National Audit Office
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
I am delighted to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I warmly welcome the Prime Minister’s motion. I declare an interest in this subject, because although I was not part of the selection process at all, Dame Fiona is a constituent of mine. I know her and have met her on a number of occasions. She will make an excellent candidate, for the reasons I am about to give—my right hon. Friend will be grateful to know that I will do so briefly. She has had a role in academia, recently being Master at Emmanuel College, having gained a first at Cambridge. For 10 years, she was well known as the director of the National Trust, building its membership from 10 million to 19 million. As the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee has said, she was part of government. In the Cabinet Office, she formed a new unit which brought the ideas of gender equality to a range of government initiatives.
As well as being in academia, government and non-governmental organisations, Dame Fiona has had a range of business appointments, with Wessex Water, the Grosvenor Estate, the BBC and John Lewis. She brings a wealth of experience to this job and she will bring an inquiring mind. She is a highly bright person who will be there to challenge and work with, on an excellent basis, our Comptroller and Auditor General, Gareth Davies. All in all, her appointment will be a benefit to this House, to the Government and to this country.
Oral Answers to Questions
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
The Prime Minister
Yes, indeed; it is absolutely crucial that we do that. There is a big catch-up plan that my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary is going to be announcing very shortly. It is vital that kids catch up on the education that they have lost, but even more vital, as I think I may have mentioned to the House already this morning, that the kids who can go to school should go to school. Would it not be a fine thing, Mr Speaker, if we heard from all parts of the House that schools are safe to go to, rather than the wibble-wobble we have heard from the Opposition this morning?
Oral Answers to Questions
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I thank the hon. Lady, and I can assure her that the Government are indeed embarking on a plan to do everything we can to make sure steel made in this country has all the competitive advantages we need. She makes some excellent points. In the particular case of Liberty Steel, I understand that whatever happens —it is a commercial decision for that company—all those affected will be offered an opportunity to remain within the GFG Alliance by joining a new company.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
The Prime Minister
Yes, the Cotswolds needs broadband and the Cotswolds is going to get gigabit broadband. That is why we are putting £5 billion into the roll-out of gigabit broadband. My hon. Friend asks for a deadline and he will get it—2025.
Grenfell Tower Inquiry
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
If I may, I will continue, as it will be important for the House to hear the whole context in which these criticisms and points are being made.
The so-called “stay put” policy is the bedrock on which all plans for fighting fires in tall residential buildings are based. Building regulations are supposed to mean that fires cannot spread beyond individual flats, because they are compartmented. When that is the case, it is indeed safest for most residents to stay in their homes until the fire is extinguished, but at Grenfell that was not the case. The fire spread widely and rapidly, up, down and across the tower.
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman is making an important point, as the whole House knows. As I said at the outset, that is among the issues that will be addressed in the second part of Sir Martin’s report, but I will say a little bit about it later on. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise that issue.
While brave firefighters led many people to safety from inside the tower, Sir Martin concludes that the chaos and confusion meant that some calls for help were not responded to until it was too late.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I have visited Grenfell Tower twice to sympathise with the relatives, but I have also been able to see at first hand how firefighters in these complex situations risk their lives. I had a meeting only yesterday at the Fire Service College in my constituency, which provides worldwide training for every type of fire officer. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we owe it to our firefighters up and down this country to enable them to have the very best training?
Early Parliamentary General Election Bill
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown ExcerptsTuesday 29th October 2019
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Michael Tomlinson
That is one of the key points. Thursday is the traditional day, but it is indeed important to ensure that the civil service is up and running in Northern Ireland, and that is the main reason why I will support this measure if it comes to a vote.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to catch your eye. I intend to make a very short contribution to this important debate. I am delighted to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson). He is one of the up-and- coming Members, and he has made some useful and telling points.
This is the fourth time Parliament has been asked to hold a general election. The nation has been in schism, unable to do anything worthwhile as the dreadful problem of Brexit hangs over us. I should have infinitely preferred this Parliament to have sorted the Brexit problem out so that we could have left the EU on 31 March, before holding a general election, but the fact is that we have not sorted it out, and we are now in this position.
We are in this position because the coalition Government, under my right hon. friend the then Member for Witney, passed the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, which the Bill seeks to amend. That Act was passed in a very different time. It was passed with the purpose of ensuring that the coalition could not end early, and it was passed in undue haste, without proper consideration of what the consequences might be in a situation in which there was no overall majority in Parliament. I think that one of the first things that whoever gains a majority in the House after the election will want to do is revisit the Act to see whether we want to alter its provisions so that we never get into this situation again.
As I have said, for too long this Parliament has been paralysed. It has been three years and four months since we held the referendum.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I think that it seems an eternity.
Indeed, 80% of Members voted to trigger article 50, and most Conservative and Labour Members produced manifestos in 2017 in which they pledged to honour the result of the referendum, yet Parliament has still not resolved the matter. I am therefore delighted that we appear to be moving to the likelihood that the House will pass this Bill tonight. The only question that remains—posed by the Opposition’s amendment 2—is whether we will have an election on 9 or 12 December.
My marginal preference is for a Thursday election. As many Members have already said, Thursday elections are a long tradition for a number of very good reasons. Mention has been made of problems with booking halls and rooms that would be big enough for the count, but I think that most competent authorities can deal with that. Indeed, I know from discussions with my local authorities that they have already booked the venues. Those in charge of the schools, halls, libraries, garages, pubs and community centres in which the polling stations will have already been warned and will have already agreed that they can manage an election some time in December.
I take the point about the need to complete Northern Ireland business. I should have thought that we could do that on Thursday if we are to prorogue on that day, but it is vital for it to be completed, because it gives legal authority for public funds to be drawn down.
We can all discuss the pros and cons of the 9th and the 12th, and that is an important part of the debate. I think that there are some pros and cons. The 9th is marginally farther away from Christmas; however, although the venues have already been booked, an election on the 12th would give electoral registration officers a little more time to confirm those bookings, put their staff in place and make other preparations.
The staff do a terrific job during elections. We could not run an election without them. I have talked to them often during the seven elections that have taken place since I was first elected, and I know that they work incredibly hard. They often arrive at 6 in the morning and do not leave until well after the close of the polls at 10 pm. Often in my constituency—I hope no village or parish will take offence at this—the village hall is very draughty and cold, and I have seen them there pretty cold, and I would think they could be, in December, in a pretty cold situation, so I hope that they will have plenty of heaters to keep them warm.
An election now is absolutely essential. We need to resolve by a general election, through a full franchise, and by electing a new Government, a new Parliament, a new Executive, who will have the authority of that general election to resolve the Brexit question once and for all. I sincerely hope that we re-elect a Conservative Government with a good majority, so we can get it resolved.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
I will preface my remarks about the choice between Monday 9 and Thursday 12 December by simply saying, “Thank God that this House now appears to be resolving the issue.” I say, “Thank God,” as the co-chair of the all-party humanist group, so I perhaps do not have quite the same certainty about the deity as many hon. Members and friends will have, but I think it is incredibly important for us, in our responsibility for all public servants in the United Kingdom and the national interest of the United Kingdom, to resolve the problem between the legislature and the Executive. We have got to a place where ordinary public administration is now extremely difficult to effect because of the uncertainty in this place and the impossibility of the Government actually carrying a coherent programme. So I say, “Thank God” advisedly.
I also say, “Thank God,” Dame Rosie, because of the selection made by you and your colleagues under the Chairman of Ways and Means for this debate, to ensure that it is properly focused on the in-scope issues of the Bill, because obviously the temptation for any piece of legislation to then have attached to it any number of different issues in a Parliament as incoherent as this one in terms of its make-up is self-evident. The discipline brought to our proceedings today is enormously welcome.
I also say, “Thank God,” because of what the selection means for the amendment passed earlier to the programme motion. I managed to miss that vote as I was engrossed in conversation with Baron Williams of Oystermouth about drugs policy and other issues. I was so engrossed in the conversation, and so grateful for getting hold of him after four months to be able to have a conversation with him, that I literally screened the bells out of my mind and so missed that vote. I confess publicly my error and, having thought missing an important vote is impossible for any competent person to do, I put that on the record with due appropriate humility for being so distracted. So there is a godly reason for having been so distracted: the former Archbishop of Canterbury.
I want to put in a word, however, for the poor old electoral registration officers, who will be faced with the challenge of doing an election in pretty short order at a difficult time of year. To ask them then not to go on the customary day of Thursday, and to do it on a Monday instead, will produce all sorts of challenges in terms of their normal availability and polling stations and anything else that would be available on a Thursday customarily. A point was also well made—I have forgotten which colleague did so, but I think that it was made by an Opposition Member—about the need to engage on Sunday to prepare for Monday. Again, we should think to at least some degree about the burden that they will have to carry in preparing for all this.
Then we come to the whole issue of advancing this election by three days. I am as anxious as anybody else to get our governance in the United Kingdom back on a sound footing, so that there is a sound coalition arrangement if a majority is not secured, although I am confident that we would win a majority at a general election. That is obviously part of my enthusiasm for us getting on and getting it done, but no one can take that for granted, as we learned from 2017.
Crispin Blunt
The hon. Lady makes an extremely powerful point and speaks to the general thrust of my argument, which is that we will be better able to deliver sound public administration if we give ourselves these three extra days. In terms of parliamentary procedure, if there are unconventional measures that the House is agreed upon, it should be possible to get some of them through with an extra 72 hours, but that would not be possible if we curtailed ourselves with an election date of 9 December.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
One of the pieces of legislation that my hon. Friend talks about is the Domestic Abuse Bill, on which there is widespread agreement across the House. Does he agree that it should be perfectly possible to agree to get the Bill through either before we dissolve, in the wash-up?
Crispin Blunt
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. If we have non-contentious legislation, the three extra days will be of enormous help in assisting the tidying up of our processes than would otherwise be the case.
There has been a discussion about students and about whether their being at university on 9 December or 12 December would make a significant difference, and that was dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson). The bulk of universities break up after 12 December anyway. We also know that the National Union of Students ran an extremely successful exercise to mobilise and register the student vote at university, which saw seats come into play that no one could have conceivably expected, such as Canterbury.
Preparations for Leaving the EU
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
In order to accommodate as many hon. and right hon. Members as possible, I am now looking for short questions without preamble and comparably pithy replies.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
We have been extremely generous to 3 million EU citizens residing in this country at the point of no deal. Surely our EU partners could be equally generous in providing assurances for 1 million-odd of our citizens living in Europe. They have been threatened with having to reapply for residence next year, and they do not know where they stand.
Brexit Negotiations
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
As the right hon. Lady knows, there is a unique situation in Northern Ireland under the Good Friday agreement, and what we are proposing today gives this country the opportunity to develop and intensify that, but I am willing to listen to her pleas for the Senedd and I will consider them closely.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
I believe that this represents a significant step towards breaking the deadlock, which businesses and the vast majority of the people want to see. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that, in the spirit of goodwill now generated on both sides of the channel, he will negotiate 24 hours a day exhibiting every flexibility to get a deal?
The Prime Minister
I will strain every sinew, Mr Speaker. In fact, it was only my desire to appear before you and the House today that restrained me from going off to other European capitals and selling this project.
Priorities for Government
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I will indeed commit to that approach, because I think that is the right way forward. If I may say so, Nissan in Sunderland is the most efficient plant in the world, and what a fantastic thing that is. Just in the past few weeks, as the hon. Lady will have noticed, BMW has announced a huge investment to build electric Minis at Cowley and Jaguar Land Rover has put £1 billion into electric vehicles in Birmingham. That, by the way, is how we will tackle the climate change issue—not with the hair shirt-ism of the Greens but with wonderful new technology made in this country.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
May I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend on lifting the mood of the nation? Will he look at the record amount of funds going into education, to address not only the funding going to further education but the distribution among the highest-funded and lowest-funded education authorities?
The Prime Minister
That is of course what we are doing. That is the nature of the pledge and the undertaking that we are making with the £4.6 billion that we have announced. The objective, as I think Members will know by now, is to lift per capita per pupil funding to a minimum everywhere of £4,000 for primary school pupils and £5,000 for secondary school pupils.
European Council
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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The Prime Minister
We have already indicated our intention to ensure that Parliament has a greater role in relation to the future relationship by accepting, as we said on 29 March, the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell). Elements of this are about the political declaration, but there are also elements that are about what we do here in this House in UK legislation to ensure that we are entrenching objectives for that future relationship. Of course, the negotiation still has to take place with the EU on that future relationship, but there are many steps that we can take here in the United Kingdom to give confidence to Members of this House.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
The Prime Minister’s resolve—especially with her lack of sleep—in trying to persuade this House to come up with an acceptable solution to our Brexit problem is to be highly commended. In return, will she continue to resolve to press our European partners for the only thing that has had a majority in this House, namely the Brady amendment combined with the Malthouse compromise?
The Prime Minister
The position on the withdrawal agreement has been reiterated by the European Council, but of course the point of the Brady amendment was that alternative arrangements should be in place that could replace the backstop. One of the things that we have agreed with the European Union is a timetable for work on those alternative arrangements. As I indicated earlier, the Government have committed funding for the work that is necessary to ensure that we will be in a position such that, at the end of December 2020, the backstop would not need to be used and that, if interim arrangements were necessary, those alternative arrangements would be available.
Exiting the European Union
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Ah, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown has come among our number. [Interruption.] Somebody sneezed. I think it is in excited anticipation of the hon. Gentleman’s contribution.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
This is an exciting moment. My right hon. Friend gave an answer to the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) that if the deal is not voted through tomorrow, we will vote on no deal on Wednesday and an extension of article 50 on Thursday, in accordance with the Prime Minister’s statement last week. Will the converse apply? If we vote for the deal tomorrow, will there be sufficient time before 29 March to get the necessary legislation through the House?
Mr Lidington
We would do whatever we could to achieve that. In that happy eventuality, discussions will open immediately through the usual channels to seek agreement on the swift passage of the Bill.