Points of Order

Debate between Paula Sherriff and John Bercow

Thursday 8th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Notwithstanding the right hon. Gentleman’s desire to invest me with great wisdom and powers in these matters, I am not sure that I am best placed to advise him on this. He is a former Deputy Leader of the House and he will be well aware of the upcoming debate on matters to be raised before the Adjournment, to which he may wish to contribute, although he might be perturbed by the absence of a responsible departmental Minister to give him a substantive reply. If he wants substantively to raise this issue and to obtain a reply, an Adjournment debate of his own might be his best salvation. I have a hunch that he will shortly be beetling across to the Table Office to make such an application, and he might find that his application is successful.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Lady is in a state of some perturbation, and she did give me notice of her point of order, so let us hear it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paula Sherriff]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. You have ruled on a number of occasions that, as a courtesy to the House, Members should inform one another when they are visiting another Member’s constituency on official business. I discovered last week that the Minister for Security, the hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace), had visited my constituency in his ministerial capacity. I discovered this when reading an article that was later published in my local newspaper. I subsequently raised the lack of notification with his office, which told me that it did not regard this obligation as applying to Ministers. This is particularly disappointing, given that I have often raised the serious issues that were the subject of his visit, and I would have welcomed the opportunity to discuss them with him prior to and during his visit. I am sure that I do not need to refer you to paragraph 10.9 of the ministerial code, Mr Speaker, but I ask you to clarify that this convention does indeed apply to Ministers and advise me of what recourse a Member has when the ministerial code is broken. What advice could you offer to the Minister of State and his office on this matter? Is there any further training or guidance that could be given to Ministers regarding their obligations to this House?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order, and I can offer her some comfort in the matter. The short answer is that the obligation most certainly does apply to Ministers, and I am frankly staggered to hear it suggested—

Point of Order

Debate between Paula Sherriff and John Bercow

Monday 28th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You may be aware that over the weekend it was revealed that thousands of families with disabled children, including some in my constituency, have lost out by up £4,400 a year in tax credits after an administrative error by the Department for Work and Pensions as a result of the Department failing to inform Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs about families’ eligibility for the award over a three-year period. That has resulted in an estimated 28,000 families in which children qualified for disability living allowance during 2011 to 2014 missing out on an additional tax credit premium of between £60 and £84 a week. At last week’s autumn statement, the Government set aside £360 million over six years to ensure that families who were eligible for child disability tax credits could be awarded this money. However, the payments will be backdated only to April 2016, meaning that individual families may have lost out on an entitlement totalling up to £25,000 over the past five years.

Have you, Mr Speaker, had any indication from the Work and Pensions Secretary, or any other Minister, that they will come to this House and make a statement so that we can clarify the impact on our constituents? If not, could you give us any other guidance about how we might raise this issue in this House and scrutinise Ministers on it at the earliest opportunity?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order and for her courtesy in offering me some advance notice of it. The short answer to the inquiry towards the end of her point of order as to whether I have received any indication of a likely ministerial statement on the matter is no. However, she has sought my advice more widely, and I am very happy to try to oblige. There is, I believe, a range of options open to her. Tomorrow we have oral Treasury questions when hon. Members may, if they wish, raise this matter with the Minister responsible for HMRC. I anticipate that a plentiful supply of colleagues will be in their places looking to do precisely that, doubtless including no less august a figure than the hon. Lady herself.

It is a little while until the next Work and Pensions questions—that is regrettable but it is a fact. However, there will be opportunities to seek debates in Westminster Hall on the matter, or alternatively end-of-day Adjournment debates in the Chamber—a matter in which, as the hon. Lady knows, I take a keen and ongoing interest—in December. Alternatively, she may wish to gather support for a bid to the Backbench Business Committee, with whose Chair she will be well familiar. I have no doubt that the hon. Lady will pursue one, or perhaps more than one, of those options with her usual persistence and vigour. I hope that this reply is helpful not only to her but to other Members in various parts of the House who feel very strongly about this matter.

Digital Economy Bill (Programme) (No. 3)

Ordered,

That the Order of 13 September (Digital Economy Bill (Programme)) be varied as follows.

1. Paragraphs 4 and 5 of the Order shall be omitted.

2. Proceedings on Consideration shall be taken in the order shown in the first column of the following Table and (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the times specified in the second column of the Table:

Points of Order

Debate between Paula Sherriff and John Bercow

Monday 17th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. At last week’s Prime Minister’s questions I raised some serious concerns about the practices of Virgin Care, based on direct experience as a former employee after my NHS service was transferred. Virgin Care has since issued a statement to the media stating that it has no record of my raising such concerns at the time. I am glad it brought that up as its failure to keep accurate records is one of my concerns. However, it is clear that it is implying dishonesty on my part, and I hope you will be able to advise me, Mr Speaker, on setting the record straight in that regard, because I want to make it clear that I did raise concerns on many occasions, including directly with the chief executive of Virgin Care, Mr Bart Johnson, in person at a meeting in the autumn of 2012. This was therefore known at the highest level within the company before it issued its statement suggesting the opposite.

In short, when the company suggested that I was being dishonest, it was trying to obscure the truth. Mr Speaker, may I ask you what resort Members have when the rich and powerful seek to intimidate or smear as we seek to do our duty in this House, and could such actions infringe the privileges of this Chamber?

Finally, can we reiterate that even the richest individuals and the wealthiest corporations should always stick to the truth about this House and its Members, however inconvenient that truth may be to their private interests?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me notice of her point of order. Moreover, I understand her concern if the veracity of what she volunteered in good faith to the House has subsequently been called into question. Specifically, she asks me what recourse she has in these circumstances. In response, I make a number of points. First, if anybody was seeking to intimidate the hon. Lady as she goes about her parliamentary business, any such attempt has manifestly failed. Moreover, on the basis of my knowing her for the past 17 months, it seems entirely obvious that any such attempt would be doomed to fail. The sooner that point becomes clear to everyone outside the Chamber as well as within it, the better.

Secondly, I think that the hon. Lady has found her own salvation in that she has taken this opportunity to raise a point of order with me on the Floor of the Chamber in which she has registered her discontent as well as putting the record straight in terms that appear to brook no contradiction. If she thinks that any further clarification or airing of the issue is required, various parliamentary avenues are open to her, and I do not doubt that she will pursue them with that combination of forensic precision and terrier-like tenacity for which she has become renowned in all parts of the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paula Sherriff and John Bercow

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am sorry, but, rather as in the health service under any Government, demand has exceeded supply and we must move on.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I was keeping the hon. Lady waiting for only a moment, so that there was a due sense of anticipation in the House. That sense now definitely exists.

Point of Order

Debate between Paula Sherriff and John Bercow

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is rather frustrating to hear Ministers and some Back Benchers continually referring to the Government having invested, or intending to invest, £10 billion into our NHS over the course of this Parliament. You may be aware, Mr Speaker, that I sit on the Health Committee. I would like to read you the following extract from a report:

“Last year’s Spending Review announced that the NHS would receive an additional £8.4 billion above inflation by 2020-21. But whilst previous spending reviews define health spending as the whole of the Department of Health's budget, the 2015 Spending Review defines it in terms of NHS England’s budget, which excludes, for example, spending on public health”—

[Mr Speaker]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady. She is nothing if not persistent and she has put that thought on the record. I say to her in all courtesy, however, that she is not the first person to do this—I probably did it myself in the very distant past—and I do not suppose she will be the last. It is a very interesting point, but it is a continuation of debate. There is no matter for the Chair here. For that reason, and that reason alone, I must ask her to desist at this stage, but I have a feeling she will find ingenious ways of returning to her point on other occasions.

Perhaps we can leave it there, because we are short of time and I want to proceed. Unless there are further points of order—I am not exactly looking for them—then we will come on to the ten-minute rule motion. I call Conor McGinn.

Finance Bill

Debate between Paula Sherriff and John Bercow

Monday 5th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[Mr Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 140, in clause 125, page 205, line 32, leave out from “after” to end of subsection and insert “1 January 2017”.

Amendment 142, page 205, line 32, leave out “such” and insert

“1 April 2017, or on any prior”.

Amendment 144, page 205, line 32, leave out “such” and insert

“1 April 2018, or on any prior”.

Government amendment 161.

[Paula Sherriff]

It is a pleasure to open this debate by speaking to new clause 4 and amendments 140 and 144. I thank both Front-Bench teams for ensuring that we have time to debate the issue today. It is, perhaps, appropriate that a female Financial Secretary now sits on the Government Front Bench and has the chance to settle the matter.

It has taken us quite some time to get here. It was in January 2001 that the lower rate of VAT on women’s sanitary products was applied. For that we owe thanks to many women MPs of that era, as well as to the then Minister, Dawn Primarolo, who now sits in the other place. During the passage of the Finance Bill last year, I was proud to lead a cross-party group of today’s women MPs, including many on the Labour Benches, and others such as the hon. Members for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) and for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan), in demanding that we finish the job, which led the Government finally to address the issue at European level. We should pay particular tribute to the many people outside this place who campaigned so hard on this very important issue, not least Laura Coryton, whose petition attracted hundreds of thousands of signatures.

Following that pressure, the Government accepted another cross-party amendment, this time in the Budget resolutions, for what I understand was the first time in history, and the then Prime Minister persuaded the European Council to issue a communiqué on the matter. The European Commission VAT action plan has now been issued and the Commission intends to table a proposal by the end of this year, though of course the UK has since voted to leave the European Union—off the back of a promise by Vote Leave that such a result would allow us to abolish the tampon tax outside the EU. I gently suggest to Government Members, especially those who campaigned for Brexit, that voting for the amendment would honour that promise, and their constituents might reasonably question why they would oppose it.

Whether we are in or out of the EU, there should be no barrier to ending the tax. There are promises both from this Government and from the winning referendum campaign to do so. The explanatory notes for clause 125, written before the referendum vote, state:

“This clause reduces the VAT rate on the supply of women’s sanitary products from 5% to zero”.

but I hope the Minister will acknowledge that that is not really the case as the Bill stands. The clause does not zero-rate women’s sanitary products; it just provides enabling powers for the Treasury to do so, if it chooses, and at a time of its choosing. That is why I originally tabled what is now amendment 142 in Committee, when my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) spoke to it. The then Financial Secretary—now the Chief Secretary—responded that he was

“confident that by 1 April there should be no reason why the measure is not in place.”––[Official Report, Finance Public Bill Committee, 7 July 2016; c. 146.]

He said that the Government would therefore consider accepting the amendment. Since then, the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) has tabled his own amendment, which would implement a zero rate from 1 January next year. It is fair to say that there is a cross-party desire to see the promise honoured as quickly as possible.

I acknowledge, however, that the complications of negotiating our exit may make the next tax year, let alone calendar year, a tight deadline for the Government, despite the previous Minister’s confidence. For that reason, I have also tabled amendment 144, which provides for a later deadline of 1 April 2018—in other words, in time for the tax year 2018-19. I believe that this is a very reasonable deadline. By that point, our exit negotiations will be well under way, and the European Commission aims to have reformed its own laws to allow a zero rate by 2018. I reiterate the point made by the Minister in Committee when he said he was confident that by 1 April there should be no reason why this measure is not in place. Amendment 144 gives the Government a full additional year beyond a date that they were confident they could meet. However, should there be any delay, the timescale also allows the Government nearly two years to amend their legislation accordingly with the new dates. The Vote Leave alternative Queen’s Speech included an entire Bill specifically to abolish the tampon tax, but a whole Bill is not necessary given the amendments that we have today, which would allow the Chancellor simply to propose a later deadline in next year’s Finance Bill. The important point, however, is that Ministers should have to explain to this House why any delay was necessary, and we would need to vote to allow that.

The Government have tabled an alternative amendment of their own—amendment 161. While that seems to set 1 April 2017 as a default deadline, it makes it subject to

“the earliest date that may be appointed consistently with the United Kingdom’s EU obligations.”

In short, 1 April next year is not really the deadline at all, and instead we are subject to the Government’s own interpretations of our EU obligations. I must also question the exact wording of the amendment. It does not refer to our obligations as a member of the EU, but just to our “EU obligations”. That seems to leave open the possibility that we might agree to keep a minimum rate of VAT as part of our exit negotiations. When I challenged the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union on that earlier today, he certainly did not rule it out. Instead, he reflected that ability to set a zero rate was just one reason why people may have voted to leave, but did not actually pledge to deliver it. I am therefore not convinced that this amendment takes us much beyond the existing clause. Unless the Minister has some very strong arguments to address these points, I will press amendment 144, at least, to a vote.

That brings me to new clause 4, which touches on another issue that it would be helpful if the Minister addressed—the women’s charities that have received funding from the tampon tax fund. This was quite understandably criticised by a lot of feminists, as it used a tax on women to pay for support that they often needed as a result of male violence. None the less, it was still better than nothing. Now it is set to be abolished. Can the Minister give us guarantees of stable future funding for these vital services? As she will have gathered from the wording of the new clause, I am making the point that the Treasury will have raised a considerable amount from women historically from the point in 2001 when the Government first made the decision in principle to apply the lowest rate available.

I would like to press Ministers again on one last issue—that the benefit of zero rates is not always passed on in full by the companies that set the prices. When the Labour Government cut the rate to 5%, they committed to monitoring prices to ensure that the cut benefited women rather than just boosting the bottom lines of the businesses involved. I want to know whether this Government will take similar action. As the Minister may be aware, I have negotiated a deal with the leading retailers whereby they will pass on the cut in full. I hope that she will join me in urging these businesses to do that and to sign up to the agreement. Similarly, she will have heard the appalling reports of women turning up at food banks seeking sanitary protection products because they cannot afford them due to welfare cuts or poverty pay. I have reached an agreement with a major retailer that it will provide some free sanitary protection to food banks within my constituency. Can the Government offer any further such support to other constituencies?

I hope that today we can meet the promises made by European leaders, this Government, and indeed the winning referendum campaign. Anything less is simply not good enough for women. I hope that the Minister will accept at least one of my amendments and make it clear that the days of the tampon tax are nearly over for good.

Business of the House

Debate between Paula Sherriff and John Bercow

Thursday 21st July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I will just gently say that everybody will get in. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), who is a very, very, very fine man, is the human equivalent of a smouldering volcano as he sits waiting to be called with ever-growing frustration at the fact that he has not yet been called. I simply say that the hon. Gentleman will get in. He has been here long enough to know that it did not always use to be that way and that people did not always get in. Much as I enormously admire the hon. Gentleman, he has—if I may politely say so—a slightly underdeveloped sense of others, and I cannot help but think that if he spoke three times in the day, he would think, “Why on earth didn’t I get called to speak a fourth?” He will get in, but he will just have to be a bit patient. We are saving him up—he is a specialist delicacy in the House.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

I, too, welcome the new Leader of the House to his place.

Dr Kate Granger, an inspirational 34-year-old, is in a West Yorkshire hospice dying from terminal cancer. She started the “Hello, my name is...” campaign, a worldwide initiative to encourage health professionals to introduce themselves and to treat all patients with dignity. This week she achieved her aim of raising £250,000 for a Yorkshire cancer charity, but her dying wish is to have the new Prime Minister endorse her campaign. Could the Leader of the House use his considerable powers of persuasion to facilitate this amazing lady’s dying wish?

Outcome of the EU Referendum

Debate between Paula Sherriff and John Bercow

Monday 27th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Doubly splendid.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

Like many others across the House, I have been saddened and deeply distressed to hear of some terrible racist and xenophobic incidents recently. In fact, during the course of this debate, I have been sent a message to say that a young lady in my constituency has been told to go “home”. This is her home, and she is very welcome here. Will the Prime Minister agree to convene an urgent meeting of a cross-party commission to look into race hate crimes and how we can eradicate this cancer from our society?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paula Sherriff and John Bercow

Tuesday 10th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The Minister is an endlessly noble fellow—I think we are very clear about that.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

T2. During March, at one of my local trusts the A&E ambulance target was missed for 937 patients, and more than 4,000 patients waited for more than four hours in A&E. Staff and management agree that this is a trust in crisis, with many wards staffed to less than half the minimum safe staffing levels. Patient safety is being compromised every day. Will the Secretary of State please stop passing the buck and act to stop the downgrade of Dewsbury and Huddersfield hospitals, because it is clear that our local healthcare is in absolute crisis?

Points of Order

Debate between Paula Sherriff and John Bercow

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. As you know, I am a new Member. When I arrived, I was told of the strict convention, which I have always sought to observe, regarding visiting other Members’ constituencies on parliamentary business. I was therefore surprised to learn that the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport had made a ministerial visit to my constituency without any official notice to me. It was particularly disappointing because I have repeatedly raised the issue of broadband roll-out, particularly in the rural parts of my constituency, and would have welcomed the opportunity to introduce him to some of the local businesses that have been adversely affected.

What remedy is available for a Back Bencher in such circumstances? Is there any way in which I can convey through your office, Mr Speaker, that I would be happy to arrange for the Secretary of State to make a more informative visit? On this occasion, he may wish to revisit and address the issue at hand directly.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order and for her courtesy in giving me notice of it. She is right that there is a firm convention that Ministers should give advance notice to hon. Members if they plan to visit the constituency of those Members on official, as opposed to purely private or personal, business. Indeed, the requirement is spelled out in the ministerial code. The apparent failure to do so on this occasion is regrettable. If it be so, it is regrettable to me, too, because I know the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. I have known him for 25 years and have always regarded him as a person of the utmost courtesy. This appears to be something of a lapse.

In terms of remedy, the hon. Lady asked whether it can be conveyed to the Secretary of State that she would be happy to arrange what she considers to be a prospective, more informative visit. She has been most effective in putting that point on the record. The Chair cannot facilitate such a visit, and it is not for me to say whether it will take place, but I am sure that the offer has been heard on the Treasury Bench and will be winging its way within seconds to the Secretary of State.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paula Sherriff and John Bercow

Monday 8th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Last but not forgotten, I call Paula Sherriff.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

16. What steps he plans to take to support high streets.

Points of Order

Debate between Paula Sherriff and John Bercow

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

We will come to the hon. Lady’s point of order, but I should like to be able to hear it, and I should like there to be an attentive atmosphere for her benefit, mine, and that of the House.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) has no cause for concern. He has never been forgotten before, and he will not be forgotten now. We are storing him up.

[Paula Sherriff]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. At Cabinet Office questions before the recess, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster stated in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Jo Cox) that Kirklees Council had

“£200 million in useable and unused reserves”—[Official Report, 9 December 2015; Vol. 603, c. 979.]

and concluded that the problems that we reported were facing our constituents were, therefore, “not real ones”. I have now had it confirmed, not just by officers of the local authority, that its unused reserves are nowhere remotely close to that figure. Even including reserves that are already allocated and not useable, the figure is nowhere near £200 million. Through a written answer, the Minister with responsibility for local government, the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), has confirmed that according to the Government’s own figures Kirklees Council had less than a fifth of that amount in unallocated financial reserves at the end of the last financial year. May I ask you, Mr Speaker, what recourse there is for Members when a Minister has, even if unintentionally, misled this House on a matter that so seriously affects our constituents?

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer to the hon. Lady’s question is that every Member of this House, including Ministers, must take responsibility for the veracity or otherwise of what he or she says. If somebody thinks the House has been inadvertently misled by a Member, the Member is responsible for correcting the record. That is the first point. The second point is that the recourse available to the hon. Lady lies in the Order Paper and the advice proffered by the Table Office. What I mean by that is that persistence pays, and if the hon. Lady thinks she has a good point, she should repeat it. She will have heard me make the observation that repetition is not a novel phenomenon in the House of Commons, and if she wants to keep making her point, she can take advice from the welter of sagacious and experienced colleagues around her as to how best to do so; most of them are very practised at the art, as I am sure the hon. Lady will be, too.

Police Funding Formula

Debate between Paula Sherriff and John Bercow

Monday 9th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

The director general of policing sent the letter outlining the error on Thursday 5 November. Is the Minister honestly telling us he was not made aware of its contents until Friday?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I entirely understand the rationale behind the hon. Lady’s question, but may I gently say one should not insert the word “honestly” into any question? The working assumption has to be that every Member in this House is always honest. We do not accuse Members of dishonesty or suggest as much; we debate issues. The hon. Lady is a new Member and I understand the purport of her question. I have no desire to get at any individual Member, but I think it is useful for new Members to get to grips with the new procedures—for example, recognising that debate goes through the Chair and that the word “you” is not used, and so on. I hope that is regarded as helpful.