Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Michael Tomlinson

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

9. What steps his Department is taking to support building on brownfield sites.

[The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)]

Our national planning policies are clear about the importance of making full and efficient use of brownfield land, supported by the requirement for every authority to publish and maintain a register of brownfield land suitable for housing. The £4.5 billion home building fund also provides support for new housing, much of it targeted on brownfield land.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I am grateful to the Minister for that answer and for visiting the old power station site in Poole, one of the largest regeneration sites in the south-west. What more can he do to help to unlock brownfield sites such as that, which will provide the homes that we need and protect our green belt?

[Kit Malthouse]

It was a great pleasure to spend some time with my hon. Friend and his esteemed neighbour, our hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Sir Robert Syms), at the power station site in Poole. I would recommend it as a place to visit, not least to see the remarkable harbour bridge, which is a feat of British engineering worth visiting in itself. There is much that we can do in terms of applying funding, but the application of Homes England is critical to getting brownfield sites over the line. Homes England is becoming much more entrepreneurial and assertive in its use of the funds and the capacity we have given it to make these sites work. As we speak, it is releasing thousands of homes throughout the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Michael Tomlinson

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend displays her normal mental acuity in putting her finger on the point here. She is completely right: relative poverty is a poor indicator of how people are faring. For example, if everybody’s wages were to double overnight tonight, absolute poverty would plummet, but relative poverty would stay exactly the same.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: using relative poverty produces perverse results. What is he doing about it and what is a better measure?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend made a remarkably good speech about this just a week or so ago, and I congratulate him on his foresight. He is absolutely right: relative poverty as currently measured suggests that there are quite a lot of poor people in Monte Carlo, which, of course, is not an intuitive picture that people would have. As a Department, we are looking at other measures. We believe that absolute poverty, which currently stands at an all-time low, is a better indicator. Of course material deprivation, which asks specific questions about how people live, holds some promise as an indicator that the public might appreciate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Michael Tomlinson

Monday 5th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I am sure that the hon. Lady, like me, welcomes the 43% fall in the claimant count in her constituency over the past few years—[Hon. Members: “That wasn’t the question.”] On her question, as she and many Members will know, the causes and drivers of people going to food banks are complex. [Interruption.] In my constituency, for example, the food bank was established in 2006—at the height of Labour’s conduct of the economy and welfare system—but the Department needs to think carefully about some of these issues, and we will be doing so in the future.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

I warmly welcome my hon. Friend to his place. Does he agree that, on the important subject of children living in poverty and universal credit, it is important to have a sensible, grown-up discussion and debate, rather than bandying around unqualified figures?

Representation of the People (Young People’s Enfranchisement and Education) Bill

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Michael Tomlinson

Friday 3rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I am not desperate particularly; I am just trying to illustrate to the House that we need to take care with the process we are kicking off. If we allowed 16 and 17-year-olds to have the vote, it would become much harder to place restrictions on what they are able to do, what people can expose them to and what their capacity is.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a cool, calm and logical speech. It is a shame that Opposition Members are not affording him the courtesy of a fair hearing. Did he, like me, read the article by our hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), who spotted some inherent contradictions from the Opposition? The Labour party raised the age limit from 16 to 18 for all sorts of things—some sensible, some less sensible and some peculiar, such as the legislation on sunbeds.

[Kit Malthouse]

Absolutely right. It was a remarkably good article, which I recommend that everybody read. It points to this issue of policy confusion. There will be Labour Members shouting at me today about lowering the age of the franchise to 16 who actually voted to stop these very people lying on sunbeds. My hon. Friend is exactly right. The problem at the crux of this is that it is not as simple as extending the franchise. There is a much wider policy framework that we must consider. We cannot extend the franchise and still deny all the baubles of adulthood to people whom we have allowed the vote when they are 16 and 17.

Telecommunications Infrastructure (Relief from Non-Domestic Rates) Bill

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Michael Tomlinson

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 10th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I have to confess that I was so taken with the small sample that I tried—I was driving—that I bought a bottle. Perhaps I will bring one in. I did wonder whether the House of Commons authorities might start serving Test Valley Gin in the bars. It is an excellent drink, infused with a secret recipe of local herbs and spices, and I can recommend it.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I had the great pleasure of being in my hon. Friend’s constituency yesterday, although I beg his forgiveness for not seeking his permission. Hon. Members will be pleased to know that I went purely for a cricket match, and I did not think that I was obligated to seek his permission to play cricket in his wonderful constituency. He is making an important point. Broadband is increasingly important in all our constituencies, and I believe it is as important as road and rail. It is a part of our infrastructure that our constituents just cannot do without.

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He is very welcome to visit my constituency at any time. In fact, I am surprised that he has only been once recently, and he should come more often. My door is always open.

Ensuring that villages are connected to the world is becoming vital to maintaining rural life. Rural residents find it increasingly ridiculous that they can see broadcast-quality footage of Tim Peake in the international space station but they cannot go online and post complimentary comments on my Facebook page, as my constituents increasingly seem to do.

NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Michael Tomlinson

Friday 22nd January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Tomlinson]

I shall turn to what I mean by “appropriate” in due course, but I think hon. Members on both sides of the House will know on plain reading of the word “appropriate” what is or is not appropriate.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

In my mediocre experience in local government I have participated in a huge number of Government consultations. I cannot recall a single one that changed the initial decision of the Government. Will my hon. Friend acknowledge that more often than not Government consultations just go through the motions? The only one I can remember ever having an effect was by the incoming Mayor of London on removing the extension of the congestion charge in the west of London, which was overwhelmingly supported by consultees, and he did in fact enact that in the teeth of opposition from Transport for London. Beyond that, I have never quite seen the point of consultation when Ministers’ minds are made up. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Michael Tomlinson]

I certainly would not agree that my hon. Friend’s experience is mediocre—quite the opposite. I understand the thrust of his point, but I disagree, because at a time when politics can be seen to be remote it is important that the public are engaged in these debates. I also think it would be wrong to say Ministers’ minds are closed. I am sure those on the Front Bench this morning would agree that Ministers’ minds are not, and should not be, closed—certainly not before a public consultation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

Many years ago, my mother and father went on a camping trip in Europe. On their first night, they pulled in, in their Thames van, to what they thought was a campsite. In the dark, my father attempted to pitch the tent. Every time he tried to hammer a tent peg into the ground it went “Ping!” and disappeared off into the darkness. Only in the morning did he realise he had been trying to hammer the tent pegs into a concrete tennis court. That is how I feel this morning.

I have tried to explain many times now that these charities are different. They come with a badge upon them that says to the public they are partially in the public sector. Secretaries of State will always have an eye to their conduct, because what they do will impact politically and financially on the national health service and on whichever party happens to be running it at the time. I realise that, in the eyes of the sponsors, I might be pushing water uphill. Most people know I am a relatively optimistic person and I am hesitant to put these pessimistic circumstances to the House; nevertheless, someone has to do it.

I will move on now, finally, to other amendments. Amendment 9, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, seems eminently sensible and reflects exactly the point I have been making about the special connection. In these days of the internet, it is quite easy to download the NHS logo from any hospital website, affix it to a piece of paper and fire it off to raise money. I am sure it has, on occasion, been used fraudulently to raise money. I therefore completely support his wish to have some kind of control over the use of the logo, the name and the brand.

Giving that power to the Secretary of State seems eminently sensible to me, not least because these charities maintain most of their fundraising ability through their connection with the NHS. The leverage is extremely powerful and very useful. Many will raise millions and millions of pounds off the back of their connection with the NHS and they should be encouraged to do so. The judicious use of the brand, the logo and the name is absolutely to be supported, but it needs to be done in a relatively nimble way. The only way I can think to do that is via the permission of the Secretary of State, so I support the amendment.

Unfortunate amendment 4 deals with consultation. As I said in my intervention earlier, during my career in local and city politics consultation became the bane of my life, and of my residents’ lives. We all knew, when we participated in a consultation, that the decision had broadly been taken already and that the politician or Department in question was largely going through the motions to make sure they were not judicially reviewed or challenged.

Of course, the notion of consultation was promulgated by the Blair Government. It is a characteristic of our managerial, technocratic politics. Where we have a House filled with conviction politicians who know what they believe, and that what they believe is right for the country, they do not need to go out and consult. They consult once every four or five years through general elections and display the philosophical sheet-anchor that sits underneath every decision they make. However, when politicians drift from their basic principles into unknown waters, they feel a bit uncertain. They feel a need to consult, to be told what to do and to get a feel. That is what politicians do these days: they have focus groups and polls. They consult constantly about their image and what they should and should not do.

I would therefore like to play a small part in doing our bit to rein back the amount of consultation. We could get to a situation where this House becomes redundant. With the advent of technology, the thing that naturally follows consultation is permanent referendums where everybody can vote from their desks, and we do not need to have a House that discusses and debates from points of experience and different aspects. I therefore firmly oppose the amendment.

[Michael Tomlinson]

Is my hon. Friend not being, once again, overly pessimistic this morning? Does he not recognise the benefits of public consultation, such as the very one that produced this Bill?