Wales Bill

Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Mark Harper

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

That is a good point. As I said, I am very familiar with it, because colleagues in the European Parliament tell me—this relates to a point my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North made—that it can take an extremely long time for someone to get from one end of the south-west of England to the other by road, or even by rail. That is why my amendment suggests that we need to look at the advantages and the disadvantages, so that a proper decision can be taken. We need to think about the regions. As Members will recall—I know this was not popular among those on the Labour Benches—I think we have too many elected Members at the moment. The provisions that I have suggested were to reduce the size of this place, and to ensure that electors in all parts of the United Kingdom were equally represented rather than over-represented as they are at the moment, with the average size of a seat in Wales—in terms of the number of electors—being smaller than the rest of the country.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I appreciate the way in which the hon. Gentleman is using his amendment to test and explore the efficacy of a review of the different scenarios that could arise. I am interested to hear his thoughts on another scenario, a wholly different trajectory towards, for example, increasing to 80 the number of Assembly Members who are bound to a constituency. We could have dual Member constituencies so that there was a direct link, but that is not in the review. I put it to him that better than the amendment would be to wait for part II of Silk and for the wider issues around that and to explore all the different options relating to both numbers and structures rather than accepting a slightly partial amendment looking at only a couple of scenarios.

[Mr Harper]

I think I indicated at the beginning of my remarks that this was a probing amendment. I said that I had listened to the Minister’s response to the debate on clause 1, and that that may well be an acceptable solution. The independent review looks at the impact of the removal of the restriction on standing for both constituency and electoral region, which is obviously the specific purpose of clause 2. In particular, it says that we should examine the implications for the desirable total number of Assembly Members and proportions elected by each route. I guess it implies that we will have at least some Members elected by region. I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point that we could move to a wholly constituency-based system. I shall listen to the Minister’s response first, but I am prepared to accept that waiting for part II of Silk and the response to that may well be a perfectly sensible way in which to proceed. I thought that we should have some discussion today rather than focusing narrowly on whether a person can stand for both constituency and electoral region. We discussed that at some length on Second Reading, but I felt that a slightly wider debate would be more helpful.

Badger Cull

Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Mark Harper

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] Will Opposition Members listen to my point of order? I have been listening carefully to my hon. Friend quoting figures from an independent report. Are you aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, whether that independent report has been placed in the Library of the House or on the Table, so that hon. Members taking part in the debate may reference it? I was not aware that the report had been published.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I may be able to help the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) and the House. Today, I received a response from the Minister who is present, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), which clarifies that the report has just arrived on the Secretary of State’s desk. The pursuant question is why, when it was due to be published in February, it has not been published in time for today’s debate.

UN Syrian Refugees Programme

Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Mark Harper

Monday 20th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I do not blame you for taking a deep breath before I speak, Mr Speaker. The purpose of these urgent questions is for the Minister, first, to outline what work the Government are doing and, secondly, to listen to the will of the House. May I urge him, once again, to listen to the voices in all parts of this House that are saying that it is not a binary choice between the excellent humanitarian aid the UK Government and UK people are currently gifting to the region, and receiving here in this country a few of the most vulnerable children? We should be doing both, and the Minister should listen to the voices from these Houses of Parliament.

[Mr Harper]

I am sure that your intake of breath was because you were spoilt for choice by the excellent number of colleagues on both sides of the House who are waiting to ask a question. Let me respond directly to the hon. Gentleman. The question for the Government is: with the resources at our disposal, how can we help the largest number and deliver the best support we can? Our judgment is that we can deliver that help and support best in the region, by providing the support we have—we are the second largest donor in the world. We are helping not hundreds but hundreds of thousands of people. We think that is the right solution, but we have also already accepted, under our normal terms, more than 1,000 refugees from Syria in the year to last September.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Mark Harper

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

That is not the case. The hon. Gentleman knows that, based on the data-matching pilots we have already run, we think that there is good evidence that we will be able to confirm two thirds of voters who are already on the electoral register and move them over to the new one, assured that they are real people registered at those addresses. We will run more pilots later this year, subject to parliamentary approval of the orders, to test that proposition further and see whether there are any other lessons to learn. However, we are confident from the work that we have done so far that the process is robust.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

6. What plans he has to bring forward proposals on the regulation of the lobbying industry.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

The hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) will know that we have just carried out a consultation on our statutory register of lobbyists, which closed on 20 April, and we are now studying the responses. We will publish our response to that consultation before the summer recess, and we will publish a White Paper and draft legislation later this Session.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I thank the Minister for that helpful answer. Abuse of lobbying is nothing new, but in recent years we have had to deal with the issue of helpful calls to News International. We have seen the Conservative co-treasurer offering dinner dates with the Prime Minister, Bell Pottinger offering influence at No. 10, and Adam Werritty and so on. So may I ask the Deputy Prime Minister to get on with this register, because people were disappointed not to see it in the Queen’s Speech and this situation is undermining our democracy?

[Mr Harper]

I would add to that list of examples, because people are also concerned when trade unions write amendments for the Labour party. I will not take any lectures from the Labour party on dealing with this issue at speed, because it had 13 years to tackle the issue and made no progress at all. It is important that we get this right, so that we do not have to keep returning to it. We have published a consultation, I have set out the steps we are going to take to publish a White Paper and a draft Bill, and I have already made a commitment, when giving evidence last week to a Select Committee, that we will deal with this issue, as we have committed to do, this Parliament.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Mark Harper

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Harper]

I think that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) has first dibs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

rose—

[Mr Harper]

I will be happy to take interventions when I have made a little more progress. I think that the House would expect me to do that in a time-limited debate.

We have also amended the Bill to provide that the boundary commissions must publish all the responses to their initial consultation and allow an additional period during which people will be able to make further representations or counter-representations related to the arguments put forward by others. This is the second area where we thought that some good points had been made in the debate, and we acted in response to an amendment tabled by Lord Lipsey on the Opposition Benches. We think that this amendment, in combination with the public hearing proposals, will deliver a consultation process that represents a real improvement not only on the one that was in the Bill originally, but on that in the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986.

We have made other significant amendments to part 2. We have tabled amendments explicitly to empower the boundary commissions to use wards as the building blocks for constituencies—the other place got very exercised about that—and to give the commissions discretion to take account of existing parliamentary boundaries. The amendments respond to concerns about the degree of explicit guidance given to the commissions on what they could take into account. We have accepted an amendment expressly enabling the Boundary Commission for England to take account of the boundaries of the City of London.

In response to an amendment from Lord Williamson, a Cross Bencher, we will require that a review is established after implementation of the new constituencies at the next election to consider the impact of the reduction in the number of seats in this place to 600. There was extensive debate about that in the other place, where we heard all about the fears, largely of those who had been Members of Parliament, that slightly fewer—7.6% fewer—Members of Parliament in this place may place constraints on their ability to do the job. We thought that Lord Williamson’s suggestion of a review in the next Parliament to consider the effect of that reduction to see whether there were some lessons that could be learned was very sensible, and we were happy to accept it.