Business of the House

Guto Bebb Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend reminds the House of the action that was taken earlier this week by Treasury Ministers to close a tax loophole. She will also know that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has set up a special unit to ensure that those evading their taxes pay them—speaking from memory, I think some £13 billion was brought in by that unit. I very much hope that we can debate the issue at greater length in the Budget debate, and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will take on board what my hon. Friend has just said about the need to close up further loopholes.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

The Leader of the House and hon. Members will no doubt be aware of the prejudiced and inflammatory comments of Baroness Tonge about Israel and the Israeli people. Although her views in no way represent the position of the coalition Government, it remains the case that many of our friends abroad who are not aware of our constitutional arrangements might see the comments of this Liberal Democrat Peer as indicative of the Government’s position on the issue. May we have an urgent statement from the Foreign Office condemning her comments fully and unreservedly and restating the Government’s commitment to Israel and the Quartet proposals for re-establishing the peace process?

[Sir George Young]

I agree with what my hon. Friend says: those remarks were unacceptable. They do not represent the policy of the Liberal Democrat party, or indeed of the coalition Government. I understand that the noble Baroness has now lost the Whip and therefore no longer speaks for anyone except herself.

Business of the House

Guto Bebb Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The Government are concerned about metal theft and the damage it is doing to churches, monuments and other buildings throughout the country, and there is a working party within government looking at a range of options, such as banning cash payments and better licensing. The Government will outline their views on the Bill when we reach it tomorrow, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that we take the issue seriously, we are looking at a package of measures and we want to make progress.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

May we have a debate on the way in which income tax policy affects families? The CARE report on the taxation of families highlighted the fact that single-earner families in the United Kingdom pay a disproportionate amount of their income in tax. In view of the hint by the Prime Minister that the decision on child benefit will be revisited, is now not the time to have a debate on a tax system that is equitable for all families in this country?

[Sir George Young]

I recognise the concern that my hon. Friend expresses. The Government have made it clear that as we reduce the deficit it is appropriate for those on higher incomes to make a contribution. Against that background, we announced that households with one or more higher rate taxpayer would forgo child benefit from next year. That remains our policy. We are looking at how it will be implemented and hope to make further announcements in due course.

Business of the House

Guto Bebb Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

This issue was raised at Energy and Climate Change questions relatively recently, when it was confirmed that the £1 billion is still available for suitable schemes.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

May I reiterate the call for a debate on the Portas report? In my constituency of Aberconwy, the town of Llandudno is still doing comparatively well, as the main retail centre for north Wales, but other towns, such as Llanrwst and Penmaenmawr, are seeing a decline in the retail sector, which might be combated by adopting some of the proposals in the Portas report.

Business of the House

Guto Bebb Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

It might be unreasonable if it were true. I would like to make some inquiries, but I assume that what my right hon. Friend says in public is what is the case.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

Many local authorities in Wales have accepted demands from trade unions not to dock the pay of striking workers until January or February. May we have a statement to ascertain the Government’s position on using taxpayers’ funds to provide unions with a “strike now, pay later” option?

[Sir George Young]

I understand my hon. Friend’s concern. So far as the Government are concerned, we have had no approach from the civil service trade unions to do what he describes, and we are not aware of a general approach from the public sector trade unions. However, I very much agree with what he has said, and if we were approached, we would say that it is not appropriate to pay people for work that they have not done at this or any other time of year.

Business of the House

Guto Bebb Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The Government’s legislative programme has made good progress through this Chamber and is now in the upper House, where we are awaiting the Welfare Reform Bill, the Health and Social Care Bill and the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. I hope that those Bills will receive legitimate and proper consideration down there and then come back. When the Government have got their Bills through this House, it will then be time to give the date of the Queen’s Speech, but not until then.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

May we have a debate on the maintenance of railway lines in Wales? The Conwy Valley railway line in my constituency should be maintained to route availability 7 standard. A commercial proposition to use the line to carry goods has been rejected because the line has not been maintained to that standard, thus costing jobs and investment which are much needed at this time.

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question because, as a former Secretary of State for Transport, I am interested in promoting use of the railway. The issue that he has raised is a technical one for Network Rail, but I will raise it with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport to see whether we can make some progress and expand that route for the use to which my hon. Friend has just referred.

Business of the House

Guto Bebb Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

It sounded as though the hon. Gentleman was blaming him. None the less, I shall raise the matter with my right hon. Friend and ask him to write to the hon. Gentleman.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

May we have a debate on the impact of the VAT threshold on micro-businesses and their growth potential? In my constituency, many small businesses involved in the tourism sector are in the process of closing for the winter period. They are closing not because they are scared of work or because there is no opportunity for them to create a market and carry on working, but because the current VAT threshold creates a cliff edge that penalises them for being successful.

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and of course we will take on board what he says. The current VAT threshold, at £73,000, is one of the highest in the EU. It is the case that some traders would like it to be raised so that they are outwith it, but others would like it to be reduced to avoid unfair competition from those who are exempt. I believe that we have got the balance about right, but in the light of his comments I am sure that Treasury Ministers will want to keep this under review.

Business of the House

Guto Bebb Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The Backbench Business Committee exists because the coalition Government set it up; the previous Administration failed to do that. I will certainly make inquiries about any legal obstacles that impede the will of the House, as expressed in that debate, being carried forward, and I will ask the Minister concerned to write to the hon. Gentleman.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

I welcome the announcement of the decision to hold a debate on the Silk commission in Government time, and I warmly welcome the opportunity to debate that important issue of highlighting the fiscal responsibility of the Welsh Assembly. What assurances can the Leader of the House give me regarding the time that will be allocated for that debate, to ensure that the subject is fully discussed in this House?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend will know that traditionally there has been a St David’s day debate on Welsh affairs and that in this Parliament we have not had a debate on Wales. Given the pressure on the Backbench Business Committee, we felt that it was right to debate the Silk commission, which addresses issues of the governance of Wales. The Secretary of State for Wales and, indeed, the commission will want to know the views of the House, and we have provisionally allocated a whole day’s debate for that important matter.

Procedure Committee Reports

Guto Bebb Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gray]

I shall not give the House a song; I fear that my voice does not rise to that.

I would not necessarily agree with the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), who focused on the use of electronic devices for Twitter. It is right that I suggested in the e-mail that I sent to all hon. Members that we should probably not use Twitter and blogging, although I will suggest how we might be able to use them. I am not necessarily totally opposed to the notion of twittering.

The main thrust of my amendment, and of my thoughts on the subject—and the thoughts of a great many hon. Members who have spoken to me—is that if we allow unfettered use of electronic devices, three things will happen. The first is that the quality of debate will decline. Let me give an example. Recently, I chaired a Public Bill Committee. Glancing round the room, I saw that some two thirds of the people on the Committee were using electronic devices for one purpose or another. That included the shadow Minister, the Minister, both Whips, and six or eight Back Benchers, one of whom, rather magically, was using two electronic devices simultaneously; how on earth he managed to do that I have simply no idea. It seemed to me that the fine technical point being made about the Pensions Bill—for that was the Bill—was not necessarily being considered carefully by the two thirds of the Committee who were using those machines at that time. Had I challenged members of the Committee to lay out precisely what the person speaking had just said, a very large percentage of them would have looked at me blankly, and would not have had the faintest idea what was going on.

I totally accept the point made by my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), that we can all multi-task. Of course we can; there is no question about that. MPs do it all the time. However, I simply do not believe that the finer points of argument in a debate will necessarily be picked up if one is focusing one’s mind on something else. The purpose of debate is not just for our own voices to be heard, or to get something on the record; we could do that by handing the speech in, as they do in the United States of America. The purpose of debate is to listen carefully to what the other person is saying, to pick up the other person on fine illogicalities in their speech, to make delicate points, and hopefully to come to some kind of useful conclusion. If a person is focusing on emptying their inbox, surfing the net, tweeting or who knows what else—famously, recently a member of the Italian Parliament was spotted surfing an escort site—while theoretically listening carefully to a debate, they are not taking part in it in the way that they should.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

The crux of the issue has been touched on. In the Welsh Assembly, every Member sits in front of a computer. Earlier this year, the Conservative Assembly Member for North Wales, Brynle Williams, passed away at a very young age. A Labour Member, paying tribute to him on the radio, said, “When Brynle Williams spoke in the Chamber, we stopped working on our computers and listened.” Is that not the crux of the issue?

[Mr Gray]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, and it is useful to hear of his experience of the Welsh Assembly, where such changes have been made. Elsewhere around the world, there are examples of all kinds of Parliaments where people use the devices excessively and so are not taking proper part in the debate. [Interruption.] I am being passed a message—on paper—from the Whip, which reminds me to move my amendment; I shall indeed do so. I am most grateful to her; had she passed me that electronically, I would not have got it.

I beg move amendment (a) to motion 1, leave out from ‘used in the Chamber’ to end and add—

‘to a minimal extent, silently and with decorum, to receive and send urgent messages, as a substitute for paper speaking notes and to refer to documents for use in debates, but not for any other purpose.’.

That useful intervention from my hon. Friend the Whip leads me to the second reason why I feel uneasy about unfettered use of electronic devices. Whereas at the moment outside interests—including, dare I say it, the Whips Office—may have some influence over what we do or say, or how we vote in this place, by and large they have to exercise that influence in writing, prior to the debate. It would be particularly unhelpful if, during a speech or debate, outside interests—lobbyists, businesses and groups of all kinds—got in touch with us on our electronic devices and said, “I think you should ask the Minister such and such a question, because that is a weak point in their argument,” or “I think you should do this or that.” We should be listening carefully to the logic of the other person’s speech, and seeking to counter that argument not because a lobbying company or the Whips have asked us to do so, but because it is what we want to do.

Business of the House

Guto Bebb Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am sorry to hear of the problems that confront the hon. Gentleman’s constituents. There will be an opportunity to touch on some of these issues when we debate the remaining stages of the Health and Social Care Bill, but in the meantime I will draw his remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

The recently published accounts of S4C, the Welsh fourth channel, showed that the interim chief executive was paid a pro rata salary of £212,000. Is it possible to have a debate in the House about how a public body such as S4C continues to prioritise high salaries at the expense of front-line services such as programming?

[Sir George Young]

I understand the concern that my hon. Friend has expressed. I should like to share it with the Welsh Assembly, if that is the appropriate department, or with one of my ministerial colleagues, and I will let him have a reply as soon as possible.