Business of the House

Simon Burns Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I thank the hon. Lady for her personal good wishes. The thoughts and prayers of everybody in the House will be with Jo Cox’s family at this time. I also salute, as the Prime Minister did yesterday, what MP4 and other hon. Members on both sides of the House did to contribute to the recently released download.

The hon. Lady asked about the serious issue of the threats and abuse that a number of hon. Members in different political parties have been receiving. I and the House authorities take that very seriously. She will understand that we do not usually talk about such security matters in detail in the Chamber, but the Chairman of Ways and Means and I recently sent a letter to all Members of the House, alerting them to the existence of a dedicated police hotline to which any such threats should be reported. Certainly, both the Chairman of Ways and Means and I would want to know of any evidence or suggestion that a local police force was not taking such threats seriously. We would take the appropriate steps were we to receive such information. Similarly, if there is evidence that necessary security improvements to Members’ homes and offices are being held up on unreasonable grounds, I would certainly be willing, as would the Chairman of Ways and Means, to try to make sure that things were sorted out rapidly.

Turning to the policy points that the hon. Lady raised, I will try to give the summer recess dates as soon as possible, but she will appreciate that, in line with precedent, it has not been the custom for any Government to announce summer recess dates quite this early in the parliamentary year. Similarly, I hope to be able to satisfy as soon as possible her appetite for dates both for the report on the renewal and restoration of the House and for the Commons proceedings on the Bus Services Bill.

The hon. Lady might have noted in her comments on the EU that it was a Conservative Prime Minister, Sir John Major, who ensured that this country had the opt-out from the euro in the first place and that without his efforts that choice would not have been available to the United Kingdom.

On EU exit, I welcome the hon. Lady’s statement on Labour’s position, but I have to say that it is at odds with what her party’s own spokesman, the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), said just over a fortnight ago when he stated that we need to “keep our options open” on a second referendum. If we are to take the Labour party’s approach seriously, it has to accept that whichever side we campaigned on and supported during the referendum, and whether we agreed or disagreed with the verdict of the public, this was a decision that the electorate was democratically entitled to take and which almost all of us in the House agreed, in supporting the European Union Referendum Bill, should be delegated from Parliament to the voters of the United Kingdom to decide finally.

I think that the hon. Lady’s appetite for debates on the European Union will be more than sated in the new year. I also point out that there are more than 30 different Select Committee inquiries taking place in this House and in the House of Lords into various aspects of our departure from the European Union. She is right to say, as the Prime Minister has repeatedly said, that it is in our interests and in the interests of the other 27 members of the European Union to secure a negotiation that provides for as amicable a divorce as possible, because although we are leaving the European Union, we are not leaving Europe. A strong, productive, mutually beneficial relationship with the EU27 will be important both for the prosperity and security of all 28 countries and for effective co-operation, on an international scale, to deal with such challenges as large-scale migration from Africa and the threat from international terrorism, which will be with us, I am afraid, for a long time into the future.

The hon. Lady chided the Government about our approach to the living wage, but I have to say that we followed the advice of the Low Pay Commission in the recent increase in the national living wage. I note, too, that the Resolution Foundation, which is not always an unalloyed champion of Government policy, has said that 2016 has marked the best year ever for low-paid workers because of the Government’s commitment to the national living wage.

Finally, the hon. Lady asked me about Christmas presents. For some unaccountable reason, she omitted to mention that in the Opposition’s campaign grid for this week, tomorrow is marked down as the day for Christmas jumpers. That combination of garish design, clashing colours and a general sense of naffness rather summarises where the shadow Cabinet is.

[Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Over the last three weeks or so, Chelmsford commuters travelling into London by train have had nightmare journeys because of broken-down trains, faulty tracks and other problems. Would my right hon. Friend be able to arrange for a statement by a Transport Minister on what can be done to stop such inefficient service provision, or would my right hon. Friend advise me that I ought to seek to catch Mr Speaker’s eye next Tuesday afternoon to contribute to the Adjournment debate before the recess?

[Mr Lidington]

For as long as I have been in the House, I have known that my right hon. Friend is the most formidable champion of commuters from Cheltenham—[Hon. Members: “Chelmsford!”] I beg his pardon as well as yours, Mr Speaker—from Chelmsford. The Christmas spirit is getting to me.

There is an important message here for the franchise holder and the railway workers, who together have to make that line operate, that the interests of the travelling public should be first and foremost in their priorities at all times. I am sure that if my right hon. Friend catches your eye, Mr Speaker, Transport Ministers will be only too happy to respond to him.