Business of the House

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

The Government urge Pakistan to uphold its international obligations and human rights. My hon. Friend may be aware that the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr Falconer), visited Pakistan in November and highlighted our concerns about the need for it to uphold its democratic values in relation to protests and military courts, and to uphold its fundamental functions. We continue to urge Pakistan to address concerns about the fairness of the February 2024 elections and to uphold its obligations under international law. I will ensure that the House is kept updated on these important matters.

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

Replies to my parliamentary questions are often late. They are often evasive and often refer to websites that are infrequently updated, and sometimes they are even overtly political. I know that the Leader of the House cares passionately about improving performance in this area, so will she make a statement to update the House on how she is working to get better responses from Departments to parliamentary questions?

[Lucy Powell]

The hon. Lady is right that I take these issues incredibly seriously. The House and its Members have a right to timely, proper and full replies to parliamentary questions. I regularly remind members of the Cabinet about their duties in this regard, and I wrote to them recently.

The hon. Lady will know that the Procedure Committee also takes seriously its responsibility for monitoring the timeliness of replies to parliamentary questions. We have seen a dramatic increase in the number of written parliamentary questions tabled since the general election, but that is no excuse for what she describes. I encourage her and any other Member to let me know when they receive a particularly poor or late reply to a parliamentary question.

Business of the House

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise those issues, and that is why the Government are bringing forward a major piece of legislation, the planning and infrastructure Bill, which will make sure that developers play their role in ensuring that we have the local services and infrastructure that is needed to sit alongside the kind of developments he describes.

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

Does the Leader of the House plan to set aside some Government time for us to discuss the enormous changes to local government announced in a statement just before Christmas? That forced a lot of councils to come up with plans at very short notice. There has been limited opportunity for any kind of democratic engagement from our constituents. It seems to me that we ought to spend some time in this Chamber debating the implications of potentially cancelling a series of local elections? Will she spare that time?

[Lucy Powell]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. As was set out in that statement, our White Paper contains major reforms to deliver on the devolution agenda and put power back into communities, which we said we would do. There have been knock-on consequences, but I assure her that we will consider postponing elections only where doing so would help to deliver reorganisation and devolution in the most ambitious possible timeframe. She makes a good case for a general debate to discuss those issues more broadly, and I am sure that such a debate would be well attended.

Business of the House

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2024 Commons Chamber

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

Blue-light escort decisions are rightly taken on an operationally independent basis by the police. Yet after the Home Secretary, the Attorney General and the Mayor of London met the police to discuss the escort for Taylor Swift, she was granted one. A few days later, the Prime Minister and his whole family met Taylor Swift and her manager back stage. Can we have a debate on the new Government’s approach to breaches of the ministerial code?

[Lucy Powell]

I am sorry, but I totally reject the hon. Lady’s characterisation of what has happened here. As she rightly points out, these issues are taken operationally by the police, which is absolutely right. As I said earlier, it is estimated that the Taylor Swift concerts have brought £1 billion into the UK economy. We should be attracting these kind of events and enabling them to happen. She will know that Taylor Swift was subject to a very serious threat to her safety only a few days before coming to the UK. I should not really have to remind the hon. Lady of this, but she will also be aware that Taylor Swift took a very close interest in what happened to those young girls in Southport who were at a Taylor Swift event when they were tragically murdered. The Prime Minister rightly wanted to thank her for all that she had done to support the families.

Business of the House

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

My hon. Friend raises a very important matter in her first question in this House, and I very much welcome her election and her attendance here this morning. These are very serious matters, and I am concerned to hear about them. She may be pleased to know that the first Home Office oral questions will take place on 29 July. If she does not get the response that she wants then, I shall certainly raise this matter for her with the Home Secretary.

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

Congratulations on your re-election, Mr Speaker. Will the Leader of the House find time for a statement on flood defences? The last Parliament was on track to spend £5.2 billion on flood defences, including in communities like Severn Stoke and Tenbury Wells in my constituency. There are concerns that the incoming Government may cancel that spending, so will she timetable a statement and reassure us that that is not the case?

[Lucy Powell]

I welcome the hon. Lady her to her place and congratulate her on surviving the tsunami that, I am afraid, took out some of her colleagues. She raises a very important matter. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs orals have not yet been timetabled, so the subject would make a good candidate for an Adjournment debate application, should she want to do that. In the meantime, I will get her a response on the Government’s plans for flood defences.

Business of the House

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I know that many Members have constituents who are still waiting for compensation or the resolution of issues on a number of fronts. I shall not repeat what I said in response to the shadow Leader of the House, but I will say that I shall ask the Cabinet Office what more the head of the civil service can do to ensure that lessons are learnt from the last few weeks in particular. I know that the Cabinet Office evaluates inquiries to try to improve the quality of subsequent work. That has certainly happened in connection with big public inquiries, when it has looked into what constitutes good practice in respect of everything from looking after witnesses to ensuring that those inquiries take place speedily. However, I will ensure that the relevant people in the Cabinet Office have heard the hon. Lady’s concerns, which I am sure are echoed by many other Members on both sides of the House.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

On Friday 23 February my private Member’s Bill, the Hereditary Titles (Female Succession) Bill, is due to be debated, but sadly it is No. 5 on the Order Paper, and I fear that we may not have much time in which to debate it. I wonder whether the Leader of the House could allocate Government time for a debate on the constitutional sexism which means that an eighth of the seats in the other place are reserved for men. Through such a debate we might be able to seek Government support, and also demonstrate the strength of feeling on both sides of the House that this constitutional sexism needs to end.

[Hon. Members]

Hear, hear.

Business of the House

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that important point. I will certainly write to the Secretary of State, and to other Secretaries of State who will have an interest, to ensure that they have heard what he said. I recently visited Birmingham to show support to the Jewish community there in the wake of some of the attacks that they were having to endure. I was struck by the fact that the local Muslim community had come over to the Hebrew centre to show support, to condemn Hamas, and to stand with the Jewish community in the wake of those attacks. When I inquired why they had done that, they told me that as well as being the right thing to do, in the wake of 9/11, when the Muslim community had come under attack and been associated— wrongly—with those terrorist atrocities, the Jewish community came and stood between them and an angry mob, to protect them. What is often lost in the recent scenes we have seen is the decades of quiet work between different faith communities who all believe in the same God.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

May I ask for a debate in Government time on the scrutiny of financial services regulation? Since we left the European Union, that has been undertaken by a Sub-Committee of the Treasury Committee. We have appointed expert advisers, we regularly take evidence on new consultations from the regulators and we have published reports to keep the House informed about that scrutiny for well over a year now.

I was therefore a bit surprised yesterday to see that the Liaison Committee in the other place has published a recommendation that it set up a financial services regulation scrutiny committee. Paragraphs 10 and 15 of its report suggest that that committee would substantially duplicate and potentially contradict ours, and of course it would cost Parliament a significant sum to set up.

If the Leader of the House is not able to spare Government time to debate this important topic, would she be kind enough to write to her counterpart in the other place to express the concerns of our cross-party membership that the proposed committee would duplicate the work that we are already doing and have thoroughly established in this House?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. Madam Deputy Speaker was smiling at me to remind me, I think, of my responsibilities. I cannot ask the other place to change its scrutiny arrangements: it is responsible for those. However, my hon. Friend makes a good point about economy of effort, and I will certainly be able to make sure that the Lords has heard what she has said today. I hope that a way forward can be found that is in the interests of both Chambers.

Business Question

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

I am not quite sure what questions or requests for debates the hon. Gentleman made there, but he did draw attention to the state of the economy. It is worth reflecting that, following a global pandemic, the policies of Her Majesty’s Government meant that the UK economy grew fastest of any nation in the G7. That puts us in a robust place to assist with the global challenges of energy and food inflation. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has caused huge challenges around the world, with energy price spikes and the cost of food going up exponentially. That is something the Government take very seriously, and we have already invested £22 billion of support to help people through the cost of living challenges they face.

There is a lot more in the Queen’s Speech that will continue to grow the economy and ensure that we move towards a high-wage, high-skill economy so that people can earn their way out of some of the challenges they face, but there is also support for those who find themselves in difficult circumstances, which the Government wholly understand. There will be more from this Dispatch Box; this is something the Government understand, and we want to try to help mitigate the impact of those global challenges.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

During Prorogation, Mr Speaker, you announced that you would establish a Speaker’s Commission to ensure that the workplace we are privileged to be part of is as secure and as welcoming as it could possibly be. Could the Leader of the House find some Government time in which hon. Members could debate some of the changes they would welcome in this place—including, I hope, a condemnation of the constitutional sexism we find in the other place, where one eighth of the seats are reserved for men only?

Business of the House

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s comments about St David’s Day and, more importantly, about Russia and Ukraine. It is vital that this House works together and her co-operation and support for the measures the Government are introducing is vital and should be fully recognised.

The hon. Lady mentioned refugees and I think even she would have to recognise that the way in which the Government are performing and opening our doors to those who find themselves in the most terrible of circumstances is the right way to proceed. We are being very welcoming: we are allowing people who are here already to extend their stay and to stay indefinitely, and our doors are very much open to those who find themselves in those circumstances. I hope the hon. Lady will continue to work with us to improve those measures.

On sanctions, we should recognise the speed with which the Government have worked. We have introduced measures and sanctions that have really taken the pain back to Vladimir Putin. The introduction of the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill next Monday is a demonstration of the speed with which the Government are operating, but there is more to come: more sanctions will be brought to this House and another economic crime Bill will be brought forward in the very near future. The Government should be praised for what they are delivering. It is absolutely clear to see that the Prime Minister and the Government are not only leading for us but are leading in the world. We were the first country to call out and say Russia should be removed from the SWIFT banking system; there was resistance in the international community and the Prime Minister has convinced those countries to support us and remove Russia from that system. That is clear global leadership from the Prime Minister.

On the cost of living, the hon. Lady is of course right to recognise that there are challenges. She mentioned the rise in the cost of rail tickets, and even in my constituency people are facing that, but she must also recognise that under a Labour Government the investment in some of that infrastructure was sadly lacking. Labour electrified 11 miles of rail line; this Government are performing much better than that. We are investing in our rail infrastructure. In comparison, the Labour Government did not perform very well; we are still reaping the rewards of their lack of investment even 10 years later.

Another example is our nuclear energy industry. If the Labour Government had invested in our nuclear infrastructure, we would not be facing some of the challenges we face. Luckily, this Government are taking those challenges seriously and investing in our rail infrastructure and our energy infrastructure. The hon. Lady should be supporting us in doing that.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

With everything that is going on in the world, I wonder if the Leader of the House could still find time for a debate on Malvern Hills College. It was taken over by Warwickshire College Group in 2016. There is an education covenant on the site. It was closed during the pandemic and it has not reopened. It appears that Warwickshire College Group is trying to flog the site to the highest bidder and is refusing mediation. Can the Leader of the House find time for a debate on this matter, which matters so much to my constituents?

[Mark Spencer]

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to this issue. I am sorry to hear of the challenges that Malvern Hills College is facing. I know that she is a champion in her constituency for the next generation and their right to be educated at great establishments. There is an opportunity for her on 14 March at Education questions. I am sure she will be here to ask the Secretary of State directly what he can do to assist.

Business of the House

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that important question. The Government were quite clear—and this was agreed with the Department of Health and Social Care last year—that any matters of national significance would come to this House for a vote before the measure was implemented. That was a commitment made by Her Majesty’s Government and I assume that any Department that wishes to bring in a statutory instrument that meets that test would ask for time for a debate first. That is something that the House ought to expect.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I hope that the Leader of the House shares my concern and that of so many colleagues across this House that in the other place an eighth of the seats are effectively reserved for men, because of male primogeniture and the hereditary peerages. I wonder whether he would timetable a statement in Government time about what the Government are planning to do to end this anachronism?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

There are some titles that go down the female line by special remainder, but my hon. Friend is quite right that it is not very many. The law in relation to the Crown was changed by this House a few years ago. The 90 remaining hereditary peers who are elected and the two who are there ex-officio, as she rightly says, do mainly pass through the male line. If anybody wishes to change that, it is open for them to bring forward proposals. There is a campaign to change it, but I cannot say that the Government have any immediate plans to adopt that campaign.

English Votes for English Laws

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am loth to disagree with my right hon. Friend, who understands these issues very well, and had a better scheme of his own, which would have been called EVEN—English votes for English needs—rather than EVEL. We could be having a very different debate this evening had EVEN been adopted rather than EVEL.

There is of course devolution within England, but it is different. It is not to England as a country, because England makes up 85% of the total of the United Kingdom. As far as I am aware, there is no federal system in the world where one part makes up such a great proportion. The size of England—and of course the influence that comes from that—would unbalance any settlement we tried to create.

It is not just the ability of this place to legislate effectively that has been constrained. More fundamentally, the EVEL procedure has undermined the role of Parliament as the Union Parliament in which all parts of the United Kingdom are represented equally. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) has made that point very eloquently, and I greatly agree with him that there should be equal representation of all Members. I have spoken elsewhere about the ways in which the UK Parliament has become a more important place in our national life following the return of powers from the European Union. Since our departure, we have once again begun legislating properly in areas touching on devolved matters, including trade, health and safety, employment laws and state aid. All of these are now powers returned to the United Kingdom, and we are able to legislate properly because all MPs are equal once again in a Parliament that considers the matters put before it from the broadest possible Union perspective.

Rather than returning to an unhappy, asymmetric answer to the devolution question, the evolving operation of this Parliament has made this much less of a black and white issue than it would have felt in 2014. That is good news, because it reflects the way in which Brexit has strengthened the Union. We have now restored authority in this Parliament to address the problems of voters in every part of the United Kingdom. That is in all of our interests, because our country is much more than the sum of its parts. Just as George III gloried in the name of Britain, so do I, for our global influence together is far greater. Take, for example, our security relationships; the nuclear deterrent, based in Scotland; our shared history as brothers in arms; the economic successes that we have had; or the global reach of the empire builders. One may visit Argyle Street in Hong Kong, the Glencairn suburb of Cape Town, the Aberdare national park in Kenya, or even sunny Cardiff-by-the-Sea in California to see our past shared influence writ large across the world.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

Will the Lord President give way?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Of course; it would be a privilege.

[Harriett Baldwin]

The Lord President is making a magnificent speech, as one would expect, but how would he feel if hypothetically, the outcome that was depicted back in 2015—with Alex Salmond having the shadow Business Secretary, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), in his suit pocket—had come to pass, and the Lord President’s constituents in North East Somerset faced a situation in which they were having laws made for them without there being a majority view in Parliament in England?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

We are one country, and I accept that voters in Gloucestershire can have an influence on what happens in Somerset—that is a much greater thing for me to confess to than that voters in Scotland should have a say. We are one nation, and I accept the basic principle of democracy that the overall will of that nation must be observed. However, I put it to my hon. Friend that that poster had an effect in the campaign, because it made people think about what the consequences of voting Labour could be, and they did not particularly want to be ruled by Alex Salmond.

I have mentioned all those places around the world that are named after places in the United Kingdom, and I have not yet had the chance to mention Belfast. There are many Belfasts around the world, but there are many English place names, too: there are 22 places in the United States called Somerset, in addition to the one in Wisconsin, and there is also a Somerset in KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Bermuda, and of course Pomeroon-Supenaam. There are Somersets everywhere; there are Scottish place names everywhere, Welsh ones and Northern Irish ones, as part of the success of our country as global Britain before the term “global Britain” was invented.

--- Later in debate ---

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Well, I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that that is democracy. There is a Scottish Parliament, and the Scottish people elect its Members. At the moment, Scotland is still part of the United Kingdom, and long may that continue.

If the Government want to reform the constitution, they are going about it in an odd way by doing things piecemeal. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 was repealed last week; the boundary review is happening at some point, when it may suit the Government to put it in the legislative timetable; and there is the outrageous, anti-democratic, totally unnecessary, using-a-wrecking-ball-to-crack-a-wholly-imaginary-nut legislation on voter identification. If the Government want to reform the constitution, perhaps they could return to the McKay commission report, and emphasise the need for a national consensus-building approach to constitutional reform.

Once again, the Labour party is happy to oblige the Government with news of our constitutional convention. Over the past 15 months, EVEL has been suspended. The Leader of the House himself said in an evidence session with the Procedure Committee that

“EVEL has been suspended for a year without any loss of effectiveness to the way the House operates, any loss to the constitution, or any loss to MPs’ ability to represent their constituents.”

I quite agree, and would go further in saying that I very much doubt that anyone outside the House has even noticed. He added:

“I think the EVEL Standing Orders take up more than 10% of all our Standing Orders, for a procedure that has not had an effect on our business once in the time in which it has been available.”

I really am struggling to avoid the “I told you so” dance. Given that the Government strongly supported EVEL six years ago and have now decided to think again, I have to ask the Leader of the House what changed? What have the Government learned about EVEL in the past 15 months that has led to this devastatingly obvious conclusion that the Labour party was, in fact, right all along? What plans do the Government have for developing devolution and constitutional reform within the context of a strong and united United Kingdom?

The most disappointing element of this whole completely pointless process is the disdain that the Government repeatedly show for the people of this country and for the concept of national identity and national pride. We have seen that very recently when many senior Cabinet Ministers so badly misjudged the public mood on the England football team taking the knee in solidarity as a team with their black teammates and to show their opposition to racism everywhere. It is time that the Government looked at the leadership qualities shown by Gareth Southgate, so inspiringly set out in his incredibly patriotic letter, “Dear England”, which I have read many times, despite the fact that I have very little interest in football. It sets out a richly layered, values-based patriotism.

[Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Lady is rather digressing from the subject at hand in the 60 minutes that we have available. Will she accept that both the 2010 and the 2015 Conservative manifestos pledged to address English votes for English laws and that we are able to implement that because we won a majority in 2015? She talks about respecting democracy. She should respect that.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I am entirely respecting it by helping to abolish EVEL right now. If we are talking about digressing from the subject, may I refer the hon. Lady to the Leader of the House’s very interesting geography lesson, which I rather enjoyed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

I do not have time to give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

It satisfied absolutely no one. All it did was infuriate Scotland. Instead of securing the near federalism that was promised, Scotland instead saw its MPs become second-class Members in the Parliament that they had just been invited to lead. There were signs in the Division Lobby saying, “England only.” They would have been better saying, “Scots out.” That is what the Government did with this procedure.

The Government knew it would never work. From the first moment when they suggested this nonsense, we have told them again and again that it was madness and that, at some point, they would be here—as they are this evening—to withdraw it. Now under pressure from the SNP, EVEL is to be abandoned. This is a spectacular victory for the Scottish National party, and I congratulate all my hon. Friends on bringing down this nonsense. This is one victory that we have secured this week in the United Kingdom and, by God, we are going to celebrate like it is 1966. Believe me, we will be banging on about this for the next 55 years and we will enjoy every minute of it.

There is a part of me that will miss the entertainment of it all and the laughs that it gave us. It was designed to quell this tartan menace, but I ended up making the most contributions in the Legislative Grand Committee. With 57 contributions, not only was I the most committed and dedicated Member of the English Parliament but I beat all the English Members combined two times over.

[Harriett Baldwin]

Given the hon. Member’s digression on to football, which team did he support on Sunday night?

[Pete Wishart]

I supported the best team on Sunday night. I enjoy my football, and I can say quite clearly Forza Italia.

English votes for English laws started its sorry and doomed journey just hours after the Scottish independence referendum result was announced. Instead of the statesmanship and consensus required at a sensitive and raw moment in Scottish constitutional history, David Cameron announced that the English question should now be addressed. With that, as well as bringing us to this point, he ensured that the campaign for Scottish independence started once again almost immediately. That campaign will soon be concluded with a victory for the Scottish National party and a victory for Scotland.

We believe it is legitimate for English representatives to secure the outcomes they want, and SNP MPs do not vote on English-only legislation or business that does not affect Scotland. If it is not in the Scottish interest, we take no interest in it. If there are financial consequences or an inadvertent impact, we will represent our constituents—but it is us who will decide that, not the diktat of a Tory Government. We commit not to participate in legislation that does not impact on our nation, but, please, let us never, ever do anything like this again.

Instead of going on about KwaZulu-Natal, the Leader of the House should be apologising to the House for wasting hours of the House’s time on a stupid experiment that went absolutely nowhere. Let us now work together to resolve this and ensure that our nations get what they want. We are on different trajectories and we want something different. Let us now give our nations what they want.

--- Later in debate ---

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

It is good to be one of only two representatives of middle England objecting to the proposals to abolish these Standing Orders. My 2011 private Member’s Bill, the Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill, put pressure on the coalition Government to set up the commission that put forward the EVEL proposals, and I well remember the Lord President of the Council—in those days he was merely the Member for North East Somerset—making his speech. He is noted not only for being a great historian but now for being a seer and someone who can foretell the future, because he said that one day, a Government would be able to come in and simply abolish these Standing Orders. I very much regret that it is he who is doing it.

I think that we can all see the mood of the House this evening—we can all see that the motion is going to carry—but we must recognise that this was a pledge in the Conservative party manifesto in 2010 and 2015. It was a pledge that was there for a reason: because, at the time, our constituents were raising this on the doorstep as something they were very concerned about. A solution was put in place through the Standing Orders. As the Lord President said, it has not necessarily been needed in the interim, but it is not impossible to envisage a scenario in which its absence really would cause constitutional problems in this country. I regret very much that these Standing Orders are being abolished without a proposal for any kind of replacement to deal with that.