Oral Answers to Questions

David Evennett Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I was as shocked as anyone by the torching of the Age Concern ambulance. My understanding is that under these circumstances, damages are recoverable from the high street support scheme. I have been informed that officials have sent that information through. I would be very happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and representatives of Age Concern if there are continued problems with this issue.

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that voluntary organisations are the backbone of our local communities and that any damage to their property or organisation diminishes their opportunity to assist the individuals and groups that are most in need?

[Mr Hurd]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend, which is why I am meeting many sector representatives and community groups next week to discuss the impact and the way forward. He knows as well as I do that we are doing a huge amount to support community organisations through deregulation and by making it easier for them to access finance.

Public Confidence in the Media and Police

David Evennett Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have had a range of meetings with John Yates over the past year, mostly about terrorism—[Interruption.] I do not recall every single conversation that I have had; you would be mad to pretend that you do. You would need to be superhuman to remember every conversation that you have. I do know that almost all the conversations that I have had with John Yates over the past year have been about terrorist issues. The key point about my chief of staff’s e-mail was that he was trying to ensure that the police did not do anything inappropriate.

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and the process that he has set in motion to investigate the whole affair. Does he agree that it is essential that issues relating to the Metropolitan police are dealt with speedily so that the hard-working police across London can get on with doing, to maximum effect, the job that they do fantastically for all of us in our capital?

[The Prime Minister]

That is hugely important. Thousands of police officers are doing a great job in London. They will be reading all about this, and I do not want it to sap their morale or the work that they do. A clear message should go out from the House that we still have a very fine police service in this country, and we back it.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Evennett Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

No—and I am surprised by the line of questioning, because this programme of very overdue reform to the complex landscape of quangos and non-departmental public bodies goes exactly with the grain of the reforms proposed by the previous Government. We are going further in trying to deliver much greater accountability in government, and, on the way, delivering what we believe will be about £2.6 billion in communicative and administrative savings over the spending review period.

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

As the Minister for the Cabinet Office, I am responsible for the public sector efficiency and reform group, civil service issues, industrial relations, strategy in the public sector, Government transparency, civil contingencies, civil society and cyber-security.

[Mr Evennett]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s progress on public sector reform. Does he know why public sector unions have decided to ballot their members on strike action now, when talks on pension reform are still ongoing?

[Mr Maude]

Only three of the unions have done that. The majority of unions are continuing to engage in good faith with the discussions that are still taking place. It is our determination that at the end of the reforms proposed by Lord Hutton, Labour’s Work and Pensions Secretary, public sector pensions will continue to be among the best available, but we will ask people to work longer because they are living longer and to pay a bit more, to achieve a better balance between what they pay and what other taxpayers pay.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Evennett Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to review the effectiveness of the current methods of electoral registration, and to assist all councils to maximise the number of people on the electoral register?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We are planning to legislate to introduce individual electoral registration, which of course is intended principally to deal with cases of electoral fraud. At the same time, we hope to pilot in the coming months new schemes to compare the electoral register with other publicly available databases, so that electoral registration officers can go out to communities in which they are active and ensure that if people are missing on one database, they can be included in the other.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Evennett Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

I welcome the progress my hon. Friend is making in promoting and advancing the voluntary sector. [Interruption.] Will he compare that with the lacklustre performance of the last Labour Government?

[Mr Hurd]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question, and it was interesting to hear the chortles from those on the Opposition Benches. Of course there is absolutely no recognition among Labour Members of the necessity for these cuts after their Government’s absolutely shambolic stewardship of the economy over the past 13 years.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Evennett Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I do not take that view at all. I take the view that we must do everything we can to get our people into good and well-paid jobs. I have to say, however, that if we do not tackle the deficit, every job in the country will be under threat. That is the point. We are not doing this because we want to; there is no ideological zeal in doing this. We are doing this because we have to.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the British Chambers of Commerce. What the British Chambers of Commerce said at the time of the Budget was that this

“will have positive effects on business and investor confidence”

and

“will be welcomed by companies the length and breadth of the country—and across the globe.”

That is what the chambers of commerce think. They think that we are right to take this action, and they think that the Labour party is wrong.

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

Q11. Does my right hon. Friend agree that you do not need a basic economics primer to know that when there is a £44 billion black hole in the public finances, you should not propose additional commitments of £10 billion in speeches made outside the House around the country?

[The Prime Minister]

And in speeches after which they will not answer any questions, which is a novel approach.

My hon. Friend is right. We have a problem with the deficit in this country, and we have got to deal with it. We have set out the ways in which we are going to do that, and we have set out a plan. The Opposition do not have a plan, and you cannot attack a plan unless you have one yourself. If all you can do is come up with extra taxes for extra spending, you are completely irrelevant to the debate in the country today about how we pay down our debts. That is the question, and we have the answer.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Evennett Excerpts

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady screams from a sedentary position to ask what we are doing about it, but what did she do about it for 13 years?

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

T7. Does my right hon. Friend have any plans if the referendum on AV is successful and the voting system is changed for parliamentary elections to reform the voting system for local government elections?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

There is of course a legitimate debate to be held about the voting systems for local government, but we have already embarked on a fairly rich menu of political and constitutional reforms, and we have no plans at present to make changes to the electoral arrangements for local government.

Constitution and Home Affairs

David Evennett Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

That is the aspiration, and I do not for a second doubt the good faith of the hon. Lady. I am glad to hear her endorse those proposals—now, sadly, from the Back Benches. As she knows, however, because we had detailed and collaborative discussions on the issue, if the process for individual registration is rushed—and the phrase used in the coalition agreement is “speed this up”—the consequence will be not what she and we seek, but what happened in Northern Ireland. As the Electoral Commission spelt out, what happened in Northern Ireland in 2002 was that a sudden change in the system of electoral registration, although there was a centralised system, led to the immediate loss of nearly 120,000 names—nearly 10%—from the register. The commission said:

“The new registration process disproportionately impacted on young people and students, people with learning disabilities, people with disabilities generally and those living in areas of high social deprivation.”

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

I am listening to the right hon. Gentleman’s speech with great interest, but a lot of what he is saying is pure speculation. Does he think that the current system, with its vast discrepancies in constituency size, is fair? The Government in which he served did nothing to address that, yet it needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

[Mr Straw]

Nobody argues that it is not important to secure electoral equality in England, Scotland and Wales—where different rules have applied, which is a separate issue—but that must also be subject to other rules involving geography and history, as I shall explain. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the data, he will see that nowadays Labour seats in Scotland and Wales are larger than the few Conservative and Liberal Democrat seats in those two nations. In England, our seats are 3% smaller than the electoral average, and those of the Conservatives are 3% larger. There are also some very large Labour seats these days, however, as well as large Conservative seats. We pursued the same rules as previous Administrations, and the reasons for the recent trends is that there has been more rapid depopulation in areas that are typically Labour, mainly inner cities, although that is now changing.

What is crucial is that these changes are done in a fair way, by agreement between the parties, not in a partisan way. Professor Iain McLean, a lecturer at Oxford university and an elections expert, warned last month that

“to move straight to individual registration risks moving straight to mass disenfranchisement of the young, the urban, the mobile and ethnic minority voters”

and that it

“could make Britain in 2011 like Florida in 2000”.