Psychoactive Substances
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Lord Mann(11 years ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I think it is time that we left the subject of caterpillars and lettuces and got to the matter in hand.
John Mann
I implore the Minister to reject this European Union attempt further to weaken our approach and to resist what his predecessor did, which was to go around these EU countries looking for ways to weaken our drug laws—precisely what this Government are sneakily doing in order to justify cuts in policing and the closing of police cells in areas like Bassetlaw.
Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Lord Mann(11 years, 4 months ago)
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John Mann
I sit on the Treasury Select Committee; the hon. Gentleman served on it, so we have a modicum more information on these matters, as do other hon. Members, than our constituents. Nothing has changed for them, however. Fundamentally, there has been no segmentation of the market, which is why the new challenger banks are getting no further. Only a tiny, tiny proportion of business is going to them. We have not restructured, even though in RBS and Lloyds TSB we have the perfect opportunity, owing to the crisis, to restructure. Across the world, we see vast numbers of people suffering and Governments of every political persuasion being voted out because of the financial crisis and the decisions they have made. This Government might face the same dilemma. I am not commenting on whether the decisions on the deficit and debt are right or wrong economically, politically or socially—that is a critical debate, but it is a different debate—but the fact that we are in this situation and we are not addressing it for the future in anything but the most micro-management way is part of that weakness.
The Government might want to give themselves plaudits and say, “Well, perhaps we’re doing a little better than the Government of Greece or Spain,” or whichever Government it is. The Americans can slap themselves on the back and say, “Unlike the Brits, we’ve got our act together. We’ve targeted their banks. We’ve portrayed them as the wrongdoers. We’ve managed to shift some of the powers to ourselves,” which is precisely what is going on among the political, banking and business classes in Washington and New York. They are winning that battle.
I will end on this point. This is a world crisis. My research document proves that every one of the top 50 banks in the world, without exception, have been involved in criminality in recent times. That is staggering for any industry. For us to hold that industry together with sticking tape, not even with the most damaged and shattered elements, including those that have had to be nationalised, such as Lloyds TSB—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Mr Mann, your time is up—that is the story of your life at the moment.
Canterbury City Council Bill
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Lord Mann(11 years, 9 months ago)
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John Mann
The hon. Gentleman is not confusing the argument, but the argument is confusing me. I have received many representations about matters of concern to the House, but I have received none about this matter. The hon. Gentleman has suggested that it may have been important to the people of Canterbury in the context of what he describes as a possible motivation for the Bill, but they do not seem to have written to me about it. Has he received any correspondence from the people of Canterbury recently, explaining why it was important for the House’s time and votes to be spent on this Bill?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I do not think that we need worry about Members’ mail boxes while we are dealing with clause 11. I am sure that the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) is desperate to stick to the point, and he certainly need not worry about other Members’ mail boxes.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Lord Mann(14 years ago)
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Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) knows perfectly well that I entirely agree with him. I note that at least 12 Labour Members have not yet been able to speak, and that is why I will speak very briefly now.
Let me just say this to the Government. The danger is that in their desire to create mathematically perfect constituencies and to allow only 5% of leeway to the boundary commissions, and in creating the exemptions for three seats in Scotland, they will undermine the three Scottish constituencies and make them seem like rotten boroughs. The Government will make the whole country look like a mathematical exercise, and not like anything that recognises the facts of life.
When miners went down the mines in the Rhondda in the 19th and 20th centuries, they had a number stamped on their miners’ lamps. The people of this country do not want to be just numbers on a miner’s lamp. The people of this country want to be recognised for the constituencies and the communities that are represented in it, and it is their voices that should be heard in the House rather than just the statistics with which the Minister agrees.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. You said in response to the point of order of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) that a point about who gets to speak is not a point of order for the Chair. A point about which amendments are selected is, however, a point of order for the Chair. My amendment to this part of the Bill deals with the same kind of special privilege that other Members have addressed in their amendments, but it was not selected. I appreciate that the Chair has a difficult task. However, my point of order is: if this Bill had been taken in full Committee, would not my amendment have been allowed and debated?
Mr Deputy Speaker
The hon. Member has raised this point previously, and I stress once again that it is not a point of order. He cannot challenge what amendments are selected. The selection of amendments is the Speaker’s prerogative, and that has been decided. I now call the Deputy Leader of the House.
Mr Deputy Speaker
I think the Member will wish to withdraw that comment, for all our sakes.
John Mann
I withdraw that comment, but further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The point of order I am raising is that in full Committee any amendment that is put in the Committee is eligible to be taken, and it is only the time constraints that have required you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to rule out certain amendments, including my own.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. We are not going to push this any further. I have made a ruling, I stand by that ruling and the Member must accept it. I call Mr Heath.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Lord Mann(14 years, 1 month ago)
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John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Hoyle. The amendments selected in this group include some that are proposing special privileges—some might say gerrymandering—for certain constituencies, and these have been ruled to be in order, while others suggesting gerrymandering, such as my own, which suggests that the traditional rotten borough of Retford should be created, as it was in 1832, have been ruled out of order. [Hon. Members: “It is not this group. It is the next group.”] Well, I am making my point now anyway. Why have some been ruled in and some ruled out, when they are all about gerrymandering the boundaries?
The Chairman of Ways and Means
I welcome your opinion, but you cannot discuss amendments that have not been selected.
Clause 9
Number and distribution of seats
Finance (No. 2) Bill
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Lord Mann(14 years, 1 month ago)
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John Mann
Well, the majority of the Tory heartlands—they may be former Tory heartlands in future—will get the cuts. It is fundamentally wrong that small English towns should bear the brunt of the cuts. If 50 jobs are lost in a big city, it is bad for those people, but it does not affect all the businesses. If 50 jobs in Retford, Skegness or Boston, or 100 jobs in Worksop are lost, there is a major crisis in those town centres. What do you think the very people whom you are rightly trying to get off incapacity benefit, perhaps to start small businesses in Worksop or Retford, will start doing—major, advanced science and technology? No, they will think, “I could run a sandwich shop.” Good luck to them—it is entrepreneurship, and it would be brilliant, but not if there is no one to buy the sandwiches. Who owns the small businesses and the market stalls? Those people will lose their jobs because they are on the cusp and the banks are not lending them money; they are lending even less than they were previously. Those people and the taxi drivers and the small builders come to my surgery—they suffer the knock-on effects. That is why you have got it wrong and why you should think again and slow down the cuts—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I am not responsible for Bassetlaw. Every time the hon. Gentleman says “you”, he means me. He should know better—he has been a Member of Parliament for a long time.
John Mann
I am very grateful that you are not responsible for Bassetlaw, Mr Deputy Speaker. The truth is that this evil Government will have an impact on the constituency of Chorley in the same way as they will on Bassetlaw.
My final point is that the successes of the previous Government have led to new jobs in Worksop. Laing O’Rourke provided 350 jobs earlier this year, and I opened a new site for MBA Polymers last week, which will provide 120 jobs. Both companies came to my area because of the regional development agency grant. In the case of MBA, the grant was the reason to come to this country, never mind to my area. The considerable RDA grant was critical to their decisions. In the case of Laing O’Rourke, the land reclamation works were also important, and other sites are going to market. That is the role of the state, and the weakness of this Government’s economic policy is that the new systems replacing the RDAs—I understand the logic behind that and I agree that the bureaucracy could have been cut back—will not replace that role. Therefore, we will not see the competitive advantage that areas such as mine have had from coherent incentives to private business and bigger employers. We need small employers, yes, but we need large ones too. That is where this Government have got things fundamentally wrong.
My plea to my colleagues on the Front Bench is to tighten up on our economic policy. Let us make the real choices, because we are too woolly at the moment. I hope that the Government are listening to me and taking notes, because small-town England will not forgive a Government who decimate it. Just this week, the council in Nottinghamshire has announced that the lights will be turned out overnight, and that will be the legacy of this Government. It is not too late to change, and as a start I suggest that they withdraw this piffling little Bill and put a proper one in its place.