Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Pat McFadden]

I do think the Tories have a problem. The new Leader of the Opposition stood at that Dispatch Box a couple of weeks ago and said that she supported all the extra investments. Therefore, every time the Opposition stand up and oppose the revenue measures that are designed to fund them, all they do is expose their own economic incoherence. It is quite simple: if the Opposition support the investments, they have either to support the revenue measures that we have set out, or set out alternative revenue-raising measures to meet the investments that they support. So far, they have utterly failed to do that.

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

Five months in and after a Budget that the Office for Budget Responsibility says will lower growth over five years, increase inflation and reduce the number of people in jobs, it is extraordinary to see a document that has so many areas not covered. I want to probe the right hon. Gentleman specifically on his goal of increasing disposable income for working people. What would he say to those 44,000 terminally ill older people who, in shocking news last week from Marie Curie, will not get their winter fuel allowance this year? Will he be judged by his governance actions?

[Pat McFadden]

Every Government are judged by their actions and by the legacy that they leave to their successors. We had to take that decision on winter fuel precisely because of the legacy that was left to us. We do want to see a rise in people’s living standards and in their disposable income. Those stagnated under the previous Government, and let us not forget how unusual that was. This was the first Parliament in living memory that saw stagnated living standards across the whole population. We aim to change that and make sure that people see rising living standards wherever they live in the country.

Ministerial Code: Policy Announcements

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

As my hon. Friend says, the measures will be announced at tomorrow’s Budget in the normal way, with the Office for Budget Responsibility’s economic and fiscal forecast. The Conservative party may denigrate the Office for Budget Responsibility, but this Government respect our financial institutions.

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

Can the Paymaster General confirm that the Chancellor receiving £7,500-worth of free clothes and declaring them as office support is a breach of the ministerial code?

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

rose—

Oral Answers to Questions

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

That is precisely why we have created i.AI—the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence—under my leadership to make sure that we apply artificial intelligence to drive down the cost of public services and to improve outputs. I say gently to the right hon. Gentleman that it is a bit rich to be taking lectures from the Labour party, which wasted over £26 billion when it was in government on failed IT projects—failed IT projects in the NHS, the Ministry of Defence and DEFRA. And where was the right hon. Gentleman? He was sat in Downing Street while that happened.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

T6.   May I first associate myself with the Deputy Prime Minister’s words about the royal family?On 23 February, this House has the opportunity to correct the constitutional sexism that means that one eighth of the seats in the other place are reserved for men only. Will the Government support and work with me on my Hereditary Titles (Female Succession) Bill to ensure that the succession of peerages moves in line with that of the Crown?

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question and the work she has done in this area; I know she has thought about it a great deal. I will be writing to her in due course. It is a complicated area of constitutional law, but we appreciate the position from which she is coming.

Defending the UK and Allies

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support for the action in Ukraine. Let me touch on his last point, because I agree with him; we are, of course, concerned about the devastating impact of the conflict in Gaza on the civilian population—too many people have lost their lives already—and there is a desperate need for increased humanitarian support into Gaza. I am pleased that the UK is playing a leading role: we have tripled our aid. Recently, the Foreign Secretary appointed a humanitarian envoy to the region to address some of the blockages, and we delivered our first maritime shipment of aid into Egypt—more than 80 tonnes of new aid. When I spoke to Prime Minister Netanyahu, I impressed upon him the importance of not only increasing the flow of trucks, but, crucially, if we can, opening up extra crossings into Gaza, so that we can increase the flow of aid. We will continue to press on Israel to do that, so that we can bring more relief to people who are suffering a great deal.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I thank the Prime Minister for a clear statement. It is reported that the drones being used by the Houthis are being helped by Iran. The American Enterprise Institute has reported that Russia has given $900 million to Iran for drones. Will the Prime Minister assure the House that we are doing everything we can in this country to make sure that none of that money is going through the UK financial system?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me tell my hon. Friend that she is right and we agree with the US assessment that Iran has directly supplied and directly supported Houthi attacks in the Red sea, providing intelligence, especially to enable their targeting of vessels, and providing them with missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles. She is right to say that we should do everything we can to prevent that, and I reassure her on that. She will know about the measures we have taken over the past two years on financial transparency and beneficial ownership registers, which allow us to crack down on economic crime and money laundering. Physically, the Royal Navy is involved in interdicting shipments, as it has done successfully last year and the year before. It will continue to have a presence in the region so that we can disrupt those illegal arms flows.

NATO Summit

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we have recently hosted the Ukraine recovery conference, for which the Ukrainian Government and people are extremely grateful. It was the most successful conference of its ilk that has happened, raising more than $60 billion for Ukraine’s reconstruction and mobilising private sector capital, as is necessary. It was seen as a significant achievement and the UK leading from the front. With regard to assets, I point him to a good couple of paragraphs in the NATO communiqué. All allies are taking steps, as are we, to legally freeze assets until suitable reparations from Russia have been put in place for reconstruction. He will understand that the international framework for doing so is untested and novel. It requires co-operation among allies, and that co-operation and work is happening.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

Further to the question from the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), I welcome the UK’s strong leadership at the NATO summit and thank the Prime Minister for it. The unity, the resources and the new members send a powerful message. There is no timetable for Ukraine joining NATO, but its membership is only a matter of time. When that time comes, the extent of reconstruction and the investment needed will be vast. A lot of Russian assets are held here and are frozen. Can the Prime Minister elaborate even further on the conversations he had at the summit on how the UK will again play a leadership role in unlocking resources from those Russian assets to help with the reconstruction of Ukraine?

[The Prime Minister]

We have recently published new legislation that will enable sanctions on Russia to be maintained until Moscow pays compensation to Ukraine. I can assure my hon. Friend that we will pursue all lawful routes to ensure that Russian assets are made available in support of Ukraine’s reconstruction, in line with international law. Our international partners are, like the UK, yet to fully test the lawfulness of a new asset seizure regime, but that is exactly the work we are doing with allies, particularly across the G7, to share expertise and experience.

Oral Answers to Questions

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Wednesday 26th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Lady knows how transport matters are handled in Wales. We always want to work co-operatively with the Welsh Government to see where we can deliver jointly for people in Wales. We are actually investing record sums in communities up and down Wales through the levelling-up fund and the community ownership fund. We are happy to continue those conversations and many of those are transport projects. Hopefully, she will join me in saying that what the people of Wales do not need is the Labour Welsh Government’s plan to ban all building of new roads.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

Q9.   Will the Prime Minister back our local plans to reopen our much-loved Malvern Hills College, and does he agree that Warwickshire College Group should negotiate the sale in good faith and not resort to using public money to sue our district council?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue. I of course recognise the valuable work that all colleges do in meeting local skills needs, and very much welcome local community groups working together to address gaps, as her local area is doing. My understanding is that my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary is in discussions with the college, and I know that my hon. Friend will continue making representations to her.

House of Lords Reform

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady]

The Minister might be interested to hear this, then. I certainly do agree that those are the key priorities for people, families, businesses and communities in Glasgow North and beyond, but to really address those priorities, we need to address the fundamental systems underneath. One way of putting it would be to say:

“While many of our immediate economic problems can be fixed by pursuing better policies, by stopping the race to the bottom in our economy, Britain needs change that runs much deeper—giving the people of Britain more power and control over our lives and the decisions that matter to us. Changing not just who governs us, but how we are governed, will address a system of government that the British people perceive is broken.”

Those are not my words. Those are the words of Gordon Brown in the introduction to his report on the UK’s future. They make the case that constitutional change is needed if we are to drive radical, social and economic change. The difficulty for the Labour party, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) has said, is that it has been promising that for 113 years, and for 13 of those years, starting in 1997, it had a chance to change it.

At the end of those 13 years, there was a certain amount of devolution across the UK, but there was still a first-past-the-post system that stoked division rather than built consensus, and a system that allowed an individual Prime Minister to appoint whoever they wanted to a seat in Parliament—and there were 92 legislators who still had a seat in Parliament because of who their parents were.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate, which is a topic of great interest to me, because I have I have introduced a Bill that is scheduled for debate next Friday. Its purpose is to end the scandal whereby eight seats in the upper House are effectively reserved for men only. I urge the hon. Gentleman to put his support behind my Bill next Friday.

[Patrick Grady]

I would be very happy to support the hon. Lady’s Bill, and I commend her on her work with the international institutions that I mentioned earlier.

I would also be happy to come back to Westminster Hall and debate how we can reform the private Member’s Bill system, because the chance of many of those Bills getting through is another aspect of Westminster democracy that many of my constituents find incredibly frustrating.

That takes us back to the point that real change to how we in Scotland are governed cannot, and will not, come through gradual, grudging and piecemeal change at Westminster. Frankly, it is independence for Scotland that is most likely finally to force the rest of the UK to look at and reform its constitution, including the role and composition of the House of Lords. For those of us from Scotland, that will perhaps be the topic of some fascinating future inter-parliamentary roundtable, while the democratically elected and accountable Parliament and Government of an independent Scotland gets on with building a fairer, greener and healthier society in what will be the early days of a better nation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anthony Mangnall]

The vast majority of Members of the House of Lords are not people who have donated cheques, but people who have done extraordinary things in society. If the hon. Gentleman would like to go back and look at those numbers, I would be happy to do battle with him—the numbers are in my favour here. The vast majority of Members of the House of Lords need to be applauded, not ridiculed and pursued for being cronies and for not serving their country. They serve their country just as much as we do.

[Harriett Baldwin]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech supporting the work done in the other place, but surely he would agree that there is a need for incremental reform? Surely he cannot support the fact that an eighth of the seats in the other place are reserved for men only? Will he, too, support my Hereditary Titles (Female Succession) Bill?

[Anthony Mangnall]

I am used to being a constant rebel to the Government, so I am not entirely sure whether I am allowed to support anything, but I agree in principle with what my hon. Friend is doing. If primogeniture is going to be used, why should it not include women being able to take on titles? However, that perhaps goes over my head and is there for the constitutional experts.

The important point, which should not be overlooked, is that a vast number of Ministers who work in the House of Lords do so not for the extra salary, but because they are interested in the subject. That is something to be supported and encouraged. We need to note more often that Members on both sides of the House of Lords—including on the Cross Benches—work incredibly hard, and not for huge renumeration. They often work far longer hours than those in the House of Commons. It is important to say that we support this system. We can look at minor reforms to improve it and to ensure that Ministers who serve the Crown do so under their own hard work—not with the remuneration of the State.

I have made my points regarding the checks and balances, the value of the scrutiny of the Lords and the hard work that Ministers and peers put in, but it is also worth looking at the composition of the House of Lords. I have mentioned people such as Baroness Helic, whom I know as a friend and whom I have worked for, and I have followed individuals such as Lord Winston. Too often, we are scared to stand up to public opinion, but in the House of Lords we have a body of people who are governed not necessarily by public opinion but by the expertise and knowledge they bring to that place. They can discuss the issues not because they have read a briefing paper that morning or been briefed by a group, but because they have real-life, world experience. They have the expertise to be able to tease out the legislation that needs to be passed. That is something to be grateful for and to be cherished. It improves our legislation and the system we have in this country.

It is easy for individuals, as the hon. Member for Glasgow North did in his opening remarks, to talk about things such as China and to make an anecdotal point I have made on a number of occasions. In fact, I have often made the joke that when a young Member is introduced to the House of Lords they usually get a cheer when they run up the stairs, because they are so young. Perhaps it is rather unfair to say that, but I would make this point: yes, we can change the numbers in the House of Lords—maybe that could be up for discussion in the future, but that is up to the Government—but we need to ensure that we retain that expertise.

I will use an international example, as that is what the hon. Member for Glasgow North did. The Cabinet of the United States Government is not made up of elected individuals. They are appointed, albeit not for life—I accept that point—and they wield huge power, so let us not say that we are out of kilter with the rest of the world. We have a body of people who check themselves and who are required to have parliamentary scrutiny and the rigours of debate. This arrangement does work in other countries in certain systems. That is the important point, not the comparison to China or Lesotho, which the hon. Gentleman made. We should look at where this works and where we might be able to improve things.

I have taken far too long already, but there is another important point to make. There is value here. Improvements can always be made in both Houses. We should all be aware of that. I fear the day when we are unable to ensure that experts can go into the House of Lords, because they fear the rigours that we all have to deal with as elected Members. It is not easy being a Member of Parliament—we all know that. I do not think people would be readily able to stand up in the House of Lords and say, “I’ll go for election and the scrutiny and difficulties that come with that from the British public.” It is deeply troubling and unfortunate that so many people are persecuted and subjected to such appalling things on social media.

We must continue to use the House of Lords as a check and balance, a place of expertise, a place where we can celebrate the hard work of our Ministers and a place to which we can attract some of the most extraordinary people from around the world. It is typically generous of this country that we take migrants and end up putting them into the House of Lords. That has happened, and I think we should celebrate it.

Procurement Bill [Lords]

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

It is an absolute honour to follow such an assured maiden speech from the hon. Member for City of Chester (Samantha Dixon). She spoke with great confidence and great experience of the subject at hand. She painted a beautiful picture of her city, and I am sure that that was the first of many excellent contributions that she will make to our debates.

I put my name down to speak in the debate because it struck me that procurement is so tied to what is our biggest economic problem: the cost of living and the rate of inflation. The questions that I want the Minister to respond to in his closing remarks are about that rate of inflation and how the transparency and openness of the new procurement system can help by bringing down the price that the Government pay at all levels for the contracts they award.

I draw the Minister’s attention to the situation in Ukraine—no, not the one that occupies the headlines, but a little-noticed development in 2016 that was very much supported at the time by the UK, along with Transparency International: the development of its procurement system, known as ProZorro. It is quite a remarkable platform. It is open source and shows every opportunity that exists in Ukraine to bid on contracts. It is completely open to citizens and civil society to look at all of the data on what is being tendered for and at what price companies are successful in bidding for those contracts. It is an extraordinary example of how public procurement can be transformed by openness and technology. If he has not done so already, I urge him to ask his officials if they could give him the opportunity to look through the ProZorro system used in Ukraine. It has done an enormous amount to reduce the cost of procurement over the years and to increase transparency for citizens.

The second public economic priority that the Bill helps to support so much is innovation. The openness and transparency of the procurement system will give small businesses—this has been mentioned a few times in today’s debate—much more of an opportunity to see what there is in the pipeline of public procurement. Again, I wonder whether I can ask the Minister to reply on this point in his closing remarks. In terms of innovation, one of the factors that small businesses often cite to me—and to other colleagues, I am sure—is that when they put their tender in for a public procurement, very often they are required to provide at least three full years of financial records. That can act as a very insidious way of reducing the ability of newer businesses and more innovative businesses, and perhaps nimbler and less expensive businesses, to participate in public procurement. I urge him to think about how the qualification process might enable some of the start-ups we really want to succeed to get into the pipeline of public procurement as easily as possible.

My finally question echoes some of the excellent points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) on the importance of defence. I want to ask about the single-source procurement regulations, with which I know the Minister will be intimately familiar, and recognise the fact that in those procurements the Government are, obviously, dealing with one supplier. What thought has he given to then requiring the single-source supplier to procure more in a more innovative way from down the supply chain, and in a way that would not compromise national security, which of course has to be paramount?

With those short remarks, may I say once again what an honour it has been to be in the Chamber for the maiden speech of the hon. Member for City of Chester?

Oral Answers to Questions

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is referring to an employment dispute that was settled before I entered the House. It was not an NDA but it did involve a confidentiality clause, which was standard at the time.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

All our constituents want to see an end to the dangerous and illegal channel crossings. One of the best ways to do that is to make sure that services are delivered in the first safe place to which refugees flee. In that context, will the Deputy Prime Minister, as a former Foreign Secretary and Development Minister, commit to backing the work of Education Cannot Wait, which delivers education in refugee camps?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the brilliant work that Education Cannot Wait does. She will know the importance of the campaign for girls’ education under both the previous Prime Minister and the current Prime Minister. We will certainly look at what more we can do to support that brilliant work, particularly for children growing up in refugee camps.

Oral Answers to Questions

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho]

Childcare is an important issue. Since 2010, we have doubled childcare to 30 hours for working parents, with a universal offer of 15 hours, and covering 85% of childcare costs under universal credit. We have also had much discussion in recent weeks about childcare ratios. I will ensure that the relevant Minister writes to the hon. Lady with more detail.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

One workplace where women need support is the other place, where an eighth of the seats are reserved for men only. Will the Minister support my Hereditary Titles (Female Succession) Bill and get that anomaly changed?

[Claire Coutinho]

I thank my hon. Friend for her impressive campaigning on this issue. I was privileged to be in the Chamber when she made some of her speeches about it this year. I will look into the matter and ensure that I write to her about it.