Business of the House

Debate between Tom Brake and Mel Stride

Thursday 20th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I have already touched on the issue of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and repeat that it is totally unacceptable that she should be held. We are engaged with the Iranian Government. I also respect the fact that her husband has entered into a hunger strike, as she has at the same time. For that reason, and all the others of her detainment, we wish to see her released as quickly as possible. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has raised Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case with President Rouhani, and we will continue to push diplomatically on this matter.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I am upset with the Leader of the House, as he did not invite me on his bus tour, but perhaps he will let me know what slogan he intended having on the side of the bus. I am also disappointed that the urgent question has been cancelled; I wonder whether the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) has been sat on. I will turn the homework that I had done for the UQ into a question for the Leader of the House. Will he make time for a debate, in Government time, about how extreme is the new normal in the Tory party and, therefore, the Government? He will know that a majority of Conservative party members are willing to see their party destroyed and the UK broken up in order to secure Brexit. It seems that defaulting on our debts, as Argentina did, is also the preferred course of action. So may we have that debate, when we could also debate the damage that no deal would do to the UK economy and the damage a default on our debt would do to our international credibility?

[Mel Stride]

May I apologise profusely for not having invited the right hon. Gentleman on our holiday? I assure him that there would be nothing disagreeable on the side of the bus, but we do have a dress code and so, for that reason, I am not entirely sure he would be able to join us—but who knows?

I have no idea why my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) withdrew his UQ, but I can assure the House that he was not sat on—and certainly not by me. I can think of nothing worse than the prospect of sitting on him. As for the issue of debates on the EU, I think I have addressed that earlier; there will be plenty of opportunities, in different guises, to discuss that, and I look forward to the right hon. Gentleman bringing his suggestions forward.

Cox Report: Implementation

Debate between Tom Brake and Mel Stride

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake]

I thank the right hon. Lady for that intervention. She will be aware that there has been legal advice of a different nature about what action we can take. However, I agree that we need to take action. I very much hope that the meeting on 24 June is the point at which a very clear way forward will be taken and that the House will then act on that before the summer recess. I do not want to get too political, but frankly we are not doing very much else in terms of the parliamentary timetable, so we have lots of opportunities to get the matter resolved, and I hope that we will do that before the summer recess.

The third point relates to an independent process for determining complaints of bullying, harassment or sexual harassment brought by House staff against Members of Parliament. I agree that we have not acted quickly enough. There were some quite engaged discussions, if not to say arguments, at the Commission about how to take it forward. I think that a satisfactory way forward has been determined: a staff team are going to look at it. We hope that we will be in a position to consider the output from that and choose a preferred option on which there will be a consultation in the autumn.

Again, I agree with the right hon. Lady that not enough action has been taken so far. However, there are things that are in train, including, as the former Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), mentioned, the Alison Stanley report that is flagging up actions that we should be taking. In terms of a timetable, I agree with the right hon. Member for Basingstoke that we need an action plan with precise dates on which the Commission can then be held to account on. The Commission is going to agree an action plan in response to the Alison Stanley report by 24 June. There are timescales available for some of the things that the right hon. Lady is worried about, and rightly so. Yes, the House has not moved as quickly as it should, but the Commission is taking action. It has agreed at least some timescales to which we are going to report.

A number of Members have rightly flagged up some concerns about the way that the Commission operates. We have heard that it is perhaps not as efficient, accountable, open or transparent as it should be, that it could come to conclusions more quickly, and so on. I have already mentioned to the Leader of the House the initiative suggested by the lay people, Jane McCall and Rima Makarem. When the previous Leader of the House was still in post, there was the idea that the Commission should collectively sit down and work out whether we are working as efficiently and effectively as we could be—how we could streamline the Commission’s processes and look again at the way it operates to ensure that it is meeting more frequently; that there is more clarity about the way that the decisions are taken; and that it becomes—much more businesslike in the way that it operates. That is certainly what I would like to see—

I am sure that the Leader of the House would want to support that initiative. I think there is a collective desire—

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mel Stride)]

indicated assent.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

indicated assent.

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[Mel Stride]

I will certainly take that specific point away, although I know that the behaviour code has been distributed widely across the estate. I will take the representation seriously and will come back to the hon. Lady on that specific point.

I pay tribute, as many have, to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), who has been right at the heart of much of the progress that has been made. There has been a debate this afternoon about whether that progress has been too fast or too slow, but progress has been made. It is fair to say that, wherever we are today—satisfactory or otherwise—if it were not for her we would be a long way behind where we are.

In a sense, that is not surprising. As many Members have pointed out, we all operate in a historic, rather stratified environment, steeped in traditions, which tend to change extremely slowly. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley referred to us being the masters of other people’s destiny and she makes an important point. She speaks an important truth. There are inevitably power dynamics in a place such as this.

There are many different strands of employment. There is the employee who works within the House administration, and there may be various sub-divisions within that, and there are those who work for Members of Parliament. There is also the fact that this is a very public place and that those who come forward and make complaints about how they are treated may expect that that will end up in the press and might identify them publicly. Those are additional stresses and complications with which this place has to grapple.

In that context, while we have not moved fast enough and I accept that, we should not overlook the progress that we have made. We have a code for ourselves and for the other place. We have a process that affords anonymity to those who need to come forward, with sometimes extremely serious concerns, and that has also been rolled out not just across this place but across the other place. That has been achieved through cross-party, cross-House work. I thank my opposite number, the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), for coming to see me and sharing with me a lot of her valid and important insights into the current situation. I will come on to the House of Commons Commission in a moment.

What today’s debate shows is that we still need to do more. That is what the Cox report tells us. Of course, it is not just Cox. Understandably, Members have strayed beyond the terms of the debate this afternoon. My hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) talked particularly about online abuse. As Leader of the House, I feel particularly strongly about that. I raised it in my opening remarks in my first outing at business questions, and it is an area that I intend to lean in on quite hard. Of course this is an element that affects women in particular, sometimes in the most wicked and appalling way, but actually it affects all of us, too. As a father, I can tell Members that to have one of your children come home in floods of tears because they have been told things in the playground about you that may be entirely false, makes one, whether you are a man or a woman, feel pretty miserable. So I take that extremely seriously and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for choosing to raise it.

I pay tribute to Dame Laura Cox for a very thorough and detailed report, which came up with some very important recommendations. We must not forget the background to the report, which came about when my predecessor pushed for an inquiry around the allegations in March 2018 of extensive bullying and harassment in this place. We must not lose sight of where we have come from. There are some very, very serious allegations that relate to Parliament, both this House and the other place.

I want to touch on the issue of where responsibility lies for how we move forward. The question posed by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire was: who owns the scheme? That is a good way of phrasing this particular conundrum. There is the sense that there is something we are trying to grasp here, but we are not quite sure who owns it or where the responsibility lies. Clearly, the House of Commons Commission is responsible for House administration and, in a sense, is therefore responsible for the Cox recommendations, but ultimately it is for us—not on a party basis, but as individuals Members—to push matters forward. Neither I as the Leader of the House nor my the shadow Leader of the House speaks directly for the Commission. That is why I was so pleased that the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) was able to join us today as the official spokesperson for the House of Commons Commission.

To get to the heart of the accountability issue, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke termed it an accountability deficit. She in particular and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire raised the issue of the Commission and directly the way in which it works; whether it is representative enough; whether it should have members who are elected; whether it is transparent enough; whether, when the chair is not able to attend the meeting, the meeting should be postponed or chaired by somebody else; whether the minutes should be circulated more quickly; and whether there is an overall sense that the Commission is sufficiently functional for the challenges it faces. In that context, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke called for a series of motions on the Floor of the House on the delivery of Cox to address issues around the Commission, including the role of the Speaker in the Commission. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) suggested that it might be replaced by a Select Committee and run on those lines.

My message this afternoon is that I do not think anything should be off the table. I am not saying that we should necessarily jump instantly to conclusions and start to shake everything up, but we should be prepared to look at everything carefully and in the round. I say that as someone, like the hon. Gentleman, who has not yet attended a Commission meeting. I look forward to attending my first meeting on Monday 24 June. It may be that I go there and find that it is incredibly functional, very well run, very transparent and that nothing needs to change at all. I have an entirely open mind on the direction we should go in, but debate must be facilitated on exactly these matters.

[Tom Brake]

The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that I raised an idea put forward by the lay people on the Commission that we should as a Commission go away—I dare not call it an away-day because of the connotations of everyone wearing a patterned jumper for that purpose. Would he support that sort of set-up, where we go away, look at how the Commission is operating now, and come up with some suggestions and recommendations for how it can operate differently?

[Mel Stride]

I would certainly be prepared to consider that, but let me consult and discuss it with others. In answering that intervention, may I also thank the right hon. Gentleman for spending time with me in my early days as the Leader of the House and for sharing that thought, among others, with me on that occasion?

I will turn now to the three main recommendations of Cox. The first, as we have heard, was to terminate the Valuing Others and Respect policies, and that was, as many have pointed out, done relatively swiftly. It is fair to say, however, that of the three challenges set by Cox, that was by far the easiest. It is much easier to abolish a policy than to bring something in from scratch. None the less, it should be recognised that that has been done.

The second recommendation was about ensuring that historical complaints could access the scheme. My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke raised the issue of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and her view that the current scheme is discriminating against older employees. She also raised the view that the House may in that sense be in breach of the public sector equality duty under section 149 of the Equality Act. That, plus the legal advice that had to be taken when considering what should replace it and ensuring that the new scheme would itself not be open to legal challenge for being unfair and unreasonable, in contradiction of other statute, is one reason these things sometimes take a bit of time, to echo perhaps the sentiments of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire.

That is not to say that, because something is complicated and takes a bit of time, it should drag on forever—that is certainly not the case—but, in pressing for things to move forward quickly, it is still important to get things right in terms of our approach. We now have a new proposal that was agreed by the Commission in February. It has been consulted on—the consultation finished on the 14th of this month—and it will be on the agenda, I believe, for the meeting on 24 June. I for one look forward to working with others, including the shadow Leader of the House, to push that to its conclusion as quickly as possible.

The third recommendation of the Cox report recognised the importance of limiting Member involvement at the point that any cases reach the Standards Committee. That is an important point because throughout the rest of the ICGS system this particular matter does not come into play. There will have been important decisions or considerations about the fact that we are elected representatives, and constitutional issues will also have had to be taken into account. I am pleased that, in the past week or so, agreement has been reached to move forward with a taskforce that will, as the hon. Member for Walsall South eloquently set out, liaise with the Chairs of the various Committees she listed, and which I will not relist, to ensure we move that on with a view to reporting as soon as possible—certainly, I would hope, no later than the autumn.

This has been a crucial debate. Right at the start of the Cox report, there is a quote from a member of staff who in essence says that this is an institution worth fighting for, but that a seismic shift is needed. That encapsulates everything in a nutshell. We have made progress to date, but this is a beginning, not an end. There is a journey to be continued. The House has my personal commitment, although I am but one member of the House of Commons Commission, to work collaboratively right across the House. My door is open. To those who have contributed in the debate today, I say: please come and see me to talk everything through. Let us gather everything up together and do what we can collectively to make progress.

Leaving the EU: Economic Impact of Proposed Deal

Debate between Tom Brake and Mel Stride

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Lady urges us to get serious. We have been extremely serious in negotiating a deal with the European Union for a considerable amount of time, and we continue to engage in that endeavour. She is absolutely right to say that most of us in this House wish to avoid no deal, but the way to do that is by Opposition and Government Members uniting and making sure that we avoid no deal and have a good deal for our country.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

We know that the Government have done no economic impact analysis of the proposed deal, but has the Minister done an economic analysis of the failure of the Secretary of State for International Trade to secure the 40 roll-over trade deals the he promised would be signed one minute after 11 o’clock on 29 March?

[Mel Stride]

The right hon. Gentleman says that we have done no analysis of the deal, as he refers to it, but as he knows, the deal is actually the political declaration, which inherently will include a range of particular possible outcomes for that deal. That is modelled in the sensitivity analysis that we have brought forward to Parliament. [Interruption.]

Leaving the EU: Economic Analysis

Debate between Tom Brake and Mel Stride

Wednesday 28th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

Given that this is about the fifth time that I have been asked that specific question, I hope you will forgive me, Mr Speaker, if I refer the hon. Gentleman to my previous answers.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

If the Prime Minister will not rule out no deal for sound economic reasons, will the Minister do so for vital health reasons? Is he aware that, according to specialist cancer charities, patients are already scaling back on their doses and stockpiling medicines because of fears over the prospect of no deal? Why will the Government not deal with their concerns and rule out the prospect of no deal now so that those patients can have the reassurance they need?

[Mel Stride]

It will be for Parliament ultimately to decide whether the Government’s deal prevails. I think that the right hon. Gentleman and I are on the same side here, because I believe that the prospect of a no deal is deeply unattractive—notwithstanding the fact that we are making extensive preparations for no deal—partly for the reasons he has identified. We want a deal. We want this deal. We want a deal that is good for our country, and we want to avoid the very situations that he has elaborated on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tom Brake and Mel Stride

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I am pleased to be able to inform the hon. Lady that we have been investing heavily in HMRC to clamp down on the issues she has raised—we are talking about some £2 billion since 2010. We have 23,000 staff in HMRC engaged in that purpose and we consequently have about the lowest tax gap in the entire world, at 6%, which is far lower than it was in any year under the previous Labour Government.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

Stamp Duty Land Tax

Debate between Tom Brake and Mel Stride

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is right to mention smaller builders, and we recognise the importance of ensuring that finance is available to them. They play a key role in providing new housing, and I confirm that the £630 million announced in the Budget for the small-site infrastructure fund will be going ahead, as will measures that we have taken to support bank lending specifically to smaller builders.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

If the Government are serious about boosting housing provision, will the Minister join me in congratulating councils such as Sutton Council, which is building council homes for the first time in 30 years? What more can the Minister do to support it to provide homes that are genuinely affordable?

[Mel Stride]

I have already, at length, gone through the various measures we have taken to support increased housing supply. Given that I have been urged to stray towards brevity rather than to respond at length, I will leave it there, other than to say that we will have our foot firmly to the floor. When it comes to council housing, we have of course built twice as much since 2010 than the Labour Government built during their 13 years in office.

Leaving the EU: UK Ports (Customs)

Debate between Tom Brake and Mel Stride

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments and also take this opportunity to thank him for the sound advice and guidance that he, as the Member who represents Dover, has given to me. As he says, we can of course use technology to ease traffic flows. We will also invest as required to make sure that our borders function effectively. The Chancellor made it clear in the autumn Budget in November that £3 billion would be made available as necessary, across Departments, for that purpose.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I note that the Minister has disowned the Secretary of State for Transport’s policy brainwave, because the Government are saying that vehicles will be stopped at Dover, but not all of them. Given that 10,000 trucks pass through Dover every day, how long will the tailback be if, say, one out of every 10 additional trucks needs to be checked and each check takes five minutes? Where will the lorry parks be built that will be needed to accommodate that?

Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill

Debate between Tom Brake and Mel Stride

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 8th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

Clause 31 makes provision for this country to enter into a customs union with another territory. That territory could be the existing customs union of the European Union after we have left the European Union, or it could be another territory separate from it. As he will know, such a move would be subject to a treaty and would not be entered into until a draft statutory instrument had been laid before the House and approved under the affirmative procedure, and then subsequently approved by Her Majesty as an Order in Council.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

The right hon. Gentleman says that he wants to do what is of “the greatest economic advantage to the United Kingdom”. Has he assessed whether staying in the customs union would be precisely that?

[Mel Stride]

I say gently to the right hon. Gentleman that we are going down a rather well-worn path. The answer is quite simple: in June 2016, the British people took a decision—people may have ended up on different sides of the argument, but they took a clear decision—that we would exit the European Union. As a consequence of that, we will be leaving the customs union.

Duties of Customs

Debate between Tom Brake and Mel Stride

Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 20th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

In exercising article 50, the Government’s consideration was the decision taken by the British people in June last year to leave the European Union. On the hon. Gentleman’s specific point about the Northern Ireland-Ireland border, we are of the same mind as the European Union and the Irish Republic that there should be no return to the hard borders of the past. We are committed to as frictionless a solution as possible for the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

The Minister will be aware that the Irish Prime Minister has called on the UK Government to give a written guarantee that there will be no controls on the border. Is the Minister able to give that guarantee?

[Mel Stride]

We have made it clear on numerous occasions that we have no intention of reverting to the hard borders of the past, and that we will ensure that we fully take into account the unique political and cultural circumstances of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

In addition, the Bill will modify elements of our VAT and excise legislation to ensure that it functions effectively upon our EU exit. In doing so, the Bill will give the UK the power to implement new arrangements that will ensure that trade is as frictionless as possible.

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[Mel Stride]

If I may, I will finish the point. As to my hon. Friend’s specific question about whether I believe we are ready, let me say that I believe we will be ready. I believe that the customs declaration system—the IT system that is coming into place—will be ready by January 2019, that we will start seeing businesses and traders migrating to that system around August next year, and that we will be in the position we want to be in come day one.

[Tom Brake]

In his meeting with the Port of Dover—I have also met its representatives—what did the chief executive say about how much the extra average processing time per vehicle would need to be for the port to stop functioning?

[Mel Stride]

As the right hon. Gentleman will know, the figure is very low. I think it is a matter of a couple of minutes—if the whole system stopped for more than a couple of minutes we would start to see major problems, which is why we are placing such an extremely high priority on making sure that our ro-ro ports continue to move as effectively as they should.