Business of the House

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House. I am enjoying our return to business questions after the recess.

I join the shadow Leader of the House and our respective party leaders in congratulating Professor Peter Higgs. It is wonderful that this country has produced so many leading scientists and, indeed, recipients of Nobel prizes. That is something that people in Russia might like to ponder when they call us a small country. I am reminded that there is one college in the small city of Cambridge on this small island that has more Nobel prize winners than the whole of Russia.

I am not yet in a position to enlighten the House on the timetable for our consideration of the Offender Rehabilitation Bill. I will announce that in due course. The Ministry of Justice is rightly proceeding with plans that will improve the quality of probation services and, importantly, offer probation services to those who leave prison after short sentences. That is an important reform and I look forward to the consideration of the Bill in this House.

The shadow Leader of the House tried to return to the debate on the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill. However, it has now left this House. I met Lesley-Anne Alexander, Stephen Bubb and others to discuss the establishment of the commission. I made it clear that we would take account of anything that they said, but that it was important for them to consider the issues more quickly. They are establishing the commission two and a half months after the Bill was published and in the midst of its passage. I will gladly hear what they have to say, but we will proceed with the Bill in the Lords as planned. As we made clear in yesterday’s debate, we have a timetable for the passage of the Bill. It received full scrutiny on the Floor of this House and I know that their lordships will do a similar thing in their House.

I will not dwell on particular aspects of the reshuffle. As the shadow Leader of the House kindly observed, we have all been subject to these things over the years. My observation is that what goes around comes around. I agree with her that a number of my colleagues have given very good service as Ministers. We very much appreciate that and thank them for it.

We must always be aware that one can contribute to public life not only through ministerial office, but through many other forms of service in this House and in public life more generally. I left the shadow Cabinet and sat as a Back Bencher for a couple of years. That did not mean that I could not make a significant contribution. For example, I helped to write the provision in the Communications Act 2003 that provided that media mergers should be subject to a public interest test in the same way as other mergers, which has been found to be of considerable use. I therefore encourage my colleagues who have left the Government most recently to reflect on the other opportunities for public service.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

Today, we will rightly have a debate on the funding of local councils. May we also have a debate on the future of small local councils? My constituency contains the smallest local council in England, which is finding it nigh on impossible to survive. We need to consider how we will fund small councils not only for the next two years, but for the next decade. We must consider whether they can survive in the changing world in which we live, given the recession that we are all facing.

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about funding. If he has an opportunity to speak in today’s debate, I am sure that it will be relevant. I will say two things. First, while small local authorities have a valuable role in ensuring that democracy is accessible and relevant to their populations, many such public authorities have successfully explored ways of sharing costs and back-office services with other authorities, and that is very useful. Secondly, the BBC survey discovered that it is possible to secure more and better services with less money. That point will be important in this afternoon’s debate. It illustrates how public services have responded to the tough times that we inherited from the Labour Government and is a credit to those who are running local authorities.