AstraZeneca (Pfizer Bid)

Debate between Vince Cable and Michael Meacher

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I think that is a very good statement of where we are. We are indeed trying to encourage business. We are looking 10 years ahead—that is the whole point of the industrial strategy and indeed why it is successful and why business welcomes it. To use my hon. Friend’s word, there is no question of protectionism in this area.

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State emphasise that the Government can and should intervene under the Enterprise Act 2002 in order to protect the public interest, given that AstraZeneca is a key national champion in the key pharmaceutical sector in which Britain is a world leader? Does he accept that this issue should be settled not on the basis of the tax inversion interests of a US multinational or an indiscriminate open market ideology, but solely on the basis of preserving and strengthening the UK’s scientific base and highly skilled British jobs—promises to preserve which have often been dishonoured by previous predators?

[Vince Cable]

There is nothing in the Enterprise Act 2002 —in retrospect, this is probably regrettable—that refers in any way to the issues that the right hon. Gentleman has described. I was part of those debates; I think he probably was, too. The only areas in which a public interest intervention is allowed under that legislation relate to national security and media plurality. Subsequently, banks were added; as they were overwhelmingly domiciled in the UK, that fell outside European legislation. Those are the very narrow grounds on which the existing legislation allows intervention.

Blacklisting

Debate between Vince Cable and Michael Meacher

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

That is an allegation and, as I said a few moments ago, if there is serious substance to it and a good basis for investigation, it should first have gone to the Police Complaints Authority and to the body that looks at the security services. There is a process. It might be tedious to go through it, but that is what we have to do. If those avenues have been exhausted, perhaps we can take it to the next stage, but I have no evidence that they have even been tried.

The next question was whether we should now be investigating construction companies working on public contracts. That is the issue for today. As I have said many times, I am open to new evidence if it is available, because it is very clear that any company working on a public contract must comply with the law. Of course companies should not break data protection law, trade union law or the blacklist regulations.

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State keeps returning to the point that there needs to be evidence of blacklisting after 2010. How does he respond to the statement made only last week by Balfour Beatty that it used blacklisting when taking on workers for the construction of the Olympic venues?

[Vince Cable]

I am coming to the Balfour Beatty point, which I think related to events four or five years ago; I am happy to be corrected, but that is my understanding. Let me say what I think happened in that case. We knew that Balfour Beatty wrote to the Olympic Delivery Authority admitting that one company in its group made checks on 12 potential employees prior to February 2009. That was in response to a letter from the ODA, one of a number sent to high-profile contractors. The firm insists that all 12 people were given jobs and that there was no wider or further use of pre-employment checks. The ODA has taken a very clear and unambiguous stand condemning blacklisting in the operation of the Olympics. There is no question but that the practice was taking place well back during the last Government.

I have already responded to allegations of collusion by the police and security services. There is then the question of remedies; people have clearly been damaged, and evidence has been advanced. Let us review the redress. Those excluded from employment can seek redress in the county courts or the Court of Session in Scotland and other rights under the regulations can be enforced in employment tribunals.

I repeat the point I made in response to an intervention: the last Government took the view that legislation should not apply retrospectively and prior to 2010. I suspect that a lot of the frustration and anger of people who have been hurt by what happened relates to the decision not to apply the measures retrospectively.

Directors’ Pay

Debate between Vince Cable and Michael Meacher

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman is right to stress that we are talking not just about reward for failure but about the general escalation of the pay of top executives unrelated to company performance. It is not likely that we could produce a simple metric of how the policy will work through, but if annual or tri-annual reviews of policy are successfully implemented across companies, with well informed shareholders exercising their votes, I think that in a few years’ time we will see a good deal of restraint and more strategic thinking in the setting of pay policies. That is what we are trying to achieve.

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

Three years is an awful long time to pack in share options, mega-bonuses, huge share handouts, long-term incentive pay schemes and so on. Why not have an annual binding shareholder vote to stop top executive remuneration ballooning wildly out of control within a three-year grace period?

[Vince Cable]

Even if that perverse behaviour were to occur, there would still be the existing annual backward-looking advisory vote. If shareholders are dissatisfied, the company, subject to the Financial Reporting Council’s work, will be required to issue a statement, which will require a binding vote the following year. Checks and balances are built into the system to ensure that the abuses the right hon. Gentleman describes simply do not happen.