Government Levies on Energy Bills
Debate between Clive Efford and Baroness Primarolo
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether you have had any indication of whether the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport intends to come to the House to make a statement. A letter has just been issued in which the Government now accept many of the amendments that we had tabled to the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill on such issues as the watershed, a one-stop shop for problem gamblers, spread betting and financial blocking. This includes adopting many of the measures that we were calling for to protect vulnerable people in relation to fixed odds betting terminals in betting shops. That is a complete turnabout from the Government’s initial position, when they resisted all our amendments. The letter also refers to the Government announcing their position over the weekend. I do not recollect the House sitting over the weekend. I think the most appropriate place for the Government to announce changes in policy is in this House, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I wonder whether you have had any notice from the Secretary of State that she intends to come here and explain herself.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
I have not received any notification of a statement from the Secretary of State. It is not an uncommon practice for the Government—all Governments—to move amendments in the Lords. The hon. Gentleman’s point is not a point of order. As I understand it, the Bill will have to come back to the Commons, and I am sure that he will then find ways to make the points he has just made. He has got his views on the record.
Royal Mail
Debate between Clive Efford and Baroness Primarolo(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Members must ask questions and leave short speeches for another day if we are to allow everybody to contribute to the statement. Quick questions and short answers will help us enormously.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
The Government cannot have it both ways. They cannot have a regulatory regime that allows services to be cherry-picked where profitable by the jackals that will buy Royal Mail, and then say they will protect the universal service. We all know it will be broken up, but will the Minister say whether his description of the universal service requires people to collect their mail from a central collection point, rather than its being delivered door to door?
Points of Order
Debate between Clive Efford and Baroness Primarolo
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
As the hon. Lady will know, the transfer of questions is dealt with by the Departments and is not a matter for the Chair. I would suggest, however, that she has a conversation with the Table Office to ensure that, next time she tables a question, it is to be answered by the Department she intended.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. At the beginning of last month, new evidence came forward calling into question the conclusion of the Macpherson inquiry about whether police corruption interfered with the investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. I tabled questions on that basis to the Home Office, and on 19 March I received a holding answer saying that it would answer as soon as possible. I subsequently retabled those questions asking when they would be answered and today received another holding answer saying that the Department would answer as soon as possible. This morning, in The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph, there is front-page speculation about the Home Office’s position on an inquiry into these matters. I have not received any decent response to questions I have tabled in the House. Is it not an affront to the House that speculation clearly fostered by the Home Office should appear in the media after a Member has raised the issue in the House? Furthermore, Madam Deputy Speaker, have you had any indication from Home Office Ministers that they are likely to come here and explain this completely unsatisfactory situation?
Madam Deputy Speaker
The hon. Gentleman has closely followed these important issues for some time because of their relevance to his constituency. He asked two specific questions. The first question was about adequate answers from Departments to Members. If he is dissatisfied, it is open to him to pursue it through the Procedure Committee; it is not a matter for the Chair. His second question was about notification of a statement from the Home Office on this important issue. I have received no notification and have no knowledge of such a statement, but the Deputy Leader of the House is in his place and knows that this is an important issue, and I am sure that he is prepared to assist the hon. Gentleman in any way he can to ensure that this matter is dealt with properly and urgently.
I understand that owing to an error in the notice given on the Order Paper, Mr Graham Jones will not be presenting his Bill today.
Future of the NHS
Debate between Clive Efford and Baroness Primarolo(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I must confess to being somewhat confused about where we have got to with the Bill. I have been here for 14 years and I cannot recall a Bill being halted after it had been through Committee so that we could go back and consult the public. I will be corrected by Members who have been here longer than me, but I cannot remember anything like this extraordinary situation.
Yesterday, I listened to the Deputy Prime Minister on the “Andrew Marr Show”. He said:
“Let me stress this, it’s not a gimmick, it’s not a PR exercise. We will make changes, we’ll make significant and substantive changes to the legislation”.
We have not heard any of that tonight. No one has got up and said, “We are listening,” or, “We are pausing,” or “We are reflecting and we are going to see substantial changes to this Bill.” The Secretary of State is in his place: I would like him to intervene on me and tell me that in relation to GP commissioning, the full £80 billion will be transferred to GPs, as he has frequently stated it would; that they will be in charge of commissioning and that we will not see that altered in any significant way as a result of the interventions of the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister. Members of the Government are trying to say that they are listening and that they are not responsible for all this, but I have here the White Paper that was published back in January, the foreword of which was signed by the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Health. They all signed up to it, but all of a sudden we are back to pausing, reflecting and listening.
What or who are we listening to? We have heard from the Secretary of State tonight that there are no cuts in the NHS, but let me tell hon. Members the story of Mrs Bell, a constituent of mine who was referred by her GP to a consultant last spring about cataract operations. She received the first operation within 18 weeks, and when she went back for a second consultation about the other eye she was referred for another operation. After 18 weeks, she rang the local health care trust to say that she had been waiting for her cataract operation for 18 weeks, but she was told that that was no longer a deliverable target. She ended up waiting more than 26 weeks for that cataract operation, so no one can tell my constituents or anyone else that we are not seeing cuts to the NHS and longer waiting times for patients.
What is fundamentally wrong with the Bill is that it places the market at the head of commissioning and planning services. The coalition document said that the coalition was going to introduce some element of democracy into primary care trusts, but PCTs got demolished as part of the proposals. My local PCT has been absolutely decimated, because although the Bill has not gone through Parliament yet, people are acting on it: they are voting with their feet and they have all gone. Currently, my area has no one who is responsible for the oversight and planning of our local health care services. Moreover, no one who will ultimately be accountable to local people is responsible for planning local services. All of that has been frittered away; it has disappeared. What we need is some form of democratisation of the commissioning process so that local people can know quite clearly who is accountable and who is not.
Tonight’s vote presents the Liberal Democrats—after we have paused and listened and reflected and after all they have said over the weekend about changes to the legislation—with an opportunity to send a message to the Government. This morning, the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister, said on the “Today” programme that there will be significant changes to the Bill. If the Liberal Democrats want to send a message to the Government, they should join the Opposition in the Lobby tonight and send the message that the Bill has to be changed. But I will tell them what will happen when it comes to Third Reading. The Whips will get to them, they will be as spineless as ever and they will go through the Lobby defending the Bill’s Third Reading—
Business of the House (Thursday)
Debate between Clive Efford and Baroness Primarolo(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Clive Efford
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hope that you were listening intently to the intervention from the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), who called for more time to allow Back Benchers to participate in this debate.
Madam Deputy Speaker
That is not a point of order. I am sure that everybody heard exactly what the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) said.
Points of Order
Debate between Clive Efford and Baroness Primarolo(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I do not expect an answer to this point of order today, but I wonder whether you can seek clarification through Mr Speaker regarding the release of Government statements to the Liberal Democrats prior to their being made in the House. Members on the Liberal Democrat Benches have no higher status than Back Benchers on the Opposition Benches. The last time I looked, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) was the transport spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, and he is now sitting on the Government Benches as the Under-Secretary of State for Transport. I would like to know whether what has happened is common practice. Has it happened before, exactly what can we expect in the future, and will Mr Speaker look into it?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
That is not really a point of order for me in the Chair. However, the hon. Gentleman has got his point on the record, and I understand that the Secretary of State wants to be helpful to him.