Town of Culture Award
Debate between Michael Ellis and Lord Hanson of Flint(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Michael Ellis
The hon. Gentleman will be among the first to know. Of course, there are already a number of Government-wide initiatives to invest in our towns and high streets. I have only a few minutes left to highlight some of them; indeed, some have already been alluded to by hon. Members.
I am also keeping under careful consideration the effectiveness of different types of support to help towns and other places to prosper. Wider Government support for towns and high streets includes, of course, the future high streets fund, which is worth £675 million. It was announced in the autumn Budget to encourage vibrant town centres where people can live, shop and spend leisure time.
The prospectus for that fund was only published in December. It invites local authorities to submit expressions of interest for capital funding. There is a lot of money available, so I encourage hon. Members to invite their local authorities to take an interest in the fund and submit expressions of interest.
Of course, DCMS-related sectors contribute to successful and healthy high streets, and it is key that they do so. The Royal Society for Public Health report, “Health on the High Street: Running on Empty 2018”, found that residents of towns with healthy high streets live on average two and a half years longer, and that libraries, museums and galleries contribute to the healthiest high streets. Culture has a powerful health as well as wellbeing benefit, and has a positive cultural impact.
The Government’s plan for the high street also includes the creation of a high street taskforce in 2019 to support local leaders. The Government already run the Great British High Street awards, a hotly contested competition to find Britain’s best high street. Crickhowell was announced as the overall UK winner for 2018, and I was delighted to see St Giles Street in my town of Northampton win the category in 2015. Towns can win, and this competition enables towns to raise their profile and celebrate local efforts to create vibrant town centres that are loved by their communities.
David Hanson
Just before the Minister finishes, I want to try to tie him down. My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) has written to ask for a meeting with Members of Parliament to discuss this process further. Will he and the Secretary of State agree to attend the meeting?
Michael Ellis
I cannot speak for the Secretary of State, but I will agree to meet. We will set that up, and I am happy to do so.
My Department believes that place-based cultural investment should be a key part of the local growth strategy for all towns and cities in England. The cultural development fund, which has already been mentioned and was launched in 2018, is a £20 million competitive fund to support towns and cities to develop and implement transformative, cultural and creative growth plans. Just last week the Secretary of State announced the winners: Grimsby, Plymouth, the Thames estuary, Wakefield and Worcester.
Grimsby will receive £3.2 million to deliver a new programme of international events and public art to revive the town centre, provide a business support programme for local creative businesses, and create new production facilities in the town’s historic centre. The Thames estuary will receive £4.3 million. The cultural development fund and the UK city of culture projects are exemplars of local enterprise partnerships. We also welcome the innovation of local areas developing their own initiatives to celebrate local culture. For example, the Liverpool borough of culture and the London borough of culture are attempts to broaden the impacts of cultural titles and moments to areas beyond city centres.
I want to stick up for Arts Council England. Some 75% of its funding goes outside London—it is being distributed widely. We of course have to bear in mind that large centres of population are within cities, but my experience of Arts Council England is that it recognises that its role is to spread its resources around the country, which it is doing. Some 9.2 million people saw British Museum exhibitions and objects on show outside the museum in 2017-18, and more than 2,500 objects were loaned to 126 venues around the country.
A lot of work is already being done in this area. I am very happy to meet colleagues and interested partners to discuss the matter further, and I am keeping the situation under review. My Department and the Government recognise the value of culture. It is a precious part of our community life and has multiple assets and benefits. We will continue to support it.
House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons
Debate between Michael Ellis and Lord Hanson of Flint(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Michael Ellis
I had noticed that brass neck, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on making that point. At least 61 peers are registered as living in Scotland.
Mr Hanson
Will the Deputy Leader of the House answer one question? Does he support the principle of hereditary peers in the 21st century, or will he support the ten-minute rule Bill to abolish them that I introduced last year or Lord Grocott’s Bill to end them that is now in the other place? Will he confirm that he could now do so?
Michael Ellis
As I have said, as was set out in the Conservative party manifesto, the Government recognise the need to reduce the size of the House of Lords. However, comprehensive reform of the House of Lords is not considered a priority in the current Parliament, given the other pressing constitutional matters, not least, I should say, the further devolution of powers to Scotland and Wales. We consider there to be higher priorities.
The House of Lords has not stood still in the past few years. In the last Parliament, it took forward some important reforms, with Government support. Although there is more to do, that Chamber has constantly evolved. The House of Lords Reform Act 2014 allowed peers to retire formally and permanently for the first time. It also provided for the expulsion of peers for non-attendance. Previously, a peer had to apply for a leave of absence. The Act was promoted by Lord Steel.
Proposed Europol Regulation
Debate between Michael Ellis and Lord Hanson of Flint(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Hanson
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to make a case. ACPO does cover Scotland. There is ACPO Scotland and Northern Ireland ACPO—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman would calm down for a moment and allow me to continue rather than chirruping from the Front Bench, he will understand why I am raising the issue of ACPO. It has made severe criticisms of the Government’s approach, which I will reflect on in a moment.
Europol’s director, Rob Wainwright, recently told the European Committee in another place:
“It is undeniable that the demands of fighting international crime and terrorism require an ever-increasing level of co-operation between the member states.”
In my view and in his, and—I am pleased to say—that of the Government and the Liberal Democrats, Europol is a welcome institution. Today, however, we are considering the four or so areas where there are extensions to Europol’s activity in the new documents, which include extensions
“to strengthen and clarify the obligation for Member States to supply data to Europol in order for it to analyse…the information;”
to establish Europol links with data already in possession of member states to consider how we can process that in an effective way;
“to merge Europol and the European Police College…into a single EU agency, located”
not in the United Kingdom as is currently the case in Bramshill in Hampshire, but in The Hague; and an increase in
“parliamentary scrutiny of Europol by the EU Parliament and national Parliaments.”
The House of Lords Committee said that it wished to retain an opt-in to the proposals for European regulation. To assuage the hon. Members for Cambridge and for Cheltenham, that is the Labour party’s position on this take-note motion. In my view, however, the question under debate focuses on the words “post-adoption”. The Government’s proposal in the take-note motion states that the House
“agrees with the Government that the UK should opt into the Regulation post-adoption,”.
We are saying that the Government should consult ACPO, although I accept that that potentially involves a wider consultation about why and how the post-adoption issue should be approached.
I have in my possession a letter to the Minister from Allan Gibson, Queen’s Police Medal, who is the ACPO lead on extradition and mutual legal assistance. In it, he mentions a number of the reasons why this motion in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) was tabled to tease out from the Minister his position on a number of key issues.
The letter was sent to the Minister last week and states first and foremost:
“ACPO regards the UK’s continuing membership of Europol as highly beneficial to the national interest.”
I agree, the Minister agrees, and Liberal Democrat Members agree with that.
The letter goes on:
“ACPO supports the sharing of crime related intelligence and information between Member States facilitated through Europol…this facility has been a vital part of the development of more effective law enforcement cooperation across Europe and has made it possible to bring more offenders to justice and prevent crime.”
Again, I agree with that; I am not sure whether the Minister does, but I suspect that the Liberal Democrats do.
The letter continues:
“information exchange must be undertaken with appropriate levels of security and UK law enforcement would be keen to ensure that we had the necessary safeguards in place to protect highly sensitive intelligence and operations.”
I agree with that, which is why the Minister needs to consult in detail with ACPO on these matters to consider how we can do this without—dare I say this to Liberal Democrat Members—necessarily doing it post-adoption. In my view, they are being sold a fudge. They are being told that they can sign up to Europol, but they do so post-adoption.
I shall argue that post-adoption is an area of key concern, and one that we need to flesh out, consider in detail and come to a conclusion on. ACPO continued:
“Our view is that Europol membership is far too important to the UK to put at risk and adopting ‘a wait and see post-adoption opt in if we like it’ policy would not be the right approach.”
That is the view of ACPO, whose role is to look after, defend and develop crime-fighting potential in the UK. It continued:
“Such an approach would forfeit our opportunity to be seated around the table to influence our partners directly for one of signposting the basis on which we would rejoin, i.e. if our conditions are met.”
That is a very severe criticism, and it sets out why we need to maintain Europol membership. These are real concerns being placed on the record: in a letter to the Minister, ACPO said that it does not agree with his approach of a post-adoption opt-in. An explanation is needed, and we have tabled our amendment to explore these important issues of national security and data sharing to the satisfaction of the House, ACPO and others. We do not want to give up our seat at the table, as the proposed take-note motion proposes, in order to achieve our ends.
I welcome the Liberal Democrats’ support for Europol. Their policy briefing document states:
“We must not expose Britain to attack from criminal gangs. Liberal Democrats will keep Britain at the heart of international crime-fighting measures such as…the European Police Office (Europol) that the Conservatives want us to pull out of.”
[Interruption.] Sorry, I missed that comment from the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis).
Mr Hanson
I am sorry, but I did not go to a public school, so my grammar might not be as good as other people’s.
The motion states that the UK
“should opt into the Regulation post-adoption”.
My concern is not that we might lose what we have with Europol, which is good, but that the Conservatives are looking for a reason not to develop it in the future. The Liberal Democrats, who are their partners in this great coalition of ours, are closer to my view than the Government’s. We need to hear the views of ACPO so that we can iron out the difficulties the Government have identified before the post-adoption position in the take-note motion becomes the default position.
I could quote many Liberal Democrats whose websites praise Europol and our signing up to the very things about the development of Europol that the Minister is concerned about. We need to consider the matter positively and find a way through it in the next few weeks and months so that ACPO’s concerns, which we might share, about data sharing and other issues can be worked on. We must not keep away from or fail to engage with the discussions about the development of the next stage of Europol.
I mention that with the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) in mind. He is honoured to hold the position of Chairman of the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee, although how he ever got given that I will never know—[Hon. Members: “He was elected.”] I appreciate that, but he was not elected by me. In the spirit of common cause, let me say that paragraph 1.13 of his Committee’s helpful report, “Reforming Europol”, which is published today, quotes a letter from the Minister, which says:
“‘In the longer term, it is clear that our continued participation in Europol…will depend on our participation in this new measure.’”
Paragraph 1.14 states:
“If the UK’s request to rejoin the existing Europol Council Decision is successful, can the Minister confirm that, once the draft Regulation has been adopted, it would not be possible for the UK to continue to cooperate with Europol on the current basis and that, if the conditions set by the Government for opting in post-adoption are not met, the UK could expect to be ejected from Europol?”
I do not know the answer to that question, but the key point is this: if the Government decide that data sharing, information sharing and other matters are red lines, I suspect that they will part company with the Liberal Democrats on some of those issues, and they might part company with the Labour party too. The Government might find themselves in a position where they cannot maintain a presence in Europol. Europol will have developed organically over 18 months to two years and we will not have been at the table to deal with that organic development, because of the Government’s decision to take part in negotiations post-adoption. The Minister, in his response to the hon. Member for Stone, said:
“If the UK opted in now, and if we could not gain amendments to the text during negotiations, we would be bound by the elements which cause us concern, and would be subject to infraction if we failed to abide by provisions in the Regulation.”
It is my view that Europol does a good thing. There are issues that Europol needs to examine with member states, and ACPO, among others, has identified issues that need to be addressed. However, the Government’s approach of not ratifying until joining post-adoption is wrong. I want to see more discussion. We will not oppose the main motion as it is just a take note motion, but we will press the Opposition amendment, which indicates that we want further discussions with ACPO. When a chief police officer writes, in a letter to the Minister that was copied to the Home Secretary, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister, that
“Our view is that Europol membership is far too important to the UK to be put at risk and awaiting ‘a wait and see post-adoption opt in if we like it’ policy would not be the right approach”
it is a very serious criticism of the Government’s position and the Minister has a duty to explain further why he has rejected ACPO’s advice. Before we reach a final decision, we should discuss further with those who have put their concerns on the record in a way that is self-evident and open to all.