Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I am very happy to look at any issues the hon. Gentleman wants to raise about his constituency, but I point out that the funding that the Government secures for free schools is in addition to the funding for basic need.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

This morning I met the leaders of Tresham college, who have been able to announce a multi-million pound investment in my constituency that will include an education village, part of which will be a new primary school. Labour talked about it, but it never happened. Under this Conservative-led Government it is happening. Is not that a good thing?

[Mr Laws]

It certainly is a good thing that under this coalition Government we are seeing a massive increase in capital expenditure on basic need: £400 million was the pitiful amount spent in the last year of the Labour Government. Between 2013 and 2015 we are spending £2.4 billion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

Nissan has been very clear on the subject—on its behalf, the Japanese Government have made exactly the same point that they do not want the re-imposition of tariffs. However, there is no evidence so far that our policy is discouraging Nissan. Its investment in the UK continues at a high level. I continue to welcome that.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Is the House seriously going to believe that the Secretary of State believes that, if this country were not in the EU, we would not have a free trade agreement with it? Does he expect the House to believe him?

[Vince Cable]

I know the hon. Gentleman’s position, but that is the not the issue. The issue is certainty. There is a lot of risk in the business world. Reopening the matter creates massive uncertainty for employers and makes it even more difficult for them to invest.

Al-Madinah Free School

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I must have told the hon. Gentleman over three and a half years a score of times—I now tell him for the 21st time—that questions must be about the policy of the Government, not the Opposition; nor is this an occasion for general dilation by Members on their own educational experiences. The urgent question is narrowly focused on a particular school; it is with that, and that alone, that we are concerned. I hope my point has now finally registered with the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I thank the shadow Education Secretary for asking this urgent question on such an important issue. We should be focusing on this particular school, not making party political points, although, interestingly, more Government Members are interested in this subject than Opposition Members. Can the Minister confirm that, if necessary, he has the power to close the school down if it cannot be reformed?

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I can certainly confirm to him that we have powers to take action against the school, as Lord Nash has already made very clear in his letter.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Timpson]

The hon. Gentleman will know that, prior to taking on this position, I worked closely with the Fostering Network to ensure that the exemption already in place for foster carers came to fruition. I reassure him that, through the work I am doing across Departments with Lord Freud and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, we will continue to review the matter carefully through a proper evaluation of the impact that the measure may be having. I have that reassurance and will continue with that work.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I am grateful that the Minister is getting on with doing things rather than writing reports. One thing the Government could do for child victims of human trafficking who go into local authority care is identify them as victims of trafficking, so we can see whether they are re-trafficked. That is a flaw in the system at the moment.

[Mr Timpson]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes an important and serious point about a problem that still blights too many children, and which continues in our communities, often under the radar when it needs to be more prominent. I will look carefully at what he says and I am happy to discuss the matter with him further to see what more we can do.

GCSEs

Peter Bone Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

One thing I can say is that teachers are better qualified than ever, and the new head of the Teaching Agency and the national college, Charlie Taylor, has been responsible for changes that ensure that we have more highly qualified young people, teaching to a higher standard than ever before.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I declare an interest: my daughter is a teacher in a state school.

Does the Secretary of State agree that he is in danger of winning over teachers, winning over the Opposition and doing a very good job? Is that the way we should be proceeding?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He is absolutely right: sometimes we need to be divisive and pugnacious, but today I am glad that consensus on a number of issues appears to exist across both Front Benches.

Child-care Ratios

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is right. We are taking other steps, including reforming the role of the local authority so that there is no duplication among local authorities and Ofsted, and improving the clarity of qualifications so that it will be easier for people to set up high-quality child-care businesses and be focused on the outcomes for children, in contrast to the very prescriptive regulations which have pushed up costs and held down salaries.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

May I thank the shadow Secretary of State for asking the urgent question? He has allowed our excellent Minister to expound a good Tory policy. It is always good when we look at the European Union and copy what is good in it. There is one serious point here. If the Deputy Prime Minister wants to comment—if he does not want to run away from something that he has agreed on—he should be in the House making that comment, not on a radio programme. I suggest that we press on with the policy and ignore the Liberal Democrats.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for his support for our policy. He is absolutely right. We should look to other countries that have done better. Rather than harking back to their failure in office, the Opposition should be seeking inspiration from countries such as Sweden, Denmark and France and looking at what goes well there. I would like to know whether any Labour Members have been to see French provision for the under- twos and seen how good it is. I bet they have not.

Canterbury City Council Bill

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I urge my hon. Friend not to do down the communist route of centrally dictating things, because these are individual Bills. It would not be beyond the wit of man to have little signs, as we do with conservation areas, for instance. That would be useful. Will the promoters of the Bill accept these amendments?

[Mr Chope]

I thank my hon. Friend for supporting these amendments. I have yet to hear officially, although in introducing their lordships’ amendments and mine at the beginning of the debate—I know my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough was not in his place at that time—our hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey implied en passant that he did not want to accept any of these amendments. Perhaps in the light of the ensuing debate, he will change his mind.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Chope]

I would have hoped that we could trust councils to provide adequate training. The purpose of my amendment is to try to ensure that that happens. If the training is not adequate, it will be open to somebody to make a complaint to the council or the councillors; ultimately, it could be used as a defence to a fixed penalty notice or something like that—although I would not want to speculate on that. The test is that the officers must be properly trained: that is what the provisions would require—rather than that the council thought the training was adequate. I hope it would not be necessary to set up a new bureaucracy—an appeals panel or something like that—to deal with the situation, as we are already overburdened with bureaucracy and officialdom in this country, and we do not want even more of it.

My amendment (g) to Lords amendment C27 proposes the deletion of subsection (2), which makes training provided by the council mandatory. It states:

“The council shall make the training referred to in subsection (1) available also to constables and community support officers empowered by section 5(1) to give a fixed penalty notice.”

That is redundant, because constables and community support officers receive training that enables them to perform this function outside the ambit of any particular local Act relating to pedlars, and it is therefore unnecessary to require the council to become involved in training them. Obviously, if the chief constable asks the local council whether it will provide training for constables and community support officers, the council will probably be happy to oblige and to explain the procedure.

[Mr Bone]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way—he is being exceptionally generous—but did he mean to refer to the police and crime commissioner just now, rather than the chief constable?

[Mr Chope]

I think that it would be the chief constable in this instance. My understanding is that police and crime commissioners are there to decide whether to hire and fire, and to set out the budget for the police authorities, whereas operational issues are dealt with by the chief constables. I would regard the question of whether constables or community support officers on the beat are capable or knowledgeable enough to introduce or apply a fixed penalty notice regime as an operational issue.

[Mr Bone]

I would understand my hon. Friend’s logic if this were national legislation, but given that it is local legislation, by virtue of being a private Bill, surely it should be up to the police and crime commissioner to decide whether he wants to get involved with this nonsense at all.

[Mr Chope]

I take my hon. Friend’s point, but I trust that police and crime commissioners have bigger fish to fry.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey will support my amendments. As was made clear earlier, they also apply to the other Bills with which we are dealing today. We are not picking on Canterbury in particular, but it is the first Bill on the Order Paper.

[Philip Davies]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) not just for his speech, although it was of the customary calibre, but for his dedication in ensuring that, if the Bill ever leaves this place, it will leave in a much better state than the state in which it arrived. Without my hon. Friend’s personal dedication to this issue, and his determination that we should do what we ought to do in this place—that is, defend people’s freedoms and defend enterprise—the Bill would have passed through Parliament in a much less satisfactory manner.

Like my hon. Friend, I am grateful for the work that was done by their lordships. I do not know whether my hon. Friend felt the same, but I feared that the Bill would go through on the nod in the House of Lords. Their lordships should be commended for going through it in great detail and considering the arguments properly, and, consequently, tabling some amendments with which I think we can be particularly pleased.

I agree with what my hon. Friend said about many of the amendments. He focused on the subject of seizures, and on the Lords amendments that proposed the omission of various clauses relating to it. He may recall that the issue caused great controversy when it was debated for the first time in this place. It struck me as unacceptable that local authorities should employ authorised officers to go around seizing people’s goods willy-nilly. As my hon. Friend will recall, we argued the case vehemently for many months. We were told that the clauses were essential to the Bill, and that without them it would be unworkable and meaningless. We were also told that the proposals in the amendments would be unenforceable, and that they were in effect wrecking amendments: that, if I remember rightly, is what my hon. Friend was accused of when he tried to persuade the promoters that what they were saying was over the top.

I should be interested to know why the promoters thought that removing those clauses then would wreck the Bill, whereas removing them today apparently does not wreck it all. It seems that it will still be fit to proceed into law. It is difficult for us to consider the merits of the amendments until we are given some satisfactory answers to the question of how important the clauses are to the Bill as a whole.

I have the impression that we have reached a stage at which the promoters are determined to produce an Act of Parliament, irrespective of what is in it and whether anything that is in it will ever be applied. This seems to have become a war of attrition, a battle of wills. The promoters seem merely to want an Act of Parliament to hang their hat on. I certainly support the removal of all these clauses—page after page of them—and I think we should be grateful for the fact that the promoters may have come round to my hon. Friend’s way of thinking.

[Mr Bone]

My hon. Friend has made a good point. Is there not a chance that because so much council tax payers’ money has been wasted on Bills that were not thought through thoroughly to start with, the promoters are determined to drive through a Bill to justify that waste?

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is right. A similar attitude was taken by the previous Government. The idea is to waste a lot of money on something that is clearly not working, and then, instead of drawing stumps and cutting your losses, to keep spending more and more, just so that there is something to show for all the money spent. All that happens, though, is that even more money is wasted.

[Mr Bone]

Is that not what the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) said in his autobiography about the Dome? The last Labour Government were affected by exactly the same syndrome.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is far better read than I am. The right hon. Gentleman’s book is gathering dust on my shelf, and I have not got round to reading it. However, I will look out for that section when I do get round to it. I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch had to say about seizures, and our comments about seized items are on the record from the previous debates. I stand by what I said then and I am sure that he also stands by what he said, and I am delighted that their lordships have agreed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Chope]

Exactly—my hon. Friend is right to make that point.

[Mr Bone]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way—he is being exceptionally generous. In his desire to rush through his speech so that we can complete the business today, he has not admitted the fact that any obstruction of the highway is a police matter, and that they can deal with it. The measure is therefore superfluous.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Such measures are quite often a matter of interpretation. The trained police officer is in a far better position to interpret the law than a council that is prejudiced against the interests of pedlars. To reinforce the point about prejudice, the noble Lord Strasburger said on Third Reading that:

“It was alleged that pedlars create a situation that attracts pickpockets, but…no evidence was offered. It was also said that pedlars cause obstruction of the highway. Little evidence for this allegation was offered apart from a small number of cases where wide and expanding trolleys had been used…The witnesses who spoke for the local authorities were somewhat unconvincing. We heard evidence from pedlars that many council officers and the police are ignorant about the 1871 Act, and we also heard much evidence of a bullying culture on the part of council officials towards honest and hard-working pedlars.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 December 2012; Vol. 741, c. 451-52.]

That is why we need to be alert to the precise wording of the Lords amendments. We need to ensure that the intention is to establish a level playing field for pedlars and street traders, and to ensure that pedlars cannot be undermined by over-zealous or prejudiced council officials. For those reasons, Lords amendment C9 would be much improved by amendments (a) to (h), which I have tabled.

Amendment (h) would remove subsection (8), which states that:

“The provisions of sub-paragraph…(2)…of Schedule 4 to the 1982 Act shall apply to a resolution under this section as they apply to a resolution under that paragraph but as if…for ‘street’ there were substituted ‘area’”.

That completely undermines the concept of pedlars’ freedom to go from house to house and sell their wares on the public highway by trading from street to street.

The Lords amendments grouped under the heading “Pedlars and street trading” are a significant improvement.

[Mr Chope]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing that to the attention of the House, because it takes us back to our discussions on clause 4 in the previous Parliament. It was in the context of the provision of services that the issue of the services directive was raised. That was why, as I recall, we were arguing that the provision of services should not be covered under these particular local Acts. There seems to be a recognition that clause 4 is outlawed by the services directive. What I do not understand—I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about this—is why the directive also applies to pedlars who are dealing not in services, but goods. How does the directive apply to the sale of goods by pedlars? That is causing concern among the pedlar fraternity.

There may be as many as 4,000 pedlars in this country, so the implications are significant. They are concerned that if the legislation, which sets out a separate regime for pedlars and has been established for well over 100 years, is torn up and repealed, it may be that the significant status and freedom that pedlars have hitherto enjoyed—of being able to obtain a certificate and, as long as they are of good character, trade from door to door, place to place and town to town—will be removed from them.

As was said in their lordships’ House, pedlary goes back long before the time of Shakespeare to the time of Chaucer, if not before. Therefore, to tear up the 1871 Act, as the Government seem to be proposing in their consultation paper, would be damaging to the interests of pedlars.

[Mr Bone]

Perhaps my hon. Friend can explain something to me before he concludes his opening remarks on this group of amendments. It is Government policy to encourage micro-businesses, and pedlars are small business men at the very smallest level. Therefore, it appears to me that these councils are going against Government policy.

[Mr Chope]

That may well be so. If councils are going against Government policy, one would expect the Government to say to their supporters in the Chamber that they wish them to vote on the amendments in a particular way.

Sadly, my hon. Friend the Minister is temporarily not in his place, but I am delighted to see my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands) in his place instead. I am sure he will make a careful note of what I am about to say. Under the heading, “Chapter 1 - Proposal to repeal the Pedlars Acts 1871 and 1881 (Part 2 of the draft Regulations at Annex A)”, the Government’s consultation paper, which is still out for consultation, reads:

“Below we detail our proposals (reflected in the proposed draft Regulations set out at Annex A) to repeal the Pedlars Acts 1871 and 1881 in relation to the whole of the UK.”

That is not a discussion of the possibility of repealing the Acts, but a specific proposal to repeal the Acts in toto. The proposal might still be out to consultation, but the Government have effectively made up their mind to repeal the Acts.

For reasons that my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and others explained, the Government have been diffident about declaring their hand in relation to the provisions in the Bills when they have had the opportunity to do so. One of the difficulties when considering Lords amendments is finding out why they were proposed. As my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) just pointed out, removing clause 4 from this Bill and equivalent provisions in the other Bills was not referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey. It was taken as a given, despite its having significant implications.

Neither was there proper explanation of why, if they thought that removing clause 4 would satisfy the services directive, the Government now say that to satisfy it we would effectively have to repeal clause 5 in toto and not replace it with any other provision relating to pedlars.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Chope]

The answer to my hon. Friend’s question is that when their lordships drew up these amendments in November 2011, the Government had not declared their hand. They did not do that until November 2012—and nobody can be blamed for not anticipating what the Government would say.

[Mr Bone]

I may be wrong, but could it possibly be that 0.88 metres is actually equivalent to a yard?

[Mr Chope]

If that is correct, I am grateful to my hon. Friend; I cannot understand why we do not use yards and feet rather than refer to 0.88 metres. We always say when we come to this place that we always learn something. That is certainly something I have learned today, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for it.

Let me reach a summation on these particular issues. I have seen some movement on the part of my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey, and I hope he will ensure that we have time to listen to the Minister’s response, as it is very important for the Minister to send out some clear messages to pedlars, many of whom are very worried by the proposed changes to the legislation and are confused by the attitude of the Government, particularly towards amendment C9 when looked at alongside the Government’s consultation paper.

I fear that an atmosphere is developing in which the Bill’s promoters think, “Well, it has taken us so long, so rather than try to improve it further, we might as well try to drive it home as quickly as we can and curtail debate as much as possible”, which obviously has the effect of creating a reaction. We know that the House’s procedures have resulted in a considerable curtailing of the rights of Members to speak in some debates. Fortunately, in private business, we still have the right to try to insist on getting the promoters of Bills to listen to our arguments.

I think that that is what we are looking for on this occasion. We are asking the promoters to reflect on the arguments that we have presented, and to consider tabling their own amendments to the Lords amendments. One of the virtues of a debate organised in this way is that, in this instance, we have so far discussed and voted on only Lords amendments C3, C4 and C5, which means that the promoters still have an opportunity to table their own amendments to those on which we have not yet voted.

[Mr Bone]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s full explanation of the position. As I understand it, the benefit of the procedure that we are using today will result, eventually, in a better Act of Parliament. By allowing the promoters to reflect on the arguments and then come up with amendments that may even improve on those tabled by my hon. Friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and me, we are likely to end up with a much better Bill. Would it not be great if the Government followed the example set by private business and dropped programme motions? Then this could happen week in, week out when we debated Government business.

[Mr Chope]

I think that there is a strong case for asking the Procedure Committee to look into the possibility of applying the principles relating to private business to public business. What has happened today demonstrates the virtues of being able to engage in what might be described as an iterative process, during which we discuss the issues, and the promoters have a chance to reflect on the points that have been made—over weeks, months or years—and to respond to them accordingly.

I do not need to speak any longer on this group of amendments—[Hon. Members: “Shame!”] I know that—

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Timpson]

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady not only for her chairmanship of the all-party parliamentary group for runaway and missing children and adults, but for her vital contribution to the work of the groups in the Department that have been looking into the issue. I hope that we can continue that dialogue in future.

It is crucial for us to improve data on missing and absent children at local level, in police forces and local authorities and more widely in other agencies, and we need to make that as effective as possible throughout the whole system. I look forward to discussing with the hon. Lady how we can do that better.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

As the Minister will readily acknowledge, the police think that far more children are going missing than local authorities record. What the Minister says about trafficked children is absolutely right, but until local authorities are forced to identify trafficked children, we cannot begin to deal with the problem. Will he instruct authorities in future to record the number of trafficked children whom they are looking after?

[Mr Timpson]

Part of the purpose of the working group that we set up following the report from the all-party parliamentary group and the accelerated report from the deputy Children’s Commissioner was to consider how we could better record the data on all children who have some contact with the care system, and that includes trafficked children. I will think carefully about what my hon. Friend has said in conjunction with that work, and I should be happy to discuss it with him further.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. My former colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), responded to that report and made a compelling argument for ensuring better data sharing between local authorities and the police on the location of children within children’s homes to ensure that we can provide yet better protection for them. However, that is only one part of a mosaic of policies we need in order to give those children and young people a better chance.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Given the Secretary of State’s opening remarks, could he start with Northamptonshire county council? Two foster parents came to see me. Two very difficult children were placed with them—they are the same ethnic background. They have bonded very well with the children and are now one family, but—would you believe it?—the county council is trying to break the family up to save money. Will the Secretary of State intervene in this matter?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing this case to my attention—I shall look at it more closely. It is vital that all recognise that those who agree to foster children are responsible for bringing love and stability to some of the most damaged children and young people in our society. We should do everything possible to support them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

I am afraid that the premise of the hon. Lady’s question is wrong. We have not downgraded engineering. The principal learning unit of the engineering diploma is still very important in the performance tables. We asked Alison Wolf to examine all the vocational qualifications, and she has streamlined them, driven out the weaker ones that do not lead to progress and employment and left us those of much higher quality. We have 150 very high-quality vocational qualifications, including the principal learning element of the engineering diploma, which we value very highly indeed.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

5. What steps schools are taking to raise awareness of the effect of human trafficking.

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

Human trafficking is an outrage. William Wilberforce spoke of

“this bloody traffic, of which our posterity, looking back…will scarce believe that it has been suffered to exist so long a disgrace and dishonour to this country.”

We must be in our age as determined as he was in his to end the pain of this wicked trade in human lives.

[Mr Bone]

The Minister and the Prime Minister have shown their commitment to fighting human trafficking, but the dreadful case that was recently reported of internal trafficking within the United Kingdom shows the necessity of our schools highlighting this evil crime. Will the Minister meet me, other members of the all-party group on human trafficking and Anthony Steen to discuss how we can take the matter forward?

[Mr Hayes]

Yes, of course I will. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that schools have a vital role to play, which was why we issued new guidelines to that end. He will also know that since he last asked me about this matter—he is a doughty champion of the victims of this dreadful trade—I have, as he asked, written to charities to engage them in the process.