Business of the House

Jackie Doyle-Price Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House and join her in wishing Bill Perkiss a very happy retirement. We very much appreciate the way in which the Doorkeepers look after the Members of this House and wish him well.

The hon. Lady asked only two questions. One was in relation to the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill. We have no intention of delaying Report stage. It was perfectly evident in the course of this week that the Opposition’s approach to the Bill was to talk on early groups of amendments at inordinate and absurd length in order to try to prevent scrutiny of later groups. [Interruption.] Well, we will make sure that the Bill is scrutinised properly.

My right hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House made it very clear on Tuesday that we will table an amendment on Report. We will publish it on or before 1 October and its effect is confined to clause 26 in principle, which is to ensure that for those who are undertaking expenditure for electoral purposes the substance of the test will be the same as in 2010. We have made it clear that it has never been our intention to change the substance of the test of what constitutes expenditure for electoral purposes.

We are very clear, however, that in relation to schedule 3 and other parts of the Bill we will change the activities that will be controlled as part of controlled expenditure. We will bring down the limit, and rightly so. We will disaggregate that constituency limit, so as to make the regulation of non-party campaigning expenditure more comparable to the regulation of party expenditure and to make it apply at the constituency level as well. If I can publish the amendment earlier and consult with others, I will certainly set out to do so.

While I am on the Bill and Report stage in our first week back, as I announced, I continue to await a reply from the Leader of the Opposition to a letter that I sent two months ago asking him whether he wished to use the Bill as a vehicle for giving effect to his proposals to give members of trade unions a deliberate choice about their participation in political funds. Not only have I had no reply, but it is perfectly evident from watching the Leader of the Opposition’s rather lamentable performance in Bournemouth that the trade unions are not going to let him implement the changes to the political fund and its operation that he announced earlier in the summer. They will not let him do it. He and the Labour party have one route to make sure those changes happen and to entrench them: it is to use the Bill on Report, and it is not too late for them to table amendments on Report that would have that effect. I call on them to do so.

The shadow Leader of the House made some remarks about the recovery. Let me make it clear that it is this Government who inherited the most appalling deficit—the biggest annual deficit of any developed country. Let us remember that that recession was a reduction in gross domestic product of 7.2%. The idea that we could recover from such a deep recession and resolve such appalling debt problems—not only Government debt, but consumer debt—without implications for people’s living standards over the short term is nonsense. We are minimising those implications and, as a Government committed to fairness, ensuring that in the process those with the broadest shoulders bear the greatest burden, not least through our changes to the personal tax allowance, which mean that people in work and on low earnings have seen their tax burden reduced, with 2.7 million people taken out of income tax altogether. The Labour party never includes that in the figures it uses.

The most important thing is for people to have security through employment. We now have the lowest number of workless households we have seen and 1.4 million more private sector jobs. That is the basis upon which people will feel the benefits of this recovery in the years ahead.

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will be aware that a serious incident occurred on the Dartford crossing last Friday and led to its being closed for seven hours, which brought home how dependent the whole economy of the south-east is on that one piece of infrastructure. As we are considering bringing forward proposals for a new crossing in the lower Thames, may we have a debate so that we can discuss the optimum solution for the whole economy of the south-east?

[Mr Lansley]

I am indeed aware of the incident. My hon. Friend makes a good point. Indeed, I remember when a further Dartford crossing was being contemplated back in 1985-86, and at the time it was considered that the dangers of a bridge being closed because of high winds were mitigated by the fact that there were tunnels. We hoped never to encounter a situation in which both the tunnels and the bridge were closed, but we have, so to that extent this is an important issue. I cannot at this point promise a debate, but I will encourage my colleagues at the Department for Transport to see what possibilities there are for involving the House in further discussions about those prospects.

Business of the House

Jackie Doyle-Price Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

Responsibility for managing the House of Commons is an issue not for the Government but for the House of Commons Commission. As a member of that Commission, I take very seriously, as I know the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) does, our responsibility to the staff who work here, who give us a good quality of service. We are aware of some areas of concern and my door is open to representatives of the staff of this House to come and talk to me. On the broader issue, the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill currently going through the House may offer an opportunity to debate the quality of management in this country.

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

The nation’s corner shops rely heavily on tobacco sales to sustain their business. As the Government are pursuing a number of policies designed to reduce tobacco consumption, may we have a debate on how we can support our corner shops, which are a lifeline in so many communities?

[Sir George Young]

I note what my hon. Friend says about the importance of small shops. So far as standardised packaging is concerned, there is currently a consultation exercise, which I think ends on 10 July, on the case for and against standardised packaging of cigarettes. The Government have not made up their mind—we want to await the outcome of the representations that have been made—and I urge my hon. Friend and her constituents, if they have not already done so, to join members of relevant trade associations in making representations to the Department of Health on this important issue.

Business of the House

Jackie Doyle-Price Excerpts

Thursday 5th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The answer to the first part of the right hon. Gentleman’s question is no, I have not received that particular communication. The debate on Monday week is a general debate on the middle east, Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan, so we plan not to table an amendable motion but to have a “take note” debate, which is in the tradition of debates that the House has held on foreign affairs issues.

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

Further to the representations made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) about the Winsor review, may I ask for a debate on front-line policing? We have heard lots of rhetoric from the Opposition about so-called cuts, when the real issue that we should be considering is how to redirect resources from the back room to the front line.

[Sir George Young]

It is worth reminding the House that for every £8 we plan to save this year the Opposition were planning to save £7, so it is difficult to reconcile their criticism of our spending plans with their commitments. I would welcome such a debate on policing. When confronted on the “Andrew Marr Show” at the end of March, the shadow Chancellor said that they would have made cuts in policing. I think that a debate on policing would clarify what the real issues between the two parties are and, if the Opposition do plan to spend more on police, where they would find the necessary savings from other parts of the budget.