Oral Answers to Questions

Claire Perry Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I very much hope it will be won, as I think it would be inconsistent—this appears to be the position of the hon. Gentleman’s party—to vote in favour of the principle of reform but to deny this House the ability to deliver reform. That, in my view, would be a synthetic, skin-deep and cynical commitment to reform.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that the main dog’s breakfast around here is the financial inheritance left us by the Labour party? Is he as proud as I am of the fact that we have cut its deficit by a quarter since the election?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I strongly agree. During the heated exchanges on House of Lords reform, I think we forget that the central purpose of this Government is indeed to rescue, repair and reform the British economy, which has been so severely damaged by the Labour party.

Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Claire Perry Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The point is that the Metropolitan police made that very clear to the Home Affairs Committee, but what I would say is what I have said all along: the police should pursue this without fear or favour. They should go where the evidence leads. They should arrest whoever they choose. They could not have a clearer message, or more support from the Government.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

Today is the anniversary of the moon landing—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Lady must be heard. I do not why people are saying “Ooh” when I call the hon. Member for Devizes. It is an extraordinary choice of response. I want to hear the hon. Lady.

[Claire Perry]

I agree, Mr Speaker. Today, people will know, is the anniversary of the moon landing, around which conspiracy theorists like to cluster. May I urge the Prime Minister, rather than listening to the vapid conspiracy hackgate theorists, to focus on the facts? What is he doing to toughen up the rules around the use of Chequers, to ensure that it is never used for slumber parties for media tycoons again?

[The Prime Minister]

I could see the development of a beautiful relationship there, just for a brief moment. I think, on slumber parties, if it is perfectly all right, I do not rule out my children having slumber parties, if that is acceptable to my hon. Friend, but I promise to leave Rebekah Wade out of it.

Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Claire Perry Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[John Mann]

We hear the same kind of abuse that I got following that debate—some of it to my face; some was behind my back. My proposal then—new Members might want to listen carefully to this—was that the House should debar the practice of flipping. If that had been agreed, it is eminently predictable that the issue of mortgages would not have been resurrected in the way that it was the year after. An acceptable solution would have been in place as would a coherent system of mortgages. However, the House was not interested in listening to that, because, despite the fact that my resolution was passed, even though I could not get a seconder—I had read “Erskine May” and I knew the procedures—the powers that be managed to bury its implications. It was not enacted and a high price was paid.

The principle at issue is simple—this is why I back the independence of IPSA: should we cede our ability to determine how the rules on expenses are set and managed to an independent body or not? I can criticise how things are done; indeed, I have and some of my criticisms were listened to but some were not. We can all take a view on what the system should be, but the principle remains: should we cede the authority to determine these matters to IPSA—an independent body—or not? That was the basis on which we legislated, and the motion, which would have been improved by my amendment, which unfortunately has not been selected, breaks that principle.

I oppose and shall vote against the motion because it says that MPs should have the power to determine such matters. That was the fundamental weakness in the previous expenses system. There is a lot of history and reason behind all this, but there is also reason for the state we are in. I remind the House that we are about to go through a series of court cases and that others might follow. The media will be full of that and so will our constituents. We are in that state of play because of the previous expenses system. The fundamental weakness was not just in the detail but in the principle: the public rightly hated the fact that we set our own terms and conditions.

We rightly broke with that principle and it was inevitable that a new system starting from scratch would have a lot of problems—some of us said so at the time and feared it. Whoever set up the system, whether it was this chap Kennedy with his IPSA, Sir Christopher Kelly with his committee and his review or any other body, it would have had significant problems because of the complexity of the arrangements. Arbitrary decisions will be made, as they are in every expenses system. When I ran a business, I set the system for my employees and contractors, and when I was a union representative, I negotiated and tried to improve expenses systems. Of course, there were arbitrary decisions that I thought unfair when I was operating within other systems, but there always will be in any independent system. This all comes back to whether we set the system. That is the breach point; the motion would break that principle and that is why it is fundamentally wrong.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

Many new Members on the Government Benches have no issue with the principle of an independent, transparent organisation. As someone who publishes all her expenses on her website, I entirely support the move. The hon. Gentleman talked about creating something from scratch. Rather than going out and buying an off-the-shelf system that could have been provided by numerous companies around the world, we have been compelled to reinvent the wheel and we have ended up with a square wheel that is gold-plated at best. Surely, the hon. Gentleman, with his business experience, will have come across multiple organisations that could have done that for 650 Members. We are not a multi-million pound organisation with hundreds of thousands of employees. We are a small organisation that is struggling to do the best thing by British taxpayers and our constituents. I totally support the motion that my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) has tabled as a way of doing it better.

[John Mann]

If the hon. Lady supports the motion, she supports a break in the fundamental principle on which we legislated. [Hon. Members: “Read it! It doesn’t say that. You can’t read.”] Would hon. Members like to listen? [Hon. Members: “Can’t you read? Read it!”] Hon. Members choose to shout abuse. Yes, I can read, I have read the motion, and I have seen what the principle is. Hon. Members should read the 2008 debate and see the problem with the culture of MPs trying to determine the detail of their own expenses.

I refute the point made by the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie), who moved the motion, that MPs cannot do their job under the new system. I can do my job under the new system as well as I did it in the past. Nothing is restricting me in the range of things I do, or in how I interpret and do my job. I put it to him that mine is not the least busy of offices, and I am not taking on the least onerous amounts of work. In my estimation, IPSA has improved month on month, and will continue to do so. That is the salient point when starting a new system. I can see only a few areas where further improvement would have a significant impact.

Oral Answers to Questions

Claire Perry Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Far too many private conversations are taking place in the Chamber. This is very discourteous and it should end.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

7. What recent progress he has made on his proposals for reform of the civil service compensation scheme.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

10. What recent progress he has made on his proposals for reform of the civil service compensation scheme.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

The Superannuation Bill, which will impose caps on compensation payments and permit the reform of the civil service compensation scheme, is proceeding through the other place. I remain confident of being able to introduce a new scheme before the House rises.

[Claire Perry]

I thank the Minister for that reply. More than 30% of the work force in my constituency are employed by the public sector, given the heavy proportion of Army personnel and Ministry of Defence civil servants. Many of the MOD civil servants are members of the Public and Commercial Services union. Has it come to the table and joined the negotiations, or does it still stand alone?

[Mr Maude]

Sadly, despite repeated invitations, the PCS has not come forward with concrete proposals. The other five unions engaged constructively and their proposals formed the basis for the new scheme that we have developed. I am sorry that the PCS, which represents so many civil servants, particularly lower-paid civil servants, has not chosen to take part in a constructive spirit.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Claire Perry Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We aim to have 110 Typhoons by 2020—the figures are all set out in the document—but clearly the balance between the two is something that we have to make decisions about. I think that one can see the general thrust, which is that we will be based around two fast jet types, the Typhoon and the joint strike fighter. I am sure that that is the right strategy.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

My constituency of Devizes is home to more than 10,000 soldiers, plus a huge number of families and MOD civil servants, many of whom will welcome some of the uncertainty that has been removed by the Prime Minister’s statement today but who will have great concerns about the detail underlying it—about the boarding school allowances, the Army recovery centre at Tidworth and so on. When will they finally get information about what will stay and what will be cut?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. We have not yet announced the full range of allowance changes. This is important—we are seeking some savings, and I do not hide from hon. Members the fact that this will involve some difficult decisions. There is one bit of reassurance—the Army is coming back from Germany, which involves 20,000 troops. I think that we spend something like £250 million a year on allowances for those troops in Germany. Obviously, having them back at home will change the cost structure and enable us to change some of the allowances, but we will be making further announcements.

Oral Answers to Questions

Claire Perry Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am sure my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary and his Ministers are happy to meet anyone who wants to discuss the state of the defence budget and the appalling legacy that we have been left. Of all the budgets that I have looked at, that is the one where we were left the biggest mess—£38 billion over-committed, and decisions taken that made very little sense at all. But the hon. Gentleman will be seeing a strategic defence review in which we properly review how we can make sure that we have forces that are right for our country, right for our interests and ensure that we protect our interests around the world.—[Interruption.]

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

I am afraid I have no props.—[Laughter.]

With only five years to go to achieve the millennium development goals, which are still way off track, what will the Prime Minister do to ensure that those critical promises are kept?

[The Prime Minister]

My apologies for missing the joke. Next time I will look more carefully. I did not know that we were allowed props, Mr Speaker, but obviously you take a more relaxed view of these things.

My hon. Friend raises a very important point and the conference—[Interruption.]

Superannuation Bill

Claire Perry Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman answers his own question when he says that the previous Government did nothing about the problem over the last 10 years. As for this new argument I am hearing expressed by Labour Members, that we had a large deficit in 1945—yes, we did, but we also had large cuts in 1945 and not least to the military because we had just won a war. There are no such easy reductions now because of the mess left by the Labour party—[Interruption.] I will take no lessons from what the hon. Gentleman shouts out from a sedentary position. At one point in the last three years, £8 billion was spent on redundancy payouts. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is willing to defend very high payouts, but we seem to be getting a reaction on the Labour side against any change to anything. It is a great pity that Labour Members do not engage in the process of trying to deal with the deficit as we Conservative Members do.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

I would like to focus on the average rather than the outliers, as that seems to elicit cries of outrage from the Opposition. It is an incontrovertible fact that if we look at the average redundancy payout and average compensation, we find that the average cost in the private sector in autumn 2008 was £8,981, while it was £17,926 in the public sector—almost twice as much. That demonstrates that we have reached a position where, on average, people are being paid twice as much to retire from the civil service as they are to retire from the private sector. There is nothing fair about that.

[Matthew Hancock]

It is always dangerous to give way to my hon. Friend, because she usually puts the point far more lucidly than one could oneself.

I was going to come on precisely to that point—my second point about fairness. Not only is it fair to deal with the deficit and, I think, unfair to give enormous payouts when we have to achieve other very difficult things, but fairness across the economy and across society is also important. The maximum payout in the mandatory private sector compensation scheme, for which this House legislated, is £11,400, yet the proposal is nowhere near that figure within the public sector.

It was interesting to note that when the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell), responded to an intervention about whether it was fair to have a similar sort of payoff scheme in the private sector as in the public sector, she effectively said that she was not in favour of equality. I thought that Labour Members were in favour of equality, but obviously not when it does not suit.

G8 and G20 Summits

Claire Perry Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The point is that for many years after our troops have left, we will have a strong relationship with Afghanistan that will involve diplomacy and aid, and perhaps even helping to continue to train Afghan forces. However, in answer to the question of whether we should be in Afghanistan by then in the way that we are now, with large-scale military deployment and all the rest of it, no we should not. We should by then have trained up the Afghan army and police force, and seen an improvement in governance, so that we can bring our troops back home.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

I read on page 3 of the G20 communiqué that fiscal consolidation plans should be credible and clearly communicated. Did the Prime Minister get the chance to read any of the weekend papers that suggested that the majority of the British people support the Budget and agree with some of the spending plans, which shows that our message is definitely getting across to all but Labour Members?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes the important point, which the International Monetary Fund also makes, that if we carry out fiscal consolidation and demonstrate that we have a plan and are getting on with it, that can enhance confidence. Confidence is the key to growth. If we are going to get people to spend and invest, they need to know that the Government have a plan for getting us out of the mess that we inherited, so that is key to getting our economy moving.

Oral Answers to Questions

Claire Perry Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That is a question that I am rather used to anticipating from those on the Conservative Benches. I think that even the most enthusiastic supporter of the European Union would recognise that the common fisheries policy has not been a success either in supporting our fishermen or in saving fish stocks. There are good lessons to be learned from other countries that have done better. I have to say though that that sometimes means some very drastic action in terms of closing some fishing areas altogether, but other countries have managed to do that and to regenerate their fishing stocks, so we will certainly take forward those negotiations on, I am sure, a coalition-wide basis.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that we have heard a lot about fairness from Labour Members today, but there is nothing fair about the legacy that the Labour Government have left us: the £75 billion of debt interest that we will have to pay, which we could have spent on public services in all the constituencies represented in the House, including my constituency of Devizes?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, which is that, if we do not take action to deal with the deficit, we will pay over £70 billion, not repaying the debt, but just on debt interest in five years’ time. Think about it like this: all the revenue gleaned from corporation tax—all the tax on every company making a profit in our country—does not even pay for half the debt interest bill. That is the mess that we have been left in, but this Government have the courage to deal with it.