Charitable Registration

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce]

I thank my hon. Friend.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

The difficulty is that we as a House failed to define public benefit in the Charities Act 2006; it is left to the courts. What will happen is that those who can afford the most expensive silks to argue their case are likely to triumph. Does the hon. Lady think that public benefit is well defined as far as education is concerned? Eton and Harrow have charity status, but schools on inner-city estates do not.

[Fiona Bruce]

The position regarding public benefit in education was considered thoroughly in connection with the case to which I referred earlier, so I will confine my remarks to the issue of public benefit and religious organisations, which has not been examined or judicially reviewed for some time.

Prime Minister’s Adviser on Ministers’ Interests

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

We have seen the degradation of a very valuable reform that was made when Tony Blair was Prime Minister. I was a member of the Public Administration Committee at the time, and we were not happy with everything that the last Government did. We wanted to go further: we wanted a pre-appointment hearing. However, if we look at the history of the code, we see that it was used once by the last Government on an occasion involving Shahid Malik and has not been used by the present Government in three serious cases, although it was used in a minor case.

We should heed what was said about lobbying by the Prime Minister when he was in opposition, and in last week’s report from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. When in opposition, the Prime Minister said, quite rightly, that lobbying was the greatest scandal facing us, and that money was buying power and power was fishing for money. Sadly, that is exactly what has happened under this Government, and to an even greater extent. We must look to our reputation. We must recognise the fact that we are not winning back the trust and the confidence of the people, which is our prime task after the expenses scandal, but are losing that trust and that confidence and providing even greater cause for scandal.

The first of the three cases that should have been investigated by the independent adviser, as he says himself, was the case of the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox). We now have a new doctrine of absolution by resignation: those who resign will not be subject to a full investigation of their conduct by the only legal enforcer of the “Ministerial Code”. An investigation was carried out virtually over the weekend for party political reasons, in order to get it over with rapidly.

The second case involved a Minister who argued that he did not have to declare a meal with which he had been provided by a lobbyist because on the day in question he was digesting with his private rather than his ministerial stomach. That was accepted, and no investigation was carried out.

Thirdly, there was the case of the Culture Secretary, on which we had a debate the other day. I believe that we must look to the conduct of the adviser on that. In extraordinary circumstances, following receipt of a letter from the Prime Minister dated the day of the debate, an answer came back before 12 pm virtually absolving the Minister involved of the charge that he and his staff had been approached by a lobbyist 500 times, because it had been deemed not to be a legitimate area for investigation. All those cases should have been investigated under the “Ministerial Code”.

I am grateful to the Chairman of the Public Administration Committee, which is behaving as it should. There is unanimity on the Committee about the reform that is necessary. When the new independent adviser appeared before the Committee, I asked him what he would do if we expressed our unhappiness about his appointment. We suggested that he had a reputation for being a poodle—for having followed Ministers around for years, obeying them with “Yes sir” and “No sir”. That had long been his role. He was not the Rottweiler that we needed. He said that if we expressed our unhappiness he would consider relinquishing his post, and we did express our unhappiness. I believe that before appointing such a person we must decide by means of a pre-appointment hearing whether he possesses the necessary robust independence.

[Robert Halfon]

Does the hon. Gentleman consider that the ratifying of the “Ministerial Code” by Parliament would deal with some of the objections raised earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless)?

[Paul Flynn]

No, it would not, because, under this Government, in the three serious cases I have mentioned, the code has not been used, when it should have been. The only time it has been called upon was in a case of some triviality, where the person involved admitted her guilt, and that went through. These other serious potential abuses have not even been investigated, and we must question the impartiality of the adviser because of his conduct on the day of the debate in question. All the misgivings we had were justified.

We, as an institution, are in grave danger of deepening public cynicism against us. We have had new cases of allegations, backed up with films showing a lobbyist trying to get access to the Prime Minister or boasting of access—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Time is up. I call Sir Alan Beith.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hurd]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I can see the passion with which he makes his argument, but the important principle is who is ultimately responsible, and that is the Prime Minister.

[Paul Flynn]

The Chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Sir Christopher Kelly, said in evidence to the Public Administration Committee that in his view the Prime Minister had broken the ministerial code in one of these instances. As the Prime Minister is unlikely to refer himself to the adviser, is it not crucial that we have someone of independence who can take on the Prime Minister when he is suspected of breaking the ministerial code?

[Mr Hurd]

I have not seen Sir Christopher Kelly’s evidence on that, but there is no shortage of opportunities to hold the Prime Minister to account on anything.

Providing advice to the Prime Minister on allegations about a breach of the ministerial code is one aspect of the independent adviser’s role. I also wish to explain the other important aspect of the role, as it has been ignored in the debate: the adviser provides an independent check and source of advice to Ministers on the handling of their private interests in order to avoid any conflict between those interests and their ministerial responsibilities, as set out in section 7 of the ministerial code. This is very much behind-the-scenes work; it is about sorting out issues before they arise. However, it does result in the publication by the Cabinet Office of the list of Ministers’ interests, which puts into the public domain a list of all the relevant interests of all Ministers and enables external scrutiny of possible conflicts of interest. Obviously, this is an ongoing process as issues arise, not a one-off. It is important to put on record that second dimension to the independent adviser’s work.

Some questions were raised about particular cases this afternoon, although I think that the hon. Member for Harrow West struck the wrong tone, not for the first time, by seizing the opportunity to try to make a political attack on the Prime Minister. Rather than rehearse some arguments about why one particular case was referred or otherwise, I simply say that in each case—those of the former Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), my right hon. Friend the Culture Secretary and Baroness Warsi—there were no shortages of opportunities for the House or for the media to hold the Prime Minister to account for the decisions he took.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman made a similar head count yesterday. His forensic fascinations, first with the early death of the Prime Minister and now with exactly who is on the Front Bench, continue to fascinate me. I am waiting with bated breath to see what his next rather peculiar fascination will be.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

T11. Will the Deputy Prime Minister extend his commendable enthusiasm to trusting the people and extending democracy by giving our people a right that is enjoyed in almost every other free country in the world—that is, will he allow them to vote on whether Charles, William or A. N. Other should be our next Head of State?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am struggling enough simply to make the case for what I see as the plain vanilla, common-sense proposition that the people in the other place who make the laws of the land should be elected by those who have to obey the laws of the land. I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman’s proposition, but let us focus on the argument on the other place right now, as it has not yet been fully won.

EU Council

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have great respect for my hon. Friend, who takes a very clear view about which he feels very deeply. I think that there is a significant difference, which is that in Scotland, like it or not, the Scottish National party is committed to leaving the United Kingdom and was elected with a mandate for a referendum to do just that, whereas in the case of the United Kingdom and the European Union, most people in our country want a fresh settlement with fresh consent, rather than the binary choice of leaving right now or, indeed as I said in my statement, voting to stay in right now and thereby almost confirming that status quo, which I am not satisfied with—and I do not think many people are.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

How many of the hundreds of new jobs that will come from setting up the patent court will be located in the city that has been the home of the brilliantly successful United Kingdom Patent Office, now the Intellectual Property Office, the city of Newport?

[The Prime Minister]

I do not know the answer to that question; I will have to look very carefully and, perhaps, reply to the hon. Gentleman. The parts of the court that we will have will be pharmaceuticals and life sciences, an area of great national expertise, and it is a good deal for London and a good deal for the UK.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

There are no plans whatsoever.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

In the interests of democracy and dragging the monarchy and the office of Head of State into the 21st century, can it be arranged for the new Bill to permit alternative candidates to stand as Head of State, given the misgivings about King Charles III?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman mentions what sounds like another attempt to resurrect the alternative vote system, which I do not think was greeted with universal acclaim last year and would not apply in this area either. More seriously, I do not think he should belittle the enormity of this change. We are getting rid of some very long-standing, discriminatory anomalies on male primogeniture and the rule preventing heirs to the throne from marrying—uniquely among all religions—Roman Catholics. That is real progress that has not been achieved in a long time.

Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The point about the Leveson inquiry is that its report will clearly be a major political, media and regulatory event. He is effectively reporting not only to all in the Government, but to everyone in Parliament, in politics and in public life who care about this issue. I do think—I do hope—that all parties will be able to engage in this, because we have an opportunity to deal with issues of press regulation and relations between politicians and the media that have not been right in our country but that, frankly, we will only get right if we work on a cross-party basis.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

As the only defence that the Secretary of State has is based on the fiction that the only way Ministers communicate with their special advisers is by e-mail, why has the Prime Minister forgotten the lesson of the David Mellor scandal, which is that a resignation delayed is a disgrace multiplied?

[The Prime Minister]

If the hon. Gentleman is really concerned, as I am, about making sure that all the information about this is properly looked into, what is preferable: a civil service-run process where you can look at papers and ask questions, or a judge-led inquiry with Ministers answering questions under oath where all the documents have to be revealed and the whole thing is pursued properly by a team of barristers who are expert at finding out the facts? This is why I do not really understand where the Opposition are coming from. If they want full factual disclosure before making a judgment about whether any ministerial codes were broken, this must be the most robust process.

Party Funding

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

The Leader of the Opposition will have heard my hon. Friend’s very reasonable request and it will be open to him to respond as and when he chooses.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware of the failure of one of his Secretaries of State to register a meal he had with the lobbyist Bell Pottinger this year on the basis that on the day in question he was digesting with his private stomach and not his ministerial stomach? Is not the distinction a false one? Nobody would give £250,000 for a social, private chat with the Prime Minister, but they would pay it if they were seeking access and influence.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Questions about registration are not matters for the Minister as responsibility for those lies elsewhere, but I wanted to hear the hon. Gentleman out. I do not think it is a matter for the Minister.

Diamond Jubilee

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Wednesday 7th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

My reason for speaking is that I have lived under four monarchs, and I would like to present a view that will represent a diversity of opinion in the country, which probably has not been expressed so far in the debate. A Head of State wearing a green dress and bowing her head to Croke Park was a very powerful symbol of reconciliation, which I believe will have a profound effect on healing the wounds that have disfigured life in the island of Ireland for generations.

The Queen is still working, doing a full-time job, having been born in 1926. What a splendid example to the nation and to the House, which has just two hon. Members who are octogenarians. Their distinguished contributions should ensure that we encourage greater diversity in the House. It is one area where we fail. Great progress has been made; there is a larger proportion of women Members and more Members from the minorities, although not yet enough, but we fail dismally on the number of people who can remember what it was like before there was a health service, for instance. We should look with gratitude to the Queen for providing a magnificent example.

My third positive point is from the writings of Robert Rhodes James, a former Member for Cambridge and a respected historian. He raised a fascinating point about the feelings in the Conservative party when Mrs Thatcher’s premiership was coming to an end. He wrote of concern in Conservative circles that Mrs Thatcher might decide to call a general election, acting in her own interests rather than those of the nation, and that the Conservative party, the House and the Cabinet would not be able to stop her. The only person who could have stopped her was the Head of State, and I believe all of us agree that the Queen’s strength of character and the fact that she had served many other Prime Ministers would give us full confidence that she was the best person in that situation or any situation when a Prime Minister decided to act in his or her interests rather than the interests of the country.

Another tradition is represented in this country, certainly in my constituency when, in 1839, a group of Chartists demonstrated and their purpose was not entirely benign towards Queen Victoria. Twenty of them were shot. It is right that we look at the relationship between the sovereign and ourselves in a modern Parliament. One welcomes the fact that a new coat of arms will be added to the many already displayed in the House, but sadly there is virtually no pictorial depiction of the struggles for democracy by the Chartists, the Tolpuddle martyrs, the suffragettes and others who shaped the rich and strong democracy we have today. We should put that right.

The speeches that have been made so far have been sincere and heartfelt, and virtually all were true, but if someone wants to be critical, they are not allowed to be. If a monarch, or just a relative of the monarch, strayed from the paths of sainthood and perfection, it would be impossible for a Member of the House to be critical of that person. That is not sensible. If that circumstance should arise, we should be allowed to talk freely if words of criticism are necessary.

It is right, too, that the quarter of the population who describe themselves as republican should have their views heard. We know that figure is reflected in the membership of the House. When there was a debate some years ago about whether there should be an alternative Oath, more than 100 Members voted for it. To avoid the verbal rigmarole that republicans have to go through when taking the Oath, we should have an alternative.

Finally, I am sure that even with the history of my city, where republicanism has existed for at least 200 years, all the people I represent, whether they see themselves as subjects or citizens, royalists or republicans, will wish the Queen well on this occasion.

United Kingdom Statistics Authority

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

I, too, am extremely pleased to support the motion. I speak not only as a Member of the House but as a member of the Treasury Committee. The House will be aware that we are extremely reliant on the quality of our national statistics as we supervise, regulate and seek to hold to account, at least at arm’s length, entities and agencies that are themselves extremely reliant on our national statistics. This appointment reflects very creditably on the Government for their willingness to choose, and to allow pre-selection hearings on, the highest quality candidates who can genuinely hold them to account rather than simply choosing placemen. This appointment fits into that good tradition, and the appointment of Robert Chote was another example of that.

I pay tribute to Sir Michael Scholar and also to the Public Administration Committee’s role in vetting not one but two candidates.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Would the hon. Gentleman extend those sentiments to the Mayor of London, who, when he was criticised for abusing statistics before a Select Committee of the House, reacted to the criticism of Michael Scholar by describing him as a “Labour stooge”?

[Jesse Norman]

I certainly do not share that view and I am not sure that the Mayor would share that view if he had further time to reflect on it.

Sir Andrew Dilnot is a person of impeccable personal reputation and great intellect. He has been garlanded with honours from our finest academic institutions and the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Anyone who has heard him present “More or Less” or heard his outstanding podcasts will know that he is an extraordinarily apt and adept presenter of information, and therefore perfectly fits an agency with the job not merely of presenting information and ensuring its integrity but of recruiting and engaging its users.

The truth is that we in Parliament and those in government cannot survive without good information and good numbers, and the Opposition, whoever they may be, cannot survive without the numbers that allow them to hold the Government to account. I hope that an early priority for the new chair will be to look at the private finance initiative, which hon. Members will know is one of my pet bugbears. I can think of no better example than that because there has been extraordinary abuse of those statistics, with things being pushed off-balance sheet, with standards that are not of the highest quality being adopted and—I am pleased that this is being addressed by the Government—with the creation of a situation in which it is possible to have an asset that is off-balance sheet not only to the country but to PFI contractors.

Sir Andrew Dilnot is also to be commended for his outstanding report on different ways of funding the provision of care for the elderly. It would be a very poor debate that did not recognise that and congratulate him on that report. His appointment fits into a pattern of improving the governance of our public agencies, and it is a principle that could properly be extended to other public agencies whose governance has been somewhat lacking of late. I think in particular of the Bank of England, whose court needs comprehensive restoration; the Treasury Board, which could do with refreshment; and the governance of HM Revenue and Customs, which needs higher quality senior officials and non-executives.

I conclude by congratulating the Government on this appointment, and Sir Andrew Dilnot on his acceptance, on his passion for statistics and on his independence of mind. I welcome the energy, the integrity and the intelligence which he will bring to the evaluation of policy, I hope, as well as to the assessment of statistics and their presentation to the public.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

This appointment is a major development in our parliamentary procedures. This is the first time that the pre-appointment hearings made a significant difference and had an influence in changing the candidate. The pre-appointment hearings came out of an investigation in the previous Parliament by the Public Administration Committee, which went to America and recommended that certain senior appointments should be subject to the procedure. We have heard the explanation given by the Chair of how the decision arising from the interview with the first candidate resulted in a second candidate coming along and how a member of the Committee was appointed to the panel that took part in the process. These are important changes that reinforce the view that this is a useful way of proceeding. The House has behaved in a responsible manner in this process.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) referred to the forces of darkness and the queen bee jelly that takes over Governments. Some of us can rejoice in being the forces of light who were against the previous scheme and against our own Government, and are still against it and against the new Government. So often when Governments change, it is not a change of philosophy, but an exchange of scripts. Of course Governments neurotically want to hoard their secrets for as long as possible. It seems extraordinary that it was only in 2007 that the arguments were exactly reversed—when I was sitting on the Government Benches arguing with my own Government, the Tory Opposition were saying that this was the big weakness in the Bill that went through. Now they flip over without a blush.

There was a time when I recall accusing Mr Alan Clark of supervising the largest and most shameless massage parlour in London, which was the Department of Employment, in his use of employment statistics. There was some truth in that. I had an exchange of letters with Margaret Thatcher in 1989, when a group of statisticians came to see me. They were distressed because the responsibility for statistics was being moved from the Cabinet Office to the Treasury, and they rightly said, “This is our life’s work. That will reduce these pristine, glorious statistics, wonderful graphs and histograms to garbage by politicians on the make.” They suggested that the Treasury was the Department with the greatest vested interest in fiddling the statistics and damaging the result of their work. Their whole professional raison d’être was diminished by that.

Mrs Thatcher sent me a letter in which she expressed her deep shock that anyone should express the unworthy idea that her Department would want to fiddle statistics in any way. We do not feel quite that way now. There has been a move forward. I mentioned the distressing episode involving the Mayor of London. It goes to show that the advance has not been complete—not all Departments have changed their mind.

The Mayor of London was rightly criticised by Sir Michael Scholar, and we have all praised him for the way in which he did that. Sir Michael has done very well. He challenged the Home Department with great courage. He challenged the previous Government and he has challenged Departments now. He did the job that he was set to do, but when he attacked the Mayor of London, the Mayor’s reaction was not to say, “All right, I got it wrong. I’ll change the statistics”.—no humility from Boris, of course. Instead, he called him a Labour stooge. It was an outrageous thing to say, given his lifetime of independence. Michael Scholar, as all today’s contributors have said, has done a splendid job of establishing that independence, and it is what we see in Dilnot.

There are still a few old lags in the House from the passage in 2007 of the Statistics and Registration Service Bill, which went through with hardly a flicker of interest; this is a crowded House compared with the number of people who attended back then. There was only one tiny piece of interest in the press, too, but it was an article that I repeated ad nauseum to the House at the time, because it stated that it was the most important Bill of the Labour Government—we had been in power for 10 years—and would have a bigger effect than anything we had done, including handing over power and independence to the Bank of England. The article was written by a certain Andrew Dilnot, and his entire career has rightly been in that area—suggesting that statistics need to be independent.

In the Public Administration Committee, we all saw Dilnot’s boyish enthusiasm for statistics. He talks about them as “Statistics”—these wonderful things, which are the key to all happiness and the path to knowledge and wisdom—

[Mr Straw]

And employment in your constituency!

[Paul Flynn]

Indeed. I will turn to that point now.

I do have a slight vested interest in the matter, because the largest employer in my constituency happens to be the Office for National Statistics, and that is why I like to deal with the cynicism that occasionally crops up about the well-being statistics. They might have cost £2 million, but they have certainly added to my sense of well-being, because they provide work in my constituency, and we should not be cynical about them. In the past we measured happiness, success and politics on the basis of gross domestic product, but that is not a sensible thing to do, because, when the nation’s prosperity increased, unhappiness increased as well.

There was a splendid T-shirt in Hungary in 2000. On the front it said, “What has 10 years of right-wing government done that 50 years of communism could never do?” and the answer on the back was, “Made the people love socialism”. They had put up with the equality of misery, because everyone was treated badly, but when they moved to the inequality of choice they were unhappy, because young men were becoming millionaires on the stock exchange while pensions were increasing slower than inflation.

There is a crucial difference between the two, and one of the myths of politics is that choice is an example to be pursued, and that everyone will be happy if they have choice. No, they will not. I am a child of the war, when there was no choice and we wore utility clothes, but everyone was on the same level, and that was much better than what we have now, with our children wanting to wear quality, fashion clothes. All the great myths of politics are there, so it is crucial that we measure scientifically our sense of well-being.

Many points that I wished to make have been made, but it was telling of Andrew Dilnot to give us one striking example of the need for truth and honesty in statistics. He did not mention the newspaper, but most people will recognise that he was citing The Daily Telegraph, which put out a big, 36-point, front-page headline, stating, “Public pensions to cost you £4,000 a year”. It had divided £9.4 billion by 26 million and got an answer of almost £4,000. The answer is actually £400, but that particular piece of fiction was repeated on the “Today” programme and in the day’s headlines, and it became part of common knowledge which is actually common ignorance, so it is right that someone such as Andrew Dilnot should be there to take on the powerful forces that put fiction into the public domain because they are innumerate.

Mr Dilnot made a number of other points, which were entertaining, about how we should move forward. He talked about an idea called “Tell me a story”. He would suggest to schoolchildren that they go to the website of the Office for National Statistics or the Government statistical service and tell him a story about aspects of the country, but expressed in statistics.

It is a matter of great satisfaction and pleasure for my constituents that this Swansea boy should have been upgraded to Newport—a matter of some congratulations. He can work in Newport under the benign observance of a quality MP, and I am sure that he will be extremely content. The hugely successful relocation of the ONS to Newport can continue and prosper. Gales of applause will be coming up the M4 today as a result of the House’s decision, which I am sure will be to reinforce the decision of the Public Administration Committee to appoint Andrew Dilnot as the best possible candidate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Commons Chamber

The Attorney-General was asked—

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

1. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for the Home Department on the Baker report on extradition arrangements.

[Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)]

10. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for the Home Department on the Baker report on extradition arrangements.

[The Attorney-General (Mr Dominic Grieve)]

I have not had any such discussions with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.

[Paul Flynn]

Does the Attorney-General recall saying, in 2009, when in opposition,

“Our extradition laws are a mess. They’re one-sided. A Conservative government will re-write them”?

Will they? Or is this another example of this Government’s signature policy of promising miracles in opposition and delivering nothing in government?

[The Attorney-General]

The first thing the coalition Government decided to do on taking office was ask Lord Justice Scott Baker to preside over a report; of course, he was helped by others in that. We have now had that report. I will consider the recommendations that are specific to the Law Officers in conjunction with the Director of Public Prosecutions and the director of the Serious Fraud Office. That involves discussions with devolved jurisdictions. Of course, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will consult on the recommendations that touch on her responsibilities, together with other members of the Government who can provide some input.