Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice)

Debate between Toby Perkins and Andrea Leadsom

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Andrea Leadsom)]

I beg to move amendment (a), leave out from “House” to the end and insert:

“refers to the Committee of Privileges the question of whether the Government’s response fulfils the motion passed on 13 November 2018 and requests the Committee to consider the constitutional and historic context and the proper use, ambit and scope of the motion for return procedure.”

I want to start by thanking my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for putting himself at the disposal of the House yesterday for over two hours, to provide information about the legal impact of the withdrawal agreement. He did so with his characteristic candour and integrity. The use of this motion has happened very rarely in the history of Parliament, and I do not think that any Member can be in any doubt that the information that the Attorney General provided yesterday was a very frank assessment of the legal position. The questions posed by Members on both sides of the House addressed the key issues we must all consider on the legal effects of the withdrawal agreement. My right hon. and learned Friend responded to all those questions in comprehensive fashion.

Alongside yesterday’s session of nearly two and a half hours, the Government have also provided a 48-page legal commentary that sets out the legal effect of each part of the withdrawal agreement. The information provided to the House is the detailed legal position on the withdrawal agreement and, as the Attorney General said to the House yesterday, he continues to be at the disposal of parliamentarians to answer further questions.

I would, therefore, in responding to the contempt motion before us today, urge the House to exercise caution in this matter. The issue at hand is not one of substantive content. As yesterday’s questioning illustrated, there is no real dispute as to the meaning and legal effect of the withdrawal agreement. The Attorney General could not have been clearer about the legal position yesterday. No hon. Member could say in all honesty that the Attorney General has done anything other than treat this House with the greatest respect. There can be no question that he, or the Government, has acted in a manner that is contemptuous of this House.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House says that the Attorney General answered with candour. Indeed, he did, when he said that

“although the House says that I should disclose, I believe that the public interest compels me not to.”—[Official Report, 3 December 2018; Vol. 650, c. 564.]

He made it clear that he was deliberately in contempt of Parliament.

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman is not correct. As I have just set out, the Attorney General answered questions from all Members with the most possible frankness on the clear legal position.

Business of the House

Debate between Toby Perkins and Andrea Leadsom

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Given what the Prime Minister just said about the urgency of taking action on Saturday and the fact that she did want to listen and respond to the House, the business statement that we have just heard is utterly extraordinary and flies in the face of everything we heard during the Prime Minister’s statement. My constituents expect me to tell them how I would have responded to this matter, and it is a matter of record that may last for many years in the future.

I support entirely the SO24 application of my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), but it is not the same as an amendable motion, in Government time, where we as Members of Parliament are asked to justify to our constituents our view on this matter. The response of the Leader of the House is utterly unsatisfactory and demeans Parliament. She should go away and come back with a much better response.

[Andrea Leadsom]

As I have already said, the Prime Minister has just answered questions for three and a quarter hours. She gave individual responses to individual questions, which is a much more detailed response than in a general debate. We are now looking forward to the urgent debate put forward by the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), and that is what we are all waiting for.

Government Policy on the Proceedings of the House

Debate between Toby Perkins and Andrea Leadsom

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

The right hon. Gentleman will obviously want to check his Twitter account for the answer to that one, since he checked it for the initial answer. The Government take these issues extremely serious. I am trying to explain why we chose not to vote on those political point scoring Opposition day motions.

To this day, I hear Labour suggesting that austerity is a choice or that we have deliberately increased public sector debt, but the fact is that in Labour’s last year in office, the Treasury spent £153 billion more than it received in taxes. The House will recall the note left by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) saying that there was no money left, which was a painfully honest statement from a Labour politician. In the seven years since, we have managed to reduce that overspend from £153 billion a year to £45 billion last year, but it is that annual overspend that increases debt, which now stands at £65,000 per household in this country. The only way to start tackling the debt is by first getting rid of the overspend. If we do not tackle it, it will be our children and grandchildren who will pay, but we do not hear Labour telling young people these truths.

[Toby Perkins]

I have no idea how that last paragraph has anything to do with the debate that the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) has secured, so let me bring the Leader of the House back to the matter in hand. Having just had a general election in which the Prime Minister ran away from debates, but then at the end claimed there were no serious debates during the election, it is deeply significant that the things we debate in this Parliament and the votes we have here matter. Will the Government therefore simply make a commitment that they will not treat Opposition day debates in the same way as they have treated Back-Bench debates? That is all we want to hear today.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am not surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman say he has no idea what that last paragraph represented because I was seeking to explain why this Government are not playing Labour’s party political games. The Opposition do not face up to the reality of the mess they left this country in, and our children and grandchildren will end up paying for their mess unless we can get back to living within our means. That means that in their party political motions we chose to leave them to their games. Conservative Members will always balance the need for fairness to our superb public sector workers with the need for fairness to the next generation.

Prompt Payment Code

Debate between Toby Perkins and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 8th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I thank my hon. Friend for that interesting point.

Today, I want to give three examples of bad practice to highlight this issue. The previous speakers have done a great job in pointing out some of the very concerning statistics. With the autumn statement fast approaching, they have also made it clear how relatively easy it would be for the Government to take action and insist that all public sector organisations abide by prompt payment terms, and to do more to embed that in the culture of the private sector.

[Toby Perkins]

Does the hon. Lady agree that there are two facets to the issue? First, big businesses set up unreasonable terms and conditions saying, “We are going to pay you over a very long period of time. If you don’t want that, go and deal with someone else.” Secondly, terms and conditions that might be considered more reasonable are put in place but not adhered to. Companies can string payment out for days and even weeks after the agreed terms. I caution her that different industries and different contracts require different payment terms because of a variety of complexities about how a contract might function. That is why it is difficult to legislate on this matter, but does she recognise that central difference?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I recognise that absolutely. In fact, last night I was speaking to Philip King, the chief executive of the Institute of Credit Management, which implements the prompt payment code on behalf of the Government. He explained that payment terms of a set number of days are not required for every business employing good practice; it is simply that they should say what their payment terms are and stick to them. Whether those terms are 30 days, 60 days, 90 days or whatever, once they have been agreed they should stick to them—that is key.

Small business trade bodies could have a naming and shaming website to enable their members to report bad practice without the fear of losing business by criticising their creditor. I will go on to give clear examples, because I agree with other hon. Members that it is difficult to get businesses to speak out for fear of losing business. However, I have one constituent who supplies the NHS and he wanted to tell the story of his company, Q Technologies. The company creates specialist medical equipment that enables surgery to take place with a much lower risk of MRSA and other infections. It is, therefore, life-saving medical equipment. The business employs 14 people and supplies a number of NHS trusts and hospitals around the UK. His overdue and late payment situation with those trusts is that he currently has £76,000 outstanding on a 30-day invoice that was raised in April, and was therefore due to be paid in May for the supply of specialist operating theatre equipment at a hospital in the north-west. The equipment enabled the continuation of vital hip, knee and shoulder surgery.

My constituent also has a £36,000 payment over 60 days late on a 30-day invoice for vital operating theatre ventilation equipment. This was supplied at short notice in an emergency to a hospital that specialised in spinal surgery. Q Technologies took the equipment out of another hospital, so that there was no disruption to this vital spinal surgery, yet when the chief executive tried to sort out the delay to the invoice being paid, he was told by the NHS trust that managers of three different NHS departments could not decide whose budget the money should come out of. Rather than sorting it out and paying him, therefore, they just did not pay him. The bill was finally settled only after he threatened the trust with legal action.

The snapshot position of moneys owed to Q Technologies —a company that employs 14 people—by the NHS is £130,000. That is money outstanding over 60 days. The chief executive, Andrew Kemp, writes:

“I am a massive fan of the NHS but a massive critic of the way in which some Trusts manage their work. We try and support the NHS in every way that we can - often delivering equipment at very short notice and often on trust. We always hope that such co-operation and trust will be reciprocated back to us but sadly it often isn’t. Poor cash flow kills businesses, whatever the Balance Sheet might look like. A big debtors’ list doesn’t pay the monthly bills and it forces us to keep more cash in reserve than we would like. It would be so much better if we could use some of it to grow and expand our business and employ two or three more people - but with the NHS being so tardy over payments we just don't feel confident enough to do so… As a taxpayer I cannot understand why the Government…is presiding over such a situation. None of it makes sense”.

That is a pretty appalling indictment of a public sector body that is simply not paying its bills.

A second example was brought to me by a constituent at a drop-in surgery in Brackley in my constituency. She had been commissioned to carry out work by a Fortune 500 company that in turn was commissioned by the Ministry of Defence to deliver a significant IT solution. My constituent runs a small family business with two employees. The contract, which was for £250,000, was a significant sum. She came to me in desperation as the invoice to the Fortune 500 company for work done was six months overdue. Her bank was about to foreclose on the business, as it had run out of patience with her overdraft.

Equally concerning, my constituent was adamant that I should not name her company when dealing with this issue on her behalf, because she was terrified of losing future business. I wrote to the company and made a general point about the Government’s desire for companies to pay on time, and—surprise, surprise!—within a couple of weeks it paid the invoice. That goes to show that the Government can help not through legislation but by changing the culture, pointing out the unfairness of late payment and insisting on the fair application of the prompt payment code.

My third and final example concerns a legal aid firm supplying a public body. This company wrote to me after hearing about today’s debate. It is a small legal aid firm that supplies the Legal Services Commission, an executive non-departmental public body. It reports that the LSC’s payment terms are eight weeks—twice as long as is normal—but even then, it does not stick to them. Invoices are refused for flimsy reasons, so that they can be sent back and be delayed for another eight weeks, and sometimes they are mysteriously lost in the office.

The legal aid firm employs nine people, and last year paid nearly £300,000 in partnership tax, national insurance contributions, rates and VAT. The Government will lose out on this revenue, and the tax paid by the employees, if the LSC’s late payment drives the business to the wall, which it threatens to do. The firm wanted its words to go on the record:

“Although we have explained that we cannot pay the government until the government pays us, that cuts no ice with either the VAT or the PAYE offices, who hound, threaten and fine us if we are a week late in paying.”

Those are three awful examples of how public sector organisations for no good reason are delaying payments to businesses and so existentially threatening their future success and sustainability.

I hope, along with my hon. Friends, that the Government will be prepared to do something dramatic about this issue. It does not require legislation or expensive action by the Government; it simply requires more effort to ensure that the prompt payment code is signed up to by many more companies, and direct action to ensure that all companies in the public sector, whether they are Whitehall Departments or non-governmental departmental organisations, also sign up to prompt payment to small companies on a fair basis.

Munro Report

Debate between Toby Perkins and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 9th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The problem is not just 10 or 15 years down the line; it is more immediate. When we know that there are social work vacancies around the country, it seems bizarre that newly qualified people in this sector are finding it difficult to find work. Professor Munro’s recommendations on practice and assessment years at the early stages will make a significant difference—at least, I hope they will. My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the considerable anecdotal evidence that newly qualified social workers are finding it difficult to find work. I hope that the proposed measures in the report will be followed through, as it is vital that people should choose to work in this area. As the Minister has said, we want to make social work an attractive career option for talented people leaving university, but if those people find it hard to find work as a social worker, that is going to become more difficult.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one way to support new young social workers freshly out of university would be to provide a better end-to-end network of support, taking into account what is already available in children’s centres and other therapeutic services that could be available in a package, which could help to provide the network of support that social workers desperately need?

--- Later in debate ---

[Toby Perkins]

As I said, we take advice from specialists in the profession and many people within the social work field are deeply concerned about that issue; page 61 of Professor Munro’s report alludes to those concerns. Of course transparency is important, and it is precisely for that reason that we would like an organisation that is seen as independent continuing the evaluation of serious case reviews. However, alongside that important transparency, we need to deal with key issues relating to the protection of anonymity of both professionals and people within the families. It has been relatively easy for people in local areas to identify who has been alluded to in many of the serious case reviews. In one example that I was told about by a social work professional, a serious case review referred to a relative of a soldier serving on the front line. If that review had been published in full, a difficult situation could have been caused for someone who was already in a difficult position. Although I share the hon. Lady’s idea that transparency is important, and it is for precisely that reason that an independent review of the evaluation must remain a part of the system, I question whether this approach will aid learning and will instead reduce people’s willingness to get involved.

Much of this review is dedicated to the importance of improving the quality of social work training and the continuous professional development journey that social workers go on, yet worrying signs are already emerging about councils reacting to the savage cuts forced on them by cutting back on CPD and training. We also share Professor Munro’s alarm about the evidence of cuts to early years provision. Some 25% of Children England member organisations are experiencing cuts of more than a quarter of their income—for them it seems as if the big society is rapidly shrinking. The Minister needs to stand up for early years funding if the measures on sharing responsibility for early help set out in this report are to be more than warm words. Continued denial about the scale or fact of the cuts will simply suggest that the Government are not serious. It is particularly worrying that areas with the highest level of deprivation and the highest demands on social services are the very ones that have seen the largest Government cuts.

[Andrea Leadsom]

rose—

[Toby Perkins]

I will just make this point and then I will be happy to allow the hon. Lady to intervene.

I have referred to the survey that we sent to every director of children’s services in England on the state of safeguarding services. We had an excellent response from a significant proportion of local authorities and a number of patterns emerged. Local authorities are trying desperately hard to protect spending on safeguarding, and we salute them for that. However, despite that commitment, 36% of local authorities expected case loads to increase this year and only 10% expected them to fall. One assistant director of children’s services explained the paradox of statutory guidance.

Before I move on any further, I will allow the hon. Lady to intervene. I was trying to find a natural pause, but the words just flowed so wonderfully that I could not stop.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am very grateful. In this time of financial austerity, is it not more important than ever to get good value for money by focusing on prevention rather than having the massive costs, further down the line, of taking children into care?