Pairing

Debate between Rachel Reeves and David Lidington

Monday 23rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I do not know whether that was an eloquent bid to be the beneficiary of future pairing arrangements, but my hon. Friend makes an important point. I think it is true that Conservative Members right across the spectrum, from left to right of my party, have always found the Chief Whip to be someone with whom they can do business and whose integrity and honesty they can completely trust.

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

With four Members of the House on maternity leave at the moment, this issue is particularly poignant, and I fear that many of those people will have lost faith in the system as it currently exists. When I was on maternity leave with my first child, the campaigning group 38 Degrees contacted my constituents criticising me for not attending a vote, but at least I knew that I was paired and that it was cancelled out. The right hon. Gentleman says that we will be discussing proxy voting in greater detail in the autumn, and that is welcome. However, when does he expect reform to take place to allow proxy voting, as recommended by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), so that it actually happens and we are not reliant on this informal system?

[Mr Lidington]

I think that after the general debate on the matter there will need to be, at some stage in the not too distant future, a substantive motion on which the House can take a view. Important questions were raised in the Procedure Committee report—for example, about the exclusion from a general proposal for proxy voting while on maternity, paternity or adoption leave of particular categories of Division in the House. The Committee discussed various approaches to how a proxy vote might operate in practice. The House needs to consider those things, as well as the points about the potential for bereavement leave or carer’s leave that other hon. Members on both sides of the House have raised.

Carillion

Debate between Rachel Reeves and David Lidington

Monday 15th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

My right hon. Friend speaks, as always, both eloquently and forcefully on behalf not only of her constituents, but of very large numbers of people in the constituencies along the HS2 route. As I said in my response to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), the particular HS2 contract that is at issue today will be covered by the joint venture arrangement. In that sense, Carillion’s liquidation today will not make a difference to the cost of delivering those particular services to the HS2 project.

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

When Carillion collapsed at the weekend, it had debts of £900 million and a pension deficit of £600 million and yet, year after year after year, Carillion paid out dividends to its shareholders. Although the chief executive was jettisoned after the profits warning last July, he is still being paid a salary in excess of £600,000 a year until this coming October. Will the Government confirm that those payments to the former chief executive will stop as of today, and will the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is about time that we reformed our corporate governance laws so that companies cannot siphon off money to the detriment of suppliers, workers and, ultimately, the British taxpayer?

[Mr Lidington]

As I also said in response to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds), I completely understand the concerns that pension contributors and existing pensioners will have. As I said earlier, the official receiver will consider potential detriment to the interests of pension contributors and pensioners as well as to employees of the company, and may seek to impose penalties. In addition, the Pensions Regulator has the powers to recover payments made to executives or others in the company if there is evidence that they have abused their responsibilities.