G20

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s point, which has complete intellectual coherence. The fact is that they could go in that direction, but other European Prime Ministers, Finance Ministers and, indeed, the people in those countries will say that they do not want to leave the euro and that they want to make the euro work. We are affected by what is happening in the eurozone, which is why I keep saying that it is in our interests that they get their act together and make their currency work. You can argue for the opposite, but the fact is that that is what most European countries want and that is what I think they will try to achieve.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I do not know whether the Prime Minister remembers 16 September 1992—golden Wednesday—when the United Kingdom came out of the exchange rate mechanism, which was the start of our economic recovery. Why are the political elite of Europe denying Greece and other euro countries the same mechanism to improve their currency: withdrawal from the euro so they can re-establish their national currency?

[The Prime Minister]

I learned a very important lesson from our experience in the exchange rate mechanism: never fix interest rates in a way like that because you may need a different interest rate in your economy from that applying elsewhere. That is why I am so completely opposed to Britain ever joining the euro. I could not be clearer about that—unlike the Labour party, which spent 13 years planning and preparing for our eventual admission to the euro. We must allow other countries to make their own choices, and the choice of people in Greece—it is their business—seems to be that they want to stay in the euro. That is not the choice I would necessarily make—or that Mrs Bone, or even Mr Bone, would necessarily make—but that is the choice they seem to want to make and we have to support them in it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

Absolutely. Value is reflected in two ways, in terms of cost and in terms of the effectiveness of the support that is given. In my experience, volunteer-led organisations enjoy a different level of trust among the people whom they are trying to help.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Would the Minister welcome increased Government spending to enable the voluntary sector to deal with human trafficking? If the money went through the Salvation Army, the big society could help all charities to look after victims.

[Mr Hurd]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, with which I have a great deal of sympathy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

8. What progress has been made on establishing a commission on devolution and funding in Wales; and if she will make a statement.

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

10. What recent representations she has received on the proposed Calman-style commission for Wales; and if she will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Mrs Cheryl Gillan)]

Yesterday I announced in a written ministerial statement to the House the terms of reference and membership of the commission on devolution in Wales, the Silk commission. The commission will review the present financial and constitutional arrangements in Wales. It will look first at the financial accountability of the National Assembly for Wales and the Welsh Government and will aim to report in the autumn of next year. Following that, the commission will examine the current constitutional arrangements and will report in 2013.

[Mr Bone]

In Wales public expenditure is more than £9,000 per person. In my constituency it is £2,000 less. Yet again, Labour has left Wales in a mess, and Mrs Bone wants to know what the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State are going to do about it.

[Mrs Gillan]

Mrs Bone, I am sure, is absolutely right when she says that the economy of this country was left in a complete mess by that lot over there on the Opposition Benches—but my hon. Friend has asked a fairly complex question about the Barnett formula. The Barnett formula is not being examined by the Silk commission; it is the subject of bilateral communications involving the Treasury and the devolved Administration Governments, because it is a matter that concerns the whole of the UK. The Silk commission is focused on matters affecting Wales directly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s point, and for the reasons that I gave in answer to the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), I can see that it has considerable force, but I do not think that it is the specific responsibility of the CPS to deliver on this. It would require work with other agencies to achieve it and, for those reasons, it is something that I am happy to see taken forward, but it is not something that the CPS on its own can deliver.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The Attorney-General is right that the issue of guardianship is for other parts of the Government. However, he is responsible for sentencing. The Government, in their human trafficking strategy, promised a review by December. Will he update us on how that review is going and congratulate the Prime Minister on marking anti-slavery day by having a reception in Downing street on 19 October?

[The Attorney-General]

I join my hon. Friend in congratulating the Prime Minister on properly commemorating anti-slavery day. I am afraid, however, that I am not in a position to give my hon. Friend an update. There is a timetable for this report to come out. If I have any further information on the matter, I shall write to him.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2011 Commons Chamber

We recognise the concerns that have been expressed, and we wish to give formal reassurance of a kind that is consistent with the principle of the Bill. Our amendment in lieu, which we tabled last Friday and which we wish to substitute for Lord Pannick’s three amendments, would provide that the Prime Minister must make arrangements to set up a committee to review the Bill’s operation after the first full fixed term, in 2020. Those arrangements would require the committee, if appropriate, to make recommendations for the repeal or amendment of the Act. That provides a categorical reassurance that the Bill will be given full post-legislative scrutiny. It is a much better solution than simply allowing a significant piece of legislation to lapse.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Listening to the Minister’s opening remarks, I entirely agreed with him that there was no need for a sunset clause, but shortly afterwards he spoke of a review allowing the opportunity for such a clause. If there is no need for it—I agree with him on that—why bother to table the amendment? Moreover, I do not think that it will be possible for the Prime Minister to organise a review in 2020, because by then there will be a House business committee, and it will be for it to make the decision.

[Mr Harper]

The amendment in lieu does not concern a sunset provision. If the committee that was set up, having examined the operation of the Act and of fixed terms, concluded that the Act should be amended or, indeed, repealed, it could make such recommendations, but Parliament would then have to go through the full normal legislative process, with its checks and balances. There would not be a simple on-off provision that could be triggered in some constitutionally innovative way.

As for my hon. Friend’s point about the House business committee, it would of course deal with the business of the House. The committee set up by the Prime Minister would have to consist of a certain number of Members of Parliament—although it would not be composed entirely of Members of Parliament—to make recommendations. It would not deal with the timetabling of parliamentary business. My hon. Friend is, of course, a big supporter of both the Backbench Business Committee and the establishment of a House business committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bone]

The shadow Minister of course makes a fair point, but to balance it we have to give credit to the Government for introducing fixed one-year Sessions in future. There is another side to this, although he makes a fair point.

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support for my argument.

The other process point that I wish to make is that the lords debated their amendments in July and the Government tabled their amendment last Friday, but the amendment was not available in the Vote Office until this morning—that was despite my having asked for it on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I had no access to the amendment tabled by the Government until today. I understand it to be normal practice, just as a matter of courtesy, for ministerial offices to write to shadow spokespeople when the Government table amendments to Bills in which the spokespeople have been involved, in order to give them notification. I say gently to the Minister that it would have been nice if he had been able to notify us of amendments.

It would also have been good if the Whips Office had, instead of stating categorically all this week, until about 3 pm yesterday, that we were not going to be dealing with this Bill this afternoon, owned up to the truth, which was that the intention was always to deal with this Bill this afternoon. Indeed, the Whips Office had told the Minister so, and the fact that this Bill was going to be discussed this afternoon had been set out in his diary for several weeks.

[Mr Bone]

The shadow Minister makes a good point about the Whips Office. Will he be here tomorrow to support my Bill abolishing the Whips Office?

[Chris Bryant]

I am happy to abolish the Government Whips Office, but I am very fond of my Whips Office. It is always best to remain in as good an odour as possible with one’s Whips.

The simple point of process is that when the Leader of the House announces in the future business—as has been said, we hope that the Backbench Business Committee will do this in future—that consideration of Lords amendments may take place, he never specifies the Bill to which that relates. That is an unfortunate way of doing business, and it might make much more sense if, in future, the Government were to announce the Bills in question. If every Member of the House had known at the beginning of the week that we were going to be dealing with this Bill today, the Chamber might have been packed to the rafters—I note that it is not. That is despite the fact that we are sure to hear a wonderful speech from the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), and many would have crowded in just to see her jacket this afternoon.

The amendment, in essence, confesses that the Government have not achieved consensus on a major constitutional change. Again, I say gently to the Minister that when any constitutional change is being made, especially when pre-legislative scrutiny has not been undertaken, when no draft legislation has been produced, when the change was not adumbrated in one of the governing parties’ manifestos and when it is a significant change from what was in the manifesto of either of the two governing parties, it is all the more important that Ministers and the Government in general proceed on the basis of consensus. Although I am often a fierce critic of the House of Lords, of its hereditary principle and of its appointment principle—I call it the “patronage principle”—I believe that the Lords plays an important stop-gap role in constitutional affairs. That is why I believe that this amendment owns up to the fact that, as Lord Butler of Brockwell put it, this legislation has been introduced

“without proper consultation, preparation or consideration.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 18 July 2011; Vol. 729, c. 1080.]

For many years, we relished listening in this Chamber to Lord Cormack, the greatest par-li-a-ment-ar-i-an of his age—he used about seven syllables when saying that word. As he said, this is an

“ill thought-out, unnecessary and bad Bill.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 18 July 2011; Vol. 729, c. 1087.]

There are specific problems with this amendment, most notably because it does not add anything. If their lordships think that it is a concession, they are completely mistaken, because already the Government will have to undertake post-legislative scrutiny on this legislation in the next Parliament. All the amendment does is provide for another version of post-legislative scrutiny, but such scrutiny will already have taken place four years before the date in 2020 when the amendment suggests it should occur.

I am somewhat of a suspicious mind; I think that the reason why the Deputy Prime Minister has insisted on this date in 2020 is his ambition to put up joint Liberal Democrat-Conservative candidates at the next general election and to be able to continue the coalition for two parliamentary Sessions. I say that because it was not an immaculate conception that led to this constitutional Bill; it was conceived behind the bike sheds as a result of the coalition partners—the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats—trying to fix the length of this parliamentary Session so that nobody could abscond should any difficulties arise. [Interruption.] I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) is just waving to me or whether he would like to intervene. It appears that he wishes to intervene.

[Chris Bryant]

I believe that earlier this week the Prime Minister described himself as a “Pragmatic liberal conservative Eurosceptic”—he used different arrangements of those words in different arenas, as is his wont.

In addition, the amendment presumes that not only this Parliament, but a second one will run for a full five years. If that was not the case, choosing to specify dates in June and November 2020 would be particularly bizarre, as they might fall two years into another Session. This is where the following statement by Lord Armstrong of Ilminster is correct, although I confess that I do not quite understand the first bit:

“It is all Lombard Street to a China orange that the time will come when a premature Dissolution would be to the manifest benefit of the country”.——[Official Report, House of Lords, 18 July 2011; Vol. 729, c. 1088.]

I think that that is true. If we consider the recent history of the United Kingdom, we see that even on occasions when the Government had a decent majority, such as in 1964 and 1974—although the latter situation was more complicated—they decided to hold a new election because they felt that they needed a mandate to deal with a specific set of issues that had not arisen at the previous general election. I believe that that will happen again and that it will be in the interests of Parliament to have the greatest degree of flexibility to allow it to happen, if not to encourage it to happen. That is why this amendment, in trying to entrench not just one fixed term, but two—in the interests of the coalition rather than the country—is misguided. As I said, the amendment adds nothing because post-legislative scrutiny, a fixed part of the way in which we carry out our business, will apply to this legislation.

The Minister, charming as he is, tried to assert that fixed-term Parliaments are used in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as in relation to local government elections and so on. However, these do not seem to have been very fixed in the past few years. Indeed, in the short time that he has been in power he has already changed the term for the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the local government elections in Northern Ireland. Now the Government have just decided that there will not be a fixed term for the police commissioners, because the first term will be slightly shorter than the second one, as the Government are not going to be able to get their legislation through in time to have elections next May and so the first elections will take place next November. So I am profoundly sceptical even about the ability of the hard-line fixed-termers, such as him, to deliver a fixed-term Parliament, because of the way in which politics works.

I wish to make a few comments about the specifics of the amendment. It states:

“A majority of the members of the committee are to be members of the House of Commons.”

I do not believe that the Government consulted anyone in the Opposition on this amendment. I am sure that had the Minister done so, he would now be leaping to his feet to defend himself—it appears, therefore, that he has not sought a consensus on this constitutional change. If consultation had taken place, we might have made some suggestions about how to constitute such a committee. It might have been better to state from the outset that it should involve Members of the House of Commons. I think that we should return to the practice of the 15th and 16th centuries—I am sure I have one hon. Member on my side here—which was that Joint Committees of both Houses should have two Members of the House of Commons for every Member of the House of Lords. I admit that that was at a time when there were perhaps 60 or 70 Members of the House of Lords and 480 or so of the House of Commons, whereas they are getting towards having double the number we have in this House. None the less, while this is a democratically elected House and that is not, it would make more sense for the majority from this House to be 2:1.

I note en passant that one Member of the Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform—not from the Opposition side of the House—pointed out that having such a large number of members of a Joint Committee makes it very difficult to do serious business. It is quite difficult with large Select Committees, but with 24 or 26 members of a Joint Committee of both Houses, it is phenomenally difficult to make progress.

[Mr Bone]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

Of course I will give way to the hon. and gentlemanly Gentleman.

[Mr Bone]

I was just reflecting on the numbers. Are there not about 800 peers and 600-odd Members of this House? I think the hon. Gentleman’s calculations are slightly wrong.

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, I was noting the acceleration. The coalition has a commitment in its agreement that it will keep appointing more Member of the House of Lords until the numbers mirror the representation in the House of Commons. That means that they have another 269 to appoint. We are pretty much getting on for having up to double the number of Members at that end as there are here. In addition, the Government want to elect some Members so that if the Government get their way, without sensible amendments from the Opposition, we will have twice as many Members of the House of Lords as of the House of Commons.

The Minister said that the danger of a sunset clause would be that it would be like switching a light bulb on and off. What he fails to understand is something that some of us have been arguing for through several Bills—that is, many of the measures contained in the Bill would be far better dealt with through the Standing Orders of this House, particularly anything to do with a no confidence motion. There is a danger that otherwise they will be justiciable in the courts. He refuses to accept that. If it had been a question of Standing Orders, then as with any other Standing Order this would be a matter for the House to change. It would not need three readings, nor would it have to go to two Houses; it would just be a matter of a simple vote.

The Minister sets his mind against sunset clauses, but I remember when he used to sit over on the Opposition Benches—what halcyon days—and used to campaign for sunset clauses galore on Government legislation. With virtually every change we introduced through legislation on security and policing, for instance, the then Opposition demanded a sunset clause. On civil liberties, control orders and all these different elements of legislation there was a campaign from Opposition Members saying that there must be a sunset clause. Quite often, we succumbed to that campaign and we put them in. In a large amount of our civil liberties legislation, there were sunset clauses and provisions had to be renewed every year.

One of the most significant sunset clauses in our constitution refers to the inability of the Crown to have a standing Army unless there is a vote in the House of Commons every five years. That is a sunset clause on the single most important part of our constitution: namely, the Crown’s ability to defend the country. The Minister is completely wrong to invent this new concept that we cannot have a sunset clause in a constitutional Bill—and only in such a Bill.

The Minister also said that there are no sunset clauses in relation to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but the single difference between this case and those instances is that there was absolutely no consultation with the wider public on this legislation. As for setting up devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, there was lengthy and protracted cross-party consensus on precisely how everything should be set up. I think he is whispering something about the Conservatives not agreeing to devolution in Scotland, but we rejoice that the sinner repenteth. They had the opportunity to take part in that lengthy process of consultation and that is surely the proper process for changing the constitution.

Let me come to my penultimate point. The Minister says that those in the Lords who have presented amendments have good intentions, but he reminds me of something that happened when I went to a theatre a few years ago. There was a couple who had had a terrible row sitting in front of me and just before the play started, the woman turned to the man and said, “And the worst of it is that you’re so blasted pate-ronising.” He kissed her on the forehead and said, “It’s pat-ronising, dear.”

To be honest, I thought the Minister’s approach to their lordships—who are senior constitutional experts and have seen many of the corridors of power far more extensively than he or I—was downright patronising. I think they have come up with a good solution. The coalition Government can have their five years and there will be a general election in 2015 unless one of the Members for Bedfordshire manages to split the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister from one another, but thereafter it should be for the House of Commons and the House of Lords to decide whether to continue with this legislation.

I am sure that the Government Whips, through their nefarious processes, will have engineered that there are plenty of people to see off their lordships’ amendment this afternoon, but I tell their lordships that the Government are attempting to get them to sell their soul for a mess of pottage. The Government amendment is not an amendment that is worth supporting—

Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Peter Bone Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am looking at being as transparent as I possibly can be. We have not just the Freedom of Information Act, under which people can make requests; this Government are pushing out a huge amount of data, including publication of the recent e-mails of Ed Llewellyn.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The Prime Minister has rightly published the names of people who have stayed overnight at Chequers, which includes Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks, but also other journalists. Given what the Prime Minister said about the Government getting too close to the media, Mrs Bone was wondering this morning whether those visits would stop, which would open up a number of weekends when I understand she is free.

[The Prime Minister]

As long as Mrs Bone does not insist on a slumber party, that is a very good idea.

Parliamentary Commission for Administration and Health Service Commissioner for England

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I should like to start by agreeing with what the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) said about the role that Ann Abraham has played as parliamentary ombudsman. As Members of Parliament, many of us will have referred cases relating to the Child Support Agency and tax credits to her. She and her staff have dealt with those cases very efficiently and ensured that those people, who had had awful experiences at the hands of the system, got some redress. I should also like to welcome the appointment of Dame Julie Mellor to the post. She has considerable experience in the public and private sectors, and her enthusiasm for the role was evident during her interview with the Public Administration Committee.

The Government have not handled the issue of remuneration well. With their spin agenda and attempt to translate sound bites into policy, they do not understand one thing about the parliamentary ombudsman. There seems to be a difference between what the sound bite element in the Conservative party comes up with and putting things into practice. They are creating long-term problems for the Government in respect of the parliamentary ombudsman’s position. Her decisions, which will often criticise Departments for their dealings with our constituents, should be independent of the Government and this House.

It is in our interests as Members of Parliament to ensure that the ombudsman is as independent as possible. However, I do not think it is possible for her to be independent when she has to negotiate her own pay with the Government. I am not suggesting for one moment that Dame Julie Mellor is going to be influenced by money; clearly, as has already been said—by the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), I believe—she took a pay cut to do the job in question. We hear the rhetoric about being on a par with the Prime Minister’s salary, but no policy decisions have been made on that and no evidence has been provided on why the benchmark for senior positions should be the Prime Minister’s salary.

Since I have been in the House—the last Labour Government might have been as guilty as this one—independent bodies have been asked to decide on remuneration, but when Governments did not like the outcome, they changed it or argued against it. That might be justifiable when it comes to MPs’ pay, which we put out to an independent body. The first thing the Government did was to stop us taking the increase, which was to be over many years, taking our pay further and further down. There is a big difference between that and the ombudsman, who has to be seen to be independent from the Government. It is not acceptable for the Government or Executive to be able to exert any levers over the ombudsman.

There is a lot of inconsistency in what has been done. The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex raised the issue of the Comptroller and Auditor General—another post that should be independent of the Government—but his salary range goes from £210,000 to £214,999. The point made by the hon. Member for Dover is right: with a link to a High Court judge, it is the independence of the person that counts. Controlling things in the way the Government have done—to be honest, I do not think they have done it intentionally; it is just that the soundbites have got the better of them—shows that they have not thought this through. If we are to have this nonsense whereby the Prime Minister’s pay is the benchmark, I ask the Minister to provide at least some justification of why and how it is formulated.

It is important to understand the history of the parliamentary ombudsman and the health service ombudsman. The Committee’s report was good both in questioning why things had been changed and in saying that the previous situation, although it had arisen largely as a result of tradition, was at least a justifiable way of determining the individuals’ pay.

Schedule 1 of the Health Service Commissioners Act 1993 says that where a person holds the office of parliamentary ombudsman and the office of the health service ombudsman, they are entitled to draw a

“salary pertaining to the office of the Parliamentary Commissioner.”

Section 2 of the Parliamentary Commissioners Act 1967 sets out the salary provisions for the parliamentary ombudsman, and section 2(1) states:

“There shall be paid to the holder of the office of Commissioner the same salary as if he were employed in the civil service of the State in such appointment as the House”

may resolve from time to time. The Act states that, in the absence of a resolution passed by the House, the salary payable to the ombudsman

“shall be the same salary as if he were employed…as a Permanent Secretary.”

Over time, the way in which civil servants are remunerated has changed. The current annual salary of permanent secretaries ranges from £140,000 to £239,999. There is also the bonus culture, of which, as a former trade union official, I am not in favour. To give the impression that civil servants’ pay is being kept down, the basic salary is kept down but bonuses are paid as well. Civil servants may be on the lowest scale of £140,000 a year, but by the time they have received their bonuses—and various other payments—they are earning considerably more.

The salary of the Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service ranges from £235,000 to £239,999. The salary of the chief executive of the national health service ranges from £210,000 to £214,999. The annual salaries of the permanent secretaries of the Departments that are responsible for most complaints to the ombudsman range from £170,000 to £174,99 and from £180,000 to £184,999.

It will be asked why that matters. I believe that it matters because of the status of the ombudsman herself. That can best be explained by means of an exchange of letters between the present ombudsman, Ann Abraham, and the Prime Minister, which revealed that the current salary was analogous to that of a High Court judge in salary group 4, which is £172,753. As the hon. Member for Dover pointed out, we are asking such people to act in a quasi-judicial capacity, and I think it important that they not only retain their status but cannot be influenced by Government.

In a letter to the Prime Minister dated 11 April 2011, Ann Abraham wrote:

“The existing arrangement provides an objective and effective mechanism for determining the Ombudsman’s salary, and any increases to it. It gives Parliament assurance that an Officer of the House is being appropriately remunerated and it provides clarity and certainty for the Ombudsman. It enables Government to reject out of hand any suggestion that Ministers or officials are applying undue pressure or offering inappropriate rewards to the Ombudsman.”

She went on to object to the salary bands proposed by the Government.

I think that it was right to link the ombudsman’s salary with that of a High Court judge, because it meant that the ombudsman, either on appointment or each year, would not interfere with, or have some influence over, his or her pay, and it removed the danger, which may be posed by the salaries of the many civil servants who earn much more than the ombudsman does now, that the person concerned would be influenced by his or her salary level. Continuing to do that would also dispense with the nonsense that if we are not careful—I will say more about this in relation to the motion concerning the increase in the salary of the new occupant of the post—it will be necessary to negotiate every time there is a new Government, or if the salary becomes pegged below its present level when the economy becomes buoyant in the next few years and pay restraint is removed.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a detailed and valid point, but MPs, too, have to hold to account people who are earning a lot more money than them. Is there not a correlation between that point and the argument he is making?

[Mr Jones]

There is—and quite rightly. Because of previous Governments’ and this Government’s pegging of MPs’ pay, many people, even some quite low-level local government workers, are earning considerably more than us. In terms of the process that we are addressing however, it is important that the ombudsman is independent of, and cannot be influenced by, Government. We have a slightly different relationship with the individuals to whom the hon. Gentleman has referred.

These measures were all brought in on the basis of pay restraint. A lot has been said about trying to cut senior salaries. I have already mentioned the Auditor General’s pay, and there seems to be some inconsistency across Government about where this restraint should apply. If we are going to make exceptions, I cannot see why things were changed here, as opposed to, say, for Bernard Gray who was appointed Chief of Defence Materiel at the Ministry of Defence by this Government on a salary of £250,000 a year, plus a potential bonus of £30,000. I know that that is a very important job; it delivers equipment to our armed forces. I have no objections to Bernard, either; I know him well, and he is a very fine individual. However, if the decision was taken to break the principle of the Prime Minister’s salary being the ceiling in that case, I do not understand why the Government have intervened in that way in this other case.

The Prime Minister’s letter of 21 June reveals a lot about the attitude to pay restraint policy. I do not think he has understood the process. What we are doing here is going away from quite a well-thought-out system to one that has now brought into doubt whether not only current Ministers and Governments, but others too, could influence these areas in future.

Phone Hacking

Peter Bone Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. I have worked in a regulated industry, in television, where you could be fined if you got something wrong—the company I worked for was fined a lot of money once—and there is no doubt that that has a huge effect on the business. But it is not for us to say what the rules should be; it is for this inquiry to do that and it should be properly advised by experts who understand how the media works.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

May I congratulate the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, and you, Mr Speaker, on granting the Standing Order No. 24 debate in order to put Parliament at the heart of this matter? There is a danger in all this. In the scandal involving MPs, most MPs were of the highest integrity and were working hard in public service. Likewise, most journalists, including those at News International, are hard working and are of the highest integrity. Will the Prime Minister just mention that fact?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. The British press has a lot to be proud of in terms of its record of investigative journalism, of uncovering the truth, of providing information and entertainment, and of holding the powerful to account. The point I would make to the sceptics in the press who will worry about this inquiry is that we cannot go on as we are, and we need to do something to stop this firestorm, to protect what is good in the media and to ensure its freedom for the future, and also to deal with the abuse that we clearly see in front of us.

Open Public Services White Paper

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Letwin]

The Work programme sets out a series of staged payments made to the providers when they get people into work. Full payment is made only if they keep those people in work over a sustained period. There is a huge incentive for each provider to find people work only of a kind that they will wish to remain in for the long term.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The Government should be congratulated on bringing forward a genuine Conservative proposal. Was the Minister advised by his civil servants that this policy was both brave and courageous and is there a danger that the Government will row back from this as the years go on?

[Mr Letwin]

No, there is no danger that the Government will row back from this as the years go on. I can tell my hon. Friend that I have received a great deal of advice—some of it highly constructive and some of it not at all constructive—as has my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Secretary, with whom I have worked closely on producing this White Paper.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor-General]

As I said in answer to the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), and in connection with an earlier question, the Crown Prosecution Service public policy statement makes it clear that those who are trafficked—those who are victims of the trafficking—should not be prosecuted.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

We are having rather lovely weather at the moment, and this spring seems to be going on for a very long time. Did the Solicitor-General let it slip that spring was going to end next week, and are we actually going to see the trafficking policy next week? If so, can he confirm that an oral statement will be given, rather than a written one?

[The Solicitor-General]

On the latter point I cannot give a confirmation, but on the earlier point I think I can.