Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Mark Durkan and Margaret Curran

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan]

Does the hon. Lady agree that many people will be perturbed and confused by the fact that the Government are derelict on the real crisis affecting care homes in funding, ownership and stability, but are diligent in trying to claw back the pittance that some people in those care homes receive, based on the myth that there is some financial West Lothian question whereby people are being paid out of one fund and also getting money out of another?

[Margaret Curran]

The hon. Gentleman makes his point with great passion. We must bear in mind the context in which this decision is being taken and the scale of resource that is involved. I have to say to him that we have found no evidence of great concerns about the practice of care homes and local authorities on the matter. The Minister has not presented any such evidence to us or to charities, and we cannot see where the great worry or cause for concern is.

--- Later in debate ---

[Margaret Curran]

Yes, absolutely, and we have an opportunity here to minimise that stress and to address the problems. I strongly believe that we should take that opportunity.

[Mark Durkan]

Does the hon. Lady recognise that many people are concerned that as the costs of administering the assessments emerge and escalate, they will be met not by scaling back the arrangements, but by tightening the criteria and reducing the benefits awarded?

[Margaret Curran]

I acknowledge that many disabled people and disability organisations are extremely concerned about that, given the Government’s track record on this. We cannot underestimate or brush aside the level of anxiety of many people in this country about the reform of DLA. Many people find incredibly stressful and worrying the prospect of having to go through a new face-to-face assessment to prove their disability, despite it being abundantly clear, in order to receive help.

It is the Government’s job to assure disabled people that the introduction of PIPs—I know that the Minister tries to do this—will not mean the end of financial support for disabled people. Given the Minister’s efforts on that, I plead with the Government to go that extra mile to assure disabled people that the process is about meaningful reform of an important benefit, rather than an attempt to remove it from those whom they can get away with removing it from. One way the Government can do that is by ensuring that the most severely disabled members of our society do not face needless upheaval and uncertainty over the future of support following the introduction of PIPs.

Postal Services Bill

Debate between Mark Durkan and Margaret Curran

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Curran]

I disagree fundamentally with the hon. Gentleman. First, it is not the IBA that has led to post office closures in the past. Many factors led to those closures, but many people would argue that we need to maintain the IBA to continue to protect the service. If we do not take this action today, we could deprive Post Office Ltd of 38% of its income. In whose world does depriving an organisation of 38% of its income protect it and its viability? I ask the hon. Gentleman to think long and hard before he argues in favour of and supports the Bill this afternoon.

Those involved in the regeneration of deprived communities and who have considered the different levers available to Government to keep those communities going know that post offices are a critical part of the process. We should not—particularly not under any Government who would ever try to claim the word “progressive”—be undermining the regeneration of those communities and making the lives of individuals, particularly those in the greatest need, more difficult. I disagree with the Bill fundamentally and think that the privatisation of Royal Mail will critically undermine post office services, but if we do not take the opportunity offered by this new clause, not one of us could ever with any credibility stand outside a post office and campaign to save it.

[Mark Durkan]

Like many others who have spoken in this debate, I completely opposed the direction of travel of the last Government on Royal Mail and post offices. I therefore oppose this Bill. I very much support the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell), because it at least seeks to mitigate some of the most likely impacts and effects of the privatisation measures on the post office network.

As legislators, and collectively in this House, we have a duty of intelligent care when it comes to the impact and effects of the legislation that we pass. It is not enough for any of us to say that our judgment of what, as many Members have said, is predictable as regards the future of the post office network—many have recalled the toll of business loss, the loss of Post Office Counters and the loss of post offices in many constituencies in every area—is somehow washed away by the Secretary of State’s telling us that it is unthinkable that there would not be a long-term ongoing relationship. It is not washed away if we are told that that is unthinkable by Richard Hooper or the chief executive of Royal Mail. We all know that it is entirely thinkable— and it is not just thinkable, but predictable.

The truth about why the Government do not want us to legislate against the unthinkable—surely, as legislators, that is the first thing we should be doing—is not because such a change is unthinkable, but because they think that legislation against it is undesirable for the potential investors that they seek for Royal Mail. The Government believe that the sort of measures contained in the new clause would be repellent to potential investors and would-be future buyers of Royal Mail. It has little to do with what the EU will say or anything else. The real business is that such changes are entirely thinkable, which is why it is completely dishonest for people to rely on the claims that a change in the long-term relationship between Royal Mail and the Post Office would be unthinkable.

I was struck by the points made by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso). He began by saying that, in his view, the post office side of the business had always suffered from being a bit of a Cinderella and that the driving force was very much on the Royal Mail side of the business. At the end of his interesting and welcome comments, he suggested that he thought that at some point the Government would consider the need for a clearer contract between Royal Mail and the post office counters side, but, again, it was telling that that contract would be revised because of the interests of Royal Mail and the future of that business, not so much because of the post office end of the business. In those circumstances, it is right and proper that this House—now we have been given the opportunity offered by this useful new clause—should make very clear the particular regard that we, collectively and individually, have for the service that post offices provide and could provide in future.

There is a danger, which some of us might have added to in this debate, of creating a sense that the demise of post offices as we know them is inevitable and terminal, but I do not believe it is. As many hon. Members have said, there are services into which post offices could better diversify, such as providing a range of different financial services with other businesses or having a much stronger service portal relationship with government and public services in many ways. The best way of allowing the post office network to reinvent and develop itself over a period of years in the aftermath of this privatisation would be to provide a margin of reliability for post offices in terms of the business from Royal Mail on which they have traditionally depended. A figure oft quoted in this debate is the amount of post office business that involves post offices fronting for Royal Mail services. If we deny them that margin of reliability and say, “It’s up to you to find all sorts of new services and new markets and to reinvent yourself,” we give them an impossible task. It would be an absolute dereliction of our public and legislative duty to do so. I therefore ask all hon. Members to support the new clause.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Mark Durkan and Margaret Curran

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Curran]

I am indeed. I was simply drawing a parallel of the last Tory Government, which occurs to many Scots, between this Government’s approach and the behaviour .

The Bill’s provisions will cut across, and distract attention from, the very important Scottish Parliament election to be held next year. It is clear that they were produced in haste, with no consultation. There has been no persuasion in the Government’s arguments, just assertion. They fly in the face of Scottish experience, learn nothing from the Gould report and take nothing from what has happened in previous Scottish Parliament elections. They bear all the hallmarks of a political fix. Rather than an attempt to deliver genuine democratic progress, they are a mess, and they should be opposed.

[Mark Durkan]

Amendment 18 provides for the combination of three polls—the referendum, the Northern Ireland Assembly election and the Northern Ireland local elections. It will replace clause 4(4), and it provides that the polls are to be taken together on 5 May. The subsection that it replaces states:

“Where the date of the poll for”

Assembly or Northern Ireland local elections

“is the same as the date of the poll for the referendum, the polls are to be taken together”.

That would provide for the possibility that the Assembly or local elections might not be on the same day.

Clause 4(4) also allows sections 31 or 32 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to apply. Under section 31, even though the due date for the election would be the first Thursday in May 2011, in other words 5 May, it could take place two months either side of that. Section 32 provides for a situation in which there was something of a collapse of the Assembly, with the First or Deputy First Minister resigning and not being replaced. I do not want to speculate on that as a possibility, but it is not an absolute political impossibility. In that instance, it would fall to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to name another date, which would not have to be within two months either way.

It seems to me that amendment 18 flies in the face of that, because it will legislate for the three polls to be on the one day regardless. I wonder whether the Government are creating unnecessary tension with existing legislation, because the amendment removes the possibility left open in the Bill. I would appreciate the Minister addressing that point.

Amendments 158 to 179 to schedule 8, all relate to Northern Ireland. Amendment 162 states:

“The Chief Electoral Officer may not decide that the proceedings on the issue and receipt of postal ballot papers in respect of the referendum and the relevant elections are to be taken together unless the Chief Counting Officer agrees.”

The office of the chief electoral officer in Northern Ireland is a useful and important one. It normally falls to that officer to arrange Assembly elections, local elections, and—under the guidance and control of statute—any combination arrangements for such polls. Amendment 162 opens up the possibility of the chief electoral officer having the issue and receipt of the ballot papers for all three polls together. However, if for some reason the UK chief counting officer does not agree with that, it does not happen. We seek assurances on the effect of that on the two polls that are in the purview of the chief electoral officer, and that it will not mean that the chief electoral officer is somehow prohibited from going ahead with bespoke combination arrangements for the two Northern Ireland elections.