Draft Dorset (Structural Changes) (Modification Of The Local Government And Public Involvement In Health Act 2007) Regulations 2018 Draft Bournemouth, Dorset And Poole (Structural Changes) Order 2018

Debate between Michelle Donelan and Simon Hoare

Wednesday 16th May 2018 General Committees

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend—who is, dare I say it, the epitome of Englishness—is absolutely right. We need to convince our friends and colleagues who reside in the Christchurch constituency or within the boundaries of the Christchurch borough that this is the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do for public service, the right thing for good, sensible, conservative, prudent financial management and the right thing to guarantee the future of local government in our county.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Simon Hoare]

Of course, although I am tempted to say that, with the exception of the Minister, my hon. Friend is the first member of the Committee to intervene.

[Michelle Donelan]

I thank my hon. Friend. On that note, does he think it would be wise to look to the neighbouring authority of Wiltshire, where we have not lost our identity by amalgamating, but have gained economies of scale? Our unitary council has not closed one library.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend strikes to the heart of the matter. It is not about constructs: it is about delivery of service. It is not as if Dorset is treading a virgin path. Bedfordshire, Shropshire and Cornwall have done the same thing, and, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, Wiltshire has done it too.

I should be prepared to wager a small amount of money with my hon. Friend or any member of the Committee that if we were to knock on a door in Wiltshire today and ask the person who answered whether they would have preferred the library to remain open, or to have 300 councillors all drawing their stipend, most—unless, possibly, they were one of the councillors—would say they preferred the library. Why? Because the library is a good thing. It is a community asset. It encourages children to read. It is a social and community hub. That is why the protection of those things is important.

Certainly, Baroness Scott, the leader of Wiltshire Council, has been a trailblazer in ensuring—particularly in a rural area—that such issues are taken into account to preserve, conserve and promote local identity. I am perfectly prepared to give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch if I have got my local government history wrong, but I think Christchurch became a borough council only in 1974. Prior to that, it was a town council in Hampshire. I shall work on the assumption that that might be correct.

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[Simon Hoare]

So says my hon. Friend. If I may pinch a phrase from more auspicious colleagues, one of my red lines has been the role of the town and parish councils—making sure that there are local voices and that that relationship is forged with ward members. Gillingham will end up with three councillors, and Blandford will end up with two; part of the skill set that we will be looking for, certainly in our candidate, is a very firm commitment to close liaison with those town and parish councils.

[Michelle Donelan]

In Wiltshire, the town councils are extremely important, and we have a process of devolution—devolving powers down to those town councils. However, it is important to remember that this is not something that is going to be forced on people; it is the unitary councils’ responsibility to shape this with the will of local people. It is a process that is happening bottom up.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is right. I suggest—this may put the fear of God into her—that we may be beating a path to her door and to that of her senior council leadership, because we do not want to reinvent the wheel. We want to find out where some of the pitfalls have been and what the success stories have been. We want to emulate and gild the success and not to repeat any errors that Wiltshire, Cornwall, Shropshire and so on have made. That is the clear path to making this a success.

Likewise—my hon. Friend alluded to this incredibly important point in her intervention—it will be crucial for our two new councils to be member-led. When we have member-led authorities that are responsive to and reflective of the concerns, fears and aspirations of the electorate, as expressed on the doorstep, at surgeries and through the ballot box, we are more likely to have a specific, bespoke level of services authored from the membership up.

This is going to require strong political elbows in a joint endeavour. I draw huge comfort from the fact that, in terms of the main parties of the county—when I say the main parties, I mean the Labour party and the Conservative party, because they are the two main parties as far as the last general election is concerned—we have the support of the Dorset Labour party in this initiative, because it, too, is committed to this level of public service.

Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Debate between Michelle Donelan and Simon Hoare

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare]

It is indeed, and who in their right mind would ever criticise a lawyer?

If we and the EU do not like the legal advice, and if we want somehow to disaggregate membership of the EU and of Euratom, we could possibly get some different lawyers to say something different. I must say that I am about to dash out and get myself the stiffest of stiff drinks, because I am going to do something that I never thought I would do—[Interruption.] It is interesting that the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), arrives in the Chamber just at this moment—his stage timing is exemplary—because I am going to pray in aid one Mr Dominic Cummings, a man I have not joined on a campaigning platform before. If even Mr Cummings, getting terribly hot under the collar, does not believe that leaving Euratom is some sort of demonstration of Brexit adherence or virility or some test to be passed, that should give us pause for thought. Because Euratom has not done anything wrong, and because it has not offended against the principles of this House or the country, I fully commend the strategy adopted by Her Majesty’s Government. We need to be pragmatic and sensible in laying the foundations for this important part of our economic life in case, at the end of the process, we find ourselves having to leave. I do not know whether we will end up like Switzerland, which has special status and is seen as an equal partner, or whether we will end up like the United States of America or Australia, which have looser agreements but are not seen as equal partners. Let us see.

Whatever we do and however we do it, I hope it will always be underpinned by the guiding principle that our decisions benefit our constituents and the country at large.

[Michelle Donelan]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill provides a level of reassurance to the nuclear industry and its 65,000 jobs in this country?

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is a doughty champion of engineering, research and innovation in this place and in her constituency, and she makes an apposite point. Anyone who wants to see Brexit a success needs to understand that we will have political processes but that the regulatory and business communities want clarity and certainty at the earliest possible point. I agree with her entirely that the Bill provides that bridge, for want of a better analogy, between membership now and a regulatory regime in the future.

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[Simon Hoare]

No, this is not dismissing them either. Are Members honestly saying that when a question is asked and someone answers it, weight can only be given to that answer if it compounds the premise of the question that was raised? [Interruption.] That might be how the Scottish National party goes about doing its politics and its business, but it is not a particularly good way of doing it. People have raised a concern that leaving Euratom may well have an impact on access to this vital ingredient. As this vital ingredient is not covered by Euratom now, it goes beyond eccentricity to suggest that by coming out of this organisation some sort of control is going to be placed on this ingredient, as the organisation we are potentially leaving does not have control of its trade in the first place. I say to Opposition Members that that is a non sequitur. We have been trying to answer calmly and rationally a concern raised by serious and sensible medical practitioners, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds mentioned, we have heard from our Science Minister, who is held in high regard by those in the scientific and medical research community, irrespective of any of their political affiliations. Save for slashing our wrists and writing it in our life’s blood on the wall here in the House of Commons, I am not sure what assurance SNP Members are going to accept.

[Michelle Donelan]

Does my hon. Friend think SNP Members will accept that it is ludicrous to imply that medical isotopes would not be able to be imported should we leave Euratom, given that countries currently not in that organisation are importing those medical isotopes at the moment?

[Simon Hoare]

Once again, my hon. Friend makes the point in the most telling way. If we are providing no illumination to the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), we are obviously providing a vast amount of humorous entertainment; I am glad she sees this issue as being so hysterically funny. I do not think setting a regulatory regime to allow all of our constituents to have ready access to a medical treatment is anything particularly to laugh about. People can accuse me of being po-faced and a prig if they so wish, and I could almost hear the Twittersphere doing just that as the words left my mouth, but I do not see this as a particularly funny point. My hon. Friend has made the point tellingly: countries that are not part of Euratom are importing isotopes in due time so that their shelf life does not expire. Unless we have some peculiar, Machiavellian, under-the-counter sort of plan to deny people medical treatment by putting the largest possible tariff barriers on these things and making sure that the inventor carries them across the channel in some sort of purpose-made velvet case that has been hand-sewn by his ancient grandmother, I really do not think this is going to be the situation. Therefore, the concern raised by medics can now be set aside.