EU Referendum: Electoral Law
Debate between Ed Davey and Geraint Davies(6 years ago)
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Sir Edward Davey
The hon. Lady makes a good point. The fundamental issue here is: did people in the leave campaign cheat? Did they break the law? That is what we need to focus on. The hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) made an analogy with athletes and sport. If athletes dope, we expect that to be investigated and then punished, whether or not that cheating affected the result of a race or any competition. It is the cheating and the breach of the law that needs to be followed through, whether or not it relates to the outcome of the referendum.
Geraint Davies
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that if Ministers—I am thinking specifically of the Foreign Secretary and the Environment Secretary—are implicated in any illegal activities and are the dopers in the analogy he is using, they should not be above the law, and that when the police are doing the investigation, they should not be intimidated or deterred from putting forward a legal case against Ministers, irrespective of their position in this place?
Sir Edward Davey
In responding to the hon. Gentleman, I want to be clear that these are all allegations. We need proper authorities to investigate, but of course, if those investigations go to the door of any Member of this House, be they Minister or not, the full weight of the law should go against that individual. No Member of this House should be above the law in those investigations.
I want to be a little clearer than the debate has been so far about how the Electoral Commission, which is key to this, thinks about whether there has been cheating. The Electoral Commission’s guidelines about whether a campaign has colluded are quite clear. It sets out three criteria for whether campaigns are highly likely to be working together.
The first is whether the campaigns spend money on joint advertising campaigns, leaflets or events. The evidence brought forward by Fair Vote, which can be seen by anyone at www.fairvote.uk, suggests that Vote Leave and BeLeave co-ordinated with the same digital strategy vendor, Aggregate IQ, so there does seem to have been co-ordination between their advertising campaigns.
The second test the Electoral Commission has set out is whether campaigns have co-ordinated their spending with another campaigner. The evidence produced by FairVote is very clear: it shows that BeLeave appears to have been assigned specific responsibility for the youth audience by Vote Leave. That is co-ordination and collusion.
The third test on cheating set out by the Electoral Commission is whether a campaign can approve or has significant influence over the spending of another campaigner. Again, the dossier shows that BeLeave was based at Vote Leave HQ, as we have heard, and appears to have reported to Vote Leave directors and shared all its information with their staff.
In other words, the three tests put forward by the Electoral Commission on whether illegal collusion has occurred appear to have been met, according to the evidence in this dossier. I urge all right hon. and hon. Members to read and think about it before they tweet in the way that was done by the Foreign Secretary, who at the weekend dismissed these allegations as ludicrous.
The Foreign Secretary may well have tried to dismiss these allegations, because if they prove to be true, the investigations and inquiries that we all want to follow this debate and public discussion may well want to ask him questions. Ultimately, he was in charge of and a key player in the Vote Leave campaign, and people will want to know whether he knew about this collusion. Did he know that moneys were going from Vote Leave to BeLeave? Did he know that the staff of both campaigns were colluding and working together? Did he know that Aggregate IQ was being used by both campaigns in a very similar way? These are very serious allegations, and we need to have independent inquiries. The same questions could of course be applied to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
I would like to ask the Prime Minister whether she has asked her Foreign Secretary and her Environment Secretary about what they knew. If she is in charge of her Government, she ought to be asking her Ministers what they knew, given the severity and gravity of the allegations now in the public domain. If she is not getting good enough answers from the Foreign Secretary and the Environment Secretary, she should be taking action. There is another issue with regard to the Prime Minister’s responsibilities, which is that she has key members of staff in No. 10 who were staffers in these campaigns and appear to be part of the alleged collusion. At the very least, she should be asking them questions and getting assurances from them, and if those assurances are not good enough, she should take the appropriate action.
I want to ask the Minister whether the Foreign Secretary was speaking for the Government when he pushed aside these allegations as nonsense. Is that what she will say at the Dispatch Box in a few minutes’ time? Does she, speaking on behalf of her Majesty’s Government, agree with the Foreign Secretary that these allegations are all complete nonsense—before they have been investigated? That would be a quite extraordinary position for Her Majesty’s Government to take, and particularly for the Foreign Secretary to take, given that he is supposed to speak for this country about the rule of law in other countries—and one wonders, doesn’t one?
Energy Prices
Debate between Ed Davey and Geraint Davies(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Davey
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. All the new independent suppliers who are coming into the market and taking on the big six companies created under Labour do not like the policy, because they know it would undermine competition, put them out of business and be bad for consumers. Although we have debated many times the price-freeze intervention proposed by the right hon. Member for Don Valley, she still has not convinced anyone. We have shown time and again that it is just a damaging con.
The second, and latest, price control is proposed legislation to force energy companies to pass on variations in the wholesale markets more rapidly, which is sort of the exact opposite of a price freeze. Rather than keeping prices the same, this price regulation seems to want them to change more frequently and more rapidly, mirroring the wholesale markets.
That is interesting, because if we look at what has happened recently, we will see that wholesale prices can go up and down on a daily basis. A fortnight ago, wholesale prices were falling: day-ahead electricity prices fell by 7% and the natural gas spot price fell by 12%. Last week, however, the day-ahead electricity price went up four days out of five, ending up at almost 6% by the end of the week, and the natural gas spot price was up 10% by the end of the week. In other words, the spot prices on the wholesale markets go up and down—they are very volatile and fluctuate all the time.
The price regulation proposed by the right hon. Lady is a rollercoaster approach to energy price freezes. I call it Labour’s bungee-jumping approach to energy prices, and one would be hard pressed to think of a more incoherent and inconsistent approach. It is a populist, opportunist, soundbite approach to energy policy that would not just hit investment but leave consumers worse off. In other words, yet another con.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Is not the key difference that we are now in a situation where, because of the flatlining of the economy for the past three or four years—[Laughter.] It is all very well laughing, but real wages have fallen through the floor as prices have rocketed. People are being thrust into abject poverty, particularly those at the bottom for whom energy makes up a bigger proportion of their expenditure. People are in desperation, which is why we need action now. That desperation was not the case in the past.
Mr Davey
I am grateful for that intervention because it shows that Labour has not even looked at what is happening to the economy. Employment is going up and unemployment is going down; inflation and the deficit are going down, and growth is up. The hon. Gentleman ought to notice that.
Let me ask a few questions about Labour’s latest policy. How would Labour’s bungee-jumping energy price regulation work? Let us try to get our heads round what is proposed—Labour wants to be in government in under a year, so I am sure it has thought through the detail. Would Labour legislate to force companies to pass on each and every cut in wholesale prices? Would it give Ofgem that power? How frequently would the link between wholesale and retail prices be made, and which wholesale price would Labour choose for Ofgem to intervene with? The day-ahead or the month-ahead price, or perhaps something else in the futures market? I think we should know. Which all-seeing, all-knowing official in Labour’s new energy Gosplan regulator would work that all out?
Cost of Living: Energy and Housing
Debate between Ed Davey and Geraint Davies(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Davey
Renewable electricity has more than doubled under this Government. The situation we inherited from the last Government was that we were at the bottom of the European league—no, I should correct the record: we were above Malta and Luxembourg—but now our position has improved significantly. I would have thought the hon. Gentleman would have welcomed that. We have put in place an excellent regime for investment in renewables and all low-carbons. The Ernst and Young report he refers to shows us to be the best place in the world to invest in offshore wind and tidal energy, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Secretary and I are very proud of the fact that we have increased onshore wind so substantially and that there is such a healthy pipeline of future investment in it.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Malta: does he agree that his economic policy has led to a situation where child mortality below the age of five in Britain is now the highest in any western country other than Malta? One in 200 children is now dying under the age of five because of the brutality against the poorest. The university of Washington has related that to food banks, austerity and welfare. Does the Energy Secretary have anything to say about that? I doubt it.
Geraint Davies
I want to ask about the concerns about waste water. There are examples in America of millions of tonnes of water being moved, destroying roads and the environment, and of its becoming contaminated and even radioactive and toxic in some cases, and there were issues with cleaning it, which contaminated the water table. I have heard of companies in Britain that want to do water treatment being turned away by prospective developers who seem to think that decontaminating the water is not a big issue.
Mr Davey
First, we have a strong regulatory regime for water, overseen by the Environment Agency. Before people can take water from water courses or put things beneath the ground, they have to get a permit. More than that, if we consider what is happening within industry processes and with some of the research and development that is going on in this area, we can see that the push for what are called “green completions” in the fracking industry is very strong. We are seeing companies minimise their use of water compared with the early years in the United States because it is in their interests and will reduce the amount of vehicle movement. This is a serious issue and I take it seriously. As I hope the hon. Gentleman can see, I have looked into it in some detail and we will continue to monitor that carefully.
Time has not allowed me to update the House on many aspects of our work that feed into the Bill and the Gracious Speech, most notably on our massive work on the international climate change debate. As the Gracious Speech says, Ministers will
“champion efforts to secure a global agreement on climate change.”
I can report to the House that Britain is leading in Europe, persuading European colleagues to go further and to adopt more ambitious climate change targets, just as this Parliament has done, and persuading European colleagues to agree to radical reforms of Europe’s carbon market, which is so crucial in encouraging investment in renewables, energy efficiency, nuclear and carbon capture and storage. The green growth group that I established in Europe 16 months ago has helped to lead that critical debate and a key task for the next five months up to the October European Council is to secure the deal Britain has helped to create. If we achieve that deal in October, Europe can then help to lead the rest of the world as we prepare for the critical climate change summit in Paris in December 2015, working with the United States of America after President Obama’s magnificent announcement this week on regulating coal plants.
The Government are delivering on growth and on green growth, on jobs and on green jobs. We have pulled our economy from the abyss and towards a sustainable, affordable future.
Cost of Living
Debate between Ed Davey and Geraint Davies
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)
I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss the measures the Government are taking to help people and families who are struggling to make ends meet. No party in the House has a monopoly on compassion. We know that there are problems, and that families and people are struggling, not least because of increases in prices, including global energy prices. The issue is that the Government must tackle those problems with no money, as we were reminded by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury. We must create a better fiscal position while tackling that difficult problem to ensure that we help people. And we are doing just that. We are cushioning people from the impact of rising prices and protecting the most vulnerable. We are trying to make these big, difficult decisions in as fair a way as possible, to be fair to those who work hard while helping those who fall on hard times.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
On that very point, does the Secretary of State agree that food and energy comprise the highest proportion of expenditure for the very poorest—they are escalating out of all proportion—and that he is cutting money for those very people, namely those on benefits? Is not the harsh reality of this Government that they are hurting the poor most because of the bankers’ recklessness?
Mr Davey
The picture is rather more complicated than the hon. Gentleman says. We have a range of measures to help the most vulnerable with their energy bills, which I will come to during my speech.
One way to help people is to ensure that work pays. We must ensure that we are creating jobs in the economy and that there are links from benefits into employment. That is rightly one of the Government’s obsessions. We are introducing a range of policies to help people. Interest rates are at record lows. Income tax cuts are making a big difference: this year, 24 million employees will have an income tax cut of £600; next year, the cut will be £700. Some 2.5 million of the lowest paid will be taken out of income tax altogether. The income tax bill for people on the national minimum wage will be cut in half. That is a good record.
Jobs and Growth in a Low-carbon Economy
Debate between Ed Davey and Geraint Davies
Mr Davey
We need to look carefully at our energy-intensive industries, which is probably what is behind my right hon. Friend’s question. However, there is a danger in the debate that some of the economic analysis is too static. As the world moves to its climate change targets, industries across the world must be more energy-efficient. Industries in countries such as ours that can steal a march and become first movers will prosper by becoming more energy-efficient. Some of the market signals that are needed are rightly happening, but I accept that we need packages for energy-intensive industries.
Opportunities for the Next Generation
Debate between Ed Davey and Geraint Davies(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Geraint Davies
That is complete rubbish. The calculation is that Wales is underpaid by £300 million. We started in the same position. This is about economic choices. There are tough choices; the choice in Wales was to cap investment in the health service. It was a tough choice, but the right choice, to invest in skills for the future and productivity to make Wales strong—
Geraint Davies
The average spend in Wales is less, but the reality is that the Welsh Government have given an undertaking to increase that spend year on year. In fact, because the Government are cutting local authority funding by 7% a year for four years, there will be less money for education in England. What there is will be funnelled into middle-class free schools, to the cost of poorer communities. Wales will put a cap on health spending, and more money will go into education. It will have a comprehensive system in which there is more money, instead of cuts, and a system in which people are enabled to go to university. That is investing in the skills of the future.
As I have mentioned, UK Trade & Investment has historically been very effective in promoting inward investment and trade in Britain, but crucially, that relied on regional development agencies, which have been abolished. When I spoke to UKTI in Brussels, Belgium, and in Düsseldorf, the same message came back: German companies would come back with a computer platform, saying, “We want to put a factory somewhere.” Where are the RDAs to draw that down? They have been abolished. Well done, the Tories and the Liberals.
On infrastructure and construction, the Government have abolished the scheme to renew schools, which basically means that construction workers are being laid off. As for future markets, we have to look at companies such as Tata Steel near Swansea, and Airbus in north Wales. Those big consumers of energy are being penalised by the Government and their unilateral carbon pricing. The Government forget that we operate in a European market, and do not understand how the markets work at all. Those companies are part of the solution. Tata Steel has a new generation of steel, with seven layers, that generates its own heat and energy; that reduces the carbon footprint by cladding a building. Airbus has a new generation of planes that use 30% less energy. That is part of the solution, and we should be supporting, not penalising, those big employers and companies.
Let me talk about Swansea. I am proud that people in companies such as Amazon are flying the flag and saying, “Come to Swansea.” We are in the premier league, so we are a global brand. What is stopping us are the Government, who are cutting the coastguard, which undermines confidence in tourism and investment in wind farms offshore, and are stopping the electrification of the railway from Cardiff to Swansea, which would link us to the European network. We just need a helping hand so that we can keep going for success, can build on the intellectual clusters in the two universities in Swansea, can build on our team spirit in marketing Swansea, and can make our contribution to a sustainable, inclusive, growth-focused future for the rest of Britain. There is enormous opportunity for Britain to get up off the floor and fight, but it is being held down by the Tories’ and Liberals’ ineptitude.