Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Luciana Berger and Nick Clegg

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As I said, all the information was published. Let me be explicit: there are 98 special advisers in post—72 Conservative and 26 Liberal Democrat—across the Government. On the other point, this is not a plan to import an endless series of political advisers. It is about recognising something that a number of independent think-tanks and others have recommended to the Government, to allow Ministers access to external policy expertise, which is sometimes lacking in Whitehall in the offices Ministers find themselves in.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to the supplementary question asked by the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), and following this morning’s news that Cabinet Ministers will be allowed to have an additional 10 political appointees, does the Deputy Prime Minister think it is right that the taxpayer will be charged £16 million a year, in addition to the current SpAd bill, so that he and his Cabinet colleagues can be advised by their mates?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The average salary cost of special advisers is 9% lower than it was under the last Labour Administration, so pots and kettles don’t half spring to mind.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Luciana Berger and Nick Clegg

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is the sting in the tail that I always love. The hon. Gentleman must rehearse his questions endlessly—but they are good; it was a good one today. As he knows, that is not a subject, thankfully perhaps, of Government policy. It is a subject for discussion between the broadcasters, who will have their own views, and the political parties. He should speak to his own party leader about his party’s view on these things. I think that the innovation of televised leader debates was a good one. Millions of people found it a good opportunity to see how the party leaders measured up against each other and I think that we should repeat them.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

T5. I listened carefully to the Deputy Prime Minister’s answers about the bedroom tax. He kept referring to “some households”. However, does he agree with his own party that the bedroom tax discriminates against the most vulnerable in our society? Will he join his party in calling for the tax to be scrapped?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My party has not called for the policy to be scrapped. It has debated—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Luciana Berger and Nick Clegg

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As my hon. Friend will know, the first wave of city deals applied to the eight biggest cities. We then invited 20 cities and communities to submit bids for the next wave, on which we hope to decide in the coming months. I very much hope that the city deals will not be just a one-off experiment in devolution but that they will act as a template for further devolution across the country.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

The coalition agreement states that the Government will introduce

“extra support for people with disabilities who want to become MPs, councillors or other elected officials.”

Will the Deputy Prime Minister update the House on progress with that?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the hon. Lady may know, there is a £2.6 million access to elected office fund, and the wider access to elected office strategy was launched in July last year to deliver on the coalition agreement commitment to provide extra support to tackle the obstacles she mentions. The fund will be open for applications until the end of March 2014, and so far there have been 11 applications, including from independent candidates.

Leveson Inquiry

Debate between Luciana Berger and Nick Clegg

Thursday 29th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman and I have had this exchange countless times. He still struggles to get coalition. His party did not win the election, and my party did not win the election, so we have a Government of two parties that must compromise. That is different from previous one-party Governments. It might lead to anomalies, glitches and innovations in this venerable place that he finds unwelcome, but that is the reality of coalition government. I suspect it will be repeated quite a lot in future.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

What actions will the Deputy Prime Minister and his Government take if newspapers do not establish the new system?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is incredibly important that the newspaper industry heeds what hon. Members have said and what the Prime Minister has said forcefully—that the ball is now in its court to make the first move of showing that it can propose a self-regulatory institution, which would be independently verified in one way or another as soon as possible. It would be an extraordinary failure if the press did not take up that opportunity and respond to Lord Justice Leveson’s invitation for its own good. Everybody who cares about our great British press knows that the public need to be reassured that it will abide by higher standards in future.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Debate between Luciana Berger and Nick Clegg

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is always reassuring to get the hon. Gentleman’s traditional welcome at the beginning of the parliamentary term. I thank him for his supportive remarks about all that my colleagues and I are doing in government to rescue, reform and repair the British economy, which was left in such a state of disrepair by the Labour party.

We are two and a half years into a five-year Government. The Prime Minister and I will make some announcements shortly—for instance, on the all-important issue of increasing the number of homes built in this country, to improve provision of affordable and social housing for people who desperately want to get on the housing ladder. If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, that is the kind of work that I am going to concentrate on.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

What estimate has the Deputy Prime Minister made of the cost to our civil service in time and effort of drawing up his now defunct House of Lords Reform Bill?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the hon. Lady knows, a lot of ink, paper and official time has been consumed, not just by this Parliament and Government but by previous Governments and Ministers who have sought finally to crack the conundrum of how we introduce more democracy to the House of Lords. The hon. Lady is right: if she and her colleagues had decided to back us on the timetable motion, all that ink and paper would not have gone to waste.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Luciana Berger and Nick Clegg

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The simple principle of saying that millions of people, particularly those on average incomes and on low and middle incomes, should be able to retain more of the money that they earn is a very good one. It has not only a moral dimension but an economic logic, too, because with more money kept in their own pockets, hopefully that in turn will encourage many, many consumers to go out and shop and help move the wheels of the British economy.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), will the Deputy Prime Minister explain why, despite his pledge to widen access to internships, publicly funded museums and galleries took on close to 800 unpaid interns in the past two years?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the hon. Lady knows, the role of internships, which used to be informal—people did not really think that it mattered very much—has become much more important over the past five to 10 years. It has become a stepping stone for people’s subsequent success in finding real work, so it is right that she and others devote more attention to it. I was not aware of the figures that she has cited for unpaid internships in the museum sector which, as much as any other walk of life, must reflect hard on whether internships are being made fairly available to as many young people as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Luciana Berger and Nick Clegg

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I strongly agree that we must introduce measures to tackle electoral fraud. As my hon. Friend may know, we have announced that we will legislate to speed up the introduction of individual electoral registration to before the next general election, in 2014. Under that new scheme each person will have to register individually, whereas the current system is registration by household, and they will be asked to provide personal identifiers, including their national insurance number, to enable registration officers to verify the identity of a person before they are added to the register. That should tackle fraudulent or inaccurate register entries, which my hon. Friend rightly highlights.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab /Co-op)]

T4. Before the election the Deputy Prime Minister said that providing more police was “the only way to create safer streets.” Now the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice says that there is no link between crime and police numbers. Which is it?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As I explained in answer to an earlier question, of course we want the police officers who are available to be out on the streets as much as possible. It is true that this is partly a question of resources—[Interruption.] Nothing is possible when there is no money. It was the outgoing Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury who said, “There’s no money left.” Those were not our words; they were his words.

We cannot provide for our schools, hospitals and police forces unless we have money. Because of the mistakes made by the hon. Lady’s party, we are pouring £120 million down the drain every single day simply to pay off the interest on her party’s debts. That is the problem that we face. At the same time, we need to reform policing to ensure that police officers can spend as much time as possible out on the beat rather than behind their desks.