Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor-General]

Yes, my hon. Friend makes an important point. The Director of Public Prosecutions has led the training of specialist CPS rape prosecutors, 800 of whom have now been trained, and they have done a wide range of units to ensure that they are fully aware of all the ways that it is necessary to prosecute such cases.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Some of the victims are children, and one reason why conviction rates are low is the way in which they are treated during the trial process. It is disgusting that small girls are further abused by grown men, being taunted for hours on end as liars. What will the Solicitor-General do about it?

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

We are making it easier to access broadband and have supported, and continue to work closely with, valuable networks such as Go ON UK and UK online centres, because my hon. Friend is right that there is still a big opportunity to help more people, small businesses and charities to access the benefits of the internet.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

As I am sure the Minister knows, 11 million people in this country have never used the internet, and at the moment his Department is spending no money on digital inclusion. Is its real way of saving money on public services to make them completely inaccessible to those who need them?

[Mr Hurd]

No. As I said, we are clear that no one must be excluded from this process. That is why significant assisted digital provision is still in place, and we will shortly make available details of how that will work. There are digital inclusion projects across Government and we are actively reviewing, with partners such as Go ON UK, what more we can do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We should listen very carefully to the Governor of the Bank of England. He has said that growth is slower than we would like, but that the economy is moving in the right direction and that rebalancing is taking place. The things that need to be fixed in our economy, in terms of bank lending and the housing supply, are being fixed, and that is what the Government are determined to do.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

One of my constituents has learned that when the bedroom tax is introduced she will have £24 a week to live on. She is so anxious about how she will manage she is receiving cognitive behavioural therapy. Her anxiety is totally understandable. Does the Prime Minister agree that those who should be receiving cognitive behavioural therapy are the ones—namely his Ministers—who think that she could live on £24 a week?

[The Prime Minister]

The Opposition have to address the fact that for 13 years in government they were perfectly content to have a housing benefit system for people in private sector housing that had no extra benefit for empty rooms. I cannot understand why they cannot see that it is unfair to have one rule for people who have the benefit of social housing with lower rents and another rule for people in private sector accommodation. Week after week, Labour MPs and the Labour leader come here opposing this benefit change, that benefit change and everything we do to deal with the mess they left to fill in the deficit they left us. Until they learn to take some responsibility for the mess they left, no one will ever listen to them.

Algeria

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Friday 18th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for what he has said. I think this is a reminder of two very clear points. First, we face a large and existential terrorist threat from a group of extremists based in different parts of the world who want to do the biggest possible amount of damage to our interests and way of life. Secondly, those extremists thrive when they have ungoverned spaces in which they can exist, build and plan. I very much agree with what my hon. Friend has said. Under this Government—as under previous Governments—a lot of priority has been given to the funding of the security services, and there is now a good system for bringing together intelligence and military and political planning through the National Security Council, and in other ways including the emergency committee Cobra framework, which brings people together very rapidly to ensure that all parts of the British Government and state are able to bring their expertise to bear.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

This area is obviously extremely unstable. As the Prime Minister knows, Algeria has just emerged from a civil war and there are failed states on either side of it. Will the Prime Minister say a little more about the diplomatic activity that he is now going to embark on in that region?

[The Prime Minister]

First, I want to praise our ambassador to Algeria and his staff, who have been working around the clock and have been extremely effective in getting information to us about what is happening. We are expanding our network of embassies and contacts around the world but we must look all the time at how well we are represented in different countries, and where best to thicken the contacts we have. I think we have to do that in partnership with other countries. For instance, there is no doubt that in parts of west Africa the French have excellent connections with countries where we have less-good connections, but likewise there are countries where the opposite applies. We need to work with our partners—I discussed this with President Obama last night—and ensure that between us we have the strongest possible contacts.

European Council

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will certainly continue to do that work. On the issue of the EU budget, I think there is a good reason why that coalition should stick together and push hard for a budget that, yes, is about growth, but comes in far lower than where it is today. I will work very hard to try to make that happen.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I am afraid that I am still not quite clear what the Prime Minister’s view on a referendum is. Is it that he thinks it is not a good time now because of the problems in the eurozone, or does he take the view that it would never be right to have an in/out referendum?

[The Prime Minister]

My view is that Britain should be looking for a different and better settlement between Britain and the EU. That is something we can push for, because Europe is changing. The single currency is driving change in Europe. When we have achieved that new settlement, we should seek fresh consent for it—and, yes of course, that could include a referendum.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As I have said, it is an excellent tribute to both sides of the coalition that, notwithstanding huge pressures to do otherwise, we have religiously stuck to the commitments that we made together to the British people in the coalition agreement. On this particular occasion, for reasons I will not rehearse now, one party in the coalition felt unable to deliver one very important part of the constitutional reform agenda—House of Lords reform—so, reasonably enough, the other part of the coalition has reacted accordingly on the issue of boundaries. Those are circumscribed circumstances which will not and do not prevent the coalition Government from working very effectively on a broad waterfront of other issues, the most important of which, of course, is cleaning up the economic mess left by that lot on the Opposition Benches.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

T8. I welcome the commission that has been set up on the north-east economy, because we need all the help we can get at the moment. Further to the question asked by the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton), does the Deputy Prime Minister understand that the commission must report to both local enterprise partnerships, and was it not a mistake by the Government to split our region into two?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I do not think that it was a mistake for the Government to replace the layer of regional development agencies, many of which were disconnected from the communities, cities and towns that they sought to represent. I am sure that the hon. Lady, who is fair-minded, will accept that RDAs were too often distant from the businesses and people that they sought to represent. I know that there was a lot of backing in the north-east for One North East, and that is why it is very important that all the LEPs in the north-east continue to work together to promote a cohesive approach to economic development that represents the whole of the north-east region.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

6. What estimate he has made of the total reduction in funding to the voluntary sector in 2011-12.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

9. What estimate he has made of the total reduction in funding to the voluntary sector in 2011-12.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Hurd)]

Data from the Charity Commission suggest that the gross income of registered charities grew in 2011, but we all know that the sector is going through a very difficult period. We are putting in place plans to help it through this very difficult transition period, and to open up new funding opportunities over the medium term.

[Mr Hurd]

I share the hon. Lady’s concern and that is why we have pressed the point, from the Prime Minister down, to local authorities that they should try to avoid making disproportionate cuts to the voluntary sector and why we have put in place funds to help manage the transition. I have to say to her that for the Labour party to keep talking about cuts to the voluntary sector without recognising why those cuts were necessary in the first place, and without recognising that Labour councils are doing some of the heaviest cutting while saying absolutely nothing about the future of the sector, is fooling no one and disappointing many.

[Helen Goodman]

In County Durham, the local authority has had to reduce its grass-cutting service because of the reductions in its grant, so I rang the local Community Service Volunteers, thinking that that might be something it could take on. It said that it could not, because it did not know whether it will have core funding after the new year. Does the Minister not understand that far from creating a big society, he is destroying the society we have?

House of Lords Reform Bill

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman’s description of the psephological effects in his neck of the woods is the closest anyone has come to possibly changing my mind on the boundary issue, but I will not, and I have made our position very clear. There are conventions, and in time-honoured fashion they mutate and develop over time. Coalition government is clearly a novel thing, and I think that the conventions that govern government will need to adapt to the fact that in this instance the coalition parties will go their separate ways, and I am sure that we will be able to manage that.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Deputy Prime Minister has just said, in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), that he could not persuade the Prime Minister to have a referendum on the package. Will he share with Members the reasons the Prime Minister gave?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

No, I will not go into the conversation, but it was clearly felt that the approach of having a referendum on election day with a deferral for both the first elections to a reformed House of Lords and the entry into effect of the boundary changes was not sufficient to persuade those who had made it clear that they would not under pretty much any circumstances back a timetable motion for House of Lords reform legislation.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys). I agree that reform and an elected House of Lords are essential. It is a basic principle of democracy that those who legislate for everybody else are voted for by the other citizens of the country.

Whatever their positions on the Bill, hon. Members on both sides of the House agree that the House of Lords should complement and not duplicate the House of Commons in both its function and its make-up. Unfortunately, the Bill is weak on both counts. Clause 2 is inadequate in setting out the functions of the reformed House. I agree with the letter written by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) to the Deputy Prime Minister. We must see a new draft of clause 2 early in the passage of the Bill. We cannot be expected to agree to a measure if we do not know what the functions will be until some distant time in future, after the Bill has been to the Lords.

Furthermore, the Bill reveals one of the weaknesses of our unwritten constitution. It would be helpful if Ministers considered not only how to preserve the primacy of the Commons but what special responsibilities the other House should have. At one point, giving the other House special responsibility for human rights was considered.

On the make-up of the second House, many noble Lords are going around saying that the Lords is more reflective of the population than the Commons. That is not true. Only a fifth of Members of both Houses are women and 5% or fewer are from ethnic minorities. However, more than 96% of Members of the other House are over 50. The Government’s proposals in the Bill are extremely weak on that. The proposed 15-year terms are weak not just on accountability; they will add to that age bias.

The objective is surely to widen involvement in our political institutions—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady. You have made your speech, Ms Sandys. Turning round and having a private conversation, along with many other Members, is not fair and does not show due respect to the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman). Given the importance that hon. Members have attached to this Bill, perhaps they can ensure they listen to the debate on it.

[Helen Goodman]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am obviously so boring that other hon. Members cannot be bothered to listen—[Hon. Members: “No!”]

Our politics and our democracy are not exactly in a crisis, but confidence in them is beginning to look rather tattered round the edges. If we are to restore that confidence, we need both institutional reform and higher levels of participation. Today is an opportunity to discuss the institutional reform—we can talk about participation on another occasion.

For many, the heyday of our popular democracy was the early 1950s, when voting participation under universal suffrage was at its highest, and when the two-party system seemed to provide a reasonable reflection of the choices for the country. However, in 1997, at the end of 20 years of Tory rule, the overwhelming sense one had was of anachronistic institutions that were completely unrepresentative of who we are and what we expect from our democracy. Institutional reforms redressed the balance between citizens and the state. They were significant and welcome, but they did not address some of the key failings. Why are so few Members of Parliament in either House women? Why is it right that the second Chamber should reserve places for Anglican bishops but none for other denominations and religions? Those are failings of the institutional arrangements, but they reflect a deeper failure: a failure to make sense of our new British identity.

To tackle that malaise, we need institutions that provide equal rights within their arrangements. This is an extremely unusual country, because it is both a multinational state built over more than 500 years from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, and a multi-ethnic country, which in the past 50 years has had a huge change in its constitution. Such significant cultural diversity can make the task of building inclusive citizenship seem huge, and we do it against a background of growing globalisation, which seems to be reducing the importance of the nation state. It is vital, however, if we are to get the levels of participation that we need.

[Andrew Griffiths]

The hon. Lady makes some important statements about the need to ensure that the Chambers are representative, but does she not accept that the other place has the same representation of women, and a higher representation of disabled people and ethnic minorities?

[Helen Goodman]

The differences between the numbers of ethnic minorities and people with disabilities are tiny compared with the great distortion of age.

This Chamber represents people according to the communities in which they live. Once upon a time, the differences between living in Sheffield, which was a steel town, and Nottingham, where there were lots of lace factories, were significant, but increasingly the idea of communities based on economic differences defines only a part of people’s lives. With House of Lords reform, we have the opportunity to consider the other aspects of identity and the issues arising from them, which are often just as important—for some people, more important—as the communities in which they live. I propose that we look at House of Lords reform in an attempt to redress that imbalance. It is obviously a deep and complex problem requiring a lot of consideration. Tomorrow evening I will vote for Second Reading, so that we have a democratic second Chamber, but against the programme motion, so that we can unpick some of these very significant matters.

EU Council

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I can see that it must have been a particularly satisfying and heart-warming taxi ride for my hon. Friend. As I have said, I do not think that an immediate in/out referendum is the answer, but ruling out a referendum is not the answer either. There are opportunities to build the sort of settlement we want in Europe and the Government believe that we should take advantage of them.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Will the Prime Minister tell the House what indications he has had from European colleagues that they would be likely to agree the repatriation to this country of the social chapter and other powers?

[The Prime Minister]

We were able to renegotiate the bail-out power and get out of that part of the treaty, so we have had some small success on that agenda already. There is a big change coming in Europe. I cannot say how fast it is going to go and whether it will be a number of small treaties or a bigger treaty, but there will be opportunities. The eurozone countries will have to do more to integrate, which will give others opportunities to pursue their own agendas.