Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

That is a very good question, to which I do not have an immediate answer. I am prompted by the hon. Gentleman’s interest to look into the matter, and I will get back to him with some answers.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

Teleconferencing provides a key opportunity for digital policy. The head of that policy in the Minister’s Department was appointed without a fair and open competition, as a former party staffer. That was one of 30 appointments revealed by freedom of information releases this week. Can the Minister tell me who those 30 people are and what they do?

[Mr Maude]

Of course I understand why the hon. Gentleman is so outraged by the idea of people with party affiliations fulfilling a public service vocation, because of course none of that ever happened under his party’s Government—a Government who, with the hon. Gentleman as one of the principal operators, distinguished themselves by their approach to cronyism.

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that anyone who has been appointed to a civil service role has passed all the appropriate tests, which, as he will know from his experience as a Minister in my Department, are extremely rigorous.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor-General]

I would agree, and they will not.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

3. What support the Law Officers’ Departments have provided for the investigation by the Metropolitan Police Service into alleged telephone hacking and blagging; and if he will make a statement.

[The Attorney-General (Mr Dominic Grieve)]

The roles of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service are distinct. The police investigate allegations of criminal conduct; the Crown Prosecution Service provides them with advice, when requested to do so, and takes prosecution decisions. The constitutional role of the Law Officers is to superintend the CPS. The Law Officers are not involved in the provision of such advice. On 14 January, the Director of Public Prosecutions announced that the CPS would conduct a comprehensive assessment of all material in the possession of the Metropolitan Police Service relating to phone hacking, following developments in the civil courts in cases taking place on this issue. The purpose of this assessment is to ascertain whether there is any material that could now form evidence in any future criminal prosecution relating to phone hacking.

[Mr Watson]

Are the Law Officers confident that the CPS is giving the right advice? In particular, is it asking the Metropolitan police to examine the separate secure e-mail server used by News International executives of the grades of Andy Coulson and Rebekah Wade and also to examine the existing illegally transcribed phone message made by Ross Hall for “Neville”?

[The Attorney-General]

The hon. Gentleman may have seen a copy of the letter written by Mr Yates, the acting deputy commissioner, to the Director of Public Prosecutions. That letter makes it quite clear that he wishes to re-examine all the material collected in this matter and then to seek the advice of the CPS and the DPP in relation to it.

Departmental Business Plans

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Monday 8th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Letwin]

I respect the hon. Gentleman for his long work in areas such as drugs, but if he reads the plans he will find that they include serious efforts to change things for the better, such as through a payment by results-based drugs rehabilitation programme, for which, I think, he has long argued. That is not gobbledegook, bureaucracy or micro-management. It says to providers, “You know how to provide and we will pay you if you get people off drugs and back into the mainstream,” and nothing could be more important to the people of our country than that.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

I think I understand what the Minister has announced: a series of tough, demanding and transparent moving-horizon, non-target, milestone reports. If he has, I fully support him, but to build on the point made by the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry), may I point out that publishing those reports on 22 websites will make things almost incomprehensible to citizens who wish to hold the Government to account? It would be better to place them in a single spot—perhaps directgov, the Cabinet Office website or data.gov.uk. Will the Minister also consider placing ministerial diaries and details on special advisers’ hospitality in a single place on the same site?

[Mr Letwin]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his brilliant translation. Incidentally, I have no doubt that he understood everything that I said because he understands everything that anyone says—he is very clever. Unfortunately, he is not very well informed because, as a matter of fact, we will enable people to go to a single place to get hold of all this stuff. Moreover, it will be put in a format that will enable people to mash it up and easily produce their own charts, and their own comparisons and analyses of everything that we issue. I anticipate that we will make more things transparent, including contracts for Government Departments right across the board, as well as all expenditure down to £25,000—and in local authorities down to £500 per item.

Prisoners’ Right to Vote

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. It may be tempting—or otherwise—for the Minister to look behind him from time to time, but he must address the House.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

The Minister has my sympathy, because he is on a sticky wicket today—if I may say so, he is doing a good job—and the truth is that the Deputy Prime Minister is on the run. He should be there answering to this House today. His junior is doing a better job than he could, but he should be here. On a specific point, may I ask whether it is the Minister’s personal view that people should have the vote where they are interned, or that they should have the choice of which constituency to vote in?

[Mr Harper]

I will take the first part of the hon. Gentleman’s question in the spirit in which it was intended. On the second part, we are of course considering how to implement the judgment. The sorts of issues that he has raised are ones that we are thinking about. When we have taken those decisions we will, of course, announce them to the House.

European Council

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is important that we build alliances for what we are trying to achieve. I would say to all my right hon. and hon. Friends that there are many things that we do not like about the European Union’s development and many things that we would like to change. We must pick our battles and our fights. The important battle to have is the one over the budget and it is important to try to build alliances for that. There is strong support from other countries—not just the donor countries but those that are making difficult decisions at home and recognise that it is simply insupportable to see one budget going up and up when they are having to cut things back in their domestic economies.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

At what we now know as the Prime Minister’s “delicious” press conference, he questioned the number of BBC correspondents sent over to report on his triumph. Who did he want to send home the most—Nick Robinson or Michael Crick?

[The Prime Minister]

I probably should not have used the word “delicious”. I was just making the point, as we were talking about cuts, that the BBC seemed to be extremely well represented. I do not think that Nick Robinson was there, but it is always a joy to see Michael Crick.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with my hon. Friend. This is a point that I have made at the European Council in the past and that I will make again at the next one. There are allies for these views in Europe. I talked about the Dutch Prime Minister; the Germans are also unwilling to see increases in the budget in future. We need to work with these allies to try to explain that it is just unacceptable. When we are making difficult decisions at home, Europe should be doing the same with its own budget.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

Q8. Is it wise and right that Ministers invest in offshore tax havens?

[The Prime Minister]

I think that that issue was fully raised by Channel 4, and fully answered by the Government. Everyone should obey the law; everyone should pay their taxes.

Political and Constitutional Reform

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I hear what my hon. Friend says. I suspect, to be honest, that for those who quite rightly wish to argue that there should be no change to the system, almost any date will be construed in one way or another as being a reason for why the vote should not proceed on that date. My view is that the arguments we have put forward—of cost; of getting on with it, given that we have all recently fought an election campaign in favour of political reform; and of preventing people from returning over and over again to the ballot box—are arguments well made, which I hope my hon. Friend will, over time, share.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

May I be the first Member unequivocally to say to the Deputy Prime Minister this afternoon that he has my full support for a yes vote in the referendum? On civil service reform, does he intend to prohibit the practice whereby Ministers can make political appointments by granting temporary civil service status to members of staff? Will he tell me how many people are currently in that position?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I cannot answer the latter question. I am very grateful, however, for what the hon. Gentleman said at first—that he is keen to provide support for the referendum campaign.

European Council

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about supporting Turkish membership of the European Union. I think that we should back it wholeheartedly. It is very important for the future of Europe and for the future of Turkey. It was not specifically discussed at the European Council, but we should all be concerned by the signs that Turkey is beginning to look in other directions, and we should be doing all we can to anchor her into the European Union. The decision that the Turks have taken regarding Iran is depressing from that point of view, so it should continue to be our policy to support Turkish membership wholeheartedly and to try to persuade others to do the same.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

On tackling the deficit in pensions obligations, did the Prime Minister discuss his review of state pensions in the UK, and can he confirm that that extends to the armed forces pensions schemes?

[The Prime Minister]

What I can confirm is that the former Member for Barrow and Furness, John Hutton, is going to lead this review, which is looking at pensions within the state sector. It is a very important piece of work and I am sure that its terms of reference will, in time, be placed in the House of Commons for the hon. Gentleman to look at.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

The terms of reference for Will Hutton’s review are being drawn up and finalised. As my hon. Friend says, the review will look at the multiple between the best-paid and least-paid employees in the public sector. We are decentralisers and localists, so we will not expect to exercise our writ across the whole of the wider public sector. We think transparency will play an important part in driving down the differentials.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

7. What plans he has to publish non-personal data held by Government Departments.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

In our first month in government we have already published a number of key data sets, including the Treasury COINS—combined online information system—database, MRSA and C. difficile weekly infection rates for each hospital, and details of the salaries of 172 civil servants who are paid more than the Prime Minister. The letter from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 29 May set out specific commitments to publishing further data on spending, contracts and the civil service during the rest of the year. We will also give the public a right to data so that people can obtain the Government-held data sets that they want.

[Mr Watson]

The right hon. Gentleman is doing a great job and I hope he gets the support of my Front-Bench team in accelerating the programme of releasing public sector data, but does he accept that the Government cannot be selective about those data? They cannot print 172 civil servants’ salaries without telling me what Andy Coulson is paid.

[Mr Maude]

All this will be divulged in due course. If I may, I should like to pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman. When he was a Minister in the Cabinet Office, he pursued the agenda of data transparency with admirable vigour, and I suspect he was somewhat frustrated by the lack of progress that it was possible for him to make. I look forward to working closely with him as we jointly pursue this agenda in the public interest.