Oral Answers to Questions
Kevin Barron Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend raises a very important point. When we leave the European Union we will be able to negotiate those trade deals in our interest, and not rely on Brussels negotiating trade deals for us. We will have that independent trade policy, and certainly we will be looking to do trade deals with a number of countries in Africa. I took the opportunity at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting to speak to a number of leaders from Africa about just this issue.
Sir Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
I say to the right hon. Gentleman that, obviously, we were all appalled at the revelations of what had happened in terms of CSE in Rotherham and, sadly, in other parts of the country. I will ask the Home Secretary to look at the issue. As the right hon. Gentleman will know, certainly as regards police funding, there are arrangements whereby bids can be put in to the Home Office. Those are properly considered and discussed with the police force in question, with decisions taken on that basis.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kevin Barron Excerpts(7 years, 9 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning that issue, which he has raised with me previously. I know he is concerned about it and working on it. Our housing White Paper clearly sets out that developers should be building homes for people to live in. That means that we will act to promote fairness for the growing number of leaseholders, but we will consult on a range of measures to tackle unfair and unreasonable abuses of leasehold, as the Housing Minister has said. Other than in certain exceptional circumstances, I do not see why new homes should not be built and sold with the freehold interest at the point of sale.
Sir Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
We all recognise the important service that pharmacies provide, which is why spending on them has actually risen in recent years. There has been an increase of more than 18% in the number of pharmacies over the past decade. The system needs to reform so that NHS resources are spent efficiently and effectively. Let us look at some of the figures: two fifths of pharmacies are within 10 minutes’ walk of two or more other pharmacies; the average pharmacy receives roughly £220,000 a year in NHS funding; and most pharmacies receive the £25,000 establishment payment, regardless of size or quality. We looked at this concern when it was raised last summer, and made changes to ensure that greater support was available to pharmacies in particular areas.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kevin Barron Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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David Mundell
If we have any votes in the House on full fiscal autonomy, we may have to ensure that the toilets are enlarged, because I suspect all SNP Members will want to lock themselves in so that they can absent themselves from any decision.
Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
7. What assessment he has made of the potential effect on families in Scotland of the Government’s policy on child benefit.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)
Child benefit will continue to provide essential help for low-income families, and the latest statistics show that it has benefited more than 966,000 families and children in Scotland. We are also supporting Scottish families by cutting tax for nearly 2.3 million people, taking 261,000 people out of paying income tax altogether. Some 210,000 families in Scotland will also benefit by up to £6,000 a year from tax-free childcare.
Kevin Barron
On a day when the Chancellor is saying that he will take action on how this Government and future Governments run deficits, will the Secretary of State tell us that he will protect the worth of child benefit in Scotland for the lifetime of this Parliament?
David Mundell
We have made our position clear—we are keeping child benefit.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kevin Barron Excerpts(10 years ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I suspect that many Members from all parties in this House will agree that mental health services have for too long been treated as a poor cousin—a Cinderella service—in the NHS and have been systematically underfunded for a long time. That is why I am delighted to say that the coalition Government have announced that we will be introducing new access and waiting time standards for mental health conditions such as have been in existence for physical health conditions for a long time. Over time, as reflected in the new NHS mandate, we must ensure that mental health is treated with equality of resources and esteem compared with any other part of the NHS.
Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
Q5. When the Health and Social Care Act 2012 passed through Parliament, the Government said it was not about privatisation. A recent study by the British Medical Journal says that one third of all contracts have gone to the private sector and only 10% to the voluntary and social enterprise sector. Does the Deputy Prime Minister regret supporting that legislation?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman is being highly selective in describing what that report said. It actually said that of all NHS budget contracts, 6% had gone to the private sector. Guess how high it was when this Government took office: 5%. So Labour presided over a 5% delivery of contracts to the private sector, and we have added 1%. The Opposition delivered £250 million-worth of sweetheart deals to the NHS, deliberately undercutting the NHS for operations that did not help a single NHS patient in the country—and they have the gall to lecture us on the privatisation of the NHS!
Recall of MPs Bill
Kevin Barron Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Heath
The hon. Lady nods her head.
I am pleased that our commitment is finally being honoured. In government, I was frustrated at the time it took to get something before the House, and I think it is an open secret that I would have preferred it to have gone slightly further than the Bill before us, but nevertheless it is exactly in line with what those parties said they wanted and what they put to the people. I hope, therefore, that we can get away from this false dichotomy between a real recall Bill and a bogus recall Bill. This is not a bogus recall Bill, but it is one that could be strengthened, and that is exactly what we should be focusing on.
I think we might need to look at the constitution of the Standards Committee. As a former member of the old Standards and Privileges Committee, I think there is scope for changing the membership of the Standards Committee, although I would make one caveat about the voting rights of members. That point was covered in a Green Paper on privilege that I produced as Minister but which I do not think anybody read, apart from—possibly—the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife. Either way, it was obviously minority reading, given that so many people since have commented from a position of sublime ignorance on the subject of privilege. Nevertheless, there are issues to consider and in principle I agree that we should reform the Committee.
We should not kid ourselves, however, that any Committee of the House will have the confidence of many members of the public. That is why I want a mechanism that provides the public with direct access to this process and which is not mediated by a custodial sentence or the decision of a Committee of the House. I am sorry but there is no way such a Committee could be seen as anything other than an old boys’ club. I winced slightly when I heard my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who is not in his place, refer to the capacity of the House to expel Members. This is not a gentlemen’s club. Can we please get away from the Victorian idea that we make the rules and deal with things? Our electorate has a right to be engaged in this process.
Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Standards Committee, whose lay members are denied a vote by the House, does nothing more than report to the Floor of the House? It is not a Committee that sits upstairs and comes to these decisions. The decision about whether somebody is guilty of misconduct—I have spent three years trying to find out exactly what that means—would be taken on an amendable report on the Floor of the House.
Mr Heath
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, but that does not alter the fact that the public will not believe that any mechanism mediated by MPs, either in Committee or on the Floor of the House, is not going to protect MPs. I do not think it a fair criticism, but that prejudice is now impossible to remove, so let us accept it.
I want to find a new way to give the public access to the recall process. As was clear from the exchanges between the hon. Member for Richmond Park and the Labour spokesman, we are talking about behaviour that our constituents cannot accept, rather than views with which they disagree. As I think he knows, I have a lot of sympathy with much of what the hon. Member for Richmond Park is trying to do, and I accept his point about 20% being a difficult level to achieve—somebody would really have to incense their constituents—but I do not accept that 5% would be difficult to achieve for a well-funded campaign or even a political opponent who has lost an election and wants an immediate rerun. He blithely says, “Of course, all Members would probably have a petition process against them”, but that is not a satisfactory position for Members to be in. If someone wants to do radical things in the House and represents a socially conservative constituency, they will face problems of this kind. It does not take much to get 3,500 people to say they do not support gay marriage or some other policy on which we have legislated. I want to concentrate, therefore, on genuine misconduct.
Mr Heath
The first point is explicitly covered in new clause 7(6), which states:
“If the court considers, on the basis of such evidence, that the allegation of misconduct is—(a) not supported by the evidence; or (b) trivial or vexatious in nature; or (c) brought for party political purposes; then the court must dismiss the petition.”
That is the filter that prevents people from bringing vexatious charges time and time again. In extremis, of course, the courts have the power to award costs if they feel that the same allegations are being brought forward again and again inappropriately.
On the second point about the threshold, my proposal is that this should act as a further trigger to the Government’s proposed mechanism. I am perfectly open, however, to discussion over whether a better and more appropriate threshold could be applied—both in terms of the original complaint and of the petition process. I do not have strong opinions on this; I would like to talk to others and see if a consensus could be reached.
Kevin Barron
Would the decision of the election court be challengeable? In other words, if someone were found to have been involved in misconduct, could they appeal against it, bringing an element of fairness into the procedure?
Mr Heath
My new clause is constructed in such a way that there would not be an appeal process because the court would not find on matters of guilt. It would find only on the prima facie case in the same way as a magistrates court when it sends an offence for trial at a higher forum. The electorate of the constituency are the court of appeal as well as the court of indictment, which seems to me appropriate.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kevin Barron Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. We have to stick to the plan, which involves training young people. We are on track to hit 2 million apprentices trained under this Government, but the very worst thing to do would be to start spending, borrowing and taxing more, which are exactly the proposals made by the Opposition.
Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
Q11. Will the Prime Minister explain to the House why it is that the only people who feel that there are no problems in the national health service are members of the Conservative party?
The Prime Minister
Every single health system right across the developed world is facing huge challenges and pressures. The pressures of an ageing population, the pressures of new drugs and treatments coming on stream and the pressures of children surviving with conditions that will need to be treated throughout their lives. The question is how we respond to those pressures. Our response has been to fund the health service and protect it from cuts, and to reform the health service, getting rid of £5 billion of bureaucracy so that there are more doctors and more nurses. The figures speak for themselves, because we can see more people being treated. One million more people are being treated every year in accident and emergency, and 40 million more people are getting GP appointments, but that is only because we have taken the difficult decisions that, frankly, Labour has not taken in Wales. That is why in Wales we see longer waiting lists and real problems with the NHS.
European Council
Kevin Barron Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I have not been as hard working as my right hon. Friend in scouring Luxembourg’s press, but I shall obviously put that right. There are people all over Europe, not just in Britain, who want to see a more flexible approach and European reform. The European elections reflected that, and the leaders of Europe need to listen to those elections.
Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
Does the Prime Minister think that the use of personal insults, either in this House or in the European Council, is more likely to strengthen or weaken the UK’s influence in any renegotiations?
The Prime Minister
I do not think that it is right to make personal insults or personal attacks, and that is certainly not the approach that I took. I was very clear that this was an issue of principle, but I also said that I thought this individual was the wrong person to take Europe forward. That was on the basis of experience of what he has stood for and explained in the past. But I absolutely agree that personal insults should play no part in this.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kevin Barron Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I recognise that my hon. Friend has raised this issue on several occasions and he clearly feels strongly about it. We are confident that the measures being introduced through the individual voter registration system, originally planned by the Labour party and being delivered ahead of time by us, will stamp out the problems of fraud about which he is rightly so concerned.
Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
T8. In response to the Chancellor’s statement yesterday about further welfare benefit cuts in years to come, the Deputy Prime Minister said that those would be cuts for cuts’ sake and would be Conservative cuts. Can he explain to people who live on welfare benefits why he keeps the Conservatives in office?
The Deputy Prime Minister
There is a really important debate emerging. We have to finish the job of fiscal consolidation, and there are at least two parties in the House which understand that—the two coalition parties. We understand that we have to fill the black hole in the public finances left by the Labour party, and that will require several further years of difficult choices. Then there is a debate about how we get to that objective and clearly there are differences there. In my party we feel that we should ask those with the broadest shoulders to continue to make an effort in the ongoing fiscal consolidation: my coalition partners do not. That is a legitimate debate, but what divides this side of the House from the other side is that at least we recognise that we have to clear up the mess left behind by the Labour Government.
Tributes to Nelson Mandela
Kevin Barron Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
I do not wish to detain the House long, but I thought I ought to say a few words.
In the 1960s, I, like many young men, saw the events in South Africa on television and in newspapers now and again and felt, as most people did, that that country was split on racial lines—indeed, other countries were split on racial lines as well.
I did not really understand what was happening in South Africa until in 1975 I left my small mining community and went to Ruskin college in Oxford. The college had a Kitson committee, named after David Kitson, who was one of the prisoners in South Africa at the time. He had been born in South Africa and had been over here working in industry for a while. He went to Ruskin on a trade union scholarship and was in jail in South Africa. I went to the first meeting of the Kitson committee and ended up being active in it later on. One of my fellow students told us about her life and her journey. She was from South Africa and had come out of South Africa in the boot of a car. She told us what apartheid was—it was not just segregation between white and blacks, but segregation over several areas. She said that she fitted into one of what were called the “Cape Coloureds” categories. She also said that she and her brother were at different schools. They lived with their family in their house, but they were at schools that were next to each other and when they used to share their sandwiches through the school railings they were shouted at by the pupils for mixing with the students in the school next door. Her brother was her twin brother. They had been born within minutes of one another and apartheid had segregated them because that was how the system worked. I could not understand how anybody anywhere could do that to anybody and I became active in anti-apartheid for many years. I remember Mike Terry very well and Charlotte street, as we used to go up there quite a lot, and I was active in the trade union movement, too. Her name was Rita Taberner, and she said something that has stayed with me all my life: how could politicians and Governments do such things to their own people? It is extraordinary that that could happen.
I have two other reflections, and the first is about when Mandela came out of prison. It was a Sunday—I remember it well. I had just left the Leader of the Opposition’s office, but I phoned him up and he was watching it, too. We could not believe what we were seeing. It was a bit like the Berlin wall. I never thought I would ever see the Berlin wall come down or that apartheid would end. Those were the two things in my politics of the ’60s and ’70s that I thought were there for life, and to see that happening was extraordinary. Of course, that was no easy journey for Nelson Mandela. He was dealing with the tensions in the ANC between where he wanted to go and where other members of the ANC wanted to go. Some did not think that that was the way forward; I understand that peace and reconciliation was his brainchild and that he had to fight hard for it to work. Many of us thought that it would end up in a bloodbath in South Africa—after my experience of 1975, I would not have been at all surprised if that had been the case. That was the level of the man and the people around him who wanted to go that way for South Africa and its people.
My other memory is from when Mandela spoke in Westminster Hall. One of your predecessors, Mr Speaker, Baroness Boothroyd—who is in the other place now—walked down the steps with him. She remembered that she had been part of the British black sash movement who used to stand outside South Africa house wearing black sashes, just as women in South Africa used to stand in Pretoria and other places wearing black sashes to complain against the regime, and she never thought that she would see such a speech happening.
Nelson Mandela was a giant of a man and the world has much to learn from what he did. We will have to wait to see whether the world is capable of doing that, but I wanted to pay my tribute to somebody who shaped my politics even though I was thousands of miles away.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kevin Barron Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes an important point. At the G8 we achieved real progress on tax transparency and cracking down on tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance, but is it not a sad thing that, although we were doing that, the Labour party is still offering tax avoidance advice to its donors, and it has not paid back the £700,000 of tax that it owes? Let me remind the leader of the Labour party what he said:
“If everyone approaches their tax affairs as some of these companies have approached their tax affairs we wouldn’t have a health service, we wouldn’t have an education system.”
So he has to put his hand in his pocket and give the money back.
Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
Q13. I wrote to the Prime Minister on 8 May and I have not yet received a reply. May I ask him now whether he has had any discussions with Lynton Crosby about the standard packaging of cigarettes or the minimum price of a unit of alcohol—yes or no?
The Prime Minister
I can tell you, Mr Speaker, that Lynton Crosby has never lobbied me on anything. The only opinions that I am interested in are how we destroy the credibility of the Labour party, on which he has considerable expertise, though I have to say that he is not doing as good a job as the Labour party.