Business of the House

David Amess Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Lady began with a question about the BBC. The next 18 months will be an important period in deciding how the future of the BBC will be shaped. We have a new Secretary of State—a very welcome appointment—who has been in post only a few weeks. He has already started work on this important issue and the House will be updated in due course about progress on that front.

On hate crime, I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. It is not simply a matter of those in the LGBT community; in other parts of society hate crime is wholly unacceptable in whatever form—in relation to sex, colour, creed or whatever. All of us in the House should deprecate it and we should always seek to ensure that our authorities deal with it in the appropriate way. I hear the hon. Lady’s comments about flags. She will no doubt raise that question also with the Foreign Secretary. There are many countries around the world which need to change their approach to gay rights and I very much hope they will do so.

On Europe, let us be clear. What I hope and believe will come out of the European summit is a historic agreement with our European partners to renegotiate our membership of the European Union. That is a major step forward. I listen with interest to the Labour party, which seems to waver in the wind on this issue. It opposed a referendum; now it supports a referendum. It seems to support some form of renegotiation, but it does not appear to believe that any change is necessary to our relationship with the European Union. When Labour Members have a clear policy and a clear view on what our relationship should be, perhaps we will start to listen to them and take them seriously, but right now, we will not do so.

On the employment front, I am sorry to tell the hon. Lady that the Work programme has been a great success. It has led to a massive drop in the number of long-term unemployed in this country. This Government have, and the coalition Government as well had, a fantastic record on employment. We have seen a huge increase in the number of people in work to record levels. We have seen a massive drop in unemployment and a very welcome increase in the number of disabled people in work.

The hon. Lady mentioned guidelines issued by Ministers —in this case, on grammar. I would rather have a former Education Secretary issuing guidance to his correspondence team on how best to phrase letters from his Department than a Chief Secretary to the Treasury issuing instructions to his civil servants about how to make his coffee.

Finally, it would be wrong to end without a quick glimpse at the Labour leadership contest this week. I have, as usual, taken a look to see what has been happening. I had a look at the website of the Wallasey Labour party—where else to get an insight into what is going on? There, on the front page, I found an article about the Labour leadership candidates with the headline “The candidates are awful”. Enough said.

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on burial and cremation services, as Government burial funds are not keeping pace with the increasing costs of making dignified funeral arrangements?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Through the current system, the Government provide nearly £50 million of support a year for people going through the trauma of bereavement. I encourage him to bring forward a debate in the House or to raise the matter in oral questions, and I know that Ministers will listen sensitively to the points that he raises.