English Votes for English Laws

Debate between Graham P Jones and Thérèse Coffey

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Graham Jones]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. What happened is on the record in Hansard—silence from the Government; they have no answers. I gave the Leader of the House the opportunity.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

I can say that Barnett consequentials do not impact on direct pieces of legislation, but I will explain more in my winding-up speech.

[Graham Jones]

I did not catch the first part of the answer. Will the Minister repeat it more clearly?

[Dr Coffey]

I said that I will explain further in my speech, but individual pieces of legislation do not have direct Barnett consequentials, as they are matters of the spending envelope. I shall explain more fully later.

[Graham Jones]

It would be nice to have that information. It is not present at the minute, but I am glad that the Minister is at least having a look at it. Perhaps the explanation she gives will be unsatisfactory. She may have just made some notes and intends to put it in her speech just because someone has raised it, reinforcing the fact that this is a complete mess. Amendments that have consequentials might go before an English-only Committee. What happens then? I leave that with the Minister and will be interested to hear what she has to say.

Finally, the Government do not seem to appreciate that if we end up in a situation where there is an English Conservative majority but a Unionist Labour majority, legislation could be stifled. The Government may say that there is a resolution to the problem or that that is how this place operates in our democracy. The Minister should be mindful of the fact that if the problems are not resolved, regions such as mine in the north of England will quickly get fed up with voting for a Labour Government, getting a Labour Government but not being able to pass Labour legislation because it is blocked by English Conservative MPs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Coffey]

We believe that it is a fair response to say that when the matter is providing finances for English councils, the majority of English MPs should agree to how that is done. I recognise that the hon. Lady may not like that, but when she was in government, it so happened that her party had a majority of English MPs.

Turning to Speaker certification, a lot of people have mentioned the burden—

[Graham Jones]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Coffey]

I will not give way.

On Speaker certification, which the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) referred to in his contribution, the Speaker already certifies money Bills and selects amendments. I am sure that, as he does now, he will take advice on what should be a technical decision.

The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire said at the McKay commission on behalf of the SNP:

“We look at each bill, as we get the business for the week, we assess it for the Scottish interest. If there is none or if it’s insignificant, we take no interest… We have never had the problem. 12 years since the setting up of the Scottish Parliament, we have had the self denying ordinance and found it about the most easiest thing possible to do and we do not see what the fuss is.”

I recognise the cross-border issues that have been raised by hon. Members from north Wales. We met yesterday and we debated the issues the other week. There has been a request to amend Standing Orders to set out the timing of decisions and the ability to make representations. Those parts of the process are not detailed in Standing Orders for other certification processes, but I understand why hon. Members raise this point. I understand that such things happen in practice and they may be in “Erskine May”. I am not sure that it would be appropriate to put them in Standing Orders, but it is up to hon. Members to make their suggestions.

Fixed Odds Betting Terminals

Debate between Graham P Jones and Thérèse Coffey

Wednesday 8th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to contribute to this debate. I served on the Select Committee when it investigated this issue between 2011 and 2012. It was a useful inquiry to undertake several years after the Gambling Act 2005, because although, as has been said, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence, one role of Select Committees and of legislators is to step back and ensure that we are looking at the real data, as opposed to other people’s interpretations of them.

Let us have a bit of a history lesson. FOBTs appeared in high street bookmakers’ shops in the early 2000s, and, after a code of conduct was agreed with the industry, restrictions were put in place: the game type was restricted to only roulette; a cap was put in place on the stakes and prices; a minimum time interval between bets was introduced; and a limit was put in place on the number of machines per shop. That was a useful compromise, but the whole point of reviewing legislation is to see whether there have been any unintended consequences. One of the most obvious unintended consequences has been mentioned by many hon. Members: as the machines are popular and there is a demand for them, what we have been seeing in high streets in different parts of the country is that more and more betting shops are appearing. That may be partly due to the fact that premises are readily available. There have been mergers of various banks and building societies, which are in the same planning class as betting shops. Ultimately, those shops would not open if people did not want to use them.

[Graham Jones]

Is the hon. Lady as disappointed as I am that the Government have not mentioned the survey that 2CV did in Newham, which is a reputable data gathering company? She talked about how folk go into these premises and are addicted to these machines. The survey, which questioned 500 customers as they left betting premises, revealed that 62% admitted to spending every last penny in their pockets and leaving the shop only when all their money had been spent.

[Dr Coffey]

I think I have seen that survey. It was commissioned by the Campaign for Fairer Gambling. I do not deny that that was the outcome. Professor Orford, who is known to be anti-gambling, gave evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee that we are the most studied country in the world, with three public prevalence surveys since 2000 and even more public health research. Despite that, our Committee was not able to substantiate the fact that gambling addiction is driven by fixed odds betting terminals.