Relationships, Sex and Health Education: Statutory Guidance
Debate between Roger Gale and Peter Bottomley(7 months, 1 week ago)
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Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for putting forward proposals that children need and that teachers, parents and school leaders have wanted. It seems to me that a lot of people are now saying, “Of course, what she’s doing is right”, and a year or two ago they were not saying that.
I would just say in passing that some people who have been providing sex education lessons and gender lessons in primary schools boast that they have presented to 100,000 children and trained over 4,000 staff, and I think that kind of infiltration has to end.
Can I also say to the Secretary of State that I hope her permanent secretary and others are listening to their SEENs—sex equality and equity networks—when they raise, or try to raise, the point with their Departments that when Departments ask questions about gender, they should be asking questions about sex?
Building Safety
Debate between Roger Gale and Peter Bottomley(8 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
It is some years since our late colleague, David Amess, led a few of us who were interested in fire safety even before Grenfell.
We must remember that in the months after Grenfell, everyone backed away thinking that residential leaseholders would be the only people who would have to bear the £10 billion to £15 billion cost of remediation—and that was before we knew all about the other fire defects, which our building control standards and inspections had allowed to accumulate over the decades. We should all hang our heads.
The Minister rightly talked about needing more transparency. I say in passing, although it is a very serious point, that anyone who looks at page 3 of the Financial Times today, on the possible future policy on ground rents, will see an indication that people who own such buildings—the pension funds, the Long Harbours of this world, the Tchenguizes’ interests and others—ought to be looking at their own social and environmental responsibilities, getting rid of ground rents and spending their money on making buildings safe for everyone to live in.
Cladding groups and leaseholders’ groups deserve praise, as do the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership and the present chair of the Government’s Leasehold Advisory Service, who can point out some of the things that have not yet been done. This is an interim statement and we look forward to hearing more, whether by written or oral statements, but may I say to the Minister that the one group that seems to have been let off is the insurance companies who backed the developers, architects, surveyors, builders and component suppliers?
The Government should find a way to take together the potential claims of all the residents, tenants, leaseholders and owners of properties, and have a roundtable with insurance companies and get the billions of pounds out of them that they would have to pay if it went to court, without paying the lawyers half the money.
Protest Measures
Debate between Roger Gale and Peter Bottomley(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
It is an honour to follow the hon. and gallant Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), who has just put a question to my right hon. and gallant Friend the Minister for Security.
Some demonstrations are perfectly acceptable. For example, in my early years as an MP, in order to get a relief road, I escorted mothers and their prams down a major road. We went at three and a half miles an hour, which was faster than the traffic would have gone had we not been there on a demo. It was a Friday evening and people were trying to leave London. We got the relief road.
I also led a march from Speakers’ Corner to Trafalgar Square for the Cambridge Two—two social workers who were wrongly convicted and jailed for helping the homeless.
That is different from the kind of disaster that happens when there are crowd surges, especially if they are created by explosions, be they from firecrackers or other things. I was present at Óscar Romero’s funeral, when 14 people died around me from crushing because explosives or fireworks went off.
I was present at the Heysel stadium in 1985 when 39 Italians were crushed to death. Being able to control demonstrations, which should be held by agreement and understanding with the authorities, is vital for them to be safe.
On a more minor scale, there was a flash protest outside my constituency office yesterday by good-natured people who care about the people in Gaza. Had there been one young worker in that place when suddenly a flashmob appeared around them, it would have been discomfiting. I am sure that that would not be caught by these measures, and nor should it be, but I say to those doing such protests: “Think of others.”
I ask my right hon. Friend to remember a last point about disruption. When there was one of the Just Stop Oil or Extinction Rebellion demonstrations, in which people were allowed to sit around in the streets here—for far too long in my view—I said to one person who had flown in from Vancouver to join the protest that flying halfway across a continent and an ocean to help Extinction Rebellion was odd. I said, “What about the ambulances?” They said, “We’ll let them through.” I replied, “The ambulances are stuck 2 miles away. You can’t let them through. You must let people go about their ordinary business to save lives and for the prosperity of the country.”
I back the Government’s measures, and I hope my right hon. Friend knows that he will have support from across the House and the country for what he has proposed.
Tom Tugendhat
First, I thank the Father of the House for his support for these important measures, and indeed for his entirely correct observation that protest is not only necessary but important across the country. Every day, many protests happen politely, courteously and in ways that make their point without causing the kind of societal harms that, sadly, some cause. His longevity in this place, and indeed outside it, is a blessing to the House. He remembers the funeral of the late St Óscar Romero, whose extraordinary work was an inspiration to millions around the world. My hon. Friend reminds us not only that crying “Fire!” in a crowded theatre is not an expression of freedom of speech, but that, in this context, making an explosion in a crowded area can lead to human tragedy beyond expectation. The co-operation between protesters and the police is incredibly important for the protection of the public.
State Pensions: UK Expatriates
Debate between Roger Gale and Peter Bottomley(7 years, 8 months ago)
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Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House notes the detrimental effect that the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Regulations 2017 will have on the lives of many expatriate UK citizens living overseas with frozen pensions; and insists that the Government take the necessary steps to withdraw those Regulations.
As chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on frozen British pensions, and with cross-party support, I move this motion on behalf of some 550,000 UK citizens living in countries overseas whose pensions have been frozen at the point at which they left the United Kingdom, in some cases many years ago.
Those people paid taxes and national insurance contributions in Britain throughout their working lives, and elected to move abroad in retirement to be close to family and friends, or simply through personal choice. On the basis that—as my hon. Friend the Minister said in November—entitlement to state pension is based on a person’s national insurance contribution record, they paid their way and are entitled to receive their state retirement pension uprated and in full.
Let me make it clear from the start that this is a matter not of cost but of moral responsibility. It is a duty that has been disgracefully shirked by successive Governments of differing political persuasions since the mid-1960s. It is past high time to recognise that an injustice has taken place and to take a modest step, which I shall detail shortly, to redress a wrong that has been a running sore for too long. The motion calls on the Government to withdraw the social security benefits uprating regulations that effectively exclude overseas pensioners from pension uprating in all countries but those with which the UK has an historic, arbitrary and illogical reciprocal agreement.
My hon. Friend the Minister knows of the illustrious precedent for the motion. In 1998, a similar prayer against the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Regulations 1998 was tabled. It was signed by the then Opposition Chief Whip, now Lord Arbuthnot; my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), a former leader of the Conservative party and distinguished Secretary of State for Work and Pensions; the then leader of the Conservative party, now Lord Hague; my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley), another former Secretary of State; and the then shadow Leader of the House, now Baroness Shephard.
All those years ago, the party of which I am proud to be a member recognised the need to right a wrong inflicted on those who, in many cases, have served their country in the armed forces, the foreign service and many other walks of life, and who have, collectively and severally, paid their way. We are now—and I trust will remain—in government, so we have the opportunity finally to address and put to rest a debt of honour that must be paid.
I quote a UK pensioner living in Rayong, Thailand:
“I am resident in Thailand, where I retired nearly 8 years ago, and my State Retirement Pension remains at the same level as when I left, because Thailand, unlike the Philippines, for example, is not a country where pension increases are paid…there are some points which I feel should be brought to the fore.
Successive governments have always argued that pension increases can only be paid in countries with which the UK has ‘reciprocal agreements’, and that to extend increases outside these arrangements would negate their ability to conclude other such agreements in the future. However, that argument is utterly threadbare, given that the government announced more than 20 years ago its intention not to make any further reciprocal agreements.
There is a common misconception that expats pay no UK income tax. In the case of pensioners this is totally untrue, because all pensions paid from the UK are subject to tax, and I pay as much as I would if I were still living in—”
his former home in the United Kingdom; I will not identify him at this stage. He continues:
“While pensioners such as myself are paying into the UK economy, we take nothing out, so we make no demands on the NHS or social care. Now, even if we fall ill on a visit to the UK we have to pay for hospital in-patient NHS treatment. If over the years a significant number of us decide that because of reduced circumstances we have to return to the UK, the extra costs in health and social care would outweigh a good proportion of the ‘saving’ of not paying us the increases.
There is uncertainty at the moment on the status after Brexit of expat pensioners living in the EU, and their future right to pension increases…I can’t speak for anyone else, but personally I would not ask for any back payment of the increases I have ‘lost’ in the last 7+ years. I would just be happy to feel that in the future I will have that little extra security of a few extra pounds to sustain me in the last years of my life.”
I will return to his points that refer to Brexit and a possible solution in a moment, but first let us take a look at some hard facts. There are 13 million recipients of the United Kingdom state retirement pension. A fraction over 1 million of them live overseas. Of that number, some 650,000 have their pensions uprated as they would in the United Kingdom because of the reciprocal arrangements already referred to. Baroness Altman said in 2016 that
“UK state pensions are payable worldwide and uprated…only where we have a legal requirement to do so.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 February 2016; Vol. 769, c. 251.]
That means that many people are denied that uprating. In fact, some 551,000 are excluded from uprating and find their pensions frozen from the point at which they moved abroad, in spite of paying their taxes and national insurance contributions in the United Kingdom throughout their working lives. As my hon. Friend the Minister made plain in November 2016, pensions are based on national insurance contributions.
Those 551,000 people have made those contributions. However, we still have the ludicrous situation that a British pensioner living on one side of Niagara Falls, in Canada, receives a frozen pension while another living just a mile across the falls, in the United States, has their pension uprated every year. Additionally, some Caribbean islands enjoy uprated pensions, while other small countries and overseas territories do not, with unintended and perverse consequences.
The UK representative of the Government of Montserrat, Janice Panton, wrote to me to say:
“A number of Montserratians now living in the UK wish to return to take up residence on the island but are hindered from doing so due to the fact that should they emigrate to Montserrat—”
go back home, effectively—
“their pensions would be frozen. Many of these individuals have lived, worked tirelessly and paid their national insurance contributions over the course of many years. It now seems they are being victimised simply because they desire to return to Montserrat or another Overseas Territory.”
The representative of the Falkland Islands in the United Kingdom, Sukey Cameron, also wrote to me, saying:
“The Overseas Territories have a different constitutional relationship with the UK and are not independent Commonwealth countries; therefore they should not be treated as such. To quote from the 2012 White Paper on the Overseas Territories ‘…the underlying constitutional structure between the UK and the Territories, which form an undivided realm, is common to all.’”
Of course, it is common to all, except in the case of pension uprating, where it is not.
The human consequences of this injustice can be devastating and are illustrated by scores of communications that the International Consortium of British Pensioners and the all-party parliamentary group on frozen British pensions have received from expatriate UK citizens. A spokesman for the Parity or Poverty Group, which has members in Canada, Thailand, Turkey and South Africa, says:
“We are trying desperately hard to undo the predicament that’s driving us into poverty. I can see it on the horizon for myself as once affordable items are now out of reach. I dread the future for myself and my wife.”
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
No one could have prepared better for this debate than my hon. Friend, and by the end of it I hope we will have set forces in train that lead to a curing of this injustice.
Sir Roger Gale
We shall await the Minister’s response with great interest. I am grateful to my hon. Friend.
A former constituent of mine, and a friend, now living in South Africa, wrote to me to say, “I have been looking after my wife since her stroke and increased dementia, plus incontinence now, for over a year. Reviewing the situation with our daughter, my wife is slowly going downhill. I am heading that way, too. I am worn out. To help with catering and finance, we are now on to Meals-on-Wheels for four days a week and are shortly to arrange five day or even five and a half day care support. Right now, our medical aid—insurance—takes half our combined basic OAP pension and the new care plan will certainly take the other half. Our daughter looks after our finances and generously helps and tops up when needed.” That is what my former constituent, a friend, is now reduced to. Sadly, I learned only this morning that his wife died last week, leaving him not only in penury but, apart from the care and affection of his daughter, alone.
Bernard Jackson, 91 years old, has returned to the United Kingdom from Canada and says:
“I was brought up to believe that Britain was a fair country. It’s a disgrace, it has to end, it’s terrible to meet pensioners over here who say they have to come back to Britain because they can’t manage.”
Joe Lewis, 90 years old, who lives in Canada and has recently lost his wife, will be moving back to the United Kingdom as he can no longer cope with his frozen pension. After suffering a severe fall, Joe is increasingly struggling to afford living and medical costs. The only way he can make ends meet is to use up all his savings. Joe Lewis, a nonagenarian, says:
“All I want is my full state pension which I have paid into my entire life”.
Here is another anomaly: any returnee, including those visiting the UK for a couple of weeks to see family on holiday, is entitled to claim their full uprated pension for that period.
Of course, cometh Brexit, cometh another issue that will have to be addressed. The 492,000 British pensioners living in the 27 European Union member states and EFTA countries are protected by the social security provisions of the EU single market, but what will happen to their pensions when we leave the EU? A resident in France wrote to me to say:
“I have been a ‘victim’ of a frozen pension for the past 15 years having lived in Zimbabwe for 45 years and being forced to move to a EU country in order to get my pension... During my working life, I continued to pay Class 3 NI contributions to safeguard my UK pension and it was only when I reached age 65 that I found out that my pension would no longer be indexed, and this has cost me many thousands of lost pounds over a period of 15 years. Now the same issue is rearing its head because of Brexit.”
Will there be 27 different reciprocal agreements or one blanket agreement? Will former EU pensioners find their pensions frozen like those in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Indian subcontinent, Montserrat and other countries? Surely now, in the light of Brexit, is the time at least to start to put all expat UK pensioners who have paid their dues on an equal footing.
I return to the resident in Thailand who said that he
“would not ask for any back payment… I would just be happy to feel that in the future I will have that little extra security of a few extra pounds to sustain me in the last years of my life.”
Successive Governments, plucking figures out of the sky, have suggested that uprating overseas pensions would cost billions. In fact, the proposal that the all-party group supports, which goes nowhere near as far as the proposal that some would like and that justice probably dictates, is to uprate payments at the 2.5% from which UK-based recipients will benefit this year. That will cost not billions, but just £33 million. After five years, the budgetary impact will be £158 million. To set that in context, the triple lock costs the Government an extra £2 billion each year.
In the great scheme of Government expenditure, £158 million is small change—small change to settle a debt of honour, with no threat of legal challenge in respect of potential retrospective claims. That, surely, is a bill that, in the interests of a society that is fair for all, the Government cannot afford not to pay.
Pensions Bill
Debate between Roger Gale and Peter Bottomley(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Sir Peter Bottomley
The Government chose and Parliament endorsed that we would have free movement of people and of benefits in this sense, but the Secretary of State will no doubt be able to answer my right hon. Friend with greater certainty. The essential point is that as a country joins the EU—or even EFTA—the entitlement to increases in pensions comes with it.
When preparing my thoughts on this matter, I might have anticipated that the Prime Minister would say that he would give consideration to calls for a wider review of the issue. I might also have expected him to conclude that he was not minded to pursue such a review at this time. That is the gentlest form of saying no that I have come across.
I suspect that, as and when we extend voting rights to British nationals living overseas, either for a period of 15 years or for even longer, as many other countries do, our Members of Parliament who represent those overseas resident voters will start putting the pressure on, and that change will come. The Prime Minister might be anticipating that. He might see the sense and justice of such a change, but, given his position, he has to say no to a lot of popular causes. Perhaps the justice element for which is so rightly praised in the Commonwealth has not quite come to his mind yet.
In fact, I received a letter from the Prime Minister about half an hour ago confirming what I had anticipated. He has said that
“the case for not departing from the position of successive Governments is clear.”
I have already pointed out how the position has changed in respect of the reciprocal arrangements. His letter goes on:
“To do so would cost hundreds of millions of pounds at a time when the pressure on a welfare system is considerable and when we are asking many people who live in the UK to make sacrifices.”
That could be an argument for cutting off increases for all overseas pensioners, but that is not going to happen. The anomaly will continue. It has carried on from 1972 to 2013. If I am still here in 20 years’ time, will Ministers still be trotting out the same arguments that they used in 1972? I jolly well hope not.
I pay tribute to the leaders of the International Consortium of British Pensioners in Canada and Australia. They have had work done by Oxford Economics to make the case for the health care savings. We all know that the majority of costs to the national health service are incurred by people in the last years and weeks of their lives. Which of the people living overseas are the most likely to return to this country for their end-of-life health care? I suggest that it is those living in the United States, whose insurance might have run out and who cannot meet the costs, and people in Europe who might want to return to this country to be treated in a health service they know and in a language they are used to. I doubt that many people would come back from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa or Canada.
The health care question was what prompted us to call for the whole of Government review. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), who came with me last week when the Prime Minister very kindly gave us the opportunity to put some of these points to him.
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
My hon. Friend has already paid tribute to the leaders of the campaign in Canada and Australia. Jim Tilley has told us of the case of an English lady in Australia who is living on £6 a week. The rest of the money that she has to live on is provided by the Australian Government, because our Government cannot give it to her. Does that make my hon. Friend feel proud?
Sir Peter Bottomley
I find that shaming.
One of the reasons to be active in public service is to identify injustice and to work against it. It might take months, years or decades, but this is a fight for which I would like to see more support from the Opposition and from those on my own side. My hon. Friend has mentioned Jim Tilley. I want to mention John Markham, the director of public affairs for the International Consortium of British Pensioners, who is based in Toronto, in Canada. He has pointed out:
“Approximately 10% of all pensioners live abroad, roughly 1 million people. Of that million, 50% receive annual increases to their state pension, and the other 50% do not, solely based on country of residence.”
That arbitrary, historical decision is unjustifiable.
I am not going to quote back to the Minister what he said about this before he became a Minister. Some people have to go through that embarrassment, but I do not want to subject him to it. I will say, however, as we approach Remembrance Sunday and Armistice day, that the countries in which we have shared war memorials are those most likely to be affected. They are the countries whose people served in the former British empire and Commonwealth armies, and those people are the ones who are not getting the increase.
John Markham goes on to say:
“The recent select Committee on the new single tier Pension Bill declared it to be an anomaly that should be fixed.”
I have mentioned the Oxford Economics report. The Department for Work and Pensions might say that that was just a small survey, and that the benefits would take years to accrue. Well, the sooner we start, the better. The argument for doing it is not that it will pay this country, but that it is right.
I could go through the other arguments used by Julian Ridsdale, but there is restricted time for the debate, and it would be interesting to hear what the Labour Front-Bench team has to say. I know, too, that others wish to speak on this issue and to other amendments in the group. Let me declare the best judgment at the end of this debate. We will say no to clause 20, but we will not force a walk-through Division. That is a way of illustrating what we feel, without unduly taking up the House’s time, when Third Reading is also ahead of us. I hope the House will understand that.
Caroline Lucas
I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), who has spoken passionately about the importance of fairness and justice. I believe that those very same principles underlie the issue I want to raise this afternoon. I want to speak to my new clause 6, while confirming my support for new clause 8. Those new clauses both relate to the group of women who will not qualify for the single-tier pension, whereas men with the same date of birth will.
One of my constituents, Catherine Kirby, has been a passionate and tireless champion for women in her position. Understandably, she feels that she and others in her situation are faced with a dual disadvantage of being subject to an increase in the state pension age under the 1995 Act, while being denied eligibility for the single-tier pension. Not all, but some of these women will be left with a lower weekly state pension compared with men of the same age. No wonder my constituent, like many others, believes this creates unnecessary and unjustifiable inequality and discrimination.
The Minister has said in the past that women in the position of my constituent should defer, but for those on low incomes who are unable to work and do not have a convenient pot of money, that is not an option. He has explained in the past that because the new system excludes additional benefits such as for bereavement, it is not possible for the Government to tell women what would be best for them. For some women, however, that is simply not relevant to their situation. They already know that they would be better off—by £15 a week, in Catherine’s case, which is significant.
The Minister has said that, over a lifetime, most of these women would get more than the average man with the same date of birth, but theoretical lifetime averages are simply irrelevant to the difficult financial situation faced by my constituents and others in the real world. It is their weekly pension income that matters, and I believe that that is what should occupy our attention as their representatives.
I will support Labour’s new clause 8, which calls for a review of whether all women born on or after 6 April 1951 should be included within the scope of the new pension arrangements. That is not my preferred option, however. Not all will definitely lose out, and I do not think we necessarily need a review to find a solution that works for the relatively small but important number of women who may lose out.
My new clause 6 simply gives these women the right to choose to receive their state pension and associated benefits under the new state pension system set out in part 1 from its introduction in April 2016, if they judge it to be in their best interest to do so. It would not require the Government to tell them what to do, merely to ensure that information about the full range of entitlements under the old state pension rules and the new state pension is available to allow women to make a comparison of total weekly income. The responsibility for making a choice would rest fully with the individual.
I believe this group of women deserve a much better deal, and if that means upgrading to the single tier, that should be permitted. If the Government do not do that, it will be an example of blatant discrimination. It would not be difficult to remedy the situation and it would make a huge difference to the women involved. This group of women certainly deserve better. They are the generation who campaigned for equality for women. They began their working lives being discriminated against; the Government can and should give them the right to be included in a new single-tier pension to ensure that they do not end their lives feeling discriminated against, as well.
Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority
Debate between Roger Gale and Peter Bottomley(14 years ago)
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Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
Parliament should create its own website, on which any Member of Parliament with a legitimate claim refused by IPSA could post it, along with an explanation, and once a week, IPSA should explain to its board, and put on the website, the reason it turned down certain claims. That way we could say in public, “This is the reason we put in the claim.” We could put on the public record the fact that it was not accepted, and then IPSA could explain why it did not accept the shredder, the visit to the pharmacy students or whatever.
Spouses cannot now get their trips to constituencies paid for. Once, when I was abroad on overseas duties, and when representing my first constituency, I asked my wife if she would take my advice session. She did. She has a master’s degree in social administration and is a psychiatric social worker. She is competent in all such matters. She said that I was not trained sufficiently to do the sort of work that I was being asked to do, and she may have been right: that may be one reason why she became a Member of Parliament herself.
If I asked a member of staff to take charge of an advice session, IPSA would pay. If I ask someone who could do it just as well—someone with 21 years’ experience in the House of Commons—IPSA will not pay. That strikes me as an odd position to have arisen. However, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) that the individual members of staff at IPSA are good people. I have been to see them. The first time I visited their building I was going to the Stag brewery, where Watney’s was making Red Barrel. The parties were better then.
I do not want to expose IPSA to scorn, but there are some things that I think stop us being serious for just a moment. We all know that when a claim has been prepared, we have to go through hoops to get a barcode. Once we have the barcode, we must print out a sheet of paper. It takes eight separate key presses to proceed from the stage of having the barcode in front of us to the stage of having a printed piece of paper in our hands. I do not believe that a single member of IPSA has been through that process, because anyone who had would have said, “This is absolutely wrong.”
Once there is a hard copy of the receipt and the printed-out barcode sheet arrives with IPSA, what happens? I will give the House one guess. A member of IPSA’s staff generates another barcode to put on the bits of paper. There is a perfectly rational reason for that, but if all the members of staff and Members of Parliament were told that that is what happens next, they would say that it was unbelievable.
IPSA sometimes gets things wrong. We can all make honest mistakes: indeed, some of our colleagues who were exposed to public scorn made honest mistakes. When my PA wanted to arrange maternity cover and was going to telephone IPSA to ask how it would be arranged, I instructed her not to hold on for more than 45 minutes each time she did not receive an answer. That happened three times. IPSA tells me that, on average, its staff answer the phone in less than 10 minutes. When IPSA did respond, it said that payment for maternity cover would come out of the contingency fund, and both my PA and I would have to sign a statement that what was happening was both unavoidable and unexpected!
That was an honest mistake, and I am not criticising IPSA for it. What I am saying is that MPs who do not even make an honest mistake, but make an honest submission of a claim for a shredder or for a journey that is perfectly acceptable, are potentially exposed to what we read about in The Times yesterday, and to much more excitement after that.
I have shown IPSA people what happens when I log on to deal with a small self-invested pension pot: it takes me about 15 seconds to log on and be able to move money around. I have shown IPSA what happens when I engage in online banking: it takes about 25 seconds to log on and be able to make payments to people, for instance. I have explained to IPSA—I think that it understands this, and I am sure that the review will lead to even more improvements—that when virtually every Member of Parliament is buying office supplies from the same supplier, I do not understand why I should be expected to work out from the statement I receive from the firm, with invoices attached, which supplies I paid for last month, which supplies I am trying to pay for now, which supplies I have claimed for, and so forth. I do not think that anyone should have allowed such a rigmarole to develop.
In all my work—when I was working for the British Steel Corporation, a large organisation, and in my last job, when I was putting neon lights outside theatres and cinemas in the west end with 25 colleagues—I do not think that I have encountered any procedure that has been so demanding of both time and precision as the current expenses system.
Peter Bottomley
I normally reply “Yes” to my hon. Friend, but in this instance the answer is, “No, I cannot.” However, I think it comes down to the fact that members of the authority did not work their own way through the system, and did not talk to, say, a random selection of 10 Members of Parliament to ask what happens.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) mentioned the problems with the IPSA drop-down menu, which does not include an option for us to go to our constituency to attend on a constituent or to attend some official function there. We are supposed to start at our constituency home or our constituency office. As it happens, I have a home in my constituency, but not so far as IPSA is concerned, because it is not paid for from public funds at all. There is an office of my association, which is not where I hold by advice sessions or other events, so I have the same problem as my right hon. Friend.
I have spoken to IPSA about the problem and I think it has a solution, but the problem should not arise. In the same way, we are told to find the cheapest way of going on journeys by train. Again, this is not the heaviest point to be made, but it is worth making. I had to go to the headquarters of the Sussex police in Lewes, outside my constituency, with a constituent who had wrongly been accused of rape. I found that I could go there and back for £5 return, so long as I booked in advance.
I said to IPSA, “The money doesn’t really matter. It’s not the principle, it’s not the money, it’s a matter of interest. If the meeting overruns, or the senior police officer cancels the meeting and books it on another day, will you please pay me back the £2.50 if I have to take another train back or the £5 if I don’t go at all?” The answers that I got were delphic. IPSA was not quite saying no and it was not quite saying yes. It is the sort of question that we ought to be able to put and ask, “What is the answer?”
As another example—this is the way I work—my local association provides a walk-in service for constituents, individuals, businesses or community groups. As a liaison with me, the association can set up meetings, photocopy documents, send them to me or speak to me on the phone. I am not employing the staff or renting the building. We have come to an agreement on what the rough cost is and made an arrangement at slightly below that. The cost is not a problem with IPSA. The problem is which budget should cover it. I intend to ask IPSA to relax the limits on the incidental expenses. That seems the sensible way to deal with it, rather than force it wrongly into office or staff expenses.
Such issues matter. Members are told that they must go back to their constituency or not claim for a home in their constituency if it is less than an hour by train, platform to platform. IPSA must revise that. My constituency is on the south coast. I have come in from King’s Cross and it has taken 40 minutes to get from the platform there to Westminster. The idea that a Member can then travel another 45 minutes—say, to the midlands—and expect to be useful the next day is fine if they start work at 2.30 when they come back. I pay tribute to my colleagues who are here at 8 am, or before, or shortly afterwards. Under IPSA’s conditions, they cannot do a proper day’s work as Members of Parliament.
I confirm the view of the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) who said that given a choice between doing expenses or helping a constituent, the duty is to help the constituent. When I was doing my expenses yesterday at 4 pm, expecting a two-hour break, a woman rang up. On 29 April her gas was turned off, and her new boiler might come next June. She has had to move out or would have got hypothermia. It took two hours to get the problem solved and next week she will have the boiler. I prefer to lose some of my own expenses because I came here to do good for other people, not to do good for myself.