Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Clegg and Charles Kennedy

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Of course, the police have had to absorb 20% reductions in their budget and it is extraordinary—we should all pay tribute to police forces up and down the country for this—that they have none the less equally presided over a decline in crime rates to historically very low levels indeed. I am extremely confused this morning—[Interruption.] Let me explain, and the confusion will then be on the other side of the House, not on this side. The Labour party has vilified the coalition Government, day in, day out, for taking difficult decisions to balance the books, but I read this morning that it would actually inflict more cuts on local government and would not relieve the public sector pay restraint on millions of people in the public sector. I would be interested to know what Labour’s solution really is. It criticises us for things it now apparently wants to do itself.

[Mr Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (LD)]

Will the Deputy Prime Minister take this opportunity to acknowledge that one of the singular successes of the Scottish referendum campaign was the engagement of new first-time voters from the age of 16 and above? Given the imminent general election, will he encourage local authorities throughout the United Kingdom to build on that groundswell of young people’s engagement with politics—I cannot believe, and I am sure my right hon. Friend does not, that what happened in Scotland is not a reflection of the level of potential interest that exists throughout the rest of the UK as well—with a view to building, perhaps in a future Parliament, what Holyrood is likely to do for next year’s Scottish elections and extending the franchise for House of Commons and all levels of parliamentary elections in the future?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I strongly agree with my right hon. Friend. I hope that those who doubt the wisdom of moving towards extending the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds—there are, of course, some in this House who still doubt it—will look carefully at the experience of the Scottish referendum, which mobilised huge public participation not only across all communities and age groups, but, perhaps most especially, among 16 and 17-year-olds. I think that any doubts anyone might have had about the wisdom of extending the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds should be dispelled by that experience. I, like my right hon. Friend, look forward to a time when we have genuine cross-party consensus about giving all 16 and 17-year-olds across the United Kingdom the right to vote.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Clegg and Charles Kennedy

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the hon. Lady knows, we are confident that we are doing everything we can—we are taking a belt-and-braces approach—to ensure that registration levels do not fall. We have learned from the experience of Northern Ireland and have worked on a consensual, cross-party basis to get this right, because all parties accept that we need to move to individual voter registration. I do not anticipate that the situation she predicts will arise.

[Mr Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (LD)]

Assuming that the next boundary review will be—we hope—on a UK basis, will the Deputy Prime Minister look at the unhappy experience of this Parliament and the exceptions that were granted for the Isle of Wight, and the northern and western isles? The manifest absence of any such willingness to appreciate the vast geography of the several constituencies of the highlands and islands of Scotland means that my constituency has one Westminster MP and no fewer than eight Members of the Scottish Parliament serving it. That cannot make sense.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I certainly agree with my right hon. Friend that, as the reviews occur in future, we shall need to be mindful, first, of the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham), ensuring that there is enough latitude in the rules so that boundary commissions are not forced to split up naturally formed communities; and, secondly, of the need not to create such unfeasibly large constituencies that it is almost impossible physically to represent them in this place.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Clegg and Charles Kennedy

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education is present, and I am sure that he will want to write to the right hon. Gentleman about that specific case. However, one of the things that the Government have done is remove the dead hand of bureaucracy and centralisation from our school system, to ensure that teachers are freer to teach in the way that they judge best in the classroom and parents have a greater role—when they want it—in the running of our schools.

[Mr Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (LD)]

In the context of the question from the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall)—who is, perhaps, not my hon. Friend on this issue—does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that on Europe, where the coalition is concerned, actions speak louder than words? Does he agree that the Chancellor’s decision some time ago to assist the Irish economy, the Foreign Secretary’s very responsible conduct of the internal European governmental review, and, indeed, the Prime Minister’s own statement in China just this week that if we get a referendum he wants to recommend that we stay in, provide a great boost of confidence for people like the Deputy Prime Minister and me who are down-the-line Liberal Democrat pro-Europeans?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is always a joy to hear the mischievous wit and wisdom of my right hon. Friend. As he knows, we are as one on the European issue. Of course we need to reform the European Union—we need to strip away bureaucracy when that can be done, and to make the EU more transparent and efficient—but we also need to continue to exercise British leadership in the European Union club of which we have been a member for so many years.

Political and Constitutional Reform

Debate between Nick Clegg and Charles Kennedy

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Of course I agree that it is essential that the Bills are properly scrutinised. As the hon. Gentleman knows, given that they are constitutional Bills, every stage of the passage of the Bills will be taken on the Floor of the House, so that every hon. Member can scrutinise these important Bills and have their say in the final shape of the legislation.

[Mr Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (LD)]

Obviously, I welcome the historic progress towards the alternative vote referendum and the fixed-term Parliaments. May I be a little more parochial and ask a question on the issue of constituency size, as for the past 27 years, under three sets of radically different constituency boundaries, I have had the privilege of representing the largest geographic constituency in this place—just below the 13,000 sq km cap that my right hon. Friend proposes to introduce? Can he confirm that the boundary commissioners will retain the flexibility in the Scottish context that they had last time round for the Westminster boundaries, when they could have opted for two Highland council area seats—that is a land mass the size of Belgium, let us remember—but in fact they opted for three?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I recognise, of course, the outstanding job that my right hon. Friend does across a constituency that is by far the largest in the country. That is why, taking the cue from his constituency, we will specify in the Bill that no new constituency can be any larger than his present constituency—just shy of 13,000 sq km. As for the basis upon which the Boundary Commissions will make their decisions, the exceptions on the face of the Bill will be very limited—for obvious reasons, the two island constituencies that I set out, and the geographical cap in size that I specified. Beyond that, the duty will be on the Boundary Commissions to deliver what we have always intended should be delivered—constituencies that are more equal in size in terms of the number of voters in each constituency.