Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Clegg and Priti Patel

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

4. What steps he plans to take to reform the system of party political funding and donations to political parties by trade unions.

[The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)]

The Government have always been clear that any reform of party political funding is best achieved by consensus. Despite seven meetings, it is disappointing that, as on previous occasions, there has been no agreement between the three parties on beginning party funding reform.

[Priti Patel]

Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that new laws to restrict the money and influence of trade unions in British political life are required? Will he join the Prime Minister in supporting reforms to strike laws to protect the public from unnecessary industrial action?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I certainly agree that all parties need to get big money and vested interests out of party funding. That can best and only be done through consensus. It did not happen this time; I very much hope that all parties will make a commitment that everyone will stick to in the next Parliament.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Clegg and Priti Patel

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

If I understand it correctly, the Labour party’s position is that there should be direct elections to police authorities, so it agrees that there should be a change in the arrangements to give the public a greater democratic say in how policing is organised in their local area. The policy happens to be one that was not advocated by my party, but it was, rightly and understandably, in the coalition agreement, having been brought in by the Conservatives, so it is right that we should deliver it. I remain nonplussed that the hon. Gentleman is now so critical of the policy when the posts were so ferociously contested by numerous—failed, as it turns out—Labour politicians last week.

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

T11. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree with the Prime Minister, the House of Commons and the majority of the British public that prisoners should not get the right to vote, and will he oppose the will of the European Court of Human Rights on this matter?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the hon. Lady well knows, this is a vexed subject. We have the Court ruling that, in its view, the blanket rule is not consistent with the law, and it set a deadline. The House has made its contrasting views very well known, and I know that the Secretary of State for Justice is to set out the next steps on the whole issue very shortly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Clegg and Priti Patel

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As I said before, collective responsibility operates, but this is also a coalition Government, whereby two parties with different views, different traditions and different perspectives have come together to govern in the national interest. That is why we are keen, on both sides of the coalition Government, to stick scrupulously to the open, public coalition agreement that we entered into with each other.

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

T6. Given that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority is one of the Deputy Prime Minister’s policy responsibilities, what action will he take to ensure that IPSA stops spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ pounds on its own public relations and its ever-expanding bureaucracy?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I of course acknowledge that there is a great deal of unease on both sides of the House about how IPSA is operating in practice, which is why it is right that its working practices should be reviewed and, where possible, strengthened and improved. However, the fundamental principle that the administration of our expenses, pay and so on is independent remains exactly right in the wake of the terrible damage done to the House by the expenses scandals in the last Parliament.