Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have spoken to my hon. Friend and his Humberside colleagues on a number of occasions about this very important investment. We all want to see the Humber estuary become a real magnet for investment, particularly green energy investment, so I am very happy to look at the issue that he has raised with me—he has raised it with me before—and particularly at the planning permission, with, of course, the responsible council.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Q2. The parents of the 1 million young unemployed people will think the Prime Minister is totally out of touch. This year, the number of young people with jobs has dropped by 77,000, and the Government’s Youth Contract has reached fewer than one tenth of the young people it was supposed to help. Does the Prime Minister not understand that not everybody lands their first job with help from a royal equerry?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady should welcome the fact that the number of young people who are claiming out-of-work benefits has fallen by 10,900 this month. That is what is happening—100,000 young people accessing work experience, many of them getting into work. It is 20 times more cost-effective than the future jobs fund, which she supported. That is what is happening under our economy, but, as I said, there is absolutely no complacency: more needs to be done to get young people into work.

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Main]

The hon. Gentleman is right. I am not decrying lobbyists. What I am saying is that I need to know who they are, what they are doing, when they are doing it, who they have spoken to and what happened as a result of those conversations, however informal or formal. The register will not capture that. I am sorry if I have offended any gentle lobbyist anywhere, but there are quite a few lobbyists whom I would not give the time of day to. Indeed, I have named them. I think that Mr Hoare knows my views on his lobbying activities in my constituency.

I am sure that the scenario that I described last week is not unique; I was just fortunate enough to find out about aspects of it. Once there is a chink in the dam, there is a chance that the lobbyist will effect the result that they want, but that does not happen in a transparent fashion. Subtle messages and arguments over a private lunch or a catch-up with old chums get results, so why will we not see more of that practice if it is not captured by the Bill?

If lobbying is the next big disaster to hit Parliament, the public have the right to expect us to deliver. I believe that we have the opportunity to deliver a way of recognising where these lobbyists are, for good or bad, and what they are doing. We need to amend the Bill today. Whichever amendments get picked up, I think that we should run with them to show that this House is bigger than party politics.

Dwight Eisenhower, who many people consider to have been a great man who gave great quotes, said:

“You have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the ‘falling domino’ principle. You have a row of dominoes set up. You knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have the beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences.”

That crumbling effect is exactly what a lobbyist seeks to effect behind the scenes. They pick their domino. One never knows who that domino is. It might be somebody who works in a Department, a Minister or anyone else who has influence in the chain of argument. When that domino falls, the chain reaction can have the most profound influences. In my case, a refusal was turned into a permission. I believe that, but I cannot prove it. When the domino effect happens, it is amazing how other people pick things up and run with them. Most people are never lobbied directly—it all goes back through the chain reaction to the original lobbying.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I am very interested in what the hon. Lady is saying. I am not clear whether her new clause covers the wide penumbra of public and quasi-governmental organisations that spend a lot of public money and that can be influenced in the way they spend that money. I think, for example, of health authorities and local enterprise partnerships. Do we not need to address the influence on those local authorities, with respect not only to policy, but to how they spend public money?

[Mrs Main]

The hon. Lady raises a large number of points. As I have said, I am not wedded to new clause 5. It would perhaps be somewhat cumbersome to remove the existing clause and insert my new clause. However, it does seek to cover anyone acting on behalf of a client or an employer and anyone acting as a volunteer on behalf of a charitable organisation or on their own behalf.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman]

Let me illustrate that point. I have just looked at my diary for this week. It contains six meetings with people from corporate bodies or trade associations, and six with people from what we might loosely call the voluntary sector. None of the first six would be caught by the provisions in the Bill, but all the second six would. Does my hon. Friend not agree that that is absolutely ridiculous?

[Mark Durkan]

I do. At risk of receiving a caution from the Chair, I must agree that my hon. Friend is contrasting the inadequate provisions in part 1 of the Bill with the egregious and excessive provisions in part 2. Many of us suspect that those charities, voluntary organisations and public advocacy campaign groups that will find themselves in line of danger under part 2 are being used as a human shield to protect those that should have been targeted in part 1 but have deliberately been given free licence and allowed to escape. This part of the Bill, particularly in the light of some of the Government amendments, will say to those who might be sitting on the next big scandal, “Carry on regardless. Carry on happily. We don’t want to touch you, and we have deliberately framed this legislation so that it will not touch you.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Tracey Crouch]

I do not wish to be rude, but I think that that shows a real lack of understanding of the lobbying industry. A significant proportion of what lobbyists do does not relate to Ministers or permanent secretaries. In the entire 10 years for which I worked in the industry, I do not think that I once either arranged or attended a meeting with a permanent secretary. With great respect to current and former Ministers, that was very much the end process of whatever we were seeking to do. We would quite often meet civil servants to discuss incredibly technical issues that, by the time they reached the Minister’s desk, were probably already signed and agreed through the interactive relationships developed with those particular civil servants.

[Helen Goodman]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. It is not the job of a permanent secretary to do particular pieces of policy work; that person’s job is to run the Department.

[Tracey Crouch]

I quite agree, so it is not surprising that I did not meet a permanent secretary in any capacity during my lobbying days. It was not my job to advise them on how they ran their Department; it was my job to try to influence opinions and the legislative process with civil servants at a lower level, particularly on the very technical issues that typically arose in the insurance industry. It is quite clear that this aspect of the Bill is not fit for purpose and it would benefit from being broadened in definition to include all consultants, including both in-house consultants and those that are part of multi-agency firms.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

I have been campaigning for a very long time to get rid of the entirely mendacious private Member’s Bill process and to replace it with a system that works better, but I do think this Bill would be better advanced on a cross-party basis without Government-Opposition divide and on the basis of practical experience of how the industry actually works. There is a danger that we will introduce bad legislation here, and we may well—irony of ironies—have to resort to the House of Lords to try to improve it because the Government nearly always have a majority on any legislation in this House.

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend is making his case rumbustiously, but I just wonder whether I could bring him back to the problems of definition and the limitations of this Bill by giving a couple of examples. I spent 16 years as a Treasury civil servant, and we were subject to highly formalised lobbying every year before the Budget from the Scotch Whisky Association, the tobacco people, the cider people, the motor manufacturers and so forth, and in the case of the UK offshore operators, we had a whole joint committee between the industry and the civil service in order to work out the north sea fiscal regime—

[The Temporary Chair (Mr Martin Caton)]

Order. That was a very long intervention.

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, but it was a very good one, because it does make the point. I do not think my hon. Friend was the permanent secretary or the Minister—although she was a Minister later on. At that time, however, she was just a humble—

[Helen Goodman]

Lowly.

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend was a lowly—although perhaps not a very humble—Treasury official, and the point is well made.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We agree that the current system is unfair, and my hon. Friend gave the figures. We have committed to consulting on how best to introduce a national funding formula for 2015-16. We will consult widely all the interested parties to get this right. That will obviously include all Members of Parliament, and I know he will campaign very hard on that issue.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Tory Chair of the Treasury Select Committee has described the Government’s banking reforms as “falling short” and in some respects “virtually useless”. Is this the pay-off for all the millions the banks have poured into the Tory coffers?

[The Prime Minister]

It is this Government who commissioned the Vickers report. It is this Government who committed to a ring fence around retail banks. It is this Government who are legislating to have criminal sanctions against bankers. What did the last Government do? What did those two do when they were sitting in the Treasury when Northern Rock was handing out 110% mortgages? They were knighting Fred Goodwin and watching while Rome burned.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor-General]

Yes, my hon. Friend makes an important point. The Director of Public Prosecutions has led the training of specialist CPS rape prosecutors, 800 of whom have now been trained, and they have done a wide range of units to ensure that they are fully aware of all the ways that it is necessary to prosecute such cases.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Some of the victims are children, and one reason why conviction rates are low is the way in which they are treated during the trial process. It is disgusting that small girls are further abused by grown men, being taunted for hours on end as liars. What will the Solicitor-General do about it?

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

We are making it easier to access broadband and have supported, and continue to work closely with, valuable networks such as Go ON UK and UK online centres, because my hon. Friend is right that there is still a big opportunity to help more people, small businesses and charities to access the benefits of the internet.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

As I am sure the Minister knows, 11 million people in this country have never used the internet, and at the moment his Department is spending no money on digital inclusion. Is its real way of saving money on public services to make them completely inaccessible to those who need them?

[Mr Hurd]

No. As I said, we are clear that no one must be excluded from this process. That is why significant assisted digital provision is still in place, and we will shortly make available details of how that will work. There are digital inclusion projects across Government and we are actively reviewing, with partners such as Go ON UK, what more we can do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We should listen very carefully to the Governor of the Bank of England. He has said that growth is slower than we would like, but that the economy is moving in the right direction and that rebalancing is taking place. The things that need to be fixed in our economy, in terms of bank lending and the housing supply, are being fixed, and that is what the Government are determined to do.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

One of my constituents has learned that when the bedroom tax is introduced she will have £24 a week to live on. She is so anxious about how she will manage she is receiving cognitive behavioural therapy. Her anxiety is totally understandable. Does the Prime Minister agree that those who should be receiving cognitive behavioural therapy are the ones—namely his Ministers—who think that she could live on £24 a week?

[The Prime Minister]

The Opposition have to address the fact that for 13 years in government they were perfectly content to have a housing benefit system for people in private sector housing that had no extra benefit for empty rooms. I cannot understand why they cannot see that it is unfair to have one rule for people who have the benefit of social housing with lower rents and another rule for people in private sector accommodation. Week after week, Labour MPs and the Labour leader come here opposing this benefit change, that benefit change and everything we do to deal with the mess they left to fill in the deficit they left us. Until they learn to take some responsibility for the mess they left, no one will ever listen to them.

Algeria

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Friday 18th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for what he has said. I think this is a reminder of two very clear points. First, we face a large and existential terrorist threat from a group of extremists based in different parts of the world who want to do the biggest possible amount of damage to our interests and way of life. Secondly, those extremists thrive when they have ungoverned spaces in which they can exist, build and plan. I very much agree with what my hon. Friend has said. Under this Government—as under previous Governments—a lot of priority has been given to the funding of the security services, and there is now a good system for bringing together intelligence and military and political planning through the National Security Council, and in other ways including the emergency committee Cobra framework, which brings people together very rapidly to ensure that all parts of the British Government and state are able to bring their expertise to bear.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

This area is obviously extremely unstable. As the Prime Minister knows, Algeria has just emerged from a civil war and there are failed states on either side of it. Will the Prime Minister say a little more about the diplomatic activity that he is now going to embark on in that region?

[The Prime Minister]

First, I want to praise our ambassador to Algeria and his staff, who have been working around the clock and have been extremely effective in getting information to us about what is happening. We are expanding our network of embassies and contacts around the world but we must look all the time at how well we are represented in different countries, and where best to thicken the contacts we have. I think we have to do that in partnership with other countries. For instance, there is no doubt that in parts of west Africa the French have excellent connections with countries where we have less-good connections, but likewise there are countries where the opposite applies. We need to work with our partners—I discussed this with President Obama last night—and ensure that between us we have the strongest possible contacts.

European Council

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will certainly continue to do that work. On the issue of the EU budget, I think there is a good reason why that coalition should stick together and push hard for a budget that, yes, is about growth, but comes in far lower than where it is today. I will work very hard to try to make that happen.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I am afraid that I am still not quite clear what the Prime Minister’s view on a referendum is. Is it that he thinks it is not a good time now because of the problems in the eurozone, or does he take the view that it would never be right to have an in/out referendum?

[The Prime Minister]

My view is that Britain should be looking for a different and better settlement between Britain and the EU. That is something we can push for, because Europe is changing. The single currency is driving change in Europe. When we have achieved that new settlement, we should seek fresh consent for it—and, yes of course, that could include a referendum.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As I have said, it is an excellent tribute to both sides of the coalition that, notwithstanding huge pressures to do otherwise, we have religiously stuck to the commitments that we made together to the British people in the coalition agreement. On this particular occasion, for reasons I will not rehearse now, one party in the coalition felt unable to deliver one very important part of the constitutional reform agenda—House of Lords reform—so, reasonably enough, the other part of the coalition has reacted accordingly on the issue of boundaries. Those are circumscribed circumstances which will not and do not prevent the coalition Government from working very effectively on a broad waterfront of other issues, the most important of which, of course, is cleaning up the economic mess left by that lot on the Opposition Benches.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

T8. I welcome the commission that has been set up on the north-east economy, because we need all the help we can get at the moment. Further to the question asked by the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton), does the Deputy Prime Minister understand that the commission must report to both local enterprise partnerships, and was it not a mistake by the Government to split our region into two?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I do not think that it was a mistake for the Government to replace the layer of regional development agencies, many of which were disconnected from the communities, cities and towns that they sought to represent. I am sure that the hon. Lady, who is fair-minded, will accept that RDAs were too often distant from the businesses and people that they sought to represent. I know that there was a lot of backing in the north-east for One North East, and that is why it is very important that all the LEPs in the north-east continue to work together to promote a cohesive approach to economic development that represents the whole of the north-east region.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

6. What estimate he has made of the total reduction in funding to the voluntary sector in 2011-12.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

9. What estimate he has made of the total reduction in funding to the voluntary sector in 2011-12.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Hurd)]

Data from the Charity Commission suggest that the gross income of registered charities grew in 2011, but we all know that the sector is going through a very difficult period. We are putting in place plans to help it through this very difficult transition period, and to open up new funding opportunities over the medium term.

[Mr Hurd]

I share the hon. Lady’s concern and that is why we have pressed the point, from the Prime Minister down, to local authorities that they should try to avoid making disproportionate cuts to the voluntary sector and why we have put in place funds to help manage the transition. I have to say to her that for the Labour party to keep talking about cuts to the voluntary sector without recognising why those cuts were necessary in the first place, and without recognising that Labour councils are doing some of the heaviest cutting while saying absolutely nothing about the future of the sector, is fooling no one and disappointing many.

[Helen Goodman]

In County Durham, the local authority has had to reduce its grass-cutting service because of the reductions in its grant, so I rang the local Community Service Volunteers, thinking that that might be something it could take on. It said that it could not, because it did not know whether it will have core funding after the new year. Does the Minister not understand that far from creating a big society, he is destroying the society we have?