Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Farron and John Bercow

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) has been jumping up and down like Zebedee, so I think he will be inconsolable if he is not heard. Let us hear the fella.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

Local families and police in the south lakes have been badly affected by the closure of Kendal court. Will the Secretary of State agree to meet me to ensure that we restore access to justice in the south lakes?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Farron and John Bercow

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Oh very well. I call Tim Farron.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

You are very kind, Mr Speaker. In his announcement this week, the Chancellor chose not to invest a single penny in the Westmorland General Hospital in Kendal, but will he at least end the Treasury’s 3% deficit tax on our local hospitals trust, which has cost £4 million from hospital spending in the past three years? That is money that should have been spent on a new radiotherapy centre for local cancer patients.

Building Safety

Debate between Tim Farron and John Bercow

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Tim Farron—one sentence.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Given that naming and shaming has been set out by the Secretary of State, could he be more explicit about what sanctions he will be using against the individuals and organisations that fail to comply with making these buildings safe for their residents?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Farron and John Bercow

Thursday 18th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Does the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) want to make a second inquiry? No? I do not want to tempt him beyond his natural appetite. I had him down for two questions, but we are grateful for his self-denying ordinance. In that case, we probably just about have time to include Mr Farron.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

In places such as Sedbergh and Dent, community bus services have become a lifeline for people who would otherwise be isolated from the communities around them, and I am massively grateful to the volunteers who make those services possible. Community bus services have become essential because over the past 30 years Governments of all colours have chosen to stop seeing the provision of bus services as a service at all and have allowed rural communities such as mine to become increasingly cut off and stranded. Will the Minister agree to launch a new transport deal for rural communities, with new investment for bus services that are regular, reliable and affordable?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Farron and John Bercow

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Let us have a single-sentence inquiry from the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron).

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Will the Secretary of State oversee the innovative technology in radiotherapy that will be needed to meet the NHS long-term plan to diagnose more patients earlier?

[Mr Speaker]

Excellent.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Farron and John Bercow

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

What is not rubbish is the very pithy line of questioning typically deployed by the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne). I will call the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) if his question consists of a sentence, rather than a speech.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Access to prescriptions is made much harder given the closure of 233 community pharmacies in the last two years, so will the Minister introduce an essential community pharmacies scheme to support rural pharmacies such as those in Cumbria and keep them open?

[Mr Speaker]

Well done.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Farron and John Bercow

Wednesday 6th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Let me say to the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) that the Cumbrian steak and kidney pie, the merits of which he commended to me, was of the highest quality.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Mr Speaker, I am incredibly grateful to you for those kind words and for coming along to Cumbria Day.

Is the Minister aware that voters in my constituency, the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales cannot vote at all on planning and housing issues that affect them? What steps will she take to bring in democracy for those parts of our country that are under the aegis of a national park, which are not directly elected?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Farron and John Bercow

Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Mr Speaker, may I wish you, the Prime Minister and everybody here a very happy Cumbria Day? A vast array of produce is available: beer from Kirkby Lonsdale; relish from Hawkshead; deli.sh pies; and tea and coffee from Penningtons—all the stuff the Prime Minister might need for a packed lunch if she is considering a walking holiday anytime soon. I remind her that, after London, Cumbria contains Britain’s biggest tourism destination, but today Cumbria has come to London. I invite her and, indeed, everybody here to come and join us in the Jubilee Room straight after PMQs to sample the best of Cumbria.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman is a one-man tourist board, and we are grateful to him.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Farron and John Bercow

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

The Secretary of State is right to say that early diagnosis provides more opportunity to cure and treat cancers. Some 60% of those treated for cancer will receive radiotherapy, and nearly every radiotherapy centre in the country has linear accelerators that are enabled to provide the advanced SABR, or stereotactic ablative body radiotherapy, technology, but Government—NHS England—contracts mean that out of the 52 centres in England no more than 20 are contracted to actually use this technology. That means that either patients are not receiving the highest quality life-saving standard of treatment that they could be or that trusts are providing it anyway but are not being paid and valuable data on mistreatment are being completely lost. Will the right hon. Gentleman order NHS England to stop this recklessness, and frankly lethal, nonsense and agree to every—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. [Interruption.] Order. The thrust of the question is entirely clear. I was going to offer the hon. Gentleman an Adjournment debate on the subject until I realised that he had in fact just conducted it.

Universal Credit

Debate between Tim Farron and John Bercow

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms McVey]

I will indeed take a question. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman intervenes, can I just point out that there are approximately 65 hon. and right hon. Members who wish to speak in the debate, and considerably less than four hours in which people can be called, so the less noise, the greater the progress.

[Tim Farron]

One in four workers in my constituency is self-employed—obviously, they are working and contributing. Is the Secretary of State aware that the minimum income floor means that many of them will be ineligible for universal credit if they cannot pay themselves the living wage in any given month? Surely we should be encouraging self-employed people, not penalising them.

Govia Thameslink Franchise

Debate between Tim Farron and John Bercow

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

My constituents stand in strong solidarity with, and have great sympathy for, the passengers of Govia Thameslink. Will the Minister make a statement on Arriva Northern Rail’s now tedious and predictable ongoing failure to serve Cumbria, in particular? Having cancelled every single train in June, four days ago Arriva Northern cancelled 33 trains on the Furness, lakes and coastal lines on one day. Given that the chaos predates the new timetable, the company cannot blame it. Will the Minister help us out by explaining precisely how dreadful Arriva Northern needs to be before he will get his act together, remove its franchise and give us back our trains? [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Somebody says, “Irrelevant.” Well, I exercised latitude. I think that there may be a diversionary route. The link between Cumbria and Thameslink—if it exists—is tangential, but the hon. Gentleman has deployed such intellectual dexterity as he possesses, which I am sure is very considerable, to render his question orderly, in a manner of speaking.

Points of Order

Debate between Tim Farron and John Bercow

Tuesday 12th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I seek your advice? Last Monday, following the oral statement on rail timetabling, I asked the Transport Secretary whether he would refuse any request by Arriva Northern to extend the immensely disruptive two-week suspension of the Lakes line in Cumbria. He replied:

“I am not prepared to accept more than the current two weeks and…I have been clear to Arriva that doing this over the long term is simply unacceptable”.—[Official Report, 4 June 2018; Vol. 642, c. 58.]

I was therefore horrified to learn on Friday that Arriva Northern had, in fact, extended the suspension by a further two weeks, to 2 July, and that a spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s Department had said that it did not object to the “operational decision”.

The Transport Secretary told the House that he would do one thing, and he has gone and done the complete opposite. What can you do, Mr Speaker, to compel him to appear before the House and explain himself and to ensure that commitments made by Ministers of the Crown in this House are actually fulfilled?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I am not privy to the details of this matter, but my response to the hon. Gentleman, off the top of my head, is twofold.

If a Minister feels that he or she has been inaccurate in a statement to the House, it is incumbent upon, and open to, that Minister subsequently to correct the record. It may be that the Minister holds a view, and would offer an interpretation of the sequence of events, that differs from that of the hon. Gentleman. I do not, in all candour, know.

I would just add, without offering any judgment on the merits of the case—which it would not be right for me to do—that a less than 100% correlation between what is said at one time and what happens at another time is not entirely without precedent in our parliamentary history.

I feel that on this occasion—and he will take it in the right spirit—the hon. Gentleman was perhaps more interested in what he had to say to me than in anything that I might have to say to him, and he has been successful in his mission: it is on the record.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Farron and John Bercow

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Not only was the hon. Lady present in Speaker’s House this morning, but her sister and distinguished speech and language therapist Rosalind Pow was present as well, so we had two doses of Pow in the course of a breakfast meeting. It was an unforgettable experience for all concerned.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I cannot compete with that, Mr Speaker. Back in November, I wrote to the Secretary of State about the increased service charges on GP practices. Ambleside surgery in my constituency, which serves an increasingly ageing population, faces a huge increase of £25,000—more than double—and the staff there fear they cannot keep the surgery going long term with that kind of increase. A ministerial written response in November did not mention Ambleside once, so will the Secretary of State commit now to intervening directly to guarantee that Ambleside will not have to pay this unjustified additional £25,000 a year?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Farron and John Bercow

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Short, single-sentence questions are now the order of the day, as will be brilliantly exemplified by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron).

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I will see what I can do.

The universal service obligation for superfast broadband will be good news for businesses across the country, but the fact that the announcement has been made with no date makes it counterproductive, as that is slowing down broadband. Will the Government announce a date and say that registration can start immediately?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Farron and John Bercow

Wednesday 20th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Finally, I call Tim Farron.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. That was not a very seasonal response from the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) from a sedentary position. I expect better of the hon. Gentleman.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Farron and John Bercow

Thursday 19th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Ah, yes! I chaired the South Lakes Pupil Parliament in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency on Friday. The children there spoke of him with great warmth and affection.

[Tim Farron]

That is very kind of you, Mr Speaker; I hope you will indulge me. Just like Shipley, Kendal is a beautiful northern town with severe congestion problems. It is beautiful and thriving despite the fact that it has a prehistoric road network. Is the Secretary of State aware that there is a long-stalled plan for a northern access route that would solve congestion in the town and open up the industrial estates to the north-east of the town? Will he meet me and business leaders to see whether we can move things forward and make that plan happen?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Farron and John Bercow

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

The Secretary of State may know that because of a reduction in the number of mental health clinicians in Cumbria, the Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust has now chosen to end consultant psychiatric call-out care from 8 pm to 9 am. It would have started last week, but it is going to start in the next two or three weeks. That means, as I am sure he is aware, that it will not be possible to section people under the Mental Health Acts between those hours unless they are within an NHS facility. People in police stations, people in care homes and people at A&E departments will not be—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. If the hon. Gentleman wants to make an application for an Adjournment debate, he can do that on a subsequent occasion. I think we have got the gravamen of his question.

[Tim Farron]

The question is: does the Secretary of State agree that that is not an appropriate use of resources, and will he provide the resources that are needed?

Immigration Act 2016: Section 67

Debate between Tim Farron and John Bercow

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron]

I thank the Minister for his response, but it seems in the light of fact that those are somewhat hollow words. Before the election, the Government promised they would transfer 480 refugee children from Europe to the UK, but in the other place the Government recently admitted that so far only 200 unaccompanied children have been given sanctuary here. When do the Government expect to fulfil this measly commitment, and will the Minister give us a date today?

I say that it is a measly commitment because the UK should do so much more. Freedom of Information Act requests show that local councils have voluntarily offered to accept 1,572 more children in addition to those they already support. Does the Minister know this? In light of this information, will the Government reopen Dubs and take their fair share?

As summer approaches, more are taking the dangerous crossings across the Mediterranean to reach the safety of European shores. More desperate, refugee children—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Stop the clock. I apologise to the hon. Gentleman but we cannot have two sets of exchanges taking place. There is a rather unseemly exchange between the hon. Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) and the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), who are gesticulating at each other and in obvious dispute. They must calm themselves and listen to the Demosthenian eloquence of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), whose question this is.

[Tim Farron]

That is understandable, Mr Speaker; this subject raises passions, and rightly so.

Summer approaches and more are taking the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean to reach European shores. More desperate refugee children without anyone looking after them will arrive in Europe, yet the Government have said that they will not consider taking any child under Dubs who arrived after their arbitrary cut-off date of 20 March 2016. In the light of the delays, which are the Government’s fault, will they extend that cut-off date, which is as heartless as it is pointless?

Finally, I have visited the camps in Greece and elsewhere, which neither the Home Secretary nor the Prime Minister, who is, of course, the previous Home Secretary, have. I cannot forget what I have seen. I have met those children who, through no fault of their own, find their lives on pause as Ministers here choose to ignore them. How many children have been taken from Greece under the Dubs amendment to date? Have the UK Government even signed a memorandum of understanding with Greece to get these transfers under way? I know of two young people who signed a consent form to be transferred under Dubs more than a year ago. They are still stuck in Greece.

The horrific truth is that the longer this goes on the more likely it is that these children will go missing and fall into the evil hands of traffickers. According to Oxfam, 28 children every single day are going missing in Italy alone. Will the Government step up, or continue to ignore the plight of these desperate children?

Unaccompanied Child Refugees

Debate between Tim Farron and John Bercow

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I seek leave to propose that the House debate a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration—namely, the acceptance of unaccompanied asylum seeking children into the UK.

Baroness Williams revealed in a recent response to a question in the other place that under the Dubs scheme only 200 unaccompanied asylum seeking children had so far been transferred to the United Kingdom from mainland Europe. The Government stated before the general election that before closing the scheme they would take 480 children, which in itself was the cause of outrage to many of us who had championed the Save the Children campaign to give sanctuary to 3,000 children in the UK. The Government’s choice to take a figure as low as 480 was mean-spirited, blatantly politically motivated and not worthy of this House or this country—and yet the number of desperate children we have actually received is less than half that measly target.

The Government cannot use a lack of capacity or of resources as an excuse. Recent freedom of information requests have shown that local councils have voluntarily offered to accept 1,572 more children than they were supporting. Be it Syrian children, survivors of the Nazi death camps, Ugandan refugees or those fleeing genocide in the Balkans, this country’s values of openness and tolerance dictate that we have a moral duty and responsibility to be a land of sanctuary. Our history shows that we are stronger and more successful because of our willingness to take in desperate refugees, who go on to become proud Britons. So why do the Government seem committed to turning their back on the world?

Our actions in this House directly affect the lives of the many hundreds of children who have a legal right to come to the United Kingdom but who are currently scattered across Europe, scared and alone. I and many others feel strongly that this issue must be debated before the House rises for the summer recess. In the summer, migrants make more trips to Europe in unsuitable boats, and I fear that all over again we are likely to see more news of people drowning while trying desperately to reach safety. Put bluntly, by the time October comes around there will be many more children alone, orphaned and living a hand-to-mouth existence in continental Europe.

We must examine our consciences. The Government made an unambitious commitment that had to be dragged out of them. They then cancelled that agreement before managing to meet even half of its terms. I ask the House to take this opportunity to address this outrage and to help these desperate children.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman asks leave to propose a debate on a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration—namely, the acceptance of unaccompanied child refugees into the UK. I have listened carefully to his application, and on this occasion I am not persuaded that the matter is proper to be discussed under Standing Order No. 24. Ordinarily, I am exhorted to say nothing more than that, but I will say to the hon. Gentleman that I am not insensitive to the strong concern that he and others have on this matter. There is a limitation on time—we do not have unlimited time between now and the recess—but if he wants to seek other opportunities to air his concerns on this matter tomorrow, on Thursday or indeed both— who knows?—he may be successful in his quest.

In a moment, I will call the shadow Education Secretary, the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), to make an application for leave to propose a debate on a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration under the terms of Standing Order No. 24. The hon. Lady has up to three minutes in which to make such an application.

Debate on the Address

Debate between Tim Farron and John Bercow

Wednesday 21st June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron]

For what it is worth, I absolutely accept all that. However, DUP Members do not need me to tell them how sensitive perceptions are. The reality is one thing, but perceptions might as well be reality. My concern is how this will be viewed, and what it means for this most sensitive time in the history of Northern Ireland and, in fact, of the island of Ireland. We all ought to be concerned about that. I do not say that to make a partisan point, or to deny DUP Members the right to represent their constituents or, should they choose to do so, to form some kind of arrangement with the current Government.

We, as Liberal Democrats, could have supported a Queen’s Speech that set out a Brexit negotiating position that would keep us in the single market and the customs union, with a referendum on the final deal once all matters were negotiated. A cross-party approach to the negotiations should have been pursued in the first place. I have called in recent days for a joint Cabinet Committee, to be chaired and led by the Prime Minister and to include Labour Members, Liberal Democrats and nationalists into the bargain, so that a deal could be negotiated on behalf of us all. We would have voted for a Queen’s Speech that set out a real-terms increase in schools funding, gave a cash injection to the NHS and social care and invested an extra £300 million in police officers to keep us safe, as we had argued for. We would have voted for a Queen’s Speech that set out real action on climate change and air pollution and supported renewable energy. But that is not the Queen’s Speech that the Prime Minister has set out, and so my party will not support it.

[Mr Speaker]

The opening speeches—although they were, of course, of undiluted magnificence—have taken a little longer than I might reasonably have expected, and therefore it might become necessary before long to impose a formal time limit. There are, I ask the House to accept, good reasons why I do not wish to impose a formal time limit at this point, but I would ask for a degree of self-restraint and for Members to consider the merit of a speech not exceeding 10 minutes. I feel sure that that exacting test can be met with ease by someone of the consummate intellectual brilliance of the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve).