House of Lords Reform Bill

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate, although regretfully it is to express my opposition to the Bill. It is a pleasure to follow many of my hon. Friends who, despite their considerable loyalty to the Government, feel compelled to reject this piece of political vandalism. They have eloquently outlined the numerous faults in this ill-conceived Bill and I shall add briefly to their arguments.

The Bill contains rushed, illogical and poorly constructed proposals which bring no discernible benefit to Parliament or to the nation. I am struck by the arrogance of the Bill’s proponents who, neglecting the relative brevity of their place in the long history of Parliament, seek to force through a Bill with unknown consequences for the future governance of this country. Constitutional change stands apart from other legislative Acts, and to seek to limit the time spent debating such significant and irreversible change is an insult to this Parliament, and could be seen as an attempt by the Bill’s proponents to force through what they must know to be at best unjustified, and at worst indefensible, change.

Surely the supporters of the Bill have recognised the weaknesses of the arguments that they advance. They must acknowledge, for instance, as already mentioned on many occasions today, the fallacy of suggesting that senators elected for a single 15-year term, with no chance of re-election and no chance of entry to the Commons or of deselection, will be accountable to the electorate. Even hon. Members who passionately support the creation of a fully elected House of Lords must see that for the half-baked illogical muddle that it is, creating powerful and in reality unaccountable senators cloaked by the illusion of accountability.

In the light of the Bill’s multiple flaws, one has to wonder what motivates support for this reform. It would be of little credit to hon. Members, for instance, if a Bill of such scale and magnitude were to pass simply as some grubby trade-off for boundary reform. I hope Members across the House will act not on short-term interests, but with a mind to the enduring consequences of reform, for I strongly doubt that in years to come the creation of an expensive, unaccountable and constitutionally unbalanced House of senators will be seen as much of a legacy for this Parliament, and it is certainly one with which I would not wish to have my name associated.

I want to talk about what I believe would be lost if the Bill succeeds. I remember that one of the first events that I hosted in Parliament was as the newly elected Chair of the Navy group of the all-party group for the armed forces. Coming from a Navy family and a Navy constituency, I thought I was quite safe in my knowledge of the subject, until I realised that at that dinner I would be joined by three former Secretaries of State for Defence, two past Chiefs of the Defence Staff and a former First Sea Lord. I believe that 17 Lords previously held one or more of these roles and bring an incomparable level of knowledge and experience of our armed forces to the upper House.

That pattern is replicated throughout the Lords, with experts from medicine, law, diplomacy, MI5 and MI6, charities, business, the arts and many other fields. They bring an unparalleled wealth of expertise and experience, and as the Mayor of London said, despite what might be described as their more mature exterior, they bring a depth of wisdom that allows them to see even the most minor flaws in the legislation which it is, after all, their job to scrutinise line by line.

[Conor Burns]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful point about the difference between this place and the other place—that in the other place, in order to win the vote, one has to win the argument. That is not always the case in this Chamber.

[Caroline Dinenage]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. After speaking to many Members of the House of Lords, I know that most would not dream of putting themselves forward for election. After, in many cases, a lifetime of experience, working their way to reach the very top of their chosen field, why would they submit themselves to what is, in effect, a popularity contest? They will not, and their experience and knowledge will be irrevocably lost.

It is a great sadness to me that there seems to be a generation of MPs who have never worked in anything other than politics, yet who now presume to sweep aside people with decades of hard-earned experience in their chosen field, to replace them with party political favourites. As a Conservative and as a reformer, I acknowledge that the House of Lords is in need of change to cut down the size, to weed out the cheats and criminals, and to introduce a more independent process of selection, but all that can be done without recourse to this ill-conceived, unwelcome and damaging reform Bill. It is therefore with a heavy heart that I urge hon. Members to vote against the Government and to reject the Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

Gift aid and all matters relating to tax are a Treasury matter. My hon. Friend will be aware that gift aid is under constant review, and in the 2011 Budget some welcome initiatives were brought in to make gift aid easier to claim for small charities and small donations.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

8. What recent assessment he has made of the work of the behavioural insights team.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Hurd)]

The team is headed by a steering board which is chaired by the Cabinet Secretary. In September 2011 the team published an annual update of its first year, and a two-year sunset review will be conducted by the board in summer 2012.

[Caroline Dinenage]

What financial saving does the Minister estimate has so far been made by this initiative?

[Mr Hurd]

The team does some very interesting work on encouraging behaviour to change in cost-effective ways. If my hon. Friend looks at the annual report, she will see some good examples. For instance, by slightly changing the wording in letters sent out by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to self-assessment taxpayers who owed money, the team increased payment rates from 68% to 83%, which is estimated to lead to savings of £30 million a year in administrative and court costs if rolled out across the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Maude]

I will tell the right hon. Gentleman exactly what we are doing about it: we are following the processes set up by the last Government.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

T7. What assessment has the Minister made of last year’s National Citizen Service pilots?

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me take the hon. Lady’s question in two halves. She is entirely right about the scandal of the PIP implants. The Government have made it absolutely clear that we will offer every one of those women a free consultation and ensure that we do everything we can on the NHS to help them. It is an absolute scandal, and the private clinics that carried out those operations should feel the maximum pressure to undo the harm that they have done.

On the issue of greater competition and choice within the NHS, I think the hon. Lady should listen to past Labour politicians who have themselves said that actually, greater choice, greater competition and the involvement of the private sector can help to raise standards in our NHS system. That is why we should support it.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

Q10. The threat to shipbuilding jobs at Portsmouth dockyard places a question mark over not only 1,500 livelihoods at BAE Systems but 32,000 jobs in the wider regional supply chain. I know that the Prime Minister shares my concerns about that, but will he commit to do all he can to protect that site, where they have been building warships for more than 500 years?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to speak up for Portsmouth, for her constituents and for shipbuilding. BAE Systems has not approached the Government with any proposal to rationalise shipbuilding in the UK. As far as I am aware, no decisions have yet been taken by the company. On this Government’s commitment to the Royal Navy, we are building the new frigates, the global combat ship and the hunter-killer submarines. We have plans for replacing Trident, and plans for aircraft carriers are well under way. That is a major punch for the Royal Navy, which I strongly support.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As it happens, in opposition we continually made the case against an over-centralised NHS that was not responsive enough to the needs of communities and patients, and insufficiently accountable to them. That is why we are giving more power, not less, to local authorities, particularly in the area of public health, and why we are giving more financial authority to GPs, rather than less, because they know patients best—[Interruption.] Hon. Members say “The private sector”, but it was the Labour party that rigged the market through the introduction of independent treatment centres to force private sector providers in the NHS. Through the reforms, we will ensure that there is a level playing field, on which public, voluntary and private providers can compete.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

T4. Does the Deputy Prime Minister share my belief that the will of this House to equalise constituency boundaries and reduce the number of MPs should not be frustrated by the grotesque spectacle of former Labour Members, who have been rejected by the electorate, leading a filibuster in the other House?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is indeed a spectacle to see on the television that former Members of this House who were virtually monosyllabic here have become so very loquacious in the other place, particularly late at night, to block a simple measure that was one of the great campaigning themes of the Chartists in the century before last—namely that all votes should be of the same value and that all constituencies should be roughly the same size. I think that everyone in the country would agree with that principle, except for Opposition Members.

Public Bodies Reform

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

The hon. Gentleman encourages me to have a very good look.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

In Gosport, we face the prospect that our outstanding Navy engineering training school at HMS Sultan will move to St Athan in Wales under a massive and unnecessarily expensive private finance initiative. What will happen to some of the other outrageous PFIs that quangos have entered into, such as the National School of Government?

[Mr Maude]

As we spend more time in government and pick up stones, we find quite a lot of contracts in place that make one wonder a bit about the diligence that Ministers took in exploring them at the time. Going through the detail of contracts is not necessarily the most amusing way to spend one’s life, but it is rather important because there is a lot of public money involved; the body to which my hon. Friend refers is one such example.