Business of the House

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

This is the most open and transparent Government ever. We are publishing more data about more of the activities of government than has ever been the case. We are not only publishing what is available, but, increasingly, we are making sure that we genuinely audit the outcomes of what we are doing and publish those results.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

May I wish you and your family a very merry Christmas, Mr Speaker? This weekend, I attended the deployed service families Christmas party in Plymouth, and may I take the opportunity to wish them all a very merry Christmas, too? I was reminded that stepchildren of service families are not treated in the same way as blood relatives or adopted children, and they often have to deal with some of the emotional issues that many of their stepbrothers and stepsisters also have to deal with, especially at this time. May we have a debate on the involvement of stepfamilies in the armed forces?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend will be interested to know that the definition of a child of service personnel is

“a legitimate or legitimated child or step-child”

of a service family who is below the age of 18. Under departmental regulations both are treated equally. If he has a specific example of unfair treatment that he wishes to raise, the best thing would be to raise it directly with the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who is responsible for defence personnel, welfare and veterans. I know that she will be happy to look into any matter that he raises.

Business of the House

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I gladly join the hon. Gentleman in congratulating Huddersfield university—as the Member of Parliament who represents Cambridge university, I am glad to do so. On his other point, I remind him that, notwithstanding the sale of the student loan book, the regulations and provisions that apply to the recovery of student loans will be no different for any future owner than they are for the Government now.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

May I congratulate the Government on their announcement this week about keeping energy prices down and South West Water on its announcement that it will freeze water prices for the next two years? Unfortunately, Labour-controlled Plymouth city council is considering putting up council tax next year despite the Chancellor’s announcement that that does not need to happen. May we have a debate on this before the budgets are set by local authorities such as Plymouth?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend, like me, might have been surprised that when Labour Members responded to a statement on water bills they appeared completely to ignore the fact that this Government had taken steps to ensure that water bills in the south-west were kept down through substantial support to the local water company. This Government have enabled council tax to be frozen right through this Parliament. That is very significant, as is the fact that council tax doubled under the previous Labour Government. However, this is of course something that local authorities have to take up.

Business of the House

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I agree that those are important issues, and I know that we will continue to have opportunities to debate them. Many issues that are for the Government to respond to are debated in time granted by the Backbench Business Committee. I do not subscribe to the view, and neither does the House, that Government time is allocated to discuss things that are the Government’s responsibility and Back-Bench business time is allocated to discuss things that are not. On the contrary, Back-Bench business time is available, as indeed is Opposition time, so that Members can raise issues that are predominantly for the Government to respond to.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

On Wednesday that well-known press organ the Plymouth Herald reported that the Secretary of State for Transport had said that he would look closely at improving the rail and road links to Plymouth following the closure of Plymouth airport a couple of years ago. Specifically to deliver growth, I have been campaigning for the A303 to be dualled, for trains to get into Plymouth by 9 am, rather than 11.17 am, and for more train journeys to and from London. After repeated failed requests for a debate, will my right hon. Friend support my calls for a debate on this important matter, or at the very least may we have a statement from the Secretary of State?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who raises an issue that is important not only to his constituents, but to those of other Members in that travel corridor in the south-west. Given that wider interest, he might find that there is a wider constituency of Members who might be able to seek a debate. I certainly encourage him in that regard. He knows that our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport was with him in his constituency over the summer to discuss those issues. I will of course ask him to respond further, but it is very much in the minds of Ministers, not least because they have a feasibility study looking at some of the most notorious hot spots on roads across the country, including the A303, the A30 and the A358 in that travel corridor.

Business of the House

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 21st November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

On 27 June, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury announced that more than £4 billion would be spent on national road maintenance; enough to resurface 21,000 miles of road and 19 million potholes. In my constituency, I am campaigning with The Plymouth Herald’s Pothole Pete for some of that money to be spent on our potholes. Indeed, some are so deep that when it rains people start applying for fishing licences. May we please have a debate or a statement from the Treasury on the amount that Plymouth city council has received, and on the number of potholes that have been fixed nationally?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend is commendably on the spot in understanding the issues in his constituency. I can give him the news, which I hope he will find welcome, that not only did the spending review announce £12 billion of funding for highways maintenance on strategic and local road networks from 2015-16 to 2020-21, but I am advised that from 2011-12 to 2014-15, the Department for Transport will have provided £9.6 million in capital funding to Plymouth city council for local highways maintenance. I hope that that funding will help to tackle the potholes to which my hon. Friend refers.

Business of the House

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I have told the House that there is no truth in those allegations, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), a member of the Public Accounts Committee, who entirely endorsed the point that I made.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Although I welcome the Government’s plans to build a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point C, Babcock, which is responsible for refitting and refurbishing our nuclear submarines at Devonport dockyard in my constituency, faces a challenge in retaining skilled nuclear engineers. May we have a statement, or perhaps a debate, on how we might avoid such skill shortages?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. When I was a member of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry some 10 years ago, we were concerned about the loss of skills and expertise in this country because of the failure to proceed with any new nuclear build. I am afraid that remedying the situation has taken until now, following the coalition Government’s steps. My hon. Friend rightly makes a wider point about the availability of skills. The sector skills organisations and, in some locations, the local enterprise partnerships will be able to work with industry to focus on enabling Government support to go directly to meet those needs.

Business of the House

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend is right. The last two winters have been relatively severe, and in each of them there have been substantial such payments. I cannot promise an immediate debate, but if she catches Mr Speaker’s eye she could further raise these points on the annual energy statement which follows. That payment, the warm home discount and support through the cold weather plan I instituted two years ago, with a warm homes healthy people fund, are all helping people to be energy-efficient and to meet some of their bills in the winter.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Earlier this week the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee met Dr Haass who is undertaking a review of politics in Northern Ireland, which I understand is set to report by the end of this year. Will the Leader of the House tell us when that report is likely to be published and whom it will be sent to, and may we have a debate on the matters Dr Haass raises and his recommendations?

[Mr Lansley]

We welcome the establishment of the all-party group in Northern Ireland considering these issues, and we are very glad that Dr Richard Haass is chairing the talks; he does so with great ability. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland met Dr Haass for the third time this week and gives that process her full support. As my hon. Friend knows, the process itself is owned by the Northern Ireland political parties, not the Government, so it will be for them to decide when and what to publish, but that will be of great interest to Members across the House and I know my right hon. Friend will ensure that my hon. Friend and others in the House are informed about the progress of the talks.

Business of the House

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake]

Clearly, I do not agree that there is an orchestrated campaign against The Guardian. Clearly, there is a need for the issues of public interest that The Guardian wants to highlight to be balanced with the security implications of any material it puts into the public domain.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

During the summer recess, I met Stuart Wyatt, a constituent who suffers from multiple sclerosis. He told me that he and many others would like to use cannabis for medical reasons. Although I do not think that we should legalise cannabis at all, I do recognise that the pain of some who suffer from MS and other neurological conditions could be relieved by it. May we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Health on the role of cannabis in relieving pain and how it could be given on prescription?

[Tom Brake]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question, which he has put in measured terms. I understand why he has put it on behalf of his constituent. He may be aware of Sativex, a cannabis-derived mouth spray licensed in the UK in 2010 as an additional treatment for moderate to severe spasticity in multiple sclerosis. He may also be aware that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is updating its clinical guideline on the management of MS in primary and secondary care. Sativex is one of the new interventions that NICE has identified for inclusion in its updated guidelines, which it expects to publish in October 2014.

Business of the House

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake]

May I start by thanking the shadow Leader of the House for her kind words, which I will pass on to the Leader of the House, who is recovering well? I am grateful to her for those remarks. I also echo her comments about the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), who not only is a Scottish Tory who got elected, but who did so under the single transferable vote, which is clearly very welcome, too.

On the issue of the funding of social care, I am sure the hon. Lady will be aware that no decision has been taken on that, and the consultation is still open and if Members want to make a submission, they have until 25 October to do so.

We have just had a full hour of Department of Energy and Climate Change questions, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State did a very good job of explaining why Labour’s policy of freezing energy prices is a con. In case the hon. Lady was not here to hear that, it is because prices will go up both before and after the freeze, and the Leader of the Opposition has indicated that if things changed globally during the freeze, he would not be in a position to hold prices down. That is why we do not support Labour’s position, but what the Government have done is maintain winter fuel payments, worth £300, cold weather payments of £25, and the warm home discount, which is worth £135. Indeed, more generally in relation to cost of living issues, under this Government 25 million basic rate taxpayers will be £700 better off next year, and 3 million people have been taken out of income tax entirely.

The hon. Lady mentioned the save St Helier hospital campaign. I thank her for promoting that and, of course, I am fully behind that campaign. It seems as though she is chiding me for running a campaign in support of my local hospital, something I will make sure Labour-inclined voters are aware of, but the important thing about the save St Helier campaign is that the review that has taken place was not conducted by politicians, but the proposals came from a team of clinicians and, on that team, St Helier hospital was under-represented, which is why we are campaigning against this. I am very pleased to be able to conclude my remarks on the subject of save St Helier hospital, because that is a campaign I intend to win.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Last week, the all-party group on excellence in the built environment, which I chair, published its report on the Government’s green deal for the domestic residential market. I was delighted that the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), who is responsible for planning, attended the launch. May we have a debate on this issue, so that the Government can bring us all up to date on the progress they are making on the green deal and how better insulation in homes will help to reduce the number of families and individuals living in fuel poverty?

[Tom Brake]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend was able to be here for Energy questions earlier, but energy efficiency and the green deal came up then. Let me detail some of the specific things that the Government have done. In October 2012, the Department of Energy and Climate Change offered English local authorities the opportunity to bid for funding to reduce the extent of fuel poverty, and £31 million is now going into 60 projects involving just under 170 local authorities. Of course, we have the Warm Front scheme—it was closed in January for new applications but we are still processing others and measures are being taken on the back of that. In response to the shadow Leader of the House, I also set out the measures we are taking to support people who are in fuel poverty or are struggling to pay their bills with a range of initiatives, including the warm home discount, winter fuel payments and cold weather payments.

Business of the House

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I think that is exactly the same point that the hon. Member for St Helens North (Mr Watts) made, and in a sense I think we agree about it. We need competition if we are to deliver benefits to consumers, and we need it to be robust. That competition is not driven naturally in markets; it has to be regulated for by authorities. We should not have a free-for-all in markets, because of the tendency towards monopoly. We must have effective competition regulation to make competition happen, and this Government have been keen to ensure that it is in place. To be fair to the previous Government, they also did that under competition and enterprise Acts. This country has established what is regarded as one of the more effective competition regimes, but we must continuously be vigilant and use the competition authorities to deliver it.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

As my right hon. Friend knows, Plymouth university was named in the top 300 in last week’s Times Higher Education world rankings, putting it in the top 1.5% globally. Will he join me in congratulating it on its remarkable feat? May we have a debate on the role of universities in delivering growth in our economy both here in Britain and globally?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend is right, and I join him in expressing appreciation for the tremendous progress that Plymouth university has made and the standards that it is achieving. He and other Members will be well aware not only of the comparative strengths in our higher education system, which are dramatic, but of the contribution that they are making to our economic recovery and our future prospects. If we are going to win the global race, it will be on the basis of knowledge-based industries. The connection between universities and higher education and the new industries of the future is critical.

Business of the House

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am glad that we agree that those with the broadest shoulders should bear the greatest burden. Indeed, in this financial year, the top 1% by earnings will contribute nearly 30% of income tax. Equally, we probably agree that we want to see young people in employment. It is vital for them and for our economy that those young people should have education, training and employment and that they do not fail to acquire the habit of employment. The fact that the number of young people not in education, employment or training is at its lowest for a decade is helpful, as is the fact that more than 1 million apprenticeships and 100,000 work experience placements have been created since the election. We are not in the least complacent about this, however. About 900,000 young people are unemployed, and we want to reduce that figure.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

As my right hon. Friend may be aware, my constituency of Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport has close links with Gibraltar. Indeed, yesterday was national Gibraltar day. I am delighted to support the campaign to give that gallant royal naval port, which has played such a significant role in the defence of Britain over the past 300 years, the George Cross—similar to the award to Malta in 1942—to demonstrate the House’s support for Gibraltar during these difficult times with the Spanish Government. May we please have a debate on that?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend will recall what the Prime Minister had to say by way of expressing to the people of Gibraltar our very strong message of support, and the House will be pleased that a distinguished group of parliamentarians were with Gibraltar on its national day to express our support as a House. I am aware of the recent launch of a campaign for Gibraltar to be awarded the George Cross. As my hon. Friend knows, all reasonable cases for gallantry awards are given careful consideration.