Oral Answers to Questions

John Pugh Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ben Gummer]

It is proceeding well, but not well enough, and I want it to be faster.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

When I look online, I find it is almost impossible to get a physical address to write to from a Government website. Is that deliberate?

[Ben Gummer]

It is not, but if the hon. Gentleman wishes to show me the examples I will make sure that they are corrected.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Pugh Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We are extremely grateful to the Minister.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

Does the Minister think that it is a matter of regret that one can still become a permanent secretary without being directly associated with a major project?

[Robert Halfon]

As I have said, the Infrastructure and Projects Authority will make a huge difference, transform the way infrastructure projects are done in our country and save taxpayers’ money, and it will do a number of other things as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Pugh Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

6. What plans his Department has to reduce the Whitehall estate as a result of further UK devolution. [R]

[The Minister without Portfolio (Robert Halfon)]

The Government have reduced the size of our central London estate quite radically from 185 holdings in 2010 to just 63 this year. The Government estate strategy, published in 2014, sets out a plan to continue this rationalisation further. Any reductions of staff numbers in London as a result of further UK devolution will help us deliver this change.

[John Pugh]

Radical devolution requires radical rationalisation. Does the Minister have a percentage target and does it include the highly desirable MI6 building?

[Robert Halfon]

The hon. Gentleman is a great supporter of devolution and of the northern powerhouse. This Government are more Chairman Mao than Joseph Stalin and we believe in letting a hundred flowers bloom when it comes to devolution. [Interruption.] We do not have a uniform approach and what works best for local communities will decide devolution powers. He will know that 22% of civil servants in the north-west are based in Liverpool and her Majesty’s Passport Office has a huge office in Liverpool with 650 staff—[Interruption.]

G7

John Pugh Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Extreme brevity is now required, to be exemplified, I think, by a distinguished philosopher, Dr John Pugh.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

I warmly welcome the progress that is being made on tax avoidance and evasion and multinational transparency, but are there any clear timelines, deadlines or penalties for non-compliance by individual countries?

[The Prime Minister]

The timeline that I have mentioned is the fact that 90 countries have promised automatic tax exchange by the end of 2018. That is not as fast as I would like, or probably as the hon. Gentleman would like, but it is something that has not happened before and will now happen.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Pugh Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Commons Chamber

The Minister for the Cabinet Office was asked—

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

1. What plans he has to reduce the number of London-based civil servants; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

As part of our long-term economic plan to save taxpayers money and to pay off the deficit, this Government have reduced the size of the civil service like for like by 21%—that is after adjusting for machinery of government changes. That has increased productivity and saved the taxpayers £2.4 billion last year alone compared with spending in 2009-10. The reduction includes a substantial cut in the number of London-based civil servants.

[John Pugh]

I thank the Minister for his positive answer. Given the pace and scale of devolution in the UK, is there not more scope for merging and moving London-based Departments?

[Mr Maude]

There is a lot of scope for us to get out of properties that we do not need and we have done that already. We have released a huge amount of property into the private sector where it can be used for the purpose of creating jobs, and there is more that we can and will do in that respect.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Pugh Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What the right hon. Gentleman forgets is that when we put £12.7 billion into the NHS, his shadow Health Secretary said it was irresponsible. It is only because we have safeguarded the economy that we can safeguard the NHS. The fact is, he forgets the deficit, his shadow Health Secretary forgets Mid Staffs, and both of them have forgotten that we only get a strong health service with a strong economy.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

Inciner8, a manufacturing company in my constituency, provides portable incinerators to the United Nations that are crucial and vital in addressing the issue of Ebola. It is now offering to donate a further £200,000-worth of equipment if the Government will match it. Will the Government consider this proposal?

[The Prime Minister]

I will certainly look at the proposal. After all, we backed the Ebola fundraising that was very effective in that excellent England-Scotland international, which raised a serious amount of money for Ebola, and we also acted on the Band Aid single, so we will have a close look at what the hon. Gentleman says.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Pugh Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman has made a good point. Of course we should be making efforts to encourage all who are entitled to vote to do so, whether they live here or elsewhere in the world.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

Does my right hon. Friend accept that city deals cover only one part of the north, that most people do not live in cities and that we need a better and broader alternative for northern devolution?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is important for my hon. Friend to be aware that although city deals were the first deals to be struck in the longer journey of devolving and decentralising powers from Whitehall to other parts of the country, they were succeeded by growth deals, which were just as significant in scale and covered all parts of the country, rural as well as urban.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Pugh Excerpts

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I point out to the hon. Gentleman, who is, as ever, livid in the delivery of his question, that the reason we have to make savings is the disastrous mismanagement of the economy by the Labour party. There is nothing fair or progressive about simply shrugging your shoulders, saying that no difficult decisions need to be taken on public sector pay and handing on this generation’s debts to the next generation. Government Members remain united, if not on all issues, on clearing up the unholy mess bequeathed to us by the people on the Labour Benches.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

Local growth deals undoubtedly improve the functioning of the coalition Government. Would the Deputy Prime Minister care to explain why that is?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The local growth deals, which we announced yesterday—I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Minister who has been leading on this in Government—are one of the most significant transfers of money, decision-making authority and policy powers from Whitehall to localities around the country. I am delighted that, among the Government’s many other achievements, we have overseen the greatest wave of decentralisation for a generation.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Pugh Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Miss Smith]

I will answer that by quoting evidence submitted to the Public Administration Committee by the Market Research Society, which said that it

“applauds the activity of the Crown’s Representative for SMEs…and the ‘Mystery Shopper Scheme’ enabling SMEs to report examples of good and bad practice”.

Those are ways in which we are holding our own systems to account. We want to do more and it is vital to get SME representatives around the table to do so. I shall be doing more work on that this afternoon.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

6. What his policy is on the use of teleworking and working from home in Government Departments; and if he will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Miss Chloe Smith)]

In order to deliver services that meet the needs of the public, the civil service—just like comparable private sector employers—needs a flexible and dynamic workforce. We recognise that remote and home working can bring significant benefits, such as increased productivity, business resilience, work-life balance and well-being. Business units in every Department will need to make such decisions according to business need.

[John Pugh]

Does the Minister recognise that young working mothers are the principal beneficiaries of teleworking, and will she do more to keep this pool of talent in the civil service?

[Miss Smith]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. This Government are doing plenty to help that group and we made child care announcements yesterday and today. The benefits of flexible working can also be seen on a much broader level: research recently suggested that British businesses could save £34 billion by taking on such an approach.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Pugh Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady may ask that question, but millions of people in this country heard her party claim that they were going to end boom and bust and saw her shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), go on a prawn cocktail charm offensive to suck up to the banks which created the problem in the first place. Perhaps she should account for that.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

T8. May I encourage the Deputy Prime Minister to say more about the benefits of the Government’s new social care policy and its advantages for a constituency such as mine in Southport or, to use another random example, Eastleigh?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The benefits of the social care reforms that we announced yesterday are universal. They mean that, for the first time, everybody will have the peace of mind that they will not need to sell their property to deal with the catastrophic costs that can be faced when encountering very high social care costs. We are dramatically increasing, precisely in line with Andrew Dilnot’s recommendations, the means-test threshold so that many more people will be given assistance in the first place. Crucially, if the insurance industry now responds to the incentives built into our proposal to cap the number of costs that can be incurred, we hope that no one will have to make any payments for their social care, because their needs will be covered by insurance policies taken out in the future.