International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Debate between Mark Reckless and Martin Horwood

Friday 5th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mark Reckless]

I think right hon. and hon. Members should listen to all our constituents. The problem is that we listen greatly to those who write to us and lobby us on these matters, but we ignore the fact that the vast majority of our constituents are opposed to what they want. That is why I refer to the radical tradition—the tradition of Gladstonian finance. It is now being represented not in the hon. Gentleman’s party but in mine, because the vast majority of working-class people in this country do not want to give vast amounts of their income to the Government, including for it to be given away in overseas aid.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman should know that Gladstone said the lives of the hill tribesmen in the wilds of Afghanistan were as “inviolable” in the “eyes of almighty God” as are our own. Gladstone was a champion of humanitarian intervention in other parts of the world and he would have been proud of our turning up to save lives today. The hon. Gentleman should not quote him in defence of his mean-minded approach.

[Mark Reckless]

I could not disagree more. The difference between the Liberal Democrat party today and the Liberal party of Gladstone could not be greater. What Gladstone would have welcomed—what he was extolling—was private charity. The last thing he would want is the Government to tax people—on the pain of fines unless they give their money, and of going to prison if they do not pay the fines—and for that money to be used as a political class at the top of that country might discern, giving away overseas 0.7% of everything we earn, when we are actually having to borrow 5% of our output, from overseas, in order to finance it. That is the complete antithesis of everything Gladstone stood for, as is what the hon. Gentleman’s party has become.

We may be able to find a degree of consensus on my final point. The only good principle of this Bill is that it sets a precedent for this House taking back control of Government spending, which we abandoned in the 1930s. During that period of national Government, with an overwhelming majority, right hon. and hon. Members of this House gave up scrutinising effectively the spending of government. We now have instead three estimates days a year, when we debate everything except the spending estimates, and then we have one or two votes a year that almost invariably go through nem con, and there is no real scrutiny of spending. So the principle of saying what public spending every Department or activity should have, and putting that into legislation or at least into a process where this House can effectively hold Ministers to account, is a good one. However, specifying a minimum without a maximum is not a sensible way to do it.

Energy Bill

Debate between Mark Reckless and Martin Horwood

Monday 3rd June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Martin Horwood]

First, let me make it clear, particularly to Ministers, that I support the Bill. The attempt to lock investment in low carbon technologies into British energy markets is vital and demands an interventionist approach. In a sense, I agreed with a lot of what the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) said in describing what are in effect subsidies and quite an interventionist approach in the Bill—something I think is justified for renewables and when bringing forward clean, greener technologies to tackle the urgent question of climate change. I also welcome the important Government amendments that try to ensure that consumers enjoy the lowest possible tariffs.

As is obvious from the debate, there is a growing chorus of scepticism about aspects of the Bill, and particularly subsidies that may be unearned. New clause 5 and new schedule 1 seek to address that issue, which is why I will press new clause 5 to a vote. I have managed to gather support for the new clause, and I acknowledge that of Which?, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Association for the Conservation of Energy, WWF, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, as well as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) and the hon. Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), for Hove (Mike Weatherley), for Angus (Mr Weir) and for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex). I am grateful for support across the House, and for the implied support from Members close to the hon. Member for Daventry who are concerned about subsidies in general but include in that their particular concerns about nuclear power.

My worry is principally about nuclear because the subsidies in the Bill contravene the spirit of the coalition agreement. That agreement distinguished between renewables, where it implicitly accepted there was a case for subsidy, and the nuclear industry, for which it specifically ruled out a subsidy. Only a few years ago, the Labour Government line was also that there should be no subsidy for the new generation of nuclear power.

Amendment 23 and others tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion are specifically anti-nuclear, and there is a case to be made for distinguishing between nuclear and renewables, principally because renewables are emerging technologies. In many cases they are highly competitive, and over time they are generally getting cheaper. Nuclear is an old industry—56 years old—and has generally been getting more and more expensive. The latest new reactors at Olkiluoto—I hope hon. Members will excuse my Finnish pronunciation—and Flamanville in France are both many years behind schedule, and from the original estimates of between €3 billion and €4 billion are now heading towards estimates of more than €8 billion each—more than 100% over budget. I gather that the Finns and the French are now in litigation with each other over some of those costs and time overruns.

[Mark Reckless]

The hon. Gentleman refers to nuclear energy becoming more expensive, but I am not sure whether, like the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex), he caught the Minister’s earlier reference to when the new nuclear contract is signed with EDF. Does he think that reference to when, rather than if, is likely to increase or decrease the price we pay for that electricity?

[Martin Horwood]

Perhaps courses in negotiating skills might be recommended for members of the Department of Energy and Climate Change on that front. To be fair, Ministers have made it clear that they do not intend to sign the contract with EDF at any price, but the difficulty is that we in Parliament simply do not know that there has not been adequate scrutiny.

National Referendum on the European Union

Debate between Mark Reckless and Martin Horwood

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I am sure that the constituents of East Surrey will have followed the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah) with great interest this evening.

In the 1975 referendum, the country was assured—by a Conservative Prime Minister, I am afraid—that there was no question of any erosion of national sovereignty. The people were told that we would have a veto over any important issue, yet those same people have now seen that what they were told was a common market has become a political union in which we can be outvoted, whether we like it or not. They see other countries not following the rules when our country does follow them, and they see an institution whose accounts have not been signed off for some 20 years, yet we continue to give it money year after year. In the coming year, we are giving the European Union £10.9 billion. That is the net contribution, taking account of what we get back. Indeed, in every year except one, we have given more money to the EU than we have got back. That one year was 1974, the year before we last had a referendum on this matter. That was the only year in which we received more money from the EU than we gave. Members who have yet to make up their mind might like to reflect, in the light of that £10.9 billion, that when putting pressure on the EU to reduce our budget contribution, nothing would concentrate its mind more than the knowledge that this country might hold a referendum on our membership of the EU.

There now has to be a referendum. The people have heard too many promises, made by too many parties over too many years. They now want to decide for themselves what our future in Europe, or as an independent country, might be. There has been significant movement on this side of the House during today’s debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins) asked why we were having this discussion, 18 months into the Parliament, and why there was so much disagreement. He wondered why the coalition did not agree on this matter. The reason is that the 57 Liberal Democrat coalition Members were given the referendum on the alternative vote that they wanted, yet a far larger number on the Conservative Benches have not been given the referendum that we want on our country’s position in the EU.

[Martin Horwood]

We have discussed this already. The Conservative manifesto did not make a commitment to an in/out referendum; it committed to a referendum lock, which we have achieved through the European Union Act 2011.

[Mark Reckless]

The Conservative party had offered a referendum on Lisbon. The Liberal Democrats had offered a referendum with a choice between the EU with Lisbon and leaving the EU. However, what the country got, through the coalition agreement, was the Lisbon treaty and no referendum on anything. Three or four days ago, the Liberal Democrats’ website was still campaigning for an in/out referendum, but that has now been removed. Not only have they gone against what they told the electorate on student fees, but they have done the same on Europe.

European Union Bill

Debate between Mark Reckless and Martin Horwood

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mark Reckless]

My hon. Friend is correct, but the key point is that we can still have the referendum that the Liberal Democrats wanted. The Conservatives cannot go back to the pre-Lisbon EU position because the founding treaties have changed. We have the Lisbon treaty, but we could still decide to hold an in/out referendum.

[Martin Horwood]

rose—

[Mark Reckless]

The in/out referendum is still an option, and I would hope the hon. Gentleman still supports it.

[Martin Horwood]

It is no surprise that the Liberal Democrats voted for the Lisbon treaty—we were in favour of it. Is the hon. Gentleman arguing against the logic of the Bill? Under new clause 11 there would be an in/out referendum when a transfer of power happens, but the Bill proposes specific referendums on those transfers of power. There is absolutely no logic to having an in/out referendum after a transfer of power is defeated in a referendum, because no transfer of power will have taken place.

[Mark Reckless]

I am saying that the principle of an in/out referendum is important. The Liberal Democrat position, as I understand it, is that the British people should decide whether we stay in the EU with Lisbon, or whether we leave. Let us have that referendum.

The most important point in respect of the Bill is that Ministers seem not to have noticed that the world has moved on. A Bill that would have been perfectly satisfactory in 1992 at the time of Maastricht is now, after 19 years of further transfers of powers to the EU, utterly inadequate for its task. My constituents are not especially concerned about referendums on technical transfers of power five or six years—at the earliest—down the road; they want to vote on our membership of the EU, and they want to do so now.

Ministers have made a serious mistake in thinking that the Bill will somehow buy off dissent, or that my constituents will believe it really changes the EU situation. My constituents believe that the transfer of powers to the EU has already gone much too far. The only thing that can deal with that situation is an in/out vote, so that we can re-establish our independence as a nation.

I am more surprised about the political error that Ministers are making in thinking that the Bill is sufficient. They do not consider what they leave themselves open to if the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) flips position, as I believe he might. We have debated the Liberal Democrats’ position, but Conservatives cannot assume that we will always be on the popular side of the argument relative to the pro-European Labour party. There are very few Labour Members in the Chamber, but what defines the Labour party in respect of Europe is not that it is pro-European but that it does not feel that strongly about Europe relative to other issues.

My friend over the water whom I mentioned says that there is a first rule of politics. He says that, essentially, all parties in government are pro-European, and only Opposition parties become genuinely Eurosceptic. What will happen if in two or three years, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North flips position and says, “The Labour party is pro-European and we want to put that case, but it is for the British people to decide.” Where will that leave the Conservatives? Will the Minister accept that the principle of the in/out referendum is now overpowering? Will he allow the British people their choice?