Business of the House

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

I pay tribute to Chris and the work of volunteers in my hon. Friend’s constituency. Sefton Council should be supporting their valuable work. Volunteers and community groups work incredibly hard to improve parks and green spaces, including the botanic gardens, Lord Street, Bedford park and Ainsdale village. Volunteers deserve to be celebrated for their work in the community, so I encourage my hon. Friend to apply for an Adjournment debate or a Backbench Business debate.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I think that the Leader of the House meant to say to my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) that we now have the highest tax burden in modern history, even after the Chancellor’s plan yesterday. People are really struggling. They are engulfed in a cost of living crisis, yet the Chancellor has written off £4.3 billion of covid loans to fraudsters and wasted £8.7 billion on duff personal protective equipment that was so useless it had to be burnt. So may we have a debate on fraud and waste in the public finances?

Business of the House

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

The hon. Gentleman is a true champion for Dumbarton, and I enjoyed his history lesson. It is a demonstration that lots of places up and down our great British Isles are worthy of visiting and have a great tourism industry. We should celebrate that in this House and continue to draw attention to it, and he has contributed in that way this morning.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

There are massive concerns across South Reddish at the proposal to merge GP services in South Reddish with the surgery in Heaton Norris, closing the site at South Reddish in the process. That will massively reduce accessibility. I am opposed to the changes, and a survey conducted by local campaigner Holly McCormack showed massive public opposition too. May we have a debate on GP service cuts and accessibility to GP services, so that these issues can be properly addressed on the Floor of the House?

[Mark Spencer]

The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to the fact that accessing GP services is a very important challenge that faces many of our constituents. He will be aware that lots of those policies in that part of the world are under the control of the Mayor of Manchester, who has some responsibility, too. The issue is worthy of debate and it would give the Government an opportunity to celebrate their record and acknowledge the investment that we are putting into the NHS.

Business of the House

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

My hon. Friend is a great campaigner for Southport and has secured millions of pounds for his constituents. It is right that he continues to hold the local council to account for how it spends that money. The potential for jobs, growth and investment is a key driver of the towns fund, which is a crucial part of the Government’s commitment to levelling up. I am sure his constituents will recognise that he is standing up for their best interests.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Last month, the High Speed Rail (Crewe - Manchester) Bill containing powers to extend the line to Manchester was published and presented to this House. Hidden in it is a proposal to sever the Metrolink line to Ashton-under-Lyne, which runs through my constituency. The line would be mothballed and HS2 would run bus services instead. Can the Leader of the House indicate when Second Reading will be and can he, through his good offices, put in a request to the Transport Secretary to meet the three Tameside MPs to try to find a solution before then?

[Mark Spencer]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. The business will be announced in the usual way and he will be updated at that moment. On 17 March, however, there is the opportunity for Transport questions; I am sure he will be present in the Chamber and able to ask the Secretary of State for Transport directly what his constituents want to hear.

Business of the House

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

In Somerset, they have ploughing matches, which are, as the hon. Gentleman says, things that people enjoy. Actually, a late cousin of mine was exceptionally good at winning those ploughing competitions, so I have a great deal of sympathy with what he is saying. Of course, taxation is a matter for the Chancellor, but I will ensure that his point is passed on to the Treasury.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Assuming that levelling up is still the Government’s policy and that the Leader of the House thinks it is unacceptable for children to be taught in what the national media has called

“Britain’s worst built school where pupils paddle in sewage and get sick from toxic fumes,”

may I ask him to use his good offices to get the Department for Education to look again at the problems at Russell Scott primary school, caused by a botched £2.7 million refurbishment by Carillion, which has required a further three quarters of a million pounds just to patch up and needs a further £5 million to put right the structural deficits? I received yesterday an appalling response from Baroness Barran saying that she recognises the condition needs at Russell Scott but there are no capital funding routes available at this time to support the school. That is not on, is it?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Hon. Members and right hon. Members will have heard me say before that I view it very much as my role as Leader of the House, when Members seek redress of grievance, to help them in that process. I do not know about this specific school and I would not wish to comment on it in detail. However, if the hon. Gentleman provides me with the details I will take the matter up with the Department and see whether I can get him a better answer, but I cannot promise to be able to do so.

Business of the House

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

As I have said before, I think it a matter of routine that Ministers should make themselves available to Members of this House when those Members have important constituency issues to raise. If the hon. Lady has had any difficulty in organising such a meeting, I encourage her to come to my office; I will do my best to help.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

May I ask the Leader of the House when we will have an opportunity to scrutinise the allocation of levelling-up funding? Stockport Council put forward a superb bid for the refurbishment of the Edwardian Reddish baths, fire station and library buildings into a new employment start-up space, learning centre and community hub. It ticked all the boxes: civic pride, employment generation, skills, community. No funding was given. If the Prime Minister is reallocating funds from his disloyal MPs, can we have them?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

There is £4.8 billion in the levelling-up fund to help to regenerate town centres and high streets, upgrade local transport and spend money on cultural and heritage assets, and there is £2.4 billion in 101 town deals, investing taxpayers’ money in local economies. It is important to help our towns and cities in restoring local pride across the country. There are always more applications than ability to fund. That is a good thing—a good competitive spirit—and it shows that towns and cities are full of pride for their efforts, successes and histories, but there is not unlimited taxpayer money.

Business of the House

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I note that the hon. Lady mentions her constituency. I thought on this occasion she might be talking about the seemingly illiberal behaviour of Lib Dem councillors on Bath and North East Somerset Council and the serious accusation of their bullying another councillor who has left the Lib Dems because of the way he was treated. He has made serious accusations of racist bullying, and I thought the hon. Lady might want to apologise for the level of illiberalism going on in her own patch.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

In 2015 the Government lost a Supreme Court case on clean air brought by ClientEarth. The Leader of the House will know that, as a result, a ministerial direction was placed on the 10 Greater Manchester authorities to bring air quality within safe levels for human health and instructing a category C clean air zone, which is about to go live in May. The Government gave Greater Manchester just £120 million to fund the retrofit, which is woefully inadequate for the task and, as a result, the direction is now harmful to many small businesses that are unable to comply. Will the Leader of the House use his good offices to urge the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to look again at his direction?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I say to the hon. Gentleman that £120 million is a very significant amount of money, and that Greater Manchester has a devolved settlement and a socialist Mayor who must live up to his responsibilities. That is what happens when these mayoralties are created.

Business of the House

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

That was a very subtle campaign moment from the right hon. Lady, but under the circumstances, it was entirely permissible and orderly. She is absolutely right about the scourge of county lines. It is a very serious problem, which the police have been tackling very effectively in the past couple of years. They have managed to break up quite a lot of county lines and, crucially, rescue children. I understand that some of the children involved in county lines are as young as five—certainly as young as seven—so this a serious concern. The police are involved and it is being tackled; people are being arrested and charged with drug offences, and it is part of the drugs strategy that was announced this week. I cannot promise her a specific debate, but the Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), is in his place.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Very sadly, antisocial behaviour continues to blight parts of Denton and Reddish. It needs firm action, so can we have a statement on whether the powers and resources available to local authorities such as Stockport and Tameside, and to Greater Manchester police, are adequate to tackle the tearaways?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

This issue is fundamental—I am sorry to hear of the antisocial behaviour in Denton and Reddish—because the police and local authorities have powers, but we all know that low-level antisocial behaviour can lead to more serious crime. I am beginning to sound a bit like a broken record on the 11,000 extra police, but I must mention that, because having police who are available and present is a very good way of stopping antisocial crime. Dealing with drugs and county lines—this goes to the question asked by the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson)—also reduces antisocial behaviour, because of the enormous quantity of crime that is drug-related, and particularly the theft that is responsible for the purchase of drugs. I believe that half of murders in this country are drug-related, so antisocial behaviour, drug crime and more serious crime are all interrelated. He is absolutely right to raise this matter in relation to crime week and I am sure that the House will discuss it on many occasions.

Strengthening Standards in Public Life

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. It is a very sad day, because, rather than taking this on the chin, admitting they made a mistake, which they seemed to be doing last week, and moving on constructively, the Government just want to give the very false impression that all MPs are for sale. That is simply not true and they know it.

Paid advocacy has been against the rules since 1695, so it is not a new rule, but, throughout the centuries, especially in the past three decades, the standards system has been strengthened—until the last fortnight. That consensus has been systematically shredded by this Government—whether it is the Prime Minister not enforcing the ministerial code on his Cabinet or the Leader of the House seeking to undermine the standards procedure—and this has to stop. It is not good enough. The public—our constituents—rightly expect and deserve better than this.

The previous Labour Government legislated to clean up politics after the Tory sleaze of the 1990s. I give as examples: the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000; the ministerial code; freedom of information; public registers of donations and national election spending; and the Electoral Commission, which this Government also seem to want to undermine. Those all came about because of the Labour Government, whereas in 2018, when the independent and external Committee on Standards in Public Life, set up to deal with the previous Tory scandal, recommended that the MPs’ code of conduct should be updated, the Tory Government ignored it. The report said:

“MPs should not accept any paid work to provide services as a parliamentary strategist, adviser or consultant, for example, advising on parliamentary affairs or on how to influence Parliament and its members. MPs should never accept any payment or offers of employment to act as political or parliamentary consultants or advisers.”

It could not be clearer, and that is what our motion today sets out to achieve. I hope that the Government will be supporting this, because, as I have said and I will say it again, no MP should be for hire. This is not about outside interests per se, because the vast majority of Members work tirelessly to represent their constituents and are not seeking to privately profit from that work. Outside interests are often a way for MPs to connect with the world outside of this place—a point that has been made by many MPs and others.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this important point. It should not take a report of the Committee on Standards to state the blindingly obvious to Members of this House. If they are a full-time Member of Parliament, they do not have the time outside of their constituency affairs, outside of their parliamentary duties in this House, to do other paid work. Is not that just clearly obvious to all except a few Members who are on the take?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing that up, because, of course, that is one thing that my right hon. and learned Friend, the Leader of the Opposition, stated clearly in his speech yesterday. He said that the default setting should be that there are no second jobs. He did say that, in certain professional circumstances, there may need to be exceptions, but that should be up to the independent body to determine, not us. The way that the Government have behaved over the events of the past few weeks, including the case of Owen Paterson, former MP for North Shropshire, have shown us that the rules are obviously not strong enough. It seems to be too easy for the Government to try to rip them up when they fancy. They have sought to weaken and undermine the rules around standards, whereas our intention with our motion is simple: we want to strengthen standards and we want to restore the public’s trust in Parliament and this is the necessary next step.

Business of the House

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

It is obviously important that planning decisions are taken efficiently and that matters of national importance come to a national level. I have to say that 4,000 football pitches sounds like a very large area. I do not know very much about football, but I know that a football pitch is not an entirely small space. It cannot be that dissimilar to 4,000 cricket pitches. I note my right hon. Friend’s concern, and he is right to raise it in this House. The opportunity to discuss it will probably be best provided through an Adjournment debate to ensure that this specific issue can be raised and that a Minister of the Crown can be held to account.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Earlier this year, I sky-dived for Florence, a beautiful seven-year-old girl from Dukinfield who sadly has a life-limiting degenerative condition called GM1. This Sunday, I will be zip-wiring for her at the same place that the right hon. Gentleman visited in north Wales recently. Can we have a debate on GM1, and can I have some tips for Sunday?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I sincerely congratulate the hon. Gentleman on what he is doing. I think all of us in this House find the greatest pride when we campaign on issues such as these for people like Florence and try to help them when they have a terrible disease. I am probably not allowed to say this, but I wish him every success in his campaign to get a treatment for GM1 and to get the appropriate support from the Department of Health and Social Care. As regards going down a zip wire, it is enormously exciting. It really is the most exhilarating thing to do. I would say to him: just lie back and enjoy it. They run it extraordinarily well and it is very safe.

Business of the House

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend raises a very important and sad issue, and I know that the whole House will want to send its condolences to Harper’s family.

The Government are working with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, the Child Accident Prevention Trust and the British and Irish Portable Battery Association. The Office for Product Safety and Standards has produced safety messages on how to keep children safe. It is obviously important that children are kept safe and that this risk is understood more widely by parents. I note that my hon. Friend presented her Button Batteries (Safety) Bill yesterday, and it will receive its Second Reading, according to the will of the House, on the first sitting Friday after the recess. I will, of course, pass on her comments to my right hon Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) [V]]

I once said in a debate on the 1950s-born women’s pension issue that wasps are a nuisance. They are pests and they buzz around. If we bash them away, they get angry, and when they get really angry they sting us. The WASPI women are nuisances; they are pests; they will not go away; and they are stinging. This week, the ombudsman found maladministration in how the Department for Work and Pensions treated those women. Today, the House rises for the summer recess with no statement on this issue or an opportunity for Ministers to be questioned. There is great interest and support for this issue across party lines. I am co-chair of the all-party group on state pension inequality for women, along with the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous). Will the Leader of the House please guarantee that, in the first week back, DWP Ministers will come to the House and make a statement specifically on this issue? If not, what mechanisms does he think will be available to ensure that we make it happen?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The WASPI campaigners—they are in all constituencies—have campaigned hard and long in the cause that they support, and, as with all our constituents, they do so with the right to do so as part of parliamentary accountability. The ombudsman’s report yesterday is part of a process. It is not the end of the process, as there is more to come from the ombudsman. It is worth remembering that both the High Court and the Court of Appeal have supported the actions of the Department for Work and Pensions under successive Governments, dating back to 1995, and the Supreme Court refused the claimants’ permission to appeal. It was a move towards gender equality that was decided more than 25 years ago to make the state pension age the same for men and women, and that seems to me to be a good and justifiable policy objective.

As regards how to achieve this matter being debated on the Floor of the House, there is, of course, the pre- Adjournment debate later today. Otherwise, the hon. Gentleman knows very well how to get debates in this House: through the Backbench Business Committee; Opposition days, of which one has been announced; and, of course, Adjournment debates.