Autumn Budget as it Relates to Wales

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2018 General Committees

[Chris Davies]

I concur. Is it £200 million, or is it £2 million—do we really know what Carwyn Jones is offering? Do not forget that that is taxpayers’ money, not Welsh Assembly or Westminster Government money. He could come clean and say that, because this is a bill to the taxpayer, not to the Welsh Assembly or the Westminster Government. We must get it right.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Has the hon. Gentleman managed to read the National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee reports on his Government’s decision to build Hinkley Point? They say it will cost an extra £13 billion in public subsidy, which will be paid for by the poorest taxpayers. Is it not true that the cheapest electricity in Wales comes from the Dinorwig pumped-storage scheme in north Wales? There is huge potential for water power in Wales, which is being ignored by the Government in exchange for nuclear power stations, with one possibly in Wylfa to be built by a Japanese company because it cannot build them in Japan anymore.

[Chris Davies]

We have to be cautious about any audit report and investigate further. The hon. Gentleman will remember when Conservative Members of Parliament visited Newport to look at the possibility of a Newport lagoon. The Conservative Government have not only committed to trying to make it happen in Swansea but to make the whole lagoon structure work. We are trying to put the figures together. I will move on, because the tidal lagoon is a small part of what I have to say.

I am delighted that defence investment continues at 2% of GDP, and in Brecon and Radnorshire there is strong commitment to the Infantry Battle School, the training ground in Sennybridge, and Dering Lines. The military play an important part in Wales, and I am delighted that the Government continue to support them in every which way.

Let us not forget a small item we have missed in the Budget: £4.7 million has gone to refurbishing and modernising poppy factories. They may not be in Wales, but they supply poppies to Wales. For most people in this room and outside in Wales, that is the closest they get to remembering those who have lost their lives in battle. That is very important and an item that, sadly, has been overlooked, but it is in there to support our traditional elements.

We have heard much talk about agriculture. Over the past 12 months many farmers in my constituency have seen an increase in the price of lamb and beef on the hoof in the markets, as a result of the lower value of the pound. Many who voted for Brexit—the vast majority of them did so—are looking towards the future and the great expectations it holds. They are not frightened, but they are concerned—they do not know what is going to happen, but they are looking forward to the opportunities. I wish more politicians did that, instead of constantly criticising the Brexit process.

I am delighted that the Budget did not contain a tourism tax. Brecon and Radnorshire relies exceptionally heavily on tourism, as do the constituencies of many Members present, but the Labour and Liberal-run Welsh Government already seem to be talking about a tourism tax, which would decimate the tourism industry in this country. I hope that Opposition Members will tell their Welsh Assembly colleagues how devastating it would be and what a disastrous idea it is for Wales.

[Paul Flynn]

Quite right, too.

[Chris Davies]

I agree.

The mid-Wales growth deal has already been touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire. The one question that has never come out anyone’s mouth in the Houses of Parliament, or even I think in the Welsh Assembly, is that of mid-Wales. Where does it start and where does it end? Where does south Wales start and stop? Where does mid-Wales start and stop? Where does north Wales start and stop?

As many Members know, my constituency is considered to be a mid-Wales seat, but the southern tip of my boundary is only 15 miles from Swansea bay. We have to think long and hard about where the mid-Wales growth deal will come in and where it will stop. What about constituencies such as that of the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd? The southern part of her constituency could be part of a mid-Wales growth deal and would benefit from it. It is not just about Brecon, Radnorshire, Montgomeryshire and Ceredigion. The mid-Wales growth deal could be of great benefit to the majority of Wales, because the majority of Wales now seems to be mid-Wales.

I am delighted that the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), who has responsibility for the northern powerhouse and local growth, has already visited Powys County Council to get the ball rolling. Before going on to do great things at the Ministry of Defence, the former Under-Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), also visited Powys County Council to ensure that it was starting to think about where to lead with the mid-Wales growth deal. The current Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales will visit shortly and lead the project forward, along with Lord Bourne from the House of Lords. The options are never-ending.

We have made it clear to local authorities that the mid-Wales growth deal will spread from east to west, across Offa’s Dyke, because a lot of people in my constituency and in Montgomeryshire naturally cross that invisible border every day, whether to work or shop. Clearly, we have to tie everything in. I am delighted that the Chancellor mentioned the mid-Wales growth deal in the Budget. This is the first time we are seeing some real joined-up thinking from a Government. I praise the Conservative Government for starting the deal. It is a start and not a finish, but I am sure hon. Members will be disappointed to hear that it is the finish of my speech. I look forward to the mid-Wales growth deal.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Flynn]

Hoffwn ymddiheurio am fy absenoldeb y bore yma. Rwyf yn falch i fod yma. Roeddwn yn edrych ar hanes yr iaith Gymraeg yma a’r brwydrau dros y blynyddoedd. Rwy’n llongyfarch fy Nghyfaill anrhydeddus yr Aelod dros Dde Clwyd. Dim ond dwy flynedd yn ôl, pan oedd yr Ysgrifennydd Gwladol dros Drafnidiaeth yn Arweinydd y Tŷ, dywedodd na.

Roedd fy nghwestiwn cyntaf fel aelod o’r Mainc Flaen yn 1988 am siarad Cymraeg yma. Cyfrinach fy ngyrfa yn y Tŷ yw bod pawb yn cytuno gyda phob gair rwy’n dweud 30 mlynedd ar ôl i mi ddweud e. Dyna sut mae pethau’n gweithio yn y Tŷ Cyffredin—rhaid aros am byth i bobl cytuno â chi.

Rwyf yn cytuno â phopeth sydd wedi’i ddweud am forlyn llanw Abertawe. Mae’n nonsens i’r Llywodraeth wrthod gweld posibiliadau ffynhonell pŵer sydd yn rhydd inni ac sydd yn golchi arfordir Cymru ddwywaith y dydd; rydym yn gwybod pryd fydd hyn yn digwydd—yn wahanol i rai pwerau adnewyddadwy eraill. Mae’n lân, yn wyrdd a byddai’n rhoi ynni inni am genedlaethau.

I ddychwelyd at y Gymraeg, a’r peth pwysig sydd yn digwydd heddiw, rwy’n arbennig o falch ein bod ni heddiw yn rhoi urddas i’r Gymraeg ac yn dangos i’n plant fod gan yr iaith statws. Dylem fod yn falch o’r iaith. Roedd y Gymraeg yn iaith lenyddol, gyda rhyddiaith a barddoniaeth cyfoethog iawn, cyn genedigaeth yr iaith Saesneg. Dwy fil o flynyddoedd yn ôl, yng Nghaerleon yn fy etholaeth, roedd yn bosib gwrando ar blant yn siarad dwy iaith. Intra muros—oddi fewn i’r waliau—roedd y plant yn siarad Lladin, ond ultra muros—tu allan i’r waliau—roeddynt yn siarad Cymraeg. Pa iaith sydd wedi ffynnu? ’Dwi ddim yn clywed llawer o Ladin yn cael ei siarad gan bobl a phlant Casnewydd. Dylem ymfalchïo yn beth sy’n digwydd yma: tipyn bach o ateb i’r sarhad ar yr iaith Gymraeg dros y blynyddoedd.

Does dim llawer o amser gen i, felly gad inni dalu teyrnged i’r iaith drwy gofio geiriau’r bardd am ei pharhad:

“Aros mae’r mynyddau mawr,

Rhuo trostynt mae y gwynt;

Clywir eto gyda’r wawr

Gân bugeiliaid megis cynt.

Wedi oes dymhestlog hir

Alun Mabon mwy nid yw,

Ond mae’r heniaith yn y tir

A’r alawon hen yn fyw.”

(Translation) I apologise for being absent this morning, but I am pleased to be here. I was looking at the history of the Welsh language in this place and the battles that have taken place over the years. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South on this occasion; but just two years ago, when the Secretary of State for Transport was Leader of the House, he said no, we could not do it.

The first question I asked in 1988, when I was a Front-Bencher, was on using the Welsh language in this place. The secret of my career in the House is that everyone agrees with every word I say 30 years after I have said it. That is how things work in the Commons; you have to wait a very long time before people come round to agreeing with you.

I agree with everything that has been said on the Swansea bay tidal lagoon. It is a nonsense for the Government not to see the possibilities that exist there, with that renewable source of energy that is freely available to us. It washes over our shores in Wales twice a day, and we know with certainty when it will come, which is not the case with some other renewable sources. It is clean energy, green energy, and it will provide us with power for generations.

If I return to the Welsh language and the important events of today, I am particularly proud that this is giving dignity to the Welsh language, and showing our children that the language has status. We should be proud of the language. The Welsh language was a literary language with a rich history of poetry and prose before the English language was spoken. Some 2,000 years ago, in Caerleon in my constituency, it was possible to hear children speaking two languages. Intra muros, within the walls, they spoke Latin; extra muros, beyond the walls, they spoke Welsh. Which language has prospered since those days? I do not hear a huge amount of Latin spoken by the people of Newport at the moment.

We should take pride in the Welsh language and in what is happening here, because it goes some way to righting the injustices done to the Welsh language over many years. Although I do not have much time, I urge hon. Members to remember the words of the poet about the survival of the language:

“The great mountains remain

The wind roars across them

The song of shepherds is heard again with the dawn, as before.

After a tempestuous age

Alun Mabon is no more

But the old language is in the land

And the old tunes live.”

Business of the House

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard]

As a native son of the fine county of Cheshire, I well know what a beautiful range of villages my hon. Friend represents. It is vital that they have good bus connections, and I urge her to make use of the opportunity afforded by Transport questions on Thursday to put those questions to the new ministerial team.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Yesterday, Rose Gentle, the mother of Gordon Gentle, one of the first soldiers to die in the Iraq war, expressed her regret at the Government statement that seems to absolve Parliament from the conclusions of the Chilcot report. We need, as she called for, an act of apology from this House and this Parliament. It was not one man; it was the Opposition and three Select Committees, who were cheerleaders for that worst mistake we have made this century. Would not a suitable act of apology be followed by the reading of the names of the 179 soldiers whom we sent to their deaths?

[Paul Maynard]

The hon. Gentleman has been a consistent campaigner on this issue over many years and has earned the House’s respect for his consistency. I will ensure that I pass his comments on to the Leader of the House, who I am sure will do her best to get him a suitable response to his point.

Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

We now come to an important half-hour debate on the independent adviser on Ministers’ interests. I call Mr Paul Flynn.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests.

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship for, I believe, the first time, Mr Hollobone. The office of independent adviser is now 10 years old. The story is one either of Ministers all behaving as saintly paragons of perfection or of the system not working, and I fear it is the latter. Since the office was set up, it has achieved virtually nothing and I would like to point out the way things have gone.

When the office was set up, the case of Shahid Malik was referred to it. He resigned from ministerial office when there were complaints about his behaviour. He was then found to be free of blame and restored to ministerial office. Since then we have had only one case, involving Baroness Warsi. She had already confessed to a venial sin: she had gone on an official trip to India and had taken with her a relative and a work partner. She agreed that there was a perception of impropriety in that, as did the adviser on Ministers’ interests. There was a mild reprimand but no action was taken. However, that was a tiny offence compared with other cases that have passed by without being referred to the adviser.

Possibly the least defensible one was in 2011 involving the then Secretary of State for Defence, who was accused of misconduct. There were well-publicised accusations of relationships with a Mr Werritty, and an extraordinary thing happened: in this case the then chief civil servant, on the advice of the then Prime Minister, decided to investigate the matter himself. That was against the ministerial code and the civil service code—the investigation was expressly forbidden by them—but it was the Prime Minister’s decision. The then holder of the office of independent adviser, Sir Philip Mawer, gave evidence to a Select Committee and said he should have been investigating the Member concerned, who promptly resigned from his post.

This was an extraordinary situation. We know that whatever that Member did was serious, because that is what the head of the civil service said. They said that it was so serious that he should resign. However, no information was given to the public about what he had done, how serious the offence was and whether he was fit for future office. He gained absolution by resignation and the public are in the dark. That is more serious now, given that that Member has been returned to office as one of three Brexiteers. We have no idea whether he is fit for office or if his past conduct suggests he is not fit for office. The first thing one would ask anybody seeking a new job is, “Why did you leave your last job?” We do not know. This case involves the sin of omission. The then Prime Minister should certainly have referred that matter to the adviser and he did not.

There have been further cases since. One involved the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Mr Hunt), who was accused of not being impartial in a BSkyB takeover. That case had a great deal of attention and certainly caused a considerable amount of public concern, yet it was not referred by the Prime Minister to the adviser.

The right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May)—the present Prime Minister—was alleged to have leaked ministerial correspondence on Islamic extremism in Birmingham schools. Again, that is a matter of great concern, yet the case was not referred to the adviser.

There were minor cases, too. A Minister had a meal—not a cheap one—at the Savoy, allegedly provided partly by a group that was seeking favours from his Department. Again, that is a matter of some seriousness and if it was true, it would have been a breach of the ministerial code. That Minister explained that he was there eating as a private person, not as a Minister—so his private stomach, not his ministerial stomach was digesting that day. That was accepted by the then Prime Minister and there was no investigation.

The most recent case is possibly the most telling. Two Ministers in the Cabinet Office—the right hon. Members for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) and for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock)—decided to give £3 million to Kids Company, which was run by Ms Batmanghelidjh. The brave civil servants in the Department put out a letter saying that that was a mistake and that it should not have been done. That was a courageous thing for the civil servants to do. Civil servants give their advice, and that is it, but they went public and said, “This is the wrong thing to do,” putting in peril their future careers, because they would be regarded as troublemakers. They did the right thing but the Government did not. What happened to the £3 million? It was given to Ms Batmanghelidjh at Kids Company and the company collapsed four days later.

There is a possible explanation. The charge against the Government is that Ms Batmanghelidjh was the poster girl of the big society. She attended a meeting in the Cabinet Office to launch the big society. A huge amount of political credibility was given to her company when the Prime Minister was promoting the big society—he was the first and probably the last fan, now he has left office, of that concept. Why were those two Ministers not reported to the adviser for losing £3 million of public money? The temptation is to believe that the Prime Minister was acting for party-political advantage to protect the reputation of the big society. However, the public lost £3 million.

There is no redress in this situation. Nobody holds the Prime Minister to account on this. I have raised these matters many times in the past few years, and it is said that we have a chance to raise these matters at Prime Minister’s questions, but we do not have a hope of raising them in any detail there. The Liaison Committee could raise them but they never have, because whether they do so depends on the disposition of the members of that Committee.

This reform was intended to restore confidence in public life, because we went through the great screaming nightmare of the expenses scandal and our reputation was at rock bottom. I believe that now it is even worse than that—it is subterranean. We have not improved our standing with the public. It has probably gone down and we know what happens: if politics falls into disrepute, we end up with an obscenity like Trump, or something even worse; people look for alternatives.

Let me turn to another matter of considerable interest. An application was made to serve on the Committee for Standards in Public Life by Tony Wright. One could hardly imagine a better candidate for that than the man who gave his name to the Wright reforms. He was interviewed by the Chair of the Committee and found to be a splendid candidate. A decision then had to be taken about whether Tony Wright should be on that Committee, but he was turned down by the right hon. Member for West Suffolk. Why on earth should a matter like that be a ministerial decision? That was very interesting. The decision should certainly be taken by people who are independent and outside this place. It just so happens, of course, that that Member might be seen to have had a vested interest as someone likely to be accused by the person responsible—the adviser himself. It is rather like a defendant in a court case being able to choose his own judge. The last person who should have been allowed to blackball Tony Wright was the right hon. Member for West Suffolk. That is the highly unsatisfactory situation we have now.

For all these years, the adviser has been there doing his job, getting paid a considerable salary, but with virtually nothing to do. On any basis, it is a waste of public money to continue to keep him in office. When the Select Committee on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs had a pre-appointment hearing, we were unanimous in saying that the present holder of the office was not the right one to take on the job because he has had a lifetime of public service, saying, “Yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir” as a civil servant. Was he the right man to provide that independence of thought and decision making? As a cross-party Committee with a Conservative majority, we decided that he was not, but that recommendation was ignored and overruled by the then Prime Minister. The whole idea of reform, which was a good one—that there must be some kind of surveillance of ministerial behaviour—was a waste and a failure. We are in a position to drive the public’s knowledge of politics, but their appreciation, and their trust in this place and in politics generally is gravely damaged.

There are problems in other areas, too, including with the completely futile group, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, which has absolutely no power. Abuses take place through the revolving door, whereby people who leave Parliament are prepared to hawk around, and to prostitute their insider knowledge and contacts to the highest bidder. There is no way that can be stopped, as we have no mechanism for interfering with it. When people breach the few rules that do exist, there is no way of bringing them to book. We are in a position, in public life, that is extremely dangerous, and I would like the Minister to explain why the cases I have mentioned were not referred to the independent adviser. What plans do the Government have to ensure that the neglect of the office by a Prime Minister over the past five years is not allowed to continue?

In March 2010, David Cameron made a rousing speech about how he was going to clean up politics and get rid of lobbying, but he came into office and things now are worse than they were then. The Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 ignored the corporate lobbyists but made life a bit uncomfortable for charities and trade unions. He was dabbling with the minnows in the shallows while the great fat salmon swam by unhindered.

We look with some trepidation to our future and the future of politics. The great debate going on at the moment is very much along the lines of the political class having been brought into disrepute. The Government should look seriously at our own reputations, and ensure that we have mechanisms here that work and are not subject to the bias and political interests of Prime Ministers.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. The reason why the two Ministers responsible for this matter are not standing here is that one is on paternity leave after the birth of his second son, Aubrey Valentine Hamilton, and the other is on a ministerial visit outside London. I spoke to the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) last week to express their sorrow that they could not be here to respond to the debate. I hope that he finds me a suitable stand-in who does not say the word “transparency” too many times.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution, and I congratulate him on securing this debate and on speaking so fluently. The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, of which he is a member, has been looking into the matter for some time, so the debate is timely. As always, I have listened to him and considered, as carefully as I can, what he said. I will try my best to respond to as many of his points as possible.

As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, the office of the independent adviser was set up by a Labour Government. It has a purpose that everybody knows about, and it is important to start by reiterating the lines of ministerial accountability. The very first section of the ministerial code makes it clear that:

“Ministers must...comply at all times with the requirements which Parliament itself has laid down in relation to the accountability and responsibility of Ministers.”

That is incorporated into a resolution of Parliament, as he well knows.

The code states what to all of us in politics is the blindingly obvious, which is that

“Ministers only remain in office for so long as they retain the confidence of the Prime Minister.”

It also sets out that it is the Prime Minister who

“is the ultimate judge of the standards of behaviour expected of a Minister”.

It is also he—I should say she; I must get that right now, in the new regime—who decides

“the appropriate consequences of a breach of those standards.”

She makes the decisions, and is accountable to Parliament and the public for those decisions. The independent adviser is someone outside Government who can provide the Prime Minister with independent advice. There has been no change to that approach, which has existed under every Government since the role was established under Labour in 2006.

There are two key aspects to the role, both of which are important and one of which the hon. Gentleman almost completely ignores. First, the independent adviser provides Ministers and their departmental private secretaries with advice on handling Ministers’ private interests in order to avoid any conflict between those interests and their ministerial responsibilities. That is set out in section 7 of the ministerial code and prevents any problems from occurring in the first place, helping to explain why fewer investigations are carried out by the independent adviser than perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like.

The second element of the job is to investigate when the Prime Minister, advised by the Cabinet Secretary, decides that allegations that an individual Minister may have breached the ministerial code of conduct are appropriate for investigation. Section 7 of the code sets out the adviser’s role with respect to ministerial interests, making it clear that:

“It is the personal responsibility of each Minister to decide whether and what action is needed to avoid a conflict or the perception of a conflict, taking account of advice received from their Permanent Secretary and the independent adviser”.

Again, that is a check to prevent problems from occurring in the first place, which helps to explain why so few investigations are carried out by the independent adviser.

Ministers are required on appointment to each new office to provide their permanent secretary and the independent adviser with a full list, in writing, of their interests that might be thought to give rise to conflict. Where appropriate, the independent adviser will advise Ministers and permanent secretaries on any action necessary to avoid a conflict or potential conflict of interest, removing future problems at the earliest stage. Ministers must then record in writing what action has been taken and provide the independent adviser with a copy of that record. The work is all behind the scenes, but it is crucial.

[Paul Flynn]

I did not use all the time available to me, so that I could give the Minister a chance to reply. Although I appreciate that he has difficulty in filling a quarter of an hour, it is not good enough just to repeat the situation and the rules of the code. He should answer the specific points I raised. Will he, for instance, tell us why the case of the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), the then Secretary of State for Defence, was not referred to the independent adviser, as Sir Philip Mawer said it should have been?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I happily took the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, but he has intervened on me with 10 minutes to go in my prepared speech, and I have plenty to tell him about all that if he will please wait for that particular passage.

I emphasise that this is behind-the-scenes work because it is so crucial, and by doing it we address a lot of problems before the issues might arise. The hon. Gentleman can hardly complain about the independent adviser being impotent when the independent adviser is doing so much work to prevent problems from occurring in the first place. Most importantly, the Government are as transparent as possible about the process. The Cabinet Office publishes a list of Ministers’ relevant interests twice a year, which enables external scrutiny of any potential conflicts. It is an ongoing process, not a one-off. The most recent list was published in July 2016, and the updated list will be published in a few weeks, when the hon. Gentleman will be able to enjoy the slim pickings in my first ever entry.

The pickings are slim because every Minister I know takes the ministerial code seriously from the first time they look at it. I wanted to continue being a trustee of a local charity in my constituency, but I took advice that I was not allowed to do so because it would be in conflict with the ministerial code. I could have continued with the trusteeship but, being in conflict, I would no doubt have been referred—happily, in the hon. Gentleman’s eyes—to the independent adviser for investigation. That is the process. The independent adviser’s job is to try to prevent problems from happening by giving sensible advice at key points in time.

The independent adviser, at the request of the Prime Minister and having consulted the Cabinet Secretary, investigates alleged breaches of the ministerial code. The decision on whether an individual Minister will remain in office is ultimately for the Prime Minister, who will take into account the facts established by the independent adviser. The results of any investigation by the independent adviser are made public.

As the ultimate judge of the standards of behaviour expected of a Minister, it is rightly for the Prime Minister, in consultation with the Cabinet Secretary, to decide whether an alleged breach of the ministerial code merits investigation by the independent adviser. In some cases, the Prime Minister may conclude that there is no need for such advice—the facts will already be clear. In other cases, she may decide that there is a need for further investigation before she can make a decision. In those instances, she may refer the case to the independent adviser. It is not the role of the independent adviser to initiate his own investigations. He is there to advise the Prime Minister on allegations of breaches of the ministerial code. He gives the advice; the Prime Minister makes the decision.

Let us also be clear that Ministers are personally responsible for deciding how to act and conduct themselves in light of the ministerial code, and they are responsible for justifying their actions and conduct to Parliament and the public. We also have an independent and robust free press in this country, which plays an important role in holding individual Ministers and the Government as a whole to account.

There have been suggestions in the past that the ministerial code should be ratified by Parliament. The Government’s view is that that would blur the lines between the Executive and Parliament. The ministerial code is the Prime Minister’s guidance to her Ministers on how they should conduct themselves in public office. Parliament already has a powerful range of mechanisms to hold the Government to account, some of which I enjoyed as a Back Bencher. The Government see no reason to change that well established approach and believe that the current model works well.

[Paul Flynn]

Will the Minister explain how the system worked well in the case of Kids Company? The accusation was of largesse, with huge amounts of money being given to the then Prime Minister’s project. The person who stopped the investigation of the obvious waste of £3 million was the then Prime Minister. How can a system be fair and reasonable, and how can it work, when the Prime Minister acts as judge and jury when he himself is accused?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

There has been absolutely no suggestion of any breach of the ministerial code in that particular case. There have been a number of investigations, including one by the Select Committee on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs, of which the hon. Gentleman is a member, and one by the Public Accounts Committee. The latter recommended a number of outcomes and lessons to be learned, and obviously those lessons will be learned, but there has been absolutely no suggestion of any breach of the ministerial code in that case.

The Government are confident that the role of the independent adviser, along with the broader commitment to transparency, will create a framework that is more robust and significantly stronger than the one that applies to the public sector. Publishing the list of Ministers’ interests is just one part of the Government’s commitment to transparency. The list, alongside the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, ensures that information about Ministers’ interests that are relevant to their Government role is in the public domain. Measures have been put in place, where necessary, to avoid any conflict of interest. The Government are proud to be one of the most transparent in the world, and we have taken steps to publish more information than ever before, including details of ministerial gifts over £140, overseas travel and any hospitality received.

The hon. Gentleman raised specific questions today about the role of the independent adviser, and he has raised questions about the independence of the role on numerous occasions. I have already made it clear that this is a personal appointment by the Prime Minister of the day. The post holder must be outside party politics and must provide his own independent views on the issues that are referred to him. The Prime Minister makes the appointment on the basis of an assessment of the post holder’s ability to provide such an independent perspective. It is our judgment that the current post holder, Sir Alex Allan, has the experience and necessary skills and judgment to make him ideally suited for the role. He has expertise, experience and ability to provide confidential and trusted advice to Ministers and their permanent secretaries from an independent, non-party political point of view.

I re-emphasise the process. If there is an allegation about a breach of the code and the Prime Minister, having consulted the Cabinet Secretary, feels that it warrants further investigation, she will refer the matter to the independent adviser on Ministers’ interests. Ministers are responsible for deciding how to conduct themselves in light of the code and for justifying their actions to Parliament and the people. The code makes it clear that Ministers only remain in office as long as they retain the confidence of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is the ultimate judge of the standards of behaviour expected of a Minister, and the appropriate consequences come from her if there is a breach of those standards.

I know that the hon. Gentleman will be slightly disappointed by my reply. He comes across as slightly —I don’t know—Trumpist in looking for conspiracy everywhere, where perhaps none exists. Proper investigations have taken place. It is important for us to realise that the Government take transparency very seriously, and we will not blur the lines between the Executive and Parliament. Parliament already has mechanisms to hold the Government to account.

Today’s debate has demonstrated remarkably strongly held views on this subject. My remarks will not have pleased the hon. Gentleman.

[Paul Flynn]

I recall the words of Chaucer:

“That if gold ruste, what shal iren do?”

He spoke of:

“A shiten shepherde and a clene sheep”.

What we have here is an accusation that if the head is behaving in a partial way, and if the Head of Government is rotten, the whole flock will be rotten.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

The hon. Gentleman has gone on a bit about how the standing of politics and how this place is viewed by the public has gone down. Those who look at his Twitter feed will see that he does not particularly like his voters and how they voted on Brexit. Maybe that is a disparity that he would like to examine slightly more closely than this issue.

I hope my remarks today have made it clear how the Government take issues of ministerial conduct very seriously, but we remain of the view that the appointment and dismissal of Ministers is a matter for the Prime Minister. We are satisfied with how the current model works.

Question put and agreed to.

House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), who always makes very substantial contributions when he speaks in the House during our deliberations. I rise in support of the motion from my SNP colleagues, and it is a pleasure to follow the lead of my good friend the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who gave us his usual majestic performance while opening the debate.

Since being elected, I have been immensely impressed with the robotic discipline of some Government Back Benchers when it comes to political messaging. The most infamous catchphrase during my first term here was “the long-term economic plan”. We have not heard much about that since the EU referendum, for obvious reasons. Another famous battle cry in my time here has been “cutting the cost of politics”. Today’s welcome debate on House of Lords reform gives us the opportunity to deconstruct that myth once and for all, because it is impossible to divorce culling the number of MPs from the deliberate bloating of the upper House by this Government.

Over a quarter of Welsh MPs are set to be removed under the boundary review—proportionally more than in any other constituent nation of the UK or region of England. Wales faces a double whammy: a poorer constitutional settlement in terms of powers, when compared with our friends in Scotland and Northern Ireland, yet the largest cut in representation in this place. I have no problem with equalising the size of constituencies for this House, but for that to happen and to have my support, Wales must have the same constitutional settlement as the other devolved Administrations. However, the Wales Bill, which has just made its way from this place to the other House, is a terrible Bill if we look at the powers offered to other parts of the UK.

At almost 800 Members, the House of Lords is now the second-largest Chamber on earth—beaten to the top spot only by China’s National People’s Congress, which I am led to believe has nearly 3,000 members. China, of course, has a population 28 times the size of the United Kingdom’s. Between this House and the other place, Westminster has over 1,400 politicians, and there is nothing stopping that number climbing even higher; there is no limit on the number of peers the two big parties can send to the other place, whether that involves failed career politicians or just favours to old friends. The cost of running the Lords, as we have heard, is around £100 million per annum, according to the Electoral Reform Society. Each peer costs taxpayers in our respective nations £120,000. Culling the upper House therefore seems the most obvious way of cutting the cost of politics.

It is also important to remember that Members of the upper Chamber can become Ministers: they can not only amend our laws, but make them, and that point has been missing so far from the debate.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there are many defects in our constitution at the moment? One of the principal ones is the small number of Members of the Welsh Assembly. Their work has trebled, and they are under great strain—some of them are on three or four Committees. If we are to have the reforms that we need, it would be far better not to do things piecemeal and not to reduce the number of MPs only, but to have a convention, so that we can get a balance and reduce membership in other places, and that can be done only by an overall, comprehensive reform of the constitution.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am very grateful for that intervention. I have often suspected that the hon. Gentleman—my honourable comrade—has mind-reading abilities, because that was exactly my next point.

The National Assembly for Wales, which is responsible for major public services in Wales—the health service, education, economic development and many other issues—has just 60 elected representatives. Discounting Welsh Ministers, that leaves only 42 Back Benchers to scrutinise a Government making vital decisions in my country. If the Wales Bill makes its way through the House of Lords and gets a legislative consent motion in the Assembly, although that might be in question, it would also have, for the first time, responsibility for fiscal powers in Wales. That is a clear case for increasing the numbers in the National Assembly.

Before the latest cramming of the Lords when the former Prime Minister handed out peerages to his friends, 27% of peers listed representative politics as their main profession prior to entering the Lords. Most of them had been MPs; it must be the only legislature in the world where losing elections helps people gain seats. Many colleagues have mentioned the Liberal Democrats. I am not going to attack the Lib Dems, but I remember that the Lib Dems filled two of the bottom Government Benches during the last Parliament, and when I recently went to see a debate in the House of Lords, they were all sitting there in the right-hand corner, much to my surprise. A further 7% of peers had been political staff, and twice as many had worked as staff in the royal household than as manual or skilled labour. It is hardly a Chamber that is representative of our various communities across the United Kingdom.

For as long as decisions affecting Wales are to be made in the other place, Plaid Cymru will continue to press for equal representation for us. However, we believe that there is no role for patronage and an appointment system in a modern democracy. Following the Brexit vote, the UK faces a stark choice between two futures: do we return to a very centralised system based here in Westminster or move towards a more voluntary Union, as advocated by more sensible voices such as Lord Sainsbury in the other place? In my view, this place should turn into a Parliament for England, and the House of Lords should be reformed to become a confederal Parliament.

Summer Adjournment

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

It is heartening to end on a climactic point and to congratulate Mrs Fitzpatrick on her award. This has been a splendid debate. It is one of the joys of Parliament that we have a day on which we can discuss these matters. It is politics in miniature, as we discuss matters that are of protozoan importance nationally, but of vast, gigantic importance in our constituencies.

I have the pleasure of welcoming the new Deputy Leader of the House to his post. We have jousted together on the Home Affairs Committee, where his ferocious skills as an interrogator terrified witnesses, who were subject to a cross-examination that would be worthy of a mass murderer in the High Court. Many of them, when they left the Select Committee room, went out seeking the number of the Samaritans or a trauma counsellor.

The hon. Gentleman has already reached the peak of his parliamentary career, which he cannot overtop. During our debate to congratulate Her Majesty earlier this year, he told an anecdote that will live long in the legends of this House. It concerned the vital matter of the positioning of a chain around the unicorn’s neck in the stained-glass window in Westminster Hall. This anecdote was described in The Daily Telegraph, by a writer who uses the traditional and admirable English gift for understatement, as

“the single most boring anecdote of all time.”

I ask you—where can he go with his career after that major achievement?

We have had a fascinating list of possible holiday destinations laid before us today. For anyone who is interested in yoga, Harrow is the place to go; it is the yoga paradise of the world. But they should watch out, because it is a hellhole for those who accumulate garden waste; it has the highest collection charges in the whole of the United Kingdom. We have heard about the joys of the Gillies in Stirling. Gillie is the Gaelic word for a servant, and we heard about the magnificent occasion when the Gillies came out and banged their saucepans and drums and convinced the English Army that reinforcements were on the way. We have heard about the joys of Bushy Park in the constituency of Twickenham, where, we were told, the airport should not be bigger but should be better. And for those with exotic tastes, there is a festival of engineering in Chippenham, which will set all our pulses racing.

A theme that ran through the debate was transport, and at least seven Members bemoaned the deficiencies of the privatised rail service. I commend to all of them a report on privatisation, published in this House in 1993 on the advent of privatisation, under the great parliamentarian Robert Adley—who tragically died on the Sunday before the Wednesday on which the report was published—which forecast in minute detail the problems that we are talking about today. Of course, Robert Adley was a great expert on railways, and I believe that is the supreme report of any published by a Select Committee in my time in the House. We are seeing the legacy now. The problems that we face spring from the difficulties of privatisation, rather than from any disputes that have taken place.

To his great credit, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) cleverly used the debate to point out that today the Government have published 29 statements, which cannot be scrutinised in the House. He brought attention to the very important increase in the level of fees, and ultimately loans, that students will suffer, and to the withdrawal of bursaries for student nurses. Those vital matters are the subject of just two of the 29 statements that have been published today—in order, presumably, to bury bad news.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) made an impassioned plea on behalf of those who are suffering from Government policy on poverty. We often talk about the state of the economy generally, but she talked about what happens at the level of the family—the difficulties that they face. I think that we will all read her speech with great interest and learn a great deal from it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) and the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) raised the crucial problem that worries us a great deal: the alienation of young people post Brexit. We realise that we have a legacy from the referendum and the deficiencies in our electoral system, for which we will pay a high price unless we tackle them with major reforms.

The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) raised, quite legitimately, the problems of the defence budget. Spending on conventional weapons is being delayed, while spending on the useless symbol of national virility has, sadly, been approved by this House.

I offer great congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan). I noticed from her maiden speech that she has the good luck to be married to a Welshman, which is rather like being upgraded on a plane. She made the very powerful point that what the Government are doing with their plans for the health service is trying to stretch the funding for a five-day health service over seven days. She pointed out that key weakness, and spoke about this matter with great knowledge and experience. Again, she is a great asset to this House, and I am sure she will have a great career. It is disappointing that the former Prime Minister’s forecast that she would be in the shadow Cabinet within a day has not been fulfilled, but perhaps it will come true during the next few weeks.

I thank everyone for what they have said today. I cannot go into all the details of what was raised, but I am sure this is Parliament at its very best—doing the work not on the great issues we pontificate about, but the bread and butter issues that concern our constituents. I believe all the issues raised will have the attentive ear of the new Leader of the House and his Deputy, and we look forward to instant results before we return in September.

Iraq Inquiry Report

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Thursday 14th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

I agree with every word from the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), and I warmly congratulate him on obtaining this debate. This issue disturbs all of us who were in the House at that time more than any other decision taken this generation. Members who were in that debate and who, in their view now and with hindsight, voted the wrong way, deeply regret that, and regard their parliamentary careers as failures because they allowed themselves to be bribed, bullied and bamboozled into believing a fiction that came from the Front Bench. That was not just the Prime Minister; this was the whole establishment, and three parliamentary Select Committees —the Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Intelligence and Security Committees —and the military supported the idea. The Conservative party was more gung-ho than the Labour party, and we must look at this issue because the repercussions of that decision continue today.

The suffering continues, and the mother of the 200th soldier to die in Afghanistan, Hazel Hunt, has set up a foundation and runs a successful charity. It deals with the suffering of the thousands of soldiers who have been maimed in mind or body as a result of that terrible mistake.

We also need to get the Iraq inquiry over with so we can have another inquiry. Another terrible mistake was made in 2006. The decision to go into Helmand province was made in the belief that not a shot would be fired. At that time, we had been in Afghanistan for five years and only six of our soldiers had died in that conflict. As a result of the terrible error of invading Helmand in 2006, 450 of our soldiers died.

The important point is this—and this is not being wise after the event. In March 2003, I sent a letter to Tony Blair saying that going into Iraq in support of Bush’s war would mean that we would drive a wedge between the Christian western world and the Muslim world. There would be a sense of antagonism and injustice from the Muslims in my local mosque to the Muslims in the far corners of the world. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden is right. ISIS is the daughter of our decision to go to Iraq. We must look at that with great seriousness.

At the time, the Public Administration Committee made a number of strong recommendations. Some were followed, but the main one was that the inquiry should not be held in secret. The Committee made another recommendation that the inquiry should have a large parliamentary element to it. In fact, it recommended that there should be two inquiries: one into the reason for going to war and one into the repercussions. Never in our wildest nightmares did anyone believe that the loved ones of those who had fallen would have to suffer a period of seven years of not knowing whether their loved ones were sent to a battle that was based on the vanity of politicians and not on the real interests of our country. The agony goes on.

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that with modern printing and publishing techniques it is possible to write a book, email it to the printers and get it back two or three days later. The process is virtually instantaneous. The old system of setting up things in type was immensely laborious and time-consuming. There is no excuse for delaying this any further—not for a single day. The loved ones deserve closure. They have waited far too long. It is only in the political interests of those responsible—the guilty ones—that it continues.

[Mr Graham Allen]

Does my hon. Friend accept that publication is necessary to purge our own party of the fault line that occurred around the time of the Iraq war and which continues to this day? It also besmirches the reputation of an otherwise very fine Prime Minister, who, until we admit the mistake of going to Iraq and opening this Pandora’s box, will forever be known as the person who took us to war on the coat-tails of George W. Bush against so many of his colleagues in the House at the time. The mistake needs to be corrected. That would be good for all of us on the Labour Benches, if nowhere else.

[Paul Flynn]

As someone brought up with a religious background, I realise fully the advantage and beneficial nature of confession.

It is absolutely crucial that we understand the mindset that drove us into war. That mindset is one we have heard recently in other debates in relation to going into Libya or Syria. The myth that infects English MPs—rather than Scottish, Welsh or Irish MPs—is the idea that the UK, our country, must punch above its weight militarily. That always means spending beyond our interests and dying beyond our responsibilities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. He mentioned Norway, and indeed there is plenty of precedent. I think that that was an excuse for not holding an inquiry, and I think that it was a mistake.

It is not just the bereaved who are owed an explanation, however. Those of us who were in the House at the time are owed one as well. All of us bore a responsibility for the decisions that we made on whether to vote for the war or not, and those of us who were on the Front Bench bore a special responsibility. However, we had no more information than what we read in the newspapers.

When I voted for the war, I did so for three reasons. First, I had had a meeting in New York with Hans Blix, the United Nations chief weapons inspector, who had said that he had no doubt that Saddam Hussein intended to develop weapons of mass destruction, and that if he could develop them he would use them, but he—Hans Blix—could not, at that point, find them. He said that just a month before the war started, and I thought that it was pretty compelling.

My second reason was, of course, the “45 minutes” claim. I remember this vividly, because it was all over the front page of the Evening Standard. We were told that Saddam Hussein could launch what I think were described as “battlefield biological and chemical weapons” at 45 minutes’ notice, and reach the sovereign British base of Cyprus. I thought, “I have a responsibility. I am a shadow defence Minister.” I could hear Mr John Humphreys, on the “Today” programme, saying, “Well, you knew all about this, Mr Howarth, so why did you not take action at the time?” I felt that that claim had to be taken seriously.

Thirdly, I thought that, as a key ally of the United States, we had a very close relationship with that country, and we had to have a good reason for not supporting our US friends. I realise that that view will not be shared universally in the House.

[Paul Flynn]

Can the hon. Gentleman, from his very knowledgeable position on this matter, clarify something that has been a great puzzle? While a case might have been made for saying that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, was there any plausible case for saying in what scenario he would ever use them against the west without guaranteeing his own suicide?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

I completely agree with my right hon.—and gallant—Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) that it is unconscionable to continue to delay the publication of this report. National security checking of the Iraq inquiry is holding up publication of a report that is critical to our national security. Only by understanding how we got involved in this gigantic geo-strategic error of an invasion can we learn the profound lessons for our political class, the military and the diplomatic establishment. Indeed, the question is ultimately about the whole mechanism of government. The sub-text for too many of us in politics and the media is who might be damaged by the contents of the report. We play to the gallery, and love to play the man and not the wrecking ball that shattered security assumptions and the balance of power in the middle east.

Is not the real question the substance of the report and the answers it might give to how we managed to get embroiled in Iraq, perhaps providing pointers to the sister conflict in Afghanistan, our well-intentioned but disastrous intervention in Libya and our clueless response to the rise of so-called Islamic State? Six hundred and thirty-four British troops and at least 150,000 civilian lives were lost in them, and as a consequence we face a far greater strategic threat from theo-fascism than we faced at 9/11.

When the report is published we might hope that, through Sir John’s access and witnesses, we can start the necessary self-examination of how we got ourselves into these wars. I believe that our ongoing failure is caused by a lack of effective political and military leadership.

From what I have seen on the ground since I became an MP in 2005—in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and last week in Syria with my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden—I believe that the full panoply of the Government machine has become dysfunctional in four overlapping parts. First, we have suffered from having a narrowly focused class of professional politicians who understand politics, not leadership, and who have almost no understanding of the complexities or realities on the ground. Secondly, we have ambitious civil servants who know that careers advance by staying close to what the rest of the group think. Thirdly, we have military officers with a civil service mindset who have also learned that the right answer is “we can do it” rather than “we can’t do it without…”. Finally, we have experts who are ignored or marginalised.

No experts were present at President Bush’s Prairie Chapel ranch when Prime Minister Blair agreed to support a US-led invasion of Iraq. Of course, Prime Minister Blair was determined to uphold the US-UK alliance, but he does not seem to have made even the slightest attempt to stop his friend President Bush from driving us drunk into Iraq. Back home, we needed to find reasons to go into Iraq, and we created the infamous dossier in a sort of late-night essay crisis. So late into the night did they work in Downing Street that they managed to read the bit from the top-secret, single-source report about missiles but failed to read the “analyst’s comment” section of the CX. They failed to see the comment that there was no way in which the missiles referred to could still be in the hands of Saddam Hussein.

Most of the public, as well as many people in Parliament, were in good faith convinced by the Prime Minister. Later, we convinced ourselves that we were in Afghanistan to “fight them over there” so that we did not have to “fight them over here”. Several years ago, after I had given a presentation to an immensely senior person in a previous Government, he asked me, “Adam, are you really saying that the Taliban are not a threat to the UK?” That revealed a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between the Taliban and al-Qaeda; it almost beggared belief. That difference between a local xenophobic tribal traditional movement and a death cult was not, and is still not, understood.

We cannot be too unfair on the politicians, however, because they are sometimes not very well served by their civil servants. Throughout these wars there has been a tendency to push what I call a “good news only” culture—what General Petraeus described as “putting lipstick on pigs”. We have all heard the mantras, have we not? “We are where we are. We’re making progress. Yes, there are some challenges, but overall we really are moving forward.”

A Secretary of State for Defence was in a briefing at Basra air station that a friend of mine attended. Apparently, the Minister banged the table and said words to the effect of “Why have you not been telling me the truth? I had no idea things were quite so bad.” The Minister denies this.

Another friend was astonished accidentally to find himself in a briefing in Basra at which all those assembled were told what they should and should not tell Prime Minister Gordon Brown. At a briefing in Helmand, the Defence Committee—on which I then sat—was told, as usual, how brilliantly things were going, but when I was on a private trip to Kabul a few weeks later the official in question bounded up to me in a bar and said, “Adam, I’m really sorry about that briefing I gave you the other day in Helmand. The trouble is, we just don’t get promoted for telling the truth.”

[Paul Flynn]

I am very much enjoying the hon. Gentleman’s authoritative speech. Will he confirm what he has just said, because it is a matter of some importance? I was expelled from the House for saying the same thing some years ago. Will he confirm that the story that those young people going to Afghanistan were actually stopping terrorism on the streets of Britain was an untruth; that those people were deluded into going there in the belief that they were defending their families here; and that the only reason the Taliban were killing our soldiers in Afghanistan was that we were there and that as soon as we came out they lost interest? Does he think that there was a continuing deception of our soldiers, many of whom lost their lives?

[Mr Holloway]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman in the sense that the original invasion of Afghanistan was highly effective and that the Afghan people essentially removed al-Qaeda and the Taliban, but unfortunately it was the disastrous NATO deployment to Afghanistan that whipped up the insurgency. I shall come on to that point in a minute if I may.

As I was saying, people do not get promoted for telling the truth. I sent my first draft of this speech to a friend who is a well-known and courageous BBC foreign correspondent. He emailed me, saying, “Reminds me of being attacked for negative coverage that I put out in Iraq and Afghanistan by officials who later admitted, either privately or in memoirs, that things were actually worse than I was saying in my news reports.”

With some hugely honourable exceptions, the same is true of senior military officers. After a recce of Helmand in 2004, a military officer reported back to his boss, a general at Permanent Joint Headquarters. The general asked him, “So, what’s the insurgency like in Helmand?” The officer replied, “Well, there isn’t one, but I can give you one if you want one.” At the time, the mission statement at PJHQ actually stated that the military were to give “politically aware” advice. The top brass volunteered the UK for Helmand and, as in Iraq, assured Ministers that it was doable with the original force numbers.

We experienced exactly the same with the lack of equipment. Military people in Afghanistan constantly reminded us that we had enough helicopters to do the job. A few weeks before Colonel Rupert Thorneloe and Trooper Joshua Hammond were killed by an improvised explosive device, Rupert wrote that he and his men were making “unnecessary...road moves” because of the lack of helicopters. He went on to say:

“This increases the IED threat and our exposure to it.”

A senior British general briefed the Defence Committee at ISAF headquarters in Kabul, and basically tore my head off for being a naysayer. When I was back in Kabul a few weeks later, again on a private trip, I went to see him at the end of the day. As I rather nervously walked into his office, I said, “Well, general, are we still winning?” He said, “If we damn well are, I’ll be dead by the time we do.” I was hearing one thing in public and another in private.

As a soldier, I was in Iraq before the war in 1991, and in 2003 I found myself back on the ground. As I have said before, I will never forget driving into Mosul after the regime dissolved and the city collapsing into anarchy before our eyes. It was the first time as a journalist that I had kept a sub-machine gun close to me. There were bodies on the streets. There was chaos, and a really nasty, threatening environment. American jets were coming down low, fast and noisily to intimidate people. I went to a police station to find out where the American troops were in the city. Saddam Hussein lookalikes were standing around, and the police brigadier general told us where the Americans were. Just before we left he said, “When you find the Americans, can you please get them to come up here and give us our instructions?” I hope you will agree that it was pretty astounding that, as their regime was falling, they were taking instructions from the Americans. I found the American colonel, and when I had done my business with him I said, “By the way, the Iraqi police brigadier general up the hill wants his instructions.” The American colonel said, “You can tell him to go **** himself.” It was quite extraordinary.

We ignored other experts who could have helped us. Of all the people who knew anything about Iraq, who suggested it was a good idea to dismantle Ba’athists like those police officers from the various structures of government? Would any expert have thought that that was a good idea, if asked? I do not know of anyone, apart from General Tim Cross, who thought about our responsibility to the people of Basra after the invasion.

In Afghanistan, too, the experts were consistently ignored. I was there in 1984—for part of my gap year before I went to university—when the mujahedeen were fighting the Russians. No one listened to our officials who had run the training programme for the Afghan resistance. No one listened to the senior ex-mujahedeen commanders living in north London or in the suburbs of Kabul. No one heard the concerns being expressed by the expert contractors to our foreign intelligence services, who knew many of the Taliban leadership personally. No one spoke to the agronomists who had been working for decades in the Pashtun belt.

Tax Avoidance and Evasion

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

There are a few more points that I want to make, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.

Let me address the subject of the UK’s Crown dependencies and overseas territories. Reform of the regimes of the overseas territories and Crown dependencies has been a key objective for the UK, and the reforms that we have secured have been considerable. All the UK Crown dependencies and overseas territories with financial centres are signed up as early adopters of the common reporting standard, reporting annually from 2017 in respect of data that have already been collected. The Crown dependencies and overseas territories will share information with the UK from this year, one year earlier than the rest of the world. All the UK Crown dependencies and overseas territories with a financial centre have committed to transparency on company ownership.

Last Monday the Prime Minister announced that our overseas territories and Crown dependencies have agreed that they will provide UK law enforcement and tax agencies with full access to information on the beneficial ownership of companies. For the first time, UK police and law enforcement agencies will be able to see exactly who owns and controls every company incorporated in those territories. This is a major step forward in transparency, the result of the Government’s sustained work in this area.

It is right that we expect the overseas territories and Crown dependencies to meet international standards, and indeed they do. Yes, we want them to move towards a public central register. That is not yet the international standard. If, as the Leader of the Opposition suggests, every former colony that does not have a public register should be recolonised, where would we begin? Is he proposing that we invade Delaware? [Interruption.] Now we come to mention it, says the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris).

The reality is—and this is the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) was right to raise—that the UK is in favour of a public register. We are implementing a public register in June for the first time. We have never had one before. We want other countries to do it, but very few of our European Union colleagues do so. It is not the case that the US does it. We want to ensure that it becomes the new international standard, but Orders in Council condemning overseas territories for failing to do what most of our EU colleagues do not do would not be fair or effective. The approach that we have taken has brought the overseas territories and Crown dependencies a long way. I fear that the approach advocated by the Labour party would fail to work.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Will the Financial Secretary give way?

[Mr Gauke]

I will make some more progress. The hon. Gentleman has just arrived.

As well as leading international action, we have ensured that domestically our regime is both tough and transparent. We have invested more than £1.8 billion in HMRC since 2010 to tackle evasion, avoidance and non-compliance. The £800 million extra funding that we announced in the summer Budget 2015 will enable HMRC to recover a cumulative £7.2 billion in tax over the next five years, and to triple the number of criminal investigations it can undertake into serious and complex tax crime. In the last Parliament, we made more than 40 changes to tax law, closing down existing loopholes and introducing major reforms to the UK taxation system, raising £12 billion.

Penalties increased, new offences created, loopholes closed, new measures introduced, more money raised—it does not stop there. In this Parliament, we have already announced a further 25 measures for legislation to tackle avoidance, evasion and aggressive tax planning. These measures are forecast to raise £16 billion by 2020-21. This week, we announced that we will bring before the House this year legislation to make it a crime for corporations to fail to prevent their representatives from criminally facilitating tax evasion. This new corporate offence goes further than any other country has gone in holding corporations to account for criminal wrongdoing. It will apply to both UK and overseas corporations, and will set a new standard for corporate responsibility and accountability. I am sure that Members on all sides of the House will support any measures as they go through.

What a contrast to the 13 years of the Labour Government. This week, the Opposition ramp up the rhetoric, but it was not on our watch that private equity managers had a lower rate of tax than their cleaners. It was not on our watch that the wealthy could sidestep stamp duty. It was not on our watch that high earners could disguise their remuneration as loans that were never repaid. Those are just some of the loopholes left open by Labour—loopholes that we have been busy closing ever since.

Let me make one further point about the approach of the Labour party over the past week. Yes, taxes should be paid in accordance with the law and the intentions of Parliament, and we should take action against those who fail to do so. Those of us on the Government Benches certainly hold that view. But too often in the past week, Labour has appeared to be motivated by something else. That something else is hostility to the wealthy—not for dodging taxes, but just for being wealthy, for being successful, for earning money and for wanting to pass it on to their children. Those are things which millions of people aspire to do.

Thanks to the actions that this Conservative Government have taken domestically and overseas, we are revolutionising tax transparency and putting an end to offshore tax evasion. This is strong and firm action from a Government committed to ensuring that every penny of tax that is owed is paid. I urge the House to reject the motion.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

May I make a number of small observations on what we have heard so far and gently say to the Minister, whom I like, that success is not measured merely in monetary terms? There are many, many successful people who will forgo stashing cash in the attic, the bank or the offshore tax haven.

On HMRC, we have no problem with efficiency or with organisations being fit for purpose. We have no qualms about genuine waste being eroded, but we look askance at 17 out of 18 tax offices being closed and only one being reopened, and the argument that somehow that will deliver more for substantially less.

The shadow Chancellor spoke about wealth inequality now rising to a level that we have not seen since the days of the Rockefellers or, as he said, the robber barons. I would not put the Prime Minister in the category of the super-rich, such as the Rockefellers. We know, however—the Prime Minister has been very open about this—that he bought shares, as he described it, in a trust or a fund as part of Blairmore Holdings. He sold them some years later. He did nothing illegal at all. That episode shone a very bright light in a very murky corner of offshore tax havens. One thing that struck me was that he bought the stock in 1997 and sold it in 2010. Those dates were familiar to me. It was the entire duration of Blair, Brown and new Labour. On the underlying issue, which I know the shadow Chancellor is genuinely concerned about, and on many of the points that the Minister made at the end of his speech, the Labour party did nothing for 13 years. I am glad that this is now on the agenda in a proper and cogent way.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin) made a number of telling points on this subject in his speech on the Second Reading of the Finance Bill on Monday. He said:

“you cannot build economic success on the back of social injustice.”—[Official Report, 11 April 2016; Vol. 608, c. 115.]

He also said, quoting Adam Smith:

“No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.”

He argued that creating such division does not bring progress, and he went on to describe how much of this division is characterised today by people in certain quarters being able to park large sums of money offshore, and the rest—the vast majority—being unable to do that.

My hon. Friend suggested that, according to Jason Hickel of the London School of Economics, tax havens hide one sixth of the world’s total private wealth—in excess of $20 trillion. Some estimates put that as high as $32 trillion, and CNN described it on Monday evening as about 6% of total global GDP. There are higher estimates. We can probably all agree that it is around $20 trillion, or 15 times UK GDP, parked offshore in tax havens—money and assets which very wealthy people and criminals can hide from the relevant tax authorities.

The revelations in the millions of documents in the Panama papers from Mossack Fonseca are but the tip of the iceberg. I am told that it is the fourth biggest law firm in Panama providing these services, which means there are three larger firms, and I presume that there are dozens, scores or hundreds of smaller firms doing the same. And it is not simply in Panama. Indeed, Panama does not even make it into the top 10 tax havens. Taken together—I do not think this situation has changed yet, notwithstanding the measures that the Government have announced—the UK and the overseas territories collectively are No. 1, outstripping even Switzerland by some margin, it is argued.

It is worth reminding ourselves that at a single address in the Cayman Islands, Ugland House, there are 19,000 registered businesses. I am certain that some of them will be legal, but many will not be. Many will be companies whose beneficial owners remain hidden from the tax authorities there, here or elsewhere. That means that income that should be the subject of taxation will go untaxed, to the detriment of public services here and elsewhere.

We have, in essence, an international system of finance that enables tax avoidance on an industrial scale, a system that hides from scrutiny the owners of vast wealth while the ordinary man, woman or business in the street does not have, and does not want, that luxury. They pay their fair share, and they simply want others to do the same. What makes it most unfair—I think this is why people are so angry—is that when assets or income are hidden and go untaxed, we all suffer as the resources we need for vital public services are reduced and squeezed.

It is also the case that much of the tax stashed in tax havens is looted from developing countries, so this is not simply an issue for the west. It is a matter of fundamental importance to those developing economies, which frankly are in even more need of the tax receipts that are effectively stolen from and then parked in tax havens around the world. That is why part of the solution must involve a global agreement on country-by-country reporting to ensure that tax authorities and others can follow the money.

The question from my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Callum McCaig) was absolutely right. We are moving to having data shared between the Crown dependencies and overseas territories and the law enforcement and tax authorities here. We think that should be public—there is absolutely no doubt about that—but it should also be shared elsewhere. If miscreants are identified by the Revenue or the police here, I hope that there will be a very swift phone call to the appropriate authorities elsewhere so that they, too, can follow the money.

[Paul Flynn]

Does the hon. Gentleman think it is significant that China has £44 billion invested in the Cayman Islands and £49 billion in the British Virgin Islands? Is not one of the reasons why the Government might not want to act against these tax havens that they are ingratiating themselves with the Chinese, who are busy destroying our steel industry?

[Stewart Hosie]

I suspect that the Chinese authorities are interested in that £93 billion just as much as we are, because I suspect that much of it is not there—how can I put this gently?—officially. They have as big a problem with money being fleeced from their system as we and other countries have with ours.

Another issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, and by my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (George Kerevan), is the question of where the money actually is and how it is set to work for its beneficiaries. As we know, cash funds do not actually sit in the Cayman Islands or the Bahamas. One of the biggest centres for the cash is London, and we can see where some of that money is spent. For example, hundreds, if not thousands, of rather expensive properties in London have been bought by persons unknown. We have therefore called for radical reform to address tax avoidance, outright evasion and criminality and to deliver fairness across the board so that the very wealthy pay the tax that is due in precisely the same way as those on more modest earnings.

The starting point for paying tax in this country is the Revenue knowing precisely who owns what assets and what income is derived from them. In short, that means a public register of beneficial ownership of companies, and not just in the UK, but for the Crown dependencies and the overseas territories as well, precisely so that nobody can hide assets or incomes through an opaque structure of a company registered in an overseas territory, registered by a Panamanian lawyer while the money comes swiftly to a bank account in London and is parked in a multi-million pound mansion in Mayfair through an anonymous shell company.

That also means taking serious action on trusts. The argument that the Prime Minister used was that he would not have got the agreement had trusts been included. He argued—possibly correctly historically—that those trusts were set up in order to allow sophisticated investors to invest in dollar-denominated stock. But times have changed. I took a cursory look at the stock exchange website this morning. On its “frequently asked questions” page, I saw the following question: “Can a company have its securities traded in currencies other than sterling, for example euros and dollars?” The answer was, “Yes, your shares can be denominated and traded in any freely available currency you choose.” Indeed, the stock exchange launched a Masala rupee-denominated bond last week. The old arguments that these structures are required for non-sterling trades or investment are now simply wrong. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath put it, even if the Prime Minister was right some years ago, he is wrong now and public opinion has changed dramatically.

That brings me to what else the Prime Minister said on Monday. He said that he has published all the information on his tax returns for the past six years. He has provided details about money inherited from and given to him by his family. He has published other sources of income and his salary. He dealt specifically with the shares that he and his wife held in a unit trust called Blairmore Holdings, set up by his late father. That, from our point of view, was precisely the right thing to do. However, in a sense, all of that is irrelevant because it did not actually address the fundamental issue of individuals holding assets through overseas shell companies and being able to hide them and their income from the tax man.

Also, in describing the actions that the Government are taking to deal with tax evasion, aggressive tax avoidance and international corruption more broadly, the Prime Minister said that they have put an end to rich homeowners getting away without paying stamp duty because their houses are enveloped within companies. He said that they had made 40 changes to close loopholes, and they have sought agreement on global standards for the automatic exchange of information, and in June this year, as the Minister has pointed out, the UK will become the first country in the G20 to have a public register of beneficial ownership so that everyone can see who really owns and controls each company. We recognise that there has also been work on base erosion and profit shifting.

All of that is to be welcomed. What we are saying is that we need to go further. It will simply not be enough for the police and the tax authorities to see beneficial ownership of companies registered in Crown dependencies; it must be public, so that the citizens of those countries and ours can see who precisely owns and benefits from what. Also, while we welcome the publication of beneficial ownership of companies in the UK, I ask the Government to ensure that sufficient resources are now dedicated to HMRC so that it can forensically scrutinise the sources of income to ensure that they are legal and that the tax due is paid. Of course, as I said earlier, the Government must also pass on to other authorities the details of any miscreants suspected of looting cash from other countries.

I am delighted that this subject is now under real scrutiny. I am also delighted that we have gone wider than the parochial. Oxfam has pointed out how significant this is in its report “Ending the Era of Tax Havens”. It gives encouragement to the Government, stating:

“The UK is especially well placed to show leadership here because it controls or directly influences by far the largest network of tax havens in the world. This network, encompassing the UK’s Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories and centred on the City of London, is estimated to account for nearly a quarter of global financial services provided to nonresidents within a jurisdiction. Taken together, this UK entity would sit at the top of the ranking in the Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy Index”.

That is not something we should be proud of. However, Oxfam goes on to talk about the opportunity the Government have, saying that success in tackling corruption and tax evasion could be transformative not just in terms of our revenue, but in terms of the fight against global poverty and inequality, which, for the SNP, is just as important.

I will end by saying one thing to the Government: the cat is out of the bag. This is not just about Mossack Fonseca; this is the tip of the iceberg. The public will not allow this matter to be quietly swept under the carpet again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

I am happy to start on a note of consensus with the hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee) and my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) that this is all about trust. The public have reacted so fiercely against recent events because there is a collapse of trust in us. The expenses scandal was a screaming nightmare, and public trust reached rock bottom. It is now subterranean—it has got worse. An examination of our standards in this House is currently taking place, and I urge every hon. Member to contribute to it. Democracy itself—the political system—is under threat.

The country is rightly angry about the unfairness in the system. The other day in the House, we heard the most insulting speech, which will deepen the sense of alienation between the Government and the Opposition. I have been here a long time and I recall an incident in which the person who made that speech revealed to the newspapers how he made some of his money. He bought the council house of an elderly gentleman in London, who I think was a neighbour, on the basis that it would appreciate greatly in value and that the neighbour would not live very long. The agreement that the hon. Member made was that he would give the tenant, who would get a discount for being there for years, the money to buy the house and then the hon. Member would inherit the house. That is Tory morality, and it is morally repugnant. It is not the right to buy, but the right to greed. That man lectured us the other day and tried to castigate those whom he described contemptuously as low achievers.

The difficulty is the gulf between what the Government say and what they do. In March 2010, the Prime Minister made an impassioned speech about how he would clean up lobbying. He knew all about it: he was a lobbyist, and he was going to sort it all out. Where are we today, six years later? The Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 has been passed, life for trade unions and charities is a bit more troublesome, but the big corporate lobbyists do not have to declare who their clients are. No worthwhile reform has happened. The Prime Minister has worried the minnows in the shallows, but the great fat salmon still swim by unhindered.

There is similarly no sincerity in the Government’s determination to tackle the tax havens. I will give the House an interesting example. Lord Blencathra, who sees himself as the spokesman for the Cayman Islands, mocked the Prime Minister, saying that he had no intention of carrying out his threats to deal with tax havens and that they were a “purely political gesture”—those were Lord Blencathra’s words. We have just heard that the First Minister of the Cayman Islands is putting two fingers up to the Prime Minister. They are not going to take any notice.

Let us look at the remarkable history of Lord Blencathra. It is a fascinating story that shows the laxness of our controls in this House. In 2012 I made a complaint about his behaviour. My complaint was taken to a Committee in the other House to examine. It suggested that he was in breach of the parliamentary code of conduct. His activities included lobbying the Chancellor about taxes affecting the Cayman Islands; he also facilitated an all-expenses paid trip to the islands for three prominent Members of this House. The Committee that deals with standards in the Lords held an investigation, and produced a remarkable document. Lord Blencathra explained that he was taking £12,000 a month in payment from the Cayman Islands, but that he was not lobbying Parliament or Government, but Members—or the other way around; he gave some spurious excuse. Quite remarkably, the decision was taken in 2012 that he had not been in breach of any rules of the House.

Two years later, the contract that Lord Blencathra had signed was leaked. It appeared that he had agreed in the contract to

“Promoting the Cayman Islands’ interests in the UK and Europe by liaising with and making representations to UK ministers, the FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office), Members of Parliament in the House of Commons and Members of the House of Lords.”

He put up a spirited defence, saying that he may have signed the contract but he had forgotten what he had agreed to, and anyway if he had signed it he had no intention of doing what it said. That is a most egregious breach of the code of conduct of the House—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

Order. I have been listening very carefully. The hon. Gentleman knows that he is not to criticise Members of the other House directly or personally. He has been quoting from reports up until now. If he would desist from directly criticising Members of the other House, I would be very grateful.

[Paul Flynn]

These are not new matters, if I may say so. I have dealt with that matter now.

If the Government fail to act against their own Members, who are not trying to stop the abuses of tax havens but are actually lubricating them, how can we take them seriously? There is some agreement on this, and some pleasure in the House that this situation has happened, because it might expose the corruption that is so endemic and the huge sums disappearing into tax havens. Light has been shone on all that.

I believe that there is a political agenda behind those who have hacked into Mossack Fonseca’s site. We do not know what that agenda is, and it might well be very sinister, but I will repeat my earlier point: one of the curious things here is what is happening with other nations. China has $44 billion in the Cayman Islands and $49 billion in the British Virgin Islands. Those are huge sums of money, but they are only part of the revelations—part is still to come. The reverberations of this pivotal scandal will spread for decades.

I am curious about the Government’s reluctance to act against China in many other ways. We have already done a dreadful and financially disastrous deal over Hinkley Point, which might give us the most expensive electricity in the world, although the deal is now collapsing. The Government seem to want to ingratiate themselves with the Chinese Government. As a result, they are going soft on them in many ways. What is most damaging is that they are not taking sharp action against the undercutting of the steel industry that is affecting so many jobs here.

We have a strange relationship with the Cayman Islands. We provide them with great advantages, by providing their defence for them. The Government’s permissiveness must stop. We will look to the Government to take the tough line that they have promised at the anti-corruption conference. They have not taken it before, so let us see them do it there.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Short Money and Policy Development Grant

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose]

We are extremely serious about cutting the cost of politics. As you know, Mr Speaker, we have plans to reduce the size of this Chamber from 650 to 600 MPs, as was agreed in the last Parliament. The number of peers is going up, but the cost of the upper House is falling. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will welcome that news and the news that there are ongoing political discussions on a cross-party basis on how other reforms might be effected in the House of Lords.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

If the money for democracy is cut and if the ermine-clad pantomime of the House of Lords is further bloated, contrary to what the Minister just said, is it not likely to bring shameless hypocrisy into disrepute?

[John Penrose]

There were an awful lot of negatives in that question, but I think that I get the hon. Gentleman’s drift. I take his point on the concerns about the overall size of the House of Lords, but it is important for us not to forget that it has managed to reduce its total costs. As I mentioned earlier, there are ongoing cross-party discussions on how to address its overall size. I encourage their lordships to continue those discussions and, with any luck, to produce proposals shortly.

Voter Engagement

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. We shared the experience of sitting on the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, which lasted for one Parliament only. The Committee had many enlightening evidence sessions on this matter.

It might be as well to record that in our last meeting with the Electoral Commission, it gave special praise to electoral registration officers in two constituencies—mine and the Vale of Clwyd—for their energetic activity after Christmas until the election date. The result in my constituency was interesting, with a swing of 0.0%, so what it lacks in volatility it makes up for in consistency. The sad effect in the Vale of Clwyd was the removal from Parliament of the person who knew more about electoral registration than anyone else—Chris Ruane, who is greatly missed in this Chamber.

Democracy was started in Greece 2,500 years ago and it has come to us on the instalment plan, in stages and imperfectly. It is still possible to buy a place in the House of Lords and still possible to buy influence and privilege from Governments by putting money into the pockets of lobbyists. We have done virtually nothing to reform that system. It is still possible for retiring Ministers, generals and civil servants to prostitute their insider knowledge to the highest bidder when they leave this place, to get a lucrative retirement job and buy their hacienda in Spain. That is going on and we are doing very little to limit it. The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments is a bit of a joke. It is not the Rottweiler it should be; it is a pussy cat without teeth or claws. We have an imperfect democracy.

The Government’s only argument for redrawing constituencies is arithmetical tyranny: doing it entirely on the basis of population. Let me give one example of how things do not work that way. A main area of our work in my constituency office is immigration. In the local authority area I serve, there are at this moment 439 asylum seekers—that is just one group; there are others as well—all of whom require a great deal of work. There are also language difficulties. It is a huge burden on an MP’s office. Where is the fairness in this, when in the constituencies of the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Home Secretary, there are a grand total of three asylum seekers?

We could talk about many other examples of the unfair burden of work in different constituencies. The Government are planning, again, to undermine the number of constituencies and disturb the system. There certainly are arguments for bringing the system up to date, but there is no argument for doing so at a time when the Government are awarding places in the House of Lords to people who are unelected. Sometimes places are given because of cash.

There is certainly a link between contributions to parties—all parties—and places in the House of Lords. There are also links between those, such as Ministers, whom the Government wish to reward for failure, as a consolation. That is normal now. We have a system of political awards set up by the present Prime Minister. The system has existed only since 2011; it is entirely new. Why should anyone want an award? People lust after the same honour that Sir Jimmy Savile and Sir Cyril Smith had. Why anyone would want to be tainted with such a thing is beyond me.

There was something of a triumph in the last election for the Electoral Commission, which gave us evidence on many occasions, as you will recall, Mr Turner. The result of the election showed some remarkable changes. We spent many hours in the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee looking at how we could encourage people to register, particularly those groups that were largely under-registered. Organisations such as Bite the Ballot did a great job on that. Sadly, in spite of my repeated requests, we never had Russell Brand along to give us evidence. We wanted to get hold of him and say, “You realise how badly young people are treated by all politicians. They look after rich pensioners such as me very well indeed, because we are the group who vote.”

Young people have had a terrible deal from the coalition Government and previous Governments because they are not viewed as being of any consequence. Russell Brand made that foolish statement to his 9 million followers on Twitter—rather more than you or I have, Mr Turner—telling them not to vote and not to take part in the election, but instead to march around the streets making demands. He tried to get 1 million people on the street outside here a few months ago; he managed about 200, I think. He took those people out of the electoral process. Although he eventually recanted under the wise advice of my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), it was too late for them to register and get on the electoral roll again. I wish we could have had him before the Committee, where we could have persuaded him that his view was counter-productive and not achieving his aim.

The Electoral Commission reported a record-breaking 469,000 people in one day registering online to vote in the 2015 general election. That is an incredible number. There were 2,296,000 online applications to register to vote from when the campaign began last year on 16 March to polling day. Those are enormous figures. Voting habits have changed. The public are ahead of us in many ways in their willingness to use electronic media to register and to vote, and we have to take into account the fact that people have got into the habit of voting for television personalities and so on in that way. We should look at the success of the Electoral Commission and such organisations as Bite the Ballot, which have done a great deal to maintain the number of people voting.

In my campaign, I spoke to many thousands of voters. I found the contempt for politics distressing; it has not improved since the screaming nightmare of the expenses scandal. One party managed to sell itself as being close to the voters. The man in the pub with a fag and a pint was who they related to, not politicians. That party made inroads in my constituency, but it did not affect my vote in any way, because the sensible Lib Dems deserted their party and voted for me. However, some 6,000 people in my constituency, which has been wise enough to elect me since 1987, voted UKIP.

There is all the other stuff about Europe and so on, but part of the reason why people voted for UKIP—they repeated this again and again—was contempt for the political system and this House. We are trying to do something about it, but we put on a pantomime every Wednesday—a national embarrassment of exchanged insults and unanswered questions. In one of the last Prime Minister’s questions before the election, the Prime Minister was asked a question on immigration, and in his answer he mentioned nine other subjects, not one of them immigration.

Last week, the Prime Minister asked the Leader of the Opposition four questions, which is almost more than she asked him. I have usefully suggested that it would be helpful to change the name from Prime Minister’s questions to Prime Minister’s answers, just to give him an idea of what is expected of him and to let him know how the system should work.

The system used to work. We did not like the answers that Margaret Thatcher gave, but she always referred to the question asked. If I asked the Welsh Minister a question about tidal barrages and he told me the price of cabbage in Cardiff on that day, the Speaker would rightly call him out of order, but that does not work with the Prime Minister. Prime Minister’s questions are an object of derision for politics and the system. People show contempt for us, and that contempt is to the advantage of such parties as UKIP. Prime Minister’s Question Time reduces our chance of restoring the trust and confidence that the public used to have in the political system.

A great amount of reform is needed, and it is a lot more urgent than changing the constituency boundaries. The Government wish to do that, and it is to their electoral advantage, but I have always been in favour of proportional representation. We stand in contempt of the country because all parties reach their conclusions on PR based on their party interest. The Conservatives and the Labour party benefit from the current system. The Lib Dems have always taken a principled line on PR, and now we find it coming from UKIP and other parties, such as the Greens, that suffer greatly under the current system. It is a travesty to suggest that the system we have represents the public view, because it does not.

We did a splendid report in the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee last year. One of its suggestions was to have a democracy day, which is a magnificent idea. In my constituency of Newport West, the Chartists lost at least 20 members when they were killed raiding a hotel to release a prisoner, Henry Vincent. They were protesting on principle about the cruel treatment they were receiving and asking for the vote. Every year on 4 November, there are celebrations and commemorations to mark that day, and it is a great way of getting the meaning of democracy across to schoolchildren. Lord Tredegar held the one vote in the town. He decided everything and the working people had no votes at all. We should have a democracy day to celebrate the joys of democracy.

In this place, we have at least 1,000 depictions of royalty. They are everywhere, and include paintings, statues and a tower. What has royalty done for democracy? It has obstructed almost every advance in democracy. It could be argued that they donated one head, but that was grudgingly.

[Mr Andrew Turner (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is discussing voter engagement and the franchise, which as far as I know have nothing to do with royal pictures. Will he stick to the topic?

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Flynn]

The difference between us and royalty is that we have been elected. [Interruption.] That is slightly off the subject, I agree, but where are the tributes to the heroes of democracy, who are the reason why we are here and the reason why we exist? Thanks to Mr Speaker, there is a tiny exhibition about Chartists on the top corridor, and that is welcome. There are a few tributes to suffragettes around, but mostly they are outside this building.

The Putney debates were a great celebration of democracy. They were hugely important, but they are hardly known. We hear about Magna Carta, but not about the Putney debates, which took place in 1647 between late October and early November and laid down the whole basis for the Bill of Rights. The Women’s Social and Political Union—the suffragettes—had a notable occasion in 1903.

If we are to win back public trust and belief in democracy, we must energise people in the same way as the young people of Scotland were energised when they voted so strongly in its referendum, which was a magnificent piece of democratic action and an awakening of responsibility among young people. It showed them the strength of the vote and the democratic process.

We have a long way to go, but as beneficiaries of the democratic system we should be working towards a system that is by far the best in the world. It is not at the moment. The mother of Parliaments is now a disgraced hag heading for future scandals; we must do something to improve it. We have done nothing to improve our status since the expenses scandal. People do not believe us and they do not trust us. Virtually every story about MPs that appears in the papers is negative. We are being blamed for a pay rise that none of us asked for or wanted.

There has to be a serious campaign by all parties to improve the House’s status. That can be done only by changing radically how we behave and appear to the public. Prime Minister’s Question Time is the House at its worst. We put on a national embarrassment show every week—it is time we reinvented it as an event that, although still robust and full of questions, is nevertheless conducted in an atmosphere of calm, dignity and mutual respect.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Equitable Life

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. It is a great shame that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) was almost the sole individual on the Labour Benches during the Labour Government who promoted a compensation scheme. I commend him for his efforts to get his Government to introduce one. I wish that other Labour Members had promoted such schemes.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Bob Blackman]

I will make a couple of points and then give way for the final time.

We are clear about what we want the Government to do. Irrespective of which political party wins the general election, we want full compensation for the pre-1992 trapped annuitants. As I have said, it would cost £115 million to compensate those individuals. Those are the most vulnerable individuals because they retired a long time ago and many of them are very frail. It would cost a relatively small amount of public money to give them proper compensation. I am afraid that the longer we delay, the fewer of them will be around, because they are dying off almost daily.

Secondly, as the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) said, we should commit to a graduated full compensation package so that the policy holders are compensated as the public finances continue to recover. Individuals who took out pension policies some time ago are not necessarily reaching retirement age. Topping up their pensions over four or five years would therefore enable them to retire in the way that they expected.

[Paul Flynn]

May I state that I have a close financial interest in this matter? I remind the hon. Gentleman that it was discussed at great length by the Public Administration Committee in the last Parliament. Does he have a formula, which is what we were looking for, that suggests who is responsible for losses made? Can we have a scheme that is consistent for all pension schemes that get in trouble, such as the Allied Steel and Wire scheme, which has still not been resolved? If he has such a formula, perhaps it could be agreed to between the parties now, so that what is national responsibility, personal responsibility and company responsibility is accepted and we have a resilient formula that can be used for Equitable Life, Allied Steel and Wire and all those that go broke in the future.

[Bob Blackman]

I note the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. The key point is that the Equitable Life policy holders have been through the courts and through the parliamentary ombudsman, and the matter has been found in their favour. Maladministration clearly took place and a key decision was taken to put those policy holders back into the position that they would have been in had that maladministration not taken place. Clearly, other pension schemes are in trouble. There are a lot of pension schemes in trouble because the previous Prime Minister, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, raided private pension funds and thought that that was a golden opportunity. We must take that into account. That is not the case with Equitable Life policy holders, which makes this a different matter. We have to be careful about broadening out this subject to other pension schemes.