EU: Withdrawal and Future Relationship (Motions)
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Lord Field of Birkenhead(5 years ago)
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Mr Sheerman
No, not Marx. I will give the House another clue: he was our first Prime Minister—
Mr Sheerman
Yes, Attlee. He is almost canonised, but anyone who wants to know about the confusion on Europe in the Labour party should read about Clement Attlee. He wanted to reject Europe and continue expanding trade with the colonies. The divisions on Europe in the Labour party were deep, mirroring in part what has happened more recently in the Conservative party. It was Harold Wilson, who came from Huddersfield but was never Member of Parliament for the town, who called the first referendum because of the deep division between left and right in the party, especially with Tony Benn. The result was the innovation, which I much regret, of referendums under our constitution.
I will support all four of the motions this evening, because this is the beginning of a process. We are in a bitter and toxic period. In my nearly 40 years in Parliament, I have never seen such nastiness in the streets, on social media and in the way we treat each other in the House, referring to each other as traitors. I hope tonight we can start the process, by voting for some of these positive motions. Of course, in the end I want to stay in the European Union, but I am willing to meet people halfway and to build bridges.
All the time I have the national interest at the back of my mind. Someone asked me at the weekend, “What is the national interest? The Prime Minister keeps talking about it. The Conservative Prime Minister who first got us into this mess has disappeared and now another one is going to disappear.” The national interest is for this House to come together and replace the vacuum we have had from the present leadership in the major political parties. I say that reluctantly, but it is true. It is time we had that leadership, but until we get it again, the House must pick up the baton and run with it. I hope that tonight will start that process.
BHS
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Lord Field of Birkenhead(7 years, 6 months ago)
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Frank Field
Indeed. Whatever the legal issues, there is a mega, mega, mega-moral responsibility.
Let me conclude my third theme of this Greek tragedy. Here we see—we have seen him before us in this place—a man who has everything in life and risks losing everything important in life: his standing and how his friends regard him. He does so because he seems somehow unwilling to surrender a modest part of his mega-fortune, but that modest part would make such a difference to those pensioners who are still awaiting their fate.
I turn to my fourth theme: what is being tested through our report, starting with our debate today? First, Members will have a chance to comment on how two of their Committees have carried out their work. I really hope that Lord Pannick’s rather appropriately named report, which would begin the Americanisation of our Committee system in which we would have no role, because all the lawyers would just take over and we would sit there like puppets, will be strongly resisted. I know other Members will want to talk about this “judgment”, but Lord Pannick’s report has shown that if you pay a lawyer, and they are friends of yours, they will come up with the opinion you want. That report does nothing for the legal profession. It is interesting that within moments of publishing this supposed report, Lord Pannick had to admit that he was very close friends with two of the key players whom we examined in this undertaking.
There are clearly questions about the Pensions Regulator that people will touch on today and the Work and Pensions Committee will look at. Are the organisation’s legal powers up to the increasing challenge that it faces? Does it have the right staff? Is it run with the right culture, and if not, what needs to change? Of course, the latter would be much more difficult to deal with than changing legal powers or getting the right staff.
What are the lessons for the Government? My hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) has already mentioned one lesson, which I have now learned—perhaps I should have done so long ago. I had somehow thought that private companies govern the future destinies of only a few employees at a time. Wow, was I wrong about that, considering Sir Philip Green’s empire in BHS, with all those 11,000 jobs destroyed, and the jobs at stake in Arcadia? My hon. Friend’s point about corporate governance is mega. It is a theme that fits in with the Prime Minister’s wish that in trying better to protect the vulnerable, soft underbelly of British society, we must look at how capitalism behaves in this country.
I have two more brief points. First, how do we ensure the independence of the bodies that are put into operation to try to recover the assets of a company that has gone down like BHS? Very important questions have been raised in respect of the recovery operation for BHS. Secondly, if we needed to address the staffing, powers and approach of the Serious Fraud Office, given that we are still waiting to know how it is going to respond, how would the appropriate Committee, and then this House, do so in a non-threatening way?
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
My right hon. Friend is making a very good speech. He touched on the professional advice that was given to Sir Philip Green. Part of that issue is the ongoing problem that we have with how the big consultancies operate in our country—Grant Thornton in this case, and in others—and the fact that the Serious Fraud Office increasingly depends on those consultancies.
Frank Field
The quicker I finish, the quicker my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) will be able to deal with that matter and how his work on it has evolved.
This is the first time that I have stood before the House since I was elected Chairman of one of its Select Committees. I thank the House for electing me to that position. Despite the hard work, it has been a pleasure, particularly in relation to the work in which we, as comrades, have been involved during this inquiry.