Points of Order
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I apologise for taking time on another point of order on the question of the Home Office’s failure to answer questions satisfactorily, but you will recall that it is just over a year since, in June 2018, I raised a point of order on the Home Office’s refusal to provide information about tier 2 general certificate of sponsorship visas in response to written questions that I had tabled. This information was subsequently released in response to a freedom of information request.
When, subsequent to the information being provided via that FOI, I tabled a further question asking for updated figures, I assumed the Home Office would provide them to me, given that the information was now in the public arena, but it refused again, hence my point of order last June. In response, Mr Speaker, you shared my concern about the danger of FOI requests becoming a more effective way for colleagues to obtain information than a parliamentary question, and you said:
“There is a basic issue here of parliamentary self-respect”.—[Official Report, 18 June 2018; Vol. 643, c. 78.]
That is clearly relevant to all Members.
Mr Speaker, you also advised me on how to pursue the matter, and I followed up with a letter to the Home Secretary, on 19 June 2018, highlighting your comments. Despite repeated phone calls and emails to the Home Office’s correspondence unit, I have not yet received a response to that letter—over 12 months later.
I finally tabled a written question asking when I could anticipate a response, and I was told that it was “being prepared”. No reason has been shared with me that would explain why an answer about the procedure for parliamentary questions has taken over a year, Mr Speaker, so I would be grateful if you could advise me on how to pursue this matter and how I might receive a response before the House breaks for the summer recess.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for his characteristic courtesy in giving me advance notice of his intention to raise it.
In summary, the matter is very unsatisfactory. The way in which the hon. Gentleman has been treated does not fall foul of any particular rule or Standing Order of the House. That said, it does not in any way become any less unsatisfactory. The essential issue at hand is, as I indicated in response to his previous point of order, a matter of parliamentary self-respect and, I say to occupants of the Treasury Bench, of courtesy on behalf of Ministers towards Members of the House seeking to discharge their duty of scrutiny.
It is therefore very disappointing that the hon. Gentleman has not achieved satisfaction in this matter, and what I want to say to him is as follows. First, he has been dogged and persistent in pursuit of this matter and, as he indicated, he has waited over a year for a Minister to answer his letter, which referred to my answer to his previous point of order.
I would hope that the delay in replying—I say this as much in hope as in expectation—is because Ministers are keen properly to address the underlying issue of providing a less helpful answer to elected Members of the House than to those who pursue freedom of information requests.
I hope that Home Office Ministers, having heard this point of order, will ensure that the hon. Gentleman receives the full ministerial reply for which he has waited so long, and that he does so in a matter of days—specifically, before the summer recess.
The final point I would make, on which I expect concurrence, not least from senior and experienced Members of the House who have been here for decades, is this: it was at one time a very established expectation that, if Members were experiencing difficulty in securing replies from Ministers to letters or, indeed, written questions, the Leader of the House would see it as her or his responsibility to chase them in order to secure expeditious replies. I am sorry if that is not currently the case, but it used to be the case—[Interruption.] I note that the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) is nodding from a sedentary position, and I assume this view would be shared by Members in other parts of the House.
What I would say to the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) is that he should approach the current Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), and try to extract a commitment from him that he will engage in the matter and pursue Ministers. That is not only right for the hon. Member for Sheffield Central and his constituents but is in the interest of the effective functioning of all Members of the House. This is a matter not of rules but of parliamentary courtesy, and we need to return to it.
Business of the House
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
The last thing the Speaker wants to do is to mislead the House. I have just been shown what appears to be conclusive evidence that the team eventually lost 3-2. I had been advised of a 2-1 victory, but perhaps it was a 2-1 lead. Apparently, the team lost, but they had a great time. There are magnificent players in that team, and I think we should celebrate the merits, commitment and passion of the women’s parliamentary football team. They may have lost the battle, but they will win the war.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
It is almost three years since I reassured students at Sheffield Park Academy, in my constituency, that the Government were acting to introduce sharia-compliant student loans. That was on the basis of a pledge made in the higher education White Paper, which had just been published at that time, but nothing followed. In May this year, the universities Minister implied that the issue would be addressed by Philip Augar, but his report, published last week, barely mentions it. May we therefore have a statement from the Education Secretary on when the Government intend to fulfil their promise to Muslim students?
Points of Order
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield
Mr Speaker
I think I was going to hear a point of order from Mr Blomfield and then I will come to the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone).
Paul Blomfield
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would be grateful for your advice on an urgent matter. One of my constituents is a Zimbabwean national, an asylum seeker, who had an outstanding claim and who, on arrival at Vulcan House immigration centre in Sheffield for a routine interview, was met by officials of the Zimbabwean Government. The immigration rules make it clear that the Home Office should not take steps for the removal of an individual from the UK while a fresh claim is being made as it obviously puts her at greater risk of persecution by the Zimbabwean Government about which there is great concern.
I wrote to the Immigration Minister about this issue on 27 February, seeking an urgent response. Despite repeated emails and calls to the MPs’ correspondence unit, I have not received any response and the latest update was simply that my letter was passed to a director for consideration two months after I sent it on 25 April. This matter has become urgent because my constituent has now been told that her claim has been denied and that she must leave the UK. It appears to me that the Home Office has acted in contravention of the immigration rules.
I would be grateful for your advice, Mr Speaker, on how I can progress this matter urgently with the Minister for Immigration, as my representations to her have been directed to the correspondence unit, and my representations to the correspondence unit have yielded nothing. I would also welcome your advice on how I can be reassured that my constituent will not be removed from the UK until the matter is resolved.
Mr Speaker
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for his characteristic courtesy in giving me advance notice of his intention to raise it.
The hon. Gentleman raises both a general concern about the Home Office’s response to urgent correspondence from Members of Parliament and a specific matter about the possible removal from the UK of his constituent. On the latter point, which is clearly of great importance to his constituent, I hope that what he says has been heard on the Treasury Bench and will be conveyed to the relevant Minister without delay. Traditionally, the Leader of the House under successive Governments—I hope that this continues to be the case, and I have no reason to think otherwise—has accepted some responsibility for chasing Ministers where replies are tardy or, in terms of content, insubstantial—that is to say holding. I very much hope that that will continue to be the case and that the matter will be pursued. There is a responsibility on Ministers, timeously and substantively, to respond both to questions from hon. and right hon. Members and to correspondence from them. Simply to hive the matter off and to subcontract responsibility to some outside agency is not the right way to proceed in terms of courtesy to colleagues who are, after all, the elected representatives of their constituents. On the general point, which will be of concern to Back Benchers across the House, I underline that it is unsatisfactory if there are not prompt and substantive responses. That does need to change.
Offensive Weapons Bill
Debate between John Bercow and Paul BlomfieldWednesday 28th November 2018
(5 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Offensive Weapons Act 2019 View all Offensive Weapons Act 2019 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 28 November 2018 - (28 Nov 2018)
Mr Speaker
I am sure that the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) intends to detain the House for no longer than three minutes and possibly for less.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I will do my very best, Mr Speaker.
I rise to speak to my amendments 8, 9 and 10, to which a number of colleagues have referred. I fully support the objectives of the Bill. We have a serious problem with knife crime. We need serious solutions, but we need the right solutions. Knife manufacturers in my constituency are seriously concerned about the possible unintended consequences of clause 17, which prohibits the delivery of bladed products to residential properties, and believe that it will not provide the right solution. I raised this issue with the Home Secretary on Second Reading and wrote to him afterwards. I appreciate the response from the Minister, who said that the Government do not intend to stop people purchasing knives online or to stop manufacturers selling their products online.
I have tabled my amendments in that spirit. Large retailers with regional shop networks might well be able to deal with age-verified collection easily and with little impact on cost, but smaller manufacturers, which use the internet to reach niche markets, will struggle. They are acutely aware of the risks of knife crime and they already take proactive steps and have stringent controls to tackle the issue. They are responsible companies. They are traders whom we can trust. They support measures that would make such safeguards widespread across the industry.
The Bill makes an exception for bladed products used for sporting purposes. Under those provisions, a sword could be delivered to a residential property, but one of my local manufacturers’ steak knives could not, and nor could the decorating tools that my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) mentioned earlier.
Much more could be done to develop effective age verification for all sorts of online activities, but a trusted trader scheme could tackle the specific issue of knife sales. Online sales actually offer a better audit trail and record keeping than face-to-face sales. The Minister said earlier that the Government were interested in working with the industry on a voluntary basis to tackle problems in relation to retail sales in shops. If she is prepared to work with the retail sector, why not with the manufacturing sector? Will she agree to meet me and representatives of the industry to discuss how a trusted trader scheme might work, so that we can amend the Bill as it progresses? If she will, I will be happy to withdraw my amendments.
Points of Order
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I share the real misery that he and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of other people will feel about what is a terrible tragedy, and a terrible tragedy that is the worse for the fact that it was the second in four years to engulf and threaten the future of an iconic building, as well as damaging a great many other buildings in the vicinity.
The hon. Gentleman very properly—if I heard him correctly—did not refer to an urgent question application, because Members are not supposed to refer to unsuccessful urgent question applications; but I will simply say that, as colleagues will understand, I must take account of the range of business before the House. Two urgent questions were granted because I felt that they warranted being aired on the Floor of the House, but a number of other urgent questions that might have been selected on a different day were not chosen for today.
What I will say to the hon. Gentleman, and to all other Members who are similarly interested in this matter—Members with Scottish constituencies but also, potentially, those from other parts of the country—[Interruption.] Indeed, that includes the constituency of the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan). I beg the hon. Lady’s pardon. What I would say to Members is that it is open to a Minister to offer an oral statement to the House on the matter, but if they want a failsafe that will guarantee that the matter will be aired, they know what options are open to them.
I do apologise to the hon. Member for Glasgow North West. I did not intend her any discourtesy at all. I did not have it in my mind, because I was responding to the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney), but in so far as she is making the point that she has a very, very direct interest in the matter, I completely respect that.
What I am trying to signal to colleagues is that they should have an opportunity to air this matter by one means or another in the course of the next day or two. I hope that that is helpful.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would appreciate your advice on what I think is a serious issue in relation to the provision of information to Members by the Home Office. In January I tabled a written parliamentary question seeking information on how many scientists and engineers had been refused a Tier 2 (General) certificate of sponsorship since November 2017 due to the annual cap having been reached. Despite the Home Office acknowledging that it held this information and not indicating that it would require disproportionate cost to compile it, it declined to provide it to me. However, the information was later released in response to a freedom of information request by the Campaign for Science and Engineering, with which I had been working on the issue. When I tabled a subsequent question asking for updated figures, given that this information was now in the public arena I assumed that the Home Office would provide it to me, but it refused again.
I am sure you will agree, Mr Speaker, that it is unacceptable that the Home Office will not provide Members of this House with information that it holds but which it is prepared to release in response to an FOI request. It makes FOIs a more effective way of obtaining information than a parliamentary question.
I have raised my concerns with the Chair of the Procedure Committee, who shares them, and I would appreciate your advice, Mr Speaker, on what else I should do to ensure that the work of Members is not undermined in this way.
Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice that he wished to raise this matter. It certainly does seem that the Home Office has been quite unhelpful in responding to his questions on this matter and it is certainly unsatisfactory if a Department provides less information in a response to a parliamentary question from an elected Member of this House than it provides in response to a freedom of information request from an external body. There is a basic issue here of parliamentary self-respect, so we have all got a dog in this race, if I can put it that way.
I understand that the hon. Gentleman has written on this matter to the Procedure Committee, which is exactly the course I would recommend in these circumstances. That Committee plays an important role in monitoring both the quality and timeliness of parliamentary answers. [Interruption.] I am glad to see that that proposition is assented to by the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), who has himself been a distinguished ornament of that Committee and may be willing to make representations to the Home Secretary on behalf of the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield). Meanwhile the hon. Gentleman has put his concern on the record and I hope it has been noted on the Treasury Bench and will be conveyed to Home Office Ministers. I hope that is helpful to the hon. Gentleman.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill
Debate between John Bercow and Paul BlomfieldTuesday 16th January 2018
(6 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 View all European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 16 January 2018 - (16 Jan 2018)
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
As ever, it is a genuine privilege to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), whose integrity and honesty have shone through every day we have been debating this Bill.
Mr Speaker
Order. Forgive me. Before the hon. Gentleman gets under way—I think the Minister is keen to follow—I want to say that a number of Back Benchers wish to contribute. I am very keen that they be fully heard; I do not want the debate to be dominated by the Front Benchers, who I am sure will make succinct contributions.
Paul Blomfield
I will seek to live up to that expectation, Mr Speaker; I do not intend to speak for long.
Amendment 4 addresses one of the six key tests that we set out for the Bill before we could support it. Those tests were not set out simply on Second Reading or in Committee, but 10 months ago, when the White Paper outlining the Government’s approach was first published.
The tests drew support across the House, but sadly the Government have made no significant concessions. In Committee, a meaningful vote for Parliament on the final deal was secured, of course—but against the wishes of the Government and only by decision of the House. Our five amendments at this stage address those other tests: facilitating a transitional period; protecting the devolution settlement; protecting workers’ rights; reining in the Henry VIII powers; and, in amendment 4, retaining the EU charter of fundamental rights in UK law.
The objective of amendment 4, which would retain charter rights in UK law and afford them the same level of protection as those in the Human Rights Act, has wide support on both sides of the House. It is part of a sensible and responsible approach to Brexit that respects the referendum decision but does not sacrifice jobs and the economy or rights and protections on the altar of ideology. It is a sensible approach for which I believe there is a majority across the House—one that goes well beyond those who voted for amendment 7 in Committee. It is also a consensus that I think is reflected in the other place, from which I suspect we might see the Bill return with some improvements, as the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield indicated.
The Opposition support amendments 42 and 43, which would enable UK courts to continue to refer matters to the Court of Justice and to consider CJEU decision to be persuasive. As well as amendment 55, we also support new clause 13, amendments 40 and 41, on clarifying the status of retained law, and new clause 16 on enshrining equality rights, which stands in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous). We also support new clause 7 on animal sentience and new clause 9 on the acquired rights of Anguillans—an indication of the enormous complexity and range of the issues we face with Brexit. We accept that Government amendments 37 and 38 improve the Bill, but we fear that they do not go anywhere near far enough on legal challenges based on the general principles of EU law, which is why we prefer and support amendment 57, which was moved so ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy).
Amendment 4 addresses the concerns we raised in Committee around the charter of fundamental rights and provides an opportunity for the Government to think again. Human rights should not be a dividing line between parties in this House, so even at this stage we hope that the Government, either here or in the Lords, might accept our approach in the amendment and perhaps even accept the amendment today and avoid the vote that we will otherwise be seeking. As we said in Committee, the charter has been critical in developing, strengthening and modernising human rights in the UK. To abandon it risks reducing protections for UK citizens and leaving a gaping hole in our statute book.
The Government claim that the Bill is about legal continuity and certainty in what will become the new category of EU retained law, but all of that EU law is interpreted through the charter, so excluding it would leave our legal system inconsistent and incoherent. To avoid defeat on this issue in Committee the former Justice Minister, the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), committed to publishing a memorandum that he claimed would confirm the Government’s case that the charter was unnecessary by identifying where all of these rights could be found in EU retained law or existing domestic law.
Obviously that argument overlooked the main point of the charter, which was to bring all of these rights together in one codifying document, but as an Opposition we were willing to be helpful and awaited the memorandum with interest. We wanted to see a comprehensive document that identified not only the source of each right in the charter but—crucially—how the existing level of effective recourse would be guaranteed. The memorandum was published on 5 December, and it acknowledged that the Government envisaged all these rights being scattered back to their original sources. They are removing the material source of the rights, in the form of the charter, and leaving citizens with the formal source. Now that is a legal way of describing the problem, but I am not a lawyer. It means in effect that it will become more difficult for any UK citizen to assert their rights post-Brexit.
In their defence, the Government insisted that nothing would be lost if we dropped the charter because it created no new rights.
Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I anticipated that this might arise at the end of the debate, and I say that motions of this kind have in the past been seen as effective or binding. I will leave it there for now, but if this matter needs to be returned to at the end of the debate, no doubt it will be.
Paul Blomfield
Thank you, Mr Speaker. That is helpful.
I want to repeat what our motion seeks, so there can be no misunderstanding. We have not, and we would not, advocate publishing any information that would compromise the country’s negotiating position. We are requesting that the 58 sectoral impact assessments—the economic assessments of how the Brexit process will affect the industries that account for 88% of our economy, the jobs of up to 30 million people, and the livelihoods of many more—be released to the Exiting the European Union Committee. It will then be for that Committee, as a cross-party body of the House, to agree a process for publication, and the Chair of that Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), made a powerful contribution on why that publication is so important. The issue here is that an absolute, blanket ban on publishing any information from the assessments is simply not acceptable. This is about pursuing an honest debate on the future of our country. It is, as the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) said, about grown-up politics.
Members have talked about many sectors. Let me cite another: the nuclear industry. It has not been mentioned so far, but this crucial industry employs 15,000 people. Along with several colleagues, I am serving on the Nuclear Safeguards Public Bill Committee. Access to the nuclear industry assessment would enable us as Members of Parliament to scrutinise better, and make more informed decisions on, the legislation. That Bill is the first of many Brexit-related Bills, and it is vital that we as Members have access to the assessments when doing our jobs for the people we represent.
Too often, the Government seem to regard the House as an inconvenient hurdle to be sidestepped. We have seen that in their refusal to vote on Opposition day motions; in their power grab on delegated powers in the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill; and in the £1 million they spent on trying to ensure that the House could not vote on triggering article 50. One of their own Members has criticised them for reducing this place to a student debating chamber. This is an opportunity for them to prove that that is not their intention. We will not have proper accountability if we are unable to assess the impact of the Government’s approach to Brexit on our economy and on the jobs and livelihoods of our constituents.
Points of Order
Debate between John Bercow and Paul BlomfieldTuesday 4th July 2017
(6 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Telecommunications Infrastructure (Relief from Non-Domestic Rates) Act 2018 View all Telecommunications Infrastructure (Relief from Non-Domestic Rates) Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text
Mr Speaker
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order. I have seen the Secretary of State for Health a couple of times today—recently, in the Chamber, and much earlier this morning, when I was returning from my health-giving swim and he was arriving at the House on his bicycle; as the hon. Lady would expect, we exchanged the courtesies of wishing each other good morning. The right hon. Gentleman did not give me any indication that he planned to make a statement on this matter on that occasion; nor has he since done so.
I have to admit that I was not familiar with the headline to which the hon. Lady referred, not least because the organ in question is not part of my daily reading matter. I am sure she will readily understand that it is not ordinarily a paper of any interest to me. However, I must admit that the headline is obviously a very important one relating to a very important story.
I am not aware of any plans by Ministers to make a statement, as I have said, but clearly the issue will not go away. I well remember the final intervention of the then right hon. Member for Leigh, and very powerful it was too. I rather suspect that the hon. Lady will return to this matter, especially if she judges it to be urgent, and she will know what opportunities are open to her to raise matters that she thinks are urgent.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. On 8 February, I asked the then Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union, the right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones), about allegations that it was the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice that had led the Government to issue a notice to withdraw from Euratom alongside the notice to withdraw from the EU. In response, the Minister told the House that that was not the case, and that
“it would not be possible for the UK to leave the EU and continue its current membership of Euratom.”—[Official Report, 8 February 2017; Vol. 621, c. 523.]
The former chief of staff to the Secretary of State has now contradicted that statement. He has said that it was in fact the role of the European Court of Justice that lay behind the Government’s decision. Mr Speaker, can you advise me how we can find out the truth of the matter: why are the Government leading us out of the important treaty on Euratom?
Mr Speaker
I do not think it is for me to seek to penetrate the inner recesses of ministerial minds to ascertain their precise motivation in the pursuit of policy. When the hon. Gentleman asks how he should take forward this matter, my short answer is by the tabling of questions, which will probably need to be very precise and focused if he is to elicit the information he seeks. That is my guidance because, although I have indulged him on this occasion—because I could not know precisely what he was going to ask until he had asked it—what he has asked does not constitute a point of order, although it is no doubt of enormous interest and relevance to him and many other Members.
I must advise the House that it is not the responsibility of the Chair to ensure consistency of statements from any Government, or indeed from persons previously connected with a Government. If that were one of the responsibilities of the Chair, a wholly disproportionate amount of his or her time would have to be devoted to keeping up with such matters. The hon. Gentleman has made his concern clear, and that concern has no doubt been heard by those on the Treasury Bench. If a Minister felt that he or she had been inaccurate in statements to the House, that Minister would have a responsibility to set the record straight.
Points of Order
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield(6 years, 12 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
I think that there are two answers to the hon. Gentleman, and I respect him for raising a matter of real concern to him and doubtless to many others. First, his concerns can and doubtless will be expressed during the election campaign. Conversations do not cease, and he must avail himself of the opportunities that will be forthcoming, that will present themselves or that he will create.
Secondly, I make the constitutional point that the government of this country continues. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to raise his concerns with relevant Ministers, it is absolutely open to him to do that, but there is no further opportunity for the matters to be aired in this Chamber.
The hon. Gentleman, to use a word deployed by the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Sir Simon Burns) yesterday, has demonstrated again his perspicacity, upon which I congratulate him.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The threat of deportation hangs over the head of my constituent Mr Pride Mbi, who originates from the Anglophone minority in Cameroon. I have been in correspondence with the Home Office about the lack of published guidance for Cameroon given that Pride has been a long-standing champion of the rights of English-speaking Cameroonians, who face a very specific threat in that country. I am concerned that, as Parliament is to be dissolved and as the civil service is already in purdah, my options for raising this case are extremely limited. With the threat of deportation remaining, can you advise me on how I will be able to ensure that Pride’s position is properly considered?
Mr Speaker
The short answer is that I can advise the hon. Gentleman that he should continue his casework. Casework continues to be conducted during election campaigns, and in the friendliest and politest possible way I say to the hon. Gentleman, who I am sure is well capable of this, that he must balance whatever activities he is undertaking in the attempted pursuit of his re-election—by knocking on doors, delivering leaflets or engaging in public meetings—with his continued diligent attention to his casework on behalf of constituents. That is what he must do. He is going to be a busy bee, but he will not be alone in that regard.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
The Secretary of State provided some clarity on his priorities for access to the single market in response to questions on Tuesday’s statement. He told the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) that he was seeking
“a comprehensive free trade agreement and a comprehensive customs agreement that will deliver the exact same benefits as we have”. —[Official Report, 24 January 2017; Vol. 620, c. 169.]
He meant the “exact same benefits” as those of being inside the single market. Will the Minister confirm that that is his Department’s negotiating position so that we can measure the Department’s success against it?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) is in line for an award.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
Points of Order
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order and his courtesy in giving me advance notice of it. The question of how a Government fulfil a commitment to the House is principally a matter for Ministers. Having taken a keen interest in this matter, the right hon. Gentleman will know that a report was presented to the House by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in December, and that a second report, which I think was billed or tagged as a quarterly report, was provided by the Secretary of State for International Development on 8 February. If memory serves me correctly, it was an oral statement, and it may be that the right hon. Gentleman and some other Members were hoping for—or even expecting—a written report. That is, however, not a matter for the Chair.
To be fair, the Government have made a large number of statements to the House over the past few years—that is a matter not of speculation but of fact. The only point I would make gently is that since the Foreign Secretary had unavoidably to be absent from Foreign Office questions yesterday—that prompted a modicum of comment from his own side although he had done me the courtesy of notifying me beforehand—it might be thought a good idea for a subsequent report to be provided by him to the House. If there is an appetite for that report to be oral, I know that it will be delivered by the Foreign Secretary with great dexterity. It would also have the additional “advantage”—I say that in inverted commas because it is a matter for the House to decide—of pleasing a right hon. Gentleman from the Liberal Democrat Benches.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You will be aware of the decision by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to close its Sheffield policy office. Despite repeated requests at the BIS Select Committee for the Department to share the figures on which that decision was based, the permanent secretary told the Committee:
“I don’t think I can point you to one specific document which covers specifically the Sheffield issue.”
In answer to a question about costs from my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) at the Public Accounts Committee, he said that the decision was
“not based on individual cost-benefit analysis of a static closure.”
I have had access to a document entitled “BIS 2020—Finance and Headcount outline”, which specifically covers the Sheffield issue and is, in the permanent secretary’s words,
“an individual cost-benefit analysis of a static closure.”
Will you clarify, Mr Speaker, whether the permanent secretary’s words constitute misleading the House, and advise me on how I can get the information in front of the two Committees of the House that have requested it?
Mr Speaker
I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but my instinctive reaction is that exegesis of what is said by the Government, including permanent secretaries, and adjudication upon it, is not a proper matter for the Chair. I think it is safer to keep out of that. It may well be that it is a subject of some dispute on which the hon. Gentleman is dissatisfied, but I underline that it is for the Committees concerned to press for the information that they require. If they are dissatisfied with what they have or have not received, they should persist, and there are well-established procedures for doing so. I have a feeling, however, that by putting his concerns on the record, the hon. Gentleman may find that the Government are able and inclined to offer the information he requires.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Can we please speed up? I want to get to the hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti), who is the last questioner, and progress is frankly too slow.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
5. What steps the Government have taken to improve the conviction rate for rape and serious sexual offences.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
It would assist us if the Minister looked towards and spoke into the microphone. That tends to assist amplification in these circumstances.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
T2. The importance of students’ electoral registration was recognised by the Cabinet Office in allocating welcome if belated funds to the National Union of Students to get people on the register in the run-up to the general election. Will the Minister commit to providing similar funds to boost student electoral registration at the start of the new academic year to ensure that they are represented properly on the register on which the parliamentary boundary review will be based?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Paul Blomfield
The Minister has recognised in his reply that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is increasingly fragile. The impoverished Palestinian population is reliant on the tunnels for affordable goods. The tightening of restrictions by the Egyptian and Israeli authorities is resulting in shockingly high prices for fuel and basic commodities. With access to, and the affordability of, food becoming a huge problem, will the Government acknowledge that the blockade of Gaza is a violation of international humanitarian and human rights law and constitutes collective punishment?
Mr Speaker
There are extremely serious matters of life and death in Gaza. Let us hear the questions and the Minister’s answers.
High Cost Credit Bill
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct on that point, which is also not incompatible or inconsistent with my answer to the earlier point of order. The hon. Gentleman’s reference to “shouts” is correct: vote should follow voice. That is the well-established principle enunciated by “Erskine May”, which I exhort colleagues to follow.
Paul Blomfield
I thank Members on both sides of the House for their encouragement and advice. The supporters of the Bill, with four Labour colleagues, five Conservatives and two Liberal Democrats, almost perfectly reflect the composition of the House. The Bill has the support of many other Members, some of whom are here today and many more who cannot be here. That sends two important messages. First, regardless of how far the Bill progresses, Members’ desire to see statutory regulation of payday lending will not go away. Secondly, there is a growing consensus—not only across party, but beyond this place—on what the key components of the regulation should be.
In preparing the Bill, I have drawn on the advice of Citizens Advice, the debt charity StepChange, the Centre for Responsible Credit, Which? and local debt advisers in my constituency. I am grateful for all their support. I have consulted Members from both sides of the House who are involved in the all-party groups on debt and personal finance, on financial education and on credit unions. I hope that the Minister will agree to meet those of us who have been involved in that process as we take it forward. The Bill reflects the common ground of all those groups and offers a consensus on how we should deal in an holistic way with the problems of payday lending. It recognises the important role that the Financial Conduct Authority has to play from April 2014. It deliberately does not seek to tie its hands with over-prescriptive detail, but aims to provide a positive direction of travel to the FCA on the key issues. I hope that that direction of travel is consistent with Government thinking.
I am sure that hon. Members will wish to make many positive points and suggestions, so it is important for the Bill to progress into Committee where they can be considered in more detail. I am sure I speak for all supporters of the Bill when I say that I am open to that debate and the consideration of any amendments that are tabled. Other Members wish to contribute, so I will briefly set the context for the Bill and summarise its main proposals.
We all know that payday moneylenders are making millions from loans aimed at some of the most vulnerable. They target the poor and make them poorer, pushing them into unaffordable and spiralling debt with exorbitant charges. It is not the intention of the Bill to close down payday lenders, because, sadly, there are few alternatives for many people. However, many of the practices our constituents have experienced are truly appalling. It is those practices that the Bill seeks to stop. We seek to learn from countries where payday lenders have been longer established—in particular the United States, the land of free enterprise—and where effective regulation is the norm.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
All right hon. and hon. Members in this Chamber are equal. That is perhaps not the answer that the hon. Gentleman seeks, but it is the answer that he is going to get, especially as his attempted point of order was just that—attempted. It was many things but it was not a point of order.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak in the debate and to follow the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), who made a striking and powerful speech. I, like other Members, particularly enjoyed his last point.
I am pleased to be able to speak in opposition to the Government motion and in support of Lords amendments 5 and 23, and I welcome the cross-party support for those amendments in the other place and in the Chamber today. The other place has done democracy a great service by highlighting the link between this Bill and the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, because, contrary to the point made by the Leader of the House, the impact of these two pieces of legislation together would have been unfairly to reduce the representation of our great cities and urban areas.
A number of Government Members have talked about the simple principle of fairness, and the Leader of the House talked about the disparities in the system. There are disparities, but they are not the ones that he talked about. If I were selected by my party members again, the proposed boundaries would benefit me electorally. Nevertheless, they are unfair and undermine our democracy because of the enormous mismatch between population and registered voters.
Multiannual Financial Framework
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
We should remind ourselves that just as there is a majority in the House, of which I am a part, in favour of a reduction in the EU budget, there is a much larger majority, of which I am also a part, that believes that our future lies at the heart of Europe and with our membership of the European Union.
We should therefore take care—more care than some Members have—with how we frame any debate on the EU budget. We should not frame it, as the Daily Express does, as if all EU spending is bad and that the only purpose of Brussels is to take money from us. I come from a region that has benefited enormously from European structural funds, and we should have spent more time in the debate considering how we can engage positively to shape negotiations on the priorities for the EU budget. I shall make several specific points about research and innovation, to which I hope that the Minister will respond.
EU research and innovation funding contributes 10% of our national science budget, and the budget negotiations give us an important opportunity to shape investment priorities for the benefit of the UK economy. The more the EU invests in research and innovation, the more the UK benefits, because the quality, breadth and depth of UK research puts us in a position whereby we gain disproportionately from European research programmes. Nearly 15% of the EU’s funding from the FP7 framework programme for research has gone to UK researchers, and the total FP7 contribution to UK research is expected to reach €7 billion over the life of the programme. The UK is involved in more successful FP7 projects than either France or Germany, accounting for 40% of all grants to date. We also benefit extensively from the collaboration and research networks that the EU facilitates. Of the 5,105 research projects that have been funded under FP7, 43% include UK partners.
Only about 8% of the proposed budget is allocated to Horizon 2020, which is the replacement for the FP7 programme. That has been presented as an increase, because there are several new projects within Horizon 2020. I think that the Government would support those projects, but on the basis of past negotiations, there is concern among businesses and universities that the research budget is especially vulnerable to cuts. We know that innovation plays an important role in producing growth in the UK, and 54% of the jobs grown between 2000 and 2005 were in innovative companies. However, such companies account for only 6% of UK businesses, and are particularly involved in pharmaceuticals and biotechnical research.
We know that future growth will rely on knowledge-based industries, so I look to the Government to make two commitments: first, that the additional projects in Horizon 2020, which I am sure they would support, will be considered outside the framework; and, secondly, that they will argue the case for protecting the research and innovation budget in the overall negotiations.
Mr Speaker
The Minister will be called at 6.55 pm, but until then we will hear from Conor Burns.
Sittings of the House
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Paul Blomfield
I acknowledge the point that has been made, but contrary opinions have been expressed by others who were around in that period. Indeed, some Select Committees appear now to be—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Again, a large number of rather excitable private conversations are taking place. We owe Members the courtesy of a fair hearing.
Paul Blomfield
As has been pointed out, there are Select Committees that meet earlier and that seem to manage to arrange for witnesses to attend.
The argument for earlier Tuesday sittings, as well as standing on its own merits, provides the opportunity to move the debates on private Members’ Bills to Tuesday evenings. As a Back Bencher, I believe in the importance of our having the opportunity to drive change through the House. Although I acknowledge the other options that the Chair of the Procedure Committee shared with us, moving those debates to a Tuesday evening would give many of us a greater opportunity to attend.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
15. What recent assessment he has made of the contribution of the higher education sector to economic growth.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I am sure the Prime Minister will join me in congratulating Sheffield university’s advanced manufacturing research centre, which celebrated its 10th anniversary yesterday and today with a series of events at Westminster, organised in partnership with Boeing and Rolls-Royce. Will he also join me and the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills in endorsing the aim of growing our manufacturing gross domestic product from its current 12.5% to nearer the 20% enjoyed by most of our competitors, and will he commit the Government to work with—
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
T10. Head teachers of eight secondary schools serving children in my constituency have taken what they describe as the unprecedented step of writing to the parents and carers of years 11 and 12 students about the impact of Government cuts on sixth-form funding. They are considering cutting the range of courses, increasing class sizes, ending the teaching of some subjects, and reducing guidance and enrichment sessions. They say in their letter:“we have never been subject to cuts of this magnitude,”which—
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between John Bercow and Paul Blomfield(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
I assume that the Minister had finished his reply, so I call Paul Blomfield.
Paul Blomfield
Will the Minister note that there are 337 police community support officers in South Yorkshire whose jobs are at risk because of cuts in both police and local government budgets? Those officers have made an enormous contribution to the reduction in crime and the fear of crime. Does he accept that people across the country would believe that money was better spent on those posts than on the £100 million that the Government propose to waste on police commissioners?