Leveson Inquiry

Debate between John Hemming and Nick Clegg

Thursday 29th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

Why do we need legislation, ministerial involvement through Ofcom and implicit licensing for news printed on dead trees, but not for news displayed on computer screens?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Lord Justice Leveson said this afternoon that he thinks there is something qualitatively different about the impact of news printed in our newspapers than there is in the great ecosystem of digital news and news on the internet. He is not making any claims that one form of regulatory remedy is applicable to other media; he is explicitly dealing with abuses in the newspaper industry. To say that because it does not apply to others we should therefore do nothing is a curious way of making the best the enemy of the good.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Hemming and Nick Clegg

Wednesday 7th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman speaks on behalf of us all when he says we should pause and reflect on the terrible suffering of those who now have to re-live, 25 years later, all the memories of that terrible atrocity and those who were killed, injured or maimed. I know that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will be attending the anniversary event. This is an extremely difficult week for all who suffered at that time and have had to live with those memories ever since; and, yes, of course I can confirm that where there are new leads or new evidence, they will be pursued rigorously, and we will provide all support to ensure that that is the case.

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

Under the previous Government, officials used discretion to refuse to provide to people who were brought up in care information about their cases. Will the Deputy Prime Minister look to open the files so that people who were brought up in care can find out what happened to them?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I certainly think my hon. Friend is right in saying that, given the daily drip, drip effect of these horrific revelations—which seem to get worse every day—about things that seem to have taken place on a scale that was before now unimaginable, we should send out a clear message from all parts of this House to any victim who is sitting at home alone, still harbouring terrible memories of the terrible suffering they endured, that this is the time for them to speak out. This is the time for them to come forward. We will help them; we will reach out to them. We will make sure that their suffering is atoned for and that where we can find those who perpetrated these terrible abuses, they are brought to justice, even several years since those events might first have occurred.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between John Hemming and Nick Clegg

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is already doing it, so I am sure that there will be more opportunities for him and his colleagues to do so in Committee. I would like to point out a fact to him. The extension of this Session will last in practice for five months. It is a one-off, transitional arrangement to make sure that we have reliable annual Sessions from spring to spring, in keeping with the fixed-term Parliament provisions that we have introduced in the Bill.

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

May I remind my right hon. Friend of the comments by the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), who said that the whole issue of whether we should have a Queen’s Speech every year or every two years—and in fact, whether we should divide Parliaments into segments—should be considered? The hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) has argued that we should not put that in the Bill, because it needs to be considered by the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is not in the Bill, but it is a consequence of it. If we have fixed-term Parliaments, we need to revisit the way in which Sessions are organised.

We must retain flexibility on an exceptional basis, allowing us to deal with unexpected crises or conditions that make it necessary to move the election—for example, a repeat of the foot and mouth crisis, which led to the postponement of elections in 2001. In such circumstances, the Prime Minister will, by affirmative order, be able to vary the date of Westminster elections by up to two months, either before or after the scheduled date. Such a move will require the consent of both Houses, thereby preventing this power from being abused in a partisan manner.

Political and Constitutional Reform

Debate between John Hemming and Nick Clegg

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s support for a referendum that would allow people to have their say on the electoral system. I believe, none the less, that the boundary changes that we are proposing are perhaps more modest than he and other Labour Members fear. [Interruption.] Well, it is a cut of 7.7% in the number of Members of this House. It brings the size of this House much more into line with existing legislation on what it should be, it starts to bring the size of this Chamber into line with those in other parts of the democratic world, and—this is perhaps part of the answer that I should have given to the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope)—it does not impede the ability of this House to hold Ministers, however many or few of them there are, to account. That package, combined with the additional powers of Dissolution, provides fairness in the votes that are cast and provides more power to this House.

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

I am sure that the Deputy Prime Minister has, like me, noticed how the Labour party has mutated from a party that believes in political reform to one that would quite like it, but not now, and not this particular reform. Given Labour Members’ opposition, as with the 1832 Reform Act, to their rotten boroughs being removed, does he see that they have now given up on the idea of one person, one vote of equal value?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I agree. It is quite remarkable for a party that was once proud of its credentials as a movement of political reform now to act with barely disguised paranoia about a perfectly logical approach to redrawing our boundaries and with churlishness at the opportunity finally to have a referendum that would usher in AV, which is a proposal that the Labour party used to make—a party, remember, which back in 1997 fought the election campaign on a manifesto commitment to giving people the right to have their say about how people are elected to this House. This is, yet again, a commitment to political reform that the Labour party has failed to deliver and that we are now delivering for them.