Nomination of Members to Committees

Debate between Charles Walker and Steve McCabe

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

Lots of things are said, but we are looking at what happened, and the fact of what happened is that for the entirety of the Wilson/Callaghan Governments—well, for all but three months, so not quite the entirety—the Government of the day had a majority on the Committee of Selection: when they were a majority Government and when they were a minority Government, at times.

It is worth hon. Members reading the motion because there is nothing to prevent the Selection Committee from choosing to have an even number of members of Standing Committees. What the motion says is that when Selection Committee decides to have odd numbers—if indeed it ever decides to have odd numbers—the balance will be in favour of the Government. However, it could well be—

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Walker]

I will in a moment, because I have a lot of time for my friend opposite.

It could well be that the Selection Committee, under the chairmanship, I suspect, of my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin), that noted free spirit, will decide on many occasions that the balance should be equal, so I still do not understand why we are getting so exercised about this. I now give way to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe).

[Steve McCabe]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He talks about wringing out concessions. Is he suggesting that the concession we should demand is that the Selection Committee agrees to even numbers, and we can then accept that?

[Mr Walker]

That should absolutely be for the Committee to decide. It is not impossible that its Chairman, who will want to work with all Members, may decide that there should be an even number of Members on Bill Committees. That cannot be ruled out, and it is entirely possible.

Let me say, in conclusion, that there is a lot of sound and fury around this issue. I know the Opposition Chief Whip, and I think he is a genius, but he is a—with a small “c”—conservative Whip. I suspect that some of my exotic plans to reform private Members’ Bills have been thwarted by not just my own side but the Opposition Chief Whip. I merely say that, I suspect through a half smile, the Opposition Chief Whip entirely understands why the Government are doing this, and can accept it.

Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [Lords]

Debate between Charles Walker and Steve McCabe

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 19th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

New clause 9 is designed to prevent the restriction or withdrawal of banking services from perhaps tens of thousands of people. Those people include soldiers and others serving in the armed forces, judges, civil servants, trade unionists, and local councillors and their officials. Those people, along with their families and associates, are deemed to be “politically exposed persons” for the purposes of the fourth money laundering directive, which is due to be transposed into UK law by no later than June 2017.

The scope of new clause 9 is straightforward. It is designed to ensure that when that money laundering directive is transposed into UK law, reasonable regard is given to the parts of the directive that deal with proportionality. The new clause makes it clear that prior to the enactment of the directive, the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 will be amended so that the Financial Conduct Authority will be required to publish clear guidance to the banks defining what it deems to be proportionate. New clause 9 also makes regulatory provision for PEPs who believe that they have been treated unreasonably by their banks to ask that their case be adjudicated by the FCA.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on introducing the new clause. I understand from what we heard during today’s topical questions that it is likely that the Government will accept it, so he is obviously in the right area. Is he worried that banks are acting in advance of the measure and that there is quite a lot of evidence that they are already gathering information about ordinary, law-abiding members of the public and using it as an excuse to restrict their banking activities?

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. Banks are de-risking very aggressively at the moment and we need to inject some proportionality into their actions. I believe that the new clause will go some way towards achieving that.

New clause 9 inserts into the Bill a process of adjudication. If a politically exposed person believes that they are being treated unfairly—being denied access to banking services—they can take their concern or complaint to the FCA, which can then adjudicate. The FCA can decide whether banks are interpreting the directive over-aggressively and, if they are, levy a fine on them for doing so. The new clause has nothing to do with reducing accountability; it is about increasing proportionality, which is the right thing to do.

Why is new clause 9 needed? It is needed because it is clear that in interpreting the fourth money laundering directive, banks are making no distinction, when determining who is a politically exposed person, between PEPs drawn from the corruption hotbeds of Nigeria, Russia and parts of the subcontinent, and those drawn from developed democracies such as ours that have high levels of scrutiny and accountability.

School Transport

Debate between Charles Walker and Steve McCabe

Thursday 25th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Steve McCabe]

I am also a former school governor. I acknowledge that there are other pressures in schools. I was pointing out that they are sitting with reserves. Local authorities have largely been encouraged by the Secretary of State to use up theirs.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the problem, with which I totally sympathise, of parents being asked to pay £500. I do not know whether he saw the recent article in the Bournemouth Echo; I am sure he is an avid reader of it. It highlighted the plight of parents whose children attend the Parkfield free school. The school was set up and is now having to move to a more satisfactory base. Unfortunately, its new location is not particularly well served by public transport. There is a business willing to provide a school bus service, but at a cost of £650 to the parents. Neither the school nor the local authority feels able to subsidise that transport cost. When I read about that and as I listened to the hon. Gentleman, I wondered whether he was simply describing the shape of things to come.

Given the importance of getting children to school safely, I wonder whether the Government need to look again at the guidance, even if it was reviewed only last year, and at the funding arrangements. As to the suggestion that we might perhaps extend the travel distance or cut some local authority officers’ salaries, that might be one approach, but perhaps the Minister could also consider whether it is right for the duty to rest solely with local authorities.

We all tend to look a bit nostalgically back to the time when many of us would have walked to school, but at that time, of course, the concept of a local school was common. The hon. Member for Ribble Valley referred to problems of choice and locality, and the confusion over preferences and allocation of places. I certainly recognised what he was describing, but I suggest that the pressure on school places results largely from the imbalance in current provision, which results directly from Government policy. It has resulted in additional capacity in some areas and insufficient places in others, often in areas with the highest numbers of children.

Some Members, including the hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey), have spoken of the barriers to children’s attendance at grammar schools and other schools of their choice, and that is certainly happening. In other cases, the capacity argument means that children are sometimes forced to travel great distances to school.

I know that the Minister is fond of reading the Daily Mail; in March, it reported on a mother from south London who complained that she was forced to drive her son 25 miles to his current school because she cannot obtain a place at the local school, which is down the road and round the corner. We hear stories repeatedly about children who must make journeys involving several buses, after they fail to get a local place. That pressure is added to by admissions policies that often result in children in the same household attending different schools. Again, that is a point to which the hon. Member for Glasgow Central drew our attention.

Every year at around this time, I am inundated at my advice centres with parents who have experienced the problem of not getting the school of their preference. Can it be right that a five-year-old is expected to make a two-and-a-half mile taxi journey to school, because he cannot get a place at the school nearest to where he lives? What assessment has the Minister made of the pressure on school places and the distance that children must travel? Does the situation mean that, whatever the arguments about academies or free schools, we need a more rational planning arrangement so that we have more school places where they are needed?

It is worth noting that, under the guidance, local authorities are obliged to provide free transport where there is no safe walking route, however close to the school the child may live. There cannot be many of us who have not witnessed the traffic problems around local schools at the start and end of the school day—traffic problems largely generated by parents who not only want to drop off and collect their children, but want to park as close to the school gate as possible.

I was told recently about an incident at one school in my constituency. A parent managed to knock down a child as she attempted that manoeuvre. Fortunately, no serious damage was done, but the stressed driver, rather than apologising immediately, got out of her car and castigated the child for not paying sufficient attention while she was trying to park. That pressure around the school gate is making life far too difficult for too many children.

I note that more than 27% of parents now automatically drive their children to school; 23% of cars on the road at peak times are taking children to or from school, despite 19% of school journeys being under a mile—a distance that I am told people can comfortably walk in about 20 minutes, even if they are not trying very hard.

Clearly, we need to give much more thought to how to create a safer environment in the immediate vicinity of schools and what the Government can do to help to deliver a sensible cycling and walking strategy, as proposed by the Living Streets charity. At a time when we are rightly concerned about childhood health and obesity, it is remarkable how few children walk to school. I am very impressed by Brake and other road safety charities, which have been calling for safe travel zones around our schools. That approach covers speeding traffic, crossings, inconsiderate parking, and cycling and walking. In that context, I welcome the Government’s target of 55% of five to 10-year-olds walking to school, but we will not achieve that without deliberate and specific action. Can the Minister say what he has in mind?

I conclude by asking the Minister to look again at the guidance and whether schools, local authorities and others could be encouraged to share the burden of the cost of school transport. I have given up hope of local authorities getting fair funding deals, but his own Back-Bench colleagues are now asking him to look at this issue. Can he look at the provision of places and the possibility of a more rational planning framework and tell us what parental choice means in this day and age if parents are not able to send their children to the school of their choice, for the reasons that his hon. Friends state? Finally, can the Minister tell us what steps he has taken regarding safer, healthier alternatives for getting children to and from school?

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

The Minister has a lot to get his teeth into, and the debate is due to end at 4.30 pm. Actually, that is quite a long time, but if he is minded to take up most of it, could he leave a couple of minutes at the end for Mr Evans to respond?