Oral Answers to Questions

Anne Main Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The richest in our country are going to pay a higher percentage of income tax under this Government than they did under the last one. The right hon. Gentleman sat in that Government and had an opportunity to do something about it, but all the time he was a Minister, the top rate of tax was actually lower than it is going to be under this Government.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that if a community is obliged to take a strategic piece of infrastructure, there should be agreements for payments and compensation for any blight that is caused by a nationally important piece of structure like a rail freight interchange?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. That is why section 106 agreements exist. We need to keep this under active review, particularly with a view to how we are going to handle fracking and shale gas, for instance, where we might need a simpler and more direct mechanism to make sure that communities feel the real benefit of things that benefit the economy overall.

European Council

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am always there upholding the national interest. I have never walked out of a room, but I have on occasion said no and I think that is sometimes the purpose of a Prime Minister.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend said in his statement that there are “questions of national sovereignty” and that this will “alter the European Union for all of us”. Are there any debates in public about this newly created eurozone? What animal will be created and what national sovereignties will be lost? We need to know the being of which we are part.

[The Prime Minister]

The point I would make to my hon. Friend is that there are clearly lively and vigorous debates in eurozone countries, because they are at the sharp end and can see absolutely that there is a battle over national sovereignty, how much say they will have over setting their own budgets and how much of those budgets will be determined by the European Commission. Part of what was discussed by the eurozone at the Council was effectively a set of future contracts whereby countries might have to enter into a contract with the European Commission about their future budgets. There is a very live debate in those countries. We are not in the eurozone, so we are not affected by those contracts, but my argument is that change in the eurozone has knock-on effects for the organisation of which we are a full member and that is why it is so important for us to consider these issues.

European Council

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support. I think it is a bit premature to raise this new spectre, as it were, but I certainly enjoy working closely with the German Chancellor, and there are many areas—not just the EU budget—where we agree very forcefully.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I do not think I have a particularly odd postbag, but I have never had one letter, e-mail, conversation or text that has encouraged me to ensure that we keep up the EU wine budget, ensure that the bureaucrats have a comfy lifestyle and increase their budget left, right and centre. The Brussels sprouts and turkeys of Europe will not be voting for Christmas. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his firm stance and say more power to his elbow. I believe that my constituents are typical.

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support. On this side of the House at least we will go on arguing for a tough settlement.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the hon. Lady knows, a lot of ink, paper and official time has been consumed, not just by this Parliament and Government but by previous Governments and Ministers who have sought finally to crack the conundrum of how we introduce more democracy to the House of Lords. The hon. Lady is right: if she and her colleagues had decided to back us on the timetable motion, all that ink and paper would not have gone to waste.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

What message does the Deputy Prime Minister think it sends to the public when he votes in favour in principle of boundary changes but then, when he does not get what he wants, he throws his toys out of the pram and rejects the whole thing?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

With the greatest respect to the hon. Lady, I feel slightly as though we are looking at the matter from opposite ends of the telescope. The problem has arisen because of the refusal of her colleagues and others to will the means to deliver something to which she is committed, under not only the coalition agreement but successive Conservative manifestos. I have been looking at the long pedigree of commitments in favour of an elected element in the House of Lords in Conservative party manifestos going back to 2001. Interestingly, the 2005 Conservative manifesto states that

“proper reform of the House of Lords has been repeatedly promised but never delivered.”

That sounds more like a prediction than anything else.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It will be able to discharge that considerable authority with greater legitimacy, and therefore it will be harder for the Executive to ignore the opinions of the House of Lords. I would have thought, if I may say so, that it was a long-standing Conservative principle that it is the people who should be in the driving seat and the Executive who should be kept on their toes.

The third reason to support the Bill—

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I shall make some more progress.

The third reason to support the Bill is simple practicality. The House of Lords cannot carry on on its current path. We need to reform the Lords to keep it functioning, and we need to do it soon.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I will make a little more headway, and then of course I will give way.

Democracy, better laws and the urgent and practical need for reform are the three reasons why Members of this House should give the Bill their blessing and wish it a swift passage into law. Before addressing some of the concerns about the Government’s proposals, I would like to make the point that the Bill, although it has been introduced by the coalition Government, in many ways is not just the Government’s Bill. These reforms build on the work of our predecessors on both sides of the House. As with all the best examples of British constitutional reform, the proposals look to the future but are respectful of the past. Veterans of these debates will know that the coalition parties cannot claim full credit for the reforms presented here. If we go back to the White Paper produced by the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) in 2008, the late Robin Cook’s “Breaking the Deadlock”, the House of Lords Act 1999, Lord Wakeham’s royal commission and everything that went before over the past 100 years, it is clear that these reforms have a long bloodline that includes all our parties and political traditions.

[Mrs Main]

Does the Deputy Prime Minister not see that there is a degree of inconsistency between his view that we in this House are too powerful and therefore need neutering by the House of Lords and his voting to maintain the strengthening of the Executive and the boundary changes by keeping the number of Ministers yet reducing the number of Back-Bench Members of Parliament?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

One of the Bill’s intentions is absolutely not to neuter the House of Commons, but to work in partnership with the House of Commons in holding the Executive to account. I would have thought that Members on both sides of the House would celebrate and support anything that means that Parliament as a whole can hold the Executive more fully to account. Indeed, in 1910, when Government proposals to limit the power of the House of Lords were introduced, it was Winston Churchill who said:

“I would like to see a Second Chamber which would be fair to all parties, and which would be properly subordinated to the House of Commons and harmoniously connected with the people.”

He ended by saying:

“The time for words is past; the time for action has arrived.”—[Official Report, 31 March 1910; Vol. 15, c. 1572-83.]

More than 100 years later, I could not agree more.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sadiq Khan]

It is not for me to get involved in private family grief.

It is simply not clear how any dispute about the use of powers or appropriate interpretation of conventions could be adjudicated or effectively enforced? We think the Bill will need to play a more active role in addressing powers and conventions, particularly if we are to placate the legitimate fears of colleagues on all sides and in both Chambers. Failure to do so risks storing up big problems for the future.

[Mrs Main]

I should appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s comments on the function of this apparent second House. Does he share my fear that when the majority of its Members are elected and a small proportion will be appointed, there will be a divided second House some of whose Members will have more power than others? When it comes to a tied vote, who will really win?

[Sadiq Khan]

The hon. Lady raises one of the issues that need to be resolved.

EU Council

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I completely disagree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind). With the chaos in Europe, there has never been a better time for other EU members to mind their business, not ours, and now is the right time to try to have a debate with them about which powers we would like to bring back, before we have any form of referendum.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. The argument that I would make is that although there may well be opportunities because of the needs that other EU members currently have, respecting the fact that they are fighting a fire in the eurozone, which is their urgent work that benefits us if they can deal with those bond spreads, deal with those banks, deal with those problems, the right time to consider institutional changes is as institutional reforms and treaties come through.

G20 Summit

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I can certainly give the right hon. Gentleman that assurance. The referendum of the Falkland islanders will help us to deliver that in practice as well as in theory. Let me say to the right hon. Gentleman that if he writes me a letter, I shall try to respond to it very speedily.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I share my right hon. Friend’s concerns about the sovereignties and powers that may be given over by some of the weaker countries. I am concerned that we are not having a debate about what sort of chimera will be created by those who will mop up those powers and sovereignties, and I urge my right hon. Friend to speak up strongly on the European Council this week. May we have a debate when he returns from the Council, to inform the House exactly how we are being protected against this newly created large superstate?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Of course there will be consequences if the eurozone members go ahead and form a more integrated eurozone, and it is very important that we protect Britain’s interests, particularly our interest in having a fair and open single market. On the issue of how we debate these things in Parliament, the Backbench Business Committee took over all the days for Back-Bench debates including, as I understand it, the time that was previously allotted by the Government for European debates in advance of European summits. So if the Backbench Business Committee wants to put in such debates, I am sure Foreign Office Ministers would be only too happy to answer those debates, which would help inform me before I go off to European Councils.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne Main Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

Yes. As the hon. Gentleman might be aware, a consultation is taking place. An informal consultation procedure has now ended and a formal consultation procedure on any final decision on Athena house will follow. The argument for relocating a large part of the casework units to Leeds, in my judgment, cannot be argued against because, with the reduction in numbers resulting from the savings that have to be made, maintaining critical mass and having a regional hub makes sense, but I would like to reassure him that the need to maintain a presence in York is also accepted, because of its importance as the headquarters of North Yorkshire.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. If the hon. Lady’s intended supplementary question refers to York, it will be in order. If it does not, it will not.

[Mrs Main]

Staffing numbers are a huge concern in the CPS. Will the Solicitor-General meet me to discuss what impact that might have had on the case of Mrs Swarnapali Timmann, who is concerned—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Does the question relate to York or other locations in York?

[Mrs Main]

It may do.

[Mr Speaker]

And it may not. The hon. Lady has got her point on the record, but it requires no answer. [Laughter.] I am glad that the House is in such a good mood.

Outsourcing (Government Departments)

Anne Main Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Westminster Hall

[Jonathan Lord]

The hon. Gentleman is making a delightful speech in favour of socialism, the big state and the state always providing, whether nationally or locally. He talks about the utilities and so on. British Telecom is not perfect, but I remember as a young man when one had to wait weeks and weeks, if not months, to have a phone installed, and I think there was a choice of about three phones. As soon as BT was privatised, it saved taxpayers’ money and gave a much better service to its customers.

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that I am sure that he would like to give the Minister enough time to respond to the questions that he has asked.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I would, indeed—thank you, Mrs Main.

There is an awful lot to explore in relation to the subject, but I want to pose a number of questions to the Minister. I want to ask about the evidence. Given that the survey evidence shows that the public seem to reject the individualist consumer approach to public service, why are the Government pursuing that? Can he point to specific pilots or evidence of its success? What protections are in place to stop the spiralling costs of redundancies during this transition period, for example, in the national health service?

In respect of the decentralisation agenda, what specific standards are being developed to ensure accountability, equality of access and provision nationally? With this new landscape of competing service providers from different agencies, with different forms of accountability, how will the needs and interests of service users with complex and multiple needs be protected? I am thinking about the social care sector, where needs dealt with by different providers often require integrated services.

Will the new accountability measures apply to private and voluntary sector providers? As we know, they remain outside of the scope of the Freedom of Information Act. What direct accountability will there be to elected representatives and democratic institutions, nationally and in respect of local government, when such public services are outsourced?

Party Funding

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

It is indeed time that this matter was cleared up. I look forward to the hon. Gentleman’s enthusiastic support for putting a cap on donations, including donations from the trade union movement.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I hope the Minister will stick to his resolve not to pick the public’s pocket on raising any levy for political parties, just as constituents of mine have expressed annoyance that the unions pick their pockets and all the funding is used to support the Labour party, despite their political allegiance.

[Mr Maude]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. We will remain absolutely resolute on that. I just hope that the time will come before long when the Labour party realises that being in the pockets of the trade union movement is no way for a grown-up party to behave.