Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and John Bercow(7 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. So must the voice of Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
Will the Minister for Digital and Culture recuse himself from decisions on Government media policy, given his close relationship to the new editor of the London Evening Standard?
UK Steel Industry
Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and John Bercow
Tom Blenkinsop
Oh, is it £90 million now? We have heard previously, from that Dispatch Box—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Shush, junior Minister. We do not need you to burble from a sedentary position. Be quiet! Your burbling is not required. Learn it. I have told you so many times; try to get the message.
Tom Blenkinsop
Not so long ago, at that Dispatch Box, the Secretary of State changed the figure to £50 million. Moneys on top of that have only been acquired because the Community trade union claimed a protective award from the tribunal to ensure that the workforce got what they were entitled to. The Government could have fast-tracked that some seven months ago.
Trade Union Bill
Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and John Bercow(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Have you had any indication of whether there will be a written or oral statement by any Minister, given the statement today from the chief executive of Tata Steel Europe reported in The Economic Times in India that the long products division within Tata will have no future within Tata beyond this financial year? This includes the beam mill at Redcar, Skinningrove special profiles in my constituency, and Scunthorpe long products site.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. The short answer is that I have had no such indication, but he has placed those serious matters on the record and I imagine that he will return to them when the House returns.
Third Reading
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and John Bercow(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. I apologise for having to interrupt the Prime Minister. Mr Blenkinsop, a statesman-like demeanour is what I would hope for from someone who has served with distinction in the Opposition Whips Office. Calm yourself or take a sedative.
Points of Order
Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and John Bercow(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It has come to my attention following the liquidation of SSI UK that the Government’s supposed £80 million, a vast majority of it new money, now transpires to be £30 million of existing funds, to which the workforce are entitled anyway as statutory redundancy payments. I now have further information that suggests that further education colleges and training providers in the area have had no further moneys above their existing budgets to provide re-education and economic regeneration programmes for the affected workers and families. We also know that Ministers have informed Teesside Members that they wish that they had mothballed the blast furnace at Redcar. At the very least, there should be a written statement to this House informing the people of Teesside of the Government’s real intentions and of what moneys they are putting aside for those people.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is certainly a most indefatigable representative of the people of Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland. I simply say to him that this matter was at least partly treated of yesterday, although clearly not to his satisfaction in the light of his comments about what he has heard. If I may politely say so to the House, this is an issue that will inevitably run over a period and it is open to Ministers to make statements and for others, if such statements are not volunteered, to seek to extract them. The hon. Gentleman is a most versatile and dexterous contributor in the House and he will know the options open to him. The Chair wants important matters to be debated. Frankly, if we had not taken so long at Prime Minister’s questions it would have been possible to have questions on the matter but, unfortunately, initial questions and answers were somewhat longer than was the case in the last Parliament.
Business of the House
Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and John Bercow(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
One week after the events at Harwich, in an unreported and undocumented incident, 55 people, mainly Albanian nationals, were trafficked into Killingholme docks in Lincolnshire. That received no coverage and was hushed up. Border Force is losing staff on the Humber and in Lincolnshire, and the entire enforcement office at Hull. Teesport officers were sent down to deal with the situation but have now found themselves with 90 days’ notice of redundancy. What exactly is the Government’s policy on border controls on the east coast of England?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and John Bercow(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. There are far too many noisy private conversations taking place in the Chamber. That is unfair on the Members asking questions and on the Ministers who are trying to make their answers heard.
Topical Questions
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
Cleveland Fire Authority
Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and John Bercow
Tom Blenkinsop
I think you will agree, Mr. Speaker, that it was such an important point that it had to be made a second time. I shall develop my response to it during my speech, if my hon. Friend will allow me to do so.
In Cleveland, the chief fire officer is exploring the possibility of spinning out the fire brigade. The whole range of fire and rescue services activity, including emergency response, is being examined for the purposes of being “spun out”—to coin a Government phrase. The proposal is being supported by Ministers in the Department for Communities and Local Government and by the Cabinet Office, which is spending over £100,000 on the legal advice that will be necessary for the pursuing of such a restructuring.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and John Bercow(12 years ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. I am sure the Minister is not questioning my facts, but I think I have the gist of what she is saying.
Tom Blenkinsop
Over the past two years, long-term unemployment among young women increased by 412% on Teesside, with 640 women aged 24 and under claiming jobseeker’s allowance for more than 12 months. Does the Minister agree with figures from the Office for National Statistics which show that under this Government, long-term youth unemployment among women on Teesside has skyrocketed, and what will she do about it?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and John Bercow(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
14. What plans he has for the post of Registrar of the Public Lending Right.
Points of Order
Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and John Bercow(13 years ago)
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Mr Speaker
There may now be an outbreak of contentment, therefore, but if the hon. Lady remains dissatisfied—which I suspect is an unimaginable scenario—she will doubtless return to the issue.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) to imply that the shadow Chief Secretary was improperly influenced by trade union donations, when she has no declarations in the register yet has 10 donations amounting to just short of £50,000?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order, and I know to what he is referring. I did not intervene at the time because the Chair judges whether an intervention is warranted at a specific moment, and I did not think it was. However, the hon. Gentleman’s point of order does give me the opportunity to underline the point that no Member should attribute an unworthy motive to another Member. I took the view at the time—for which I make no apology and which I have explained—that the question was a collective criticism of another political party, rather than it being directed at an individual. If, however, it was directed at an individual, it should not have been, and I think the following advice is a useful guide to all Members: concentrate on the big picture and the policy, but do not attribute unworthy motives to another Member of the House. I hope that is clear and that we can now move on.
Points of Order
Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and John Bercow(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for his point of order and for giving me notice of it. The right hon. Gentleman has raised a series of very important matters, and I think that it is important to both him and the House for me to respond to them.
Mr Speaker
Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to deal with the point of order from the shadow Leader of the House? If after I have done so he remains dissatisfied, I will of course deal with any ensuing point of order.
Let me say first that the shadow Leader of the House is correct in supposing that if the Business of the House motion were objected to tonight, the programme (No. 2) motion would be put without debate or opportunity for amendment tomorrow. That is, as a matter of procedure, factually correct. The programme (No. 2) motion would be put without debate, as are all such motions varying or supplementing a programme order, unless they fall into one of the four exceptions listed in Standing Order No. 83A. The motion to be moved tomorrow is not covered by any of those exceptions, and so would ordinarily be put forthwith.
Secondly, there will indeed be no opportunity to move amendments. If the Business of the House motion is agreed tonight, the programme (No. 2) motion will be debated for up to an hour tomorrow, but no amendments may be moved. The same would apply if the motion were taken forthwith in accordance with Standing Order No. 83A. It would still be open to Members to table such amendments today to appear on the Order Paper tomorrow, but either way, under our procedures they could not be moved.
The right hon. Gentleman asked a very important question, namely whether it would be in order in the debate on the programme (No. 2) motion tomorrow to argue that the whole Bill, not just the clauses specified, should be recommitted, to which the explicit answer is yes. It would be possible to argue that more or less of the Bill ought to be recommitted, or, of course, to argue against recommittal altogether.
I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s concern about the matter as a whole—and he referred specifically to the position set out by the Leader of the Opposition last month—but the House is not being asked to agree to anything that is out of order. It is for the House to decide on the motions before it. As for the particular question of a programming committee, I can tell the right hon. Gentleman and the House that the Standing Order relating to such committees would apply only to proceedings on the Floor of the House, and the initial programme Order of 31 January specifically excluded the operation of a programming committee on this Bill.
Whether my response is welcome or unwelcome to different Members in the various parts of the House, I hope that Members will accept that it has been fully thought through, and has been offered on the basis of the Standing Orders of the House.
Mr Speaker
I note what the right hon. Gentleman says about a lawn tennis championship taking place not far from here, but how relevant that is to Ministers’ thinking on this matter is not entirely obvious to me. We are grateful to him, nevertheless.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Is it in order for the Government to seek to prevent Members from tabling amendments to a programme motion, and, indeed, in effect to prevent you from deciding whether you wish to select any particular amendment—and do you have any idea what the Government are so afraid of?
Mr Speaker
It is for the House to decide to what it agrees; that is a matter for the House. Whatever attempts may be made to persuade Members of the merits of one course of action or another, they are perfectly free to do whatever is legitimate within the procedures of the House—that is up to them—and ultimately that is then a matter for the House.