Proxy Voting

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend is quite right. The Procedure Committee report proposed that hon. Members taking baby leave should be able to choose between proxy voting and a pair, even from vote to vote, so the complexity would obviously increase; nevertheless it is important that we have choice and flexibility.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Chair of the Procedure Committee will attest to the fact that I have been a proxy voting sceptic—until yesterday. Does the Leader of the House agree that the right hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) has done for proxy voting what the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) did for the private Members’ Bills process?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Lady is being extremely unfair to my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth. It is absolutely clear that he was unaware that he was breaking a pair. It was an administrative error.

Business of the House

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 3rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Last Saturday, I met a group of constituents who have bought homes on a new estate. They are now being charged huge and spiralling maintenance fees by a firm called Gateway, which was founded by the developer Persimmon. I understand this is happening on thousands of new estates across the country, so may we have a debate in Government time on what we can do about it?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Lady raises an issue that affects many, and I am also aware of the problem of these fees being charged completely unfairly. The Government are looking closely at this, but she might wish to seek an Adjournment debate to ensure the matter has the urgent focus it deserves.

Business of the House

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I encourage my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) to take the matter up with the Housing, Communities and Local Government Ministers.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

My constituent “S” was trafficked to the UK as a child and forced to work in a cannabis factory, but the Home Office wants to send him back to Vietnam. May we please have a debate on the interaction between the protection of victims of modern slavery, and the asylum and immigration system?

Business of the House

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Lady raises a point that I am sure all Members will be delighted by, which is the extraordinary rate at which the cost of offshore wind has come down. As an ex-Energy Minister, I remember having whole stakeholder meetings with offshore wind developers urging them to compete more for the contracts for difference paid for by bill payers, so that we could get these costs down as quickly as possible. We should be very proud in the United Kingdom that we have led the world in the development of this technology. We are the third best country in the world, according to the independent Climate Action Network, for tackling climate change. We have outperformed our closest EU counterparts, with the largest cut in greenhouse gas emissions since 1990. There is more to do, but we are absolutely committed to doing it. If the hon. Lady wanted to generate a debate in this Chamber, I am sure that many Members would be delighted to take part in it.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The weakness of the House’s scrutiny of delegated legislation was illustrated yesterday afternoon by the fact that the House passed a motion calling for the regulations on tuition fees not to go forward that the Government propose to ignore. The Leader of the House knows that amendments have been tabled by Members in all parts of the House looking for changes to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, but amendments to the Bill alone will not solve the problem. We may need a new Select Committee, changes to Standing Orders and extra resources, and we will need to consider these in parallel with the Committee stage of the Bill. Will she commit today to bringing forward proposals and making time to do that in parallel with the Committee stage of the Bill?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Lady is conflating two separate issues. Let me be very clear with her on yesterday’s debate that she says, had the Opposition won, would have revoked the tuition fees rise. The 40-day annulment period is set out in the Statutory Instruments Act 1946, not in Standing Orders, so it is an entirely separate point. [Interruption.] Yes, it is an entirely separate point.

On the hon. Lady’s question about scrutinising secondary legislation under Brexit legislation during the course of this Parliament, Ministers are listening very carefully. As my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary said on Monday night in response to questions from this House, we are looking very carefully at what more can be done to reassure Members that secondary legislation that has a more significant impact than merely to change little bits of wording here and there can be properly scrutinised by all Members. We are looking very carefully at what we can do.

Nomination of Members to Committees

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I had not intended to speak in the debate, but I was so appalled by the remarks of the Leader of the House that I felt that I had to. I feel that the Leader of the House has not understood her role. Her job is not to represent the Government to the House but to represent the House in the Government. She spoke about her constitutional responsibilities, but I should have thought that her constitutional responsibilities would include defending parliamentary democracy, which this motion patently does not do.

Government Members are not being logical. They say that the Opposition are not, but the loss of logic is on their side. If the Leader of the House was right to say that she has a majority, she would not need to change the rules of the game. It is because she does not have a majority that she needs to do so. Government Members are talking as though we are in a world of two-party politics, but we are not any longer. Nobody is saying that the Members of the other parties—the SNP, the Liberal Democrats, the DUP or Plaid—should not have seats on Committees. Under the formula interpreted by the Clerks, they will get their fair share of the seats. They will be represented properly. This is not just a Labour-Tory game, and the Leader of the House does not seem to have taken that into account.

Furthermore, the point made by the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) is incomplete in the extreme. He was in the House yesterday and was present during all the debates about the Delegated Legislation Committees. He knows as well as we do that when statutory instruments are produced and go to Committees upstairs, or when we use the negative procedure, they do not come back to the House. He knows that perfectly well. He also knows that schedule 7 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, which we were debating yesterday, proposes to put whole stacks of delegated legislation through those Committees.

Every single Member who has spoken and mentioned Brexit has revealed that that is the Government’s game plan. They have become so obsessed with getting a hard Brexit—not the Brexit that the British people voted for, but a hard Brexit—that they are proposing to suspend the normal rules of this House. I am very disappointed that a number of hon. Gentlemen—

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

rose—

[Helen Goodman]

The right hon. Gentleman promised to let me intervene and then refused, so I do not feel I need to give way to him.

Just to make another point about the remarks made by the right hon. Member for West Dorset, he has been saying that it does not matter if we do not agree with all the clauses in the Bill—if we agree with the principle of the Bill, we should vote for it. That would be like a person going into a restaurant and saying, “I didn’t like the soup, and I didn’t like the beef, and I didn’t like the apple pie, but I thought it was a great meal.” The right hon. Gentleman seems to be making completely absurd speeches these days. Anyway, the central point is that the Government’s game has been revealed by what has been said. It is all about getting a hard Brexit through. It is not about the consensus building that the Secretary of State for Brexit has been promising us for the past 15 months. The tail is wagging the dog in the Conservative party. I am sorry to tell Conservative Members that they are not taking the country with them on this. The general public are quite clear that this motion is about packing Committees. We have all had endless letters from our constituents, and I am not going to vote for the motion tonight.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bone]

Certainly. Of course.

As I understand it, the Opposition are saying that when a Bill goes into Committee, the Members on the Committee always vote in the way the party Whips tell them to. That is just not the case. I have seen Government Members in Bill Committees who are absolutely opposed to something the Government are proposing because it is not right. That is what the Committee system is about. It is about improving Bills. I am reluctant to say that I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) on this issue, but he is quite correct. The check and balance is the Report stage. If, as the Opposition claim, they have the majority in this House, they will be able to reverse anything that is passed in Committee.

[Helen Goodman]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Bone]

No. I am taking a leaf out of the shadow Leader of the House’s book.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. In every sitting, whether in the Chamber, the other place or in Committee, it is vital that there is scrutiny. The hon. Gentleman, however, is suggesting that Members in Committee do not scrutinise when they are on one side or the other. He will know, as I do, that that is simply incorrect. There is scrutiny at every stage of the parliamentary process.

I now come to the key point. It is right that this motion is passed, because the Conservative party is the single largest party. It was elected with 13 million votes. It has 56 more seats than the next largest party. As Labour argued in 1976, it is simply inappropriate to lump together all the Opposition parties and treat them as one party when they have different interests and perspectives. We cannot say, when we lump them all together, that they hold the balance of power—they simply do not.

[Helen Goodman]

The logic of the hon. and learned Lady’s position is that were the Conservative party to have 251 seats and the Labour party 250, with the other seats held by a variety of parties, it would still be right for the Conservative party to have a majority on every Committee. That is the logic of her argument. Is that what she is saying?

[Lucy Frazer]

What I am saying is that we need to assess the situation. At the moment the Conservatives have a significant majority. In fact, we have more seats than the Labour Government had in 1976 when they proposed such a measure.

As I said, the country voted in a referendum. The Labour party and this Government committed in their manifestos to deliver Brexit. We now need to do so. We need to deliver the democratic decision of the British people, and we need to do so in a way that is practical and expedient, while preserving the ability to scrutinise and debate. The motion will achieve that. As the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) has said, at the general election three months ago, the Labour party said it would implement its manifesto. It needs to do so, and to stop putting obstacles in the way of respecting the wishes of the British people.

Scheduling of Parliamentary Business

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

That is an elegant solution to a very solvable problem, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for suggesting it. Perhaps the Government are listening. I hope that some action will be taken in the next few days to resolve the matter.

My understanding—the Leader of the House can correct me if I am wrong—is that we have not got the Standing Committees up and running because there is a dispute about the arithmetic. As I understand it, the Government have nine places, the Labour Opposition have seven places and we have two places. That would properly reflect the political arithmetic of this House, suggesting that it is a House of minorities, and it would mean that the Government had to work just that little bit harder in Committee to get their business through.

What would be clearly unacceptable—this seems to be happening, and I hope it stops soon—would be for the Government to subvert the Committee stage by either bringing legislation to a Committee of the whole House, here in the Chamber, or looking to make all their amendments on Report. That would fly in the face of nearly everything we understand about the normal business of getting legislation through Parliament.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting point. Everybody knows that the most inadequate part of the whole legislative process is Report stage, where the Government can put down amendments that are never even debated.

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. She probably shares my concern about what would happen if that came to pass, and the inadequacy of Report stage. We would have everything baled into one, with Report, Third Reading and, probably, statements and other business on the same day. Intricate, important pieces of legislation require proper scrutiny in the proper Committees of this House, and it is incumbent on the Government to put that process in place. Any attempt to subvert the normal arrangements for Bills to go to Committee is clearly unacceptable, and I hope that the House will reject any such attempt.

We have heard quite a lot about how things are normally set up. I am almost disappointed that the hon. Member for—Chris Bryant, whatever his constituency is. [Interruption.] For Rhondda. I am almost disappointed that he is no longer here, because he is a keen student of the subject, and I think he actually gave us some figures. The Leader of the House said that we were in an unusual situation because we had had a June election. I was elected in 2001—I think you were elected before me, Mr Speaker—and I remember that in 2001 we had a June election, but all the Standing Committees and all the Select Committees were in place by the summer recess. The election in 2001 took place on 7 June, the Queen’s Speech was held on 20 June and all the Select Committees were in place and functioning by 19 July.

Business of the House

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It has been common practice in the NHS, for example, for employees to be required to repay redundancy payments if they secure another job in the health service within a certain period of time. Given that several former Members who lost their seats at the last election have now taken up paid roles as Government advisers, will the Leader of the House set aside some time for a debate as to whether it is appropriate for Members to receive redundancy payments if they shortly thereafter take up a taxpayer-funded role?

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Name names.

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Lady shouts from a sedentary position, “Name names”. My concern, and that expressed by many Members across the House, has in fact been that Members who have lost their seats, particularly this time around, have in some cases genuinely struggled. The Leader of the House role comes with an ability to feed into the policies for Members’ pay and expenses. The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, but I think he will find that Members from across the House are in fact concerned that Members who lose their seats are not being fairly treated—that is quite the opposite of the point he is raising.

Business of the House

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

Clearly, I do not want to pre-empt the decision that this House will take tomorrow, but, assuming that the motion is carried, I will try to provide that clarity as rapidly as possible.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House says that he does not want to pre-empt tomorrow’s decision by this House. Was not the Prime Minister attempting to do that in naming 8 June?

[Mr Lidington]

What the Prime Minister was doing this morning was making her ambition clear about the timeframe for the general election. I have to say to the hon. Lady that the specific date would have been the first question put to the Prime Minister, in the House and outside, had she not named one.

Private Members’ Bills

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

In the light of the Procedure Committee’s recommendations, I would be genuinely interested in whether my hon. Friend’s suggestion represents the view of the House as a whole, or whether more Members feel that they might lose out through the abolition of the lottery, which very many Back-Bench Members in all parts of the House prize as a great annual occasion.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

When I was briefly Deputy Leader of the House, I had responsibility for private Members’ Bills. I found that, in practice, it was not Ministers in other Departments who were opposed to them, but officials in the Cabinet Office who did not want to devote the time to the briefings. The right hon. Gentleman has the opportunity to be a reforming Leader of the House and to improve on the performance of his recent successors—will he take it?

[Mr Lidington]

We shall consider all the recommendations of the Committee and respond within the timescale that the House usually expects.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Whittingdale]

We should perhaps be relieved that the name chosen was not Parky McParkface.

I join my hon. Friend in congratulating pupils of Newbold Riverside Academy on deciding to commemorate all those who gave their lives in the first world war by choosing the name of the park. As I said, there are hundreds of projects taking place and it is particularly important that young people have the opportunity to visit the first world war battlefields. It is extraordinarily encouraging that young people have shown such enthusiasm and interest in marking this very important centenary.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

These matters are obviously extremely important, but the Department is also responsible for protecting children online. This morning the Internet Watch Foundation said that child abuse images are appearing behind adult pornography sites. Can the Secretary of State explain to the House why he personally intervened to block the Tory party manifesto promise to enable internet service providers to block websites where there is not a proper age verification system—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. No. That is a very serious matter and could properly be raised at topical questions, but it is something of an abuse of the main thrust of this question. I let the hon. Lady finish because I did not know quite where she was headed and I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, but having given her the chance, I am afraid, if I may say so, she was hanged by her own rope. We had better move on to Mr Rob Marris.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Whittingdale]

I am happy to join my hon. Friend in congratulating Asianlite. I have had several recent meetings with representatives of Asian media organisations to talk about how we can support them and work with them in tackling problems such as extremism. It is essential that those communities have thriving media, so I am very happy to hear about this latest edition and wish it every success.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Conservative manifesto pledged

“to stop children's exposure to harmful sexualised content online, by requiring age verification for access to all sites containing pornographic material and age-rating for all music videos”.

Why did the Secretary of State exclude that from the consultation document on child safety online, which he published in February?