Debate on the Address
Christopher Pincher Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
It is a real honour to be asked to second the Loyal Address this afternoon, and an even greater one to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart). His was a pitch-perfect speech—an exemplar of how to do it—that undermined his status as a self-confessed old duffer. Members with more experience than me have seen many state openings, but this year’s is undoubtedly special. Despite Her Majesty’s absence this morning, the platinum jubilee is a lasting reminder of the Queen’s immense devotion to duty. I know that everyone in the House wishes Her Majesty a speedy recovery.
At last year’s Queen’s Speech, I sat up in the Gallery, as seats in the Chamber were especially limited because of the covid regulations. As I watched my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher), get to her feet, I remember thinking to myself, “All the best, Fletch. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes right now,” but karma comes at us fast, does it not, Chief Whip? Unlike my northern friend, I have the honour of addressing a packed Chamber, with faces free of the burden of face masks. Much as I loathed wearing a face mask in the Chamber, they certainly helped me by hiding the looks of disinterest and abject boredom whenever I got up to speak. This year, however, the cameras are on, so Members should at least try to look as though they are enjoying this.
On being asked to second the motion on the Gracious Speech, I turned to trusted friends and colleagues for advice.
Fay Jones
All in good time, Deputy Chief Whip. The instant reaction of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) was, “Oh my God, love. You’d better be funny.” My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) told me that I would be “a total mess.” Even my dad, a former Member and my inspiration in many ways, said after yesterday’s rehearsal, “Well, you’re going to have to tell the jokes better than that.” But that is actually better feedback than he gave me at the start of my political career, at my count in 2019. The result had been declared, and I took to the podium to make my acceptance speech. My mum was beaming in the front row, and I saw my dad move to the back of the hall, presumably to get a better view or to take a photograph. Just a minute or so into my speech, however, he had had enough, and he gave me the signal to wind it up and get off the stage.
With friends like those, I ran straight for the warm embrace of the House of Commons Library, where I discovered that I am the seventh Member from Wales to have taken part in the speech on the Loyal Address since 1874. I am the first woman from Wales and the first Conservative from Wales. However, I am very proud to say that my constituents in Brecon and Radnorshire have a long association with the Loyal Address. In 1975, one of my predecessors, Caerwyn Roderick, a senior figure in the Labour party, proposed the address. As Members will know, Brecon and Radnorshire is two thirds of the historic county of Powys, so with a proposer and now a seconder coming from the undisputed better half of the county, I wonder how my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams) feels this afternoon, knowing that he is neither the “has been” nor the “will be” [Laughter.] I withdraw that, Mr Speaker.
My being asked to give this speech came as a surprise to many, most of all me. I was always afraid that I had torpedoed my political career long before it even began. In 2005, when I was at university, I shared a flat with a friend who was working on the campaign to make my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) the Conservative party leader. It was suggested to me and a few friends that wearing a pink T-shirt that said “It’s DD for me” would go down a storm at party conference. Turns out, it did! Sorry, David. So 14 years later, when I was asked at my selection meeting for Brecon and Radnorshire, “Have you ever done anything to embarrass the Conservative party?”, I had to say yes. I was later asked what I had learned from the incident, and I said that I do not look good in pink.
Today is a proud day for my constituency and my family. Apart from stints in London for university and working in Europe, I have lived my whole life in Wales. I was raised in a firmly Conservative household, and I think being a Conservative in Wales has helped me to develop the thick skin that I hope will get me through today. It certainly helped after last week’s results, anyway. In 2019, my hon. Friends the Members for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton) and for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) and I became the first three women to be elected to the Conservative Benches representing Welsh constituencies. I like to think that the three of us were worth the 100-year wait.
While we have some difficult questions to answer and challenges to meet on the treatment of women in this place, it is imperative that we do not put anyone off becoming a Member of Parliament. Yes, the House of Commons is a strange place to work and, yes, sometimes some people do not realise that they are part of the problem, but despite that, this is a place where women achieve great things.
It was a woman who introduced the Autism Act 2009 —the late, and much-missed across this House, right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham. It was a woman who delivered the children’s funeral fund and who continues to be a pain in the Government’s neck on hormone replacement therapy—the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), who I am sorry to see is not in her place today. It was a woman who secured inclusion in today’s Gracious Speech of the Government’s intention to license pedicabs right across the Cities of London and Westminster for the very first time—no prizes for guessing who that was. And it was a woman, long before my time, who stood up to the might of the unions, empowered council tenants to buy their homes and, 40 years ago this year, protected the Falkland Islands. It is important that we say today that a woman’s place is in the House of Commons. By the way, it was also a woman who got £20 million out of the Treasury for the global centre of rail excellence, made cyber-flashing a criminal offence and got the Ministry of Defence to scrap the closure of Brecon barracks—just saying! [Interruption.] Yes, of course.
As much as we must attract more women to this place, we must do our utmost to attract a wide range of talents, so that our Benches are filled with the plain-speaking common sense of my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson), the distinguished professional experience of my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) and, dare I say it, the political diplomacy of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis).
My Liberal Democrat opponents tell me that all I do is talk about farming and the military, so today I will keep them happy and do exactly that. During my maiden speech, I said that I felt I had won first prize in the lottery of life by becoming the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire. That is as true today as it was then. It is a glorious part of the world, stretching from the upper Swansea valley to just outside Ludlow. It is kept thriving by thousands of farmers, not trustafarian farmers who inherit their wealth, but the ordinary, mud-under-the-fingernail grafting farmer, who works year round to put food on our plates and give their kids a future.
The cost of living crisis is having a particular effect in rural areas. Costs of fuel and fertiliser are eye-watering, and that presents a real risk to our ability to feed ourselves. It is deeply tragic that it has taken war in Ukraine for us to focus on UK food security. If I do anything in this place, it will be to bang on about the importance of farming to this country—hence why I welcome the measures in the Gracious Address that will see British produce on tables around the world, and even the Online Safety Bill, which will protect the unsuspecting farmer from nefarious internet videos.
If you walk down the Watton in Brecon, Mr Speaker, as I know you have, you will see 24 trees honouring the 24th of Foot. A better name for them is the South Wales Borderers, and they fought at the battle of Rorke’s Drift, which was made iconic in the film “Zulu”. Whether Brecon barracks, the Sennybridge training area or the Navy’s outdoor leadership training centre in Talybont, my constituency is extremely proud of its military footprint. We are also home to the Cambrian Patrol, which is the Olympic gold medal in infantry training, a 60 km march for teams of eight over just 48 hours. He will be far too modest to tell you himself, Mr Speaker, but the Secretary of State for Wales is in fact a finisher of that event. So modest was he, so keen to keep his light under a bushel, that when we visited the Cambrian Patrol back in October, he brought his finisher’s certificate along with him and put it out on Twitter. It was dated 1987, and I took great joy in pointing out that I was two years old at the time—and I take great joy recounting it again now.
Over the years, many wrongs have been done to military veterans, and I applaud the efforts of those right across the House to correct that. The hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) has led on the Opposition Benches in that effort. On this side of the House, my hon. Friends the Members for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) and for Wrexham have spoken for male and female veterans in ways few can match. So on behalf of the many veterans I represent—particularly those who served in Northern Ireland and who tell me that they have been frightened of opening the post for decades—I warmly welcome the inclusion of the legacy Bill in today’s Gracious Speech.
Let me conclude my seconding of the Loyal Address so that I can give way to the Leader of the Opposition. I know we are all delighted that he has not cancelled this afternoon’s speech—I warmly welcome it on behalf of my constituents.
Today’s Queen’s Speech contains a commitment to right the historic imbalance that has pervaded this country for too long, and to level up all four corners of the United Kingdom. It offers leadership in turbulent times, it looks to the long term, ironing out our challenges of food and energy insecurity, and it makes best use of our new-found legislative freedoms. It helps this country to stand tall on the world stage, as it has done for so long, and it is my honour to commend this Gracious Speech to the House.
Debate on the Address
Christopher Pincher Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Jeremy Corbyn
No.
Many more of our public services are under threat. The Land Registry is threatened with privatisation—a move considered and then rejected in the last two Parliaments. Those Governments listened to the concerns of public and expert opinion. I hope and trust that this Government will consult and come to the same conclusion and that, rather than selling off the family silver, they will retain the Land Registry in public ownership and administration.
We are very clear that the BBC is a valued national institution, but its success is anathema to this ideological Government. Labour will continue to stand up for the licence fee payer and will fight any further Government attacks on the BBC and its independence. Whether it is the NHS, good and outstanding schools, the east coast main line in public operation or the BBC, the Government just cannot stand the threat of a good example of popular, successful public services. We will stand up for them against the Government.
The Opposition have long highlighted the injustice of the unequal funding allocations to local authorities. I hope that a local government finance Bill will provide an opportunity to address the disgraceful situation in which the poorest areas, mainly in the inner cities of this country, suffer by far the greatest cuts to expenditure. The cuts imposed on local authorities have had a devastating impact on services for both young and old. Just this week, despite the protestations of some local residents, Oxfordshire Council, the Prime Minister’s favourite county council, announced that it was closing half of its children’s centres. In the past five years, £4.5 billion has been cut from the adult social care budget, which has taken away dignity from elderly and disabled people. Again, the effects of those massive cuts in the adult social care budget fall disproportionately on women in our society.
We will scrutinise very carefully the devolution of business rates, which, if not handled correctly, has the potential to exacerbate inequalities between areas of this country. We have a deeply unbalanced economy, and we will oppose plans that widen regional inequalities, rather than narrow them.
On a positive note, we wholeheartedly welcome moves to devolve powers to re-regulate bus services, and we will look to expand those provisions more widely. Whole areas of the country, particularly in rural Britain, have no bus services at all, and they should be provided with them, particularly where people do not have access to their own cars.
We are very sceptical about competition in the water industry, which actually goes against the trend in much of the rest of Europe, which is of re-municipalising water and giving it back to communities—a Government committed to devolution might consider that, but this Government want competition. Perhaps we can have competition in reservoirs, pumping stations and mains pipes. We could even have three standpipes on every corner. Imagine the vision of Tory Britain: one for Evian, one for Perrier and one for Malvern water.
The Prime Minister
I will look at what my hon. Friend says. When we look at economic growth and development, all the evidence is that having universities of a high quality in all our regions is a massive driver for growth and for retaining talent in those areas, as the contribution of the Manchester universities to the northern powerhouse shows so clearly.
Christopher Pincher
My right hon. Friend is being typically generous in giving way. All the secondary schools in my constituency are academies, a process begun by the Labour county council before it was booted out in 2009. I welcome the national funding formula that will help all schools, I hope, in Staffordshire. Will my right hon. Friend make sure that the academies in Tamworth are protected and are never abolished, as the Leader of the Opposition would like?
The Prime Minister
We are committed to academies and free schools. We want to combine that autonomy with the national funding formula and make sure that more of the money goes to the school itself. All these reforms go together to drive change in our education system.
On jobs, today’s figures show unemployment falling, employment rising and a new record for the number of people in work in our country. This Queen’s Speech builds on this record with more help for small businesses, further improvements to infrastructure, and measures to make Britain a world leader in the digital economy and in new industries, such as autonomous vehicles. We are determined to deliver a recovery that is rich in jobs. With the national living wage, no one paying tax before they earn £11,000, in-work training, learning through life and all the steps that we are taking to boost productivity, our ambition should be for a Britain with the best paid, best trained workforce anywhere in Europe.
G20 and Paris Attacks
Christopher Pincher Excerpts(9 years ago)
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The Prime Minister
I do not set the alert levels; they are rightly set independently by a group of experts. The level is currently “severe”, which means that they believe an attack to be highly likely. The next step is “critical”, which would mean that a threat was imminent. That would not normally happen until there was intelligence that a threat was in some way imminent. I say to the British people that we should go about our lives and that we should be vigilant and work with the police and intelligence services where we can. We must never give in to the threat that the terrorists pose, because they want us to change our way of life and to live in fear—that is what “terrorism” means.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that for terrorists to pursue their evil trade as effectively as possible they require training, and that training requires territory? Action to reduce ISIL’s territory, whether it be in Iraq, Syria or anywhere else, is therefore a vital component to ridding the world of these evil people.
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right and what he says relates to the point that the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) made. Much of our policy over recent years has been about closing down the ungoverned spaces where terrorists are able to stay and train. That is why we cannot sit back from all these things. It is why we are engaged in trying to make Somalia into a proper, functioning country. It is why we took action in Afghanistan to try to stop that country being a haven for terror. It is why we cannot stand by while there fails to be a Libyan Government. We have to work harder to bring about some rule of law and order in that country. We do not do this because we believe in military adventurism; we do it because we want to keep people safe in our own country. That is what it is about.
Oral Answers to Questions
Christopher Pincher Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
1. What progress is being made on completing the electoral register.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
10. What progress is being made on completing the electoral register.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (John Penrose)
Since June 2014, more than 11 million people have applied to register to vote, three quarters of whom used the ultra-convenient online system, which takes less time than boiling an egg. At the general election, there were 400,000 more entries on the register than before, and thanks to individual electoral registration, 96 out of every 100 have been confirmed as genuine. We are now focusing on the remaining four in every 100 and, by December, electoral registration officers will have attempted to contact each of them nine times over 18 months. Any who are genuine voters will be confirmed on the register, and the remaining inaccurate entries—people who have moved away, died or registered fraudulently—will be removed.
John Penrose
I agree strongly with my hon. Friend. The underlying point behind individual electoral registration is that it requires genuine proof of identity, which the old system did not. The need to provide information such as date of birth and national insurance number ensures that the opportunity for fraudulent registration is greatly reduced.
Christopher Pincher
I am reassured to hear that 96 out of every 100 voters have been proved to be genuine since the roll-out of individual electoral registration, but will the Minister tell me what further action is being taken to target the four in every 100 who appear not to be genuine?
John Penrose
This is an important issue. We have made up to £3 million available to local authorities to pursue the remaining four in every 100. By the end of this year, all those people will have been contacted up to nine times, either by phone, email or letter, or by someone knocking on their door, in order to confirm that they are genuine voters with a pulse, in which case they will have been confirmed on the register. We want to ensure that we do not inadvertently disfranchise them. Anyone who is left over will almost certainly be a ghost voter—a ghost in the machine; a data error—and can therefore be safely removed.
Tunisia, and European Council
Christopher Pincher Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
First of all, of course I commit to engage with all communities, and we will continue to do that. I do not agree with what the hon. Lady says about Prevent. We took the advice of an independent review to separate the community engagement work that should be done by the Department for Communities and Local Government from the Prevent work, which obviously has more of a Home Office feel to it, and I think that is the right decision.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
I echo the Prime Minister’s tribute to the victims of Sousse, including my constituent, Sue Davey, who, with her partner, Scott Chalkley, lost their lives last week. Will my right hon. Friend provide special and personal commendation to the individual brave Tunisians, from those who tried to warn against the attack on the beach, to the building workers who tried to stop the terrorist, to the doctors and nurses in the hospitals who treated the injured, because, as we know but must always be reminded, it was not done in their name?
The Prime Minister
I also pay tribute to Sue and Scott, as my hon. Friend has done. He is right to commend the local Tunisians, whether doctors and nurses, people who turned those sun loungers into stretchers, or people who confronted the terrorist. They are a credit to themselves and a credit to their nation.
Debate on the Address
Christopher Pincher Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady, whom I welcome back to her place, is being a bit churlish; the last Government grew the economy and cut our carbon emissions and this Government will do the same. We saw a massive increase in investment in renewable energy, including the largest offshore wind market anywhere in the world. The difference between me and the hon. Lady is that I believe in a green environment on the street corner as well as in the stratosphere. I hope that she will have a word with her Green colleagues in Brighton and make sure that they begin to empty the dustbins, because that matters as well when it comes to a green environment.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
The Prime Minister said a little while ago that he was pleased that the EU referendum Bill now has all-party support. As he takes that Bill through the Commons, will he remind the Opposition that they cannot dump their policies overnight and hope that people will not notice?
The Prime Minister
I am all for encouraging as many U-turns as possible from the Labour party; that will mean that our majority of 10 or 12 will be far, far bigger. We should encourage them to join us in the Lobbies—[Interruption.] I can hear the Chief Whip enthusiastically endorsing that. I am not sure that the British people will forget. If we had listened to the Labour party, there would be no renegotiation and there would be no referendum—there would be no choice.
This Queen’s Speech will also modernise and strengthen our United Kingdom. It includes Bills on devolution for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. These Bills will deliver on all the promises made to people in each of those countries in our United Kingdom. We will also ensure fairness for English voters, through English votes for English laws.
Ukraine (Flight MH17) and Gaza
Christopher Pincher Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I think it is very important that it does those things, which is why I said that it should exercise restraint, avoid civilian casualties and look at ways of bringing the conflict to an end.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
Although President Poroshenko has announced a 40-km cordon around the MH17 crash site, reports from Donetsk over the weekend suggest that the fighting, far from diminishing, has increased. Does my right hon. Friend believe that Putin and his puppets have any real sense of the enormity of what has been done, the anger of the international community and the response that we expect to that anger? I have to say, the fighting on the ground suggests that they do not.
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I cannot exactly tell him that I feel the enormity of what has happened has got through to the Russians yet, not least because of the way their media operate, but the repeated calls by Prime Minister Abbott, Prime Minister Rutte, Chancellor Merkel, François Hollande, Barack Obama and myself must be giving some impression that the whole world is coming together in saying that what is happening in eastern Ukraine is absolutely unacceptable.
G7
Christopher Pincher Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I do not believe that our national health service is under threat in the way that the hon. Gentleman says. There are many parts of international co-operation and trade from which our national health service can be a huge beneficiary. For instance, we lead the world in sequencing people’s DNA and building up a vast databank, so that is a huge opportunity, and some of the leaders of our best hospitals are talking to new cities that are being built in China about how to establish health services. We should not be frightened of our NHS being a great British success story, parts of which can be exported to the rest of the world. We need to ensure that the TTIP and other such things make that possible.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
We have all seen that Russia uses her vast energy reserves as the provisional wing of her diplomatic policy. The Prime Minister is quite right to suggest that Europe needs to diversify its energy supply as a consequence. Will he encourage greater supply of gas and oil from the south Caucasus and, in particular, the extension of the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli deal in Azerbaijan? That would help the economy of Europe and the development of civic society in Azerbaijan, the all-party parliamentary group on which I chair.
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need to look at some of the energy proposals, such as piping gas directly from places such as Azerbaijan to southern Europe, so that it does not have to go through Russian pipelines, alongside the other things that I have mentioned. The key point is that unless those specific actions are taken, a lot of European countries will remain over-reliant on Russian gas. In Hungary and one or two other countries, a very high percentage of the gas comes directly from Russia. It will always be difficult for those countries to be part of a more unified approach in standing up to Russia on those or any other issues.
Debate on the Address
Christopher Pincher Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
I welcome the measures contained in the Gracious Speech—well, I say I do, but I am not sure about the one on plastic bags. Following what the right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) said, however, I shall blame the Liberal party if it proves to be unpopular with my constituents. That seems to be the name of the game at the moment.
I thought that the state opening of Parliament was, as ever, a great occasion, but, of course, this House continues to be diminished as far as I am concerned. I have spoken on every occasion on the first day of debate on the Gracious Speech and we only have to look around to see that we are struggling somewhat for numbers. Whether that is for other reasons, I do not know, but it is symptomatic of what has happened in the House. The powers of Ministers, who are splendid people whatever party they belong to, seem to be increasingly diminished as they have lost powers to unelected bodies and quangos, not to mention the European Union. Given its history and symbolism, we should cherish the state opening of Parliament.
We are in the uncharted territory of fixed-term Parliaments, which I had not expected and am not sure about. Usually, when we come to the final Gracious Speech we expect to struggle for available time, but we have a full year, so no doubt we will be able to see the proposals on to the statute book. But again I say to the House that there is no point in our legislating if it is hit and miss about who is caught, so laws must be robustly enforced.
I congratulate the mover and seconder of the Loyal Address on their interesting contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) positively sparkled. In every sense she made a splendid speech and I would not have expected less from her given her wonderful performance in “Splash!”.
We come here following local and European elections. I know what our parties are saying, but I hope that we are taking notice of the electorate’s messages, which we ignore at our peril. I do not know whether the Gracious Speech was in any sense re-written, but at the end it says that other measures will be laid before us, so I look forward to hearing what those measures will be.
On a positive note I welcome the small business Bill. We are a nation of small shopkeepers, and my constituency in particular has many small and medium-sized businesses, such as “Strangeways Boutique Salon” in Leigh-on-Sea, which was recently named in the top 100 apprenticeship employers list. The Bill has come at the right time as the Bank of England recently announced that loans to smaller businesses fell by £700 million in the first three months of the year. The banks have learned nothing from the crash, and it is about time there was a root and branch shake-up of Barclays bank. I am not at all convinced by any of the statements made by the chairman of that bank. Small businesses throughout the country have been struggling to get the vital cash flow, despite the banks saying that they need to grow, and for some it is leading to insolvency. However, I am delighted that the Government are on the side of businesses, as the Bill proves.
One problem that small businesses face is that of late payment, and the Government have led by example in ensuring that they deal with that in their own bills. All Departments now include in their contracts the requirement for main contractors to pay suppliers, providing additional financial security. The Bill takes that principle and applies it to the private sector by tackling late payments and strengthening the prompt payment code, which improves transparency and creates a small business bank.
I also welcome the legislation that the Government plan to introduce on exclusivity clauses in zero-hours contracts. It is crazy that once someone signs a contract that has no given hours, they are barred from working for any other company. That is undoubtedly a massive hindrance for those who want a flexible working pattern but want to work more hours. The labour force survey recently estimated that more than half a million people are on zero-hours contracts. That is a significant number of people and I am delighted that we are legislating on that.
My constituency is well known for having the most centenarians in the country, which has put us in “The Guinness Book of Records”, so I obviously have a vested interest in pensions. I can well remember in 1997, the former Labour Prime Minister, then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, destroying pensions in this country at one fell swoop. Here we are in 2014 trying to put them back together again. We inherited a broken pension system, and the Bill will give pensioners the freedom to take control of their own finances and to take a significant amount of their pensions on retirement without facing aggressively high taxes as a punishment. The current system stifles innovation and allows pensioners little choice about how they invest their pension, whereas the new system will allow far more competition, choice and consumer control. I must politely disagree with the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann), who mentioned housing, because I enjoyed the speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) and support much of what he said. I think it was my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) who said that our pension systems need to catch up with those in the United States and Denmark.
I am also happy to see a change to collective pensions, which will provide better value through the pooling of funds of thousands of pensioners, thereby spreading costs and risk in a similar way to car insurance. This will also remove the necessity for pensioners to buy an annuity. Instead, pension schemes will pay money directly to them, avoiding the third party and providing better value for those facing retirement. These pension reforms are more flexible, provide better value and give pensioners much more choice.
I recently asked the Justice Secretary a parliamentary question on support for victims of modern-day slavery. It is shocking that thousands of people are still victims of slavery through forced labour or in the sex industry. A former Member of this House has done great work on this issue, and the Government seem to have included it in the proposed legislation. Modern-day slavery is a scourge, and I am delighted that the Government will tackle it. I am happy to hear that the Bill will increase the maximum sentence for human trafficking and provide courts with more powers so that we can give the clear message that this crime has no place in modern Britain.
I am sure that if the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who represents the Green party, was here she would violently disagree with me about fracking, but I am pleased to see measures on it. It seems to be one of the most sensible options for the Britain’s future energy supply, being both cleaner and more environmentally friendly than other fossil fuels, providing massive potential for investment. I have been told by one of the lobbyists that there may be an opportunity to amend the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000, of which I was the promoter, which will help to underpin what we are trying to do on warm homes.
The Queen’s Speech did not include a measure on the EU referendum. It is healthy that the Labour and Conservative parties and the Liberal Democrats have set out clearly where they stand on this issue, but on the doorstep it was clearly not understood. The general public do not understand the need to legislate to have a referendum and they do not understand that if the Conservatives win the next election it will take the Prime Minister time to renegotiate the treaty. That clearly is one message on which the Conservative party should reflect. I do not know whether it will be possible, but I hope that if the Conservative party wins the next election we can quickly renegotiate our membership and say that we will have a referendum in 2016. If I was first in the private Members’ ballot, I would promote a Bill to secure a referendum. If a Conservative Member promotes such a Bill, I would be interested to discover whether it would be the Government’s intention to invoke the Parliament Act in the event of efforts to talk it out similar to those faced by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton). I hope that we would use the Parliament Act.
As an animal lover, I was disappointed that the wild animals in circuses Bill was not in the Gracious Speech; I hope that we can reflect on that and introduce it later. As far as a data-sharing Bill is concerned, I do not think it a good idea to allow Government Departments to share data on people who owe debt to public bodies. It seems that more and more private data are being made more widely accessible. Can we really trust Government Departments to share that information safely and securely? I can see the headlines.
While I am on the subject of the civil service, I should say that I absolutely approve of the legislation in the Gracious Speech to crack down on the ridiculous situation in which highly paid civil servants and NHS executives get large redundancy pay-offs before getting a similar job in the same year. Senior civil servants and NHS executives, such as those at the mental health foundation in the South Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, or SEPT, which serves my constituency, are paid far too much. That is a terrible waste of taxpayers’ money.
Perhaps the Government will consider addressing an anomaly in the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Those who request information should be identified so that the public and organisations are aware of who has made an inquiry. It is ridiculous that there is anonymity at the moment. I urge the Government to address the provisions that the former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair added, stating that the law should not apply to him—at least, it is reasonable to assume that he added them; as we all now know, Mr Blair’s letters to President George Bush during the Iraq era are not to be published. That is ridiculous. I feel strongly about the issue as one who voted for the war against my better judgment. I want to know whether I was misled on that occasion when, unlike now, the House was packed. It is wrong that, having waited four years for the Chilcot report, we are going to get only edited letters. That is absolutely unsatisfactory and I expect the Government whom I support to do something about it.
It is good to see that the Deregulation Bill, which removes unnecessary and burdensome legislation, has carried through from the last Session. However, one area that is not regulated enough is that of abortion clinics. The last time they were investigated, bad and even illegal practice was found to be rife throughout the system. Given that the Metropolitan police are currently deciding how to proceed against 67 doctors investigated for pre-signing abortion certificates without knowing anything about the women involved, it is incumbent on Parliament, if we are to be worth while, to put mechanisms in place to ensure best practice. That should mean annual, unannounced inspections of a percentage of abortion clinics. That is not happening at the moment. It is crazy that we have so many unnecessary regulations and laws, while on an issue about life itself, which is what we are all about, there seems to be no regulation at all.
The final measure that I would have liked to have seen in the Gracious Speech is one on a national cemetery. There are national cemeteries all over the world but we do not have one. Westminster abbey and Highgate cemetery accommodate a few notable people, but it is about time that our heroines and heroes—
Christopher Pincher
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and for claiming the gift of second sight; I shall ask him my question anyway. Does he believe that the right place to put a national cemetery would be the National Memorial Arboretum in Lichfield—a hop, skip and small jump across the River Mease from my constituency?
Mr Amess
My hon. Friend has thrown me. Recently, we visited a national cemetery in a different country; I thought he was going to say how wonderful that was. I am not going to get involved in the merits of Lichfield. A national cemetery there would probably be splendid, although I am rather tempted to suggest Southend-on-Sea. That said, it should, I suspect, be in the centre of the country.
Finally, I should mention that the Government were said to be running out of steam. As far as I am concerned, after the next election it is full steam ahead with a Conservative Government who are not involved in this wretched coalition.
European Council
Christopher Pincher Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point and I discussed this specific issue with Chancellor Merkel last night in Hanover. The IMF has the ability to move very quickly, should it judge it necessary, to support Ukraine’s economy and national finances. There is a team there at the moment which is looking at the sort of programme that could be put together, but even before a programme becomes deliverable, if it needs to step in and act faster, it can.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that Russia’s energy supplies give it tremendous muscle in eastern Europe and in other parts of Europe too. That has been reiterated many times this afternoon. Specifically, over the medium term will he encourage the development of the southern corridor gas and oil pipelines from the south Caucasus across Turkey and into southern Europe—pipelines promoted by BP, which will go a long way to helping to develop diversification of Europe’s energy landscape?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Diversifying Europe’s energy supplies requires looking at what action we can take to link Europe to some of the supplies in the Caucasus. I remember discussing this issue with President Aliyev when I met him recently, and I know the Foreign Secretary has had those discussions as well. This is part of a larger pattern of diversifying Europe’s energy supplies and making us more resilient in this sort of situation.