Official Development Assistance and the British Council

Debate between Karen Bradley and Nigel Evans

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. This is not an either/or. Money spent there will save money upstream. I know that the Treasury scorecard is very difficult to comprehend and that this is not necessarily how it works, but that relatively small amount of money will save enormous amounts of money at home and will make the world a better place for all of us.

My final point is on the British Council. I am disappointed by the situation that we have arrived at. I know that the Government have put an enormous amount of money into the British Council. The British Council is normally pretty much self-sustaining. Its language schools and language business mean that it pays for about 85% of its costs in normal times—but, as I have said, we are not in normal times. Like so many other organisations, the British Council has not been able to deliver the services that it would have delivered and therefore make the income that can and needs to make. We are talking about money for two years so that it can get back on its feet. The price that we will pay for not meeting that request by the British Council is that we will see the closure of offices around the world, including in the US, Afghanistan and other places.

I said in respect of international aid that other countries will move in; there can be no doubt about the significance of the British Council and its offices, and about the idea of another power moving into those offices where the British Council has been. Yes, the British Council sells language services to the public, but the service it provides to the United Kingdom is about far more than just language services. The British Council is about Britain’s place in the world and is perhaps the most visible part of our soft power that anyone sees in any country they have visited. I was able to travel the world as a Minister at many levels and as a Select Committee member, and the British Council was always present, promoting Britain, British values and British interests. I say to my hon. Friend the Minister: please try to find a way to support the British Council so that we do not have to see the closure of posts. Once we have moved out and those relationships are lost, they will never be regained; someone else will move in and we will be a poorer country for it.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

The time limit is eight minutes. I call Sir Edward Leigh.

Scotland: General Election and Constitutional Future

Debate between Karen Bradley and Nigel Evans

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I will not suspend the House for three minutes because both Dispatch Boxes were sanitised during the Division.

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether you can give me some assistance. You, like I, will have been grateful, I am sure, to see in the road map out of lockdown that weddings will be able to start again from 12 April when we enter step 2. However, guidance that was issued yesterday implies that bespoke dedicated wedding venues will not be able to hold weddings after 12 April and must wait until 17 May, leading to the bizarre conclusion that one might be able to marry in the frozen food aisle of a supermarket, but not in a dedicated wedding venue. I wonder, Mr Deputy Speaker, if you may be able to assist me in how I could raise that point with Ministers to get some clarity so that we can help those dedicated wedding venues and the people who want to get married in them.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I thank the right hon. Lady for notice of her point of order. The prospect of getting married in the frozen food department of Iceland, or of any supermarket, does indeed beggar belief. None the less, this is clearly an important matter, and there are several ways, as she will know, of raising the issue, including urgent questions or an Adjournment debate, but we have business questions tomorrow, which provides the opportunity to call on the Leader of the House for a debate—[Interruption.] However, we also have a Cabinet Minister sitting here who is eager to get to her feet.

Virtual Participation in Debate

Debate between Karen Bradley and Nigel Evans

Thursday 19th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab) [V]]

May I thank the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) for her statement and say that I agreed with absolutely every single word of it? I commend her and her Committee for this report, which is based on the principle that, despite this awful pandemic, all Members should be able to participate in our debates, whether in person or remotely, and I strongly support that principle. I agree with her that it is the role of the Leader of the House to support MPs to do their job and to speak in debates and that it is not for him to set up exclusions.

Is the right hon. Lady aware that the number of MPs who are exercising proxy votes and therefore excluded from debates is 62%? That means that 62% of us are not able to speak in our debates; that cannot be right. Is she also aware that the figure for Scottish Members of Parliament is 78%? Imagine having a situation during this pandemic where 78% of Scottish MPs are excluded from debates. We want and need to hear from them and from our colleagues in Wales and from the regions outside Westminster as well. We do not want a situation where half of the Chairs of Select Committees are not able to speak in debates, even those debates that are on the subject on which they have done inquiries and reports.

We might be essential workers, but we can work remotely. I strongly back the amendment of the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) and my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) to the motion of the Leader of the House. I urge the right hon. Lady to back that amendment—I am sure that she will—and to urge all other Members to do the same, so that we can override the Leader of the House and ensure that all Members are able to speak in debates on equal terms at this crucial time.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I gave the right hon. and learned Lady some leeway, as Members may have noticed, but please can people just ask questions now?

[Karen Bradley]

I thank the right hon. and learned Lady for her comments. It is important that I make it clear that the Government moved their position on proxy votes, so that those who have a proxy vote can now take part in proceedings in the Chamber and I give credit to the Government for doing that. None the less, she is right to say that there is a large number of Members who cannot participate in the Chamber; around one quarter of Members are exercising the ability to participate virtually in scrutiny proceedings because they do not feel that they are able to come to the Chamber. It is that quarter of Members whom my Committee is incredibly keen to see taking part in debates. By the time we get to the end of March, it will have been nearly 12 months that a quarter of Members will not have been able to take part in debates. That is simply not acceptable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Karen Bradley]

The right hon. Lady is right when she says that we are a world leader. As we discussed earlier in this statement, the rest of the world looked on in awe at what we in this House were able to achieve so quickly. The other place is using so many of the facilities and procedures that we developed and then disregarded. We decided that we did not want to use them; we wanted to return to some form of normality that simply cannot be achieved at the moment.

I have not yet paid tribute to the Clerk of the Procedure Committee, Martyn Atkins, and I must do so. He is, sadly, moving on. His time with us has been and gone several times over, and he is finally being dragged from us—kicking and screaming, as far as we are concerned. He has turned around reports and dealt with these matters in a way that no one could have anticipated. We may have thought that we had finished with procedural novelties when we left the European Union, but it turns out that covid has introduced more procedural novelties than we could ever have imagined.

The right hon. Lady asks what mechanisms we can use to bring these measures in. The first, of course, is to implore the Government to listen and give time for a debate. If that is not possible, I will speak to the Backbench Business Committee and see whether there is any way we can find time for a debate on the matter to give the House an opportunity to have its say, even if that is not on a binding measure, as it would be if the Government tabled a motion.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I thank the Chair of the Procedure Committee for her statement and for responding to the questions. I, too, would like to put on record my thanks to the Broadcasting Unit for performing miracles on a daily basis while the House is sitting. It is quite remarkable what has been achieved in such a short space of time.

We will now suspend briefly in order to sanitise the Dispatch Boxes and to allow Members to leave safely.

Virtual participation in proceedings concluded (Order, 4 June).

Digital, Culture, Media and Sport: Support Measures

Debate between Karen Bradley and Nigel Evans

Thursday 8th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), who I serve with on the Procedure Committee. I, too, have had emails from freelance musicians who are struggling enormously. He set out the issues so well and it is an honour to follow him. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) and the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) for securing this important debate.

I was once the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, so I know these sectors pretty darn well. The Minister worked there closely with me, so he will know some of the things that I am about to say. I know that there is nobody on the Government side of the House who does anything but recognise the contribution that the sectors DCMS represents make to this country, including—absolutely—economically. When I became Secretary of State in July 2016, the sectors that DCMS represented contributed 13% of the UK economy. By the time I moved to Northern Ireland in January 2018, it was over 16%, demonstrating just how those sectors grow much faster than the economy at large and really contribute so much.

However, they also give us so much more. They are the soul of our nation, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) said. They give us joy. They have a role to play in so many parts of our lives, including in education. These are areas that might grasp that child who really does not know what they want to do with the rest of their life, taking them away from crime or gang culture and giving them a focus and a purpose.

If global Britain is anything, it is our creative industries. Goodness me, if we want to punch above our weight, have a look at what our creative industries, sporting institutions, arts and museums do. They are so well known around the world and they open doors for us in a way that nothing else can. When I was a Minister in the Home Office visiting Pakistan, if I wanted to have a conversation with any senior Minister, it was much easier to open the conversation by talking about cricket than it was security, representation and how we might possibly help each other with our security exports.

There is also the economic impact of inward investment. We want companies to invest in Britain. We want companies here in the United Kingdom to put their money in and create jobs. They are not going to put employees in places where there is nothing for them to do when they get home in the evening. They want a strong cultural sector. They want sporting events. They want to be able to take part in charities. They want to be part of more of society than just going to work every day. That is why it is so important that so far, the Government support for DCMS sectors has been there, but we need to make sure that the sectors continue to be supported.

I want to raise a few local issues. I have the privilege of being the Member of Parliament for Alton Towers—I suspect many Members have visited Oblivion and Nemesis and have enjoyed their trips to Alton Towers. Alton Towers has been open this year. It has been fantastic. I have been a couple of times with my family and we have been able to really enjoy the rollercoasters and the feeling of being in this great place of fun. It is so grateful for the VAT cut and the fact that it has been extended, but it really wants to see that continue. It wants to see support for businesses like Alton Towers so that it can continue. Having lost out on the school trip season and so many other parts of the season, it wants to make sure that it can extend its season and get support where it needs it.

On sporting events, we must get fans back. That is absolutely something I miss so much. Not being able to go to the Etihad and watch my beloved Manchester City score goals is a great trauma for me, so please can we get them back? We must also get support for freelancers and sole traders—that is absolutely vital.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Andy Slaughter will be the last speaker on four minutes. I want to try to get everybody in if we can, so we will then go down to three minutes.

Business without Debate

Debate between Karen Bradley and Nigel Evans

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. My apologies for being slightly delayed in raising this point of order, but I hope that you can help me. I have been approached by a number of right hon. and hon. Members from across the House who are concerned that there may be some Members who do not understand parliamentary protocol when it comes to dealing with constituents, particularly constituents who might be from another Member’s constituency. Perhaps you could offer some guidance.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I thank the right hon. Member for her point of order, and for providing advance notice of it. This may not, perhaps, be the right forum today to go into the details of any specific cases, but I am happy to take the opportunity to remind all colleagues of the importance of always treating other Members of Parliament with due respect, inside and outside this place, especially when it comes to the support that we provide to our own individual constituents.

House Business during the Pandemic

Debate between Karen Bradley and Nigel Evans

Monday 8th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is a member of the Committee, for his kind words and his point about the temporary nature of the arrangements. It is incredibly important that decisions that we take on our procedure during this pandemic are temporary, because, when we return to some form of normality, this House will have to decide how we proceed with our processes, procedures and rules and regulations.

My final thing that went well is Select Committees, which have been referred to already. Select Committees have met and scrutiny is carrying on. They have operated very successfully, and continue to operate, in a virtual world.

What could we have done better? Well, we could have been better at dealing with some of the uncertainty. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and I have already disagreed on this matter during an earlier debate in the Procedure Committee when he was kind enough to give evidence. The Government should have extended the motion that allowed for virtual participation until after the Whitsun recess, so that the House could have met without a recall of Parliament and made a decision about how we wanted to proceed without disenfranchising any Members.

We should have tested the voting system that we implemented last week. I urge my right hon. Friend to make sure that, whatever comes next for voting, we have a chance to test it, because this House needs to be happy and comfortable with it. The point was made about the Division Lobbies. I want to get back in those Division Lobbies as quickly as we can. They are a very valuable asset, but we have to make sure that they are safe. I urge my right hon. Friend to use deferred Divisions more. It is incredibly useful if we can vote, socially distanced, on deferred Divisions. On Public Bill Committees, there was nothing to stop them meeting before the Whitsun recess, and I urge him to ensure that they meet, and meet for longer—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I call Patrick Grady.