Orgreave

Debate between Brandon Lewis and Mark Durkan

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

The point that the Home Secretary was making, and that I have made today, is that we have looked at a whole range of factors. The comparison has been made with Hillsborough, but unlike at Hillsborough, there were no deaths or wrongful convictions as a result of Orgreave. Also, policing has changed dramatically in the years since then. That is why the Home Secretary’s decision, which had to be made in the wider public interest, is the right one, despite the fact that there is disagreement on it.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Today’s exchanges show that what the Minister has described as the Home Secretary’s “difficult decision” is hardly going to be received as an independent consideration. He has said a lot today about the public interest. Will he tell us which public interest would be compromised or undermined by a demonstrably independent and cost-effective review of these signal events?

[Brandon Lewis]

That is a very good question. This reminds me of a question I asked when I met the campaigners. I asked what they were hoping an inquiry would achieve. There were no wrongful convictions to correct, and there were no deaths to investigate. There was, however, a question about police behaviour. We can learn the lessons of the past and look at the behaviour, performance, structures and working of the police for the future. Things have changed dramatically in the past three decades, from the reforms in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 right through to the ones that we are introducing today. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to support us in our work on continuing with these important reforms.

Enterprise Bill [Lords]

Debate between Brandon Lewis and Mark Durkan

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

I will take some more interventions in a moment, but I want to finish answering the hon. Gentleman’s point. There would be an opportunity to look at the assessment of that over the next 12 months, and we would report back to Parliament with the findings, based on agreed key performance indicators. In 12 months’ time, this will come back to Parliament—on the Floor of this House. An evaluation of this exploratory phase will be published. We are circulating a draft for colleagues to consider, and I will be asking them to support us by opposing amendments 1 and 19, and supporting the Government amendments 2, 13 and 14, which will then allow us to do this in the House of Lords.

That will take us to an evaluation of this exploratory phase, which will be published. After that pilot period, the House will then debate and vote again on extending the right to every council in England and Wales. Therefore, the matter will come back to this House for a full debate, during which Members will have the evidence before them.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I thank the Minister for giving way. First, we had the Minister, a member of the union of barrel scrapers, presenting himself as an advocate for workers’ rights and interests. Now he is trying to tell us that he is selling on some sort of deferred click and collect basis—an option that is not available or in front of us today. Is the Minister not pushing something that will be a predictive text version of public policy that will end up becoming the default position for local authorities, firms and workers who do not want it?

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman is not quite correct. There is huge interest in this. I am talking about local authorities, consumers, people who work six days a week, families, workers who want the chance to work on a Sunday and businesses that want a chance to compete with the internet. Horticultural associations are very clear that this is worth a potential £75 million a year to our economy—and that is in their industry alone. In the main, I am talking about independent businesses. Potentially, there are thousands and thousands of jobs.

Bank of England (Appointment of Governor) Bill

Debate between Brandon Lewis and Mark Durkan

Friday 6th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

Indeed. One of the problems with the Bill, as I noted a few moments ago, is that it focuses on one appointment from one Select Committee. What would be more interesting is a debate in the House on the role of Select Committees in the public appointments that they scrutinise.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Is the hon. Gentleman therefore saying that Parliament got it wrong on the Office for Budget Responsibility?

[Brandon Lewis]

Not at all. I shall come to that in a few moments. That is not the point that I am making. There is a clear difference between a role in making an appointment to the OBR and a role in making an appointment to a position that has Executive powers and makes Executive decisions. If this were a Bill that considered the role of Select Committees, there would be an interesting debate to be had about whether Select Committees should have a power of appointment or veto, but that would apply equally to all Committees and all appointments, particularly where they have an Executive role. That is an important delineation, of which we should be aware.

It would be wrong to give one Select Committee, as important as the Treasury Committee is, a power of Executive appointment over and above that of other Select Committees, which I am sure would take the view that they have equal power and an equally important role in the House, but which would thereby potentially be put in a second category of Select Committee. Creating divisions and different types of Select Committee would impede the function of all Select Committees.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to know that I must challenge that comment. The core point I was making throughout my speech, from start to finish, was that there is an important distinction between what the Executive do and their power, and that we should not give a Select Committee an Executive power to make Executive recruitment decisions.

[Mark Durkan]

The hon. Gentleman made a long contribution, and I am sure that that top-up will add value to it.

At the start of this debate and in a number of interventions, reference was made to yesterday’s motions and debate, and a challenge was laid down: “How could anybody support this Bill if they didn’t vote for the parliamentary inquiry yesterday?”. The argument was that the Bill seeks to give an enhanced role to the Treasury Committee and that we cannot support it if we did not support yesterday’s motion for a parliamentary inquiry.

I did not support the vote for the parliamentary inquiry yesterday; my name was on the other motion, precisely because I really value the role of the Treasury Committee and the service it provides to the House. People have talked about the dangers to the Committee if its gets the powers in the Bill, and that it will fall apart and start to divide along party political lines, but there is more danger to the Treasury Committee from the decision that the House took yesterday, because its Chairman will find himself committed to a significant inquiry, which we are told will be time-intensive and extensive.

The Chairman said yesterday that he wanted the membership of the inquiry Committee to be heavily drawn from the Treasury Committee, so a select number of the Select Committee will also be absorbed by the inquiry throughout the autumn when what the Treasury Committee needs to do is concentrate on many other things, not least following up what emerges from the Wheatley review, which the Chancellor has announced. That review will recommend amendments to the Financial Services Bill, so the Government have recognised that in the light of what has happened with Barclays and the whole LIBOR issue, significant amendments to that Bill will need to be considered.

In essence, the Bill that my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) has tabled today is a prompt, which canvasses for a fairly modest amendment to the Financial Services Bill—a modest amendment that might have its case reinforced by whatever recommendations emerge from the Wheatley review and the amendments we make to that Bill. As hon. Members on both sides have said, it already creates significant added powers, responsibilities and potential difficulties for the Governor of the Bank of England, the Bank and the whole hinterland of authorities and agencies around it.

Parliament has devolved more responsibility to the Bank and the Governor, and the appointment of the Governor will remain an appointment of government, although, as the Minister in the Financial Services Bill Committee, when correcting me and others, insisted on saying, “It is not appointment by the Government or the Treasury, but by the Crown.” I understand the distinction; I do not believe the fiction; and it is quite clear from his hon. Friends’ contributions today that they do not, either. They are ruthlessly defending the appointment as an Executive—ministerial—appointment.

[Mark Durkan]

The hon. Gentleman tries to take up a point that the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) made earlier, when he talked about the Bill representing “a major constitutional departure”, a phrase that he used, I think, three times. But he ended up criticising the Bill for not going far enough or ranging wide enough. He wanted a Bill to give all Select Committees responsibilities and powers of appointment in relation to all sorts of other things. Hon. Members can have it both ways in their own contributions, but they are not going to have it both ways in mine.

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman is being generous with his time, but he misunderstands the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), and certainly I, was making. We do not necessarily think that a Bill that changes the whole structure of Select Committees and how they work is the right thing to do or that we would vote for it; we just think that it would make more sense, if people feel that way, than a Bill that focuses on one Committee and on one particular power.

[Mark Durkan]

That is not what the hon. Member for Wimbledon said and certainly not what I heard. We seem to be hearing a lot of interventions from Government Members interpreting what each other said. Several Members have mentioned what the Treasury Committee Chair, the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), is saying in private, and that it is different from what members of the Committee have said and different from the fact that the hon. Gentleman’s name is on the Bill.