Connecting Europe Facility

Debate between Chris Leslie and Peter Bone

Thursday 19th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

I do not agree with my hon. Friend that the break-up of the euro would be in the UK’s interests, but there are dangers with a permanent deflationary lock in the fiscal policies of the eurozone countries. That is why, both in the UK and across the eurozone, far more must be done to get growth into those economies. They have to grow in order to build their way out of the hole that they are in. In that sense, the ambitions, which many people share, of improving infrastructure across the EU, while laudable, need to be seen in the context of the affordability criteria that must be applied to them. We have to act to unblock the clogged arteries of Europe, connecting the major cities of the continent, making it easier for business and opening new opportunities for growth in the single market. Capital investment in infrastructure is extremely important as a driver for growth.

What progress are Ministers making in shaping the European spending review? That is absolutely at the heart of today’s debate. After December’s phantom veto—the first veto in history that stopped precisely nothing—the UK has to pick up the pieces and try to influence the important EU budget process. The Minister was throwing around history lessons about the common agricultural policy and various other things. However, we need to know what exactly this Government are going to do about the common agricultural policy. What is he going to do about the spending proposals? Rather than walking away before the negotiations even begin and leaving another empty chair, the Minister has to raise his voice, build some alliances and secure a more appropriate level of expenditure that also shifts priorities.

[Mr Bone]

We have an excellent shadow Minister, who is always on top of his brief, but I do not think he was here when Tony Blair gave a commitment that the CAP would be reformed, so that our net contributions to the EU now would be at the same level as they were then. Clearly that was wrong. Would the hon. Gentleman and his party support our most excellent Minister going into battle and saying, “We’re not going to pay any more than our initial subscription was to the EU”?

[Chris Leslie]

I did not quite hear that from the Minister. If that is the Government’s position—perhaps the hon. Gentleman has a hotline to the Prime Minister on these matters—I would be very interested to hear it.

I agree that the proposed budgets for EU institutions are still too high. Export refund practices have to be cut back. We have to change agriculture policy so that it is fairer to smaller farmers and ends the ridiculous tobacco and wine subsidies that are lavishing payments on some of the very wealthiest players in the wealthiest EU countries.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Leslie and Peter Bone

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

This is indeed a conundrum. We are misaligning the calendar of the House of Commons with the fiscal year. We have managed to cope historically, but I do not have an answer. I would have liked deeper consideration of the proposals in a form that could be properly debated, rather than to find ourselves confronted with these motions on the Order Paper. I genuinely understand the Government’s problems. I do not wish to be obstructive, but I think it important to take some time to review what are, after all, arrangements that have been in place for many hundreds of years.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The shadow Minister is making a powerful speech. Is not one of the dangers—we hear it often—that the Government want to do something on the surface for very good reasons, but at the same time what happens strengthens the Executive and reduces the power of Parliament?

[Chris Leslie]

The hon. Gentleman has hit on an important point. If we have a too relaxed approach to the parliamentary calendar, we could see a repeat of the situation whereby this House of Commons is especially busy for a couple of months, but is then twiddling its thumbs for several months longer—perhaps when the Government are struggling to get their business through the other place.

The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) asked the right question: how should we proceed from here? I understand the arguments in favour of some of the proposed changes, but I wish that the Government had devoted more time and care to discussing the issues through the usual channels and allowing the problems that had been raised to be considered properly and thoughtfully.

It would be useful if the Minister answered some questions, because I remain to be persuaded. For instance, why should not consideration of a Finance Bill start a month or so later? I am not suggesting that that is necessarily the solution; I am merely speculating on what the consequences might be. We could still have a Budget in March, but proceedings on the Finance Bill proper could start immediately after the Queen’s Speech in May, at the beginning of the new Session. That might be preferable to a Committee stage taking place for a couple of weeks immediately after the March Budget, followed by an elongated break and then a return to the Committee stage about halfway through the clauses that had previously been under consideration. There is, of course, virtue in avoiding a disruptive period of down time in the middle of a Committee stage. I should like to know whether the Government and, indeed, the Procedure Committee have thought about that.

Will the Minister elaborate on the proposals in motion 2 on carry-over of Ways and Means legislation? He has not chosen simply to amend Standing Order No. 80A to remove the reference to Ways and Means. Instead, an attempt seems to have been made to copy and paste carry-over provisions in respect of other Bills into a new Standing Order relating specifically to Ways and Means and money Bills. As far as I can see, however, various elements have not been transposed: for example, Standing Order No. 80A(3), which provides for no more than one Bill to be subject to a carry-over motion, and (4), which prevents a carry-over motion to apply to a Bill carried over from a previous Session. There seems to be nothing technically in place to prevent a Finance Bill that has been carried over from one Session from being carried over again to another. I accept that such a development may be very unlikely, but I do not understand why it was not covered in the copy-and-paste exercise. It could be described as the Schleswig-Holstein question squared, and I should be grateful if the Minister could seek some inspiration in order to clarify the point.

I have heard the Minister argue about the move to the automatic Third Reading of Finance Bills on the same day as Report each year. He says that that it has been happening for 100 years—which, according to my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), may mean that it is too early to tell whether it is working. Even if it is normal practice, the Government have at least had the courtesy to table a motion seeking the House’s permission, rather than assuming that Third Reading shall always take place on the same day as Report. However, I feel that the practice may erode the purpose of Third Readings as a distinct stage in the passage of legislation. It may be entirely pragmatic, but although I am willing to be persuaded otherwise, I do not think that consequences of some of these changes have been properly thought through.

Can the Minister explain the rationale for the omission of the backstop date applying to the three days allotted to the consideration of estimates? I understand that he is changing the date from 5 August following line-of-sight discussions after the passage of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011—that makes sense—but why not simply shift the date forward to February or March rather than omitting it altogether?

The Minister also said that he proposed to put back the “roll-up” day for the modification of estimates by only five or six weeks—to, I believe, 18 March—which strikes me as a fairly arbitrary choice. He also touched on the fact that we would lose one of those modification days, as the number would be reduced from three to two. It is a small point, but, again, I wonder whether it should have been considered in more detail.

I have total respect for the Procedure Committee and its Chairman, who engaged in informal discussions with the Leader of the House about the proposals and did not object to them, but—with the greatest respect—I wish that the proposals had been subjected to more adequate scrutiny, and to some form of challenge or review. There have been no public hearings or discussions, and no report has been provided to enable parliamentarians to digest and consider the proposals.

I believe that the changes require serious consideration, because they could have profound and unintended constitutional consequences. I have not yet been convinced by the Minister that we need to rush them through before the Christmas recess, although I shall wait to hear what he has to say. He has, in a statesmanlike way, withdrawn motion 7, and I wonder whether it would be wise for him also to seek to withdraw the carry-over proposals. Perhaps he could ask the Procedure Committee to consider the issues relating to those proposals in more detail, because, as yet, I am not fully persuaded that it would be responsible to support them.

Loans to Ireland Bill

Debate between Chris Leslie and Peter Bone

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

I do not necessarily wish to pour more congratulations on to the shoulders of the Minister—that would not be doing my job correctly—but in the spirit of Christmas I have to acknowledge, albeit begrudgingly, my appreciation of manuscript amendment (a), which the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself has tabled. I like to imagine him poring over the Order Paper, happening upon my amendment 1 and immediately thinking, “I must accept that amendment, but the drafting is not quite right,” and therefore rewriting it in his own fair hand. However, I suspect that several dozen parliamentary draftsmen and women were involved in the process. As the Minister said, the intention was indeed to ensure that when we report every six months on what is happening with the loans, we are talking not just about the aggregate amount of the payments made and the interest, or about the sums that are returned, but about some of the other dimensions.

As the Minister said, the reporting arrangements as set out in the Bill do not exclude the ability to make the reports more comprehensive. Indeed, we ought to state at this stage that we would appreciate as much data being contained in them as possible. One piece of information that I would have found useful is the remaining term of the loan, although that is a small point; given how small it is, I am grateful that the Government have conceded it. Perhaps I should regard this as a famous victory for the Opposition.

[Mr Bone]

No, for Parliament.

[Chris Leslie]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. Just at what I thought was my moment of great glee, he took it away from me. Nevertheless, I will take some satisfaction from what the Government have decided.

I was trying to listen carefully to the Minister’s statement on amendment 2. As a lone traveller trying to amend the legislation, I might have misread the wording of clause 2, but I still do not quite understand the sequences of subsection (4), which states:

“No report is required to be prepared or laid in relation to a period if—

(a) no payments…are made…

(b) no sums…are received in the period, and

(c) no amount of principal or interest in respect of an Irish loan is outstanding at the end”.

I could not see any circumstances where paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) would simultaneously apply. For example, if no amount of principal or interest were outstanding, how could there be any circumstances where, under paragraph (a), payments had been made or, under paragraph (b), sums had been received? Surely if no report is required when no amounts are outstanding, the conditions under subsections (4)(a) and (b) are redundant. Looking at the drafting of subsection (4), it would be easy to imagine the parliamentary counsel becoming entangled in an arcane discourse on ontological logic. There are several twists to the double negatives set out in the drafting.

As a layman reading subsection (4), I could not see why paragraphs (a) and (b) were necessary, when they must be concurrent with subsection (4)(c), given that (4)(c) states that there is nothing left owing, according to my reading of it. If each of the three paragraphs were alternatives, or contrasting, perhaps using the words “either” or “or”, that might make sense. They are conjoined, however, by the non-contrasting linkage “and”, suggesting that each of the three conditions must be fulfilled simultaneously, and I am not quite sure that I follow that. Perhaps the Minister needs to walk me through it one more time. I do not wish to press this matter to a vote, because I am sure that there is a higher drafting power at work here, but as I read it, I could not see any circumstances in which paragraph (c) would be true simultaneously with paragraphs (a) and (b).

In general terms the reports will be important, not least because we need to see the terms of the loan that the people of Ireland will have to repay, as well as the amounts of money that the British people will have in return for adding to our national debt. There is a whole series of other questions to which I would eventually like answers. For example, what is the aggregate amount of interest that we expect to be paid by the Irish Government, and what is the impact for us in this country?

As I have said, it is a shame that the summary of the terms of the credit facility was deposited only at the eleventh hour, and I hope that we will have another opportunity to scrutinise it at another time. For the time being, however, that was the purpose of amendment 1, and I am grateful to the Minister for his acceptance of the first amendment that we tabled.

Finance Bill

Debate between Chris Leslie and Peter Bone

Thursday 15th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bone]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, but I know that I will get into trouble if I respond to it in detail. I suggest that he turns up in the Chamber when my private Member’s Bill is considered on 4 February 2011, so that we can have that debate.

My hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary has an historic opportunity today to stand up and make a name for himself and this Government by encouraging people to take out insurance.

[Chris Leslie]

I am glad that we have had the opportunity to debate these important tax changes. I have the greatest respect for all my constituents and the British public generally, but when we talk about financial matters such as pensions, savings and insurance, there is a tendency in the British culture for the fog to descend and for people to say, “Well, these things are very complicated and I don’t quite understand them.” A lot of people therefore get trapped by their own inertia in certain policies, bank accounts or pensions, and they do not necessarily shop around to get the best deal. I am afraid that insurance products are in the group of services to which our constituents sometimes do not pay attention. I urge members of the public to examine their policy documents and payments closely because insurance can represent a significant cost, although it is a merit good and something that we should encourage people to take out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Leslie]

There will be consequences if, because of the extra cost of a family holiday, our constituents are disincentivised from going abroad or travelling. The Chancellor of the Exchequer’s imposition of a holiday tax is something that I hope many travel pages in the Sunday newspapers and supplements will focus on, perhaps by modelling the costs for a typical family. About £400 million of travel insurance business is carried out in this country each year, and that accounts for a significant part of not only the insurance industry, but the economy more generally.

[Mr Bone]

I am being won over by the hon. Gentleman’s speech. He argues very strongly against tax rises, and he has won me over on that. Indeed, I should be happy to vote against those increases, but, given the problem with the deficit, can he suggest some other public expenditure savings to make up for them?

[Chris Leslie]

That is a reasonable point, but I should not want to stray beyond the terms of the amendment, suffice it to say that the hon. Gentleman asks a reasonable question, because if we agree to the amendments we might be forgoing revenue to the Exchequer. My view, which he may have heard before but I am happy to share with him, is that the banks should not gain £400 million cash-back from the corporation tax reduction that they will enjoy.

Canterbury City Council Bill

Debate between Chris Leslie and Peter Bone

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I am glad to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), but after that rather long point of order I wonder whether we should reprise what we have covered so far, perhaps for half an hour or so, to get us back into the swing of our debate about pedlars. Time is short, however, and we want to reach a conclusion tonight.

I want to put on the record that if it were not for my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), we would not be here tonight. His forceful and persistent standing up for the right of a minority of people in this country is to be welcomed.

The decision the House has to make tonight is whether to support the revival of these Bills. In principle, I am against reviving Bills. I start from that basis, because if a Bill’s promoters have not been able to get it through since 2007, perhaps there is something wrong with it.

That is where I start from, therefore, but there are other issues. First, I believe we should listen to the Members who represent the constituencies where the Bills are being promoted. I commend in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) because he has attended every debate I have been at on the pedlar issue, and he has always represented his constituents with great zeal. I appreciate that, and I note that he has made it clear to the House that the promoters have listened and will remove clause 11 from the Canterbury Bill. Although I have some concerns about clause 5, at least there has been some movement, and I understand that the Bill still has to be discussed in the other place. I am therefore inclined to say we should support the Canterbury Bill because of the local input and that movement. That is the way things should happen, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he has done.

I cannot, however, say the same about the Nottingham Bill. The two new Members, the hon. Members for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) and for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie), have done their best tonight, but in the previous Parliament I sat through many hours of silence from Nottingham Members, and I am not entirely convinced that I know enough to say that the people of Nottingham want this Bill. I intervened on the hon. Member for Nottingham South when she was making her speech to ask what the feeling is in the city. Is there great demand for this in Nottingham? Which organisations want it? Does the council want it? Are people marching in the street demanding that pedlars be removed? I was also a little concerned that it sounded slightly as if this was a money-making exercise for the council, with huge fees for sites.

There is another issue that worries me about the revival of these Bills. My hon. Friend the Minister has made it clear that there may well be a national framework in a number of months, and it seems that if we stop the Nottingham Bill no more money will be spent by that council—no more taxpayers’ money will be wasted. Also, if the European Union, that wonderful organisation for which I only have praise on so many occasions, is actually ahead of the game, then that is good. We have to weigh these issues up in our minds in deciding on these matters.

[Chris Leslie]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman cannot be distinguishing between the Nottingham and Canterbury Bills on the basis of the different political complexion of the Members concerned. I am sure that that would be entirely wrong and inappropriate. However, I assure him that, as elucidated in previous debates, there are strong reasons in favour of the Nottingham Bill, so I refer the hon. Gentleman to the previous debates.