Education and Local Services

Debate between George Howarth and Mark Harper

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr George Howarth)]

Order. Before Mr Speaker left the Chair, he did point out that interventions needed to be brief. If anybody finds themselves using the word “and”, it means that they are making one point too many.

[Mr Harper]

What excellent advice, Mr Deputy Speaker. I agree with my hon. Friend. He has led a number of successful job fairs and apprenticeship opportunities in Gloucester. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) has also helped to introduce a cyber training centre in Cheltenham to deliver those extra opportunities for our young people in the industries of the future.

Finally, let me touch briefly on local services, particularly social care. Too often when we talk about social care, we refer only to older people. I want to remind Ministers that almost half the social care spending in England is on working age people between 18 and 24. That social care spending is incredibly important, as it ensures that those people can be independent and that they have the opportunity to work, but we need to think about how we can fund it. It cannot be funded in the same way as social care for older people, as younger people are not likely to have accumulated assets. Any form of means-testing sets up another barrier to work, and I want to ensure that more of those young people can get into work.

In our manifesto, we pledged to get a million more disabled people into work. As chair-designate of the all-party group on learning disability, I want to ensure that more people with learning disabilities have the opportunity to get into work and to succeed in the years to come. I hope that the Minister will bear that in mind as the Government make their plans for the future. We have a proud record. The only thing that I regret about our record is that we did not talk about it enough during the election campaign. If we had, the Leader of the Opposition would not have got away with his irresponsible over-spending manifesto that would have bankrupted our country. I am glad that the people of Britain saw through it and made sure that they returned this Government to office. We will continue to deliver for Britain as we have done over the past seven years. We have a record of which we can be proud.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between George Howarth and Mark Harper

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend heard what I said earlier, but I meant it very sincerely. More than 4,000 EU nationals do not fit the description that she has given. They are people who are here and have abused our hospitality by committing crimes for which they have been sent to prison. The problem with a blanket approach is that it will give those people the right to stay here. Having dealt with individual cases, I know that nothing will do more damage to the British people’s wish to welcome EU nationals than our not being able to deport people who came here as EU nationals and then committed serious crimes. Has my hon. Friend given any thought to that?

[The Temporary Chairman (Mr George Howarth)]

Order. In the brief time for which I have been in the Chair, I have noted that some of the interventions seem to be getting excessively long. I remind Members that interventions should be confined to a single point, and a short one at that.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between George Howarth and Mark Harper

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

There are several other groups of amendments, and we can expand on these matters further in due course. I shall go only as far as I need to in discussing this group, rather than trying to accelerate the debate. I want to deal briefly with the timetable. I do not think that the Bill has been rushed in any way. It was published in July, it had its Second Reading in September, and the first day of its Committee stage did not start until November. We have another day in Committee today, and the House passed a programme motion earlier that gives us an extra day in Committee on Thursday. I do not think that we are rushing ahead with this. No knives were included in the programme motion, and we are taking the debate at the proper pace that the Committee requires.

[Mr George Howarth]

I accept what the Minister says about the timetable for the Committee stage on the Floor of the House. A bigger issue, however, is that there was no time for proper pre-legislative scrutiny before the Bill was published and debated. Such scrutiny would have made many of these issues less contentious, or at least it would have had the potential to do so.

[Mr Harper]

I do not pretend that we published a draft Bill. We did not, but we have not rushed ahead. We published the Bill in July and it is now November and we are on our second day of Committee. That is hardly rushing through at a tremendous pace. We have not overly programmed either; we have had no knives and only today we have added extra time for the Bill. I do not accept at all that we have been rushing on.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between George Howarth and Mark Harper

Monday 25th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

No. The conduct of elections is currently the responsibility of the territorial Secretaries of State. I also made the point to the hon. Gentleman’s colleague, the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), who was here at the beginning of our sitting, that with the Calman recommendations, the administration of elections in Scotland is proposed to be devolved to the Scottish Government. Clearly, if such elections were to take place in future, the Scottish Government would be very involved, but at the moment the responsibility for the administration of each election is that of the Secretary of State, not of the devolved Administrations.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

Let me give way to those Members in the order that they rose: to the right hon. Gentleman and then to the hon. Ladies.

[Mr Howarth]

Given the procedure that the Minister has just described, can he assure me that under the orders to which he has referred, the process in Scotland, for example, cannot differ from that in England, Northern Ireland or Wales? If it can, it might change the terms on which people in each part of the United Kingdom are able to engage in a referendum.

[Mr Harper]

I am not sure that I follow the right hon. Gentleman. Clearly, there will be some differences. One difference I outlined is that, because the referendum is being combined in Scotland with Scottish parliamentary elections, the voting areas and conduct of the elections will be based on Scottish parliamentary constituencies. That will clearly be different in Wales, where they will be based on Welsh parliamentary constituencies, and in England the referendum will be conducted according to local government boundaries, all so that we can combine the elections in the most sensible way, which is what the administrators wanted us to do.

[Mr Howarth]

I understand that, but I had in mind the question: is there any way in which the qualification for taking part in a referendum might inadvertently be changed by that process?

[Mr Harper]

No. The franchise—those who can take part in the referendum on the voting system—are those people entitled to vote in Westminster parliamentary elections and, before the hon. Member for Rhondda jumps up, the small amendment that we have made, the addition of peers. The franchise is the same throughout the United Kingdom, so those entitled to vote in Westminster elections will be able to vote; the issue is simply to do with the mechanics of administering the polls to ensure that the elections are conducted using the most administratively sensible process.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between George Howarth and Mark Harper

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

The hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) seemed to spend rather more time talking about my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister than the Bill during her rather lengthy winding-up speech, and Members—certainly colleagues on the Government Benches—will have noticed that she had trouble keeping a straight face while making her speech. From that, we can detect just how much she really believed what she was saying while going through the motions of delivering her remarks.

We have had a good debate on this important Bill. There were 19 Back-Bench speakers and I will try to refer to their contributions as I go through the arguments. I should just say at the outset that today I sent a copy of the Government’s response to the memorandum from the Clerk of the House of Commons to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee and placed another copy in the Library of the House, and I should also have sent a copy to the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) on behalf of the Opposition. I have apologised to him privately, and I would like to do so on the Floor of the House too. It was an inadvertent omission, not a deliberate discourtesy.

The issue of the time available for debating the Bill arose in a number of speeches from both sides of the House. As is clear from the programme motion, we have allowed two days of debate in Committee of the whole House, so every Member will get the opportunity to debate these important constitutional measures, and a further day on Report and Third Reading for a Bill that contains five clauses and one schedule, albeit they address very important principles.

My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is present. In answering an urgent question earlier today, he made the point that in the first Session of a new Parliament it is simply not possible to do as much pre-legislative scrutiny as one would hope to be able to do later in a Parliament. However, we are not racing off at pace, and I encourage the Committee, chaired by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), to continue its deliberations as I feel that there will be time for the Government and the House to learn from its deliberations before we move into Committee.

[Mr George Howarth]

The Minister should be aware that the Leader of the House said exactly that at business questions last week, but that he then added that it was for political reasons.

[Mr Harper]

Yes, the Leader of the House made the point and I do not think it is different from what I have just said. These are important measures and the Government want to get on with political and constitutional reform. That is why we are moving ahead with these measures, but they will be debated on the Floor of the House and all colleagues will have the opportunity to debate them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend makes some very good points, but I do not think I will be able to do them justice in the four and a bit minutes remaining to me. I have placed in the Library a memorandum responding to the Clerk’s points, which Members can look at. We will deal with these issues—I am confident that my hon. Friend will raise them—in Committee.

[Mr George Howarth]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I think he will find, if he checks the record, that it was the Deputy Prime Minister and not I who got confused about Dissolution arrangements and votes of no confidence.

[Mr Harper]

That was not my recollection at all. I have dealt with the issue of privilege that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) raised.

There are a few speeches that I particularly want to mention. My hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) made an excellent, almost noteless, maiden speech in which he brought the House welcome news about the former Deputy Speaker, Sir Michael Lord, and his improving health. I am sure that all Members will join me in welcoming that excellent news. My hon. Friend gave us a tour of his constituency and focused on the national health service, his professional experience and his campaigning work. He raised an issue that is close to my heart, which I have to deal with—improving broadband in rural constituencies.

I shall pick up only one of the points raised by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox)—that of a euro treaty and a Prime Minister who might wish to dissolve Parliament to put it before the people. We had such a circumstance in the last Parliament, but that Government not only did not consult the people through a referendum, but rammed the measure through the House. That is not an example that this Government plan to follow.

We have had a very good debate with excellent speakers. The central principle is that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has become the first Prime Minister in British history to relinquish his power to seek an election at a time of his own choice. A quote about this issue that I particularly liked compared the advantage that an incumbent Government have in calling the election when they choose with that of an athlete arriving at the track in their running shoes and being allowed to fire the starting pistol. The Prime Minister is taking off his running shoes and putting away his starting pistol, and I have detected a general sense of welcome in the House for that principle—from the Select Committee Chairman, the right hon. Member for Blackburn and many other Members.

I recognise that many important issues have been raised—some of detail and some of more significance—and I look forward to further scrutiny from the Select Committee. Indeed, I have an appointment this Thursday to be grilled by its members on both of our constitutional Bills. I look forward to that, as I am sure do they, and I also look forward to the Bill’s Committee stage in the House when we can deal in more detail with the concerns that have been raised today. Any Member will then be able to raise their concerns on the Floor of the House so that we can have an excellent debate and deal with them so that the House can gain powers being given away by the Executive. That example was not set by the previous Government and I am proud to be introducing it. On that basis, I commend the Bill to the House.



Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.