Oral Answers to Questions

John Bercow Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

The announcement in the Budget was indeed that it would come in from May, and not in April, so there is no surprise in what the hon. Gentleman announced. It was made plain in the Budget at the time. When Labour Members have raised these types of question in the past, they sometimes found that their criticism was ill-founded. I refer to the hon. Gentleman’s colleague, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin). He will remember that a few months ago he asked me how reforms to housing benefit would affect service families. He will know, following the announcement made by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, that we changed the system so that where an adult child living at home is serving on operations, the child will be treated as continuing to live at home and is therefore exempt. The point I make to the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) is that when these issues have been raised in the past we have listened, and we have funds for local authorities to address the issue as well.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I always enjoy the Minister’s answers and I listen to them very attentively, but today they are somewhat longer than were his speeches to Conservative student conferences, which we both attended together in 1985.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

The two local authorities in my area, South Gloucestershire council and Bristol city council, have yet to sign up to the community covenant scheme. What more can the Government do to ensure that local authorities sign up to the covenant as a matter of priority?

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[Mr Hammond]

A significant proportion of the underspend in 2012-13 is, in fact, the result of delayed spending on equipment programmes and will be needed to be spent in 2013-14 and 2014-15. As the hon. Gentleman will also know, part of the underspend is being used to meet the additional reductions in the budget announced by the Chancellor in the autumn statement and the Budget, which is why we are able to meet those requirements without cutting into the delivery of our core outputs in 2013-14 and 2014-15. To amplify the point about the pay settlement that is effective from 1 May, I will say this: the practical reality is that the MOD’s pay system is quite fragile, and the possibility of making a retrospective change was considered significantly high-risk. It would introduce a significant risk of a catastrophic breakdown in the pay system. We therefore—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We have a lot of questions to get through and I intend to get through them. Frankly, the answer to the first supplementary question was an abuse of the procedure at topical questions. Answers should be brief. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State can look at me quizzically, but I am telling him that the answer was simply too long for me, too long for the House and it delayed us unnecessarily. It must not happen again.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

T4. Does my right hon. Friend agree with the conclusion of the Defence Committee that it is ultimately up to the Afghan people to determine their future? What assurances can he give that the UK will continue to give substantial support to the Afghan Government and institutions once ISAF combat operations conclude by the end of next year?

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[Mr Hammond]

There is no doubt in my mind that the most cost-effective way of delivering a credible and effective nuclear deterrent is through continuous, at sea, submarine-based deterrence.

[Mr Speaker]

Last, but not least, I call Penny Mordaunt.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

What consideration has been given to making the Service Complaints Commissioner an ombudsman?