Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Halfon and Tom Brake

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington)]

To increase the number of apprentices, the House service has taken a number of steps. That includes expanding the range of apprenticeship programmes on offer from two to 14 since September 2018 and upskilling existing employees by enrolling them on apprenticeship programmes. The expansion of apprenticeship programmes will continue. Ongoing engagement and planning for apprenticeship roles across all House teams will ensure more quality apprenticeships are created.

[Robert Halfon]

Mr Speaker, you have led the way in ensuring that young people are employed in the House in your scheme, and in supporting apprenticeships, but as we are the House of Commons and the Houses of Parliament, can we please set an example to our nation and not just coast along in terms of employment of apprentices and make sure we meet our 2.3% public target? I urge you, Mr Speaker, and the senior Clerk to rocket-boost apprenticeships so that we have hundreds of apprentices in the Houses of Parliament.

Digital Democracy

Debate between Robert Halfon and Tom Brake

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Havard. I thank the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) and my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) for kicking off the debate. I also thank Mr Speaker for establishing the Speaker’s Digital Democracy Commission. The majority of its report’s recommendations are for Members of the House to consider and respond to, but everyone has a shared interest in many of the aims and objectives. Increasing public participation and public awareness of the role of Parliament and of MPs is a worthy aim. Of course, we are not starting at point zero. Much has been achieved in recent years as a result of the efforts of many, including the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. I reassure the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) that he never misses an opportunity to boast about the success of his Committee.

[Robert Halfon]

It is well deserved.

[Tom Brake]

Indeed.

The report contains 34 specific recommendations. I do not have time to comment on all of them individually, so I will highlight key areas, particularly those in which the Government have a lead responsibility. I will also try to address the points that Members have made on which the Government have a view.

The Speaker’s commission makes some useful recommendations about engaging the public, some of which are aimed at improving understanding of Parliament and the work of MPs. One example is simplifying language, which is something I think we would all support. I was interested in the idea that by 2020, Parliament should be understood by everybody. As an interim milestone, perhaps by 2015 Parliament could be understood by all Members of Parliament, and then we could progress to public understanding by 2020. Some clarity on precisely what “Parliament should be understood by the public by 2020” means would be helpful, because it could mean an awful lot of things to different people.

Other recommendations include clarifying online publications and improving the website, including for those with disabilities or sensory impairments. Much has been achieved in those areas already, but I am sure there is further to go. Making it easier for people to track specific areas of interest is one example of how we could improve our interaction with those who want to engage. The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch set out how technology could be used to pull together the issues that people are interested in so that they could see in one place the range of contributions being made by different Members in both Houses, by Select Committees and so on. Through that, they could get a real feel for what is happening.

I am glad that the commission looked specifically at engaging the young. If we are to engage better with the public and in particular with young people, it is vital that we exploit the full range of communications channels. Although the web and social media are key mechanisms for reaching young people—I welcome the approach taken during Parliament week to focus on engaging the young in innovative and dynamic ways—there is clear evidence that taking the opportunity to visit Parliament can have a powerful impact on perceptions of our work and role. The shadow Minister outlined that when he talked about the visits enjoyed by schools from Liverpool. A visit can bring a reality to the theory that students learn.

More than 45,000 seven to 18-year-olds from across the UK visit Parliament each year via our education programmes, but such visits are heavily over-subscribed. I therefore welcome the decision by the House of Commons Commission to press forward with the creation of a dedicated education centre. That will increase capacity, giving more than 100,000 young people a year the opportunity to visit Parliament and learn about their democracy. Members will, I am sure, be aware that construction at the north end of Victoria Tower gardens commenced in September 2014. We expect to welcome the first groups to the centre in summer 2015. Votes at 16 can also help engage young people at an earlier stage in the political process and hopefully engage them thereafter when they become adults. That has been Liberal Democrat policy for many years, albeit that it is clearly not Government policy.

The hon. Member for Nottingham North referred to digital exclusion, which is a significant point. I spoke at the Wallington Evening Townswomen’s Guild, and I asked its members, “How many of you would welcome the idea of a cyber-forum where you could all go online and express your views about what the Government are doing or intend to do, or put forward your own views?” Of the 50 or so people present, one hand went up. That woman is involved in a forum that is interested in greyhounds. While we can talk about the importance of online democracy and online engagement, there is still a digital divide. I agree that the divide will probably shrink as people become more used to technology, but I still think there might be a drop-off in the number of people involved. Those of us who started off being familiar with technology—some of us might have grown up more recently, with Facebook and Twitter—will find that our children are using other things that we are not so familiar with. Even people who grew up in a technological world may reach a point where the most modern devices, apps and software exclude them.

We take digital exclusion seriously. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is leading on the provision of superfast broadband to at least 95% of UK premises by 2017, and on providing universal access to standard broadband, through Broadband Delivery UK. The Government Digital Service in the Cabinet Office is conducting research to provide a better understanding of the support requirements of the digitally excluded and assisted digital users. As part of the commitment to reducing the number of people and organisations offline, the GDS undertakes ongoing user research to understand what prevents people from going online. It has brought together 40 organisations from the public, private and voluntary sectors to sign up to a UK digital inclusion charter. Work is therefore going on.

On the report’s recommendations regarding the legislative process, the Government are committed to ensuring that the legislation they put before Parliament is of a high standard, and to ensuring that Parliament has the necessary means by which to perform its scrutiny function. In April 2013, the Government launched the good law initiative, which was designed to promote law that is effective, clear and accessible. One of the best examples of that that I have seen, which I would encourage to happen more often, is the idea of a Keeling schedule, which takes a series of interlinked Acts and creates a document with all the relevant excerpts from the predecessor Acts in one place. That way, rather than trying to read across a number of different Acts, everything can be read in one document. I would like to see that idea used more effectively, because it provides clear and accessible law.

During this Parliament, various initiatives have been introduced that are designed to improve the legislative process, including the use of explanatory statements on amendments, improved explanatory notes and the piloting of public reading stages for Bills. The issue of public consultation during the Committee stage of a Bill was raised in the debate. That was used for the Health and Social Care Bill in 2011, so there are precedents for the Government providing such opportunities for the public to be engaged. The Government have also provided more time to allow proper scrutiny in Public Bill Committees and, where necessary, provided additional days on Report. There are several recommendations in the report on ideas to change the legislative process further, which will clearly be of interest to Members.

On electronic voting, the Speaker’s commission recommended that secure online voting should be an option for all voters by 2020. Making online voting available for UK elections could be attractive in the light of current advances in IT, but there remain concerns that e-voting is not sufficiently transparent or secure. My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow said that banking can nowadays be done by a simple click; the security measures that are in place are significantly more complex than that. There would need to be elaborate protection and security around online voting.

I conducted my own non-scientific online poll about online voting. Admittedly, it did not have a sample size comparable to those mentioned by the hon. Member for Nottingham North, but, interestingly, of the 11 people who responded out of the 232 people reached by the Facebook post—this was an online survey—seven, or 64%, said that they favoured online voting, and four said that they did not. Given that that was a sample of people who were online, and thereby excluded everyone who was not online, we must take on board the fact that a significant minority did not favour online voting. One person said,

“not in a million years, anything digital and online can be easily manipulated by cheats. Trust is the issue”.

Another asked:

“How will you make it secure, given the well documented issues that prevent that?”

Of course, there were people on the other side who were very much in favour. Some did not trust postal votes as an alternative, and Andy was

“inclined to trust the security of asymmetric cryptographic protocols”.

I trust Andy implicitly, so if he trusts them, I am sure that I should also trust them to provide the security needed for online voting. Clearly, we must address the issue of trust in the security of online voting. Public support for such measures is still far from universal, and traditional means of voting, such as polling stations and postal voting, remain popular with the electorate. Online voting would have to be an extra voting channel.

Speaking as a Liberal Democrat rather than as a Minister, I would be very happy for trials to take place in future, now that we have individual electoral registration in place. That was one of the building blocks that needed to be in place to enable trials to go ahead. I hope that that will be considered in future.

The debate has been interesting. All Members will have their own opinions on which ideas merit further effort to bring them into being. The report from the Speaker’s commission is a useful contribution to the ongoing debate. I have highlighted many of the successes of recent years, but I am sure that many Members will be keen to continue the pace of reform, particularly in taking the maximum advantage of the opportunities offered by advances in technology.

The Chamber is becoming more relevant to the lives of our constituents, whether through topical questions or Back-Bench debates on issues such as Hillsborough or contaminated blood, or through Mr Speaker’s greater use of urgent questions. It is important that our constituents see the relevance of what we debate to their everyday lives, and, importantly, that they feel able to engage in the political process. Technology is one way in which we can enable better participation in the parliamentary process and in politics more generally.

New technology has provided the means to move from our existing representative democracy to a participatory democracy, which could represent a fundamental constitutional change, affecting the role of MPs and their constituents, as well as the processes by which we govern. That bring its own challenges—for example, being clear about what is on offer, being genuinely open to ideas, and considering suitable accountability for participative mechanisms of engagement. It is in that context that we need to consider further the purpose and parameters of the reforms we have discussed today. I look forward to the debate being resumed in the next Parliament.

Business of the House

Debate between Robert Halfon and Tom Brake

Thursday 24th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake]

The hon. Gentleman may be alarmed to hear that I took part in Movember three years ago, but the general view of my trucker-style moustache was that it was best never seen again, and I am afraid that this year I will not be participating. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman intends to sport a dramatic moustache—a Mexican moustache perhaps—during November, but I agree that Movember is a fantastic campaign that has caught people’s imagination. Men are not very comfortable talking about prostate cancer and their health in general, and the campaign has highlighted an issue that men of my age—and the hon. Gentleman’s age—need to be aware of and concerned about.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

May we have a debate on reducing VAT on energy bills? Every 1% reduction in VAT means £300 million saved for hard-pressed householders. Will my right hon. Friend lobby the Prime Minister to ensure that regaining control of our VAT rates is the No. 1 part of renegotiation on our relationship with the European Union?

[Tom Brake]

I am sure my hon. Friend is aware that under the EU directive covering VAT it would not currently be possible for VAT on gas and electricity supplies to be reduced below 5%. We know that rising energy prices are hitting many households hard at a difficult time, which is why in response to an earlier question I set out exactly what the Government are doing about the issue. The Government’s view is that the best way to keep everyone’s bills down is to help people save energy, and to ensure there are fair tariffs and to encourage competition, which is exactly what they are doing. If the Government were to pursue the approach that the hon. Gentleman suggests, they would also have to say where the extra money would come from to make up for the loss in VAT.

Business of the House

Debate between Robert Halfon and Tom Brake

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Has my right hon. Friend seen my early-day motion 589, which deals with lower taxes for lower earners?

[That this House welcomes the Government taking 2.2 million people out of income tax so far by increasing the personal allowance threshold; further welcomes the Government raising the income tax threshold even further to £10,000 in 2015; notes that the Government is committed to helping the low paid with the cost of living by lowering taxes so that they can keep more of their own money; further notes that the National Insurance threshold remains at £7,748; and therefore urges the Government to examine the possibilities of increasing the threshold for National Insurance in the long term to help low earners with the cost of living.]

My right hon. Friend mentioned earlier the fact that our Conservative Chancellor has cut taxes for 20 million lower earners in our country. May we have a debate on whether we can help lower earners still further by raising the threshold for national insurance?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. He is a doughty campaigner on many issues and has had great success with some of them. I am pleased that the issues he mentions are very much on the Government’s agenda. Once we have hit the threshold to allow people to earn £10,000 before they pay any income tax, the Liberal Democrats would like to push the matter further, and the Government as a whole might like to do so as well. He raises the specific issue of national insurance contributions, and I am sure that he would support the Government’s initiative to reduce those in relation to employers. I can assure him that I have just read his early-day motion, and fantastic it is too.