Business of the House
Chris Bryant Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions would welcome the opportunity to come to the Dispatch Box on that subject. He might well say, as I do, that it is lunacy for the Council of Europe to suggest that welfare payments need to increase when we paid out £204 billion in benefits and pensions last year alone. Millions of people find that the welfare system in this country provides a valuable and fair safety net when they need it most—not least pensioners, who benefit from a triple lock that now represents the highest share of earnings received by pensioners in their state pension for more than 20 years.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I remember the days when the Leader of the House used to say that there ought preferably to be two full days on Report, or at least a day on which there is no statement. Today, a Thursday, is the one day when there will always be a business statement. It is the shortest day, and the most difficult day on which to have proper debate. Why on earth are we having the whole of the Report stage of the Immigration Bill in one afternoon? Since he has effectively conspired with the Chief Whip to make sure that their colleagues do not get to debate all the amendments, will he congratulate the Speaker on stitching him up like a kipper?
Mr Lansley
Under the previous Government—indeed, when the hon. Gentleman was Deputy Leader of the House—it was much less common for Bills to have two days on Report, while it was more common to have programme motions to insert knives into debates. As far as I am concerned, we have allocated enough time: Thursday is a normal sitting day—we start two hours earlier, and we finish two hours earlier—and it is entirely normal for questions, such as the business question, to be asked.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
For 33 years, British lecturers working in Italy have been discriminated against in their employment rights and pay. The Italian Government have ignored six European Court of Justice rulings against them on the issue, but at the end of last year the lecturers, known as the lettori, had some hope when the Italian Foreign and Education Ministers said that they were looking for a solution at last. May we have a statement from the Foreign Office about how that long-running issue might be resolved soon?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend does indeed ask a very good question, and an interesting one. If I may, rather than detain the House now, I will ask my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Foreign Office to respond to him. I will be interested in the reply.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
May I begin by congratulating you on your double celebration this week, Mr Speaker—not just an honorary degree from City university but, more importantly, an honorary doctorate from De Montfort university, Leicester, which it was delighted to hand you?
Keith Vaz
I have learned well from my hon. Friend.
On the subject of education, may I ask the Leader of the House when we can have an urgent statement from the International Development Secretary about the Government’s decision to withdraw from the Government of Yemen £14 million of funding to help with their education system? We do not want Yemen to become another Syria, and the withdrawal of that funding is causing serious problems.
Business of the House
Chris Bryant Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
I know that my hon. Friend was in the Chamber for Energy and Climate Change questions, so she will have heard about some of the essentials of what a regulatory road map for fracking licences would look like. I know that Members are seeking opportunities for debates through the Backbench Business Committee, and I am sure that the House will continue to consider this issue.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I was a bit surprised by the Leader of the House’s answer to the question about the Queen’s Speech. There is a major innovation here because, for the first time ever, the Government have delayed the local elections until 22 May—the date to which the European elections have been brought forward—and the right hon. Gentleman has already announced the date on which we go into recess as 22 May, meaning that the only way of having the Queen’s Speech in May would be to hold it during purdah. Surely he can just rule out bringing Her Majesty here and tying her into party politics by having the Queen’s Speech during an election period.
Mr Lansley
Given that I have not made any announcement about the date of the Queen’s Speech, everything that the hon. Gentleman has said is pure speculation.
Business of the House
Chris Bryant Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House, especially for her birthday greetings. I heard the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), tell us about her grandmother’s 100th birthday today, and it is great that I have a way to go. I am encouraged by that thought; I am of course now more than halfway there.
The hon. Lady asked about the business that was on Monday’s Order Paper. I am very glad that we could rearrange the business on Monday to have the tribute debate, which was one of those occasions when the House demonstrated its capacity to capture the nation’s mood and speak on its behalf. Of those items of business, the Secretary of State for Defence made a statement on defence reform on Tuesday that he would have made on Monday, and we dealt with the statutory instrument relating to terrorism on Tuesday that would otherwise have been debated on Monday. I hope to be able to announce a date for the Intellectual Property Bill when I announce future business in the new year.
The shadow Leader of the House asked about the IPSA report that has been published this morning. Like other hon. Members, she will have heard what the Prime Minister and, indeed, the Leader of the Opposition said yesterday, and I hope that IPSA very clearly hears exactly what the party leaders have said. It is incumbent on hon. Members across the House who disagree with its judgment to make that very clear to IPSA. I have done so on behalf of the Government, making it clear that IPSA should take into account the public sector pay environment; our conclusion is that IPSA has not done that and should reconsider. The report is not a final determination, in the sense that IPSA must have a statutory review after the election, and it has made it clear that it will do so. I hope that such points will be made forcefully, so that IPSA arrives at such a reconsideration on that basis.
The hon. Lady asked about the badger cull. There was of course a debate yesterday, and the farming Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), responded to it. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and his colleagues will continue with the pilots—I stress that they are pilots and give us an enormous amount of information about the mechanisms by which a badger cull can be pursued. Colleagues in the House and people outside need to be aware of the enormous cost and the tens of thousands of cattle that have been slaughtered as a consequence of the failure to tackle bovine TB previously. That has to be tackled, and the question is how we can do it most effectively. The pilots will give us the information that we need.
I was pleased that the hon. Lady said that there was a need to follow up on the autumn statement. Although time is tight, any opportunity that we have to follow up on the autumn statement will be welcomed by Government Members. It will give us an opportunity to debate the improvement in the growth forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility; the progress that we are making on cutting the deficit; the freeze on fuel duty all the way through to 2015, which will mean that the price of fuel will be 20p per litre lower by the end of the Parliament than under Labour’s plans; and the reduction in the burden of business rates. Like many colleagues in the House, I spoke to small businesses on Saturday who expressed their support for the reduction in business rates that the Chancellor announced in the autumn statement.
Such a debate would also give us the opportunity to talk about how we can raise living standards. That can be achieved only with a stronger economy. It comes ill from any representative of the Labour party who stands at that Dispatch Box to follow the example of the shadow Chancellor and fail to recognise—indeed, to be in complete denial of—the simple fact that the reason why living standards in this country have suffered is that the economy shrank under Labour, in the worst recession for a century, owing to a 7.2% reduction in national output. The only way in which we will be able to raise people’s living standards is by strengthening the economy, which the coalition Government are doing.
Finally, it was a bit rich of the hon. Lady to speak of a “fiasco” at the Department for Work and Pensions on a day when the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions could not decide whether the state pension would be inside or outside the welfare cap. She replied as she did because Labour has it in mind to curb increases in the state pension in order to raise benefits. That is not a judgment that the Government will make.
Finally, I recall that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions—
Mr Lansley
Sir John Chilcot wrote to the Prime Minister on 4 November to update him on the inquiry. He reported that continuing discussions on certain classified documents had delayed what is known as the Maxwellisation process, and hence publication of the report. Members and the public can see that correspondence, which is published on the Iraq inquiry website. The Government are committed to giving Sir John as much time as he needs to finish his report. Readers of that correspondence will be aware that the Government continue to act in good faith to enable Sir John Chilcot to complete his inquiry as soon as he may.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I warmly congratulate the Government on announcing that the first same-sex marriages will take place on 29 March, not least because this is Norman Tebbit’s birthday—so that’s one in the eye for the bigots, isn’t it? Will the Government explain next week, however, why they are delaying for so long the introduction of the upgrades to same-sex marriages for those currently in civil partnerships? France managed to do it a week after legislating, so why are we taking 18 months?
Mr Lansley
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support for the announcement made by the Minister for Women and Equalities, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller), about the opportunity on 29 March. My recollection is that the legislation includes a requirement for a review of the situation relating to civil partnerships, so I suspect that is one thing that needs to be proceeded with in the first instance.
Business of the House
Chris Bryant Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend will understand that, in so far as he is surmising anything, he is in fact speculating. We have not heard the statement yet, so let us hear it. I am sure that the recommendations set out in the Macpherson review back in July have been adhered to by the Chancellor and the Treasury. I hope that is helpful to my hon. Friend.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
How can it possibly be right for the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to announce a complete restructuring of universal credit by means of a written statement and give it to the press two hours before he gives it to us, and to answer questions from the press before we are able to ask questions? Does not the Leader of the House understand the fundamental principle of his job, which is to make sure that we are able to ask questions? For instance, we would like to ask whether, when the Secretary of State says in his written ministerial statement that the majority of the legacy cases will be moving to universal credit in 2016 and ’17—the majority, note, not all—he really means that he would like to apologise to the House because he got it wrong two weeks ago when he said that this was on budget and on time?
Mr Lansley
I will be responsible for discharging my responsibility to the House and the hon. Gentleman can be in charge of his. It is important for the House to recognise two things. First, putting a written ministerial statement before the House is announcing something to the House; it should not be disregarded. Secondly, on the day of the autumn statement it is perfectly reasonable for the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who will be seeing the Select Committee on Monday, not to be making an oral statement.
Business of the House
Chris Bryant Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Mr Lansley
The Order Paper does not convey the information because the Intelligence and Security Committee, although under statute a Select Committee of Parliament as designated in the Act that we passed during the last Session, is not analogous with other Select Committees of the House. There are ways in which it differs from them.
Mr Lansley
The statute says that it is a Select Committee of Parliament, but it is not analogous with parliamentary Select Committees. I understand that, Mr Speaker, and you understand it, but the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) does not understand it.
I must confess that I am not aware of the arrangements relating to the attendance of Members of Parliament at meetings of the Intelligence and Security Committee. They are a matter for the House authorities, and no doubt you, Mr Speaker, will advise the House further if necessary.
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. When I was a member of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry some 10 years ago, we were concerned about the loss of skills and expertise in this country because of the failure to proceed with any new nuclear build. I am afraid that remedying the situation has taken until now, following the coalition Government’s steps. My hon. Friend rightly makes a wider point about the availability of skills. The sector skills organisations and, in some locations, the local enterprise partnerships will be able to work with industry to focus on enabling Government support to go directly to meet those needs.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Even those who are not particular fans of football might have seen the horrific pictures last Sunday of the Spurs goalkeeper, Hugo Lloris, being concussed on the pitch, but being forced to go back on and play. May we have an urgent debate as soon as possible on the dangers of concussion in sport so that we can provide a lead? A conference in Twickenham this afternoon is considering the subject in the context of rugby and The Mail on Sunday is running a big campaign. There is clear evidence that when people are forced to play again after being concussed, they can all too easily end up suffering from premature dementia.
Mr Lansley
I confess that I did not see that, but the hon. Gentleman makes an important point very clearly. I am not sure whether I can promise Government time for a debate, but if he is in conversation with colleagues across the House who, quite rightly, share his concern, they could seek an Adjournment debate or Back-Bench time, perhaps in Westminster Hall, to allow those important issues to be raised.
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have had the pleasure of meeting Matthew Grove during the past year and hearing from him about the excellent and innovative, almost exciting, ways in which he is—
Mr Lansley
I never get excited. However, they were certainly innovative and effective. He and others are demonstrating that police reforms are working and crime is falling. The police and crime commissioners have been a mechanism by which the public can see that their priorities are being reflected directly into the priorities of policing in their area. That is welcome not only for democratic purposes but from the operational point of view.
Business of the House
Chris Bryant Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
May we have a debate in Government time on Government procrastination?
Chris Bryant
Yes, we got that joke.
Earlier today, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport said that it would take up to 12 months to create the recognising body for the press regulatory organisation. That means that in the next eight to 10 weeks at least one body, and probably two, will be seeking recognition, and there will be no one to recognise them. Should we not get this up and running a little bit faster?
Mr Lansley
The answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is no. We will not need a debate, because there is no necessity for it.
Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Chris Bryant Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
Let us return to the question of the statutory register of lobbyists. To ensure the independence of the system—
Mr Lansley
Sit down. I am not giving way at the moment.
To ensure the independence of the system, the register will be administered and enforced by an independent registrar of consultant lobbyists who will provide guidance on compliance and publish an online register on a quarterly basis. The registrar will have the power to issue information notices to investigate where he or she believes that consultant lobbying is taking place without registration. Where this is found, the registrar will also have the power to impose civil penalties. Criminal sanctions will be available for those guilty of deliberate non-compliance.
The register will be funded by the lobbying industry via a subscription charge, but to reduce the burden on the smallest businesses, organisations that are not VAT-registered will not be required to pay the charge. There will therefore be no impact on the public purse as a result of these measures.
Mr Lansley
Oh, the hon. Gentleman said “please”! Okay, but I will give way to the Chairman of the Standards Committee.
Mr Lansley
I will give way to the hon. Member for Rhondda, but colleagues behind me on the Government Benches have also been patient.
Chris Bryant
I am deeply grateful to the Leader of the House for giving way. He says this is all about transparency, but if I have got it right every single member of the public affairs team in-house at BSkyB will be able to visit as many Ministers as they want and every single lawyer employed by BSkyB to advance its case will be able to do so without any need to register. The only person who would have to register would be an independent consultant in a company that solely lobbies. How does that possibly afford greater transparency?
Mr Lansley
It promotes transparency because if a representative of Sky visits a Minister in order to discuss that business, it is transparent that they are doing so in order to represent the interests of Sky. However, if somebody from “XYZ Corporation”, a consultant lobbying firm, visits a Minister in order to discuss somebody else’s business but it is not transparent through the ministerial diary publication who they are representing, that is not transparent. We propose to remedy that by making it transparent.
Chris Bryant
Is not the importance of pre-legislative scrutiny that all too often it means we can iron out some of the unintended consequences? A classic one that I think we are likely to come across, in relation to part 1, is that when the Government or Parliament face a big issue many small charities decide to form a joint committee and employ someone specifically to act on their behalf and represent them. They would be caught by this Bill, whereas the bodies that they would probably be fighting against, the big commercial interests, would not. That is the unfairness.
Ms Eagle
My hon. Friend is of course right. Parts 2 and 3 of the Bill came as a complete surprise to all those in civil society who will be affected, be they charities, campaigners or trade unions. The Government designed the changes in secret and sprung them on everyone in a baleful attempt to bounce them quickly on to the statute book. They have not even bothered to consult those affected. Discussions I have had during meetings with stakeholders on all three parts of the Bill suggest that time after time e-mails, letters and calls requesting conversations with Ministers were left unanswered. The Government did not even tell the Electoral Commission until the end of June that they were going to alter the rules that it is required by law to police, so they have kept their own regulator in the dark. The Electoral Commission has said:
“We share the concerns that the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee expressed… about the timing of the Bill and the absence of pre-legislative scrutiny.”
I cannot believe that the Leader of the House is content with this shameful and shambolic process. He has provided an abject lesson in how not to develop and propose legislation. This is a Bill that he should be embarrassed to be associated with.
Angie Bray
I cannot imagine that anybody would waste their money if they did not think that there was a desirable outcome.
If we are to limit election expenditure, then limit it we should without fear or favour to any political party or special interest group. I find it hard to believe that many members of the public who happily chuck a couple of quid into a bucket rattled for a charity in a supermarket on a Saturday morning fervently wish their money to go into political campaigning rather than to the cause that has appealed to their generosity in the first place. That is why I do not believe that the Bill will affect charitable activity; I do not believe that charities, on the whole, tend to do politics.
Angie Bray
No. I have given way twice and other Members are keen to speak.
Let us be clear: the Bill will not curtail policy campaigning but only campaigns during elections that are targeted directly at political parties or their candidates, who are themselves limited in what they spend.
I fear that the Bill will not succeed in one of its primary aims, and I speak as a candid friend when I urge the Minister to revisit the proposals for the register of lobbyists. The Government are right to seek to extend transparency further in the lobbying of Parliament, but sadly I do not think we have grabbed the opportunity with both hands, as we should. Although I hesitate to say that we need less of a rush, given how long it has taken to get to this point, we need far greater detailed consideration and—dare I say it—a better understanding of how the lobbying industry works.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
We are so fortunate to have a Prince of Wales who is able to train properly for the job he will have as our sovereign in due course, and to have access to Ministers. Of course, that should be confidential. Compared to some princes of Wales we have had in the past, how fortunate—how blessed—is this nation to have one who does his duty so diligently? I am glad that he does, and I think we can admire His Royal Highness for that—almost as much as we admire the Lord Privy Seal.
Chris Bryant
I am slightly worried that the hon. Gentleman’s respect for the Lord Privy Seal is based on a fundamental misconception. I do not think he has read the Bill, because it does not say anything about regulating lobbying Parliament, only about lobbying Government. That is one of the Bill’s flaws.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Oh dear, the hon. Gentleman gets so over-excited on these occasions that he intervenes far too early. What I was going to come on to say is that the matter of what happens in Parliament is, rightly, not covered in the Bill. It is the duty of Parliament and the House of Commons itself to regulate its own affairs. If the Bill interfered in the procedures of this House I would oppose it. We have an absolute right, under the Bill of Rights, to freedom of speech in this House, and members of the public have the right of access to Members of Parliament. That absolute right must be defended. Members of the public must be free, whether individually or collectively, to express their views to Members of Parliament. If MPs fall foul of the high standards that are expected of them, then that is a matter for the Privileges Committee to deal with. We have powers not only to expel Members if necessary, but to imprison them, and they have no right of appeal to any court in the land.
That is how we should proceed in terms of Parliament. Government is another matter and that is why it is right that part 1 deals with the lobbying of Ministers of the Crown and of civil servants. That is a matter rightly confined to legislation.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
It is a great shame that the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) is no longer in the Chamber, because I think that not only did he let his voters and the House down, but—worst of all—he let himself down. He is the arch- patriot, but lobbying is one of the things that Britain gave the world. The only reason it is called lobbying is because of the lobby outside St Stephen’s chapel, where the House of Commons used to sit. That is why when Paris lost the bid to host the 2012 Olympic games, Bertrand Delanoë complained passionately in French that the British had engaged outrageously in lobbying—“doing the lobby,” as he put it.
A fundamental part of our history, and of the way we have grown up as a democracy, has been the right to turn up at the door of Parliament, or a little further away since this ghastly building was built in the 1850s, and ensure that one’s voice is heard. The age of consent in this country is now 16, but it had been 13 until the late 19th century, because the only thing Josephine Butler could do was come and stand at the door of the House of Commons to lobby, grabbing hold of MPs as they came in to try to persuade them of her point of view, and eventually she won the argument.
It has been that way for centuries. In 1432 the Brewers’ Company wanted a new licence and a new company charter, so they tried to persuade Parliament. They failed, but then they paid the Lord Chancellor £40 and miraculously got their piece of legislation. In 1455 John Whittocksmead was paid a noble to be a friend for another honourable company in parliament. In 1485 the longstanding battle between the canons and the Poor Knights of Windsor was resolved when the Clerk of the House was given a very sumptuous breakfast to persuade him to get a Bill through. The Doorkeeper was given tuppence, the Serjeant at Arms was given a noble, the Speaker was given six pounds, six shillings and eightpence, and the King was given £100.
Quite rightly, as the Chair of the Standards and Privileges Committee said earlier, we have outlawed receiving money in return for putting forward a case in this House, but that is not the case in the other House. I suggest that many of the problems relating to lobbying and to corruption in our parliamentary system stem from the other end of the Corridor, because many people pursue their commercial interests through how they vote in that Chamber, which I think is inappropriate.
My personal experience is twofold. First, I was the BBC’s lobbyist in Brussels. That must make me the Daily Mail’s arch-hateperson—the BBC, Brussels and lobbying all in one—but I was proud of the fact that, by persuading MEPs and Commission members, we managed to see off Rupert Murdoch’s attempt, ironically enough, to make Brussels determine that the BBC’s licence fee was unfair state aid. Murdoch using Brussels to try to make that case was slightly odd. I am delighted that we won that battle by convincing people through legitimate lobbying.
Paul Farrelly
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill would tilt even further an already unlevel playing field? At the next election the vast majority of the press, including the Daily Mail, will support the Conservative party, yet the Bill will seek to restrain, for example, the National Union of Students and the education unions from reminding the Government of their record on university tuition fees.
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If there is already a rake in the political system when it comes to money, the Bill will simply increase it and make it more difficult for ordinary members of the public to have a say in the political life of this country.
Secondly, when the Mental Health Act 2007 was going through Parliament I was a Back-Bench Member on the Government side. I did not just want to be voting fodder in Committee; I wanted to understand the issues as we went through them. They were very complex and I am not a mental health or medical specialist. The fact that all the mental health charities got together and paid someone to organise them, creating an alliance and then coming to members of the Bill Committee to argue their case, informed us and made sure that we could be far more creatively involved in the Committee than would have been the case.
My worry is that the Bill will mean that those organisations, which created an alliance because none of them had a large lobbying department of its own, would not be on a level playing field with the big pharmaceutical companies that also came to lobby us—it was legitimate that they did so. The small charities will have to declare that they have effectively set themselves up as a lobbying consultant, but the pharmaceutical companies, which have vast arrays of lawyers and in-house operatives, will not have to declare, and that is fundamentally unfair. I hope that is an unintended consequence of the way that the Bill is drafted, but I am not so sure.
An essential part of our democracy in general elections is the business when we get all those irritating e-mails and letters asking, “What is your position on the following issues?” Homosexuality was mentioned earlier by an Irish Member, but there are many others—animal welfare, abortion, euthanasia, or whatever issue people want to take up. They will then say to the public, “Look, this is how people are saying they are intending to vote on these individual issues; we would prefer it if you voted for the following people who have a three-star record on those issues as we see them.” My worry is that, yet again, this Government Bill will prevent that important part of the democratic process in this country, which will mean that we have a poorer political process.
The Bill fails on many counts. It excludes the in-house teams and the lawyers. As far as I can see, schedule 1 excludes nearly everybody apart from the poor organisations that decide to create an alliance and the charities. It will dismantle the voluntary system that we already have because there will be no incentive to keep it going. It will catch the charitable coalitions. It will scare off charities from engaging with political debate. It does nothing about the abuse of parliamentary passes down at the other end of the building. Much of the language is highly nebulous. On the anniversary of Cromwell’s death, it is perhaps ironic that the Government have united the Royal British Legion, every single think-tank in the land, Help the Aged and Guido Fawkes in opposition to the Bill. I agree with them.
Business of the House
Chris Bryant Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
No doubt my hon. Friend will recall a recent debate on careers services that was initiated by the Backbench Business Committee. I agree with her about the importance of this issue. I think that the promotion of traineeships by my colleagues at the Department for Education will be of particular benefit in improving the skills, for employment purposes, of people who are as yet unable to gain access to apprenticeships or college education, but we are also supporting employee engagement in skills through, for instance, the employee ownership of skills pilot. Thirty-seven companies were successful in round 1, and Government investment of up to £90 million was matched by £115 million of private investment.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
May we have a debate about the relationship between general practitioners and the Department for Work and Pensions? My constituent Fiona Howells is in a really difficult quandary. Atos has decided that she should no longer receive any benefits because, it says, she is fit for work. She is appealing against that decision, which is fair enough, but she has been told that she must provide evidence from her GP. She has been to her GP, who has told her that Bro Taf local medical committee has declared that GPs are not in a position to administer or police the benefits system, and consequently should write no letters—no letters at all—for their patients for tribunal purposes. That strikes me as very callous and unfair. It means that not only are people’s crutches being kicked away, but the carpet is being pulled from underneath them.
Mr Lansley
If the hon. Gentleman has not already raised the issue with the DWP, I shall be glad to secure a reply relating to those circumstances. However, the management of the processes involved in medical assessment for benefits has improved following the Harrington reviews. The Government are continuing to consider the important “fitness for work” report by Dame Carol Black and David Frost—which concerns, in particular, issues relating to GPs and helping people back into work—and hope to introduce measures as a result.
Paid Directorships and Consultancies (MPs)
Chris Bryant Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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David Morris
The hon. Gentleman will have to do a lot better than that, because I have only one job, and that is Member of Parliament for Morecambe and Lunesdale. We were not all hatched out of an egg as a politician. Some people here have businesses such as farming that go back for generations. We have to take all this into consideration, and the motion does not do so.
Many of these outside earnings are from industries and companies that have a link to hon. Members’ constituencies. For example, the former right hon. Member for South Shields earned £175,000 for being vice-chairman of Sunderland football club. He is a man I greatly respect, I might add, before I get any accusations thrown at me in that regard. That was clearly not part of his work in this House, but it assisted his constituency. It could therefore be argued that he should not be expected to do all that work for free because it is in line with and complements his parliamentary work.
Whatever one’s view, would it not be better to allow the voters to decide? We have achieved transparency. We should not be creating rule after rule just to grab headlines. What we are debating, as ever, strikes at the hypocrisy of the Opposition. They are worried about corporate lobbyists but not trade unions. They want to complain about outside earnings even though lots of their Members are being paid by the unions. They are worried about party funding, yet Co-op remains the only company in this country to own a political party. [Interruption.] This is phoney outrage.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The bit that the hon. Gentleman completely leaves out of the equation when he says, “Let’s leave it to the voters,” is that the truth of the matter is that the vast majority of parliamentary seats are safe seats where, frankly, anybody could be put up as long as they were from the right political party. [Interruption.] I say that very fairly; it is also an issue about Rhondda. That means that it is much more incumbent on the whole House to take a view on it.
David Morris
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that eloquently put intervention.
Every time this House has a knee-jerk reaction to a few headlines we always get it wrong. We are better when we allow the public to make the judgments in this respect. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe that those judgments should come through the ballot box, not through focus groups and rules.
Business of the House
Chris Bryant Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Ms Eagle
I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business.
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority’s proposals for MPs’ pay and pensions in the 2015 Parliament have just been published. Does the Leader of the House agree that any decisions that IPSA makes after the public consultation on this package of measures should reflect wider economic circumstances and what is happening in the public and private sectors?
Last week I asked the Leader of the House to protect the extra time to scrutinise the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill. In response the Leader of the House said he would
“take steps to ensure that the time that is available for that debate is protected”—[Official Report, 4 July 2013; Vol. 565, c. 1061.]
On Monday and Tuesday we had more than four hours of statements, wiping out all the extra time that the right hon. Gentleman had so generously granted. Will he now tell us why his assurances to this House appear to carry such weight in the Government? And will he tell me exactly what was the point of appearing to grant extra time in the first place?
The Conservative party has a blind spot when it comes to women. First, the Mayor of London said that women only go to university to find husbands. Then the Prime Minister completely forgot about British Wimbledon champions Ann Jones and Virginia Wade when complimenting Andy Murray on his fantastic achievement last Sunday. Finally we had the Foreign Secretary exercising his well-known diplomatic skills by using a phrase about my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) that I cannot repeat in the House. This Tory party is so modern that its members either ignore women completely or casually insult them. It looks like the unconscious bias training that the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) is meant to be organising for them really is not working.
Apparently the Deputy Prime Minister was seen out for dinner last week with Mick Jagger.
Ms Eagle
Indeed. I hear they were discussing Lib Dem theme songs for the next election. How about “You can’t always get what you want”, or “Under my thumb”? Personally, I think that “It’s all over now” might be much more appropriate.
We have all been enjoying the glorious weather. It was lovely to see Tory MPs skipping gleefully around this place last Friday. The barbecues were sizzling, the birds were singing, and the Tory party was banging on about Europe. But even before their prime ministerial burgers were properly digested, they were back to their old ways. After the Home Secretary’s U-turn on the European arrest warrant, another Euro mutiny is brewing. She has been promising the Chairs of the Home Affairs, Justice and European Scrutiny Committees time to scrutinise the Government’s opt-out plan for the last nine months. Why, then, did the Leader of the House come to the Dispatch Box on Monday with an emergency business statement to force a vote, bypassing any kind of Select Committee scrutiny at all?
Not only have the Government shown no respect to those Committees or the House, but they have done so for no reason. The EU treaties, the Commission and even the Government’s own legislation say that they do not need a vote before beginning negotiations, so why is the Leader of the House forcing a vote on Monday? Will he recognise his mistake and put off the vote until the Committees have had time to scrutinise the Government’s plans, as the Home Secretary promised?
While the Leader of the Opposition is taking bold steps to remake our politics, the Prime Minister is failing to answer questions about his dodgy donors. Is not the truth, as the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) told the BBC yesterday, that in the Conservative party money buys influence. Adrian Beecroft donated half a million pounds and was then allowed to write a report calling for the destruction of workers’ rights. JCB chairman Anthony Bamford donated £2.5 million and was then allowed to write a report on manufacturing. At the recent Tory fundraising ball, the Prime Minister had the temerity to tell his millionaire guests that their donations enabled him to give a tax cut to all their millionaire pals and hedge fund friends. I have calculated that 18 hedge fund bosses donated over £24 million before attending their cosy dinners at No. 10.
The Prime Minister was forced by the scandal to ask Lord Gold to investigate, but it has been more than a year and we have not heard a word. Will the Leader of the House tell us when he expects this important report to be published, and does he know why it has taken so long? A quarter of those on The Sunday Times rich list are donors to the Conservative party. They said that we were all in this together, but is not the truth that this is a Government run by the rich and for the rich?
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Why are the Government insisting on Monday on a vote on both the hokey and the cokey? We will have to vote on the opt-out and the opt-in, when there is no requirement to start the negotiations for a vote on the opt-out. The Select Committees will have had no opportunity to look at the evidence on the individual measures, nor will there be any guarantees that we will be able to do simultaneous opting out and opting in.
Mr Lansley
I have explained to the hon. Gentleman and the House that the vote on Monday will enable the House to take a view in response to the Government’s publication of the Command Paper, at a point when my right hon. Friends are conducting a negotiation. That will strengthen their hand in negotiation. We have been clear about the opt-out. Support for the opt-out is the essence of the debate on Monday. The extent of the opt-in will be the subject of a further vote in 2014.