House of Commons Members’ Fund

Debate between Charles Walker and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Monday 29th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, may I briefly speak as a member of the Members’ Fund? Would that be in order?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

That is perfectly in order.

[Sir Charles Walker]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker.

As we can all see from the Order Paper, the increase is very moderate. The sum deducted from our salaries on a monthly basis goes towards the Members’ Fund, which is distributed on occasions to former Members and their dependants who are in straitened times. It is a hugely important fund and is staffed by amazing officers of the House, who also staff the parliamentary contributory pension fund. We are very grateful for their support and for the support of trustees.

The only thing I would say—I hope I do not put myself in contest with other trustees—is that the sum taken from our monthly salary is still very small. At some stage in the very near future, it should be incumbent on this House to look at a more generous monthly contribution from Members. A figure of perhaps £10 would not be too onerous on Members, but it would certainly help the Members’ Fund to support many former colleagues of all parties who, through illness or just bad luck, find themselves struggling once they are no longer in this place.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

The hon. Gentleman has spoken for the whole House.

Question agreed to.

Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Motion made, and Question Proposed,

That, in pursuance of paragraph 2A of Schedule 3 of the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, Ms Tina Fahm be appointed as a lay member of the Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority for a period of five years from 6 May 2024 to 4 May 2029.—(Penny Mordaunt.)

Question agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Charles Walker and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Thursday 18th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Charles Walker]

We will always look at suggestions. I can reassure the hon. Member that our catering team recently achieved the highest mark in the Sustainable Restaurant Association “Food Made Good” rating. One of the areas that we were assessed on was our commitment to reducing food waste, but clearly we will look at the hon. Member’s suggestions and we will act on them if they have merit.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call Theresa Villiers—not here.

Children and Young People with Complex Needs

Debate between Charles Walker and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Friday 10th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Charles Walker]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the Minister for that kind offer. It was not an attack on her—I think she is as disappointed as I am.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I appreciate the points that the hon. Gentleman and the Minister have made.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Charles Walker and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Thursday 28th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Charles Walker]

My right hon. Friend is respected across the House for the work he has done on behalf of apprenticeships, so I shall say to him that he is going to join me in a meeting with the apprenticeship and early careers manager at the earliest opportunity, so that we can drive forward this House’s shared agenda to get more people from disadvantaged backgrounds working in this place and enjoying this place.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I apologise to the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) and to the Second Church Estates Commissioner, the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), because I have made a mistake. Having called the hon. Member for Lichfield to ask his question, I did not then give the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire the opportunity to answer it. I do apologise. Perhaps the hon. Member for Lichfield could remind us of the gist of his question.

Environment Bill

Debate between Charles Walker and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

After the next speaker, I will have to reduce the time limit for Back-Bench speeches to three minutes, but with four minutes, I call Sir Charles Walker.

[Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to speak to my amendment 3 to clause 82, which is signed by me and 16 colleagues, and which has also secured support from other speakers tonight. The Minister said that I was going to give an impassioned speech. I am afraid I am not, because it has been so easy doing business with her. Is not it wonderful in this place when we can sit down with Ministers and do business?

Before I move on, I would like to thank some chalk stream campaigners: Paul Jennings of the River Chess; Charles Rangeley-Wilson; Dr Jonathan Fisher; Jake Rigg of Affinity; Richard Aylard of Thames Water; and of course the Angling Trust and Fish Legal.

To support rich biodiversity, chalk streams need two things: high flows and high-quality water. A lot of debate in this place centres on rewilding, and rewilding often centres on beavers—wonderful little creatures; I knew a lot of them when I was in Oregon—but the fact of the matter is that proper rewilding of our chalk streams requires good-quality water, and plenty of it. Without those two things, we do not have freshwater shrimp and fly life at the bottom of the food chain, we do not have trout and grayling, we do not have water voles and we do not have otters.

Clause 82 provides the Secretary of State with powers to modify abstraction licences without compensation where

“the ground for revoking or varying the licence is that the Secretary of State is satisfied the revocation or variation is necessary—

(i) having regard to a relevant environmental objective, or

(ii) to otherwise protect the water environment from damage.”

Our amendment would add the words

“including damage from low flows.”

The Secretary of State and the Minister at the Dispatch Box today said that they could not accept that amendment because it might limit the scope of the clause, and I understand that. However, I received a welcome letter from the Secretary of State and the Minister on 25 January, and that letter made it clear that the accompanying guidance to the Bill once it becomes an Act, in giving life to the legislation, will make it clear that—I quote from the Ministers’ letter—“the reference to damage includes damage caused by low flow levels in a river due to unsustainable abstraction.”

That is an important commitment. I have discussed it with the water companies—with Water UK, which is their representative body—and they are very keen for that guidance to be issued. They want to do the right thing. In doing the right thing, they will have to have negotiations with Ofwat, and they will need to be able to point to guidance that has legal force in support of their position.

Point of Order

Debate between Charles Walker and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can you advise me how best I can use a point of order to thank Sir Simon Wessely for all his work in producing the “Reforming The Mental Health Act” White Paper? Of course, I was not able to get on the Order Paper, but there are many other people to thank, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), the Secretary of State for Health, and particularly Matilda MacAttram, former director of Black Mental Health UK, who did so much to raise the concerns of the black and African Caribbean community in and around the use of community treatment orders. Is it legitimate to use a point of order to raise this matter, or have I actually abused the point of order process in doing so?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

The hon. Gentleman knows the answer to his question. It is not at all legitimate to use an apparent or suggested point of order to make the point that he wishes to make. However, although it is certainly not a matter for the Chair, I acknowledge that he is making the remarks that he has just made in good faith, and wishes to thank the people that he has mentioned. Those people were thanked during the statement by the Secretary of State for Health, and I am sure that the whole House agrees with the hon. Gentleman in his non point of order.

I am now suspending the House very briefly, for two minutes, in order to make the necessary arrangements for the next business.

Degraded Chalk Stream Environments

Debate between Charles Walker and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Charles Walker]

That was a great debate.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Indeed it was. Very informative indeed.

Question put and agreed to.

Business without Debate

Debate between Charles Walker and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. During the urgent question on proxy voting and baby leave, I saw you standing behind the Speaker’s Chair, taking a keen interest in the announcement that the House was moving forward in the matter. Was that out of personal interest, or the wider interests of the House and its Members?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

That is the most interesting point of order I have ever been asked in my life, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for asking it. First of all, he is absolutely right in having noticed my presence in the Chamber—of course I cannot sit on the Benches when Mr Speaker is in the Chair, but a very important matter was being discussed.

I should make it absolutely clear that my personal interest in proxy voting or baby leave is historical. That is probably rather obvious, but it as well to make the point. I am one of those who dealt with giving birth to my son when there was no such helpful support from the House, the House authorities or anyone else for that matter. I therefore have every sympathy with those who are going through such matters at present. My son was born one week after the 2001 general election, and that was not easy to navigate, because there is no such thing as maternity leave on election day.

The hon. Gentleman was right in the latter part of his point—my interest now is general. It is very important that we make this House work as a reflection of the society that we represent throughout the whole country. That means understanding that producing the next generation is an important and necessary duty, which has to be done by women at the same time as they are doing other things. I am very grateful to him for having noticed my presence, because I thought I was invisible. I should say, while I am waxing lyrical, which I should not be from the Chair, that the hon. Gentleman and his Committee have done a wonderful piece of work on this important matter.

I apologise for the delay. We now come to the petition.

Leaving the EU: No Deal

Debate between Charles Walker and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

You are being ridiculous.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I am determined to prove this evening that the House can be well behaved.

Nomination of Members to Committees

Debate between Charles Walker and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

You will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that as Chairman of the Procedure Committee, I am not afraid to cross swords with my Government. I have been the Chairman of that Committee for five years, and we have had several run-ins. For the record, I will go through them. We had a run-in over amendments to the Queen’s Speech and the bouncing of Parliament over the election of the Speaker—a particularly raw moment in my political career. We had the impenetrable and unnecessary complexity of English votes for English laws—although the Committee made excellent suggestions, they fell on deaf ears, as the Government chose to ignore them. We have had the Government’s belligerence regarding the reform of private Members’ Bills, but I shall continue in my efforts to reform that bit of nonsense. Most recently, Opposition Members will remember that I stood up and berated the Government for not giving Opposition days in a timely fashion to Her Majesty’s Opposition. I said that the Government were being ungenerous and that they should be generous.

I am, therefore, no friend of the Government Front Bench. I trash them and I lash them—thwack, thwack, thwack—on a regular basis. [Laughter.] Have I broken with parliamentary convention, Madam Deputy Speaker? If I have, let us put it before the Procedure Committee.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman is being wonderfully dramatic; that is perfectly within parliamentary convention.

[Mr Walker]

Politics is show business for ugly people, and I am a frustrated actor.

Try as I might, however, I cannot work myself up into a lather about this. I would love to be furious with the Government—I really would—but I cannot be. I get angry very quickly and blow up, and I make some spectacular apologies, but I cannot get too wound up about this.

If the House will indulge me, may I go back in time and revisit the 1970s? From March 1974 until April 1979, the Wilson Government, despite being a minority Administration at times, had a majority on the Committee of Selection for all but three months of their five years in office.

Lea Valley Greenhouse Glass Industry

Debate between Charles Walker and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

My right hon. Friend makes a number of excellent points. This application is hugely contentious. It is on the edge of Hertfordshire. I do not want it in my backyard, and up until 2015 Veolia did not want it in my backyard. However, what Hertfordshire County Council, the sponsor of the facility, is actually proposing is that all the smoke ends up in Harlow’s backyard and Epping Forest’s backyard, so it is your constituents, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the constituents of my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow who are downwind and will get the fallout.

The critical point is that we have an industry that is turning over half a billion pounds a year and producing huge amounts of fresh produce that graces the restaurants and cafeterias of the House of Commons and is to be found in the homes of millions of people up and down this country, and the producers of that food get very nervous when half of the 350 acres of glass might fall within a 5-mile radius of a 350,000-tonne incinerator. Their concerns need to be heard.

It is simply unacceptable for Hertfordshire County Council, the sponsor of the incinerator, to be the determining authority for the application. Hertfordshire both owns the contract and is the determining authority for the contract, and if it does not determine in Veolia’s favour it has to pay a break-up fee of £1.2 million. This cannot be a safe decision. It cannot be a safe decision for my constituents, but it certainly cannot be a safe decision for your constituents, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the constituents of my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow or for the 85 businesses that risk suffering the fallout from the facility.

It is no good for the Environment Agency to say, “There’s no worry here. These are tall chimneys. This is not a problem.” I am not saying that it will say that, but it does not matter what the Environment Agency says about this. The fact of the matter is that 85 producers are concerned that if they are downwind of this facility, they will lose contracts with supermarkets. That could be devastating. There are 2,500 jobs on the line and a half a billion pound industry.

I know that the Minister is not a miracle worker—he is pretty good, but he is not a miracle worker—and it would be unfair of me to suggest that he was, but what we do have in this Minister is a champion for the farming industry and a champion of our industry in the Lea valley. My simple request to him this evening is please to engage with the concerns of the Lea valley growers and our greenhouse industry, and please to reflect those concerns to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, because we need this application to be called in.

We need the chance to argue our case before an independent planning inspector—not just me, not just my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow and not just you, Madam Deputy Speaker, but the NFU, the Lea valley growers, my constituents, my right hon. Friend’s constituents and your constituents. We need the chance to argue our case before an independent inspectorate. That is what we are asking for today. Please, as our voice for agriculture, will the Minister listen to the concerns that I and my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow are raising today and take them to the Secretary of State, because this is a very important industry? No doubt he will have received representations from Madam Deputy Speaker, who is not allowed to speak in this debate. If she could, I am sure she would join me on these Benches.

I do not want to go on for too long. I said that I would be brief and I want to get home for my moussaka— I genuinely am having moussaka tonight. I thank my colleagues who have remained in this place for attending and for listening so intently and politely to what I have had to say on behalf of 85 businesses in the Lea valley that do an outstanding job, produce an outstanding product, employ 2,500 people and make a huge contribution to farming and agriculture in this country.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Before I call the Minister, I commend the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) for his eloquence in putting the case so well, and the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) for supporting the case. I of course am not able to make any comment from the Chair, but if I were able to do so I would tell the House how much I am in agreement with the hon. Member for Broxbourne.

Budget Resolutions

Debate between Charles Walker and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Thursday 9th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

I thank my right hon. Friend for visiting my constituency—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. If Members want to intervene, they can stand up and intervene, but we must not have chuntering from a sedentary position; or rather—let us be honest about it—when you are sitting down, you do not speak in here. Otherwise, we cannot hear who is actually speaking. We must hear one person at a time, and now it is Mr Charles Walker.

[Mr Walker]

Thank you very much for that protection, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is much appreciated.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for visiting Broxbourne last week. May I divert him from Surrey to Hertfordshire, where a much bigger problem relates to an incinerator application? The awarding local authority, Hertfordshire, is also the planning authority in this instance, which strikes me as a conflict of interests. I suspect that my right hon. Friend cannot focus on that now, but will he take into consideration such conflicts of interest in local authorities?

Pensions Uprating (UK Pensioners Living Overseas)

Debate between Charles Walker and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Wednesday 11th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I seek your urgent advice? I and others are very concerned about the plight of licensed black cab drivers in London, many of whom are my constituents—I believe many are your constituents. How can I bring my concerns best to the attention of the new Mayor of London?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I can honestly answer the hon. Gentleman by saying that that is sadly not a point of order for the Chair, but I wish it were a point of order for the Chair because I share his concerns. I no longer speak in this place on behalf of my constituents, but that does not mean that I do not work on their behalf. He and I share a very great concern about the point he has just made. I hope he will find a way, as other colleagues will, of asking questions or applying for debates in this place that will come to the attention of the new Mayor of London, whom we all hope will take the necessary action on this extremely important matter.

I have to announce to the House that I must correct the number announced in the Division earlier today on the motion to disagree to the Lords message on the Housing and Planning Bill. The number of Members voting no and representing English constituencies was erroneously reported as 177 instead of 166. The correct figures are as follows: the Ayes were 292 and the Noes were 197; and of those Members representing constituencies in England, the Ayes were 275 and the Noes were 166. The House will have noted that, although there was an error in the numbers, it makes no difference to the result of the Division.

Under the order of the House of earlier today, I shall not adjourn the House until any message from the Lords has been received. I will suspend the sitting to await a message from the Lords. When the House is ready to resume, the bells will be sounded and a warning notice will be put on the annunciator in the usual way.