Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and David Gauke

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr David Gauke)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Marriage will always be one of our most important institutions. It is vital to our functioning as a society, as we all know instinctively from our own lives and from the lives of family and friends. Rightly, then, none of us is indifferent when a lifelong commitment cannot continue, but it cannot be right for the law to create or increase conflict between divorcing couples.

I am encouraged by the many colleagues and others who have told me that the law must change to take unnecessary conflict flashpoints out of the legal process. Like me, they believe in the importance of marriage but see the destructive effects of what the law demands. People going through divorce already have to face more than enough emotional upheaval without the conflict that can be created or worsened by how the current law works.

I have reflected at length on the arguments for reform, on what people have said in response to the Government’s proposals and on the painful experiences we all know from talking to family and friends. I have heard from people who have been through divorce, from people who support divorcing couples through the legal process and from people who say they cannot afford to live apart for two years—without finally sorting out their finances—but, at the same time, cannot bring themselves to throw hurtful allegations.

The Bill responds constructively to the keenly felt experience of people’s real lives. This is a Bill for anyone who agrees that the end of a relationship should be a time of reflection and not of manufactured conflict.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I warmly congratulate the Government and the Secretary of State on introducing this Bill. I think I have married more people than anybody else in this House, in the transitive use of the word. I was always painfully aware that, when two people come together, it may well be that, in the end, they need to part, but the idea that they would have to prove in court all sorts of reasons for why the marriage had fallen apart—relying on the common law understanding of adultery, for instance—is just nonsense and adds to the sense of pain that there could already be within a family.

[Mr Gauke]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his remarks, and this Bill is by no means anti-marriage. As he rightly says, this Bill seeks to ensure that, in those unfortunate circumstances where a marriage comes to an end, it comes to an end in a way that minimises the conflict between the parties. That, in my view, has to be a sensible way forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Bryant and David Gauke

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight these issues. We have made progress in our negotiations, particularly in the context of family law. It is to the advantage of citizens in the UK and the EU that a deal is reached, which will enable us to enforce judgments in this area. Our ambitions are to go further and, in terms of the future framework, to make further progress on civil judicial co-operation.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

In thousands of instances, we are not able to deliver justice in this country unless we have a proper extradition agreement with other countries in the European Union. As I understand it, even if the withdrawal agreement were to go forward at some point, we will still have to operate as a third party outside the European arrest warrant. Relying on the 1957 treaties will not be enough, so what plans does the Secretary of State have to ensure we are able to maintain a proper extradition arrangement with other countries in the European Union?

[Mr Gauke]

The hon. Gentleman is correct to say that on leaving the European Union we will not have access to the European arrest warrant. We would wish to be able to do so, but there are difficulties. For example, Germany has a constitutional bar in this area. The Home Office continues to work with EU member states to try to find a way in which we can have as effective extradition and arrest warrant arrangements as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Bryant and David Gauke

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. On the prisons for which we are responsible, I have set out the education and employment strategy, and the focus is on ensuring that governors have greater control over how they provide education within their prisons. His point about the link between education and employment is absolutely right. Of course, employment is linked very strongly to reoffending rates.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

May I urge the Secretary of State to look at the correlation and causation between traumatic brain injury and reoffending? The most recent survey that has been done in the prison in Leeds showed that nearly 50% of prisoners had a traumatic brain injury, and that 30% of them had more than five. Does it not make sense to screen every single prisoner when they arrive in prison and ensure that they have rehabilitation for their brain injury?

[Mr Gauke]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, because there is evidence showing links between brain injuries and offending. If I may, I will take away his suggestion about testing across the board to see whether that is the right use of resources—that is something that we would have to look at—but he makes an important point about understanding the link between brain injuries and offending.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

Will the Secretary of State also look at the issue of acquired brain injury in the youth justice system? One of the most interesting pieces of work being done at the moment shows that we can divert some of the most difficult, troubled children if we bring together psychologists, psychiatrists and prison and probation officers—all the different teams—to transform individual lives.

[Mr Gauke]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point, which we will look at very closely. I take this opportunity to say, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), that 41,000 foreign national offenders have indeed been deported since 2010.

Work, Health and Disability

Debate between Chris Bryant and David Gauke

Thursday 30th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

There has clearly been a very welcome change in attitudes in respect of mental health in recent years. We need that sort of cultural shift more broadly in the recognition and understanding of disabilities or health conditions that may have held people back in the past, but can be dealt with and accommodated. Employers can take steps and put in place adaptations to enable people to continue to work, as the Command Paper argues strongly.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State start a specific job of work looking at support for people with acquired brain injuries, whether they result from concussion in sport, which might lead to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or from other injuries sustained in, for example, a car accident? The truth of the matter is that we do not have anywhere near enough rehabilitation units around the country. Rehabilitation can get people right the way to cure and get them back into work, and it is immensely cost-effective for the Government. I urge him to meet the brand new all-party group on acquired brain injury, which I chair, and to look specifically at this job of work so that we can get those people the real-life opportunities that they need.

[Mr Gauke]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, and I know that the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work is particularly keen to meet him in his capacity as chair of the all-party group to discuss the issue further.

Pensions

Debate between Chris Bryant and David Gauke

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

I do not know whether I am surprised any more by anything that the Labour party does, but it is disappointing. The reality is that we have an ageing population, just as every similar country does. We all have to respond to the facts, and the facts are that, as the population ages, and as life expectancy—and indeed healthy life expectancy—improves, it is necessary for the state pension age to reflect that. To deny that is just to deny common sense.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I had hoped that the Minister was coming here today because he had seen the light; that he had realised that the women from the 1950s have been dealt a terrible set of cards by this Government; that he was going to compensate them; that he was going to make good on the injustice that has been done to them; that he was going to make sure that every single person who was not even notified by the Government that they would be caught by the proposed measures would be compensated; and that he was finally going to acknowledge that women in my constituency who are in their 60s, who say to me that they are completely clapped out because they have had tough, laborious jobs all their lives, are the very people one of his Ministers said should now take up an apprenticeship. How dull are Ministers?

[Mr Gauke]

I am not sure I would want to call my constituents clapped out, but there we go. The position when it comes to those born in the 1950s, just as with this announcement on those born in the 1970s, is that we have to balance the need and the desire to provide a dignified retirement with the fact that state pensions have to be paid for, and it is unfair on taxpayers if we do not have a state pension age that reflects life expectancy. That is all we are saying, and it seems to me to be very hard to argue against.

Future Government Spending

Debate between Chris Bryant and David Gauke

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have seen remarkable progress in creating jobs. As I say, that is providing greater security for millions of people up and down the country.

[Chris Bryant]

May I ask the Minister about cuts to the Arts Council budget? So far, this Govt have cut it by 30%, but on 5 January, the Tory party produced a report saying that £83 million more would be cut from Arts Council, and that this

“cost is based on the real terms decrease in the Grant in Aid for the Arts Council from 2014/15 to 2015/16”.

Does he stand by the figure that the Arts Council will be cut by £83 million this year?

[Mr Gauke]

I recall the debate on arts spending at the beginning of the year. If I remember correctly, the note that was published showing the Labour party’s areas of spending commitments included a commitment on the arts, but the shadow Chancellor very quickly ruled it out. He said it was not correct, and the deputy leader of the Labour party had to withdraw what she had previously said on that subject. That is my memory of it.

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Mr Gauke]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman one last time.

[Chris Bryant]

This is a serious matter, and if the Minister cannot give a precise answer now, I would be very grateful if he wrote to me. Does he think that the Arts Council budget will or will not be cut from this year to next year by £83 million?

[Mr Gauke]

If we have any future announcements about the Arts Council budget, we will make them in the usual way.

As we have seen only today from the report of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, average household incomes are back to the levels they were at before the recession began and they are expected to grow by well above inflation this year, while income inequality is down and pensioner poverty is at record lows under this Government: our plan is working.

The Labour party claims that we are taking public spending back to the level of the 1930s, but let us look at the facts. Even on the assumption that 100% of our future consolidation comes from cuts to departmental expenditure, which is not the Conservative party’s approach, the Government’s plans will, as my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) has pointed out, put spending on public services at their lowest real-terms level since 2002-03, so instead of the late 1930s, we are talking about the early 2000s—only 65 years out.

Tax Avoidance (HSBC)

Debate between Chris Bryant and David Gauke

Monday 9th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point. That confusion was followed by the weekend’s confusion whereby countries that do not have a public central register—as opposed to other territories that do not have a public central register—are on a blacklist. Clearly the Labour party desires to say something about tax, but it is a pity that the bar is not set a little higher for it to say something sensible about tax.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The thing about the Prime Minister’s appointment of Stephen Green as trade Minister is that unfortunately the Prime Minister has got form on appointments—we have only to think of Andy Coulson. Somebody comes along from a company that has been up to no good, and the Prime Minister does not ask the important questions; he does not carry out due diligence but just goes, “Oh, you’re rich, you’re powerful. Come on in, no questions asked.” Does the Minister feel any element of shame that instead of tackling tax evasion and tax avoidance, this Government have effectively promoted it by putting it in the Government?

[Mr Gauke]

I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that that is pretty desperate. He says we have not dealt with tax avoidance and tax evasion. Look at the record. Look at the way the yield has increased. Look at the rules that have been changed. Look at HMRC’s additional powers. Look at the culture change we are seeing in this country, in terms of tax evasion and tax avoidance. I just regret that 10 years ago there was such a lax attitude to these things. The Government of the time have to accept some responsibility for that.

Finance (No. 4) Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and David Gauke

Wednesday 18th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

The hon. Gentleman is right that the assessment of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, signed off by the Office for Budget Responsibility, is very similar to that of the Mirrlees review, which looked at evidence from the 1970s and the 1980s. Given that the big behavioural impact owes much to the mobility of international labour at that end of the scale—the highest earning individuals in the world are very mobile—and given that the mobility of labour has clearly increased, particularly in that sector, since the 1980s, it would appear that the hon. Gentleman is making a case to suggest that the elasticity we are using is too low, not too high, so he might like to have a conversation with my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless).

[Chris Bryant]

On a point of order, Mr Hood. You may not be aware of it, but the media are reporting that, contrary to what was announced to the House yesterday afternoon, Abu Qatada might have been arrested by the Home Office illegally because it had not consulted the European Court of Human Rights on the last available date to—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Bryant and David Gauke

Tuesday 13th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

2. What assessment he has made of the likely effect of the proposed increase in the standard rate of value added tax on the retail sector in Wales.

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

A full impact assessment was published on Budget day. Although it focused on the compliance costs for all businesses, it had an emphasis on retailers, as it acknowledged that they were expected to incur higher compliance costs. However, having experienced two VAT changes in the previous two years, retailers should now be familiar with the necessary system and process changes.

[Chris Bryant]

I am sorry but that was a really complacent answer. Much of the retail sector in my constituency is very dependent on the business that comes in through the door from pensioners. There are 13,000 of them in the Rhondda, a growing number, and they are the people who will be very heavily hit by the VAT increase, because they will have less discretionary income to spend on gifts and the things that make life worth living. Will the hon. Gentleman look specifically at how the retail sector in more distant areas—outside the main city centres—can be supported?

[Mr Gauke]

The fact is that we had to raise VAT because there was no money left. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is proposing that we should have cut spending by even more, but I do not think that that would have a lot of support on his Benches or on ours. After all, our predecessors looked very closely at raising VAT and would have done so had the previous Prime Minister not vetoed it.