London Metropolitan University

Debate between Mark Field and John Bercow

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I appeal to colleagues for short questions and indeed to the Minister for mercifully shorter answers.

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

London Met, part of which is in my constituency, has been a troubled institution. I accept, with some regret, that the UKBA needed to make a stand. I am glad that the Minister has gone into some detail about the arrangements that are being made, but does he recognise that there is a strong duty of care owed by the UKBA and the whole higher education organisation to those students who are about to start the final year of their studies? They may well have been at London Met for two or three years, and they must be looked after. If necessary, I hope that he will make a special case for some of those students in the weeks ahead.

Olympics and Paralympics (Funding)

Debate between Mark Field and John Bercow

Monday 27th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

One of the concerns, if not of many Members of the House, then of many people outside it, is that very little attention seems to have been paid at the beginning to how much this would all cost. Various figures were bandied around at that juncture, and £2.5 billion was suggested as the cost of the overall package. I accept that it is good that we have the games and that there is unity across the House about that, but it is equally important that there is an open debate on funding and other related issues, particularly the question of whether there will be the legacy we all hope for in that part of east London, which we will not have a definite answer to for at least another decade. One of the concerns at the outset—of course, that was a very different economic time—was that there was very little scrutiny of the whole funding issue.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Notwithstanding the fact that the hon. Gentleman speaks for two cities, as opposed to a smaller area, a degree of economy when intervening from now on would be appreciated.

Higher Education White Paper

Debate between Mark Field and John Bercow

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is extensive interest in this statement, and I am keen to accommodate that interest, but I must appeal for brevity from Back Benchers and Front Benchers alike.

[Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I have spent the past six years on the advisory board of the London School of Commerce, a private higher education provider, and I wholeheartedly support the Minister’s proposals to provide diversity and innovation in the sector, but does he share my bemusement at the Opposition’s stance, given that the biggest beneficiaries of such a policy will surely be students from less well-off backgrounds?

Members’ Salaries

Debate between Mark Field and John Bercow

Monday 21st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

It is universally accepted by anthropologists that one sign of higher animal intelligence is the ability to learn from experience. As the Leader of the House moved the motion, one was inclined to ask, “Have we in the House of Commons learned nothing from the calamity of the expenses scandal?”

I agree with hon. Members who said that the general public must be dismayed at Parliament’s continuing inability to put its house in order in relation to such matters, especially in view of the tumultuous events out there in the real world. How can we earn public respect and work in the national interest to solve this country’s acute economic problems and to reform public services, let alone to assert Britain’s place in the world, which we debated earlier, when we have so abjectly and continually failed to sort out our immensely damaging internal difficulties?

As the Leader of the House pointed out, after the expenses scandal, Parliament charged Sir John Baker, the then retiring SSRB chairman, to conduct a review. He was asked to make recommendations for a mechanism by which the pay and pensions of MPs could be independently determined—one that did not involve MPs voting on their own pay. His report, which was published in July 2008, recommended that MPs’ pay should be uprated annually in line with the public sector average earnings index, with a more general review of MPs’ salaries by the SSRB to take place in the first year of each Parliament.

That was supposed to be the end of the matter, with the embarrassing spectacle of MPs setting their salaries becoming a thing of the past—or so we thought. Of course, the unredacted receipts were published by The Daily Telegraph in May 2009, and suddenly the entire political class blissfully agreed on the root of the problem. Members and political commentators acknowledged that the widespread misuse by many MPs—I am afraid that it was many MPs—of second home and staff budgets, which as we all know helped to terminate several dozen parliamentary careers, came about largely as a result of Parliament voting down independently awarded salary increases.

For many years, the Executive have been overly concerned by the immediate public reaction to headline salary uplifts. As a result, subsequently, a blind eye was continually turned to the widespread misuse of the parliamentary expenses scheme, which became an income-enhancing allowance. Since the ground-breaking public revelations in The Daily Telegraph, the universal refrain from Parliament’s great and good—the Speaker’s Commission, the Members Estimate Committee and the Standards and Privileges Committee—was that the expenses system had been rotten for decades, yet those same MPs did their utmost to block meaningful reform of the now much-maligned expenses system, almost until the very day when The Daily Telegraph first published those receipts. Indeed, all the systematically suspect claims were defended resolutely by those distinguished, senior parliamentarians as being within the rules—which parliamentarians had made.

Small wonder that those parliamentarians waged such a disastrous, protracted campaign in the High Court between 2006 and 2009—in all of our names, I am afraid—to prevent the publication of expense receipts. They knew full well the public reaction that would follow.

I am particularly sorry to say that the Leader of the House, in his previous role as Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee, was one such senior parliamentarian. That makes his attempt to drive through the motion tonight all the more regrettable. Of all people, he knows how we got here. On 30 April 2009, just two weeks before The Daily Telegraph balloon went up, the Leader of the House, in league with other politicians, put down a serious—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I very gently say to the hon. Gentleman that I understand the issues that surround the motion, but we have a time-constrained debate, and it is incumbent on him to focus on the terms of the motion rather than ancillary matters.

[Mr Field]

I was coming to the end of this passage, Mr Speaker.

At that juncture, however, the Leader of the House allowed the glaring loophole in relation to second home allowances for MPs in suburban seats to be overlooked, on the basis that the independent review that we are now awaiting should report first. I only wish that today he was such a keen supporter of independent reviews. I believe that the independent salary review that the SSRB and IPSA were due to commence in the next few months would also have provided a long overdue opportunity to rebalance and aggregate MPs’ remuneration away from the byzantine and almost corrupt allowances scheme, towards a more upfront and transparent salary, which is why it is particularly regrettable that the second part of the motion is being proposed tonight. I fear that that opportunity will now be lost.

For the sake of one day’s good newspaper headlines, Parliament has unwisely insisted that we set our own salary again and impose this two-year freeze. As I mentioned earlier, the calamitous expenses system began in just such a way by rejecting independent salary reviews and then boosting allowances as some form of compensation. In my view, even the mere suspicion that this was happening again would be totally unacceptable and disastrous, as we try to build public trust. Such a process of rebuilding will be difficult enough in the years ahead, given the constant backdrop of high-profile criminal cases currently going to the courts. I do not wish to prejudge any of the other expenses conflicts, but I suspect that potentially there are several more former and sitting Members whose affairs will move from police investigation to the Crown Prosecution Service and then the Crown court in the months ahead.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The difficulty here is that the hon. Gentleman has got a prepared text, to which he is sticking closely. However, I have already advised him that he must not dilate on matters that do not relate directly to the motion. I feel sure that being an experienced parliamentarian he will now turn to the matters within the motion. If he does not wish to do so, he can remain in his seat.

[Mr Field]

I shall take on board what you say, Mr Speaker, although—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I make it clear that it is not a question of taking on board what I say? I am saying to the hon. Gentleman, without fear of contradiction, that I have given a ruling, and to that ruling he will adhere.

[Mr Field]

I shall adhere to your ruling, Mr Speaker.

If we pass the motion on salaries tonight, amidst a self-satisfied blaze of glory, it will be essential that we also resolve that, whatever changes are made to the IPSA allowances scheme, none will come into effect until April 2013. In short, it must be a two-year freeze on both salaries and all allowances.

Business of the House

Debate between Mark Field and John Bercow

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. A very large number of right hon. and hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye. Ordinarily, as the House knows, I seek to accommodate everybody at business questions, but that might not prove possible today, with heavy pressure on time and very well subscribed Backbench Business Committee-led debates, so I emphasise that there is a premium on single, short supplementary questions without preamble, and on the Leader of the House’s characteristically brief replies.

[Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

Following the Leader of the House’s written statement this morning, might I respectfully suggest to him that, just for once on MPs’ pay and conditions, he tries to be wise before the event? Regaining the trust of the general public after the calamitous expenses scandal requires that this House abides in full by the independent reviews, come rain or shine.