Business of the House

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I felt at times from the hon. Gentleman’s paeans of praise to the House of Lords that I could visualise the ermine and the coronet descending on him—that some hidden ambition was finally shining through.

The allocation of five days for a debate on this two-clause Bill that did no more than authorise the Prime Minister to trigger article 50 seems perfectly reasonable to me. That allocation of time has allowed, even this week, about half the number of Scottish National party Members to participate in proceedings, either through speeches or interventions. Listening to some of the contributions from the SNP Benches, my impression was that the atmosphere was far from being all doom and gloom. The hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) entertained us royally for nearly an hour this week and seemed to be enjoying himself immensely.

The reality is that the Bill has been brought forward in response to a very clear referendum decision by the electorate of the United Kingdom. It is very different from the Bills that the House debated previously to ratify various EU-amending treaties over the years.

The hon. Gentleman complains about the alleged lack of respect and attention being paid to Scotland. As the Prime Minister said yet again yesterday, the United Kingdom Government are determined to work with the Scottish Government, as well as with the Governments in Cardiff and Belfast, to ensure that the interests of every part of the United Kingdom are represented in the negotiations on which we are about to embark. That commitment is sincere: it is felt very strongly by the Prime Minister, and she has impressed it on every member of the Cabinet.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Local concerns have been raised in Cambridgeshire—not least as a result of the excellent forensic work of my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay)—about funding decisions taken by the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough local enterprise partnership. May we have a debate in Government time to ensure that there is proper transparency and accountability of LEPs so that their decisions are fair, properly scrutinised and their efficacy is appropriately tested?

[Mr Lidington]

Members of LEPs on the whole do a good job in providing a forum for bringing local business and public authorities together and for trying to leverage private sector investment, along with public sector investment, to support such things as infrastructure projects. However, they have to pay regard to the fact that they are the custodians of public money and need to make sure that they have proper rules on accountability and transparency, as would be expected of anybody in receipt of taxpayers’ money. My hon. Friend may have the opportunity to raise these issues further at Communities and Local Government questions on Monday 27 February.