Cost of Living
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Helen Jones(11 years ago)
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Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend realise that the reason why some of us worry about the proposals of the Free Enterprise Group is that they are all of a piece with what the Tories have done already, including a drop of £35 a week in real wages in my constituency, the imposition of the bedroom tax on the poorest people and, contrary to what they say, increases in council tax for the poorest people? The reason Tory Back Benchers worry about being seen as the party of the rich is that they are the party of the rich.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I am concerned because the debate has been going for 36 minutes already. The time limit on Back-Bench speeches is due to be five minutes. I do not want it to go below that. At this rate, a lot of Members will drop off the list.
Helen Jones
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I note that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is not present. Can you investigate whether that is because the Lib Dem part of the coalition no longer takes responsibility for economic policy?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
As the hon. Lady well knows, that is not a point of order. It is certainly not a matter for the Chair and does not want to be. I call the Financial Secretary.
Local Government Finance Bill
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Helen Jones
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment (a) to Lords amendment 3.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendment 16, amendment (a) thereto, and Lords amendments 18 and 83 to 90.
Helen Jones
Amendment 3 was moved in the other place by my noble Friend Baroness Hollis of Heigham. It calls for one very simple thing: a review of how the new system for council tax support is working three years after the Bill as enacted comes into effect. We tabled amendment (a) to make clear the original intention of the amendment in applying only to England because this is a devolved matter in Wales. When my noble Friend introduced the amendment in the Lords, she made a clear and persuasive case that was supported by a good majority.
The Government opposed the measure at the time, but I understand that they may now decide to accept it; the Minister will tell us. Opposition Members may wonder why that is, but in fact, we know why. The Government know that their policy on council tax is a shambles. It is so bad that they cannot even convince their own Members to support it. Their councils in North Yorkshire, including the Foreign Secretary’s council, have campaigned against its unfairness. The departmental Secretary of State’s own county council says that it has major implications for some of the most vulnerable members of the community. West Oxfordshire, the Prime Minister’s council, has refused to implement any scheme at all and will rely on the default scheme. Westminster, the Tories’ flagship local authority, which we hear so much about, says that it will not implement it because residents are already adversely affected by changes to local housing allowance and other benefit cuts. This is what Westminster said in one of the documents that it submitted:
“The previous Community Charge (Poll Tax) experience shows that there are inherent difficulties in asking benefit claimants to pay small sums of Council Tax. This can make the debt difficult, and in some cases uneconomical, to collect.”
It also says:
“A decision to pass on the funding cut to claimants would be a reputational risk for the Council, as residents will perceive the cut as a local authority decision (rather than a central government given benefit cut).”
Points of Order
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Helen Jones
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Prime Minister told the House earlier this afternoon that the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport had, in answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), published all the correspondence between the Government and News Corp relating to its bid for BSkyB, yet the answer makes it clear that that is not the case. It says:
“Records of meetings, telephone calls held between officials and press officers with outside parties and records of telephone calls and email exchanges between officials and Ministers and outside parties are not recorded centrally and would incur a disproportionate cost to collect.”
The answer concludes:
“A search for correspondence from officials, press officers and special advisers to and from all the individuals listed would incur disproportionate cost to collect.”—[Official Report, 7 September 2011; Vol. 532, c. 616W.]
Will you consider the matter, Mr Deputy Speaker, and see whether there is any way in which the Prime Minister can be brought here to correct the record, so that the House has accurate information on what actually occurred?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
The point has been made and is certainly on the record. If the hon. Lady is unhappy, perhaps it would be an idea for her to write to the Speaker with her views.
Local Government Finance Bill
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Helen Jones(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 20, page 2, line 13, leave out ‘2013’ and insert ‘2014’.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 21, in clause 2, page 2, line 19, leave out ‘2013’ and insert ‘2014’.
Amendment 22, in clause 3, page 3, line 21, leave out ‘2013’ and insert ‘2014’.
Amendment 23, in clause 4, page 3, line 35, leave out ‘2013’ and insert ‘2014’.
Amendment 24, in clause 5, page 4, line 5, leave out ‘2013’ and insert ‘2014’.
Amendment 25, in clause 6, page 4, line 22, leave out ‘2013’ and insert ‘2014’.
Helen Jones
We have tabled these amendments because we are concerned about the way the Bill is being rushed through the House and, should it be enacted, the short time allowed for its implementation. Understandably, the Bill deals with difficult questions. It is not easy when dealing with local government finance to resolve exactly where the line should be drawn between central and local government, how far services should be uniform and how far we are prepared to tolerate variations in them. I accept that the Government carried out a consultation before bringing in the Bill, but the problem is that the Bill seems to reflect little of that consultation.
In addition, the Bill is being taken through the House at a break-neck pace. It was published on 19 December, just before the Christmas recess, and had its Second Reading on 10 January, which was the first day the House returned and only two sitting days later. Instead of sending the Bill upstairs to Committee, where we could have taken evidence, which we cannot do on the Floor of the House—that is the important thing about Public Bill Committees—the Government insisted that the Bill should be considered in Committee of the whole House in three days, and I think that it was originally meant to be two days.
Why are the Government so worried about taking evidence upstairs in Committee? They might be a little worried about what they could hear, because the truth is that local councils, having started to look at the Bill in detail, are particularly concerned about the speed of implementation for its provisions and are struck by the number of powers being given to the Secretary of State.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
There is no procedure to do that in Committee of the whole House. Mr Bryant was taking the hon. Lady away from the subject that is before us.
Private Members’ Bills
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Helen Jones(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Helen Jones
We will wait to see what the Government bring forward, but if the hon. Gentleman thinks that his Bills do not have a chance of getting through, one wonders why he tabled them in the first place.
I hope that we can agree to the motion, so that Members who wish to pursue their private Members’ Bills have a proper opportunity to do so and get a fair hearing from the House.
Points of Order
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Helen Jones(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. On Tuesday, a member of the trade union USDAW who was attending an event in this House was not allowed to enter because security officials objected to one of the slogans on the board he was bringing in. They did not object to his bringing in a board per se, but merely to the slogan, which said: “Child Benefit Frozen by the Tories”. The USDAW One was kept in a room near the security entrance until I went down to free him, when he was allowed to come through. Will you investigate this matter, Mr Deputy Speaker, and can it be made clear that entrance to this House should be denied only on the grounds of security, and not on the grounds of the views that people wish to express?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me notice of her point of order. This is not a matter on which I can readily comment. I invite her to discuss it with the Serjeant at Arms. As the hon. Lady knows, we do not discuss security arrangements on the Floor of the House, but I hope that some arrangement may be come to.
Comprehensive Spending Review
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Helen Jones(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. A lot of Members want to speak in this debate, and this disorderliness is doing us no good.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the Chief Secretary to accuse Opposition Members without any evidence whatever of wishing for lower growth to put people out of work? That is what the Government are doing, not the Opposition.
Points of Order
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Helen Jones
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You will be aware that the Secretary of State for Education today issued his fifth list of schools affected by the cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future programme. That list was not available to Members until 2.35 pm—after the first question on Building Schools for the Future had been taken at Question Time. Is there anything you can do to ensure that Members have the right information in front of them before we debate these issues?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
The hon. Member has made the point that it would have been beneficial if this information had been in place before Education questions. She has now put the point on the record, so it can be taken into account.