Parliamentary Standards Act 2009

David Winnick Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Adam Afriyie]

I thank the hon. Lady for her view, and I can understand the shudder that would go up the spine if it looked as though we were making such a recommendation, but we are not. The Committee’s opinion is that the House is probably the best place for such an administrative role, because the IT systems and infrastructure are already in place, but that is not our recommendation. It would be misleading to suggest that we recommend the return of such administration to the House; we simply say that we think that that is the best way. All that is needed is to enable the separation of the two roles.

If Members are concerned about that idea, I challenge them to find any other body in the world which is both regulator and administrator. IPSA is unique: we would never allow such an arrangement in any other walk of life, and it is certainly unique when it comes to Parliaments and payments to Members.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

May I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for his excellent work in this regard but, at the same time, strengthen and support what the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) has said? Among the general public, the thinking is that expenses are taxi fares and the rest, but they do not understand—understandably so—that expenses include the salaries that we pay our staff, without whose work we could hardly carry out our duties as Members. The sooner this silly and unnecessary term “expenses” is changed to a relevant one, the better we will be.

[Adam Afriyie]

That point is echoed and very well made as a recommendation in the report. IPSA is taking some steps in that direction, and I hope that the report encourages it to move more quickly.

Let us remember that all the changes we made in 2009 were about improving the public’s confidence in this institution, but that cannot happen if the way information is published misleads people into believing something different. I am concerned in particular about the new intake of MPs, and at some point I will ask IPSA, “How many members of the new intake do we honestly think have been terribly devious and tried to cheat their expenses?” I think that the answer is zero. The robust systems in place indicate as much, but every eight weeks Members are lambasted in their local press for claiming something, so something is wrong with the way information is presented, and that is what the report tries to tackle.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Raynsford]

I note, but I cannot say I am persuaded by, the hon. Gentleman’s touching faith in the integrity and probity of journalists, not all of whose expense claims would survive the slightest degree of the scrutiny that they advocate in the case of MPs. However, I agree that there are some forces outside this place that are only too keen to rush to judgment. They do not make a proper considered appraisal of the evidence in the report, or weigh up the merits and arguments and debate those rationally, but rush into caricature and vitriolic attacks on MPs because they have an agenda, which I do not wish to elaborate on further today.

The report proposes, first, separation of the regulation of the expenses system, which should remain in independent hands, from the administration, which as we have heard repeatedly and saw in the evidence submitted to the Committee, could be handled in a far more cost-effective way. The report does not propose a return to the Fees Office but it does suggest having a cost-effective administrative body appointed to run the process of handling claims and making payments, subject to the independent regulator's overall remit. That kind of structure applies almost universally in comparable organisations. It does not require a return to administration in this House. It could be done entirely independently. The case for separating the regulatory function from the administrative function was made forcefully by a large number of extremely experienced people who gave evidence to our Committee, many of whom said that the present arrangement was indefensible and not cost-effective.

Secondly, the report recommends the extension of direct payments to cut down on bureaucracy and costs without any risk of MPs gaining a financial advantage. That must be common sense. The report also proposes more extensive central procurement of equipment and supplies to save public money—again, a recommendation that should command widespread support. It proposes the annual publication of claims, backed up by receipts that have been redacted to remove personal details. That of course goes far further than the current system, which does not involve the publication of receipts, so the suggestion that we are trying to get away from transparency in making that recommendation is curious.

The framework proposed in the report would be more transparent than the current arrangements. At the same time, it would reduce the scope for potentially misleading indications of MPs’ expenses, which is the product of bi-monthly publication. That can result in some MPs who have particular surges, peaks or troughs in expenditure looking as though, in any one set of published figures, they are spending much more than their neighbours. Therefore, a simple, more accurate and fully transparent annualised publication system, together with a move towards real-time publication, as is proposed, must make sense.

The report recommends strongly the clear separation of expenses, which are items such as travel, subsistence and accommodation costs, from office expenditure. The hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) and many others have made the point that such expenditure, bizarrely and uniquely to Members of Parliament, is treated as an expense. Where else would the costs necessary to carry out one’s job, such as for one’s desk, staff, office supplies, printers and so forth, be treated as an expense? Those are not, in normal parlance, an expense, but necessary costs of carrying out our functions. They should be identified separately so that we no longer see the highly misleading figures that are produced by some journalists to imply that MPs benefit from expenses of £120,000 a year, when that is a reflection of the costs of running their office and of their staffing. Those costs should not be subsumed by, or confused with, expenses.

[Mr Winnick]

Like the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell), I intervened when the Chair of the Select Committee was speaking. What is IPSA’s response to that point? Does it accept that it is farcical to describe staff salaries and office accommodation as expenses?

EU Council

David Winnick Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful for what my hon. Friend says. The absolute key to this issue about the institutions is actually what the new organisation does, rather than necessarily what the institutions do. The key is to protect the single market and those things that are vital for Britain. As I keep repeating, the fact is that an organisation outside the EU treaties is not allowed to cut across those treaties or the legislation under those treaties. It would be a greater danger to allow a treaty of 17 to go ahead within the EU, with all the additional powers, bureaucracy and everything else that involves, unless, of course, you can get the safeguards I was seeking.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

We have heard the Prime Minister give his account of the meeting. Can arrangements now be made urgently for the Deputy Prime Minister to explain to the House why he is very much opposed to what has occurred?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me be clear: the negotiating approach of the Government was agreed by the Government before I went to Brussels, because it was very important to set out and agree the safeguards that we believed were necessary—I also set them out to the House, by the way—and that was agreed. However, it is of course important to recognise that it is no surprise that Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have not always agreed about European integration. But, as I say, we have both put aside our interest to work in the national interest in having a Government who are able to clear up the mess that the hon. Gentleman’s party left.

Industrial Action

David Winnick Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

I think it is fair to the general taxpayer, who has carried all the additional cost of public sector pensions over the past 10 years, and to public sector workers and staff, who are dedicated, hard working and perform essential work. We want pension schemes to be available, without their having to be revisited every few years, because this Government are determined to get this right for the long term.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Despite the sickening trade union bashing of Tory MPs, a number of whose campaigns were financed by Lord Ashcroft, so we do not need any lectures from them, is the Minister aware that many decent, dedicated, law-abiding public servants have gone on strike—in many instances for the first time in their life—because they feel cheated and insecure about their pensions and do not accept what the Minister and other Ministers have said? Is there not at least an opportunity to try to understand the deep, strong feelings of people, many of whom will retire with pensions worth a tiny fraction of those that most Tory MPs will receive?

[Mr Maude]

I do understand the concerns of public sector staff and I want to commend the 75% to 80% of public sector workers who have gone to work today as normal. No one had to go on strike. Discussions are continuing and, as I said, making progress on a daily basis. The hon. Gentleman mentions pensions for Members of Parliament. We are public sector workers. We have a very generous pension scheme. It needs to be reformed and I hope it will be.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Winnick Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We are doing a number of things. We have retained the previous Government’s capital spending plans; in fact, capital spending will go up slightly by the end of this Parliament. We have done much more than that. We have also introduced innovative ways in which we can marry public and private capital to invest in our transport, energy and communications infrastructures—notably the green investment bank, the first of its kind anywhere in the world. That will use £3 billion of public money to leverage in about £15 billion of private investment in the green technologies that are absolutely crucial to our economic future.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Does the Deputy Prime Minister understand the concern of many Liberal Democrat Members in the House of Lords and elsewhere who remain dissatisfied with the Health and Social Care Bill? Why is this measure going through when there is so much concern, certainly among the public, as well as among his own colleagues in the House of Lords?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We will see how my colleagues in the other place vote. In fact, the more people have looked at the Bill, the more reassured they are that its purposes are fully in line with many of the reforms to the health service that the previous Government introduced, with less centralisation, less bureaucracy, more control by clinicians and GPs, and a more patient-centred health service, all the while enshrining and protecting the founding principles of the NHS—free at the point of use, and based on need, not on the ability to pay. The hon. Gentleman may feel that the NHS is in no need of reform at all; anyone who knows anything about the NHS and realises that it faces increasing costs accepts that it must be reformed, but of course reformed in the right way.

Libya

David Winnick Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. What I would say about doctrine is that if you overdo your belief in a particular doctrine, you will find that the next problem that confronts you will fall completely outside it and you will have to spend a lot of time inventing a new doctrine to deal with it. I am a practical—[Interruption.] Members say that I am a Conservative, and that is right. I am a practical, liberal Conservative—that is what I believe, and I think this was a practical, liberal, Conservative intervention. [Hon. Members: “A new doctrine.”] It is a way of thinking.

On what my hon. Friend says about armed forces being able to project our reach and power, I absolutely agree with him, and we cannot maintain that reach and power by not having a defence review and by sticking with massed battle tanks in Europe. What we need to do is modernise our armed forces and make sure that we have the reach for the challenges of the future. I repeat what I said: far from disproving the strategic defence review, I think Libya proved the case for the sort of changes that we are making.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

No one will be sorry to see the end of Gaddafi’s criminal regime, which was deeply involved in international terrorism, but is there not some hypocrisy in all this? Is it not a fact that up to this year, Britain was selling the Gaddafi regime sniper rifles and crowd control equipment? Now we learn that there was a close collaboration between some western countries—not only Britain—and the Gaddafi regime, in which terror suspects were actually sent to Gaddafi’s torture chamber.

[The Prime Minister]

Far be it from me to join the hon. Gentleman in attacking the last Government. To be fair, I think it was right to have a new relationship with Libya when we could persuade it to get rid of its weapons of mass destruction, discontinue its nuclear programme and try to take a different path. I have my criticisms of the last Government, as I think they were then too gullible and went too far in that direction. Specifically, when we had the O’Donnell report into Megrahi it found that the last Government were trying to facilitate his release, but I do not criticise the general intent of wanting a new relationship. What really changed was the treatment by Gaddafi of his own people. That was the moment for the world to act, and I am proud of the fact that the world did so.

Public Disorder

David Winnick Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The Government will certainly do that. I was in Birmingham yesterday and joined a meeting of community leaders from all religions, all creeds and all races, who came together to make sure that the communities did not respond inappropriately to the dreadful events that had happened. I pay tribute to the chief constable of West Midlands police, the leader of Birmingham city council and all the people who went out from that meeting and spoke to their communities to appeal for calm. The scenes that we all saw on our television screens last night of communities coming together in Birmingham to try to stop the violence was a model of how these things should be done.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Bearing in mind what the Prime Minister has just said, what justification can there be in the west midlands for very experienced police officers who have served for 30 years or more being forced to retire against their wishes because of the cuts? Where there is no adequate police presence, as has unfortunately been the case once or twice in the past few days, does not the mob take over?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely right. When I was in Wolverhampton yesterday, I heard that the number of police officers was roughly doubling overnight compared with the previous night. I suspect that the same was happening in Walsall, West Bromwich and other parts of the west midlands. One lesson we must learn is that we need the ability to surge the number of police in our communities very rapidly when such problems arise. Let me say again that the police do a difficult and dangerous job on our behalf. They learn from experience. The police in our country are hugely experienced in dealing with difficult situations. They do not always get it right. We must praise them when they do get it right. Here, we must say that some of the tactics need to change, but we should not substitute our own judgment for theirs—that would not be a sensible approach.

Public Confidence in the Media and Police

David Winnick Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I think the terms of reference are pretty clear. The point about cross-media ownership is not about conduct; it is about not just market power, but power of voice. What you are trying to do with cross-media ownership is, if one organisation has a very powerful television station, a number of newspapers, and perhaps some radio stations and some internet sites, how do you agglomerate that and try to measure its power? I can bore for Britain on this subject because I used to work for ITV, in competition with BSkyB and the BBC. It is a very difficult thing to do, but that does not mean we should not try. On the terms of reference, that is what the cross-media ownership part is about, but clearly it is looking at media regulation more broadly, specifically of the printed press, but it can go further.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Will the Prime Minister give way?

[Ms Buck]

Will the Prime Minister give way?

[The Prime Minister]

I am going to make some progress, and then I will give way a couple more times before I close.

So, Mr Speaker, the question is, given the difficulties I have mentioned, how do we maximise the chance of making a clean break with the past. I want to set out some very clear lessons. First, we have got to try to proceed on a cross-party basis; otherwise, we will have each party trooping off to media organisations and promising the lowest common denominator. If I say “independent regulation”, there is a danger someone else will say “self-regulation”, and so on. We could end up constantly competing with each other in a kind of regulatory arbitrage over who can be the softest and most appealing to newspapers, television stations and their owners. I do not think we should pretend this is simply about tabloids or even simply about newspapers. I am a huge supporter of the BBC and the licence fee, but, frankly, I think there did come a time in recent years when the income of the BBC was so outstripping that of independent television that there was a danger of BBC News becoming rather dominant. So, there are dangers right across the piece here.

The offer to work together with all parties on this agenda is indeed a genuine one.

[Mr Winnick]

However critical I may be of the press, and however biased in many ways, I am totally opposed to any form of gagging, and that, I am sure, is the view of most of my right hon. and hon. Friends. However, does the Prime Minister accept that self-regulation has been totally inadequate from day one? It has been a total farce, so if we are to have self-regulation, which I hope will continue, it must be far more effective than it has been.

[The Prime Minister]

I do agree with the hon. Gentleman that the current system of self-regulation has failed, not least because it did not properly respond to all these warnings. That is why I choose to talk about independent regulation. I do not want to see statutory regulation—the heavy hand of the state. We have got to try to find a way to make sure that the press are regulated in a way that is independent from them, but not by the state and the Government. I think it is doable.

Public Confidence in the Media and Police

David Winnick Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The fact is that we can go back over these reports and over the missed warnings, and the inquiry will be able to do that too, and we should use that information and use this once-in-a-generation chance to try to get media regulation right.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

The motion we will debate today is about public confidence. Does the Prime Minister really feel that his conduct first as Leader of the Opposition then as Prime Minister should inspire confidence, bearing in mind the phone hacking allegations and the way in which he employed the former editor of the News of the World? Does he not realise that to many people the way in which he has acted in the past few years has been pretty sordid?

[The Prime Minister]

My answer to the hon. Gentleman is yes. Which Government set up a judicial inquiry? This one. Which Government made sure that there is a fully resourced and staffed police investigation? This one. Which Government are being totally transparent about their conduct and contacts with the media and asking others to do the same? That is what this Government have done. For 13 years, his Government had all those opportunities and failed to take them.

Phone Hacking

David Winnick Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Unlike my hon. Friend, I am not a lawyer, but I believe it is a criminal offence, because someone who obtains information falsely is breaking the law. This is another aspect that I am sure the inquiry can look at, however.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that some of the evidence given to the Home Affairs Committee yesterday must have come as a shock and a surprise? For instance, how can it be justified for the police to dine with the very people whom they are investigating, and is that not all the more reason why this inquiry is so necessary?

[The Prime Minister]

I agree. I watched some of the evidence, and that was very striking. Let us be frank about transparency: MPs have had to go through this over expenses and meetings and other things, and it is time for the police to address it, too. Transparency is the best answer. There are bound to be relationships between senior police leaders and senior media executives, not least because the police have to explain what they are trying to do, but if those relationships are transparent, people can know what is going on.

Afghanistan

David Winnick Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I think there is good evidence that there is a real commitment in NATO. Many NATO partners say that we joined this together and should leave together. There is a growing understanding that what needs to be done in cases such as this is to have an enduring relationship rather than just a short-term relationship. That argument is well understood, and the commitment that other NATO members have made to the training positions in Afghanistan is a pretty positive story.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

As someone who takes a somewhat different view on Afghanistan, may I make it quite clear that I pay tribute, as I have previously, to the British troops involved for their bravery?

Will the Prime Minister continue to reject the arguments of those who oppose ending the British combat role in the next four years? As far as I am concerned, I would like to see it done earlier. Is there not a very strong feeling in this country that, after 10 years, the British people want out?

[The Prime Minister]

I think what the British people want is some certainty about the length of the mission and what it involves. My belief is that because we have been in Afghanistan since 2001 and in Helmand province since 2006, it is reasonable to say to people that we are going to be there until the end of 2014 in large numbers and in a combat role, but that after that the numbers will be lower and we will not be in a combat role. That gives people in our own country some certainty, but it also puts some pressure on the Afghans to ensure that they have really worked out how they need to take their responsibilities. The advice that I receive from our military commanders is that this is doable. Yes, it is challenging, but it is on track to be achieved.