Nuclear Sector Deal

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Diana Johnson

Thursday 28th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

I expect the benefits to be spread across the country. There will be up to £2 billion-worth of domestic and international contract wins, which will help the supply chain of the nuclear industry throughout the country.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) on securing the urgent question.

Renewables are also an important part of our energy mix, and in east Yorkshire, particularly with offshore wind, we are leading the world in that development. When might we see a sector deal for renewables, and can the Minister tell us when we will be given more details about the sector deals for local areas which the Government announced, I think, last year?

[Mr Gyimah]

As part of our industrial strategy, we committed ourselves to a series of sector deals. So far, five have been announced, including the life sciences deal, the automotive sector deal, the artificial intelligence deal, and the nuclear sector deal announced today. We are looking for opportunities across the board, and if there is an opportunity for us to develop a sector deal working with industry, we are willing to proceed. As the hon. Lady knows, clean growth is one of the four grand challenges in the industrial strategy, and we will make sure that we do everything we need to do to make a success of it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Diana Johnson

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

The answer is very straightforward: mutual assistance exists for prisons to support each other in both the private and public sectors.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Staff morale is very important to safety and security in prisons, so I wish to ask the Minister again about the flexibilities that I understand governors will have on pay increases from 1 April. Will that mean that we could end up with prison officers in Hull being paid less than prison officers down the road in Leeds? How will that affect morale?

[Mr Gyimah]

No. As I said in my answer to a previous question, the matter of Prison Service pay will be decided nationally. The independent pay review body will also submit evidence throughout this year. That will still be the case where we have governor freedoms, but, in giving governors their budgets, they will be able to decide on the mix of staff and how to deploy them.

Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Diana Johnson

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the working conditions for prison officers and the estates in which we house prisoners are important to improving safety in our prisons. I look forward to the new prison in Wellingborough opening shortly.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Given that 15 of the most dangerous prisoners have been transferred to Hull following the Birmingham riot earlier this year, that prison officers are saying that they fear for their safety, and that the prison was in lockdown in December, does the Minister understand why morale is so low, especially when the pay award is not going to areas such as Hull? Will the governor there have the flexibility come April to give these hard-working prison officers that pay increase?

[Mr Gyimah]

Yes, prison governors will have control over their budgets and will be able to make decisions about staffing and how their staff are deployed from this April. We have to be absolutely clear. The POA says that this unlawful strike action is about pay. However, only last week we announced not only promotion opportunities but increased pay for vast numbers of prison officers across the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Diana Johnson

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

All eligible Polish nationals have been identified and deportation orders sought. We have referred cases to the Polish courts, and transfers will take place once Polish legal procedures have been completed.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Does the Minister think the number of prisoner transfers will go up or down after we leave the EU?

[Mr Gyimah]

We have already been in touch with the Department for Exiting the European Union on prisoner transfer agreements, but, as I said in my opening answer, that is one way of removing prisoners from this country. The early removal scheme is another way, and we have been successful at removing a lot of prisoners through that scheme.

Electoral Registration

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Diana Johnson

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

It should be doing that. [Interruption.] It is not a case of blaming someone else. In 2013, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities, Science and Cities wrote to all vice-chancellors and academic registrars, encouraging them to look at multiple ways of getting students on to the register. We have set up a student forum in which best practice can be shared. If any academic registrars are not doing that, Members should by all means let me know, and we will write to them again to ensure that they are engaging in best practice.

Let me now answer the question about block registration. Data-sharing between universities and local authorities is the key, and we are working to ensure that all universities share data. That will enable electoral registration offers to have students’ enrolment details, and to chase them to register. It also means that we can preserve the central tenet of IER, which is that individuals should be responsible for their own registration.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Bizarrely, there are more properties than there are electors on the register in the Newland ward in my constituency, where the vast majority of Hull university students live. Those students live in houses in multiple occupation. That strikes me as very peculiar. Will the Minister comment?

[Mr Gyimah]

Another point that has not been grasped by the Opposition is that students can choose where to register to vote. They can choose to register to vote at home or at their college premises, or, indeed both. That is entirely right. What we should move away from—and what we are moving away from—is the system whereby the warden of a college chose where the student registered. In some cases, people did not even know that they were on the electoral roll in the area concerned.

It is important that we debate this issue, but we have to be clear about what is happening today. This is not a genuine concern about a policy, because we know Labour is supportive of IER. Instead, it is an opportunistic attempt by the Labour party to con students that it is fighting for their interests when its own activists’ handbook advises it to ignore under-registered groups. That is why I urge the House to reject the motion.

Lords Spiritual (Women) Bill

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Diana Johnson

Monday 19th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

I could not put have put it better or more eloquently than my right hon. Friend.

We lost the bishops, briefly, under Cromwell’s commonwealth, but they were welcomed back to Parliament at the restoration. No new bishoprics were created until 1847, when the population had increased and previously small towns were becoming industrial cities. The Church responded by increasing the number of bishops, but it was agreed that the new bishops would not add to the number of Lords Spiritual. The Bishopric of Manchester Act 1847 and subsequent Acts kept the number of Lords Spiritual at 26. The Government have introduced the Bill in a similar spirit to those Acts, which adapted the constitutional arrangements in line with the changes made by the Church as it modernised.

The current arrangements by which Lords Spiritual sit in the House of Lords are set out in the Bishoprics Act 1878. Twenty six bishops—the two Church of England archbishops and 24 of its diocesan bishops—are entitled to sit in the House of Lords as Lords Spiritual. Five of the 26 bishops automatically receive writs of summons to attend the House of Lords on the basis of their see: the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the Bishops of London, Durham, and Winchester.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Given that women in the Church have waited so long for this to happen, and that many of them hold senior positions but are not yet bishops, does the Minister think that we might see a woman automatically going into one of those five senior positions rather than having to work her way through the diocesan route?

[Mr Gyimah]

That is an interesting point, but it is a matter for the Church. The Bill seeks to affect the process by which female bishops can enter the House of Lords, but the question of which female bishops occupy which position is a matter for the Church. I agree with the hon. Lady’s sentiment that women have waited for this for a long time.

The remaining 21 bishops take their seats on the basis of seniority. When a vacancy occurs, it is filled by the longest-serving bishop, and that is why we have the Bill before us today. Clearly, the present seniority rules mean that it would be many years before a female bishop would be eligible to sit in the House of Lords. In consequence, the Archbishop of Canterbury, after consultation the Lords Spiritual and others, requested on behalf of the Church of England that amendments be made to the arrangements under the Bishoprics Act 1878 to enable female bishops to enter the House of Lords sooner than they would under the current rules.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

My right hon. Friend makes the point clearly. The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) asked about the Government assessment, but, as my right hon. Friend points out, vacancies are available. I would not want to speculate from the Dispatch Box on whether a vacancy will be filled by a male or a female, but the Church has shown its commitment to increase the number of female bishops and the number of female bishops who become members of the Lords Spiritual. That is, after all, why we are here today. One retirement from the Bishops’ Bench in the next Parliament has already been announced: the Bishop of Leicester will retire on 11 July 2015.

[Diana Johnson]

I wonder whether the Minister will be able to help me to understand this fully. An assessment has been made, because 10 years is the time period in the Bill for when the sunset clause will come into effect. On that basis, is the assessment that in 10 years’ time we will have 50:50 male and female bishops in the House of Lords? What does the Minister think will be the position after 10 years?

[Mr Gyimah]

There are no quotas and there is no target for 50:50 representation. The intention of the Bill is to enable the Church to fast-track women bishops into the House of Lords. The system, as it currently operates, is based on length of service. If we allow it to operate, then even in 10 years’ time it is theoretically possible that we will not have any women bishops at all. The Bill will allow the Church to reflect on the number of women bishops represented in the House of Lords, but there is no target. This is not about 50:50, but about being able to reflect the fact that women bishops, appointed on merit, can serve in the House of Lords and not be limited by the rules on length of service.

Amendment of the Law

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Diana Johnson

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)]

I am listening to what the hon. Lady says about young people not being given the skills they need and about NEETs. I do not know whether she was here earlier this afternoon when the Chancellor announced £200 million for 50,000 extra apprenticeships, which are targeted specifically at those young people who need training and skills to be able to get on the employment ladder.

[Diana Johnson]

Like all hon. Members, I think apprenticeships are an excellent idea. Employers in Hull, however, will tell anyone that the new criteria that have to be fulfilled to take on an apprentice mean that many of the young people cannot get into the workplace. They may be with a training provider, but actually finding an apprenticeship with a business is proving very difficult. I do not know where these 250,000 apprenticeships are going to come from. If the Government can do this, I say “Excellent, we are all supportive,” but to be honest, you are in la-la land—[Interruption.]—or, indeed, in the land of green ginger, which is another very good example.