Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 25th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I agree entirely. If we can make sure that plenty of days are allocated for, for instance, the Committee and Report stages of Bills, which the Government have been committed to doing, and if we can ensure that the House uses that time sensibly and adopts a rational approach to the important things that need to be debated at length and those that may not need to be debated at quite such length, the House can start to look like a grown-up legislature able to do its job effectively.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

But is it not the case that even in the timetable that has been announced, we still have an extremely long summer recess in which Ministers will not be held to account in the House? Would it not be sensible if, instead of running days on unpredictably until late at night, we used more days during the summer to hold the Government to account, rather than holding them to account between 10 o’clock and 11 o’clock at night?

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Lady has expressed that view before. I do not entirely agree that we have an overlong summer recess, with the September sittings. That makes a huge difference to the way in which the House does its business. I also do not entirely agree that sittings are unpredictable. Where we have provided additional time, it has been in response to expected statements, to make sure that the House has protected time to do its business. We are constantly responding to the hon. Lady’s Front-Bench team demanding more time and longer sittings to scrutinise Bills effectively. We must get the right balance. We will look at the matter in more detail. The Procedure Committee has said that it will look at the calendar in the round, and she may want to give evidence to the Committee on her views.

Business of the House

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and my sympathies go first and foremost to the victim’s family. As in all criminal cases, it is for the court to decide what sentence is appropriate—but the sentencing assessment currently being conducted by the Lord Chancellor is now considering the sentencing framework as a whole. In response to my hon. Friend’s specific point, we intend to publish proposals for the reform of sentencing and criminal justice in the autumn, and I am sure that there will be an opportunity thereafter to debate them.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I am holding in my hand the most recent paper from the Library about the hours of the House. It claims that the House adjourns at 10 pm on Monday and Tuesday, at 7 pm on Wednesday and at 6 pm on Thursday. The right hon. Gentleman will have noticed that last night we did not move to the Adjournment debate until 3 minutes past 10. What is he going to do to make the hours of the House more predictable and family-friendly?

[Sir George Young]

One has to put the hon. Lady’s request in the context of the earlier request for more time to debate the constitutional measure currently going through the House. The events of this week and last week are unusual, in that we are debating a constitutional Bill on the Floor of the House and we have allowed injury time for statements that we knew were going to take place. That will not be the normal pattern of sittings, and I hope that normal service will be resumed quite soon.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) for moving the amendment. I give my best wishes—and, I am sure, those of the whole Committee—to the Chairman of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, who would normally have been here to speak about its proposals.

We have had a short and helpful debate. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has told us about the derivation of the word “gerrymander” again; hopefully, we will hear that each day this Committee sits. It worries me when the hon. Gentleman talks about due process: the more he talks about it—and it is not the issue before us at this stage—the more I think he does not know what it means. We will come back to that later.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) assumed a position on the part of the Government without knowing what it was. I suggest to her that that is not a sensible way to go forward; that is meant to be helpful. We are grateful to her.

The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) got the tone exactly right. There is an issue, and we understand that. The amendment would allow the Order in Council laid before Parliament to give effect to the boundary commissions’ recommendations with modifications only if the commissions were content with the changes made. As we have heard, the existing legislation does not have a restriction on modification such as that proposed by the amendment. The Bill simply preserves that power.

There is no record of that power ever having been used. There was an instance in which a Government urged Parliament to reject boundary commission proposals in toto rather than modify them, and some would suggest that that in itself was an abuse, but a Government have never urged Parliament to modify such proposals, so there is no history on the issue. However, I entirely understand the desire expressed by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee to ensure the independence of the boundary commissions and see that their work is not modified for partisan reasons by any Government.

I say to the hon. Member for Epping Forest that the Government would like to consider the matter in more detail. There might be a situation in which, for the timely implementation of the boundary commission’s recommendations, any unintended errors in the reports would need to be corrected in the Order in Council. We would want to consider carefully how any such restriction on the power to include modifications in the Order in Council might work.

There may be a technical defect in what the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee has brought forward. That is not a criticism of its work. The amendment appears to require all four boundary commissions to agree to any modification, rather than the relevant commission or commissions for the part or parts of the United Kingdom where the modification is being made. We may have to look at how the amendment is cast.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I did not jump into the trap that my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) jumped into. However, I want to intervene to say that I would feel quite differently if the hon. Gentleman gave an undertaking that if he found some technical concern about the wording, he would bring back an amendment that made sure that no changes could be made to boundaries by a Minister without the consent of the boundary commission for the relevant region.

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Lady has been in government so she knows the constraints within which we work.

I am very sympathetic to the views expressed in the amendment, and we will have to look at it further. That is not an attempt to fob off the hon. Member for Epping Forest or the Select Committee. It raises an important issue. I do not want there to be any circumstances in which a Government can apply a partisan consideration to a modification for a boundary commission response. I give a clear undertaking that the Government will consider the matter in detail and come back with a response in due course. I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment on the basis that we will look at the matter further and that we are grateful to the Committee for having brought it to our attention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Laing]

I did not say that I was particularly concerned about localism. I am concerned about the equalisation of the size of constituencies. Perhaps some of my colleagues are concerned about localism, but I am far more concerned about democracy.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I share the hon. Lady’s concern about democracy. I am the only Labour Member of Parliament in Berkshire and I have substantially more constituents than any other Berkshire Member, so I cannot be accused of special pleading. However, if the ambition is to get equal-sized constituencies—I share the hon. Lady’s belief in that principle—would not it be better to do it in a way that respects local communities, and to do it slowly, over time, thereby producing the number? I suppose the Conservative party would normally describe that as “evolving.” Would not that be preferable to—to borrow a phrase from my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt)—the Cromwellian hatchet that cutting 50 seats constitutes?

[Mrs Laing]

I agree in principle with everything the hon. Lady says, but I would argue that three years is quite sufficient time for the Boundary Commission to undertake the task before it. The decision on the principle of the work going ahead can be taken in the Chamber over these few weeks of discussions on the Bill, and three years is quite long enough for the commission to do its work. The hon. Lady agrees with me on the principle of equalisation. Once a principle is established, it ought to be put into practice as soon as possible. Three years is plenty of time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

Forgive me, Mr Speaker, but I am not quite sure what point the hon. Gentleman is making. It is a coalition Government commitment that the National Audit Office should have full access to the BBC’s accounts by November 2011 in order to ensure value for money and public accountability.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

10. What plans he has for the future of Creative Partnerships.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

Creative Partnerships is funded by Arts Council England and as such, decisions on its future are a matter between that and Creativity, Culture and Education.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The Minister does not sound as enthusiastic as the teachers and head teachers in my constituency are about this wonderful programme. Can he do more to publicise the achievements of Creative Partnerships? The case report that his Department semi-released a week ago without any real promotion concluded not only that Creative Partnerships improves learning and achievement, but that through research, it improves the capacity of creativity to do more to help children to learn.

[Mr Vaizey]

As the hon. Lady may know, I am a passionate supporter of both music and cultural education in the round. We could do more to make such programmes more coherent, so that they work in a more joined-up fashion, but as I said, the future of Creative Partnerships and how it works is very much a matter between it and Arts Council England.

Business of the House

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

May we have an urgent debate on the right of Back-Bench Members to hold the Government to account? On 15 July, a Communities and Local Government Minister said that no local authority had faced cuts larger than 2%. That statement has not since been corrected, although it is not true. Yesterday, the Deputy Prime Minister said that the war in Iraq was illegal—apparently in a personal capacity, although without informing the House of that fact. What can Back Benchers do, faced with this uncertainty about how Ministers take responsibility?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Lady has raised that issue in a week when we have had the first debate in Back-Bench time in 400 years on one reckoning and in 12 years on another. We are anxious to give Back Benchers more powers. She is perfectly entitled to ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government the question that she has posed about funding for Slough. She will get an answer.

Information for Backbenchers on Statements

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

As a minority party Member, I am of course disqualified from membership of the Backbench Business Committee, but happily, I am not disqualified from participating in the debate, which so far has involved many of the Members who have worked very hard on that Committee.

The Leader of the House helped us by canvassing suggestions as to where we might go from here. It is important to use the motion not just as a “wailing wall” exercise to talk about every past transgression on statements, or to compare how many press briefings this Government give compared with the previous Government. There is guilt all around, so we need to consider how we go forward. If the motion is passed tonight, it will go to the Procedure Committee, but what will it do?

One basic problem touched on by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) is that the ministerial code as such is deemed to be in the charge of the Prime Minister as opposed to the House. One of the things that I would want to see the Procedure Committee do is to draw up a House code of accountability that would apply to Ministers and to Select Committee Chairs if making statements or bringing serious matters— that they have investigated or have made recommendations on—to the attention of the House. A clear House code of accountability would get past the circular argument that takes place whenever hon. Members make a point of order about the lack of a statement—or the alleged inaccuracy of a statement—and then you say that it is not a matter for you, Mr Speaker. In the end, Ministers are meant to be accountable to Parliament, but there is no accountability when these things go wrong. A clear House code of accountability would help us to achieve that.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if there were to be such a House code, it should look at mechanisms to deal with the situation in which, however inadvertently, Ministers mislead the House—as a Minister did when he claimed that my local authority had only 2% cuts—or do not answer questions when asked? We do not have a proper remedy in such circumstances, which are all too common at present.

[Mark Durkan]

I accept what my hon. Friend says. However, I doubt that a new House code of accountability would be able to cover all these issues. It would have to be more like a highway code than an exhaustive and comprehensive law that was specific in all cases. On the basis of case law and application, it could improve, and then Ministers would not be able to claim that they were in any doubt about what it required.

We must also be careful, as Back Benchers who want to ensure that announcements are made in this House rather than being pre-spun to the press and elsewhere, that we do not end up complaining that too many statements are being made and we do not have enough time to spend on substantive legislative business. For another couple of months, I will carry on serving in another Chamber, and that is a common complaint there. We have too many set-piece statements that do not amount to very much and people find it hard to see anything key, important or new in them. Those three words have all been used at various times to describe the test for whether statements should be made in this House.

I sat on the Benches opposite during the last Parliament and heard many statements that did not contain much new. It might have been that the Prime Minister wanted to identify himself with a policy, but the policy itself was not new, and at times we wondered why statements were being made. While we want to press the point that statements should be made in this House rather than being presented through the media or at other set-piece events, we do not want to end up in a ridiculous situation.

The Leader of the House made some useful suggestions. We should not always have oral statements with up to an hour of questions. Often the questions become repetitive and, just as Minister’s statements are accused of spin, so too the questions and the replies can be accused of counter-spin. It cuts both ways. Are there intermediate arrangements that we could have between a written statement, which involves no questions or time for questions, and an oral statement accompanied by a lengthy opportunity for questions? My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) referred earlier to a possible gradation of statements. As the Leader of the House suggested, if a statement were available in writing, it could then be the subject of questions without the statement being rehearsed in the House.

Business of the House

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

In the Queen’s Speech, we outlined 22 Bills for an 18-month Session. We have already introduced three of them—one in the House and two in the other place—and I anticipate a finance Bill before too long. I also anticipate two more Second Readings before the summer recess.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Will the Government arrange, in Government time, a debate on the effects on employment of Government policies? I estimate that the recently announced cuts will cost at least 30 jobs in Slough—a town where unemployment has fallen month on month since the start of the year. Will the Government give us a chance to discuss the effects of what they are doing?

[Sir George Young]

May I return the compliment and suggest that the Opposition use one of their Opposition days to explain where they would have found the £50 billion cuts that were factored into their pre-election statements? They never told us where those cuts would come from, and they would have included some £18 billion of cuts to the capital programme. They said that they would tell us after the election where they would find those cuts, and the time is now ripe.

Political and Constitutional Reform Committee

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I welcome the formation of this Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. I rise to speak because, in common with other Members, I was disconcerted by the Deputy Prime Minister’s speech today, in which he announced the formation of another constitutional Committee, which is not being created as a Committee of this House and is not going through this careful and laborious process. When the Deputy Prime Minister announced the membership thereof, he excluded all the Members of the smaller Opposition parties. I thought that that was, frankly, a disgrace. That initiative to prepare legislation for reform of the second Chamber was really disappointing.

The present proposal, which provides an opportunity for the House properly to scrutinise the other constitutional reforms offered by the current Government, risks, I think, a combination of cynicism from the Conservatives and over-optimism from the Liberal Democrats who have coalesced with them. It is important that constitutional change wins the trust not just of the whole House, but of the citizens whom we have the privilege to represent. It is very important that this Committee gets the same level of respect and power as all the other Select Committees of the House so that it can look at House of Lords reform as much as at the other issues with which it is concerned. I hope to hear from the Deputy Leader of the House that that will be the case and that the bounced-forward Committee that was announced earlier today will not in any way take powers away from the Select Committee that we are debating tonight.

Business of the House

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 3rd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I understand that the Mayor of London is going to the High Court today to get an injunction in order to make progress on clearing Parliament square.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House assist me in getting a response from the Department of Health on a matter that I first raised in February, prompted by consultants at Wexham Park hospital in my constituency? They feared that the hospital had fiddled the books to acquire foundation status. I got replies from the former Secretary of State for Health every month, telling me that the Department was still looking at the question. I have been in direct touch with the current Secretary of State’s office but have still heard nothing. Will the Leader of the House ask the Secretary of State to reply to me on this important issue?

[Sir George Young]

Yes.

Business of the House

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I understand the concern, and during the campaign we proposed a moratorium on centrally driven closures of accident and emergency departments. May I suggest that the hon. Gentleman seek the opportunity of an Adjournment debate to raise that important local issue?

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

May I welcome the rowing back by the Leader of the House from the explicit commitment to extend anonymity in rape cases to defendants? It contrasted with “we will consider” finding ways to invest in new rape crisis centres. I also hear that we are now “considering” anonymity. May we have an early debate on the Stern review, which said that there was no compelling evidence that anonymity protects men, but that there is a case for more research on that?

[Sir George Young]

If the hon. Lady recalls what Stern said, she will know that the report also said that nor was there a case for the opposite. I have some sympathy with the case she makes for a debate on this important subject. Without making any firm commitments, and in light of the fact that I hope that we will have a Back-Bench business committee, I would like to find time for that important issue to be explored. However, I am not sure that what I said warranted the description “rowing back”.