Algeria

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I do not disagree with the way in which my hon. Friend has put his question. It was absolutely right to go into Afghanistan to get rid of a Government who were a host to al-Qaeda, but then of course—this is what we are doing right now in Afghanistan—we do need to have a strong political track to get a political settlement that can enable that country not only to have its own security forces, but to have stability in its political system. That is the sort of thinking we need to bring to all these problems in the future.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister referred several times to al-Qaeda “franchises”, and he rightly did so. Is he satisfied that what he would describe as such are not part of the Syrian opposition, which we appear to be supporting at the moment?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. Many organisations in the Syrian opposition want what most people in this House would want, which is for the Syrian people to be free of the brutal dictatorship and from the murder and mayhem they face—60,000 are dead so far. Of course, elements of the Syrian opposition have extremist views and extremist ways and we must be extremely concerned about that. To characterise all or a majority of the Syrian opposition in that way would not be right.

European Council

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I would make two points in response. I believe it is possible to have different countries involved in different things within the European Union. I do not particularly like the expression “two-speed”, which implies that one is racing ahead and the other is not, yet in many cases I would argue that not being in the single currency is beneficial for Britain, and not being in the no-borders agreement is right for Britain. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that this was a breakthrough negotiation, showing it is possible to have a new set of rules to safeguard those countries that want to stay outside some European institutions.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

I am sorry, but may I press the Prime Minister on his long-awaited European speech? I really do not think he has got it clear. Is it not happening because he does not yet know what he wants to say, or because he is not allowed to say what he wants to say?

[The Prime Minister]

I will be making the speech in the middle of January—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] I am delighted that Opposition Members are so excited and are looking forward to it. The hon. Lady might have noticed that I have had a number of other things to attend to in recent weeks, but I have a feeling—knowing her views and the moves she has been making over the years as I have watched her in the House—that she may quite like it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely give that undertaking that I will look carefully at the scheme. As my right hon. Friend knows, we are consulting at the moment. The proposals we have put forward are as good as the scheme for HS1 and better than the compensation scheme for previous motorway developments. As she also knows, there is an advance purchase scheme for property purchase to simplify the process for property owners in the safeguarded area. There is also a voluntary purchase scheme to allow home owners outside the area to have their homes purchased. I am very happy to discuss with her and others how we can ensure that the scheme works properly for people.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

Q4. On Monday, the police and crime commissioner, Bob Jones, and Chief Constable Chris Sims, called for a fair deal for policing for Birmingham and the west midlands, which arguably has the highest policing needs outside London. How can the Prime Minister hope to build one nation if areas such as Birmingham and the west midlands lose 800 front-line police officers while low-crime areas such as Surrey get an extra 250 bobbies on the beat? Do not we all deserve to live in safe communities?

[The Prime Minister]

The point I would make to the hon. Lady is that yes, we have asked the police to make funding reductions. They have been able to do that, keeping a higher proportion of bobbies on the front line, which has been effective, and taking people out of back-office jobs. At the same time, crime has fallen and public confidence in the police has risen. Yes, we are asking the police to take difficult decisions, but they are doing it and they are delivering.

EU Council

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. To be fair, in terms of coalition policy on Europe, we said clearly that there would be no further passage of power from Britain to Brussels. We have said that we should protect and defend the single market. Let us look at the achievements over the past couple of years. We have got out of that bail-out fund; we have promoted the single market in energy, digital and services; and we have written into conclusions after conclusions safeguards for the single market. That is all to the good, but all party leaders, whether Conservative, Liberal Democrat or Labour, must think of the future— how we evolve policy in a changing Europe, how we maximise the benefit for Britain, and how we take the British people with us. That is exactly what I am doing.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister suggests the setting up of a parliamentary committee of inquiry. Whenever we have such inquiries and when they are compared with judge-led inquiries, the big difference is access to information, such as e-mail exchanges and other background material. Will he ensure that in its terms of reference such a committee will have the same powers as a judge-led inquiry?

[The Prime Minister]

The short answer to that is yes, I want it to have those powers. What Parliament has behind it is that, if people do not produce those policies, papers and people, they are in contempt of Parliament. We are seeing with the Culture, Media and Sport Committee inquiry that the whole concept of being in contempt of Parliament is being strengthened, and that is all to the good. The committee will have the powers that it needs and the expertise that it needs, but crucially it will be able to get on with the job straight away.

Civil Service Reform

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

At the risk of my hon. Friend’s eyebrows going into overdrive, may I say that no final decisions have been made? He makes the argument. We have invited the pay review bodies to look at that proposal but no decision will be made until the evidence has been properly examined and the existence or otherwise of a strong rationale has been established.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

I would like to return to the issue of accounting officers being recalled to Select Committees. In his statement, the Minister referred only to the Public Accounts Committee. May I urge him to consider other Committees, such as the Defence Committee, given that procurement decisions can cover 10, 15 or 20 years? Will he consider not only making that clearer, as he said in his statement, but making it a duty?

[Mr Maude]

For the PAC, it is becoming the practice that, in the right circumstances, former accounting officers can be called back. I hear what the hon. Lady says; it is a powerful case. Actually, I would not find it objectionable if former Ministers were called back to Select Committees to talk about decisions they were involved with in a previous life. I see the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), the former Lord Chancellor, nodding assent, which is courageous of him.

Party Funding

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

I simply confirm what my hon. Friend says, and what I said earlier. This Government have by a quantum leap disclosed more information about Ministers’ activities and their meetings with outside organisations and individuals than the last Government ever contemplated. They operated behind closed doors; we have let the sunlight in.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

The Minister said in his statement that “what Peter Cruddas said was completely unacceptable and wrong”, and that much of it “was simply not true”. Is it now official Conservative party policy to lie to its donors?

[Mr Maude]

If that is the best the hon. Lady can do, it is a little bit sad. We have said that what Peter Cruddas said was wrong. It was obviously unacceptable, and much of it simply was not true, and that is why he is no longer treasurer of the Conservative party.

European Council

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I did not quite say what my hon. Friend said. Spain is forecast to have a decline in its GDP this year. It has tough targets for its fiscal deficits, which it is trying to reduce, and at the same time its Government, like all others in Europe, want to get back to a position of growth. The point I would make is that I have always believed that it is better as a country to have both fiscal and monetary levers at our disposal, so that we have the most flexible way to respond to economic circumstances. In Britain, we are able to have tough measures to reduce our fiscal deficits, but at the same time, because we have an independent monetary policy, set by the Bank of England, we are not constrained by being members of a currency bloc. That is why I oppose Britain joining the euro—ever.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister takes great pride in having achieved a deeper and greater commitment to completing the single market and deregulation. Last Friday the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon) said that some EU financial services proposals

“verge on the discriminatory, verge on protectionism”.

Has the Prime Minister made any progress on doing something about that?

[The Prime Minister]

We are making quite good progress on the financial services dossiers. We are having to deal with them one by one. There are some cases where we are actually arguing that countries ought to be able to regulate even further than the EU is allowing—for instance, in building up capital in our banks. However, there are some difficult financial services directives, which we have to deal with one by one, to make sure that they are proportionate and not threatening to our financial services industry, which, as I say, is not just an asset for Britain, but an asset for the whole of Europe.

Informal European Council

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The point is that, as my hon. Friend knows, there are organisations within the EU, such as the eurozone group and the Schengen group, of which we are not a part, that use the European institutions. The fact is that this treaty is outside the EU treaties, which gives us that extra protection. Furthermore, we have the ability to exercise leverage to ensure that they stick to fiscal union, rather than getting into the single market, which is what we want to protect. That is absolutely important and the approach that we should take.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

The Greek writer Aristophanes gave us the concept of cloud cuckoo land. I wonder whether some European leaders visited that mythical country on Monday. Will the Prime Minister tell us how on earth he thinks that a country such as Greece will regain competitiveness if it cannot devalue, which it cannot do within the euro?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady makes a serious point. I have read the agreement that these countries have come to, and I completely understand the need for fiscal discipline within the eurozone. Clearly, we cannot have countries building up excessive deficits year after year, and one can understand the concern of Germany and other northern countries, but on the text of the treaty, it is actually very concerning that some countries will struggle to meet it. Of course, Europe needs not only arrangements for fiscal discipline but, above all, arrangements for additional competitiveness, for opening up markets and for getting economies growing. That was the subject of the first half of the EU meeting, in which we were major participants, and we are very much driving that agenda to help Greece, Spain and other countries in the south of Europe.

G20

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. The point about Doha is that it is not progressing in the way that it was meant to. There is a gridlock between many of the developing countries and, particularly, countries such as America that do not see enough in the round for them. So it seems that the only way forward, if we want to see more global trade deals that are good for all those participating, is to have coalitions of the willing—countries that want to push ahead. That is what has been sanctioned at the G20, and that is what we can now push ahead with.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

Greece, Spain and Portugal already are, and Italy probably is, insolvent within the European monetary union. None of these countries is likely to regain its competitiveness while it is part of the single currency. Does the Prime Minister not think it would be better for the IMF to give them extra funds only once they have left the single currency, rather than while they are part of the EMU?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady makes an important point, but it is not necessarily fair to lump all those countries together. Some of them, such as Italy, have huge deficits in terms of the ratio of debt to GDP, but have managed to compete within the single currency, so I am not sure that the way in which she groups those countries together is entirely fair. The important role of the IMF is not to support a currency system, not to support the eurozone, and not to invest into a bail-out fund. The IMF has to be there for countries in distress. That is why everyone in the House supported, for instance, the IMF programme that went into Ireland. The IMF went in as a partner of other countries, but it did go in. If she turns her question round the other way, it would be extraordinary, would it not, to say to eurozone countries, “You are shareholders in the IMF, you contributed to the IMF, but when you’re in distress you can’t get any money from the IMF at all”? That would be an extraordinary position—but it is one that seems to have the support of those on the Labour Front Bench.

European Council

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am very grateful for that compliment. The fact is that my right hon. and learned Friend is right to make the point. This is a coalition. There is not complete agreement on European policy between the parties of the coalition, but the coalition came together in the national interest and is acting in the national interest, and I think it is right to oppose this motion tonight, partly on the grounds that he puts forward.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

It is a shame that the Prime Minister spent only 10 minutes on Libya, the European Council and the motion. On reflection, I hope that he will think that he should have paid more attention to the European Council.

US Secretary Geithner said that even if all Greece’s debts were repaid, we would still have the same problem. Could the Prime Minister tell the House how he thinks that Greece will regain competitiveness?

[The Prime Minister]

I have probably made more statements on European Councils over the last 16 months than many Prime Ministers, and I have always committed to come back and report to the House.

The point that the hon. Lady makes is absolutely right. Greece is just the most glaring problem that the eurozone has to deal with. As I have said, that has to be dealt with decisively. It needs to be backed by a firewall, and it needs to be backed by the recapitalisation of banks. But the fundamental problem of the eurozone is the issue of competitiveness and the very large current imbalances that are building up in some of the member states, particularly those in the south. As a result, what needs to happen above all, as I said in my statement, is an advance in competitiveness, in trade, and in completing the single market, which will help all those economies in the longer term.