Proxy Voting

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Vicky Ford

Thursday 13th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, up to a point. I think it is a myth that an MP must at all times be in the Chamber before they vote; we know that that is not true. How many people are here today? If the motion were put to a vote at the end of the debate, a lot of people who voted would not have been here. Sometimes we are in Committees, servicing Westminster Hall or doing other things in this building that mean that we legitimately cannot be in the Chamber for an entire debate before we vote. We need to be realistic about the fact that there are many things going on outwith the Chamber at various points during the day, but it is important to know what we are voting for and to take responsibility for it.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

rose—

[Alison Thewliss]

I will give way, but I am coming to the end of my speech and I know that other people want to speak.

[Vicky Ford]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. I used electronic voting for many years in the European Parliament. It was my experience that when electronic votes came along—sometimes, there were many hundreds of them—Members did not know what they were voting for, and they frequently voted without checking the detail. I have found that having to put one foot in front of the other and go through the Lobbies focuses the mind, and I believe that that is what our constituents expect of us.

[Alison Thewliss]

I think the experience in the European Parliament, where there are many votes—many more than we would have here—is slightly different. I question whether all Members of this House know at all times exactly and specifically what they are going through the Lobby to vote on. I am pretty sure that if we did a quiz on the votes that have taken place this week, most people would not be able to say what we have voted for. That is a weakness of our democracy, but it is the reality.

We must take the important step today of endorsing proxy voting to level the playing field for parents in this place, and to ensure that equality of representation is reached before any further time passes. It is important that women’s voices are heard. We have had lots of chat about unintended consequences, but at the moment there are very real consequences for people’s participation in this place, as well as for those who look to us for guidance.

The hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) mentioned perfection. We are dealing with people here. We will never achieve absolute perfection, and we should not wait for it. We should seek it, but we should not wait for it. We should get on with the job, and let proxy voting go ahead as soon as possible.

Financial Services

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Vicky Ford

Thursday 26th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Vicky Ford]

I thank hon. Members for their contributions. Many times since joining this place, I have heard hon. Members take very angry and aggressive positions in opposition to each other. It is good, on this calm and quiet Thursday afternoon, to hear hon. Members speaking in support of the financial sector, and about their pride in it and in the way the people who work in it and in the related professional sector use those services and their careers to support customers and the wider economy.

I want to pick up a couple of small issues. The Minister stated clearly that Britain does not want a bonfire of regulation; our aim is to continue to be a benchmark of good regulation across the globe. I absolutely support that aim, and I think it is important that we continue to say that again and again.

The Minister also made the very clear point that, from the British point of view, we want to give certainty in the Brexit negotiations to businesses and consumers on this side of the channel that they will not face disruption. We want to ensure that their contracts continue to be recognised during the transition and beyond, and we need those on the other side of the channel to give the same level of certainty.

I am going to make terrible mistakes if I try to name everybody’s constituencies—

[Alison Thewliss]

Glasgow Central.

[Vicky Ford]

The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) said she is extremely concerned about how soon we can give certainty in the EU negotiations. There are two sides to giving certainty. The Government’s statements—especially the detailed HSBC Canary Wharf speech—contain a huge amount of detail about the need for ongoing co-operation. The EU negotiators have also talked about wanting to have super-equivalence, and that is helpful, but we have not seen the same level of detail. It needs to come from both sides.

In my experience of many years of EU negotiations, having a seat at the table was sometimes helpful—that will be missed—but there were other times when it was a challenge. The financial services industry is much more important to our economy than it is to that of many other countries, although it does support them, but that left us with different exposures. That is why we did not want to have an identical approach to solve certain issues; the approach of maximum harmonisation—one size fits all—that we increasingly see across the single market is very challenging.

The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Johnathan Reynolds) spoke about needing to confirm whether we are going to align. To me, that sometimes means having a completely identical approach, which can be a challenge. One thing I learned from my time in European politics is that there are times when the EU recognises equivalence, but without that being identical. I particularly look at the way in which we treated the bank sector. When we introduced our bank levy, the rest of Europe, particularly within the eurozone, had the funded deposit guarantee system. There were two different ways to solve the same issue to make sure that funds were set aside in case there was failure, but they are both built into the legislation.

The Economy

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Vicky Ford

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

The benefit of apprenticeships is that apprentices are earning as well as learning. When I met some of those 5,350 young people who are doing apprenticeships in my constituency—especially those in financial services, which I will talk about later—they told me how happy they were to be earning while also learning.

I also recognise that enabling small businesses to take on apprentices is key in some areas. That is why I was so pleased to hear the Chancellor mention in the spring statement new measures to help unlock the opportunities for small businesses to offer apprenticeships.

We must also remember that apprenticeships are not for everyone. Britain is home to some of the world’s leading universities—more than any country other than the US. Our universities are the jewel in the British crown. I am a member of the Science and Technology Committee, and we have been hearing from some of those universities. We bring students, researchers and ideas-generators from all over the world here, and it is absolutely key that they can continue to collaborate and work together and with leaders in other worlds. That is why I was so pleased that the Prime Minister talked in her Mansion House speech about a science and innovation pact between the UK and Europe after Brexit. There is still work to do on the detail, but we must ensure that that detail is focused on, which is why it is great that the negotiations in Brussels this week are going to mean we can start the next stage of our discussions.

I want to mention a couple of sectors, the first of which is financial services. It is probably the largest contributor to the tax-take in this country, accounting for about 11% of total tax, with £72 billion paid in tax by the sector last year. It is also really important to remember that this is not just about jobs in London. Even in my constituency of Chelmsford, there are about 2,000 jobs in the insurance sector. That is probably the largest sector there. I travelled to Canary Wharf to listen to the Chancellor’s speech on the future trade agreement on financial services. It is key that we get this right, and I am really pleased that we are now focusing on this. The Prime Minister said yesterday how important it will be to have a bespoke deal on services and financial services.

Another sector that I want to mention is the life sciences sector. We are the world leader in many areas of medical research, which makes a £30 billion contribution to the economy and provides 480,000 jobs. None of this has happened by accident. It was here that the human genome was discovered, and the human genome campus is here. The previous Prime Minister’s visionary 100,000 Genomes Project signalled the start of a massive revolution in medical research. There are, however, a few areas in which we could do a bit more to unlock the benefits of that research. The first involves unlocking the benefits of medical research for the NHS. There is still a bit more that we could do to get the synergies working together there.

I should like to advertise something to the House. Immediately after this debate, I am going to be leading the Adjournment debate, in which I will be looking at a very rare disease that affects one of my constituents. No other Member has debated this before. To help medical research in our life sciences sector, we need to ensure that new treatments are not only discovered here but trialled, tested and prescribed here. That is what I shall be discussing with Members later.

[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Lady is making a very good case about where the UK stands on the life sciences and other sciences, but does she not recognise that a lot of this work—including that being done at the rheumatoid arthritis pathogenesis centre of excellence at the University of Glasgow, which I visited recently—depends on European collaboration, on researchers and funding coming from the EU, and on being able to share excellence in techniques?

[Vicky Ford]

Absolutely. I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, because I was the only British MEP involved in the negotiations on the last European collaborative research project. I was pleased to hear the Minister responsible for science and research confirming that he intends to continue that type of collaboration—provided that it is still focused on excellence, value for money and so on—as part of the science and innovation pact that the Prime Minister intends to deliver. This sector is vital, and we need to ensure that our world-leading scientists can continue to work easily with those in other areas.

My final thought is—[Interruption.] No, I have got my new medical school. This is an enormously important year, because it is 100 years since women got the vote, and it is also the Year of Engineering. I want hon. Members to focus for a moment on young women considering careers in engineering. This country needs 20,000 more engineers every year, and we absolutely need to invest in our science, technology, maths and engineering skills. The number of professional women engineers in this country is shockingly low. Only one in 10 are female, a lower figure than in nearly all the other European countries. There are fantastically good reasons why girls should go into engineering. One third of all businesses say that they want to recruit more people with STEM skills, and women who study science tend to earn an average of 30% more than their peers. A recent study said that 85% of women engineers were either happy or very happy—