Oral Answers to Questions

Karl McCartney Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady must be careful not to misrepresent what the Electoral Commissioner said. It did not say that this system will lead to a drop-off on that scale. [Interruption.] No, the Electoral Commissioner clarified the point in subsequent publications. The Electoral Commission said:

“We would not want to see a move away from the current approach—where electoral registration though not compulsory is regarded as an important civic duty”.

We are maintaining that civic duty; we are maintaining the offence of failing to provide that information when asked for it; and we are seeking to address the Electoral Commission’s specific concern about the opt-out system.

[Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)]

7. What plans he has to reform the funding of political parties.

[The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)]

I consider reform of party funding to be very important in and of itself, and we made a clear commitment to it in the coalition agreement. I look forward to the contribution of the Committee on Standards in Public Life to the debate when it publishes its report shortly. It is immensely important for us to clear this up, because it has affected all political parties negatively, but it would not be right to ask our hard-pressed taxpayers to pay more to political parties at a time when they are having to deal with so many cuts and savings elsewhere. I should like to proceed with as much cross-party consensus as possible, and I am keen to work towards that aim, but I repeat that no one should doubt the determination of this coalition Government to deliver reform in this area.

[Karl MᶜCartney]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that interesting answer. Does he agree that it is time for the Labour party to be honest about the privileged influence that some of its larger donors have had on legislation that is debated in the House, and will the Liberal Democrats join the Conservatives—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I ask the hon. Gentleman to—

[Karl MᶜCartney]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman must resume his seat.

Questions to Ministers should be about the responsibility of office-holders for public policies. It is no good the hon. Gentleman nodding at me; his question was out of order, and it is about time that he learned that fact.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The right hon. and learned Lady should not be quite so pleased with herself. Under Labour the number of NEETs—young people not in education, employment or training—increased by 50%. Is that a record she is proud of? I think it is a good thing that we have delivered more apprenticeships than her Government ever did. We will deliver a quarter of a million more apprenticeships than were planned under Labour, and we are also creating a new network of university technical colleges to give young people the skills to get into work and rolling out a new Work programme aimed at supporting young people. As I acknowledged earlier, yes there is more work to do, and we must do more to support young people, particularly those aged about 18 or 19 who are making the difficult transition from full-time education to trying to find their feet on the first rung of the jobs ladder. We will do more—we need to do more—but the right hon. and learned Lady should not be quite so complacent about her Government’s record.

[Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)]

T6. I am concerned about the possible role that the EU foreign service had in recently deposing the elected Heads of two sovereign Governments. Can the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that he has sought assurances that EU officials based in this country do not abuse their positions here?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I do not think that there is any remote possibility of a coup being engineered from the European Commission office just around the corner. The whole world is looking at what is happening in Italy and Greece with growing alarm, and only Labour Members take it as a role model for their own behaviour. There is a big dividing line in British politics now between those on the Government Benches who believe that Governments should be in charge of their own economic destiny and those on the Opposition Benches who think that bond traders should be in charge of the economy.