Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Anderson and John Bercow

Wednesday 19th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is useful to have a bit of information, I find.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

Former Prime Minister David Cameron promised he would not resign if he lost the EU referendum; he reneged on that promise within hours. The current Prime Minister said on seven occasions that she would not call an early election; she reneged on that promise yesterday. Will the Minister, answering on behalf of the Secretary of State, give him the chance to break the mould and renew the commitment given to this House on at least three occasions that whatever support is put in place for businesses in the north-east like Nissan will be put in place for Scotland?

Points of Order

Debate between David Anderson and John Bercow

Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Have you been informed whether the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has any intention of making a statement to the House on the resignation of the Deputy First Minister and the implications for the Assembly?

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer to the hon. Gentleman is that I have not received any indication of an impending statement by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on the matter to which he refers. I appreciate that it will of course be of great interest to many Members of the House. The fairest thing I can say is that we must await the development of events. I am conscious that there is a Westminster Hall debate tomorrow afternoon. The possibility of an oral statement by the Government must clearly exist.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Anderson and John Bercow

Wednesday 20th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

I, too, welcome the new Secretary of State and his Minister to their posts, and assure him that we on the Labour Benches will do everything we can to carry on the bipartisan approach, doing the best we can for the people of Northern Ireland. I also thank my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker). Everyone I have met in Northern Ireland asked me to thank him for his work.

For years the rebalancing of the Northern Ireland economy has been promoted by the Government, and intrinsic to this has been a push to reduce corporation tax, but in recent discussions that I have had with businesses in Northern Ireland, they have told me that it is much more important to address the huge skills gap in Northern Ireland, where far too many young people are leaving school unable to read and write properly. What will the Secretary of State do to help the people of Northern Ireland to bridge that gap?

[Mr Speaker]

We need great brevity as there are a lot of questions to reach.

[Mr Speaker]

Splendid.

[Mr Anderson]

May I suggest to the Secretary of State that for his summer reading this month, he looks into a number of reports—the report recently produced by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on the referendum, the report from the Northern Ireland Independent Retail Trade Association on its economic plan, and crucially the report from the Economic and Social Research Institute that was produced for the Irish Government in November last year to show that the trade deficit between the north and the south following Brexit could fall by at least 20%? Will he come back to the House in the autumn and tell us why his predecessor and the Northern Ireland Office were so badly prepared for Brexit?

Coalfield Communities

Debate between David Anderson and John Bercow

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

To help, Mr Speaker, I will not take interventions.

I was amazed by the lack of seriousness among Government Front Benchers when they thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Michael Dugher) was talking about Jimmy Savile. He was talking about Lord Saville’s report on Bloody Sunday and the Hillsborough report. This issue has exactly the same stature: things went on in the name of the state and, whatever our views about what happened in the past, we as representatives of the state today have a responsibility to the future to release the papers, as my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton) said.

This debate is opportune because there have been reports in the papers over the past few days about the state of energy supplies in this country. A recent report in a newspaper called The Register stated:

“The capacity crunch has been predicted for about seven years… Everyone seems to have seen this coming—except the people in charge.”

We saw a lot of it coming 30 years ago, but nobody listened to us. What do we have now? We have a situation in which, as we are told in the same report:

“The UK government will set out Second World War-style measures to keep the lights on and avert power cuts”.

What a farce. One of the worst things about it is that one way the Government will do so is by continuing every year to import 50 million tonnes of coal that has blood on it—the blood of Chinese miners, of Russian miners and, as we saw earlier this year, of the 300 Turkish miners who died.

The hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) was absolutely right to say that we should have had a much more pro-coal attitude in this country. The problem is that they shut the coal mines when we were the leading proponents of clean coal technology in this country. The film “Brassed Off” was mentioned earlier. It was set around Grimethorpe colliery, where we were making oil out of coal 25 years ago, but it was closed on a whim and at a stroke of a Minister’s pen.

I want to ask Ministers four specific questions. They are about going forward, not about the past, and about how we should address this issue today. First and foremost, will they give a commitment to release all the papers identified from the 1980s? Without that, we are wasting our time.

Secondly, will Ministers give the Coalfields Regeneration Trust the real support it needs? People passionately support the CRT—including the hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer), whom I respect massively—but the truth is that it has been cut, cut and cut again, and it has been told that it must become supported by grants because it will not be getting any public money. We need such public money to rescue these communities.

Thirdly, will Ministers accept the details of the report produced by Sheffield Hallam university, and will they work with it and the all-party group on coalfield communities to try to address the problems that there are in every coalfield across this country?

Fourthly, the Minister for Business and Enterprise mentioned the support for Kellingley and Thoresby collieries several times, but will Ministers confirm for the record and admit that the money—it is a loan, because UK Coal has to pay it back—was only lent to the two collieries if they agreed to be shut down within 18 months and not, as was said earlier, have their life extended to 2018? It is a fact that that was the only ground on which the money was loaned.

There is no doubt that we are where we are because of a deliberate policy. Through the 1980s, there was an attempt to cut back: between 1985 and 1991, some 120 pits closed. I have to be honest about the fact that many of them were well past their sell-by date. I worked at one of them: it had been going since 1825 and was on its last legs. In 1992, on the back of the election, Michael Heseltine came up with a hit list of 31 top-quality mines that could still have been producing coal for this country. By the way, there was not a word about that in the manifesto—not one word. At the time, they said Arthur Scargill was lying, but they proved that he was not, because those 31 pits were shut within weeks.

As well as the pits being closed, the manufacturing industry in parts of the world like mine was decimated. Companies such as Huwood, Anderson Boyes, Gullick Dobson and Dowty, which had been leading the world, went to the wall. I have a friend who still works in coalfield engineering. In 1984, he worked in Motherwell. In the 1990s, he worked in Ilkeston in Derbyshire. He now travels every week from Leeds Bradford international airport to Dortmund because we no longer have that industry in this country, when we used to lead the world in it. Hundreds of small and medium-sized businesses closed, including shops, and communities were decimated. The truth is that we have left no future for our kids.

I say to the Minister today: please give us justice, give us some relief, give us the truth.

[Mr Speaker]

A four-minute limit now applies.

Energy Bills

Debate between David Anderson and John Bercow

Monday 2nd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Anderson]

What about the companies doing their bit?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) is now squawking like a parrot with indigestion. He must calm himself. He is normally a calm man and he aspires to statesmanship.

Regional Pay (NHS)

Debate between David Anderson and John Bercow

Wednesday 7th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I hope that it is a point of order rather than a point of frustration. We will hear it and I will discover whether it is.

[Mr Anderson]

On three occasions, the Secretary of State has said that the trade unions bankroll the Labour party. A large majority of the trade unions in the health service have no links to the Labour party whatsoever.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but that is a point of debate that he might wish to develop further if he is successful in catching my eye. We will leave it for now.

Party Funding

Debate between David Anderson and John Bercow

Monday 26th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I remind Members that they are expected to use their mobile devices discreetly and without impairing the decorum of the Chamber? I say gently to the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) that he should not stand up, seeking to catch my eye, while fiddling with his device.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

I promise not to fiddle with my device, Mr Speaker.

Peter Cruddas was reported yesterday giving, as an example of how to influence policy, discussion of the Tobin tax with the Prime Minister the day before he met Angela Merkel. Is that true? Did that conversation take place and, if it did, what role was Peter Cruddas playing—treasurer of the party or private business man?

Business of the House

Debate between David Anderson and John Bercow

Thursday 19th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick) and I wish him a happy birthday too.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

This morning we have seen yet again the contempt that the Secretary of State for Health has for professional people working in the health service, as shown by his comments that opposition to NHS reforms is just about spite regarding the pension agenda. May we have a debate in the House about who really supports NHS reform and who does not? May we also, in that debate, discuss why the Secretary of State has so much contempt for nurses and midwives and other professionals in this country?

Cabinet Secretary Report (Government Response)

Debate between David Anderson and John Bercow

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We do not take points of order in the middle of statements, or at any time in statements, only afterwards.

Public Disorder

Debate between David Anderson and John Bercow

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Notwithstanding the very heavy taxation of the Prime Minister’s knee muscles, I am inclined to continue and accommodate the remaining Members who wish to contribute, but I urge colleagues to help me to help them by being brief.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

I was genuinely saddened to hear the Prime Minister’s response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) on the proposal to evict the people responsible for this damage from social housing. Some of us from the communities that have been on the receiving end of the damage and seen stable communities destroyed by these acts really know what we are talking about, so may I ask the Prime Minister to think about this and engage with us before pursuing the matter?

Points of Order

Debate between David Anderson and John Bercow

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The point is noted by the Chair and I feel sure that it will be noted by those on the Treasury Bench. We are doubly grateful to the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In response to my question in Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister said that I mentioned the British Chambers of Commerce, but I did not. I referred specifically to a report from the North East chamber of commerce, which said that 17,000 jobs in the construction industry were at risk. I am the first to admit that my accent is not always the easiest to understand, but I am also sure that the Prime Minister was not misleading the House. Can you advise me on how this matter can be corrected?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman has just corrected it very successfully. I do not want to be personal, but let me say to him that I have never found the slightest difficulty in understanding what he has had to say. I hope that he is grateful for that.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Debate between David Anderson and John Bercow

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend also comment on the potential for challenges from some of the tens of thousands of workers who will be affected by this decision? They do not know whether they are going to be made redundant, or what their terms and conditions will be. Surely there is a legal imperative for them to be consulted properly, but that consultation will take place while most of them are on their summer holidays.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The debate is starting to broaden somewhat. I know that the right hon. Gentleman will want to focus his reply in a way that relates to the Bill.

Education Funding

Debate between David Anderson and John Bercow

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Last, but certainly not least, Mr David Anderson.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) for doing the job of the Secretary of State and bringing us the documents from the Library. As a result, I now know that four schools in Blaydon will not get support. Are we not seeing the real cost of the Tory Budget? Is it not the truth that the Government are giving corporation tax cuts, introducing a very timid bank levy and doing nothing about tax evasion and avoidance, but the people paying for it are the schoolchildren of Blaydon?