quality of the National Audit Office’s work: the NAO’s financial audit work is subject to independent review by the audit quality review team of the Financial Reporting Council; the quality of the NAO’s value-for-money reports is independently reviewed by independent experts from Oxford university’s Said business school and Risk Solutions; and the NAO’s external auditors conduct an annual value-for-money assessment, which is reported to the Public Accounts Commission.
Mr Sheerman
I am most grateful for that reply. All Members would normally agree that the National Audit Office does a very good job. Like the hon. Gentleman, I was once a member of the Public Accounts Committee. Did he see the vicious attack on the Chair of that Committee by the Justice Secretary just a few days ago, alleging that she was biased, unprincipled and should not chair that Committee? Is that right?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Edward Leigh(13 years ago)
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Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
3. What recent discussions the Public Accounts Commission has had on ways in which the National Audit Office can be made more effective and efficient.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough)
The Public Accounts Commission discusses the NAO’s use of resources twice a year. Last November we endorsed its strategy for the three years from April 2011, which included plans to save 15% in nominal terms—21% in real terms—over that three-year period. The commission looked at the NAO’s efficiency gain in March when we examined its draft estimate. The commission will next meet on 7 December to consider the NAO’s proposed resource requirements for the three years starting in April 2012.
Mr Sheerman
Have the hon. Gentleman and the commission considered introducing the same sort of reforms that the Government have produced for the Audit Commission? Has he considered using the big five private accountancy firms more widely, or has he learned some lessons from the disaster that is the Audit Commission reform?
Mr Leigh
All that has happened so far—we will discuss this at our meeting on 7 December—is that the Government have proposed that the NAO take over from the Audit Commission solely responsibility for the preparation and maintenance of the code of practice, which sets a framework for the audit of local bodies, together with associated guidance for local auditors. The NAO will also be able, when reporting to Parliament on the activities of central Departments, to examine the impact of policies administered by local bodies. The NAO is making preparations for those potential areas of work. We will give it sufficient resources to enable it to do that work responsibly and properly.