Early Parliamentary General Election Bill

Debate between Bob Stewart and Baroness Hoey

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kate Hoey]

I do think that that is a hugely important issue, which has unity across this House. If the Leader of the House, who has just left his place, and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland really wanted to get that Bill through, they could do so this week. It could still be put through this week. It passed its Second Reading in the other place last night, so there is absolutely no reason why we cannot get that Bill through. Yes, the hon. Lady is right. There will be many things that we cannot get through, but there are also an awful lot of things that we should be getting through but we are not able to do so because there is no majority for them in this House.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I thought that I heard the Leader of the House say that one reason for keeping the House going until 6 November was to get that Bill through. It would be iniquitous if we do not get this Bill through, because people in Northern Ireland really require to have it passed.

[Kate Hoey]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I hope that those whose business it is can sort out what we do over the next few days. As I understand it—I am sure that other people know more than I do on this—if there is not a general election until 12 December, we will not have to dissolve until the following Thursday, which means that there is time. If there is unity in the House about that very important measure then it could be put through.

I know, too, Mr Speaker, that you have made your decision about leaving this House. I see no reason why the election of a new Speaker could not have been brought forward to this week, so that the issue could have been resolved before Parliament dissolves. I am getting away from the Bill, and I know, Mr Speaker, that you would not want me to do that.

Garden Bridge

Debate between Bob Stewart and Baroness Hoey

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kate Hoey]

I absolutely agree. I stick up for London. I believe that London, being a great capital city that is loved by the people who live here while being very open to tourism, does sometimes need special arrangements, for example policing. This, however, is something very different. Perhaps the problem for my two hon. Friends is that they do not have Joanna Lumley living in their area.

Let us look at the cost. When the garden bridge was first announced, it was claimed it would not require a penny of public money. Very soon after, the former Chancellor announced £30 million of support and Transport for London also came up with £30 million. So, £60 million of taxpayers’ money has been committed to a project that came out of thin air. It had never been discussed with anyone before it was announced, unless in private discussions between Joanna Lumley, the former Chancellor and others.

From the beginning, those supporting the Garden Bridge Trust behaved as if they knew they had support in high places—and of course they had. The report in February by Project Compass, the not-for-profit procurement intelligence service, goes into great detail on how the procurement process was handled. The tender originally asked for broad options for a pedestrian bridge between Temple and the South Bank, and it made no mention of a garden/living bridge element. As a result, only the Heatherwick Studio bid responded with not just a garden bridge proposal, but a design drawing and actual location plan of the garden bridge. That had not been called for in the tender spec, yet Heatherwick Studio received the highest mark for its understanding of the brief.

A single person in City Hall—Richard de Cani, the then manging director for planning for Transport for London—assessed the technical and commercial evaluation of the three bids. Usually, subjective judgments in public tender documents have a team of assessors to ensure impartiality, but this is the same Richard de Cani who we now know used to work for Arup—the same Arup that in another flawed tendering process, as outlined by Project Compass, won the contract for the Temple bridge part of the garden bridge and has been given more than £8 million.

It gets worse. Where has Mr De Cani gone back to work? Arup, of course. Arup seems to like ex-City Hall staff, because it has recently appointed as its new global transport leader Isabel Dedring, the former City Hall deputy head of transport. She was personally involved with nearly all the meetings prior to the tendering process with Thomas Heatherwick. So, both of the officers directly involved with the entire process have now left City Hall and gone to be employed by the garden bridge engineer and lead consultant, Arup. That could be a coincidence, but I think that most fair-minded people would think that it is very strange. Even Greater London Authority’s internal audit head, Clive Walker, admitted that the procurement had been neither open nor objective.

There is a question mark over the procedure, and yet the National Audit Office could do nothing about it. It responded to me by saying that it was not in its remit to look into TfL behaviour, and that that was the responsibility of the GLA oversight committee, supported by locally appointed auditors. Ernst & Young is the GLA’s locally appointed auditor and it was also appointed by the Mayor to run the investigation into TfL, but—believe it or not—Ernst & Young is listed as having donated £500,000 to the bridge, and an Ernst & Young partner also sits on the board of the Garden Bridge Trust. The GLA oversight committee looked into that, and its chair described it as a “dodgy design procurement process” and suggested that TfL reimburse the two other applicants, WilkinsonEyre and Marks Barfield.

I think that the NAO should be able to investigate public money used by TfL. I am glad that it has agreed to look into the £30 million given by the former Chancellor of the Exchequer via the Department of Transport and how it has exercised control over the money.

The model under which the GBT operates sets a dangerous precedent—this is why this should be of interest to all Members—that allows public bodies to effectively offshore major infrastructure projects by leveraging charitable vehicles, under the oversight of the Charity Commission, to avoid the transparency and scrutiny preserved for governmental bodies via the NAO. The House will be interested to know that since July 2015, £26,720,292 has been paid to the GBT, with absolutely no accountability for how it has been spent and no visibility of its accounts.

The current Mayor stated when he came to office that £37.7 million has already been spent by the trust, but:

“Nothing has been achieved to date”.

More recently, he stated on LBC that the figure was now £42 million, yet he himself had stated that he did not want a penny more of public money. It would be interesting to know why another £5 million to £6 million has been spent since he came to office.

Recently, Lord Davies, the chair of the Garden Bridge Trust, stated on “Newsnight” that a significant amount of spend had been on two contractors, namely Arup and Bouygues, which is a French company and there are slight variations in how it is pronounced. No visibility has ever been provided over those contractual arrangements, or legal clarity provided as to whether there are clauses to return public money in the event that the project is cancelled.

I believe that contracts should not have been entered into until the land arrangements on both sides of the river had been secured because it exposes taxpayers’ funds to risk. The land deal still has to be negotiated and Coin Street Community Builders, who hold the long lease from Lambeth, are not happy with the terms of agreement even now. A judicial review has been filed. The money for that was raised by small donations across London. Quite suddenly, just a few weeks ago, the GBT changed its dates for filing its accounts, originally due on 31 July, to 31 December. Again, this lack of transparency is very worrying.

This project is at risk not just of never happening, but of being a colossal white elephant. It is nicely depicted in a cartoon in this week’s Private Eye, with a big white elephant over the Thames. We now know—it has been admitted by Lord Davies on “Newsnight”—that it is going to cost £10 million more, up to £185 million, and will be further delayed by a year even if the GBT gets what it wants. It now has to raise between £52 million and £56 million just to build the bridge, up from the original estimate of £32 million. Additional money is needed to support the running costs at £3 million per year, while the insurance is £15 million, but only £9 million has been offered as surety by the Department for Transport.

I understand—the Minister will want to go into it—why the Secretary of State agreed to continue the underwriting, but I welcome the fact that the Department did not say that it was going to increase it in any way. There was a danger of allowing it to continue, with increased amounts each month. In fact, that did not happen, which is to be welcomed. I still think that this is a ridiculous waste of public money.

The GBT’s own press release from June 2016, just a few months ago, admits to spending £22.7 million of public money solely on pre-construction activities—progressing the design, obtaining licences, permits and planning approvals, which are still not final, including stakeholder and community consultations—but no further information was provided. A number of leading construction experts have said that they cannot understand how that could have amounted to anything more than about £1 million.

I genuinely cannot understand how the Government, whether it be the Treasury or the Department for Transport, can feel comfortable with the truly remarkable amount of money already spent by the GBT. I find it hard to explain to my constituents, many of whom would be the kind of people the new Prime Minister addressed from the steps of Downing street on her first day in office, precisely how £40 million pounds of public money has already been spent on a bridge that is going to be closed regularly for private functions, that will not allow cycling and that will be subject to all sorts of rules about what can and cannot be done on it. As I said, the bridge is in completely the wrong place.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Lady for what she has said. Having come here to listen to her, I am increasingly against this garden bridge project. Is it true that the beautiful view of St Paul’s created by Canaletto will be destroyed by this project?

[Kate Hoey]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, and I am glad to hear that he has come to this debate with an open mind. Yes, as I am going to mention later, that is indeed one of the most dreadful things that will happen. It might not seem that important, but once it is no longer there, we will realise it and miss it. The wonderful views of St Paul’s from Waterloo bridge will be ruined. That will happen without a doubt if the garden bridge is built.

I also find it difficult to understand why this new Government are giving money and underwriting a project for a charity whose donors and backers too often remain unidentified. The public do not discriminate as regards which pot of money the funds come from; to them, it is all public money. There is, however, a list of donors and a breakdown of the funding up to August 2016, and what is remarkable is how many of those donors are anonymous—anonymous this and anonymous that. Why do they want to be anonymous? Some people might decide that they want to be. Strangely, however, £12.6 million is described as being “confidential until launch announcement”. Is that real money or is it a pledge from someone? It is all smoke and mirrors. I shall say more about donors in a few moments. Because of that, and because of the way the trust’s accounts have been dealt with, I welcome the Charity Commission’s investigation, which it has confirmed to me in writing.

Let me say a quick word about the business plan, which has been examined admirably and in great detail in a report entitled “Operational Viability of the Garden Bridge” by Dan Anderson, who is a director of Fourth Street. Some Members will know of Fourth Street, which has done great work for the National Trust and other public bodies. The report draws attention to all the flaws in the business plan, and I commend it to anyone who wants to understand more. In paragraph 4.2, Mr Anderson makes this crucial point:

“It is worryingly worth noting that the Garden Bridge Trust has a perverse incentive to spend money as quickly and not as efficiently or cost-effectively as possible. That is, the Trust has a powerful incentive to ensure that it reaches a ‘point of no return’ (in financial terms) as quickly as it can so that planning, land acquisition and/or legal challenges do not ultimately thwart the project.”

I think that that must be a very large part of the explanation of how such an extraordinary sum could have been spent before construction has even started.

Others, too—apart from the Government, Transport for London and City Hall—need to examine their behaviour in respect of this project. A cosy little cartel has been operating, with everyone blaming everyone else. The almost zealous support that has been given to the Garden Bridge Trust by Lambeth council is disturbing. The chief executive has attended meetings with the Mayor’s head of staff, David Bellamy, and the trust. The council’s leadership has never allowed a proper, full debate in the council and a vote, and has ignored local councillors’ views. Council officers and members have proceeded for three years without any policy basis. Their transport plan does not even mention the garden bridge, and there has been no policy paper from Lambeth explaining why the council should support it.

Lambeth could stop this project tomorrow if it wished. Coin Street Community Builders, of which I am a huge supporter, should have said no to the change in its land lease from the beginning. It, too, could stop this tomorrow if it wished. The Mayor of London, coming new to the project, should have put a stop to it, or at least consulted local politicians. It is just not good enough for him to say, “So much money has been spent that we must carry on.” He could stop it tomorrow if he wished. Will the Minister tell us who will pay the £3 million running costs? Will he confirm that it will not be the taxpayer, and will he confirm categorically that there will be no more public funding for the bridge?

Lord Ahmed had stalled everyone who objected to the bridge. No one could manage to see anyone in power except representatives of the Garden Bridge Trust, who seem to have been able to do so whenever they wished. Lord Ahmed has now written to Councillor Craig saying that he will meet local councillors, but I ask him to come and look at the site, and speak to the people who really know the area and the problems.

Having talked privately to many of those who are involved in all the different aspects of the project, I know that there is huge unease. I know that there is unease in the Department for Transport, I know that there is unease in Lambeth, and I know that there is unease in Coin Street. I know that most of those people —with the exception, probably, of the former Chancellor—would like the project to be stopped, but no one wants to be fingered as the person responsible for actually saying no.

I appeal to all the potential donors to think carefully about whether they want to be associated with the project. I believe that the reputation of many of them will be damaged by their support for this folly. As the critique of the business plan states, the garden bridge must be loved as much by the public as by its creators, or the business model will fail. Given how unpopular it is and how much has been exposed by freedom of information requests, I have to say that if I were a trustee of a body that was thinking of donating to the Garden Bridge Trust, I would be thinking again. It is ironic that this may be the only way in which we may now be saved from a complete waste of public money, even more of which will be wasted as time goes on, and a deeply flawed project which, as I said earlier, will ruin the most wonderful views of St Paul’s from Waterloo bridge, as well as making congestion on the South Bank—which is already at dangerous levels during some weekends—much worse.

Charitable trusts and private donors should now stop their support and look elsewhere for projects more in keeping with their objectives. That is what I would like to see happen.

This has been put forward as a wonderful new tourist attraction for London. It is a tourist attraction, but it has been dressed up as tourist infrastructure; it has been dressed up to get Government support when other brilliant tourist attractions in London have done this through private money. It is an inappropriate use of taxpayers’ money and, worse, it was promised from the beginning that it would not be.

We have to ask who has sold us down the river and how we can ensure that no more damage will be done and no more public money will be wasted. This Garden Bridge Trust project must be stopped by someone, and I would like to hear the Minister say he will do his utmost to make sure not a penny more will be spent and that we will find ways, when this project fails, as I believe it will, to get that public money back.

Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Debate between Bob Stewart and Baroness Hoey

Thursday 29th August 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

I remember, 10 years ago, like many Members, sitting on the Government Benches listening to the whole of the Iraq debate and agonising about how I should vote. I remember my heart telling me that I should support my leader—I particularly wanted to support my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), my good friend—and my head telling me throughout that debate, “No, there’s something wrong here,” and I voted no. I voted no, understanding that many members of my own party in Vauxhall probably supported the war, although most did not. Many people in my constituency supported the war, although most did not. There was an even split at that time.

On this occasion, 10 years on, I am very clear and I am not agonising. I oppose military action in this case. Whatever the Attorney-General says and despite all the legal paraphernalia that we have been bombarded with, for the general public this is almost like agonising on the head of a pin. Legal arguments will not wash with the public or with me when it comes to what is right and what is wrong. It would be wrong and, importantly, counter-productive to take military action against Syria. I am not a pacifist. I was one of the first people, together with a number of my colleagues but long before my Front-Bench team did so, to argue strongly for intervention in Bosnia. I also supported the Falklands war, so I am not a pacifist.

The question is how bombing, no matter how strategic, how precise and how short, will make things if not better for the Syrian people, at least not worse. I believe that it will not do so and I have yet to be persuaded by anyone who has spoken in this debate that it would make things better for the Syrian people. I found the speech by the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) very commanding indeed. I do not support Assad or the regime. As many Members have said, it has been an appalling regime for many years. It is worth remembering that we provided many of the regime’s arms. I wonder who provided the components that make up the chemical weapons. I would not be a bit surprised if some came from this country and other countries in the west—[Interruption]—and of course from Russia, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) says.

It has not been proven absolutely that the chemical weapons were used by Assad. It probably was Assad—

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kate Hoey]

No.

We have had information before that poison gas had been used and Carla Del Ponte, who was the UN commissioner in Syria, pointed out that it was the rebels who had used it. Will the Deputy Prime Minister tell me when he winds up the debate, if, despite what everyone thinks, the weapons inspectors find that it was the rebels or some rogue general who used the chemical weapons last week, the Prime Minister will be saying the things that he did about the use of chemical weapons? The doctrine of prevention, which I had hoped—

Epilepsy

Debate between Bob Stewart and Baroness Hoey

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kate Hoey]

I thank the hon. Lady for that. She, along with the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), who unfortunately could not be here today and who has also raised this issue as an epileptic, has shown that it is very important that the public understand that people can have epilepsy and still carry on living a normal life—if being a Member of Parliament is indeed a normal life.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I have dealt with epileptics who have collapsed in front of me and had a fit. Does the hon. Lady think that we are doing all we can to educate our children at school on how to recognise epilepsy and, just as important, what to do with someone who is suffering a fit?

[Kate Hoey]

Although things may have improved, the position in education authorities across the country is patchy. I hope that the Minister might refer to that in his speech.

I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South, who introduced a ten-minute rule Bill on this matter, is now in her place. I know that she will want to say something at some stage.

I referred to the Epilepsy Action report, and it is important that people look at it because it showed some worrying results. I am sure that the Minister will have read it. Two thirds of the clinical commissioning groups—66%—do not have or do not intend to produce a written needs assessment of the health and social care needs of people with epilepsy. Only 27% of the 113 out of 149 local authorities that replied included a section in their joint strategic needs assessment mentioning the care of people with epilepsy. Only 17% of the clinical commissioning groups have appointed a clinical lead for epilepsy and only 20% of acute trusts stated that the average waiting time for an adult with suspected epilepsy to see an epilepsy specialist consultant was two weeks or less.

Crucially, only half of the people interviewed by Epilepsy Action told the interviewer that they had seen an epilepsy specialist nurse. I cannot overestimate the importance of specialist epilepsy nurses, and I am sure that other hon. Members will agree. Specialist nurses are vital and there is still concern that there are not enough of them. In its guidance, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence said that they should be an integral part of the medical team providing care to people with epilepsy, but it seems that in 2013 half of our acute trusts and primary care trusts in England still do not have that provision.

The report contains many more worrying statistics, but I shall not go through them all. All in all, however, there seems to have been no major improvement in services although I stress that, as with so many other matters, the provision is patchy, with some excellent services in some parts of the country. My local trust, Guy’s and St Thomas’, does an excellent job with the resources it has. Dr Michael Koutroumanidis leads the team and as well as running the tertiary clinic runs a first-time seizure clinic once a week. Much more could be done, however, with more resources and if greater priority were given to those services.

I have some questions for the Minister. If he has read the report, perhaps as his bedtime reading last night, he will be aware of some of them. Will he ask the Secretary of State for Health to refer the whole of epilepsy services to the National Audit Office and invite it to conduct a value-for-money inquiry? That is one of the key requests from Epilepsy Action. Way back in 2007, the all-party group estimated that the avoidable cost of providing the current poor NHS service was £189 million a year based on the NICE figures. The main reason that such money could be seen as wasted is the shocking misdiagnosis rate, which is 20% to 30%, and the poor access to specialist skills. The financial consequence is that patients receive inappropriate, costly and ineffective treatment at the expense of the NHS and the public, never mind the personal consequences of their true condition not being treated. I hope that the Minister can say that that might be a useful piece of work for the Audit Commission.

I ask the Minister to ask the NHS Commissioning Board to include outcomes indicators in the NHS framework. I hope that people can get to the bottom of what all these terminologies mean. The hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) has previously referred to the NHS using terms that mean little to the average member of the public, but it is important that we have the statistics to address the unacceptable number of avoidable deaths and the still unacceptable rates of seizure freedom.

Another issue that I want to ask the Minister about is the revised NHS constitution, where the word “pledge” will be used. We want to give people the right to involvement in discussions about the planning of their care and the right, as opposed to a pledge, to be offered a written record of that agreement. Again, published research shows that only 14% of people with epilepsy have a care plan. All those things are important. If the current review of the NHS constitution recommends making care planning a pledge from the NHS to patients, that should be toughened up to encourage a programme of care planning and by making it a right for people.

The Minister could ensure that as a matter of urgency the chief executive of the NHS raises the lack of engagement by the clinical commissioning groups in assessing the needs of people with epilepsy. It seems that that has been ignored by many of them, or lumped together with a number of other health issues that do not necessarily cover epilepsy’s particularly special nature.

There is a whole debate to be had about children with epilepsy, and not just in relation to their school education. There is a long history of children with epilepsy not achieving their full educational potential, yet with the right support there can be huge improvements. Epilepsy can affect the child’s education either because of the underlying cause or because they might have to miss lessons or interrupt them to take medication.