Tackling Short-term and Long-term Cost of Living Increases

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anneusb Marie Morris). It is sad that our Gracious Sovereign missed announcing the Government’s programme, but we look forward to seeing her again in the future.

The cost of living is one of the biggest crises engulfing our nations and regions. That is what people have said to us in the recent local elections; from Cumbria to Westminster, they are facing a cost of living crisis. In April, benefits and pensions rose by 3.1%, yet the rate of inflation was 6.2% and is to rise tomorrow. The Government’s independent fiscal watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility, says that living standards are set to fall by the largest amount in a single year since records began in the 1950s, and the Resolution Foundation says that the income of an average household will be cut by £1,200 this year. That is the background of life for our constituents, but the Gracious Speech contained nothing to help them.

Some are okay. The oil and gas companies have said they have

“more cash than we know what to do with”.

That is why a windfall tax is the best way to ease people out of this crisis. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) eloquently set out, the proposal has been costed; it is not borrowing. It will raise £2 billion, and will give £600 to each household that is most in need and extend the warm home discount. Even businesses are suffering from the increase in energy prices, but it seems that the Government prefer windfall donations or windfall fast-track contracts for their friends to a windfall tax. A Minister says, “Work harder, people”, yet people have to face more insecurity at work because there were no measures to remove the pernicious fire and rehire policy, which must end.

This Government are wasteful, not innovative: £8.7 billion was wasted on personal protective equipment that was unusable, past its sell-by-date and overpriced; the Government are burning £45 million of PPE a month to get rid of it, and the contract for the waste companies is £35 million; and £11.8 billion was lost to fraud through covid support schemes. Just ask the Minister, Lord Agnew, who said it was

“a happy time to be a crook”.

And £71 million was wasted on the Chancellor’s eat out to help out scheme, which Warwick University said accelerated the second wave of the pandemic. We have also had a Government Minister leaving a note on the desks of civil servants telling them to come back, then a week later leaving the note to tell them that he was going to get rid of 90,000 of them. It might be a new Gracious Speech, but it is the same old Government incompetence.

I want to touch on two other points. Planning was mentioned in the Gracious Speech, and some of those proposals will need to be looked at. I welcome the fact that the Government will enhance the green belt but I am not quite sure what they want to do with the revised national planning policy framework. Street votes would pit one neighbour against another, and they must be based on planning grounds. And what do you do with a council such as Walsall Council? Despite 2,000 residents not wanting a transit site in Pleck, the council went ahead—against the wishes of those people, against the site allocation document and against the planning inspector’s agreement—and put it in one of the most dangerous places, where, by Walsall’s own assessment, the acceptable nitrogen dioxide levels are being breached. Young children will be living on that site. It is costing £500,000, yet the council says it has no money for allotments.

On the subject of tinkering with the Human Rights Act, this is about the right to a fair hearing and to be represented; all it does is enact the convention into UK law to provide an effective remedy. Lord Bingham said that every one of the convention rights was breached in the second world war. Just ask the people of Ukraine if they think there should be a Human Rights Act. The Government must remember that the margin of appreciation doctrine allows our country’s unique legal and cultural traditions to be incorporated without flouting the objectives of the convention, and they cannot fetter the ability of judges to do their job, because they hear the evidence.

I agree with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) about a public advocate. That would end the hurt of the people involved in Grenfell Tower, the Horizon post office system, Bloody Sunday and Hillsborough. Remember that the Hillsborough inquiry took 27 years. I also want to congratulate Jürgen Klopp and Liverpool on winning a fantastic FA Cup.

Our constituents are faced with an increase in mortgages, fuel prices, food prices and energy costs; they are all going up. The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers has found that wages are now lower in real terms than they were in 2008. Our constituents deserve better. They deserve a safety net in bad times but, most of all, they deserve opportunity and prosperity.

Oral Answers to Questions

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes an important point, and we should indeed measure success in outcomes, not just inputs. The Department’s delivery of levelling up ambitions will be monitored, and it will of course be held to account. I point my hon. Friend towards the levelling up White Paper, which will be published shortly.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

Going after money means that the Chancellor is recovering a debt, so there is a hole in the finances. Will the Chancellor tell the House this: why did Lord Agnew resign?

[Rishi Sunak]

Lord Agnew, obviously, has spoken for himself, and I do nothing but thank him for his service. We look forward to continue working on all the areas he has mentioned, in most of which we are already undertaking work. We are relentless in our aim to tackle those who have defrauded the taxpayer, and we will not stop until we have got as much back as we can.

Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister to the Dispatch Box for what I think is his first outing. It was remarkable, and he has had some friends here in support of him.

I thank the Minister for moving the motion. I too want to thank the board, which was chaired by the then Clerk Assistant, now Clerk of the House, Dr John Benger, and its other members: Sir Hugh Bayley, Michelle Barnes as the independent HR consultant and Mike Page from the House of Commons Service. I also thank the outgoing lay member, Bronwen Curtis, whose appointment will end on 26 January 2020. She has been assiduous in the way she has carried out her independent functions and incisive in her contributions on the Committee.

The Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has published a helpful explanatory memorandum for Members, which is available in the Vote Office. Peter Blausten was selected following a fair and transparent competition. The board was assisted by specialist recruitment agency Veredus, and the recruitment process included an advertisement, shortlisting and interview. The interviewing panel concluded that Mr Blausten’s analytical approach and experience as a human resources director would support the role of scrutinising IPSA’s estimate and overseeing the recruitment of IPSA board members. Her Majesty’s Opposition support this motion.

Privileges

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I thank the Deputy Leader of the House for presenting the motion, and note that the Leader of the House is occupied with important matters elsewhere. I also thank the Committee of Privileges, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), for all its work in producing the report.

This is not the first Committee report on the conduct of Mr Dominic Cummings. On 5 June 2018, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee published a special report stating that it had first invited, then ordered Mr Cummings to give oral evidence as part of its inquiry into fake news, and that he had failed to comply with that order. On 7 June 2018, the House resolved that Mr Cummings should

“give an undertaking to the Committee, no later than 6pm on 11 June 2018, to appear before that Committee at a time on or before 20 June 2018.”—[Official Report, 7 June 2018; Vol. 642, c. 492.]

However, on 20 June 2018 the Chair of the DCMS Committee, the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), reported to the House that Mr Cummings had failed to comply with the order of 7 June. The Leader of the House tabled a motion on 28 June that the matter be referred to the Committee of Privileges, and the House supported it.

In the annex to the report, on page 11, the Committee of Privileges helpfully set out the procedure that it would follow in inviting Mr Cummings to provide the DCMS Committee with oral and written evidence, so he has benefited from due process. It made a number of recommendations, and accepted the view of the DCMS Committee that the evidence that it sought from Mr Cummings was relevant to its inquiry and that his refusal to attend constituted a significant interference with its work. The Committee of Privileges

rejected Mr Cummings’s argument as to why he did not appear before the DCMS Committee. He had been offered a series of dates for a hearing, and had not supplied any evidence that suggested he was at significant risk of prosecution. The report states :

“The fact that a prospective witness takes a different view on policy or political issues from a select committee…does not constitute grounds to refuse to appear before that committee.”

Many of us who are members of Select Committees often hear evidence from all sides. It is the right of a Select Committee to do that, and to form a view based on the evidence.

The Committee of Privileges accepted the DCMS Committee’s view that in not giving it the evidence that it sought, Mr Cummings had committed a contempt both by his refusal to obey its order to attend and by his subsequent refusal to obey the House’s order of 7 June 2018. The report states:

“Attending the hearing and defending his position when called upon to do so would have been the right thing to do.”

The Committee recommends that the House should admonish Mr Cummings for his contempt, and that the admonishment should take the form of a resolution of the House. The resolution, if agreed to, should be communicated to Mr Cummings by the Clerk of the House.

I thank the Committee again for its work, and I support the motion.

Easter Adjournment

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 29th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

May I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns)? He has been an assiduous Chair of the Backbench Business Committee. Some really interesting debates have come from that Committee. I agree with him that for every pound spent locally, 70p stays in the local community. I look forward to the Great Exhibition of the North, and hope that he will also be there as one of the great exhibits of the north.

The hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) continues his quest for Southend to become a city. I hope that that is finally granted and congratulate him on his 35 years in Parliament. He touched on a number of important issues including diabetes and endometriosis, and I was pleased to see a male touching on women’s issues.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside (Mary Glindon) about Simeon Andrews, who I also worked with. He worked tirelessly for social justice, and it really was a shock when he died.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) was right to mention ADHD. There are very many exceptional people who have such conditions, many of which we do not understand, and they should be supported.

I turn to the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). What can I say about him? He is a member of the RAF dinner club. I hope that I can join him at one of those dinners. The RAF celebrates its centenary this Sunday, and we congratulate it on its great work keeping this country safe.

My hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) is right that there should be a strategy for older people. I am not sure where that hard line goes, or on which side I would fall.

[The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury (Paul Maynard)]

The right side.

[Valerie Vaz]

Indeed, the right side. I am pleased that Mayor Burnham is always very keen to get us moving. I gave him a football when he came to my constituency once. His parliamentary assistant said to me, “He’s not going to put it down,” and he did not; he carried on kicking the football. It was great, and his strategy to get us all moving is also great.

The hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) has worked tirelessly for homeless people. I am pleased that his Act will be coming into effect.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) is an outstanding parliamentarian. We look forward to the debate on the serious violence strategy. I am glad that that has been agreed and that the youth violence commission will report in the summer. Perhaps we can look forward to another debate then.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney) has made an outstanding impact in the very short time that he has been here. He has even been on the Front Bench. I was astounded by how confident he was on his first outing, and I thank him for his contribution on behalf of the Opposition. He raised the case of Dr Bawa-Garba. I know that very many people in the medical profession are concerned about the decision in that case. I hope that someone at the General Medical Council will look at that again.

I can see why tourism accounts for 20% of the economy in the constituency of the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry). The Opposition Chief Whip has actually visited the area, although he claims to have driven around it, rather than to have walked. Maybe another attraction to the area would be if you, Mr Speaker and Roger Federer had a tennis match there.

I used to really enjoy doing these debates when I was on the Back Benches. It is a really lovely time. It is a nice debate to have before the recess. I thank all Members for attending and taking part. I get the best bit—to wish everybody a very happy and peaceful Easter.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Deputy Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard). [Interruption.] Well, he is the Deputy Leader of the House for today’s purposes. I am sorry if I have conferred upon him an official title that he does not possess but that is the role that he is playing today, and I thank him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Maynard]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that additional comment. He makes his point well, and does not need me to add to it further.

The hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford spoke with expertise and passion. I mentioned earlier that there are areas on which there is greater agreement in this place than we might realise, and an example of such an area is the importance of early intervention and diversion work to get people off the conveyor belt to crime before they get far along it.

[Valerie Vaz]

May I just say that inadvertently I forget to mention the hon. Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) and his efforts with his local councils?

[Paul Maynard]

I thank the hon. Lady for encouraging me to do the same. We hear such points made at most business questions, so we are both very familiar with the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) mentioned, and it is important that they are placed on the record.

To go back to the more important point made by the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford, we have put an additional £50 million into nurseries in the most disadvantaged areas. I have the fourth most deprived ward in the country in my constituency, and I understand the importance of making sure that young people have somewhere to go and have some structure in their lives. Those things can sometimes be provided by their families, but sometimes they may not be, and we should not underestimate the importance of youth provision. She made some important points, and I look forward to reading the outcome of her youth violence commission, which is an important piece of cross-party work.

I am almost tempted to communicate psychically with the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney) and just stare at him to give him my response to his comments—but perhaps not; I can verbalise it if I try. We can tell that he has not been here long because he paid tribute to the Whips. If he attends future periodic Adjournment debates, I do not think he will be doing that quite so often. However, if nothing else, it is nice to know that at least one Labour Member was grateful to be staying late last night.

The Economy

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I draw attention to the statutory instrument that I mentioned this morning at business questions in relation to nursing bursaries that are changed into loans for postgraduate students. Have you heard whether a debate will be scheduled before 28 March, which is the last day for praying against the statutory instrument? If a debate is scheduled after the recess—from 16 April—I ask your advice on whether I could seek an undertaking that if the House agrees to vote against that statutory instrument, it will be revoked.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. I have not received any information from the Government on the matter she raises, but the Leader of the House is here, and I suggest that the hon. Lady discusses the specific point she raises through the usual channels.

Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House please update us on the forthcoming business?

[The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury (Paul Maynard)]

As eagle-eyed Members will have noticed, I am not the Leader of the House. My right hon. Friend is attending Sandringham for a meeting of the Privy Council. She sends her apologies, and I am standing in for her. I will do my best to aspire to meet her high standards.

The business for the week commencing 15 January 2018 will include:

Monday 15 January—Second Reading of the Space Industry Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 16 January—Remaining stages of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill (day 1).

Wednesday 17 January—Conclusion of remaining stages of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill.



Thursday 18 January—Debate on a motion on treatment of SMEs by RBS Global Restructuring Group, followed by a general debate on Holocaust Memorial Day 2018. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 19 January—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 22 January 2018 will include:

Monday 22 January—Second Reading of the Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 23 January—Remaining stages of the Nuclear Safeguards Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Relief from Non-Domestic Rates) Bill.

Wednesday 24 January—Opposition day (8th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.



Thursday 25 January—Debate on a motion on joint enterprise followed by a general debate on the proscription of Hezbollah. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 26 January—The House will not be sitting.

On behalf of the Leader of House I am sure I join all hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) on his promotion from Deputy Leader of the House to his new role at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. I am sure that his urbane approach will be well received and suit him well. I also welcome all Members back from what I hope was a restful and peaceful Christmas and new year break. I hope that they appreciated the efforts of the Leader of the House in restarting the bells of Big Ben for new year, which I am sure added to our collective enjoyment of that important feast. I hope that we all have an interesting and exciting 2018—but not too exciting, because we do not like too much excitement in politics, do we?

[Valerie Vaz]

I am excited already, Mr Speaker.

I thank the Minister for turning up and taking Business questions, and for setting out Government business. I know that the Leader of the House has an important engagement. As the Minister said, the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) has done an admirable job. He has now been promoted—perhaps he is irreplaceable—and we thank him for all his work. Will the Minister please confirm whether there will be a new Deputy Leader of the House? Following your suggestion to those on the Treasury Bench yesterday, Mr Speaker, will the Minister ensure that the list of those with ministerial responsibilities is updated as soon as possible?

I am not sure whether Bananarama was on the Prime Minister’s playlist, but I wonder whether Members recall the song that goes:

“It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it,

and that’s what gets results.”

The reshuffle was the same old, same old people—new titles, but all the responsibilities were already in their departmental portfolios. Will the Minister ensure that the change of titles does not lead to any further cost to the public purse? It seems that men can say no, and the PM goes, “all right then”, but when a woman says no, she is sacked. To paraphrase the Prime Minister, there really are boys’ jobs and girls’ jobs, and we wait to see what the fall out will be.

It seems that the Government are following what the Opposition are doing. The Opposition already have a Minister responsible for housing and a Minister responsible for social care at shadow Cabinet level, and that is now policy. The Government have announced no vote on fox hunting, and measures on wild animal in circuses. The Wild Animals in Circuses Bill was introduced by former DEFRA Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick). He put that through in September 2014 and the Government have done nothing. The Government now say they will introduce legislation, so could the Minister please confirm that it will not be another four years before we get legislation to ban wild animals in circuses? It seems that the Government have really gone from hunting animals to hugging animals.

The Secretary of State for Transport is missing—missing on the day that the rail fares were increased by 3.4%, the highest increase in five years, and missing the opportunity to explain to the House why, when the Passenger Focus survey found that 91% of people are satisfied with the east coast main line that returned £l billion to the Treasury, the Government sell it off, with no explanation of why the franchise is terminated and the taxpayer has to bail out the companies. May we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Transport—he was present for our Opposition day yesterday—not only on the projected profits if the service had remained in public hands, but on the full costs of the bailout? Yet again, the Government did not vote in favour of our Opposition day motion, or oppose it or even amend it.

There seems to be a fatal flaw in the Government’s arguments. They say they planned for the winter, so my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for Health was right when he said that the crisis was preventable and predictable. The evidence in the NHS is clear: cancelled operations and people waiting on trolleys. My friend and constituent Tassidiq Khan was discharged from New Cross Hospital on 15 December and I spoke to him. By 2 January, he had had a huge heart attack and was dead. The Secretary of State has to take responsibility and be accountable. If there are no concerns on behalf of the Government, why has the Care Quality Commission decided to suspend routine inspections because, it says, of winter pressures? Did the Government plan for that? Could we have a statement on today’s announcement by NHS providers that they cannot deliver, as set out under the NHS constitution, safe, decent standards of patient care?

This is about accountability and responsibility. My hon. Friend the shadow deputy Leader of the House—as we have a deputy shadow Leader of the House—has written an excellent article in the Health Service Journal about accountability. Mr Speaker, you will recall that Nye Bevan said that if a bedpan dropped in Tredegar, it would be heard in Whitehall. We say it is the other way round: what happens in Whitehall should be heard at a local level. It is accountability that is the most important, yet it seems that if companies do not get contracts, they sue and are paid out of public money; and if they cannot fulfil the contracts, they are bailed out by public money. Either way, the public are paying.

Could the Minister please tell the House the Government’s position on the inquiry announced today by the Commissioner for Public Appointments into the Government’s failure to follow due diligence in appointments to the Office for Students? Why had the Minister concerned not done the appropriate checks?

Finally, as we celebrate 100 years of women being able to vote, I hope we can also celebrate that, wherever people work, they are paid equally, whether called Carrie or John. Like the Minister, I welcome everyone back to the House and wish them a very happy new year.

[Paul Maynard]

I hope that the hon. Lady retains her sense of excitement throughout the forthcoming exchanges. I am disappointed, though, that she wanted me to be replaced so quickly in the new role that I am required to perform today. None the less, I will do my best in the short time that I have available.

The hon. Lady rightly raises the importance of winter planning in the NHS, and I am sure she will have carefully read yesterday’s debate and listened carefully to the words of the Prime Minister, who has made it clear that she has apologised to all those whose operations have been cancelled. We spent £437 million on winter planning for A&E this year, and NHS providers have been clear that the NHS has never been better prepared for winter. Part of appropriate planning for winter is making sure that patients do not find out on the day that their operation has been cancelled.

I welcome the hon. Lady’s comments on many of the environmental policies that the Government are adopting. It is welcome and right that we are soon to have a 25-year plan for the environment, and many Members across the House will be interested to see what that will involve. I hope she will welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement today of the extension that we shall be making to the plastic bag charge. The charge has contributed some £95 million to good causes across the country so far. It is right that we now extend that to smaller enterprises, because I am sure they too have been very keen to participate.

The hon. Lady referred to one of my previous areas of expertise: rail fares. I am surprised that she wants a statement so soon, given that we had a lengthy Opposition day debate on rail franchising only yesterday, during which many of these issues were discussed. The challenge for the Opposition is clear. As they will be aware, the Secretary of State for Transport has made it clear that he aspires to move to the consumer prices index, but one of the biggest obstacles to that comes from the hon. Lady’s own side. I would love to be a fly on the wall when the Labour party tries to persuade the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers to drop its excessive retail prices index wage demands.

As a child of the ’80s, I have fond memories of Bananarama. They had many hits, but perhaps the hon. Lady will recall their Comic Relief guise of La-na-nee-nee-noo-noo, which I think was much more the tone of her comments on the reshuffle. I find it bizarre that anyone on the Opposition Benches has the temerity to criticise a Government reshuffle. I remember when, in the not-so-distant past, Opposition reshuffles came along as often as London buses. It was almost like a random number generator; the composition of the Opposition Front-Bench team was as random and unpredictable as the balls on the national lottery—she might regard herself as the bonus ball in any reshuffle. What we see today on the Government Front Bench, with a range of new Ministers—at least five when I stood up at the Dispatch Box—shows how our Government increasingly resemble the nation we seek to serve. We are seeing a range of new talent coming through. When we have a reshuffle, we have a positive sense of progress. I thank the hon. Lady for her comments today.

High Speed 2: Electronic Deposit of Documents

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I thank the Deputy Leader of the House for his explanation of the changes to the Standing Orders for the purposes of this hybrid Bill. Hybrid Bills are a rarity in the House: a public Bill proposing a law that affects the private interests of a particular person or organisation. This Bill will affect the general public and specific households along the route of the HS2 line, phase 2. The House has agreed these changes in similar circumstances for phase 1 of the HS2 project from London to the west midlands. These changes relate to phase 2, which allows for the construction of the route from Birmingham to Crewe, which are approximately 50 miles apart. These changes to the Standing Orders allowing for electronic copies of documents to be made available are eminently sensible, but may I ask the Deputy Leader of the House to clarify a couple of things?

Paragraph (d) of the motion states:

“copies of so much of it as the person may reasonably require and such copies may, if the person so agrees, be provided in electronic form”.

Will the Deputy Leader of the House confirm that those documents will not unreasonably be withheld and that the requests will be complied with? I appreciate that people cannot ask for documents outside their area, where they do not have an interest, but who will make the decision as to whether a request is a “reasonable” one? Will he also confirm that households along the Birmingham to Crewe route, who will be directly affected, will be able to receive a free copy of the documents relating to their area? The hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) has suggested that some rural areas may not have internet access and some people may not be proficient in IT, but these people should have those documents free of charge. Will the Deputy Leader of the House confirm that they will be free of charge? He mentioned a telephone number that people can call HS2 on. Will he confirm that that will not be at the premium rate and it will be free of charge? Will he say when we are likely to have the First Reading of the Bill? Will we see it before the House rises for the summer recess?

I am sure we could agree a general amendment to Standing Orders, through the Procedure Committee, so that we do not have to keep coming back to amend them to include a reference to electronic copies. However, Her Majesty’s Opposition support these changes to the Standing Orders, which are in line with previous amendments to Standing Orders.

Palace of Westminster: Restoration and Renewal

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you as Chair, Mr Flello. So did I. It is very good for us, I understand.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and the other members of the Joint Committee, who worked very hard in the lead-up to this debate. I also congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Hon. Members will know what my hon. Friend is like: he is blustering and blarneying and very frustrated about this, so it is great that he has had the opportunity to secure the debate. He is right to do that, because the report was published in September 2016.

Hon. Members on both sides of the House have been talking to me, and it goes without saying that all hon. Members are concerned about the immediacy and urgency of the work. They are also concerned about costs, and they note that other events and priorities may be occupying the Government’s mind. However, we come to this debate with a background of reports. We have the very good report from the hon. Members who served on the Joint Committee, and the Public Accounts Committee is also considering this matter, although it may not report until March. We also have the Treasury Committee report. Without doubt, whether for engineers, architects or whatever, the costings from September will be different even from the costings now. The hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara) is right to be concerned about that issue. My view is that the debate will clarify all that. The important issue for our side is that hon. Members have a say. That is the key thing. All these questions and concerns can be aired with new information—against the background of the information from all those reports.

The right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) mentioned Canada. I had the opportunity, with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, to visit Canada. Quite by chance, we were taken to the mock chamber that the parliamentarians there had and, in the best tradition of “Blue Peter”, I have here one that I made earlier—a picture of it. Obviously, it cannot be read into Hansard, but it does give a nice flavour of what can be done, if hon. Members want to see it later. It is a beautiful chamber. All of us may feel very comfortable debating in this Chamber now, but if we were given a chamber in the Department of Health that had desks, we would realise how good it would be to debate like a proper, modern Parliament and we might even not want to come back to the old Chamber. Canada’s temporary chamber is not just in a courtyard. It is a beautiful building and, engineering-wise, it shows what can be done—a visit to Canada might be in order.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda always reminds me that there are no options; he says, “Don’t tell people there are options. There is only one option.” The main thing is that Members should have a say. I am pleased to hear that some of the work has already been done. I was going to raise the issue of asbestos in the Chamber; again, not sitting in September might be an option to deal with that. The subject of fire has been constantly raised.

[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. The House has a register of known asbestos, but a large body of evidence suggests that asbestos is riddled throughout the work that has been done. There are 98 risers in this building and all are thought to hold asbestos. The health and safety and fire aspects of why we should decant are compelling to me. The fact is that we are allowing the general public and our staff to work where there is a chance of asbestos and silica dust. If anybody has seen someone die of mesothelioma, they will know that it is not a pretty sight. We have no option, on those grounds alone.

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I have to say, gently, that it is the tradition to be in the room at the start of the debate, but I take on board that, particularly given her previous role, she understands the medical reasons—I have a cough today and it is difficult to breathe—and she mentioned the terrible condition of mesothelioma.

I want to knock another myth on the head. Again, I am not an architect or an engineer but Members should understand that although we may be moving out of the building, we will not actually be moving off the estate. We will still be around and will not be leaving the parliamentary estate. I am pleased that the work on the cast-iron roof is also being done.

The Joint Committee was tasked to look at this, and has fulfilled its remit, but Members are right to be concerned about costs. We had the same debate when the Labour Government decided they wanted to put money into the Olympics and there was a lot of chuntering that it was going to be too costly. In the end, sadly, there was a change of Government and we did not get the benefit of how brilliant the Olympics were and how, under the Olympic Delivery Authority, everything was done to time and, to a certain extent, cost. The hiccup, as the Deputy Leader knows, was the security—we finally had to get public service in, rather than G4S. We need to be careful that Members are not excluded from the delivery authority. The key point for me is that Members should decide and the only way they can do that is if we have the debate. The one main thing I would ask the Deputy Leader is that we have the debate as soon as possible, based on the information that the other Committees are looking at.

A building is only a building with people in it. It is nothing without people in it. Whatever we decide to do, and if there is only one option, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda suggests, we need to take that decision. However, we need to take an informed decision because, in the end, MPs are always blamed when things go wrong and, rightly, we will take responsibility for that. We need to do this on an informed basis, with everybody abiding by the result.

Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2016 General Committees

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Crausby. I apologise for being late, first, because it is my birthday and there were too many candles, and secondly, because there was a huge amount of traffic in Parliament Square—a matter that I will take up with the Mayor of London. I got here as soon as I could.

I thank the Deputy Leader of the House for his comments about the outgoing member of SCIPSA, Professor Monojit Chatterji, and the work that he has done. Having taken the opportunity to look at the background of the nominee, we have no issue with his appointment. Mr Honap has extensive experience in the public sector, although I note that he was at the South Staffordshire trust only for a short time. I hope that he has not been put off the public sector. Parliament has different kinds of problems—as indeed does the private sector. We do things differently, and we hope that all Mr Honap’s experience will be brought to bear on understanding how special this place and the people who work here are. On that basis, the Opposition support the motion.

Question put and agreed to.