Private Members’ Bills: Money Resolutions

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

I thank the independent Boundary Commission for its hard work on this long-standing review. The Boundary Commission is staffed by independent civil servants, and any accusations of so-called gerrymandering do them no favours.

Not only has £5 million already been spent on the review—the review will cost £8 million by the end, and it would be a waste of money to pause the process—but there has been a record number of submissions to it, around 45,000, many from Labour Members supporting the proposals for their own constituencies. It is right that we have that democratic process and several rounds of consultation.

This review first started in February 2016 but, as the House knows, it is not the first review. History will not be kind to us, as a House, when it looks back on such occasions. I first entered this place eight years ago and, looking on the Back Benches, I see several other former Ministers who had responsibility for the constitution, not least my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper).

I was a Back Bencher when I first voted on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, which legislated for the initial reduction from 650 seats to 600, thereby saving the taxpayer £13 million a year, and more than £60 million over the course of a Parliament. I thought we had done the right thing then, but I was wrong because, come 2013, there was another vote in which Opposition Members—including Liberal Democrat Members who are not present today, and not only because there are far fewer of them to contribute—overwhelmingly voted for a review of a 600-seat House in 2018.

Opposition Members voted to delay the review and, having reached this point, they now want to kick the can further down the road.

[Chris Bryant]

I ask the question again: if the Boundary Commission proposals are not carried in September or October 2018, as seems likely following the result of the Second Reading vote on the private Member’s Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan), how many parliamentary constituencies will there be under the law in a general election held next year or the year after—650 or 600?

[Chris Skidmore]

As we know, the current rule will mean there will be 650 and it will remain that way. It is a disgrace that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) said, we are still using demographics going back to February 2001 for our general elections. I was 18 when that last boundary review was passed and, historically, we have never been in this position before—this is unprecedented. We have gone far past the situation of the 1970 decision to delay the 1958 review, and the current delay is unacceptable. Constituencies near that of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) have historically been small. For instance, Arfon has 38,000 constituents whereas North West Cambridgeshire has 95,000. It is unacceptable that when it comes to our parliamentary representation—

[Mr Bone]

This is an interesting debate on boundary reviews, but may I ask my hon. Friend what on earth it has to do with a money resolution for a private Member’s Bill? Is he in favour of that being laid tonight or not?

[Chris Skidmore]

No, simply because, as I have stated, it is right that we allow the boundary process, which is only 14 weeks from completion and the Order in Council being laid, to carry on unhindered. Those independent civil servants deserve Parliament’s support. They deserve our providing consistency and not mucking around with this process once more. They deserve the opportunity to have this vote, as do our constituents who voted, through manifesto processes in 2017 and 2015, to restate the case for a reduction in the number of parliamentary constituencies. Whenever that vote takes place between 1 September and 1 October, I ask every Member of Parliament who is going through the Lobby to think about how they are going to vote. Our constituents are not going to thank us if we turn around and say we want to increase the number of MPs and that we think it is totally fine that we have 650 Members of Parliament, whereas in France Emmanuel Macron is claiming that 550 representatives are too many and he wishes to cut that number by a third.

In my local authority of South Gloucestershire, residents voted for a ticket whereby the Conservative council administration has successfully taken forward a local government boundary review reducing the number of councillors by 10%, from 70 to 63. That is right because it is cutting the cost of politics and we should also do that in this House. In the vote, Members should look themselves in the mirror and think, “Do I wish to be an MP who has to turn around and say to my constituents that I voted to protect my job and a bureaucracy, when Chambers across western Europe are looking in the other direction and reducing the number of elected representatives?”

Business of the House

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

This is, of course, an important subject, but we have had many debates on the NHS and statements by the Health Secretary in recent weeks. I have no doubt there will be more, and that my hon. Friend will be able to pursue these issues. We are very much trying to get away from any silo decision making. The NHS will transfer £3.2 billion to social care services over this Parliament, and my hon. Friend will know that, importantly, we are introducing from April a £5.3 billion pooled budget for health and social care—something that the Opposition have not wanted to introduce. We are bringing in this better care fund, and I hope it will lead to major improvements to meet my hon. Friend’s concerns.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

The need for better transport in my Kingswood constituency is a serious concern that needs to be addressed if we are to prevent local roads into Bristol, already inadequate through getting jammed up, from getting worse. We also need a M4 link to the Avon ring road, on which I continue to campaign, and a better bus network because many of my constituents are struggling to get across from Kingswood to Southmead. Can time be found for a debate on transport in the Bristol region, so that all local MPs can discuss the need to improve our local areas’ road, rail and bus networks?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend will be aware that under this Government we are seeing major investment in the road and rail network. A programme of investment for the coming five years adds up to about £56 billion, which is benefiting all parts of the country. My hon. Friend will be able to pursue with Ministers at the Department for Transport the specific needs of the Bristol area, for which he always speaks up so well. It is open to him to pursue such debates through all the normal means.

Summer Adjournment

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for finding the time for this important debate, which has become a highlight of the parliamentary calendar. We can hear MPs discussing a range of local and national issues—a smorgasbord, as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) called it.

Today I want to speak about one local issue, which is of tremendous importance to my constituents. Cossham hospital now lies just outside the Kingswood constituency, but it is very much at the heart of local people’s feelings. People in Kingswood have come there to be born, to die, to be treated and to be cared for. My mother was a nurse for 40 years. She was inspired by the idea of nursing in the 1960s when, as a child, she had her tonsils out. She then went on to have a career in the NHS. I had the pleasure of attending an antenatal class at Cossham on Monday—[Hon. Members: “Hear! Hear! Congratulations.”] Thank you very much.

Cossham hospital is currently facing a threat, which relates to a promised minor injuries unit. Before I go into that, let me give Members a bit of context. The history of Cossham hospital is inextricably linked with the history of the House of Commons. The land was gifted by Kingswood MP Handel Cossham who actually died in the House of Commons Library. He was a collier who owned a lot of land, and he decided to gift this land to set up a hospital. When people talk about Cossham hospital, they are talking about not just a superb NHS facility but a hospital that belongs to the people of Kingswood. A huge amount of time and effort has been invested in this local facility.

Back in 2004, local NHS health care bosses at North Bristol NHS Trust decided to close Cossham. It was thanks to the enormous campaign and the marches of the Save Cossham Hospital group, which was then run by Graham Kennedy, that the local health bosses changed their mind and decided to keep the hospital open. I met the commissioner to talk about that decision, and he said that at the time they had been absolutely determined to close Cossham but that it was superb that it was open and that that had been exactly the right thing to do. That is worrying, because local health care commissioners who admit they have made mistakes in the past are, I believe, going on to make those mistakes in future.

After Cossham hospital was threatened with closure in 2004, the Bristol health services plan decided to keep it open, offering a wide range of services and a £19 million refurbishment, which has now happened. I am incredibly grateful for that refurbishment, but a minor injuries unit was also promised for Cossham hospital and that has yet to be delivered. South Gloucestershire clinical commissioning group is holding off the decision on whether to put in that minor injuries unit until October.

My worry for Kingswood and the eastern region of Bristol is that we will simply no longer have the health care facilities we deserve in our region. The decision to downgrade Frenchay hospital accident and emergency was, I believe, a disgrace. My hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) and I have campaigned and called for several debates on the closure of Frenchay A and E and we are continuing to campaign to ensure that the community hospital at Frenchay is delivered for 2016. People in our area of Bristol and South Gloucestershire need the health care facility that a minor injuries unit would provide. It simply is not good enough for them to travel all the way around Bristol to go to the new super-hospital at Southmead. It is too far, and in some cases it might endanger people’s lives.

The minor injuries unit is still there to be put in and the room is empty. I call on South Gloucestershire CCG to think again and to listen to the voices of local people, particularly the Save Cossham Hospital group, which is now ably run by Reg Bennett. Reg has skilfully taken the politics out of the issue so that we have Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem and the UK Independence party members lined up and agreeing that we need a minor injuries unit at Cossham hospital.

I have more than 1,000 petition signatures that I would like to give to Reg and the group to add to the thousands they have already collected. They are having a local meeting at Warmley community hall this Saturday. Unfortunately, for personal family reasons to do with the antenatal classes I mentioned earlier, I will be unable to attend that meeting, but my message to all those who attend is that they should keep fighting. As their local MP, I am absolutely determined that they should get the minor injuries unit. If they do not, there is a clear and present danger that local people in my area will be let down. Everybody pays for the NHS through their taxes and they deserve health care facilities at local points of need. They should keep fighting for Cossham hospital and for an MIU. I hope that the campaign will be successful and I will back it all the way.

Business of the House

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I will not reiterate the points I made to the hon. Member for St Helens North (Mr Watts), but I just say to the hon. Gentleman that the Prime Minister was very clear yesterday about the necessity of this measure. I do not hear, nor did we hear yesterday at Prime Minister’s questions, any explanation from the Labour party as to how it proposes to meet the financial requirement that we have to control expenditure. Labour Members are occasionally free in debates to say, “Oh yes, we must control expenditure” but they have resisted every measure that has been introduced, be it on welfare, on the benefit cap, on housing benefit or on other things. They must understand that they cannot criticise in circumstances where they do not have a credible alternative.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

Following the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday on the publication of the Francis report, will the Government make time for a full debate in this Chamber, so that MPs from all parts of the House can discuss the report and its conclusions?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend and other hon. Members will be very concerned to ensure that the report is fully debated, and he may know that a number of Staffordshire MPs have sought a debate through the Backbench Business Committee. The Committee will consider that request and I will be happy to understand in due course whether the Committee can accommodate such a debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It sounds to me as though there is plenty of scope for an Adjournment debate on the matter.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

Whitefield’s tabernacle is Kingswood’s only grade I listed building and has important religious significance in the history of non-conformism, yet it is in a severe state of disrepair, despite featuring on the TV programme “Restoration” several years ago. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how best to preserve this precious building?

[John Penrose]

The short answer to that one is yes.

Business of the House

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

A test brought in by Labour Members, I might add. I would welcome such a debate on Britishness. I cannot promise Government time for it, but given that a writ was moved in Bradford yesterday for a by-election, I am sure that there will be adequate opportunities during the campaign to debate those sorts of issues. Indeed, that campaign might have started a few minutes ago.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

The South Gloucestershire Labour group claimed to be in favour of a council tax freeze, but when it came to the vote, it behaved in exactly the opposite way and voted it down. It claimed to be in favour of protecting the Kingswood green belt, but when it came to the vote, it failed to back it, potentially causing uncertainty and havoc within the local core strategy. This is not only irresponsible; it is misleading to the public. At a time when we want to empower local communities, may we have a debate on the accountability and responsibility of local councillors to the public?

[Sir George Young]

The local councillors in my hon. Friend’s constituency are accountable to the electorate, which I am sure will have taken note of the points he has made. Let me say in passing that local councillors are subject to the Nolan principles of high standards in public life, and if they do not live up to those high standards, they should expect appropriate sanctions through the ballot box.

General matters

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

I wish to discuss history teaching in schools, because the study of history in schools has reached an all-time low. Last year, for the first time, the proportion of pupils being entered for history GCSE dropped beneath 30%, but the situation is actually far worse than that. Yesterday, I released a report, “History in Schools: A School Report”, which reveals that in vast areas of the country—often in the most deprived areas of our nation—history is being forgotten entirely. In 77 local authorities fewer than one in five pupils is passing history GCSE, but we need to break the figures down and examine individual local authorities, because in places such as Knowsley under 8% of pupils are passing history GCSE. Only four pupils in the whole of that local authority area passed A-level history. In 2010, 159 schools in this country did not enter a single pupil for history GCSE. We must address the situation urgently.

Often it is the Daily Mail or academics who discuss what type of history should be studied in schools, whose history should be studied, how history should be studied in the curriculum, whether we should have a narrative form of history or a more interpretive form of history that looks at sources, and whether history should be seen as a framework of facts. The Government are instituting a curriculum review, and we welcome that. I hope that it will examine the process whereby history is studied in bite-sized chunks and pupils do not get a sense of a narrative framework of history—they dot around from ancient Egypt to the Victorians, then on to the Tudors and off to 20th century history. Although we can debate whose history and what type of history should be studied, we should not deny that history is a crucial subject that binds us as one nation. However, it is becoming a subject of two nations, and that is the issue that I wish to raise with the House.

Britain is dangerously isolated in Europe—and not for a good reason— because we are the only nation apart from Albania that does not make the study of history compulsory beyond 14. I do not believe that we should be in that club, so I put my case to the Government that although the curriculum review is ongoing and will carry on until 2014, there has never been a more compelling time to make history a compulsory subject to study to 16. If I was to tell the Minister what my ideal Christmas present would be, as the vice-chair of the all-party group on archives and history, I would say that it would be to make the study of history compulsory to 16 for all pupils. I wish everyone a happy Christmas.

Information for Backbenchers on Statements

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) for making his maiden speech in what is, in many ways, an appropriate debate in which to get one’s spurs. I congratulate him and say well done on that. I particularly enjoyed his tribute to his immediate predecessor; I think that the whole House enjoyed those comments. I was also struck by his reference to Clement Davies, because of a perhaps little-known historical fact. He was leader of the Liberal party at the only time in history when two different party leaders with the same name have fought a general election—I am referring to the great Clement Attlee and Clement Davies. Support for the Liberal party was perhaps somewhat less then than it is today, but perhaps at the next general election its support will return to its rightful place, where it was in 1945.

This is an important debate, and a number of hon. Members from across the Chamber have said that a real problem needs to be addressed. I am a new Member—only elected in May this year—but I have been struck by the number of occasions on which Ministers have been admonished by you, Mr Speaker, and by Opposition Members for repeatedly giving statements to the media and then coming to the House. They have had to apologise for that on at least one occasion. I know that the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire said that that is a particularly strong censure for Ministers and something that he would not wish to put himself through, but it seems as though the current crop of Ministers are not as concerned by the course of action that they might need to take to right the situation. There has seemingly been a willingness to continue merrily along and to give statements to the media despite what has been made very clear by Mr Speaker and by criticisms from the Opposition.

I hope that following tonight’s debate, Ministers will take the issue more seriously than they have so far. As a new Back-Bench Member, I believe that the sanctity of Parliament should be paramount and that Ministers should come here before they make statements elsewhere. It undermines my role, in many ways, if I am contacted by the media on issues such as Building Schools for the Future when we have had five different versions of the list of schools that will be affected around the country. I understand that the latest list is inaccurate, too. The way in which that whole issue has been handled leaves a lot to be desired and many hares have been set running. In my constituency, people’s hopes have been raised and dashed and raised and dashed and that is not a professional way of going on. Something needs to be done about that.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the Secretary of State came to the House and apologised on that matter, which does not seem particularly relevant to our debate? It was rare for shadow Ministers, when they were in government, to come and apologise and I think that we should accept that that was a genuine apology which was received very well in this House.

[Chris Williamson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I freely acknowledge that the Secretary of State came and apologised, but that brings me back to my point. Is an apology or the need to make an apology a sufficient deterrent? Surely what we want on both sides of the House is to ensure that there is no need for Ministers to come and apologise. As the Secretary of State has been so willing to make an apology on five separate occasions, that undermines the value of that censure on a Minister. If we go back 20 or 30 years, perhaps an apology from the Minister might have been a more significant deterrent than it seems to be today. We need to find an alternative mechanism to ensure that these sorts of concerns and problems do not arise in the future.

I come from a local government background and there is a long-standing tradition about such issues in local government. As a former leader of Derby city council, I know that my most significant announcement as leader would be about the budget and the setting of the council tax, and it would be routine for us to embargo the statement that I was going to make to the council chamber. Perhaps that is something that we ought to adopt in this House: Ministers’ statements could be embargoed and that embargo could have some legal force. Perhaps that would be a way of ensuring that the House is treated with the gravitas that, in my view, it deserves.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bone]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, and I entirely agree. I hope that the Procedure Committee will consider a wide range of measures affecting Back Benchers and then make recommendations that the Backbench Business Committee might put on the Order Paper. The great advantage of the new system is that we do not have to wait for the Government to put such business on the Order Paper; we as Back Benchers can do so.

My solution might sound overly harsh, but it is time to stop pussyfooting around the issue, because it is simply unacceptable that Ministers inform the media before Parliament.

[Chris Skidmore]

The hon. Member for Leicester South (Sir Peter Soulsby) just mentioned the difference between leaks and statements, and that is important. The Minister is ultimately responsible for the statement to the House, but there is a difference between the Department and the Minister, because they are not always in total control of their Department in terms of who is leaking what information. I should be interested to know my hon. Friend’s views on leaks and who is responsible for them. Is the Minister ultimately responsible, or would my hon. Friend allow some leeway because somebody else in the Department might be?

[Mr Bone]

Absolutely not. The Ministers in this Government are completely on top of their Departments and the idea that anyone would dare to leak without their authority is not acceptable.

Let us take a situation as an example. Something is leaked and comes before the Select Committee. The Minister explains that it was not him who leaked, but Joe Bloggs at the Department—who, by the way, has now gone. But if it happens again and again and a fourth time, the Minister really should resign. If we are serious about the issue, that is what should happen.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Robertson]

I have not had the chance to do so since becoming Minister, but in the five years in which I shadowed this brief in opposition, I met a number of university sports groups, although none of them asked me for a new review. What they wanted was a higher profile for their sport and increased opportunities. With London 2012, we have a magnificent opportunity, when this country’s sport is in the eye of the world, to do precisely that.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

T7. My constituency of Kingswood in Greater Bristol is excellently served by the Bristol Evening Post, whose local reporters are well established and can get into the issues that matter to the local community, particularly people who do not often use the internet to get their news. Will the Minister assure us that we can support local print media better?

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

The best way for us to support local print media is by not constraining them with regulations that prevent them from evolving new business models that work in the digital age. Those are exactly the plans on which my colleagues and I are working right now.