Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paul Scully and Andrea Leadsom

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I speak to DWP Ministers all the time about how to create jobs for women and for all people in the UK. We had record jobs creation after the last recession. Equally, we are planning to grow and bounce back.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

May I urge my friends in BEIS to think again about weddings? It is simply not logical and not fair that where venue organisers can arrange safe social distancing we continue to deny young couples who are seeking to marry that vital opportunity to have friends and family around them.

[Paul Scully]

I can guarantee I think of little else at the moment, because of the way my right hon. Friend and her colleagues in the weddings taskforce have pressed that very just cause. In stage 2, wedding ceremonies in churches, register offices, dedicated wedding venues and other premises that can open will be able to take place with up to 15 people indoors and receptions outdoors. We are looking forward to expanding that in stage 3, and the events programme will conduct research to ensure that we can have non-socially distanced events and larger weddings post June.

Lifting the Lockdown: Workplace Safety

Debate between Paul Scully and Andrea Leadsom

Wednesday 6th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the constructive way in which we began our relationship as our opposite numbers in a call we had last week. We have plenty of opportunity to work together to ensure the confidence that employers, employees and customers need as we begin to open up the economy. The guidelines that he was talking about are an early draft. There will continue to be plenty of opportunity for him to feed in, as there has been for those 400 businesses and nine trade unions, because this is not a finished process. We need to get into the technical detail to ensure that everybody has confidence.

In the same way that employees need that confidence, they should be able to discuss with their employers the steps they might take to make their workplaces safer, especially when we start to lift restrictions. Where workers still feel unsafe, they can contact the Health and Safety Executive or their local authority. Where employers are identified, action can be taken to ensure compliance with the relevant public health legislation and guidance.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con) [V]]

I know that my hon. Friend’s Department is undertaking a review of corporate governance and audit. Does he agree that, now more than ever, it is vital that the review puts the safety and financial security of employees at the heart of all businesses’ obligations to their stakeholders?

[Paul Scully]

I am grateful for that question. As my right hon. Friend knows, we have had three independent reviews of various aspects of audit by John Kingman, the Competition and Markets Authority and Sir Donald Brydon. We are committed to acting on their recommendations, including by legislating to create a tougher, stronger regulator, as soon as parliamentary time allows. We are working on that and will publish our proposals in due course.

Business of the House

Debate between Paul Scully and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Lady raises a particular situation that I think we would all be incredibly sympathetic to. I would certainly urge her to seek an Adjournment debate so that she can raise the matter directly with Ministers to see what more can be done.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and I have spoken on a few occasions about the importance of banks on our high streets, and about what happens when they close. Will she therefore congratulate Lisa Kear and the Belmont and South Cheam Residents Association on their work on opening up a new sub-post office in Belmont village in my constituency? May we have a debate in Government time to talk about community infrastructure and the benefit of banks, post offices and, indeed, pubs as community hubs?

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend raises something that is important to all of us in our constituencies, namely the incredible value that we get from local community shops, post offices and the banking system. I am happy to join him in congratulating Lisa Kear and the Belmont and South Cheam Residents’ Association on their work in opening a sub-post office. Often where there is no bank in a community, it is the post office that enables people to continue to get the access to banking that is so essential for us all.

Business of the House

Debate between Paul Scully and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 20th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Lady raises a critical point about dangerous driving. She is right that many of us have experienced the awful tragedies and outcomes of dangerous driving. On her behalf, I will look into when we can expect to see a response.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

The United Nations Human Rights Council special rapporteur on Sri Lanka published a report following his recent visit to that country, in which he described progress on fulfilling resolution 30/1 as “slow” and the use of torture in Sri Lanka as “endemic”. Can we have a debate in Government time on the human rights situation in Sri Lanka in the lead-up to the next session of the UNHCR in the autumn?

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend has done a lot of work in this area, and I congratulate him on his new position as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group. The Minister for Asia and the Pacific, my right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field), has registered our serious concerns about the special rapporteur’s findings with the Sri Lankan high commissioner this week, and the FCO’s annual human rights report, which is published today, sets out our full assessment of the situation. I assure my hon. Friend that we continue to encourage the Sri Lankan Government to deliver against all their UN Human Rights Council commitments.