Deregulation Bill

John Bercow Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Last year, I attended the Chelsea flower show. I was given two tickets by Japan Tobacco International, which I declared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Two weeks ago, I submitted three questions on e-cigarettes. Although I understand that JTI has no commercial interest in e-cigarettes, on reflection I think I should have made sure that I declared it in my interests when I filled out the form. I do not want to pre-judge any inquiry by the Standards Committee, but I made sure that I came here at the earliest opportunity to ensure that the House was aware of my mistake. It was not my intention to mislead anybody. I just want to make sure that what I have been doing is put on the record.

[Mr Speaker]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he has said and the speed with which he has come to the House to say it. I think the House will acknowledge that. We will leave it there.

[Tom Brake]

It was perhaps remiss of me not to say how much I have enjoyed resuming our jousts across the Chamber on the Bill. I remind the House that the Bill will save businesses £300 million over 10 years, and that it will save the public sector £30 million. The Opposition say that it amounts to nothing, so in practice they are saying that £300 million of savings are not worth having. In our view, they are worth having.

I am glad that the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) has welcomed apprenticeships and the growth in their number. That is something on which we can all agree.

On to the issue of data sharing and the use of data, the hon. Lady underlined how, under the new Labour party proposals, citizens will be in control of their data. That is of course an interesting departure from what Labour Members did in government. With such things as identity cards, the retention of innocent peoples’ DNA, the massive database they wanted to create and indeed CCTV, they did the complete opposite of giving citizens control over their data.

The hon. Lady suggested that new clause 1 is a last-minute amendment, but of course it is not. It was flagged up in Committee, where we discussed the need for HMRC to share taxpayer information with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and others. I am therefore surprised that she was surprised.