All 3 Debates between Ed Davey and Susan Elan Jones

EU Referendum: Electoral Law

Debate between Ed Davey and Susan Elan Jones
Tuesday 27th March 2018

(6 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Ed Davey Portrait Sir Edward Davey
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Indeed. I have written to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), to ask whether her Committee could hold a parliamentary inquiry into the different aspects that are not covered by the inquiry of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee. I seriously think that the House needs to augment and support the investigations by those independent bodies. We have powers in the House to bring people to the bar to discuss and to give evidence, and that is the right and proper thing to do.

Susan Elan Jones Portrait Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
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Does the right hon. Gentleman think it is an irony that the same Government who were so keen on the lobbying Act—to such a degree that small charities around the country were frightened of intervening near elections—and who are introducing voter identification and all sorts of ID, simply so that they catch the 29 people or however many it was who committed electoral fraud last time, seem remarkably lacking in concern over this?

Ed Davey Portrait Sir Edward Davey
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The hon. Lady makes a good point. The fundamental issue here is: did people in the leave campaign cheat? Did they break the law? That is what we need to focus on. The hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) made an analogy with athletes and sport. If athletes dope, we expect that to be investigated and then punished, whether or not that cheating affected the result of a race or any competition. It is the cheating and the breach of the law that needs to be followed through, whether or not it relates to the outcome of the referendum.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ed Davey and Susan Elan Jones
Thursday 19th June 2014

(9 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Ed Davey Portrait Mr Davey
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I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for her question, but let me just correct her. The market share of the independents is now nearly 6% compared with less than 1% in 2010. That extraordinary growth in such a short period shows the value of competition, with 1 million people switching to independent suppliers over the past year. However, she makes an important point about wholesale energy prices, and we discussed that at length yesterday. We have taken action both through competition and through supporting the competition inquiry, which has real teeth. That stands in stark contrast to the previous Government. When the Leader of the Opposition was doing my job, he failed to take any action, even though wholesale energy prices fell much faster than they are doing now.

Susan Elan Jones Portrait Susan Elan Jones
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The Minister seems to have forgotten that his party has been in government now for four years, and that last autumn the Which? survey showed that consumers have been paying almost £4 billion over the odds since 2010. Why does he not show a little courage and leadership and break up the big six when the evidence is all in favour of doing so?

Ed Davey Portrait Mr Davey
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Unlike the hon. Lady’s party leader when he was doing my job, we have referred the energy markets to the independent competition authorities for the most thorough investigation to check that they are behaving in the interests of consumers. More than that, unlike the previous Government who saw the number of energy companies fall from 15 to six, we have increased competition so that people have a real choice, and that is now working. There is still more to do, because the energy markets we inherited from the previous Government were in such a mess.

Postal Services Bill

Debate between Ed Davey and Susan Elan Jones
Wednesday 12th January 2011

(13 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Susan Elan Jones Portrait Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
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Will the Minister give way?

Ed Davey Portrait Mr Davey
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I want to make some progress, as I have a lot of amendments to deal with.

I was grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) for his welcome for most of the aspects of regulation in the Bill and for how we have sought to ensure that remote rural areas, particularly in Scotland, have the protections they need. However, I gently say to him that there is the requirement for letters to be delivered six days a week. If a parcel is ready to be delivered on a Saturday, Royal Mail will deliver it because a postman or postwoman would be going to that address anyway to deliver letters. I ask him to think about the practicalities of that. Where they are delivering in remote places to remote addresses, they deliver letters in vans. Where they are delivering in towns, increasingly in future, because of the roll-out of this programme, posties will use delivery trolleys. Those are being introduced as a deliberate reform in the way that letters and parcels are delivered. They are being brought in partly to ensure that posties can deliver parcels as well as letters. Given that there is already the minimum service requirement of six days a week for letters, I think my hon. Friend will be reassured on this point.

Amendment 14 to clause 32 is unworkable. It would add disproportionately to the burdens on the universal service provider and it would put at risk the health and safety of hard-working postmen and women. I am surprised the hon. Member for Angus wishes to do that. The exception in clause 32 has been in place for many years. It is in the European postal service directive. Removing it would put at risk the health and safety of Royal Mail men and women. I think he should think very seriously about that.

On amendments 23 to 26 to clause 33, the Bill is about protecting the universal service. Clause 30 enshrines the same minimum requirements in this Bill as are in the current legislation. The power in clause 33 to review the minimum requirements enhances the safeguards against changes to those minimum requirements. As the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Gordon Banks) had to admit, at the moment—his Government failed to acknowledge this—there are powers for the Government in this regard. We could, by negative procedure, move the current minimum service requirements down to the level of those in the European postal service directive. I think that is unacceptable, however, which is why we have added extra safeguards to the Bill. They include the requirement that should Ofcom make a judgment that it is in the consumer’s interests for there to be changes, and should the Secretary of State accept that, there would have to be votes in both Houses of Parliament. That is a very strong protection, and he ought to welcome it. Is he going to welcome it?