Oral Answers to Questions

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The youth contract scheme is going to make a big difference to young people because it will, over the coming years, have 160,000 places for people in private sector firms. That will be far better than the failed future jobs fund, which in some cases had more than 97% of its jobs placed in the public sector. It will be up and running this year and it will make a big difference to young people.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Today is the anniversary of the birth of the great Scottish poet Robert Burns. Does the Prime Minister agree with Burns’s impassioned plea for the unity of our nation in his poem, “The Dumfries Volunteers”,

“Be Britain still to Britain true,

Amang oursels united;

For never but by British hands

Maun British wrangs be righted!”?

G20

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

A list in the action plan for growth and jobs specifically states that countries such as Canada, China and others could borrow more. They are set out in the communiqué, a copy of which is in the House of Commons Library.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Will the Prime Minister reassure the House that he will not take the advice of Opposition Members and increase the deficit to boost growth artificially? The consequent rise in interest rates and inflation would cause enormous damage to small businesses and families right across this country.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we went to the G20 summit arguing for a £20 billion increase in borrowing this year, or the increase that Labour supports of £87 billion over the Parliament, at the same time as saying that we were going to get out of the IMF, I think the G20 would conclude that we were completely barking.

Oral Answers to Questions

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I could not agree more. When I visited my local advice centre on Friday, I had a real sense of the strain and stress that its staff were experiencing. We have set aside a further £20 million of special funding for advice centres. There is also to be a short review to investigate what the Government can do to manage levels of demand on those working in that vital sector, and how we can make life easier for them.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that voluntary groups set up by people who do what they do because they want to, and because they have a lifetime of experience in the field—one example is Home-Start in my constituency—often fulfil their roles not only in a more cost-effective way, but better than others?

[Mr Hurd]

Absolutely. Value is reflected in two ways, in terms of cost and in terms of the effectiveness of the support that is given. In my experience, volunteer-led organisations enjoy a different level of trust among the people whom they are trying to help.

Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

To the best of my knowledge, the first I knew of it was on Sunday. We are now getting to the bottom of what this informal advice was, and when we have the information, we can make it available, just as we have been transparent about all the media meetings and all the meetings with the moguls about everything else. In the meantime, the hon. Gentleman should have a word with his party leader and ask him to be equally transparent.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that the vast majority of people in the country, whom we in the House represent, are absolutely fed up with this party political point scoring in the Westminster village, and that they will warmly welcome his setting up of the inquiries today and will hope that those inquiries can get on with their work and that the Prime Minister can get on with his work of improving the country’s economy and representing this country in the international field?

[The Prime Minister]

The British public are wise about this. They want us to get on with it and fix this problem. Frankly, they know that both parties have done a lot of sucking up to the media in their time. They want us to get on with it, work together and sort it out.

Oral Answers to Questions

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am aware that the Treasury is undertaking a consultation on that subject, but it did not come up in discussions at the British-Irish Council.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Pursuant to the answer that the Deputy Prime Minister has just given to the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid), does the Deputy Prime Minister not understand that his constant answer that negotiations with Commonwealth countries about reforming the Act of Settlement are ongoing sounds rather like an excuse for inaction, given that no Commonwealth country has shown anything but respect, reverence and adoration for our female monarch for the past half century?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I strongly share my hon. Friend’s—

House of Lords Reform

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

That is one of the many options available to both Houses to ensure that the deliberate imbalance between the two Chambers persists. As I have said, all the evidence from bicameral systems around the world indicates that that imbalance is perfectly well understood, whether the Chambers are elected or not.

On accountability, given that we are proposing single, fixed, 15-year terms, some Members have asked, “If someone cannot stand for re-election, how can they be held to account?” That is a reasonable point to make and a concern that I understand. It is important to strike the right balance between increasing the democratic legitimacy of the reformed Chamber and preserving its independence from the Commons, and these arrangements are essential for that.

The longer non-renewable terms ensure that serving in the other place is entirely different from holding office here, separate from the twists and turns of our electoral cycle and more attractive to the kinds of people whom we wish to see in the other place—people who are drawn more to public service than party politics and who are not slavishly focused on their eventual re-election. That system guards against—dare I say it?—an element of political selfishness, ensuring that Members of the other place are there to do a job, not simply to pursue their own electoral ambitions.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman has explained the accountability issue very well, but if somebody in the other place has no accountability, no electorate to whom to be answerable and no prospect of overturning anything that is done by this House, which is what the right hon. Gentleman has just promised, why on earth would anyone of any standing wish to become part of such a House?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As I know as a leader of a party, people are queuing up to get in there right now without elections, and I suspect that that will continue, because the House of Lords does an excellent job as a revising and scrutinising Chamber. There is a place in politics for people who do not want to become Members of this Chamber, but who want to play a role as serious scrutineers of legislation and holding the Government of the day to account.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Stuart Bell]

I certainly voted for an 80% elected Upper Chamber, but never on the basis of proportional representation—never! A number of votes were taken on that occasion, but Members who were present at the time know that they were no more than wrecking votes or wrecking amendments. [Interruption.] My right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting voted for every motion put to the House that night. [Interruption.] He said so earlier.

[Mrs Laing]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that he and every other Member has the right and the privilege to change their mind as circumstances change and that whatever the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) did or voted for in the past, he is entitled to vote for something completely different today?

[Sir Stuart Bell]

Just as Parliament does not bind its successor, I do not bind myself by a vote that took place in the previous Parliament.

Constitutional issues are the most important issues that the House faces tonight and that it will face in the future. The Deputy Prime Minister has said that this is a constitutional Bill, and he referred to it as such again tonight. It is so constitutional that it passes by the prerogative of the Whips, who cannot control how this House will vote when it comes to the abolition of a third of Parliament, as we understand it. Parliament, as we understand it, consists of the monarch, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. If we talk about democratic deficits for the Lords, when are we going to get around to the democratic deficits for the monarch? [Interruption.] If the Liberals wish to debate the democratic deficits of the monarch—[Interruption.] They should not say no. I am not going to see it in my generation, but future generations might see it.

I have witnessed anti-establishment of the Church of England views being put by Labour Members seeking the disestablishment of the Church through this constitutional debate. The time might come when someone says that there is a democratic deficit for the elected leader of this entire country. As I have said, these issues of constitutional importance cannot be dealt with by Government Whips or by a whipped vote on the Opposition side. The established Church has hardly been mentioned, but this is the reason why I have never voted for a 100% elected upper House. The established Church is part of our constitution. It is in every interstice of our life throughout the parishes of the land, and the Queen is head of the Church and Head of State. To start dismantling the established Church and to take away a third of the Parliament—and to keep the name of the House of Lords, when it will really be a Senate—is all part of the Government’s obfuscation, and they are being helped by my own Front-Bench team.

There will be a battle royal on this issue. If the Government wish that, so be it. If the Labour party wants to go down the road of proportional representation to allow the Liberal Democrats and their friends on our Front Bench to achieve for the second Chamber what they could not achieve for the first, it can count me out.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Stevenson]

It is established, but not represented in the House of Lords. Members of the House of Lords are appointed by Prime Ministers past and present, and there is still the hereditary element. The composition of the House of Lords has also been mentioned. It is interesting to note that the average age of a peer is 69 and that the vast majority live in the south-east of England. I am not ageist, and I have nothing against people who live in the south of England, but that demonstrates that there are pluses and minuses to the composition of the House of Lords. Ultimately, it is right and proper that the House of Lords should be democratically elected because, quite simply, we live in a democracy.

Secondly, there is a lot of talk about the experience, expertise and, indeed, wisdom of Members of the House of Lords. I fully accept that there are some very able people in the House of Lords, far more able than myself, but they would not lose their expertise by being excluded. They could still be members of commissions and produce reports for the Government. Lord Hutton recently produced a report on pension reform, but he did not need to be a Member of the other House to do that, so I am not so sure about that argument. More importantly, we forget that this Chamber, too, has expertise. We do this Chamber a disservice when we talk about the expertise in the other Chamber, because the same expertise exists here. Indeed, Members develop that expertise over the years they are here, and I see no reason why that would not be replicated in an elected House of Lords.

[Mrs Laing]

On my hon. Friend’s point about lord Hutton, if someone has expertise that we as a legislature need, the system he is describing would prevent them from exercising their expertise in Parliament.

[John Stevenson]

I do not believe that access to that expertise would be removed, because those people could still produce reports and be members of commissions and we could still debate their advice and act upon it.

Thirdly, there is the challenge between the House of Commons and the House of Lords, which could be termed the power struggle. Yes, the conventions will undoubtedly change and a democratically elected House of Lords might assert itself more, but I do not think that that would necessarily be a bad thing. Indeed, it might be a good thing for our democracy. Ultimately, to go back to where I started, in 1911 the Parliament Act gave primacy to this Chamber, and that will remain the case however the conventions change.

In 1911, an MP called Herbert Samuel said that there might be

“common agreement as to the necessity for a reform of the other House… But there is no common agreement as to the character of that reform.” —[Official Report, 2 March 1911; Vol. 22, c. 669.]

In many respects that has been the issue ever since. There is no perfect solution, but we must find common ground as best we can so that we can conclude the reform. One hundred years ago the Member for Carlisle voted for the Parliament Act and supported the reform of the House of Lords; one hundred years later the Member for Carlisle would like to see that completed and will support the reform of the House of Lords.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

I welcome the Government’s publication of the draft Bill. As many hon. Members have said this evening, the House of Lords needs to be reformed. Much in the White Paper is very good. We need to reduce the number of Members of the other place; to introduce mechanisms for retirement and for dealing with peers who never attend; and, for those of us who are disestablishmentarians, we need to consider the role of the bishops—it is not fair that antidisestablishmentarians get to use the longest word in the English language. I managed to use it in my speech anyway—that was my challenge.

The Deputy Prime Minister is right to modernise, but he is not right to destroy the House of Lords. We do not need a copy of this House, and not just because of the cost, or because normal people out there are not paying attention to what we are debating. Nobody will be paying attention if Andy Murray is still playing. The rest of the country knows what is going on at Wimbledon; only those of us in the Chamber do not have a clue because we are concentrating on the debate—[Hon. Members: “He’s through!”] That is wonderful news! A Scotsman is on his way to winning Wimbledon—[Interruption.] I shall correct myself. A British player is on his way to winning Wimbledon. We need something different from this House not just because people will be appalled at the creation of a few hundred more full-time politicians—that is abhorrent to the man in the street—but because the value of a bicameral system is that the two Houses should be different from one another. They should be complementary, but not a mirror image.

The value of the House of Lords is its cumulative wisdom and experience. Most of its Members have unique value to bring to the House and to Parliament precisely because they are not elected, and not politicians seeking votes. That is their independence and strength. Make them stand for election, and they will become politicians, when they will lose their independence and their unique value.

Election is not the only route to democratic legitimacy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) rightly said, many people are part of our working democracy, and in their valuable, well-held positions, through methods other than election. What matters is not democratic legitimacy, but democratic accountability. That does not come about because someone is elected for one long term, with no opportunity for re-election.

If the House of Lords is elected, the delicate balance between our two Houses will be destroyed. No amount of assurance or clauses in Bills or examination of the Parliament Act will change the reality of that. It matters not that the Deputy Prime Minister says that the balance will not be changed; we all know that it will. Changing the House of Lords changes Parliament as a whole, and we should be considering the future of Parliament as a whole.

In their 13 years, the previous Labour Government tinkered with the constitution for short-term political gain. I have every confidence that this coalition Government, when they consider the consequences, will not make the same mistake.

In his conclusion, the Deputy Prime Minister said that in a modern democracy people must choose their representatives. That is absolutely right. We in this House of Commons are those representatives. The House of Lords is not the representative of the people. The Members of the House of Lords are not the people’s representatives: they are something different, and long may they remain so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

It is worth bearing in mind the fact that the Department for Communities and Local Government has secured £6.5 billion of funding for the Supporting People programme, which will include accommodation for vulnerable people, including domestic violence victims, over the next four years. That equates to an average annual reduction over the four years of less than 1% in cash terms. In addition, I can reassure the hon. Lady that the issue continues to be a high priority for the Crown Prosecution Service and the police. The evidence to date suggests that despite the difficult financial climate, the success rate for prosecuting this type of offence continues to improve.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Will the Attorney-General agree that, contrary to recent media distortion, Members on both sides of the House take crimes of violence against women very seriously indeed? Will he further assure the House that the Government will continue to support alleged victims of rape and that he will do all he can to ensure that justice is done in cases that are often very difficult to prosecute?

[The Attorney-General]

I can assure my hon. Friend that that is the position. The provision of specialist co-ordinators and rape prosecutors, the issuing of stalking guidance and the effective monitoring of the measures we have put in place will continue. As I said in answer to the earlier question, the evidence suggests that the good work done by the previous Government is being successfully continued. I want to emphasise that both in terms of the volume of prosecutions and their success rate.

House of Lords Reform (Draft Bill)

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. A great many hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye. Brevity is therefore of the essence.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Does the Deputy Prime Minister appreciate that there will be a warm welcome for the fact that he is introducing a draft Bill? We look forward to its being thoroughly scrutinised by the Joint Committee. Will he please explain how the balance of power between the two Houses of Parliament will change when an elected second Chamber competes with this House and its Members for democratic legitimacy?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We discussed this in the cross-party Committee. It is precisely to avoid competition between the two Houses that the Bill and the White Paper propose different systems of election, different geographical constituencies—the Lords would not represent constituencies in the way that we understand in this House—and non-renewable 15-year terms. Bicameral systems in other countries show that, as long as the mandate and the term in one House are very different from those in the other, an asymmetrical relationship can be preserved.

Libya and the Middle East

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is being slightly unfair. These are not easy things to get right, and we did well in the case of Egypt. Clearly, there are lessons to learn here, and I do not think it a complicated process. There are a number of steps, as I have said, regarding defence assets, redundancy and the use of scheduled flights, and I think we can learn those lessons relatively quickly. I think it a relatively straightforward and easy thing to do.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Given that Colonel Gaddafi’s recent behaviour is no surprise to anyone, does the Prime Minister understand that the vast majority of people in Britain share his anger that the previous Government, in collusion with the Scottish Government, did all they could to secure the release of al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber?

[The Prime Minister]

I have put this on the record many times: I think it was wrong to try and facilitate that release. The British Government should have taken a clear view that that was the largest mass murder in British history and that that person should die behind bars. It would have been a clear view; it would have been the right view; and it would have taken the country with them.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

If my hon. Friend will allow me, I will make some progress.

The House of Lords has now asked us to consider the matter again, after voting to reinstate the original provisions. It is only right, therefore, that I briefly report the reasons that it gave for doing so, and explain why I do not believe that those reasons are sufficient to change the clearly expressed view of the House of Commons. First, though, let me deal briefly with the suggestion made by the Lords that it was necessary for this House to consider the issue again because we had not given it proper scrutiny.

The House of Commons has debated the issue of thresholds on a number of occasions, and has voted conclusively against the principle twice. We specifically considered the merit of Lord Rooker’s proposal. During the Lords debate, Lord Falconer suggested that I had misrepresented it, but I thought that I had made myself clear when I said that his amendment sought to make the referendum result indicative should turnout fall below 40%, rather than ruling out implementing the result altogether. My point was that this proposal is a threshold nevertheless, and I make no apology for making the case against it yesterday.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

The Minister has just referred to two occasions on which the House has debated thresholds. Both times, the amendments under discussion had been tabled by me. I believe that thresholds are appropriate in the context of such matters as referendums. However, I accept that my amendments were defeated by the House of Commons, and that the will of the House of Commons must prevail. The House of Lords should accept that too.

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support. I am sure that her clarion call will be heard at the other end of the building.

This morning Lord Wallace made the important point that when a referendum poses a yes/no question, a turnout threshold effectively makes every abstention a no vote. A number of noble Lords supporting Lord Rooker’s amendment suggested that that would not be the case with the kind of threshold that he had proposed. Let me make it clear that it would. Under his amendment, abstentions would still mean that a yes vote might not be upheld. The amendment would still create an incentive for those who favour a no vote to stay at home. Those who favour a no vote might well think that abstaining could create a low enough turnout to see off a yes vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

My right hon. Friend is right. I shall come to that point.

The Minister is still trying to obfuscate over the threshold and suggest that in some way it would negate the proposals in the Bill. What is unusual about the proposed referendum is that the Government are making it binding. Normally under our constitution, referendums have been advisory to Parliament, not binding in their outcome, and that includes the devolution referendums that were mentioned. The difference in threshold in the Scotland and Wales Bill back in 1979 was that it required 40% of those voting to vote in a certain way.

All the amendment does is say that if 40% of people fail to vote in total in the referendum, Parliament should reconsider the matter. That is an entirely different and reasonable position and in keeping with the traditions of our constitution that referendums are advisory and not binding, particularly when turnout is so low.

The amendment that we are sending down to the House of Lords is an insult to the other place. The Minister’s puerile explanation of it and the cursory way he dealt with the amendment that he is now asking us to vote for was a complete insult to our intelligence and that of the public.

I am afraid that when one lifts a stone in this place, procedurally what one sees underneath is sometimes quite unpleasant. Constitutionally, the Minister had to table an amendment, but instead of putting down a serious amendment that attempted to meet the House of Lords somewhere along the line of compromise, he tabled the parliamentary equivalent of a colouring-in book; he had to fill it in with something and so produced this puerile and meaningless amendment. It is an insult to the other place and to our intelligence. They sit there on the Front Bench, hairy man and smooth man, abusing our constitution. The Government should try to meet the other place somewhere on the spectrum of compromise. That would have been the reasonable thing to do and in line with our constitution.

As someone who will vote yes to AV in the forthcoming referendum and encourage as many people as possible to vote, I think that the idea that this House should not even have the constitutional right to look at the outcome of the referendum if only a very small number of people vote is an insult to democracy.

[Mrs Laing]

The arguments of Lord Lamont and his colleagues in the other place are absolutely right, as was everything the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) said this evening; I would repeat them in my remarks, but time will not permit me to do so. Sadly, those two rights are incompatible, because the choice before this House this evening is no longer about AV referendums and thresholds. I hate AV and do not want this £100 million referendum. I have always been in favour of a threshold and have said so many times in this House, but that is not the choice before us.

Sadly, the choice before us is between a Labour Government who ruined this country’s economy over 13 years and a coalition Government between the Conservatives and the Liberals that will give the country the stability it needs to recover from the dire economic situation. This referendum on a simple majority, which is stated in the coalition agreement, is a high price to pay for that stability. I, for one, agree to pay it with a very heavy heart.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am slightly troubled by my hon. Friend’s remarks, because I was unaware that this had been put down as a confidence motion.

[Mrs Laing]

I appreciate my hon. Friend’s intervention. It is not a confidence motion, but sadly it is for some of us who have loyalty to the Prime Minister, because we are Conservatives first and foremost and want to see the stable government that is now being provided in every area other than constitutional development. We want to see that stable government and so must support our Prime Minister and his coalition. For some of us, it is done with a heavy heart, but that is the price that the Liberals have sought in order to improve their party political advantage. The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton is absolutely right that we ought to have a threshold, but it is too late. The Bill is at its end. Let us just get on with the process of having a referendum and ensure that the British people see it for what it is and do not vote to change our constitution.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

With the greatest respect to the hon. Lady, for whom I have great respect, I think that that is one of the saddest contributions that she has ever made in this House.

Earlier today, the Home Secretary came to the House and said that, in the making of laws in this country, Parliament is superior to the courts, but here we are, going for the lowest common denominator—the survival of a coalition Government. In reality, however, that cannot be so. Is the hon. Lady suggesting that, over this issue, for which there is no appetite in the country, the Liberal Democrats would actually pull down the Government? Is she suggesting that, in actual fact, the Deputy Prime Minister would leave his gilded office over such an issue? I suggest that he most certainly would not.

[Mrs Laing]

The hon. Gentleman is right; I do not disagree. He is right also about it being my saddest speech. I hated making it, and this is a dreadful situation to be in, but my suggestion was not about the Deputy Prime Minister, but about the Prime Minister, who gave his word that there would be a referendum. I wish that he had not, but he did.

[Dr McCrea]

The Prime Minister giving his word to the Deputy Prime Minister is one thing; what counts is the Prime Minister’s word to the people of this United Kingdom. Our Prime Minister has no appetite or conviction for this legislation at all. This is a grubby deal simply to keep a party happy, and to keep its Back Benchers happy at this time, but on a major constitutional issue such as this, is that the way in which we run our country? Is that the way in which we are supposed to make our decisions? On a previous occasion, the question was asked, “Would the coalition collapse if this issue were defeated?” The answer, if I can remember, from the Deputy Prime Minister was no, so to try to suggest that it would collapse is not factual at all. If it were, I suggest that it would be blackmail, and we cannot blackmail hon. Members of this House.

What we are here to ensure is what we, by conviction, believe is best for the country, not the lowest common denominator. So, I ask this question: where is the pressure coming from for this legislation or for AV? It is certainly not coming from the Conservative party, or from the Prime Minister, because he takes the very opposite view. It is simply coming from a few members of the Lib Dems, who believe that, from now on in, they can hold the country to ransom. They hope that, as far as governing is concerned, they will hold the balance of power in any election that follows.

The hon. Lady had better remember, and let us make no mistake, that if the Lib Dems thought that, in order to keep their ministerial cars after the next election, a coalition would be better with Labour, they would join a coalition with Labour. They are not doing this out of conviction; they are doing it for personal, petty position, and I suggest that that is a ridiculous way of dealing with such a constitutional issue.