Yemen

Debate between Stephen Twigg and Mark Field

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I will have to get back to my right hon. Friend on that matter. It is more an issue for the Ministry of Defence, I guess, than for the Foreign Office.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I echo what has been said about the former Minister, the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt)? He will be a huge loss to both the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development.

On Saturday in Birmingham, friends of Yemen from across the country came together with a very powerful voice for the diaspora. Can the Minister seek to ensure that, the next time Martin Griffiths is in the UK, he has a meeting with representatives of the Yemeni diaspora who live here, so that their voice can be heard in this process?

[Mark Field]

That is essential, and we will try to organise that. I will try to ensure that my private office gives the hon. Gentleman as much notice as possible of Martin Griffiths being here in the UK. We can be very proud of what we are doing on the humanitarian aspects of this. That links into the Yemeni diaspora in this country, and we hope that they will feel that they can play an important part in a better future for that country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Twigg and Mark Field

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I thank my right hon. Friend. We have already had questions today on Shakespeare and the BBC, but he is absolutely right that our royal family is one of our greatest soft power assets, and we will do our level best, through the GREAT campaign and elsewhere, to ensure that strength continues.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

An important part of our soft power is our commitment to tackling global poverty and to international development. Will the Minister therefore take this opportunity to reaffirm the Government’s commitment to 0.7% spending on overseas aid and to the Department for International Development as a stand-alone Department, independent of the Foreign Office?

[Mark Field]

I am hearing a lot of chuntering from my left, as I have two DFID Ministers beside me—

Burma

Debate between Stephen Twigg and Mark Field

Thursday 15th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

My hon. Friend speaks with great knowledge about this matter and I very much agree with him. Clearly the international community will have to work with the Bangladeshi Government on that issue, but we are focused on it. We have a good track record on disease prevention. We can be very proud of the work that we did to nip the diphtheria outbreak in the bud, but I am by no means complacent that similar diseases such as cholera, as well as diphtheria, will not be prominent in the months to come.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister for his comprehensive statement and echo his words in describing this as a “humanitarian catastrophe”. I also reinforce what the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) said about the sheer scale of the camp—it is 10 times the size of the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan and double the size of the city of Liverpool. I welcome the fact that the Minister is meeting the Bangladeshi Foreign Minister this afternoon, but we really need to say to Bangladesh at the most senior level that more needs to be done to prepare for the rainy season, cyclones and the monsoon. I urge our Prime Minister to ask the Bangladeshi Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, to take a personal lead, because otherwise that humanitarian catastrophe will be multiplied in the weeks and months ahead.

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his words; he is absolutely right. I know that the International Development Committee, which he chairs, has done tremendous work. I only wish that it had been able to go to the other side of the border— that would have been very instructive—but the work it has done in Bangladesh is of tremendous importance.

We are both aware that the heavy rains and cyclones could have a severe impact on the nearly 1 million Rohingya who are already in Cox’s Bazar, as well as the host communities, because it is important to factor in the communities living in that part of Bangladesh. It is to the great credit of those communities and the authorities in Bangladesh that, hitherto, there have not been tensions between the two, but we cannot take that for granted. We are already working in great earnest with the Government of Bangladesh and humanitarian partners to improve preparedness. I will ensure that the hon. Gentleman’s concerns are passed on not just when I speak to our counterparts, but in our dealings with the Bangladeshi high commissioner to this country. I hope that he will feel able to play as strong a role as possible in making his robust case.

International Development Committee: Burma Visas

Debate between Stephen Twigg and Mark Field

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to make a statement to the House on the Burmese Government’s failure to issue visas to members of the International Development Committee.

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. Like him, I am deeply disappointed that the Government of Burma have not granted visas for members of the International Development Committee. That displeasure has been communicated to the Burmese authorities. The Committee does vital work, providing oversight of UK aid programming in Burma and beyond.

The hon. Gentleman, who is the Chair of the International Development Committee, was due to travel on 27 February, with the rest of the Committee due to travel on 28 February. When no decision on visas was received by early yesterday morning, the Committee understandably cancelled the Burma leg of its visit. I understand that the Committee will continue with the second element of its trip, namely to travel to Bangladesh to review the Department for International Development’s work there, including support for the Rohingya refugees displaced to Cox’s Bazar and the vicinity.

My officials were informed this morning that the IDC’s visa applications had been formally denied. Burmese officials have indicated three reasons for the refusal: first, that there is an extended public holiday in Burma; secondly, that access to Rakhine state remains restricted for security reasons; and finally—I think the Chair of the IDC mentioned this in a press release yesterday evening—that they were unhappy that individual members of the IDC had signed a letter calling for the senior general of the Burmese army to be held to account for Burmese military behaviour in Rakhine.

It is right that the House takes a close interest in this sort of crisis, and I know that all Members present will continue to do so. The Government fully support the work of the International Development Committee and have been active in supporting this visit. DFID Burma worked closely with the IDC to develop a comprehensive itinerary covering a range of projects in-country. The British ambassador to Burma, Andrew Patrick, and other FCO officials pressed repeatedly for visas to be approved, both in Burma and through the Burmese embassy in London. I myself spoke over the telephone to the Burmese ambassador yesterday morning to raise the status of the visas. That demonstrates just how seriously the FCO takes this matter, not least as a courtesy to the House. I understand that you, Mr Speaker, wrote to the Burmese ambassador, and that he intends to reply formally to set out the reasons for the refusal.

Through DFID, the UK is one of the largest single donors to the refugee crisis in both Bangladesh and Burma. Our aid is making a big difference. The first tranche of UK funding is providing emergency food to some 174,000 people and safe water and hygiene to more than 138,000. Following a diphtheria outbreak in the refugee camps, we deployed the UK’s emergency medical team of more than 40 specialists to save lives.

This decision to deny visas is highly regrettable and will prevent the Committee from seeing some of DFID’s work at first hand. However, this Government must and will remain committed to supporting Burma’s poorest and most vulnerable people. Working with DFID, we will ensure that the Committee has access to all the information it needs to scrutinise the programme in Burma effectively.

[Mr Speaker]

I am most grateful to the Minister. In democracies, parliamentarians do criticise Governments. That is a lesson that the Burmese Government will have to learn.

Violence in Rakhine State

Debate between Stephen Twigg and Mark Field

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I am sorry that my hon. Friend chooses to use the opportunity to grandstand in the way that he does—[Interruption.] The House has voted on that matter already, as we know. As far as this matter is concerned, we have made it very clear that we feel that Aung San Suu Kyi and her Government need to step up to the plate. We are not in any way forgiving or understanding of the terrible violence and its impact. It is worth pointing out that the entrenched security forces, including the army, police and border guard force, are responsible for the security operations that are currently under way in Rakhine state. We have made that absolutely clear. We will support Burma’s ongoing transition from military dictatorship to a civilian-led democracy. This is very much an ongoing process, led by the democratically elected Aung San Suu Kyi.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

The appalling persecution of the Rohingya is long standing and well documented. I concur with the remarks of the former Chair of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt); I was very disappointed with the statement made in response to the urgent question.

I have two questions for the Minister. On aid, reports today suggest that 30,000 Rohingyas are stranded in the mountains between Bangladesh and Burma. What is being done to address that in practical terms? There has to be a political solution in the long term. Does the Minister agree with the Nobel laureate, Malala, who yesterday appealed to Aung San Suu Kyi, saying that the citizenship of Myanmar has to be given to the Rohingya, so that they cease to be stateless people?

[Mark Field]

The hon. Gentleman will recognise just how complicated the situation with the Rohingya is. I suspect that the matter has been in his in-tray throughout his time as Chair of the Select Committee on International Development. In fairness, we are trying our best to get reliable information on the ground, which is difficult, as he will appreciate. We understand that 123,000 people have fled from Burma into Bangladesh. He may well be right that there are tens of thousands more in some halfway house, not able to make their way but desperate to do so.

I have tried to point out that we are not standing by innocently. We are doing all we can. In many ways, Britain has taken a lead at the UN, which will ultimately be the body that will have to deal, to a large extent, with elements of this humanitarian crisis. It is also worth pointing out that we have to be realistic about the manner in which the UN operates. The Security Council will require a unanimous vote or at least no veto. It is very difficult to see how, even within the P5, we would be able to get that for the reasons alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat).

These are difficult issues. We have done all we can and will continue to do so on the ground in Rangoon and—probably even more importantly in the months and years ahead—in Dhaka. We will do our bit and more to ensure that the humanitarian aspects of this crisis are kept to an absolute minimum.

Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill

Debate between Stephen Twigg and Mark Field

Programme motion: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg]

The hon. Lady is a highly valued member of the International Development Committee and I agree with her. The purpose of my remarks on Report this afternoon is to reinforce the point she made. Those are positive projects. We want to ensure that the high-quality we saw in that example in Congo becomes the norm for all the CDC’s investments, particularly as the limit is increased, which I will come to in a moment.

The private sector provides around nine out of every 10 jobs in developing countries. Its development and success is vital in helping countries to achieve sustainable and long-term development. I therefore believe it makes sense to increase the CDC’s investment threshold.

Poverty reduction must be at the heart of the Government’s development agenda, which must explicitly include the work of the CDC. In 2011, the predecessor International Development Committee produced a report, “The Future of CDC”, as the group approached its then cap of £1.5 billion, as set out in the Commonwealth Development Corporation Act 1999. The Committee’s report concluded that the CDC’s mandate should be changed to a specific focus on poverty alleviation. Given that job creation is one of the very best ways to reduce poverty, it is important that the Government have a development investment arm that will help poorer countries to create new and innovative jobs.

As has been said by Members on both sides of the House, the CDC made significant changes following the 2008 National Audit Office report and the 2011 International Development Committee report in line with recommendations to move towards a focus on the alleviation of poverty. As has also been said, those changes were reviewed recently by a further NAO report released just before Second Reading of the Bill in November 2016. The report was mostly positive, and noted that the 2012 to 2016 investment strategy shifted the CDC’s investment focus to poorer countries, which is welcome. The report noted that the CDC had exceeded the targets agreed with DFID relating to financial performance and development impact. However, it also said that the CDC should do more to measure the development impact of its investments. That would not only provide a better basis for investment decisions, but increase the transparency of the CDC.

Poverty alleviation is absolutely central if we are to make a success of the global goals—the sustainable development goals agreed in 2015. Africa needs to generate 15 million new jobs every year if it is to achieve its global goals. That can be achieved only by working with the private sector, including organisations such as CDC. CDC has helped to create nearly 25,000 jobs in Africa and south Asia directly, and it says it has helped to create more than 1 million jobs indirectly. The businesses in its portfolio support around 18 million jobs. I am therefore happy to see the increase in the threshold, but I have a number of concerns to which I should like the Minister to respond.

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman will know that I respect not only his passion, but the balanced way in which he deals with CDC issues. Does he share my concern that we risk having a more prescriptive approach towards the CDC, which is a part-private sector organisation, than we have towards a range of non-governmental organisations that are beneficiaries of large-scale DFID programmes, which might be somewhat distorting? Although he makes valid points about the concerns, if we are to hamstring CDC in the way that one or two of the proposals would have us do, it would be an undesirable outcome for DFID.

[Stephen Twigg]

I am certainly not arguing for prescriptions to be applied to the CDC that would not be applied to other organisations funded by DFID. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) has made the valid point that, shortly before Christmas, the Secretary of State set out a number of conditions for suppliers to the Department, and that they should apply to the CDC. I am emphasising my support for the proposal to put poverty reduction at the heart of the CDC. All hon. Members would agree that that should be at the heart of the Government’s entire development and aid strategy, including DFID. I can plead not guilty to the charge that the right hon. Gentleman puts to me. I am not proposing in any sense to hamstring the CDC. I am certainly not proposing, and I do not believe the Opposition amendments seek, to impose any restriction on the CDC that would be out of step with the restrictions we apply to other bodies funded through overseas development assistance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Twigg]

I absolutely agree with what my hon. Friend says, which chimes with my conclusion on the importance of scrutiny of both the CDC and the Government, including scrutiny by the House.

[Mark Field]

I have a lot of sympathy for what the hon. Gentleman says—in the context of the debate it would be useful to have an idea of the programmes that the CDC has in mind for the future. I hope that, when the Bill goes to another place, there is another opportunity to have one. However, does he recognise that, given the nature of the CDC’s expertise and experience, it might to an extent have slightly different goals from other NGOs who receive DFID money? In other words, given the CDC’s expertise, particularly its private sector expertise and experience, the absolute predominance of the alleviation of poverty could in some cases not entirely apply to everything it does.

[Stephen Twigg]

The focus and priority needs to be on poverty alleviation. At the beginning of my speech, I gave the example of a project we visited—the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) reinforced the point. That project undoubtedly delivered things beyond poverty reduction, but at the heart of that investment and its impact was the reduction of poverty. Keeping the reduction of poverty in mind is a useful lodestar for DFID when it approaches the work of the CDC. I would need some persuading that a project should be funded that did not have some connection to the alleviation and reduction of poverty.

Let me now turn to the issues of scrutiny that were referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting). The recent NAO report, as was rightly said by the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller), revealed that the target development impact score is on average being met, but only on average. The CDC is making some investments that fall below the target. Some 23% of investments since 2013 have fallen below the target score based on their investment difficulty and propensity to generate employment. Given that the objective stated in the CDC’s current investment policy is to

“focus its investments into the geographies and sectors where there is the most potential for development impact”,

it is unclear why the CDC is investing in projects that achieve lower scores. So I say to the Minister that, along with a more robust approach to measuring development impact, I would like a minimum threshold for impact implemented in the new investment strategy.

As with all DFID spending—and, indeed, broader aid spending by other Government Departments—the International Development Committee will scrutinise very closely the CDC’s work in the months and years ahead. It is vital that we ensure the British taxpayer gets value for money for every pound spent on international development. As has been said on all sides of the House, the CDC has become more transparent following the Committee’s 2011 report and the NAO report in 2008, but more can still be done to ensure that money is being spent as well as possible. One way that could be achieved—I ask the Minister to explore this—is to allow the Independent Commission for Aid Impact to play a bigger role, for example carrying out a regular assessment of CDC investments, allowing scrutiny so we can really ensure full effectiveness and value for money of the programmes in which the CDC invests.

I think we can say that the CDC has been a world leader among development finance institutions in publishing details of its investments since 2012 under the International Aid Transparency Initiative. That is very welcome, but I suggest it would improve transparency further if it published similar details on its entire active investment portfolio, including those made prior to 2012. I ask the Minister to address that point when he responds to the debate. That would enable greater scrutiny of the CDC’s entire portfolio and hopefully provide assurance to the public that all the CDC investments are focused where they need to be: on the goal of poverty reduction.

In conclusion, I believe that the CDC has helped the UK to be a leader in global development, but as with any area of Government spending we need to ensure that every penny is going where it can have the greatest effect: the right places and the right people delivering value for money for the taxpayer. One way to achieve that is by regular scrutiny of the CDC, including by Parliament. I give a commitment that the International Development Committee will play its role in ensuring that we scrutinise and hold to account both the Department and the CDC as the additional money is allocated. Most importantly, as with all areas of development spending, we need to ensure that the ultimate goal is poverty alleviation and eradication, and that we never lose focus on that.

Refugee Crisis in Europe

Debate between Stephen Twigg and Mark Field

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary on securing this very important debate. The International Development Committee met this morning and agreed to undertake an urgent inquiry into DFID aspects of the refugee crisis. As other Members have said this afternoon, the very strong public response throughout our country surely shows our country at its very best.

Both yesterday and today, we have seen the Government’s response with the new figure of 20,000. I support those who have said that there is urgency about granting access to as many of those 20,000 as possible. With the onset of winter, this is an immediate crisis. I particularly highlight the point made by Save the Children about the need to give the 3,000 unaccompanied children safe haven.

Part of the announcement concerns what the Chancellor said on Sunday about the use of the DFID budget to accept more refugees. That will require very careful scrutiny. The rules on official development assistance are clear: they allow for domestic expenditure to fund refugees for the first 12 months. However, I urge the Government to proceed with caution, for the reasons that Members have set out in this debate. Surely the focus of effective development policy must be to prevent crises from happening in the first place.

There is a balance to be struck. The Home Secretary spoke about the 0.7% commitment and about how, with the growing economy, the amount of cash available will increase. I seek a commitment from the Government that if the costs associated with refugee resettlement exceed the increase in the cash available, they will look elsewhere for the money, including to the contingency reserve.

[Mark Field]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, because his Committee should scrutinise such issues very closely. Does he accept that community cohesion should be one of the goals of DFID expenditure? It is right that a safe haven for people who will come to this country—I hope, temporarily—should be done under the DFID budget, rather than through the Department for Communities and Local Government or other Departments.

[Stephen Twigg]

We will certainly examine that matter as part of our inquiry. My instinct is that the current provision for 12 months goes as far as we should. If the Government proposed going beyond that, we would want to look at it in real detail.

The hon. Gentleman brings me to my next point. I am delighted that in my own city of Liverpool, our mayor, Joe Anderson, has responded to the shadow Home Secretary’s call to take 10 refugee families by saying that Liverpool City Council will take 100 refugees. As Joe Anderson put it:

“In Liverpool, a city famous for our warm welcomes and as a safe port in the storm of global conflict, we are prepared to play our part.”

Like other cities, however, Liverpool faces very large cuts in its funding from central Government. It is important that central Government provide support to enable communities across the country to take the refugees.

One of the central themes of this debate is the prevention of and the response to conflict. There is no doubt that we can be proud as a country of reaching the 0.7% target, about which the Home Secretary was right to remind us. We are second only to the United States in what we have contributed in bilateral aid to Syria, and we should be very proud of that. We need to say to our European partners who are nowhere near achieving 0.7% that they should rise to the challenge and match what we have done.

However, I do not believe that this is an either/or situation in which we either fulfil our obligation to 0.7% or take more refugees. In the crisis that we face, we have to do both. We need to say to our European partners that they need to rise to the 0.7% aid challenge, but we need to rise to the challenge of accepting more refugees. The figure of 20,000 is a very important development, but as others have said, the need is immediate, the crisis is now and we should seek to accept refugees as quickly as possible both from the camps in Syria and from among those in Europe. It is only right that we share that burden with our European partners.

House of Lords Reform

Debate between Stephen Twigg and Mark Field

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I welcome the opportunity to have this debate in Westminster Hall and I thank the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) for giving us this chance. We have had a good debate on House of Lords reform. Although there is a need for fundamental change—I will reaffirm Labour’s support for fundamental change—I think all hon. Members acknowledge the very hard work of many Members of the other place in scrutinising and seeking to improve legislation.

I will start by addressing what the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire set out as his principles for reform, because he set them out very well. They were, first, that the second Chamber should be democratic; secondly, that it should be smaller than it is now, but also smaller than the House of Commons; and, thirdly, that there should be a clear definition of the second Chamber’s role as scrutinising and improving legislation. That is very important. I have never accepted the argument that the primacy of the House of Commons is somehow automatically challenged by having a more legitimate and democratic second Chamber. Definition is a way of addressing that problem. As an aside, alongside seeking to make changes in the House of Lords, we need to recognise that the House of Commons needs to get its act together when it comes to the scrutiny and improvement of legislation. The Government need to get their act together by presenting to the House of Commons legislation that does not require, when it goes to the other place, the level of amendment that we have seen both in this Parliament and under the Labour Government.

Fourthly, as the hon. Gentleman said, we need to get shot of the deference. That, crucially, reminds us of the importance of completing the work to remove the remaining hereditary peers. I would add a fifth principle, which the hon. Gentleman accepted in his speech and which most hon. Members, apart from the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field), have acknowledged, which is that there should be a second Chamber. Some hon. Members, including in my party, favour a unicameral solution. It is very important that we have checks and balances in our system; having a second Chamber that can provide scrutiny and improvement of legislation is very important.

This is not a new issue. It has been around for more than 100 years, as has been acknowledged, and it has been debated, certainly during the two stints that I have had in this place, at great length. When I was elected in 1997, the Labour party ran on a programme of very dramatic constitutional change, as the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster said, and I am very proud of what we did on devolution, freedom of information and the Human Rights Act 1998. We started the job of House of Lords reform with the 1999 legislation, and it is interesting to look at the experience of 1999 through to now, because it demonstrates some of the pitfalls of trying to reform the House of Lords.

The original legislation in 1999 was to remove all the hereditary peers, and then in effect a deal was done between the then Government and the Conservatives in the House of Lords—not the Conservatives in the House of Commons—to retain 92 hereditary peers. In one way, it was a dramatic reform, because the number of hereditary peers was reduced very significantly, but even so a compromise was accepted that the 92 would remain. As the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire said, we have the absurdity of the only elected Members of the other place being the hereditary peers who are elected in the event of an hereditary peer leaving the other place through either death or retirement.

The aim was always to have a second stage. I served for a year, between 2001 and 2002, as Deputy Leader of the House of Commons. Robin Cook was the Leader of the House and was determined to see fundamental reform, both in modernising the House of Commons and in reforming the House of Lords. Colleagues may recall that we had a series of votes on reform of the other place. I cannot remember the exact order, but we voted on its being 100% elected, 0% elected, 80% elected, 20% elected—right the way through—and every single proposal was defeated. That reminds us that these things are not easy, that there is a range of views, and that we sometimes allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. Personally, I voted for a 100% elected Chamber, but I also voted for one that was 80% elected. Some were purists and were not prepared to vote for anything less than 100% elected.

We have had further votes since in which there has been a clear majority in the House of Commons for an elected second Chamber. Under the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), the House of Commons voted for both 100% and 80% elected. As we have been reminded, the Bill in this Parliament received a very clear majority on Second Reading. We can therefore say that the will of the House of Commons is for a democratic second Chamber. The principles set out today are absolutely the right ones.

How do we take things from here? It is right to remind ourselves that a general election is coming up and there is an opportunity in manifestos for commitments to be made. It is very important to make those commitments, but we need to learn the lessons from past failings. There are two lessons. First, as is the case with any constitutional reform, the greater cross-party consensus we can forge, the better. People in all political parties will have different views, so the more cross-party consensus, the better. Secondly—I say this as a long-standing reformer—we have not tended to engage citizens. The more we can engage citizens in all parts of the country in proposals for reform, the better.

The Labour party’s position is that we want a democratic second Chamber. We have talked about forging a senate of the nations and regions that can be truly representative. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire rightly reminded us of the patronage in the appointments system and of the injustice of hereditary peerages. The third element that is worth emphasising is that there is no geographic representation in the other place. Its Members are heavily drawn from people who are from London and the south-east of England—just over half of peers are from London or the south-east of England. The region that I now represent in Parliament, the north-west, has just 6% of those who are in the other place.

[Mark Field]

I speak as a London Member and someone who has spent all his adult life in London. It is probably fair to say that many but not all of those—I accept that there is an imbalance—who are notionally from London and the south-east originated in other parts of the United Kingdom, but have spent much of their professional career in London and the south-east. That slightly skews the figures, but the hon. Gentleman makes a fair point.

[Stephen Twigg]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. The opportunity of a democratic second Chamber is clearly to have one that has fair and proportional representation from all parts of the country. Obviously, that would include London, but also Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the regions of England.

Let me finish by saying something about how best we can take this forward. Clearly, there are long-standing plans for reform, which were reflected in the legislation presented earlier in this Parliament, but there is a broader set of challenges. After the Scottish referendum, there are questions about England, and questions about devolution to city regions, counties and local communities. There is sense in looking at these issues in the round, which is why a number of the democracy and citizens organisations have argued for some time that we should have a UK constitutional convention to address them. Labour and other parties support that. The broader the support we can build for it, the better. It needs to happen quickly. We need to start the work now. I welcome the discussions that are already happening, but the right way to reform Parliament, including reforms relating to legislation that affects only England or England and Wales, and to reform the second Chamber, is through a constitutional convention that is led by citizens, that has a majority of members of the public on it, that reports back quickly after deliberation and whose proposals are then considered in this place. If we can get such a constitutional convention set up this year, there is an opportunity to get this right and get a blueprint that creates a truly democratic second Chamber—a senate of the nations and regions—and we can finally deal with an issue that has been in contention for well over a century.

To finish where I started, I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire has given us the opportunity this morning to address this very important issue. We must not allow it to fall off the political agenda.

Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Stephen Twigg and Mark Field

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg]

I partly agree with the hon. Gentleman. It is about how all of us do the job and about the culture of politics, but it is also about legislation. I will come to that now.

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I do not disagree with much of what the hon. Gentleman has said about the level of distrust, but does he accept that the lack of independence of many MPs is the biggest concern for many of our constituents? Does he not think that one of the concerns about a recall Bill broadly, which I support, is that it would largely undermine that sense of the independence of the individual MP?

[Stephen Twigg]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. Later I shall refer to a distinction that others have made in interventions and which the Minister himself made between our conduct as Members of Parliament and the issues that we vote on, and how we are held to account for our voting. The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point that although recall is, in my opinion, a correct mechanism for dealing with misconduct, it is a more questionable mechanism for dealing with issues to do with voting. One consequence of a particular model of recall could be to undermine the independence of MPs, for the reason that he gave.

In 2010 each of the main parties made proposals to change the system in response to the tide of distrust that I described. As the Minister said, each of us had a commitment to some form of recall in our manifesto. The Minister said that the Government have not rushed into this. That is an understatement: it is a shame that it has taken more than four years to have a Bill before the House. At one point both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister promised to pursue a new politics of democracy and transparency. Well, it has taken them quite a while to get round to it, and now that they have, neither of them seems very pleased with the Bill before the House.

The Deputy Prime Minister, who led on the Bill that was published earlier in this Parliament, said this summer that he agreed with the critics of that Bill, and just yesterday he said he wished that the latest attempt—the Bill before us today—had gone further. The Prime Minister, at Prime Minister’s questions last Wednesday, four and a half years after declaring his intent to pursue a new politics, said that the current Bill is the minimum acceptable. Surely after four and a half years they could have come up with something better than this.

Education Performance

Debate between Stephen Twigg and Mark Field

Thursday 12th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Twigg]

I do not believe so. I am relying on the particular table in front of me. In each case, it examines a country that was in the 1995 cohort and the 2007 cohort. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman’s criticism is valid. The hon. Lady’s implied criticism is a fairer one because I was relying on the improvement. She is right to say that, if we look at the absolute score for Japan, it is, in every case, slightly better than ours, but we have made a greater improvement in that period. Interestingly, the United States is behind us on not just improvement but the absolute score in every case.

[Mr Mark Field]

In the midst of this battle over evidence—I accept that evidence is important and that getting the figures right does matter—surely the hon. Gentleman does not disagree with the assertion of my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk that there is a problem. We are going down the league table, although perhaps not by as many places as might have been predicted. More importantly though, there is a lack of rigour in the choice of subjects that the average student is taking for A-level. We are not looking at academic subjects in the way we were in the past, and that is in stark contrast to many of our most important economic rivals in the 21st century.

[Stephen Twigg]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. At the end of the hon. Lady’s speech, she said that there is no contradiction between a high-quality and a high-quantity education system, and that is something with which I passionately agree. I do not necessarily agree with everything that she said in constructing that argument, but I certainly believe that we should be aspiring to that.

Let me take up something that the hon. Lady said and that has also been said by other Government Members. We face a real challenge in changing the attitude of many state comprehensive schools to getting their brightest kids into Oxbridge. As someone who went from a comprehensive school to Oxford—okay, it was quite a long time ago, as the hon. Gentleman will know—I relied on a particular teacher who mentored and encouraged me. He studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford and I was doing A-level economics. Without him, I am not sure whether I would have made that application. I do not think that that situation has changed as much in the subsequent 25 years as I would like. It is not just about Oxbridge, but if we are rightly to criticise Oxbridge for the comparatively low numbers of state school kids getting in, part of the challenge is for the schools as well as for Oxbridge.