Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)

George Eustice Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with the first half of what the hon. Gentleman said, which is that it is important that we establish the full facts of the case. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been absolutely clear, and so has the special adviser. The difference between this case and other cases where Ministers are involved in these sorts of accusations is that this is going to be examined by a judge in a court.

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

As long ago as 2006, the Information Commissioner revealed that newspapers were driving an

“illegal market in personal information”,

and yet there was no judicial inquiry and the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, did not dare criticise what he called the “feral beast” of the media until days before he left office. Now that we have the Leveson inquiry, does the Prime Minister agree that Ministers in the last Government should be given the opportunity to explain why they did so little in response to that report?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Frankly, it is, yes, a point for the last Government, but it is also a point for the last Opposition. These were powerful reports by the Information Commissioner, but the problem is that our political system did not react properly to them. That is one of the reasons it is so important to have the Leveson inquiry and to try to get to a situation where we have an appropriate regulatory system, so that when problems are thrown up, as they were by Richard Thomas in those reports, they are properly dealt with.

Party Funding

George Eustice Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

The Minister mentioned the cross-party talks chaired by Sir Hayden Phillips five years ago. Will he confirm that early in those talks the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, accepted the need for the cap to apply to trade unions as well, but that ultimately the rest of the Labour party was a roadblock to such reform?

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend is completely right. There was a concern that if the Conservative party was to get over its deep-seated opposition to increasing the amount of state funding for political parties, the other side of the coin had to be that the Labour party would give up its addiction to trade union funding. Sadly, the latter part did not come through.

Public Procurement

George Eustice Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, asked me to make a speech on behalf of the Committee and on his behalf because he thought that he would not be here, but such is the attraction of a European debate that he is in his place anyway. None the less, the Committee is grateful to Her Majesty’s Government for facilitating the debate so quickly. The time scale under the Lisbon treaty for national Parliaments to submit a reasoned opinion on a subsidiarity issue is extremely tight. In this instance, the European Scrutiny Committee received the views of the National Assembly for Wales only a couple of days before the Committee’s meeting last Wednesday, when it recommended that the House adopt the draft reasoned opinion.

The Government have welcomed the proposals, and many of the detailed measures in them, and have provided an impact assessment that suggests that the benefits would significantly outweigh the costs. However, as we have heard from the Minister, they have one major concern—namely, that the proposals would require member states to establish a national oversight body, which would not only have a range of administrative and regulatory powers, but would be able to “seize” jurisdiction of the courts and pre-empt their functions in a way that the Government consider might infringe the principle of subsidiarity.

As I mentioned, this concern was echoed in the letter from the Chairman of the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee of the National Assembly for Wales. I understand that the Scottish Parliament takes a similar view. Let me say from the outset that this concern is shared by the European Scrutiny Committee for reasons that I will come on to in a moment. So the debate today is not about the generality of the draft directive, in spite of some of the comments that we heard earlier. Rather, it is about a subsidiarity issue that the Government, two of the devolved Assemblies and the European Scrutiny Committee have identified.

Before I turn to the subsidiarity issue, I should explain that a reasoned opinion is a new procedure under the treaty of Lisbon, available to national Parliaments if they wish to challenge Commission proposals for legislation on subsidiarity grounds. National Parliaments have eight weeks from publication of a proposal to submit a reasoned opinion. The deadline in this case is midnight Brussels time, which would be 11 pm Greenwich mean time, on 8 March 2012.

If such opinions represent one third of all votes of national Parliaments—the bicameral UK Parliament has two votes—the Commission has to reconsider its proposal. We understand that, as the Minister mentioned, one other national Parliament, Sweden’s Riksdag, is also submitting a reasoned opinion on similar grounds. Even if the threshold is not met—in reality, the numbers required mean that it is highly unlikely that it will ever be met—the Commission responds to each reasoned opinion it receives. In addition, national Parliaments can, acting through the Government, now challenge EU legislation on the grounds that it infringes the principle of subsidiarity.

The principle of subsidiarity is born of the wish to ensure—if you believe this, you would believe anything—that decisions are taken as closely as possible to the nationals of individual EU member states. It is touted as a buffer against unnecessary supranational—not supernatural—legislation but it has been largely unsuccessful. If only the legislation were supernatural, we might find that our experience of the European Union was a happier one. None the less, its definition is important. It is set out in article 5(2) of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, which states:

“Under the principle of subsidiarity, in areas which do not fall within its exclusive competence, the Union shall act only if and in so far as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States, either at central level or at regional and local level, but can rather, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed action, be better achieved at Union level.”

In addition, the treaty requires the EU institutions to ensure “constant respect” for the principle of subsidiarity as laid down in protocol No. 2 on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. Accordingly, article 2 of the same protocol obliges the Commission to consult widely before proposing legislative Acts. This is one of the parts that has not taken place. Such consultations are to take into account regional and local dimensions, where necessary. If the Commission fails to do so, a reason must be given in its proposal.

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the principle of subsidiarity would work far better if rather than just being able to prompt a response from the Commission, groups and national Parliaments were able to strike down policies of the Commission?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

If I may divert from the set text from the European Scrutiny Committee, it is always worth remembering that subsidiarity started as a theological term in the Roman Catholic Church, of which I am a member. That is one of the most centralised bodies of any organisation anywhere in the world, with power vested in the Holy Father, so I have always been rather suspicious as to what the purpose of subsidiarity is.

European Council

George Eustice Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

This was a European Council devoted to discussion of the economy and foreign affairs, so there was no discussion of the European arrest warrant.

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

I welcome the consistency with which the Prime Minister has argued for the development of the single market. Does he agree that a successful single market does not require harmonised employment laws? Can anything be done at this late stage to mitigate some of the damaging effects of the agency workers directive in particular?

[The Prime Minister]

On the agency workers directive, it is difficult, because it has already effectively been implemented. However, as I and other countries said, it is no good pursuing a growth agenda in the EU if, at the same time, the Commission is still coming forward with directives that cost business and industry a huge amount of money. I mentioned the new ergonomics directive—believe it or not—which will cost business many hundreds of millions of pounds. As I said, however, with the new Prime Ministers in Italy and Spain, there is now southern support for the northern agenda of deregulation. We need to ride that horse as fast as we can.

Informal European Council

George Eustice Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

In Europe, we have a plan for jobs and growth, which is called completing the single market. The question that the hon. Gentleman and his leader have to answer is about the new treaty being proposed, which 25 countries are going to sign and Britain is not. [Interruption.] I do not care how bad the lasagne is, at some stage the shadow Chancellor and the Leader of the Opposition are going to have to make up their minds. Are they for it, are they against it, or are they weak and indecisive and cannot make up their minds?

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

Like many others, I welcome the commitment to cut the burden of regulation, but does the Prime Minister agree that there could be potential to revisit the way in which directives were transcribed into UK law by the previous Labour Government, with a view to removing some of the gold-plating that businesses complain about so much?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. There have been occasions on which EU directives have been added to by Government Departments and implemented with more vigour than in other parts of the European Union. We have tried to put a stop to that under this Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

George Eustice Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Every increase in youth unemployment is unacceptable—[Interruption.] I will tell the House exactly what is happening. The number of 16 to 18-year-old young people not in employment, education or training is actually going down, but the problem, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, is that 18 to 24-year-olds are finding the job market extremely difficult. [Hon. Members: “Why?”] The reason why unemployment is going up is that we are losing jobs in the public sector and not growing them fast enough in the private sector, so we need to do everything we can to get our economy moving. The absolute key to that is keeping our interest rates low. We now have interest rates down to 2%. If we followed his party’s policy of extra spending, extra borrowing and extra debt, interest rates would go up, more businesses would go under and we would not get our economy moving.

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

Q12. Many Members will have encountered examples of banks using the threat of receivership to extract new charges and higher interest rates from their business customers. Does the Prime Minister agree that it is wrong for banks to use what is effectively an extortionate bargaining position in this way, and will he agree to meet me to discuss some of the proposals I have outlined to limit the power of receivers and require banks to obtain a possession order before selling up small businesses?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend about this issue. It is vital that we not only get our banks lending properly, and lending to small businesses, but ensure that they behave in an ethical and proper way as they do so. We are addressing the first issue—the quantity of lending—through the national loan guarantee scheme and the other credit-easing measures that the Chancellor set out in the autumn statement, but we also need to ensure that the practices that the banks follow are fair, and seen to be fair. They have an interest in making sure that small businesses are in good health, and they need to follow those sorts of procedures to ensure that that happens.

Parliamentary Lobbying

George Eustice Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Westminster Hall

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

I will be as brief as possible.

I worked in the public affairs industry for a year in 2009, but for a company signed up to the Association of Professional Political Consultants, which adheres strongly to transparency. There is a danger of exaggerating such people’s influence. Hon. Members returning after this debate should look in their recycling bins to see how much power the people that we are fretting about actually have. The truth is that we are inundated with lobbying all the time, and we throw away most of it. At the end of the day, it is down to our judgment whether we believe these people. As MPs, we are approached by companies or pressure groups that often smack of commercial interest and we can spot it a mile off. We might also get people who do not articulate their case very well, but we are the ones who can judge that and give them a voice when they may not have one.

I agree that there is a need to improve transparency, and particularly a need for a register of lobbyists. They should be required to list their clients and disclose whether anyone who works for them has had a previous Government role. However, I am nervous about going down the route of disclosing every meeting with people who are trying to lobby us, because it suggests that we base our opinions on the number of people who have lobbied us about something, rather than exercise judgment, which is what we actually do.

My final concern about publishing the details of such meetings relates to an unintended consequence whereby people say, “You met that group, so why can’t you meet us? You’ve met the People’s Front of Judaea, but what about the Judaean People’s Front?” It is difficult enough for Ministers to balance their work load. Do we really want to create a situation whereby organisations start to feel that they almost have an entitlement to meet Ministers on the basis that they have met somebody else?

[John Robertson (in the Chair)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his brevity.

Phone Hacking

George Eustice Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady makes a very good and sensitive point. It is not just for the PCC but for newspapers themselves to understand the trauma that is being caused and the need to be more sensitive.

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that one of the key weaknesses of the PCC is that the public interest defence in the code has, frankly, been used and abused over the years? That is why it is so important to have independent regulation going forward and why those who continue to cling to the idea of self-regulation are wrong.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend did an excellent job as my press secretary for many years before taking the sensible view that he belonged on these Benches. There is a problem, which the inquiry will have to look at: we want the press to take action in the national interests, but we have to have a system in which they are not breaking the law. That has to be resolved.

House of Lords Reform

George Eustice Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

I am not entirely opposed to reform of the House of Lords, but I am deeply sceptical about the idea of an elected House of Lords. The simple fact is that there is far more to a successful democracy than elections. Many people have said that the reason why we must have elections for the House of Lords is to give it legitimacy. That is not the right argument. Lots of institutions in our democracy do not need elections to make them legitimate. Judges and magistrates are not elected, and we have a monarch who is not elected. All these parts of our constitution play a very important role despite the fact that they are not elective.

[Stephen Williams]

Judges and magistrates exist in our constitution to pass judgment over people who have broken laws. They are not there to make laws, which is what the House of Lords is for.

[George Eustice]

I accept that to some extent, although judges often make public policy decisions, and those judgments influence our legal system. However, my point is that we do not need elections for these institutions to be legitimate.

[Jesse Norman]

It is not true that judges do not have a role in making the law. For 700 years, common law judgments have been made in difficult cases that have laid down what is the law as a result. This position has always been understood by the judges. A famous lecture was given on the topic by Lord Reid in the 1960s. I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees that we should have no truck with the idea that judges do not have a thoroughly legitimate, though unelected, place in the constitution.

[George Eustice]

I share my hon. Friend’s view entirely.

[Mark Durkan]

rose—

[George Eustice]

I have given way a couple of times and I am going to continue.

The reason for having elections is not to give legitimacy but to deliver accountability. People say that we need to have greater legitimacy for the House of Lords, but if we gave it democratically elected legitimacy, it would then become a rival to this Chamber. That is one of the problems that is overlooked.

The proposals will not deliver accountability. There will be single terms of 15 years, and there is no chance of a failing lord being thrown out at the end of it. Accountability works when one can fire people who fail; if one cannot do so, it defeats the object of the exercise. We ended up with the stipulation of 15-year terms, because even the advocates of this reform recognise that as a consequence of having a democratically elected second Chamber people’s independence might be compromised, because they would have to jump to the electoral cycle and would be more in hock to the parties that sponsor them.

The proposed Chamber would have a mixed nature, with some people being appointed and 80% being elected. Who would be blamed if they failed? Would it be the fault of the ones who were elected or of the ones who were appointed? That would cause confusion where there should be clarity. It should be either all elected or all appointed.

We must also consider how the elections would work in practice. People will typically make these judgments on the same day as a general election. They will not necessarily vote for the best people to scrutinise Parliament in the House of Lords. It will be rather as it is with the European Parliament at the moment—a national opinion poll on whether the Government are doing well or badly. People will therefore not be selected on their ability to scrutinise the Government.

[Andrew Percy]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[George Eustice]

No; I have given way a couple of times and want to make some progress.

What is legitimate about electing people based not on their own performance or ability, but on the performance of the governing party or the Opposition? That is not the right way to select a Chamber that is, after all, there to revise.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) has said that the average age of Members in the other place is 69. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) was also rather scathing about the advanced years of some Members in the other place and the quality of the debate. However, the House of Lords is the forum that we provide for debate for the older generation and people who have experience. [Laughter.] This is an important point, if Members will hear me out. I believe that the dynamic between the other place and this place should be akin to that between a non-executive chairman and a chief executive, or between a father and a son. It is a natural dynamic. This place makes the decisions as new Governments come in with fresh ideas that they want to implement. However, we must not fool ourselves into thinking that we are so clever that we do not need another Chamber of people who can bring to bear their experience and say, “Well, we tried that in the ’70s and the ’80s and it didn’t work.” That is the reason for having a revising Chamber.

I do not think it necessarily matters that not everybody in the other place is of a completely independent mind, such as those with a political background or former politicians. The key thing is they have independence of mind coupled with experience. Retired politicians who go to the other place are often of the view that they have been told what to do for long enough by the Whips and that they will use their experience to change legislation sensibly, which must be a good thing. If we change to an elected House, we will lose some of that. The types of people who will stand for election to the House of Lords will tend to be people like us. They will be of the same generation as us and might include people who were unsuccessful at the last general election and so decide to stand for the House of Lords instead. We will lose the natural dynamic between the two generations, which is important.

To conclude, I will say a little about the areas that could be meaningfully reformed without having an elected Chamber. First, we could make the Lords smaller. Secondly, we could limit the time that people are there, so that they serve 10 or 15 years and then retire. Thirdly, we could tighten the appointments criteria, so that there are more independent people, if that is what we want to achieve. The single most important thing that we can do is to expect people to attend and participate. All too often in the past 10 years, people have been granted a peerage in recognition of something that they have achieved in life, but not with the expectation that they will work and attend debates. If we changed that, it would be a more meaningful and important reform than having an elected upper Chamber.

European Council

George Eustice Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

Further to the Prime Minister’s answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), I congratulate my right hon. Friend on getting the European Commission to identify regulations from which small businesses should be exempt. What does he expect to be the time scale in which that task is completed? Will he give an assurance that he will follow this matter through ruthlessly to ensure that the Commission delivers on the promise?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes the good point that getting these things to appear once in a set of European Council conclusions is a good start, but that we have to ensure that the European Commission follows through on that. That is why I am trying to build an alliance in Europe on this issue. The fact that several consecutive Council conclusions have mentioned it means that a programme will have to be put in place to get it done.