Business of the House

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for her questions, and particularly for her welcome for my written ministerial statement. We are pushing forward with the good law project to improve drafting. I am sure that Members will appreciate that after many years in which there has been a degree of confusion about the distinction in legislation between regulations and orders, we will be clear in future when they are regulations to avoid confusion and duplication of terminology.

On Ukraine, we have had the debate that Members sought, and it was right for us to have done so. In future business, I and my colleagues will ensure that the House is regularly updated and, if it becomes necessary, we will look to secure a further opportunity for Members to give their views on the situation. The House will know that after the Prime Minister secured a strategy at the previous European Council, he will be trying at the European Council today to secure the strongest sanctions as regards the Russians’ interventions in Crimea and their transgression of international law and the territorial integrity of Ukraine. He will get the strongest sanctions for which agreement can be secured and, as I told the House on Tuesday, there will be a meeting of G7 Ministers at the nuclear security summit in The Hague early next week. As I have told the House, I expect the Prime Minister to update the House next Wednesday.

I have to tell the hon. Lady that the business is not light, not least because I have announced in the provisional business for the week after next the Second Reading of two Bills, the Finance Bill and the Wales Bill. I am delighted to be able to say that the Wales Bill is being published and introduced today.

The reference to statutory instruments in the provisional business is simply to give the House an indication of what the nature of the business might be. When I announce the business next week, I will be able to give more details. I can tell the hon. Lady that they do not relate to a change to the Hunting Act 2004. No such statutory instrument under section 2(2) of that Act is before the House. If it is of any comfort to the hon. Lady, if there were it would have to go through the affirmative procedure and would require a vote of both Houses.

I am surprised that the hon. Lady had anything to say on the Budget, because her leader seemed incapable of finding anything to say about it. His speech yesterday consisted of an end-to-end collection of Labour press releases that we had known and forgotten. The first half tried to reheat arguments that had failed in the past, whereas the second half consisted mainly of things that he hoped we would have said in the Budget but that we had not. His principal attack seems to be, “Why didn’t you say this in the Budget, because then we could have attacked it?” I am afraid that that was not very compelling.

We did begin to get an idea of how the Labour party approaches such matters. Clearly, the Leader of the Opposition did not feel able to comment on the most important potential changes to pensions and savings for nearly 100 years. None the less, by the evening a Labour spokesman was on “Newsnight” giving it straight about what the Labour party thinks should happen in this country. I think it went along the lines of, “You cannot trust people to spend their own money.” That is what the Labour party thinks about the people of this country. We trust the people. The Conservative party has trusted the people and, if I may say so on behalf of our coalition partners, the coalition Government trust the people. We have worked together and I am looking forward to hearing the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), further setting out that pension strategy.

The plan is working and we are sticking to our long-term economic plan. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was able to say that the deficit is forecast to have halved by next year and if one looks at the Office for Budget Responsibility’s report one can see clearly that that is because we have taken the difficult decisions. It is not the product of economic recovery on its own, but is principally about making decisions on public expenditure and bringing down the costs of administration and the extent to which the people’s money is taken to pay for public expenditure and borrowing.

One of the most interesting numbers was the reduction of £42 billion in the cost of borrowing. That is a measure of the advance we have been able to make from the position we inherited from the Labour party, which borrowed so much. The Budget will help hard-working people by bringing 3.2 million people out of income tax altogether, with £800 for all basic-rate taxpayers. It is helping businesses to invest through the investment allowances and helping them to export through the export finance changes, and it is helping people to save through the changes in ISAs, pensioner bonds and other measures. It is giving people who have retired and are not in a position to change their circumstances so readily the security not only of the triple lock and the single-tier pension, which mean that they have a secure basic state pension that does not expose them to means-tested benefits, but the opportunity to use the money they have saved through pensions as they see fit to boost their standard of living in old age.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

“Absolution”, “Atonement”, “The Pickwick Papers”, “A Christmas Carol” and “Clockwise” were all films made in Shropshire. May we have a debate on making Shropshire the pre-eminent and premier—if hon. Members will forgive the pun—film location in England for British, American and international film makers? That will be good for Shropshire, for businesses and for tourism.

[Mr Lansley]

I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me if I am not as knowledgeable on the relationship of the film industry to Shropshire as I should be. That is interesting. He and other hon. Members might seek such a debate, either on the Adjournment or through the Backbench Business Committee. Certainly, there will be other places in this country that also have a lot to say about the film industry, but I hope that it would also be an opportunity to demonstrate what a success this country now is in terms of our film and creative industries, not only as evidenced by the success of the film “Gravity” at the Oscars, to which the British film industry contributed so much, but by so many successful films that are being made in this country with this Government’s support.