Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Glindon Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for raising what is a very important issue. I am sure that Members on all sides of this House will join me in offering our deepest sympathies and condolences to Councillor Miriam Lewis and the right hon. Member for Chorley (Sir Lindsay Hoyle). [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I thank my right hon. Friend for bringing this website in memory of Natalie to my attention. I am happy to offer my full support to the project, which I am sure will provide much-needed help and advice to those who are in the most difficult and painful of circumstances.

We have, of course, changed the law to introduce a new domestic abuse offence of coercion and control in intimate and familial relationships. Since the introduction of that offence, there have been almost 300 successful prosecutions. That shows what a problem this issue is out there. We are always looking for what more can be done, and in our consultation on transforming the law on domestic abuse and violence, we are currently looking for ideas on how the offence can be further strengthened, to ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice.

[Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

Q4. In North Tyneside and across the UK, homebuyers are being sold new houses that have serious defects by developers such as Bellway and Persimmon with no means of sufficient redress. Following the recent Government consultation, will the Prime Minister put her weight behind establishing a new homes ombudsman to give those consumers the proper redress that they urgently need?

[The Prime Minister]

Of course, as we are building more homes—and we need to build more homes for people—we want to ensure that those homes are fit for purpose. There are standards that house builders have to abide by, and also a number of ways in which it is possible to raise these issues, including where there are defects in the homes that are being built.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Glindon Excerpts

Wednesday 11th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

If the hon. Gentleman wants to be taken seriously on this issue, he should listen to the Electoral Commission, which in 2014 urged the Government to adopt the kind of measures that we are adopting now. He should also persuade Labour councillors, in Slough and elsewhere, to take it seriously. If Labour is seen as the party that is soft on electoral fraud, that will not be a very good look for Labour.

[Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

5. What assessment he has made of recent trends in the level of Government procurement from small and medium-sized enterprises.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Cabinet Office (Caroline Nokes)]

We will shortly publish the latest small and medium-sized enterprises’ spending performance figures. The Government remain committed to a challenging target to ensure that a third of their procurement spending is with small businesses by 2022, and we are continuing to take action to achieve that.

[Mary Glindon]

Following a recent report by the Federation of Small Businesses, will the Minister tell the House whether she intends to issue guidance requiring local authorities to increase their use of dynamic purchasing systems so that small businesses are not locked out from lists of potential suppliers to those authorities?

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Lady has always been a doughty champion of the spreading down of procurement practices to local government so that it, too, encourages more SMEs to take part in the process. We have issued guidance to local authorities on how local government can support SMEs, and have legislated to ban burdensome pre-qualification questionnaires for low-value contracts.