Syria

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

Britain is an open and outward-looking country and our interests do not stop at our borders. The use of chemical weapons is a war crime, even within the context of the atrocities of war. This year, we commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of world war one, in which we know and can recall from literature how gas attacks were used with such horrendous effect. That led to the processes in which the UK and others were so involved that led to the creation of the 1928 Geneva protocol and, indeed, the international consensus throughout the 20th century that the use of chemical weapons crossed a line and should not happen.

I recognise that the Government have set out some compelling points in the arguments that they have made about the need to uphold international law and the agreements that ban the use of chemical weapons. I take some reassurance from the fact that the strikes seem to have been so precisely targeted. I was concerned about the rhetoric in the run-up to the strikes about the risk of escalation, particularly with Russia so involved in the region, but the fact that there have been no hits on Russian infrastructure is certainly a positive sign. Indeed, there is a certain logic to making the attacks specific to chemical weapons facilities and research. The fact that it looks like there have not been any civilian casualties is very much a testament to the skill of our armed forces in their deployment.

Although the Government have made some strong points, I have some significant concerns. It is important in these matters to build wider support. An opportunity was missed last week, in respect not only of Parliament but of building the case with the country more widely. There was a vacuum in Government communication until the strikes had been launched. It is also important to build the case internationally. I recognise the support that has been obtained from NATO and EU partners, and I entirely appreciate the huge frustration of the Security Council veto. Russia cannot even agree to hold, or at least withhold its veto on holding, an independent investigation of chemical weapons attacks.

There are avenues that can be pursued when the Security Council is paralysed, including the United Nations uniting for peace protocol, which uses the General Assembly. What is the Government’s assessment of that? I imagine it is not without its problems, but has it been considered and could it be tried? The right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) talked about the responsibility to protect, which is an important doctrine, but I slightly fear that if we do not get wider international buy-in, there is a danger that R2P being invoked by three Security Council members might undermine its wider legitimacy.

There are also concerns about President Trump. The Prime Minister has made it very clear that this was her decision, and we do not need to question her sincerity on that in recognising that, none the less, there are genuine concerns about the US Commander-in-Chief. He is erratic and unpredictable, and the question is not just whether the UK has an influence over him, but whether the sensible voices within his own Administration have an influence over him. Given that there are those within his circle who are looking for a fight with Iran, it is particularly important that we make sure that our view is expressed to them.

[James Heappey]

Does the hon. Lady have similar concerns about President Macron, who was also involved in the decision making last week?

[Jo Swinson]

There is a very easy answer to that. I have many, many more concerns about President Trump than about President Macron, in whom I have much more confidence as a world leader.

As I have said, there are people within Trump’s inner circle who are threatening the Iran nuclear agreement, and who are suggesting that perhaps the sanctions should not be waived again when they come up for renewal in May. Given what the UK put into negotiating that agreement in the first place, it is incredibly important that we use whatever influence we can to maintain it.

In my earlier remarks to the Prime Minister, I mentioned the issue of refugees. I absolutely agree with the hon. Members for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) and for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) that we need to do more on that issue. There is also the long-term issue of how we create the conditions for peace. Anyone who says that that is simple, or that there is an easy soundbite for what to do, fails to understand the complexity of the situation. There is no obvious answer and no neat solution. I wish that I had one, and I am sure the Government do too. These atrocious attacks show us that, if anything, we must redouble our efforts to press, cajole and explore every possible way. I regret the way in which the Government brought this matter forward, though I accept that, in some areas, they have made a good case. I remain concerned about the issues that I have raised and hope to hear some reassurance. I recognise that there are no easy answers, but we must keep trying to find a way forward.

European Council

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend has covered a number of issues. He will know that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is indeed consulting on what would replace the common agricultural policy, and it will be consulting the fishing industry and others on what would replace the common fisheries policy. Of course, legislation will be coming forward as necessary to cover all the issues that we need to address before we see the end of the implementation period and have in place the future relationship.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of her statement. I welcome the joint statement that she has secured from EU leaders on Russia and, indeed, the actions of the 18 countries today. It is exactly that kind of internationalist approach that we need.

The Prime Minister mentions the discussions on taxing digital companies whose behaviour as guardians of our data is of course a subject of increasing concern. Does she agree that Brexit or no Brexit, the UK’s only hope of tackling the massive and damaging monopoly power of the likes of Google, Facebook and Amazon is to work closely with our European partners on a co-ordinated approach not only on tax but on data protection and competition regulation?

[The Prime Minister]

We are looking at the issues around data as part of our negotiations with the European Union. We are bringing the general data protection regulation into UK legislation. This is another area where we want to ensure that we have a good arrangement for data exchange in the future.

Work is in hand at an international level—at the OECD level—on the taxation of digital companies. We believe that the best result is an international result, but we also think it right to look, as the European Union, at whether any interim steps need to be taken to ensure that we are properly taxing these companies.

Proportional Representation

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Monday 30th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jayawardena]

I will in a moment, but I am very conscious that many people want to speak and therefore I do not wish to take too many interventions.

That issue will become ever more prevalent as powers are devolved to local authorities and elected Mayors, so the public will grow even more dissatisfied with that political system and will not forgive those who had taken away their power to have the clear, decisive and transparent voting that they have today.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be implying that the public would be deprived of the best candidates, rather than having faith in the public who, through their preferential voting, would give a richer idea of whom they actually want and sometimes, importantly, do not want to represent them. The person who gets a minority of first-preference votes and cannot command wider support through transfers might not be the best representative of the community.

[Mr Jayawardena]

I will challenge that in passing. We have proportional representation for the European Parliament—soon we will not, as we will not be part of the European Union—and people vote by party, so they do not get a say on whom their elected representative is. In fact, I contend that many people are not aware of who their Members of the European Parliament are. One person whose door I knocked on at the weekend said that one of their reasons for voting to leave the European Union was the fact that it had such a huge democratic deficit.

I will now turn to first past the post and some of its advantages, which have already been outlined but I wish to probe in further detail. First past the post, as former Prime Minister David Cameron said,

“can be summed up in one sentence: the candidate who gets the most votes wins”,

and everyone has one vote. It avoids unnecessary formulae to calculate the Droop or Hare quota threshold of votes needed to be elected, or to calculate the proportion of subsequent-preference votes transferred in each later round of vote stealing, and more. Is it any wonder that voters rejected a move away from such a clear, simple and transparent voting system as first past the post? Is it not also interesting that our international comparators agree with us?

A poll in Australia in 2016, for example, found that less than a third of people knew how to vote correctly in line with their complicated PR rules, and a quarter explicitly acknowledged they did not know how to vote properly in that system. That is hardly equal representation—I thought we were supposed to be encouraging people to vote. First past the post not only makes it easier for people to vote, but is simple and quick to count. It therefore does not unnecessarily burden the taxpayer with equipment or administration costs. Furthermore, the results are declared quickly, providing people with certainty.

It would be remiss of me at this moment not to reflect on certainty. Another way in which first past the post rather than PR provides certainty is in reducing the number of hung Parliaments—[Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh, but they would then not be good students of history. If we look at recent events, we see that first past the post gives us stable majority Governments. We only need to look at some international examples to see the truth of that.

The UK has only had a handful of coalitions since 1852, but in the 67 years after 1945 Italy had 61 Governments because the coalitions were so weak and prone to splits. In fact, the Italian people recognise the disadvantages of the proportional representation system—in 1993 four fifths of voters chose to reject PR as the method of electing three quarters of their Senate. The consequences for Italy get even more farcical: in the 2013 general election, even the two main coalitions were unable to reach an outright majority.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

Let me politely say to my hon. Friend that that is not wholly accurate. When it comes to support for the military budget, he will know that part of the official overseas development assistance goes to the Ministry of Defence, so, as I said earlier, this has been a cross-Government effort involving the Foreign Office, the MOD and the Department for International Development, and others, including the Home Office. We have all been providing a great deal of support to the overseas territories.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

The Secretary of State is right that the scenes of devastation that we have witnessed are heartbreaking. As well as helping victims, we must try to prevent future damage, so will she reverse the recent trend in reducing DFID climate change funding, especially for the adaptation work that is so crucial to help vulnerable communities become resilient to hurricanes and other climate-related disasters?

[Priti Patel]

We are very focused on resilience as part of the recovery programme and dealing with the challenges faced in respect of climate change. The implications of climate change for small island states are very much a focus of DFID, but also across the Government. We are leading many of the discussions internationally in terms of climate change—how we support resilience programmes through our aid budget, but also how to help countries have the preparedness that they need to deal with some of these disasters.

Race Disparity Audit

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

That is a very good point. There are clearly different problems in different areas, which is precisely why, in addition to individual actions by Departments, there is an inter-ministerial group, which will allow every Department to find out what the others are doing and ensure that it is responding as it should to the individual problems assessed in their area. Of course, the audit is not a one-off event, because the figures will be added to continually so that new policy responses can be made to new problems as they emerge. It will be a living document.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

Let us give credit where it is due, because this data set is important. I welcome the Government’s commitment to the transparency that will help to shine a light on the structural racism that still exists in UK society. May I offer the First Secretary of State some advice based on painful experience? The Conservative side of the coalition Government spent five years insisting that we try to get employers to do gender pay gap reporting on a voluntary basis, until my Lib Dem colleagues and I finally won the battle for mandatory reporting in March 2015. We must not now waste five years in the same way, so will he now commit to introducing mandatory race pay gap reporting?

[Damian Green]

As the hon. Lady will know from her time in government—it was a pleasure to serve with her—we are unlikely at this stage to leap to such long-term commitments on the basis of information that we have only just gathered. However, she makes a fair point. The underlying point is that this is an issue not only for central Government, but for the private sector. I know that many private sector organisations, some of which were represented at the roundtable event held at Downing Street this morning, are anxious to follow up a lot of the work on trying to reduce the gender pay gap and to address pay gaps among people from different ethnic backgrounds as well.

G20

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with my hon. Friend that it is free trade that enables us to grow economies, increase prosperity and provide jobs, and there will be benefits from the trade agreements that we want to negotiate throughout the world. But we also need as a country to defend the concept of free trade because, sadly, it is under too much attack from protectionists around the world.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

When journalists and activists such as Anna Politkovskaya and Natalia Estemirova have been murdered in Putin’s Russia, does the Prime Minister share my anger at the chilling sight of Presidents Trump and Putin joking about the inconvenience of a free press, and will she commit to raising the importance of the independence of the media to both leaders when she next meets them?

[The Prime Minister]

We defend a free press. We think a free press is an essential underpinning of our democracy here, and we want to defend a free press around the world. I can assure the hon. Lady that we do regularly raise this issue with the Russian President and at all levels in Russian authorities.

Youth Employment

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Crausby, to serve under your chairmanship. I appreciate your flexibility in recognising the rather unusual circumstances of this debate, following the change of Minister part way through. I thank hon. Members for their understanding. As the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) has been called away to a meeting at No. 10, and I was delighted to step in and respond to this debate.

Youth employment is hugely important to Ministers in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, as it is to colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions and across the Government. We need all parts of the Government to work together on the issue and not least with MPs across the House. Many of the contributions I have heard, and those made before I arrived, have been made with the intention of solving some of the issues.

I wholeheartedly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) on securing this debate and her important focus on employment rather than unemployment. We want to focus on that because it is the outcome we want to achieve. Her Norwich for Jobs campaign has ensured that there is an improvement in the situation for young people in her constituency. We have heard from many hon. Members about the schemes they have been involved in in their constituencies. The support of constituency MPs is particularly important as, for example, are MPs who have taken on apprentices in their own offices. We have heard a good series of examples of how MPs can make a difference in their own way to the situation in their constituencies.

We heard from hon. Members about schemes and initiatives whereby business people go into schools to offer insights into the world of work and enterprise. That is particularly valuable for young people. We have heard about challenges to people from more deprived areas and backgrounds. It was striking that when I went to the health day at a private school in my constituency, the pool of individuals available included neuroscientists who happened to be the parents of one of the children there, for example. In other areas, it may be more difficult to get a wide variety of people who are personally connected to the school to come in and offer career insights. Programmes such as Inspiring the Future are important in linking people who are happy to give an hour or two of their time once a year to speak about their job to local schools that do not necessarily have those contacts. Just last Friday, I took part in an event in a school in Islington for the Inspiring Women part of that campaign to ensure that young girls have a wide variety of role models presented to them to open up their aspirations.

The hon. Member for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie) raised the important point about supporting people who do not want to go to university. It is wonderful when people go to university and gain the education it offers, but it is not right for everyone and that is one reason why the Government’s support for apprenticeships has been so important in ensuring genuine options for young people, so they can choose the right path for them. I wholeheartedly agree with him that what matters is employment, not separation. It is a shame that in Scotland over the past couple of years, the Scottish Government have not been able to focus strongly on such issues because they have been distracted by the referendum.

My hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark) made the important point that almost all young people want to work. It is important to hold on to that in the face of some negative media stories about young people and how they are presented in our society.

My hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) also mentioned his experience of having an apprentice in his office. His support for the business community in the north-east and providing jobs has been second to none. He will be greatly missed following his decision to stand down from this place, as will his work in supporting jobs in Redcar and the surrounding areas. He was right to raise the issues of employability and skills, and he contrasted the huge appetite for jobs at the crematorium compared with jobs with manufacturers of oil rig equipment.

The Perkins review highlighted the challenges we face in recruiting enough skilled engineers to ensure that our economy can grow in the way we want it to. I understand why my hon. Friend entreated us to become rather more Stalinist regarding the skills we need. I am not sure that is the word I would reach for, but employers have told us that basic skills such as English and maths need to be prioritised. That is why the curriculum is being strengthened and we are ensuring that all young people up to the age of 18 must study maths and English to at least GCSE grade C.

General employability is not just about paper qualifications but perhaps more about attitudes and basic behaviour, such as going to work, turning up promptly and being reliable. Traineeships have been introduced in response to that. They offer high-quality work experience, as well as support with English and maths skills and preparation-for-work training. They help young people who are not quite ready for work to get the experience, confidence and skills they need to be ready. That programme is already growing quickly; more than 7,400 trainees have started since August.

The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash) asked a variety of questions. She said, importantly, that the approach cannot be one size fits all, because every young person is different and has a different set of challenges to overcome. That is why the range of available initiatives allows people to choose a route specific to the issues they face. We have apprenticeships and wage incentives for people who are already able to work. For those who are close to the labour market, we have the sector-based work academies. There are traineeships for those who want to work but perhaps do not have the experience and qualifications, and there is work experience and training for others.

I agree with the hon. Lady that promoting work experience is important. We already have tens of thousands of work experience, work trial and sector-based work academy places, and of course the traineeships will increase that figure because they include substantial work experience placement. The links between business, employers and schools are hugely important because as well as providing career insights, they can often lead to good-quality work experience placements with local employers and may ultimately lead to work.

The hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) made some rather negative remarks about the work experience programme, referring to some of it as workfare. I fundamentally disagree. It is absolutely right, indeed vital, that young people are able to get work experience while they are still being supported by the benefits system, so that they can get into work. That was not handled right under the previous Labour Government—those claiming unemployment benefit or JSA who wanted to increase their skills and get work experience, so that they could get a job, had their benefits stopped. That created a trap that this Government’s commitment to work experience is helping young people out of.

[Julie Hilling]

I do not have a fundamental problem with work experience, but it is really important that it involves some training and is a good experience, and is not just about young people being on workfare and working for benefits to no personal advantage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Swinson]

I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Lady. Work experience needs to be a quality experience that benefits the person undertaking it.

I apologise to those whose questions I have been unable to answer. I do not know who the next Minister for Skills and Enterprise is likely to be, but I am sure they will be determined to continue the Government’s good work on apprenticeships and the wide range of interventions to support young people into employment. They will also doubtless be more than keen to ensure that any of the points I have been unable to respond to will be answered in writing. Indeed, I will ensure that that happens.

We have achieved a lot, but there is agreement across the House that we should not be complacent. There are still young people out there who have hopes and ambitions and deserve to get that first step on the career ladder. This Government are absolutely committed to ensuring that we give them the skills and support to be able to do so.

[Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)]

The 11 o’clock debate has been withdrawn by the Member in charge, so I am suspending the sitting.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

Section 8.16 of the 2005 ministerial code required Ministers to record specific details of meetings with outside interest groups, including lobbyists. Does the Minister agree that reinstating that requirement would be a positive move for lobbying transparency, and that it was a mistake for the then Prime Minister to get rid of it in 2007?

[Mr Harper]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. She will know that we have made some changes to the ministerial code. For example, when Ministers in this Government leave office, they will not be allowed to lobby the Government for two full years afterwards. That is a new proposal that was not in place under the previous Government. If it had been, they might not have had some of the problems that they did.

Parliamentary Standards Act 2009

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Adam Afriyie]

It is incredibly unlikely. As I say, 93% are subsidising their work to some degree—some, about one in 10, to the tune of over £10,000 a year. One of the main reasons cited, by 83% of MPs, is that they are trying to protect their reputation. The bi-monthly publication cycle allows for misleading comparisons. The report calls for more transparency—perhaps we could publish in real time. However, the misleading bi-monthly publication routine means that MPs are trying to protect their reputation, which is the thing most valuable to them. Let us not think that that is a selfish act; it is an act that works to protect our democracy. If individual MPs are constantly being lambasted in their local media for making legitimate claims but having false comparisons made, that undermines democracy overall and harms the reputation of Parliament. That is why one of our recommendations is that IPSA should become a lot more transparent in its publications.

We make a recommendation about annual publications. At the moment, it is incredibly difficult for the public to see what is going on. They have to print out one page and then another, and try to compare them. That does not work, so we recommend that the annual publication is searchable and easily accessible to the public so that they can make sensible comparisons from year to year, rather than misleading ones drawn from the bi-monthly publications.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

There are many helpful suggestions in the report, not only on how IPSA can pursue matters in a most cost-effective way but particularly on the issue of transparency, which is crucial. I wholeheartedly endorse what the hon. Gentleman says about real-time publication and making it easier for the public to search. I am also delighted to see that the Committee has recommended to IPSA that the underlying receipts should also be published so that anybody can see all the evidence, obviously with credit card details redacted for security. That is essential.

[Adam Afriyie]

I thank the hon. Lady. The whole thrust of the report was to make sure that there is value for money for the taxpayer and that transparency is enhanced and improved. However, our primary aim, which we reaffirm in recommendation 1, is that we want the independent determination of the payments system for MPs’ costs and independent regulation to continue, and to continue to be robust. Let me dispel myth No. 1. Nothing in the recommendations seeks to undermine the independence of IPSA and the power of the regulatory function performed by that outside body. That was paramount in what we were doing. The Act was right in that intention, and it should remain, which is why we reaffirmed it in recommendation 1.

--- Later in debate ---

[Adam Afriyie]

That point is reflected in recommendation 8, in which the Committee states that there should be a “clear distinction” between those costs that are commonly associated with an MP personally, and those costs that clearly relate to running an office and paying staff. They do not come anywhere near an MP; they are merely the cost of providing a service to the public.

[Jo Swinson]

The hon. Gentleman’s remarks on the separation of the administration and regulation of expenses are interesting and helpful, and I understand why those roles should be separate, but some media coverage might have been generated in part by the recommendation stating:

“The best arrangement would be for that separate body”—

the administration—

“to be within the House of Commons Service”.

Some Members, and certainly I, feel that that is absolutely the last place to which the administration of expenses should go. A separate accounting firm might be able to administer them more cost-effectively, but please let us not return them to the House authorities.

[Adam Afriyie]

I thank the hon. Lady for her view, and I can understand the shudder that would go up the spine if it looked as though we were making such a recommendation, but we are not. The Committee’s opinion is that the House is probably the best place for such an administrative role, because the IT systems and infrastructure are already in place, but that is not our recommendation. It would be misleading to suggest that we recommend the return of such administration to the House; we simply say that we think that that is the best way. All that is needed is to enable the separation of the two roles.

If Members are concerned about that idea, I challenge them to find any other body in the world which is both regulator and administrator. IPSA is unique: we would never allow such an arrangement in any other walk of life, and it is certainly unique when it comes to Parliaments and payments to Members.

EU Council

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The exposure of the British banks to European countries is published by the Bank of England—quite right, too—and obviously we want to avoid a collapse of the eurozone and to ensure that it takes the necessary steps to prevent that from happening. This Government will obviously always do whatever is necessary to safeguard our financial system and the economy.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

Against the odds, an excellent deal on climate change was agreed in Durban this weekend, with the UK playing a leading role alongside our EU counterparts. Would the Prime Minister reflect on whether such constructive and positive diplomacy might be a better approach to securing British interests than rushing for the exit?

[The Prime Minister]

I certainly agree that the Durban outcome is worth while and it is a staging post towards another global deal, which is very worth while. I am afraid I do not see any contradiction between being incredibly positive and constructive and having a bottom line. When you have a bottom line, it is quite important that you stick to it.