Business of the House

Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

My understanding is that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning) is coming to give evidence to the Transport Committee and that arrangements are being made for informal meetings between the Committee and coastguards outside this House, so I am not sure that it is exactly correct to say that members of the Select Committee have been denied access to coastguards. My understanding is that informal meetings are being arranged.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

Martin Penny, the principal of Stratford-upon-Avon college, and his team are passionate about giving young people the tools to gain and maintain jobs in the private sector through apprenticeships. My right hon. Friend may have heard the way in which the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions set out an agenda for tackling youth unemployment this morning. May we have a debate about this serious and important issue?

[Sir George Young]

I would welcome a debate on the important issue of youth unemployment, where we inherited a substantial figure—I believe it was 1.4 million. My hon. Friend may have heard today’s announcement of £60 million to get more vulnerable young people into work, and he will know that we are committed to 250,000 more apprenticeships over the next four years and radical reforms to transform vocational training. I would welcome such a debate, but I am afraid that I cannot promise the time for it immediately.

Business of the House

Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am not sure that my hon. Friend has interpreted the motion correctly. The Government want to provide four more days to debate private Members’ Bills. My hon. Friend has blocked that by tabling an amendment which means that, as of today, that extra time will not be given. I very much hope we can resolve the matter. We have a bit of time, because we have announced the dates up to the end of the summer. I hope that between now and then we can find a satisfactory solution, and that my hon. Friend will not stand in the way of what the Government are trying to do, which is to give more time for private Members’ Bills.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

People have welcomed the council tax freeze nationally, but may we have a debate on what people in my constituency and elsewhere can do if their council puts through large council tax rises in future?

[Sir George Young]

Help is on the way, because the Localism Bill contains a provision for local people to have a referendum if their local authority proposes high council tax increases.

Business of the House

Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Lady is quite right. There was considerable concern in the previous Parliament at the problems that confronted a number of those in the armed services who wished to exercise their right to vote, and there was disappointment expressed, certainly by Opposition Members in that Parliament, at the failure to make progress. I will raise with the Electoral Commission the issue that she has mentioned. I am anxious, as I am sure is every hon. Member, that everyone should take part in the AV referendum on 5 May.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

In the past, we have had themed days for the Budget debate. Can the Leader of the House tell us on what day we will be able to debate the claim by the Opposition that a cut in VAT on fuel could be paid for by the bank levy, given that Labour has pledged that money 10 times over?

[Sir George Young]

There will be discussions through the usual channels on which Ministers will be answering on which day, but I am confident that during the four-day debate that I have just announced there will be an opportunity for Opposition Members to shed some light on the rather plaintive comment made over the weekend by the Leader of the Opposition that, when it comes to the economy,

“I can make no commitment to do anything differently”.

Business of the House

Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will recognise that some 3 million people in this country want to volunteer but at the moment are not doing so and that there is an untapped potential that we want to unlock through our big society initiative. There is a good tradition of volunteering in this country and it is right for the Government to try to develop that.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

May we have a debate on the financial code on bonuses, which was introduced on 1 January? The Chancellor has introduced the toughest such code of any financial centre of any size in the world, but, most importantly, it should encourage behaviour that creates value by bonuses being deferred for at least three years, being linked to performance and being taken in shares, which can go down as well as up.

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He may have heard the statement that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor made yesterday when he contrasted the previous Government’s lack of success in getting a number of banks to sign up to the code with the large number that we have persuaded to sign up to it, which, as he said, is one of the toughest in Europe.

Business of the House

Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House ask my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to make a statement on the Office for Budgetary Responsibility and the OECD’s assessment of the structural deficit at the last election, so that the deficit denial of the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), can be exposed for what it is?

[Sir George Young]

It is indeed the case that debt now stands at more than £1 trillion, its highest ever level. The deficit is the largest in the G20 and in our peacetime history, and we have experienced the deepest and longest recession in the G20. The coalition Government would welcome a debate on the economy, and the opportunity to draw attention to our disastrous inheritance from the last Government.

Business of the House

Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I understand the hon. Lady’s concern. The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller), has overall responsibility for disability, but we have put an extra £2 billion into social care between now and 2014-15 and it strikes me that the subject that the hon. Lady raises is suitable for a Back-Bench debate. The next time the Backbench Business Committee holds one of its Monday sessions, she might like to go along with colleagues and put in a bid for such a debate, which I think would be broadly welcomed on both sides of the House.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

Now that the country has been pulled back from the brink of bankruptcy, may we have a debate on the bank bail-outs? Small and medium-sized businesses in my constituency are asking me why, at the pivotal moment when we bailed out the banks, we did not get them to agree to lend to small and medium-sized businesses.

[Sir George Young]

This specific issue was addressed in my right hon. Friend the Chancellor’s statement on Tuesday. He made it clear that in the discussions we are having with the banks there have to be verifiable increases in bank lending over and above what they would otherwise have lent. The Opposition failed to secure that assurance when they were in government, but we are determined to secure it because it is vital in promoting growth and prosperity.

Business of the House (Thursday)

Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

They do indeed, and—given the inclement weather conditions—those students will probably spend more time travelling than they will having the chance to listen to the House of Commons debating the motion.

There are three principal reasons—to do with time—why the House should vote down this motion. The first is the importance and the consequence of the decision on tuition fees. When one compares the time allocated to the House when previous changes were proposed—and they were much less extensive changes to student support and the funding of higher education than those that will be before us tomorrow—we can see just how inadequate the time that is being offered is. The second reason is the fact, referred to in a point of order earlier, that this debate and vote are being arranged before the promised White Paper on higher education is published and when a whole series of fundamental questions remain about how the new world that the Minister for Universities and Science and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills propose will actually work. I shall come to some of those questions later.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

The shadow Leader of the House waxes eloquent tonight. Would it not be more credible to be honest with the House and say that stopping free education is not a smaller issue than the one we will debate tomorrow? That is what his Government did.

[Hilary Benn]

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman and to you, Mr Speaker, but I am afraid I had some difficultly understanding the point he was seeking to make. He clearly had the same difficulty himself. I will happily give way again if he wants to have another go.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Absolutely. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I want to hear the thoughts of Mr Zahawi.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The shadow Leader has just told the House that what we are debating tomorrow is of greater consequence than the reneged promise that his Government delivered upon, which abolished free education altogether. That is a wrong thing to tell the House. Will he explain himself?

[Hilary Benn]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is in urgent need of a history lesson because I do not recognise what he is describing. There is a profound difference. [Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Nadhim Zahawi]

rose—

[Hilary Benn]

The hon. Gentleman is going to have another go.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that ending the debate tomorrow at 5.30 pm will provide ample time for the Leader of the Opposition to join the protestors outside?

[Hilary Benn]

The Leader of the Opposition needs no lectures from the hon. Gentleman about talking to students and, more importantly, listening to what students have to say—a problem from which Members on the Government Benches are suffering.

Business of the House

Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I would regard it as a retrograde step if time were taken away from the Backbench Business Committee and given back to the Government. The whole direction of travel is the other way. I have announced the Second Reading of the European Union Bill, which will provide an opportunity to raise European issues. Also, there is going to be a fisheries debate. The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), who chairs the Backbench Business Committee, and I have made it absolutely clear that if Members want a debate on the European Council, they have to make representations to the Committee in order to secure such a debate. As I understand it, no such representations have been made.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

May we have a debate on unaccounted Government spending, and on how that can happen? Bearing in mind the irrational decision making mentioned by the shadow Leader of the House, can we make the specific subject of the debate the £38 billion committed by the Ministry of Defence over 10 years without accountability?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend is quite right to say that we inherited a number of obligations from the outgoing Government, and that the resources were not there to honour them. The Ministry of Defence provides a very good example. We had an opportunity to debate that when we discussed the strategic defence review, but I am sure that there will be other opportunities for my hon. Friend and others to remind the House and the country of the irresponsible action of the outgoing Government and the unsustainable expenditure that they left us to sort out.

Business of the House

Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts

Thursday 3rd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

Yes.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House consider having a debate on the badger cull, which is a real and present danger to farmers in my constituency? An infected heifer must be put down immediately, whereas an infected badger has to be let go, as putting it down is a criminal offence.

[Sir George Young]

I will share my hon. Friend’s concerns with the Minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs who has responsibility for this matter. I know that there is concern in rural constituencies about the current regime, which precludes badger culls.