Oral Answers to Questions

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Everyone wants to see an expansion of competitive sport in schools, and I feel absolutely passionately about the issue. The fact is the approach we have taken for the last decade has meant that only one in five—one in five; that is pathetic—of our children is playing competitive sport against other schools. There is a choice in politics: to go on with an approach that is failing, or to make a change and do it differently. [Interruption.] They are shouting on the Opposition Front Bench, because they know that their record was one of lots of money spent but complete failure.

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

Q7. The issue of workplace bullying is highlighted in an article in the New Statesman this week. It states: “Ed Miliband’s team are terrified of Ed Balls and Yvette. They think they’re going to…kill him…because they”—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman will resume his seat immediately. That question has got nothing whatsoever to do with Government policy.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Laing]

I have just explained why. I would add that 1832 is not relevant, but 1911 is. We are looking at the last 100 years, during which time there have been several five-year Parliaments.

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

I am sure that my hon. Friend is very familiar with these figures, but 10 of the past 17 Parliaments lasted longer than four years, and six of those 10 lasted longer than four and a half years. That probably supports her argument that many Parliaments run for much longer than four years.

[Mrs Laing]

I thank my hon. Friend very much for those statistics. He is absolutely correct, and talking about averages is neither here nor there. We should be looking at the number of Parliaments that have run for five years, almost five years or very much less. We cannot count the war years, and it is irrelevant to count unusual times. There is no norm of four-year Parliaments. The Bill does not extend anything; it merely enshrines the current situation.

Prisoners’ Right to Vote

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Lady will know from what I said earlier that we are considering how to implement the Hirst judgment. When we have made those decisions we will announce them to the House, and she will be able to ask those specific questions at that time.

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

I would like my hon. Friend to assure the House how he is going to make sure that rapists, murderers and paedophiles will not have the right to vote in my constituency of South Staffordshire, and across this country.

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend can be reassured by what I said earlier, which was that pretty much every Member on the Government Benches, from the Prime Minister down, is unhappy about having to implement this judgment. We are going to have to do it, however, but he can take it from the fact that we are not very happy about having to do that, that when deciding on the judgments we need to reach and in bringing our proposals forward, we will take into account everything that he has said.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield]

I apologise for any offence that I have caused the hon. Gentleman, but I think it would be more useful to focus on the issues under debate. In that context, I want to support amendment 125, which provides for the Boundary Commission to develop a much more accurate assessment of numbers, drawing on information from the Office for National Statistics. I would have preferred it if amendment 229 was also being considered, as that specifically covered census information and would have provided another excellent way of redrawing boundaries.

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

We all accept that the information that comes from local authorities about the electoral roll is not always totally perfect, but people would not accuse others of gerrymandering as a result. If we started using information from many sources, there might be accusations of gerrymandering because of the use of that information.

[Paul Blomfield]

Amendment 125 takes the census as one source of information, but there are and have been fairly well-justified suggestions of gerrymandering based on the way in which the electoral register would be used were it applied in the December of any year.

Superannuation Bill

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

With hindsight, does the hon. Gentleman think that the PCS should have accepted the offer in February?

[Mr McCann]

I always tend to go with the majority; that is the democratic thing to do. When five out of six trade unions accept a deal, that tells us something. I would have taken the view that the majority position should have won through.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

Given that, in this Chamber, we often talk about cuts, you will be pleased to hear, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I have cut my speech substantially, in the interests of time.

It is interesting that so far in this debate there has been a general acceptance, on both sides of the Chamber, that change is needed in the civil service compensation scheme. That acceptance is welcome. I appreciate that both sides of the House cannot agree on how those changes should be made, but this Chamber and this nation are faced with some difficult and hard truths—we cannot afford the situation that the country finds itself in or the deficit that the Government have inherited. While I, like, I am sure, virtually every Government Member, want to see compromise and agreement between the Government and civil servants and civil service unions, we cannot wait for, or be held ransom by, one union that has decided that it does not wish to seek a compromise.

The simple truth is that there is a massive disparity between the private sector and the civil service when it comes to redundancy. Figures from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development estimate that, in autumn 2008, the average cost of a redundancy in the private sector was £8,981. Yet, according to comparative figures for 2005-08, 10,000 compulsory early severance packages were served on civil servants, costing an average of £42,000 each. All Members would accept that that is a substantive difference. Governments, like businesses, need flexibility in what they do and how they work, but the current scheme does not offer that flexibility. We can argue about three years, six years or two thirds, and we can talk about trying to achieve efficiency savings, but the simple reality is that we are facing a payback of between three and six years in order to realise the benefit of those efficiency savings. Unfortunately, that it is not going to be enough in the difficult times that we have inherited from the previous Labour Government.

I very much welcome the words spoken by my right hon. Friend the Minister at the Dispatch Box, along with his obviously heartfelt wish to seek compromise and reach agreement with the unions, for the benefit of everyone in this nation and of the civil servants who work so diligently for this Government. That should be welcomed on both sides of the House. I also hope that, with the passage of the Bill, the civil service unions will realise how important it is to reach that compromise swiftly, for the benefit of all.