Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I confirm that any investment that is legally able to be made within state aid rules now would be able to continue in the future, and any United Kingdom funding for money currently received as EU regional aid would comply with those same state aid rules going forward.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Q11. Members of my family were either killed or badly injured working in the coalmines of the South Wales valleys. We owe all of our miners a debt of gratitude, yet in recent years the Treasury has raked in billions of pounds from their pension schemes, so will the Chancellor meet me, retired miners and coalfield community MPs to fix this injustice?

[Mr Lidington]

We certainly recognise the hard work and incredible risks that miners took in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and many others. The important thing about the miners’ pension scheme is that it should pay out all the promised benefits in full. My understanding is that the scheme is funded to do just that and that no former miner will lose out.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill: Committee Stage

Nick Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

First of all, I am not a right hon. Member. For some reason, Scottish National party Members are not made Privy Counsellors, regardless of how long we have served in this House. I thank the hon. Gentleman for the promotion, but I have never actually secured that position.

I wish that the hon. Gentleman had been on the streets in Perth, as I was, on Saturday. He would have seen the deep frustration and anger that there was with this House after the massive disrespect demonstrated to our Parliament—the Scottish Parliament—which secured 15 minutes of debate before its devolution settlement was turned on its head. There is a growing frustration with this House as more and more people, particularly in Scotland, are seeing—because they like watching us speak—how this House is treated. There is real bewilderment about what is going on.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

I hesitate to move the hon. Gentleman off one of his favourite topics, but does he agree that there is another fundamental point that is being missed? The current boundary review is inaccurate because its formulations do not include the many extra voters who have gone on to the electoral rolls since the Boundary Commission did its basic analysis. This needs to be done again, and that would strengthen our democracy.

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I know that a lot of people want to speak, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will try to make a bit of progress if I could be allowed to do so.

I hear what the Government are saying. Of course, there is the news that we will have the report of the Boundary Commission before we come back in September. However, my feeling—perhaps it is just me again—is that what the House decided on the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) trumps what the Boundary Commission is about to deliver, because it was a democratic decision of the House that favoured his Bill and wanted to see it progress. My understanding is that that should come first. I think that outcomes decided on the Floor of the House—

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[Steve Double]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has jumped straight to the conclusion of my speech. I will come to that point in a moment.

This is very much a local issue for me as a Cornish Member.

[Nick Smith]

I want to take up the point made by the right hon. Member for Gloucestershire West when he said the then Government were trying to bring down the cost of politics by reducing the number of MPs from 650 to 600. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that that argument is undermined by the fact that since 2010 more than 200 new peers have been created?

[Steve Double]

I understand that point.

In Cornwall, the proposed new boundaries will result in a cross-border seat between Cornwall and Devon. In many parts of the country, people might not understand why that is such a big deal, but it is felt very strongly in Cornwall, and is felt even more strongly now, because in 2014 the Government recognised the Cornish as a national minority under the framework convention of the Council of Europe, saying that doing so would afford the Cornish the same recognition as that enjoyed by the other Celtic peoples of the United Kingdom—the Scottish, the Welsh and the Irish—and no one would entertain a cross-border seat between Wales and England or Scotland and England.

Given the protection the Cornish now enjoy under the framework convention, I believe it was fundamentally wrong to have proposed this cross-border seat. If his Bill proceeds, I would ask the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) to consider a protection for Cornwall like that provided for Northern Ireland, so that the six Cornish seats might be protected and maintained in recognition of the minority status the Cornish now enjoy.

Voter ID Pilots

Nick Smith Excerpts

Monday 23rd April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

That powerful anecdote entirely speaks for itself. We are seeking to strengthen our democracy and give it the kind of value that it deserves.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Just 45% of 18-year-olds are on the electoral register, so will the Government ensure that schools and further education colleges give details of students approaching voting age to electoral registration officers?

[Chloe Smith]

I think the hon. Gentleman is making an argument for what is known as automatic registration—in other words, that a person is placed on the register without their consent, necessarily. I support instead the system of individual electoral registration. It is important that people can individually register to vote and take responsibility for their own vote. Indeed, the introduction of IER has helped with another concern about our electoral system—that prior to its introduction, the head of a household could simply register everyone in a household without their consent. I do not think that is very good for some of the groups that we might be debating today. We all need to work together to encourage young people to register to vote and to make sure that they are aware of how they need to go about doing that. I am looking forward to doing more of that kind of work this year—the suffrage centenary year—including through a national democracy week, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman joins me, too.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

The hon. Lady has misquoted me; I did not say that. Clearly, migration is a very positive thing. The migration that happened with the Windrush, for example, was hugely beneficial to Britain and, I hope, to those individuals, but other issues will be exacerbated if we do not create jobs and prosperity in Africa. I remind the hon. Lady and other Members that thousands of people have lost their lives in transit across the Mediterranean. We need to do more to alleviate poverty in Africa. People should not have to leave their homes, cross the sea via people traffickers and risk their lives in order to survive.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

2. What steps her Department is taking to ensure continued humanitarian access into Yemen.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Alistair Burt)]

The UK has led the call for unhindered humanitarian and commercial access to Yemen, including through the UK co-ordinated Security Council statement of 15 March, the Secretary of State’s visit to Riyadh in December and lobbying from the Prime Minister. DFID is also providing expertise and funding to UN shipping inspectors to facilitate import flows into Yemen.

[Nick Smith]

Cholera is currently a massive problem in Yemen, so getting medicines in is, of course, crucial. Hodeidah port is still only open on a month by month basis, so what is the Department doing to keep it permanently open?

[Alistair Burt]

I am conscious of both aspects on the hon. Gentleman’s question. Just the other week, on 3 April, I was in Geneva, where I co-hosted a discussion on cholera with Sir Mark Lowcock, the UN Under-Secretary-General for humanitarian affairs. We had a roundtable of all the major agencies involved in dealing with the cholera outbreak, including the World Health Organisation and others. We are doing as much as we can to encourage preparation for dealing with that outbreak. Of course, we continue to work on ensuring that there is as much access as possible through any of the ports, although the hon. Gentleman is right that the lack of commercial shipping now coming into Hodeidah by choice is an extra burden.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I certainly hope that that will be the case, and I believe our guidelines and approach to different Government Departments will encourage small business to secure those opportunities, but it will also be a matter for the Commons Commission.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

8. What steps he is taking to ensure that local authorities participating in voter ID pilots at the local government elections in May 2018 communicate to voters changes in the voting process.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

10. What steps he is taking to ensure that local authorities participating in voter ID pilots at the local government elections in May 2018 communicate to voters changes in the voting process.

[Nick Smith]

Research by the Royal National Institute of Blind People has found that the polling cards in the Government pilot are still inaccessible for blind and partially sighted people, and are often mistaken for junk mail. Can the Government guarantee that restrictive ID requirements will not disenfranchise disabled voters?

[Chloe Smith]

That is an extremely good point, and it is exactly the kind of thing I was referring to in my earlier answer regarding the call for evidence on how those with disabilities might in some ways be disempowered from using the registration and voting system. In this case, I would expect the piloting local authorities to look carefully at the issue in their own work, and I will undertake to do so as well from the point of view of the Cabinet Office.

Capita

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I have given that reassurance, and I can reassure the House again that in respect of all our strategic suppliers, including Capita, we are understanding their financial position and taking appropriate contingency measures. I hope she will understand that lots of these things are commercially sensitive, and it would not be helpful to go into excessive detail on that.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Capita’s stock has dropped 84% since its 2015 peak. Are there plans for a ministerial taskforce to grip this situation should it worsen?

[Oliver Dowden]

It is worth noting that a large chunk of the drop in the share price came yesterday in respect of the restructuring of the business—it was a consequence, for example, of the rights issue—but we are of course engaging in such a way. I and the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths), who has responsibility for small businesses, have established a taskforce for Carillion. We are ensuring that we provide all the support we can for the private sector side of Carillion’s delivery of services. For example, we are ensuring that HMRC is showing flexibility in relation to payments, and that banks are showing some flexibility. Should the need arise, we would do exactly the same for Capita.

Carillion and Public Sector Outsourcing

Nick Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have given way a number of times already, and I want to make some progress. I certainly intend to give way again, but I am conscious that we have finite time available for the debate, and the time taken up by taking interventions is speaking time taken away from Back Benchers.

Network Rail judged in this case that Carillion was best placed to do the work, because it had been engaged on the project for three years already and had completed all the design work successfully. By agreement with the official receiver, former Carillion employees and suppliers continue to work on these rail projects, and today they are progressing as planned.

Since the liquidation on 15 January, the Government have responded promptly and appropriately, supporting the official receiver to manage the liquidation. We have also made funds available to allow an orderly wind-down of the company’s affairs. It is worth my explaining that this company was in such trouble that it could not even fund its own administration. If the Government had not stepped in and agreed to cover the costs of the official receiver, there would have been a real threat to public services in schools, hospitals and prisons. Staff would not have come to work last Monday, as they would not have been paid.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for giving way—at last. In his letter today, he refers to an investigation into the conduct of Carillion’s directors. Is the chair of Carillion, Philip Green, still an adviser to the Government on corporate responsibility?

[Mr Lidington]

No, and he ceased to be an adviser after the Prime Minister took office.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore]

I believe that the UK electoral system is one of the most robust in the world. It is difficult to manipulate through a cyber-attack, as we operate a manual counting and manual voting system. As the First Secretary mentioned in his earlier answer, that may be seen as old-fashioned, but it ensures that our system is protected and our democracy safeguarded.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Will the Government consider using credit reference agency data to improve the accuracy of the electoral register?

[Chris Skidmore]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, which I will be interested to go away and consider. We are already looking at issues of tenant security deposits, for example—one of the largest groups not on the register are movers and renters, which causes that churn. That is why we are determined to ensure that we have better data to identify where we need to focus our attention and ensure that everyone is able to register to vote.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

It is great that the Government are showing bureaucratic flexibility to help domestic abuse victims to vote, but such flexibility should be put into all the Government’s voter registration efforts. Will they build “register to vote” links into all their online service application pages?

[Chris Skidmore]

During the past couple of years, we have introduced the ability to register to vote online. It has been highly successful, with 24 million people taking the opportunity to register to vote online. As part of our democratic engagement strategy, which I will publish in the summer, I am keen to look at digital democracy and where it can work, and to see what we can do with other Departments to ensure that we have such points of contact and that we base democratic registration around individual users. I will be taking forward exactly what the hon. Gentleman mentioned.

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[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

T3. What is the Minister’s assessment of the results of the British attitudes survey, which shows that only one in four people trust the Government’s use of statistics?

[Ben Gummer]

I am as concerned as the hon. Gentleman will be. That is why we need to make sure that the independence of our statistics machine, to which other countries look for advice, is shown to the public to be the best in the world. That is what it is.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about international comparisons. Many countries, including Canada, Brazil and Austria, already require photographic ID to vote at polling stations, and such a scheme was introduced in Northern Ireland in 2003. The Government are taking forward pilots to look at electoral identification in the 2018 local government elections, and we are willing to test various forms of identification—photographic and non-photographic—to ensure above all that no one is disenfranchised.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

12. The Government’s talk of voter fraud is a smokescreen for voter suppression.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

Just as in America.

[Nick Smith]

Yes. They are putting obstacles between people and the polling booth instead of working to boost our democracy. If voter fraud is such a problem, will the Minister tell the House how many voter fraud convictions there were last year?

[Chris Skidmore]

I am surprised by the hon. Gentleman for somehow claiming that this is a smokescreen. It was a Labour Government that introduced photographic ID in Northern Ireland in 2003. The Electoral Commission and all other electoral administrators have called for ID in polling stations, and we will test its use rigorously in the pilots. There were 481 cases of voter fraud reported to the Electoral Commission, and 184 additional cases were reported to the police. Above all, this is about perception. The Electoral Commission reported last year that 30% of the population believe that voter fraud is an issue in their local area, and we are determined to tackle that perception.