Superannuation Bill
Martin Horwood Excerpts(14 years, 3 months ago)
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Tessa Jowell
I intend to test the Minister’s commitment to fairness—with respect, I think that he asked more questions than he answered—and, if the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) will contain his impatience, I shall respond to both his tests in relation to the fairness and the affordability of our alternative.
The Minister has made it clear that the civil service compensation scheme is in need of reform, and we agree. The cost of the scheme needs to be reduced. We fully recognise that, in the present climate, it provides over-generous and disproportionate benefits for some very highly paid people. I believe we are all agreed on the need for reform, which is why in February we set out changes to end what would be regarded by the wider public, and by any measure, as over-generous settlements.
The February 2010 scheme would have saved £500 million over the next three years. That was part of our Government’s plan to reduce the deficit. Yes, reform is needed, but it must be the right reform, delivered in the right way. It must be fair and workable, and in particular—here I echo the Minister’s words—it must provide protection for the lowest-paid. It must also be underpinned by open and honest dialogue with the civil service unions representing those who are likely to be affected.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
The right hon. Lady keeps presenting the last Government as the Government who pursued a path of negotiation and what she has just described as open dialogue. In February this year, however, she too pursued the route of compulsion. Does she now regret the precedent that that set?
John McDonnell
Yes, and that is why I have consistently put forward alternative economic policies and strategies.
Let me press on, if I may. This is a serious debate, and I am trying to get across the feelings expressed to me through the PCS parliamentary group. As I say, I have met PCS members, I have attended meetings of the executive, I have been on picket lines, and I have been at various meetings around the country. There is anger about the proposals in the Bill—I shall come on to that—but also about the way in which the issue has been handled by Ministers.
In interview after interview, and even in the Chamber today, Ministers and Government Members have focused, in their descriptions of the compensation scheme, on payments to the highest-paid civil servants; it has almost been a portrayal of “Yes Minister”-type permanent secretaries, retiring to their Whitehall clubs on large-scale pay-offs. There are some individual examples of that, and they have been quoted today, but PCS is one of the leading unions that has pointed out that issues around high pay within the civil service have undermined the equitable distribution of rewards in the public sector.
Time and again, including today, we have had repeated the example of some civil servants receiving up to six years’ wages as a redundancy settlement. Let us get this point on the record as best we can: if I may refer Members to the Library note, of 500,000 civil servants, only 4,400 are in the senior civil service. The maximum compensation for most is capped at three years’ pay under the compulsory scheme, and two years’ pay under the flexible, voluntary scheme. For a small number of people who joined the service before 1987 with reserved rights regarding severance payments, payments are higher.
Ministers were asked by the Public Accounts Committee and, I believe, in parliamentary questions on the Chamber Floor, for information on the number of individuals currently getting a package worth six years’ salary. We were told that the information was unavailable because it could be provided only—there is a sense of irony here—at disproportionate cost. The six-year allegation is consistently used, even today. I would welcome some facts on how many people we are talking about and what the costs are.
Martin Horwood
Perhaps I could be of assistance to the hon. Gentleman. One of my constituents, a civil servant, calculated that to qualify for that six-year maximum, one would have had to have joined the civil service just after one’s 17th birthday and have been made redundant just before one’s 50th. I suspect that we are talking about a very small number.
John McDonnell
Would it not have been useful, though, if we actually had the number so that we could have a properly informed debate, rather than allegation, counter-allegation and, almost, smear?
Ministers were also asked how much public expenditure the imposed scheme would save—my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell) on the Front Bench raised the issue again today—but that information has not been forthcoming. The Secretary of State has said that the amount is impossible to calculate. I have been there; I have advised decision makers—and in the private sector it is exactly the same—and when one is entering a redundancy situation, one does a rough, or even a back-of-an-envelope, calculation of the numbers one is looking to lose, the amounts, the average rates of pay, the distribution of the rates of pay across the service, and therefore roughly what the cost would be. That is not too much to ask before we make a momentous decision on this legislation. In fact, the Public Accounts Committee raised the issue again in July, and the Minister refused to respond.
I deal now with the myth of the highly paid civil service. Some people have already mentioned the subject today, but it is important that we get the point on the record. Even though this has been denied today, it has been part of the Government’s strategy to promulgate the myth of a highly paid civil service.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
I declare a strong constituency interest in the Bill. Like many other Members, I have my fair share of constituents who work in local offices of central Government Departments such as the Department for Work and Pensions and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. For the moment, I also have constituents who do important work involving the environment and the countryside at Natural England and the Commission for Rural Communities. But, of course, most of those in Cheltenham who describe themselves inconspicuously as civil servants work at GCHQ. They form the largest part of what the Prime Minister has rightly described as
“the finest intelligence services in the world.”—[Official Report, 6 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 175.]
GCHQ traces its roots directly to the wartime Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, which, as we now know, made a huge contribution to victory in the second world war. That contribution, however, remained largely unknown and unrecognised for decades because of the absolute discretion and loyalty of those anonymous civil servants—people like my own parents, who worked at Bletchley and, later, at GCHQ. When the history books are written 60 years from now, who knows what silent victories we will learn were being achieved as we spoke here today, and which will remain secret for decades to come because of that same brand of loyalty? I must say that, on the face of it, this Bill is a pretty poor reward for the loyalty of my constituents in GCHQ and of all the other civil servants in Cheltenham.
It has been suggested that, on average, public sector pay has caught up with private sector pay. I will not invite a repetition of the earlier altercation across the Chamber about which is higher, but neither of the sets of figures cited were based on directly comparable jobs and careers, and that is what really matters. A constituent who wrote to me put it very well:
“I’ve had a long career in the public sector and watched my university friends prosper in the private sector. They have had company cars, private health care and almost without exception greater earnings. In compensation I had more flexible working, a good pension (although not as good as friends in the insurance industry) and the knowledge that I wasn’t in a hire and fire culture. Yet now, all the benefits are under attack but I can never make up for all those years of lower pay.”
The mathematicians, linguists and IT experts at GCHQ are some of the finest minds in the country and had they chosen to work for Vodafone or Hewlett-Packard they would have undoubtedly earned more—perhaps much more—but they chose to serve us instead. As one of my friends who worked at GCHQ once wryly told me, “It does inhibit you a bit in job interviews when you’re asked to describe your work over the last few years and you have to say, ‘I’m not allowed to.’”
GCHQ may be a rather extreme example, but it is true that many civil service careers do not translate easily into private sector job opportunities, especially if they have been very long careers in the civil service. The key point has been made by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) and others: our civil servants make life choices based on the promises we make to them. They make decisions about their homes, where they live, the schools their children attend, and above all they make career choices and financial decisions. They expect that if the day comes when it really matters we will keep our side of the bargain and repay their loyalty as promised. Well, that day has obviously come.
There is no question but that the Government are right to take drastic action to prevent further damage to our economy. I regret it deeply, but there is no question but that many civil and public servants will inevitably have to lose their jobs. The last Labour Government knew that too. The Cheltenham offices of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, Natural England and the Commission for Rural Communities are all closing, with inevitable redundancies. As overall departmental cuts bite there will doubtless be more, although I truly hope that an organisation as vital to the national interest as GCHQ will be looked at with the most extreme care.
There is also no question but that the Government are right to look at the civil service compensation scheme, which may now be more—possibly much more—generous, especially to top earners, than we can afford. That was certainly the conclusion of the Labour Government when they too tried to curtail the scheme to control costs. As the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) said, it is true that, if we do not economise enough here, we will have to economise somewhere else.
For all those reasons I understand why Ministers had to look closely at the scheme. Labour tried and failed to curtail the scheme by compulsion, but, of course, this Bill does not simply repeat that attempt at compulsion. It reduces the limit on redundancy compensation to one year’s pay, which is even more drastic than Labour proposed. Incidentally, it is also more drastic than the terms that apply in other areas of public service such as the NHS or local government.
Another constituent wrote to me that as a civil servant she felt “victimised” by the new Government, and she was a Lib Dem supporter. If there is even a perception of that level of unexpected unfairness from our own supporters, we should hesitate before going ahead with this Bill. It is unexpected because these proposals were in neither coalition party manifesto. In the coalition programme for government there was a promise to reform the scheme and to bring it into line with the private sector. Reform can be very good. It could, for instance, have given civil servants some more of the security of the contractual guarantee of compensation enjoyed by many in the private sector, protecting them somewhat from the whims of Governments. The Bill, it seems to me, deviates radically from good practice and from the principles of the 1972 Act. It contains a compulsory and substantial reduction in the agreed rights of civil servants and, arguably, the legally accrued rights of civil servants to compensation, and will be enacted just when they may need them most and while negotiations are under way. I must agree with other hon. Members that using legislation as a negotiating tool is unworthy of this Government.
If it is intended that the negotiations should lead to a more generous settlement, especially for the lower-paid, which is what the Minister for the Cabinet Office suggested, and that we can therefore expect the repeal of clause 1 by Ministers in due course, that prompts the question of why it is needed in the Bill in the first place. Why not place a more generous cap, perhaps along the lines of the earlier proposals, in the Bill? Why do Ministers need a weapon that they have no intention of using?
My father could not tell me very much about his work at GCHQ, but he once shared with me the news that he had successfully concluded quite tough negotiations about terms and conditions with the GCHQ trade unions on behalf of GCHQ management. They bought him a drink afterwards and he, I hope, retained the respect and loyalty of his colleagues. I am not sure whether PCS will be buying Ministers drinks after all this is over, but as a Government we should, at the very least, aim to retain the loyalty and respect of our civil servants. In Cheltenham, our national security might depend on it.
Those GCHQ trade unions were subsequently banned by a less enlightened Government than this one—something that was mercifully reversed some years later. I am confident that such union bashing lies firmly in the past and that this Government are committed to policies that are transparently fair. I hope that Ministers will, on reflection, agree that this Bill in its current form does not pass that test. They will have guessed by now that I plan to vote against it tonight.
Paul Goggins
Absolutely not. Our starting point is, and the Government’s starting point should be, the February 2010 proposals agreed by the then Government with five of the six trade unions, not this miserable backstop provision in the Bill.
Paul Goggins
I will take one more intervention, but the Minister wants to wind up and we have to reflect the debate, which has been a good debate. However, I will happily give way.
Martin Horwood
Is the right hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that the starting point for this process should be something that has already been declared illegal?
Paul Goggins
The reasons it was declared illegal relate to the standing of the original legislation—the Superannuation Act 1972—and there is nothing preventing the Minister for the Cabinet Office and his colleague the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner from sitting down tomorrow with the six trade unions and taking our February 2010 proposals as the starting point for negotiations. I urge the right hon. Gentleman to do that—he is in his place now. I was just reminding the House that he accepted that had the proposals gone through before the election, there would have been a pressing case for leaving it well alone. We are where we are, but it is fair to suggest that that could be the starting point for negotiation.
I ask again: what is fair about sending a message to loyal, dedicated, hard-working staff that they would be better off if they decided to go voluntarily, rather than staying in the job that they are committed to and running the risk of being made redundant compulsorily, resulting in a 20% reduction in the payment that they would receive? My hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) asked what was fair about deep cuts in the conditions of staff who run the very services on which those with the least in our society depend, including jobcentre staff and those who deal with tax credit claims.
I shall turn now to what I regard as the misuse of a Bill in the pursuit of these draconian changes to the civil service compensation scheme. I particularly commend the pertinent comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), who has considerable experience as a Minister in Scotland. Mr Speaker, you will be pleased to know that I shall not comment on whether or not this should be a money Bill. I am sure that you will take advice on that and make your decision when the Bill finishes its proceedings in this place. I am sure that you will not need advice from me; you will get it from others.
Having heard the promise of so many reforms and changes, it was bizarre, so early in this Parliament, to hear Ministers openly saying that they hoped they would never need to use the Bill. How bizarre is that, so early in the Parliament? Government Bills should be about putting policy into legislation, not about providing negotiators with a backstop bargaining chip, especially when so much about the Bill remains unclear and uncertain. The 12-month and 15-month caps are entirely arbitrary; they have been plucked out of the air. No rational explanation has been given, and no evidence brought forward, to explain why those time periods have been chosen. The equality impact assessment does not even acknowledge the potential impact on older and longer-serving civil servants, who stand to lose huge sums of money and who might very well be those who find it the most difficult to find alternative employment.
Ministers cannot tell the House how much money would be saved as a result of the Bill, because they do not yet know how many civil servants will be made redundant as a result of their cuts. Perhaps the Minister could say a little more in his winding-up speech about the negotiations. I recognise the constraints involved, and I do not expect him to carry out negotiations across the Dispatch Box this evening, but even an indication about the mood of the negotiations would assist hon. Members. Are Ministers close to agreement? Does the Minister believe that the Bill will actually be needed? When are the next meetings scheduled to take place? Does he expect to be able to come back after the conference recess and tell us on Report that substantial progress has been made, and that we might not need the Bill after all? If he is not going to table amendments when the Bill goes into Committee—the Minister for the Cabinet Office indicated that it was not his intention to do so—will he heed the advice of the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) that he should go as far as he can to indicate the kind of measures that he and his colleagues are considering?
My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington is right: it is unacceptable to expect hon. Members to vote for a Bill that is so far-reaching in its impact without knowing the detail of the provisions that sit beside it. If the Minister cannot go a little further in providing that detail, I believe that any sensible Member will be forced to conclude that words about fairness are just that, and that the only way to vote tonight is in favour of the reasoned amendment and against the Bill.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Martin Horwood Excerpts(14 years, 3 months ago)
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Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
Many hon. Members who have been in this place far longer than I have spent much time fighting for democracy and against extremism. However, the AV system will help extremist parties. There is a possibility that BNP second preferences could decide the outcome of a seat. Imagine a scene in the future in which the Labour and Conservative parties are neck and neck in a particular seat. As we watch on television, the second preferences of the BNP are counted and ultimately decide who wins the seat. How would we feel as the BNP supporters cheer and shout? The idea sends a shiver down my spine.
As chairman of the all-party group for the promotion of first past the post, I can inform the House that we now have 90 members. Our role is to promote and protect the first-past-the-post system that has served this country so well for generations. In fact, we have too many voting systems in the UK, and I would like to see one tried and tested voting system only—the first-past-the-post system.
As chairman of the all-party group, I am in a difficult position. Do I go with my gut reaction and vote against this legislation or do I fulfil my obligations and loyalty to my party leader, our Prime Minister, and to the party?
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
I disagree with, but respect, the hon. Gentleman’s support for the first-past-the-post system. Would he not welcome the opportunity to campaign for it and vote for it in a referendum?
Daniel Kawczynski
I will come on to that point, but I recall listening to the Prime Minister when he came to give Conservative Members an insight into the negotiations with the Liberal Democrats. The deal breaker, as my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) said—and I read it over and over again so it is indelibly printed on my mind—was a referendum on this system. How on earth will that referendum help my constituents in Shrewsbury? I always refer to Mr. Roger Walker, my constituent who is dying of prostate cancer. For the last eight months, I have been trying to get him a special drug, abiraterone, to prolong his life. I have been unsuccessful to date, but I will not stop. How will this legislation help him to tackle his illness, which will deprive him of his life? It is the equivalent of watching Nero fiddle while Rome burns. We have so many problems in our country, yet we are being distracted by this ridiculous referendum, which is going to cost taxpayers between £80 million and £100 million. What an appalling waste of money, as my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) has said.
If the proposed system was used throughout the world, effectively and in a popular way, perhaps we should consider it, but it is used in only Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Australia. Only three countries in the world use it, and two of them, with all due respect, are rather small, minor powers.
Sir Stuart Bell
Times have changed since 1922, but it is a mystery to behold how we are in the current situation.
As one hon. Member has said, 72 Members wish to speak this evening. Early on in the debate, the hon. Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) made a remarkable and impassioned speech, saying that we should at least be thankful for small mercies. The small mercy was that the Bill is not a Bill for full-blown proportional representation. Tomorrow he should read the comments of the Deputy Prime Minister—who slipped it in very nicely—when he said that the Bill was a minimum requirement. The Government are not out of the woods on proportional representation, and someone should ask him—and we will ask in Committee—whether the Bill is the first stage on the way to proportional representation or an endgame.
Sir Stuart Bell
There are nods from those on the Liberal Front Bench. This Bill is even more of a pig in a poke. What we are voting on this evening has not been made clear to the British public or even to this House. The Bill is the first stage on the way to a different system of voting. That is quite remarkable. We have to be careful, not just about what is before us, but about what is not before us.
The point has been made many times that the Labour party in opposition supported a referendum. We do support a referendum—we committed ourselves to it, and we are the only party that did. The Conservative party committed itself to first past the post. The Liberals wanted a different voting system: the single transferable vote system. The Conservative party said that it wanted to change the distribution of seats by 10%. The point has been made: why 10%? Why not another figure? However, that was the only element in the Bill before us that was actually put to the British people. Nothing else was. The Liberal party did not put the alternative vote to the British people—we did put a referendum on the alternative vote to the British people—and neither did the Conservatives. We therefore have a Bill before us that has no manifesto commitment in it from any of the parties.
Martin Horwood
The hon. Gentleman seems to misunderstand the manifestos. Our manifesto certainly did argue for a more proportional system, but we are not in favour of making the best the enemy of the good. We still think, as we have often said, that the alternative vote is a better system than first past the post. He cannot possibly be under any illusion from the debate so far that the Conservative partners in the coalition would support a more proportional system, so he cannot possibly believe that the proposal is a stalking horse. The only party that supported AV was his.
Sir Stuart Bell
I have not read the Liberal party manifesto in detail, but I am aware that it advocated 500 seats in the present Parliament and a single transferable vote system. That is what was put to the people by the Liberal party—
Sir Stuart Bell
It is no good the hon. Gentleman shaking his head. The Liberal party fought the general election on a series of commitments. We are talking about a minor commitment that the Liberal party has abolished. The Liberals also had a commitment to get rid of five Trident submarines. That disappeared. They had a policy to ensure no further nuclear industry. That disappeared too. What we are seeing is part of the disappearing act of the Liberals, and then they come to the Floor of the House and say—
Sir Stuart Bell
The hon. Gentleman shakes his head. He should read his own manifesto and see what it says.
Let me ask the hon. Gentleman a simple question—does he believe in the doctrine of mandate? We have heard a lot about that doctrine tonight, so does he believe in it?
Sir Stuart Bell
Yes, I do. That is why Labour Members support a referendum on the alternative vote. What we do not support is mixing this Bill with what should be in another Bill, as was said earlier, for the purpose of the redistribution of seats. That proposal gets rid of the requirement for public inquiries that enable all constituents of an area to put their views on the basis of history or geography. Such inquiries also enable local councils to put their point of view, but all of that goes.
I was interested to hear the statements made at the weekend by the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister, who said that they were giving power back to the people. They are not giving power back to the people, they are taking it away from them. They are giving people no right to discuss how the seats should be distributed. They are offering the people either no consultation or a very brief consultation and they are allowing them no second opinion. If they can get their way, they are pushing through an Act of Parliament, which is effectively a gerrymander. The gerrymander has been mentioned several times in this House, and it is what we are discussing on the Floor of the House now. The gerrymander is having one Bill on an AV referendum, which we could support, another Bill on changing the distribution of seats, which is debateable, and putting the two together. The Government have done that because they knew that they could not get those measures through on their own. They knew that they would not get a Bill on AV through without the support of Labour Members because they knew they did not command enough support from their own Benches. That is why they mixed the two Bills together, giving rise to the agonising problems that we now see expressed by those on the Conservative Benches. Some say that they are not for the Bill or the AV referendum, but that they are obliged by their party to support it. If Conservative Members believe in the doctrine of mandate, they will not support the Bill.
The doctrine of mandate and the gerrymander go even further because we have a Prime Minister who says, “Well, I am putting this measure before the House, but I will not campaign for the alternative vote. I will be on prime ministerial duties.” Likewise, the Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal party will be on deputy prime ministerial duties and will go to the United Nations when his party meets in conference. He is not going to stand there and explain to his own party why he forged a coalition on the terms he did: he will take the plane instead. The Prime Minister will do the same, having put before the House the proposal for a referendum on AV—a proposal in which he does not believe, as he himself says, and on which he will not campaign.
We have a grotesque parliamentary situation here, in which the doctrine of mandate and the commitment to the electorate disappear and where the sovereignty of this House is impaired. This House exists to hold the Executive to account. That is what we are here for—that applies to Labour and Conservative Back Benchers—but Conservative Back Benchers cannot hold their party or Government to account because of this legislation.
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
When introducing this Bill, the Deputy Prime Minister dressed it up as the beginning of new politics. Well, this is not new politics; it is old politics exercised at its very best or its very worst, according to one’s disposition. It is about the Executive—the Government of the day—seizing more power for themselves. Let us not be coy about this. That is what Governments do. Let us not be afraid of admitting that.
The arguments for reducing the size of the House of Commons by 50 are nothing more than very flimsy. We are told that cutting 50 Members of Parliament will save £12 million. Well, colleagues, that is what 350 years of settled parliamentary democracy adds up to—we are going to save £12 million. Why stop there? Let us get rid of 300 Members of Parliament and save £72 million. There may be many good reasons for reducing the size of the House of Commons, but saving £12 million is not one of them. We trot out this ridiculous figure to appease the headline writers in the Daily Mail and the tabloid press, and those journalists who work for The Daily Telegraph, which is just a tabloid in a bow tie.
What really concerns me about this Bill is the fact that the Government talk about reducing the number of MPs to 600, but there is no mention of reducing the number of Ministers. What the Bill does, then, is to increase the patronage of the Executive. There will be yet more incentive for my colleagues to be good little boys and good little girls. That is what drives the public mad—seeing MPs say one thing in their constituency and doing another thing here in the hope of securing ministerial preferment.
I would personally like to see 450 MPs in the House of Commons, but only as part of the separation of powers where we remove the Executive from Parliament. The reason we have 650 Members of Parliament, colleagues, is so that at any given time—in the last Parliament, for example—300 of our number have either Front-Bench or shadow Front-Bench duties. As three hundred of our colleagues were taking their orders either from the Prime Minister or from the leader of their party, it left a mere 300 to 350 of us to hold the Government to account. I am all for reducing the number of MPs, but only as part of a far wider package of proper political reform.
To colleagues on all sides of the House, but particularly to my colleagues on the Government Benches, I say that there is a danger of politicising the issue of boundaries, as this reduction in the number of MPs so nakedly favours my party. I know that the system up to now, by an accident of design, has favoured the Labour party, but if this reform is to carry weight and legitimacy, it must be seen to be fair to all parties, not to the naked advantage of one party.
I have already mentioned what the public hate. They hate patronage; they hate politicians doing deals in smoke-filled rooms. Now, I support the coalition because it was the least worst of the options before us after the May general election, but let us be in no doubt that the coalition was agreed in a smoke-filled room by a few very powerful politicians at the head of two parties. I did not have a great deal of say in the formation of that coalition. I had no say in what policies were included or what policies were discarded. What happened actually transferred power further into the hands of a political elite.
Martin Horwood
The hon. Gentleman must make it clear to the House that he is speaking for his own party. In the case of the Liberal Democrats, the coalition was approved by a vote of the parliamentary party and the federal executive, and then by democratic vote of the representatives of every local party in conference assembled—and by a large majority.
Debate on the Address
Martin Horwood Excerpts(14 years, 6 months ago)
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Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
I am very pleased to follow the hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer), who was making his maiden speech. His predecessor was a very good friend of many people in the House. The hon. Gentleman made his speech in a very knowledgeable way on all kinds of issues that are important to people here. That gives us a good sense of how this new Parliament is going to be. As someone who has been re-elected more times than they can almost remember—I think it is six times now—I have to say that on returning to this place there is no difference: one always feels the important weight on one’s shoulders, and the importance of this House as the place where we speak up for our constituents, not just for those who elected us.
I say a very big thank you to everybody who re-elected me as their Member of Parliament. We owe it to such people to ensure that this Chamber is the place where we not only speak knowledgeably and shape the debate about the legislation that will be brought forward from the Gracious Speech, but influence matters and debate issues. Indeed, we Back Benchers might become more influential than we have hitherto been. I note the earlier speech from my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), a very distinguished former Minister; it is clear that ex-Ministers have a very important part to play. I hope that that will be an important way in which this Parliament goes forward.
The hon. Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) referred to my former constituency neighbour and very good friend, Mark Fisher, the former Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central, and the hon. Gentleman was right: Mark Fisher did a huge amount of work behind the scenes to make Parliament the place where we can start to discuss the issues, rather than just what the Government Whips tell us to discuss.
Normally, we have one old lag and one new person as proposer and seconder of the motion on the Loyal Address, but this time we had two old lags, and it is very clear from that and the debate so far that the way in which we do business in the House is changing. That has all kinds of repercussions for our new Members, particularly the large number of women Members, and we need to find out how we can use that to everybody’s best advantage, so that the best parts of the Gracious Speech can be delivered to benefit all our constituents. I hope that we can all have an input into that.
As always, it is difficult to discuss a Queen’s Speech without understanding the enormity of the budget cuts that are being made, and I really want to put on the record my displeasure at the fact that an announcement was made yesterday. It talked about £6 billion of cuts, and many of my constituents fear that it could lead us into a double-dip recession, which so many of us want to avoid. There is a lack of detail and clarity about where those £6 billion of cuts will be made and whether they will be fairly distributed throughout the whole country.
I very much hope that the new Government—the coalition Government—will look at, and have flagged up, the areas of greatest need, because I tell the Ministers on the Government Front Bench right now that if there is any area of high need in the country, it is Stoke-on-Trent. Huge inequalities exist there, not because of a lack of action previously, but because the scope of the challenge is so great. That also applies to other heartland areas that previously depended on manufacturing, and I want the new Government to understand those inequalities and ensure that the £6 billion of cuts and whatever follows are looked at through the prism of how such areas as my constituency can best be protected. I want to ensure that this place is where I can best safeguard my constituents’ interests.
I was particularly interested in the part of the Gracious Speech that related to climate change, and I hope that the coalition Government will consult and work closely with all those in the House who have experience on the issue. I am mindful of the fact that the Committee on Climate Change, which the previous Government set up, belongs to this House, so I hope that in new legislation on the environment and climate change we have regard for that committee’s important role and ensure that, whatever cuts apply across the board, that role is protected. We cannot afford reductions there given the importance of taking forward the climate change agenda.
I put on record also the importance that I attach to ensuring that that Bill transforms the nation’s electricity system. We have to move from that system’s fossil fuel basis, and from coal and gas to clean forms of generation. That means clean coal and, especially, renewables, and I shall discuss the role of areas such as Sherwood in that, because I have visited and seen for myself the huge amount of pioneering work taking place in those regions.
The new Bill on the environment, climate change and energy efficiency must somehow embrace the concept of a broader, green economy. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), who served with me on the Environmental Audit Committee, understands that agenda entirely, and I hope that we will legislate for more than just electricity and ensure that there are provisions for supporting residential energy efficiency and electric vehicles.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on her re-election and thank her for the role that she played on the Environmental Audit Committee. She and I both argued for a low-carbon economy and support for renewable energy and clean forms of energy generation. I assure her that any Government of whom the Liberal Democrats are a part will continue to have that climate change agenda absolutely at their heart.
Joan Walley
That was a most welcome intervention; I am glad that I gave way. I give the hon. Gentleman notice that I shall be watching very closely and holding him to account. I hope that a newly formed Environmental Audit Committee will also do so in due course, after the House decides on the role of Select Committees.
The whole issue of electric vehicles, and a charging network and infrastructure to support them, is really important. I want to flag up the important research done by the Public Interest Research Centre, which launched the Offshore Valuation in Aberdeen a couple of days ago. That work, which was part-financed by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, shows that the UK’s offshore renewable resources have enormous potential. It is vital that we find ways of putting the research into practice so that we become a net exporter, which would give us huge benefits as far as new manufacturing jobs are concerned, across the country and particularly in the west midlands.
To go back to something that the hon. Member for Sherwood said, I should say that there is an issue about the legacy of our coalfields. I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) is here, because he understands the issue as keenly as I do in Stoke-on-Trent. I speak as one whose constituency was the first to produce more than 1 million tonnes of coal a year, during the good old Victorian age. We have a legacy, and I say to this Government that that legacy was addressed by the previous Government. We had the coalfield regeneration work that arose from research work originally done by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. That set up funding to deal with the legacy of coal mining in areas such as mine. I am proud that £15 million land reclamation work has been under way; if that did not take place, there would be huge problems of land drainage and the collapse of culverts. The work also pays for the Coalfields Regeneration Trust. It is vital that the new Government should ensure that that work can continue in one way or another. Former coal mining areas such as mine still need that support.
Mention of education policy is made in the Gracious Speech. I have great concerns about the role of academies, as I firmly believe that local authorities should be able to make sure that there is equal provision of education right across the local authority area. I say one thing to those on the Government Benches on this issue. As I understand it, the Building Schools for the Future programme in Stoke-on-Trent is due to get its final financial sign-off in September this year. The plans are well advanced and partners have been chosen. I would not want any of the new investment that will be taking place, in new schools or the so-called free schools, to be at the expense of a carefully thought out programme such as the one in Stoke-on-Trent. We cannot afford to lose it. I hope that the relevant education Bill will look at that issue carefully.
The money brought forward by the new Government must not be at the expense of the needs of areas such as Stoke-on-Trent. In previous Budgets, there was mention of the relocation of 150,000 civil service jobs from the south-east. Will that plan be involved in the new efficiency savings? We need to know. We need to discuss the Gracious Speech in the context of the Budget and the cuts that are going to be made. I, for one, could say that there are great sites in Stoke-on-Trent. The momentum for securing a relocation of Government jobs from the south-east needs to be carried forward. I hope that Ministers will listen.
I speak as an honorary doctor of Staffordshire university for my work on regeneration. In respect of the regeneration agenda, ambitious plans are already under way for the Staffordshire university quarter, which is linked to the wider budget of the regional development agency and the Homes and Communities Agency. We need to make sure that we have ministerial input into addressing the needs of such areas, so that what is already under way and progressing is not stalled as a result of blanket cuts that take no account of the needs of people whom I represent in Stoke-on-Trent North.