Business of the House

Dan Byles Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Lady is of course free to raise this issue, and it might be appropriate for her to do so at Department for Work and Pensions questions on Monday. Child poverty has been falling, according to the last Labour Government’s definition, but we want to ensure that children move out of poverty and improve their conditions in the absolute sense. That is about work, and reducing the number of workless households has been a significant step in the right direction.

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

It is now apparent that the Department of Energy and Climate Change has been aware for some time of the practice by some unscrupulous onshore wind developers of de-rating, whereby they install a large wind turbine but run it at sub-optimal level in order to benefit from the higher subsidies that are supposed to be available only to small developers. When can we have an urgent debate on the problem, which is costing consumers money and giving renewable energy a bad name?

[Mr Lansley]

I am sure that my hon. Friend will know that Ministers at the Department of Energy and Climate Change take this issue seriously. They have acted to address a similar issue in relation to hydro sites, and are committed to doing the same for wind. They have met and discussed the issue with wind turbine manufacturers and with Renewables UK, and I will certainly ask them if they will respond to my hon. Friend. The debate on the Energy Bill might also provide an opportunity to discuss the issue.

House of Commons Administration and Savings Programme

Dan Byles Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[John Thurso]

I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend—I call him that because he serves with me on the Finance and Services Committee. I absolutely agree. I read in one of the newspapers that it was proposed that someone from Disney World do something in Westminster Hall. That is not on the agenda and never has been—if it was, I would join my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow in the Lobby like a shot. What we are talking about is the recovery of cost for the proper opening of the Palace to visitors. There will come a moment when it is a matter of judgment in some areas, but I believe that we are capable of making those judgments sensibly when we get there.

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

I find myself in sympathy with both sides of the argument; I very much see the point my hon. Friend is making, but I also sympathise with the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon). Will my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sunderland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) consider some sort of sunset clause that would allow Parliament, after a period of time, to reflect on how well the changes have operated so that, if some of the concerns that have been raised appear to have been justified, we might consider changing once again?

[John Thurso]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I observe in passing that I have managed to attract both sides of the argument—clearly, I am sitting in the right place in the Chamber. I do not think that a sunset clause is necessary, because it is my hope that we will regularly, perhaps annually, have a debate of this kind. If at any time we reach a point where Members clearly feel as our hon. Friend the Member for Harlow feels, that debate would be the time to say that enough is enough. If we reach that point, I am confident that is precisely what the House would do. That is the reassurance I can offer my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles).

Sittings of the House

Dan Byles Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Knight]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the first part of his intervention. This way of proceeding was not without controversy, but I am pleased that he feels, as I do, that it is the best way of doing so. I am obliged to the Government and to the Backbench Business Committee, and the reason we are having this debate today—as I understand it, and I stand to be corrected by the Deputy Leader of the House—and, in effect, debating sitting hours ahead of some of the other recommendations in the Committee’s report is that if the House votes for any change, the Government and the House authorities will be able to put the necessary changes in place for when we return in October.

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

Further to the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), does my right hon. Friend not agree that, on sitting hours, we should set ourselves up so that the Chamber and the House work and we do our jobs in the most effective way, and that, although the point about whether someone travels at peak time is an interesting one, it should be a secondary consideration?

[Mr Knight]

That too is an interesting point, but I believe that it is for individuals to decide at what time of day they consider themselves to work most effectively, and that is why I have hesitated to tell the House in which direction it should go today. I think that this is a matter for the House itself: I think it right for this Parliament, elected in 2010, to make its decision—a decision with which the majority are happy—and we know that that will happen in less than two hours’ time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Byles]

As a new Member of the House with a young family and a seven-and-a-half-month-old daughter, I am open to the argument that more family-friendly hours might make it easier for Members with young families, but I also sit on the Energy and Climate Change Committee. It is a busy Committee that meets Tuesday mornings, and I do not see how such a change could be made to fit with Members’ other responsibilities, which we usually discharge before the House sits.

[Dame Joan Ruddock]

I am sympathetic to what the hon. Gentleman says, but in the past six weeks just 15 of the 35 Select Committees have met on a Tuesday morning.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Joan Ruddock]

The hon. Gentleman makes one of the key points: this is about choice and the fact that all families are different. As I said, some people will be able to take opportunities. I simply say to our colleagues: just because it does not suit you because you cannot do it, why would you prevent another person from being able to do it? We should be generous in our support of our colleagues. None of the proposals to be voted on today mean that MPs would work fewer hours. I am not advocating fewer hours, but simply a rearrangement within the day and the week; this is a very small attempt to make this workplace more manageable.

[Dan Byles]

A couple of times the right hon. Lady has alluded to the idea that what we do here is very different from what is done in other organisations. I just say to her that I have many friends in the private sector, and some in the public sector, too, who work until 10 pm, when they are busy and there is a lot of work to be done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Burley]

I could not have put it better myself.

I want to give just one example from before I came to this place. One of the reasons that has been given for why we start so late on Mondays is that Members need to commute from their constituencies. I remember working on a project in Newcastle when I was living in London, and we were expected to be at our desks at 9 am. We got a 7 am flight from Heathrow, arrived in Newcastle at 8.10 am and were at our desks by 8.45 am, often before many of the local people. There is an article on the BBC news website today entitled “MP with… the longest commute” As some Members may know, he is the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), who commutes 1,400 miles each week. His 713-mile trip each way is astonishing, including two flights, three trains and two tubes. He still gets here for 12.30 pm, so even he can arrive for that time. Even accounting for the longest commute of any MP, we do not need to start at 2.30 pm on Mondays.

It has been said that we need to allow for Select Committees and therefore need to start at 2.30 pm on Mondays and Tuesdays, but as has already been said, Select Committees also meet on Wednesdays when the House is sitting and Tuesday afternoons. It cannot be the case that we have to say that every single Member must be able to attend every single minute of every debate. Members choose to be on Select Committees, to do other things and to go on trips, and that is fine, but we have to accommodate that into normal, productive working hours that are at the beginning of the day at 9.30 am onwards and not until 10 pm.

[Dan Byles]

If we end up having Select Committee meetings on Tuesday or Wednesday afternoons, Members will have to choose between those duties and their core function, which is to be legislators.

[Mr Burley]

They are already doing that, and that is my point. They are already making that choice because Select Committee meetings already clash with the working hours of the Chamber.

I am conscious of the time and so will make only a couple more points. We have a problem, and one in which I know you, Mr Speaker, take a personal interest: the late-night, boozing, alcoholic culture of this place. That is something that is made worse by having to wait around until 10 o’clock to vote—[Interruption.] I cannot hear what they are saying—[Interruption.] It is also at lunchtimes, they say. It is anti-family. Even if a Member’s family is 150 miles away, they can still talk to them on the phone, Skype them or drive up to visit them, or the family could drive down to visit the Member. They can do other things in the evenings.

We see how few women MPs there are in this place. How many women, especially those with young children, must look at the working hours of this place and think, “Yes, that is something I aspire to. I want to work those hours and to work until 11 o’clock at night, away from my family”? Frankly, we can see that there is not a very good mix of society here. There are not very many normal people in this place. If we want more normal people who have lives—[Interruption.]

I have two final points. Members have talked about tours. This place is closed for 20 weeks of the year; surely our constituents can go on tours in 20 weeks. The hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) has an understandably traditional view of this job and believes that we are here to be legislators and that we represent our constituents in Westminster, not Westminster in our constituencies. As a new MP who represents a constituency next to his patch, and a very marginal one, I have to say to him that that is not the reality today. As a new MP who represents a marginal seat, I am expected to run jobs fairs and business awards evenings, to hold many surgeries, to go to every fete opening and to visit schools— I am expected to do the lot. The job has changed, and it is old-fashioned to say that our job is to be down here legislating; our job is also to be in our constituencies.

I conclude with a comment on September sittings. I ask the Government whether they have considered the cost of September sittings. As we heard from the Procedure Committee, the cost of sending just the builders on the estate home for two weeks is £1.5 million because they cannot carry on their work. Then there is the cost of MPs commuting down here, the cost of all the staff and so on. Is spending up to £10 million keeping this place open for two weeks really the best use of taxpayers’ money? Many of our constituents would question that.

Business of the House

Dan Byles Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

Coal continues to play a key role in our energy mix, accounting for a third of our electricity generation. May we have an early debate on the importance of domestic UK coal production in energy security, particularly in the light of yesterday’s worrying news that the Daw Mill colliery, which borders my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), might shortly close, with a devastating impact on the 800 men and women who work there, resulting in an increase in coal imports to the UK?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend is right that we need a balanced energy policy, and there is a role for coal. We have put resources on one side to promote clean coal technology, and if we can overcome the environmental problems associated with the traditional coal-fired power stations, I am sure that coal can play an important role in the future supply of this country’s energy.

Business of the House

Dan Byles Excerpts

Friday 18th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman is right that there are opportunities for the House to be recalled. A Minister of the Crown can make a request to you, Mr Speaker. That has been done in the past, and will be done in the future as and when necessary.

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

I urge the Leader of the House to reconsider his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey). Yesterday’s debate was not a debate about potentially committing British soldiers to military action, but the debate on Monday will be. I would say that they are substantively different, and I urge him to reconsider her request.

[Sir George Young]

I hear what my hon. Friend says. I think I am right in saying that the debate on Iraq seven years ago was a one-day debate that ended at the normal time. However, there might be other opportunities to debate the matter later.