Business of the House

John Bercow Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

That is an extraordinary tale. Whether the council is planning for floods is anyone’s guess. My hon. Friend is a strong champion for his community, and he raises an important issue. I recommend that he seeks an Adjournment debate so that a Minister can answer his specific concerns.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you so much, Mr Speaker. You took me by surprise. In the old and less enlightened days when I was at primary school, we could have a good old pinch and a punch for the first day of the month—

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[Andrea Leadsom]

I encourage the hon. Gentleman to seek a debate on that. When I was on the Treasury Committee about five years ago, my hon. Friend the Member for—Jesse Norman—

[Mr Speaker]

Hereford and South Herefordshire.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker. I had a momentary mental blank there.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) and the Treasury Committee held an inquiry into PFI, and it was quite clear that in many of those deals the private sector saw the public sector coming, and that those deals have not been in the best interests of the taxpayer or the patient. Of course, the hon. Gentleman must reflect that those PFI deals were signed under Labour Governments. Labour agreed to them—[Interruption.] Well, John Major did a few of them, but the vast majority were done under Labour. Now, under private finance 2, there is a much better track record of ensuring that the interests of the taxpayer are better cared for. However, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that a debate would be a good way to raise this issue again.

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[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

I want to bring something that affects my constituency to the attention of the Leader of the House. In Taunton Deane, about which we have just heard, the borough council has borrowed a fortune to do up its headquarters. Not only has it not signed a contract, which I think is illegal and pretty silly, but the headquarters will be valued at only half of what was borrowed. It is not a good council, so may we please have a debate on borough councils in the United Kingdom?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Did the hon. Gentleman consult his hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) in advance of asking this question? If he did, so be it, but if he did not, it is rather unseemly.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I did, Mr Speaker. I sent an email.

[Mr Speaker]

Yes. I am not sure that that is very collegiate, but I will have to leave Members on the same side of the House to try to sort out such matters. I gently say to the hon. Gentleman, who is quite an experienced Member of the House, that there is a genuine unseemliness about continued references to another Member’s constituency. In the politest possible way, I exhort the hon. Gentleman, who I am sure has a fertile mind and wide range of potential political interests, to focus perhaps on other interests, rather than on those that might affect his constituency—I do not dispute that and do not have authoritative knowledge of the matter—but which most certainly affect that of his hon. Friend.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I encourage my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) to take the matter up with the Housing, Communities and Local Government Ministers.