Oral Answers to Questions

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this case. First, may I offer my sincere condolences to Marie Heath and her family following the tragic death of her son Lee last year? I know what a distressing time this will be for them as they travel for the trial in Germany. The Foreign Office will do everything it can to support Marie and her family. I have to say that I have been quite impressed by what the Foreign Office does in cases like this. I think that it shows sympathy and understanding, and I will make sure that that is carried through in this case as well.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

Q14. Twenty-five per cent. of our constituents suffer from musculoskeletal diseases. The National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee believe that we could get better outcomes for those people at lower cost if a clinical director was appointed to co-ordinate things in the NHS. Will the Prime Minister agree to meet charities representing those people, with me, in the near future?

[The Prime Minister]

I will certainly look carefully at the case that the hon. Gentleman makes. One of the points of the NHS reforms that is perhaps not yet fully understood is the idea of having public health budgets properly ring-fenced, properly funded and with properly employed directors of public health in each area, which will help in many of these areas.

EU Council

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That is a very good point. We know that the leader of the Labour party is committed to joining the euro, if he is Prime Minister for long enough. At the same time, if he supported this treaty—but frankly we have not heard today whether he is for it or against it—and joined this treaty he would make his own policy illegal and he would be fined by the European Commission for the policies that the shadow Chancellor, who I see is now not here either, has signed him up to.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

rose—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The House will want, without exception, I hope, to hear Mr Graham Stringer.

[Graham Stringer]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Europe would not be in the economic and political mess that it is in now if we had not had to wait nearly 40 years before a British Prime Minister came back and said that he or she had used the veto. Can the Prime Minister tell us how, and when, he is going to repatriate some of the powers that have been so carelessly given away?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support. As I said, we have brought back the bail-out power. We have prevented Britain from joining this treaty without the safeguards. I believe there will be opportunities in the future. There are areas, particularly in terms of costly regulation, where Britain has paid a high price for European regulation, and we should use future opportunities to act on that.

G20

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. First, in getting greater competitiveness across Europe, this is the most important thing that Europe could be doing right now: completing the single market, completing the market in energy, completing the market in services and making sure our economies are competitive. The point he makes about the bond market is vital, too. The fact is that if you do not have credibility, you cannot borrow money at low interest rates, and if you do not have credibility, interest rates go up. That would be the worst thing to hit your economy.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

At summit after summit, the Prime Minister has argued to support a monetary union he does not really think is appropriate for this country and in which he does not believe, so that stability can be brought to Europe and the world. That has failed. How many more failures will it take and how many more summits will there be before he argues for what is really right for Europe: for those countries to return to their original currencies?

[The Prime Minister]

I have sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s point, which has complete intellectual coherence. The fact is that they could go in that direction, but other European Prime Ministers, Finance Ministers and, indeed, the people in those countries will say that they do not want to leave the euro and that they want to make the euro work. We are affected by what is happening in the eurozone, which is why I keep saying that it is in our interests that they get their act together and make their currency work. You can argue for the opposite, but the fact is that that is what most European countries want and that is what I think they will try to achieve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent suggestion. I believe that that should be a cross-party initiative, and I pay tribute to Lord Adonis, who has made some extremely important speeches about the issue. I see a real opportunity for independent schools to do what Wellington college, Dulwich college and Brighton college have done, and sponsor academies in the state sector. I think that we can see the breaking down of the barriers between independent and state education, I think that this is a great way forward, and I hope that it will be given all-party support.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

Q11. A change in the national targets regime and cuts have led to disarray in the Greater Manchester emergency services. A stroke victim has had to wait for an hour for an ambulance, the response time of the fire service has doubled in parts of Greater Manchester, and the police switchboard is in meltdown. What reassurances can the Prime Minister give that the failure of those services will not lead to a tragic death?

[The Prime Minister]

I will give careful consideration to what the hon. Gentleman has said. What I can say about health funding specifically is that we are implementing the £20 billion efficiency savings suggested by the now shadow Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham). However, the difference between the policy supported by his party and our policy is that we are putting all those savings back into the NHS, whereas the official Labour position is that increasing spending on the health service in real terms is “irresponsible”. We think it irresponsible not to increase spending.

Oral Answers to Questions

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Instead of lurching towards ludicrous conspiracy theories, the hon. Gentleman should look at the facts. The Electoral Commission did not say what he—[Interruption.] No, the Electoral Commission raised a specific concern about the opt-out. Its specific proposal was that the opt-out should be retained but should be made more difficult. We will now consider either the Electoral Commission’s variant or getting rid of the opt-out altogether. That is what I am saying, in a spirit of openness, that we are reflecting on, and that will be reflected in the final version of the legislation.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

8. What discussions he has had with his ministerial colleagues on reducing the size of the Executive.

[The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)]

The Government have been clear that they recognise the principle that there is link between the size of the legislature and the Executive, so we have said that we will consider how to address the issue in the future.

[Graham Stringer]

Last year the Deputy Prime Minister said that he wanted to reduce the size of the Government to 73. Actually, the payroll vote has gone up to 140 in this House, which is 43% of the way to a majority. Has he not increased the size of the payroll vote so that he can get through this House many of his broken promises?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The issue of principle is whether there is a link between the size of the Executive and the size of the legislature, and I think that there is. Clearly there is. The size of the legislature will be reduced from 2015, so clearly there is a question for the next Parliament, and indeed the next Government, about what the size of the Executive—

Public Disorder

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. From the television scenes it was quite clear that this was criminality and looting and that a lot of it was done by very young children who should have been under the control of their parents.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister is completely right when he says that the tactics failed. Many in my constituency who support the police were horrified when they saw police in full riot gear watching as looters went into shops, filled plastic bags full of loot and left, unarrested by the police. That was a victory for criminals. Will the Prime Minister give my constituents and this House an assurance that if there is another criminal assault on the centre of Manchester, all those criminals will be arrested?

[The Prime Minister]

I can go further than that and say that even those criminals who did such things while the police did not intervene in the way that he and others would have liked will be arrested, too. Their faces and pictures are captured on CCTV, and even as we had the Cobra meeting this morning 60 arrests took place across London. I am sure that the same is happening in Manchester, too. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to examine tactics and ensure we get things right in the future.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful for your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend’s points are probably more relevant to the next group of amendments, when we will talk about adding some specific provisions to the Bill, so he might want to raise them then. If he does so, I shall be able to address them in an orderly way.

The Opposition supported the sunset provisions in the other place, and I anticipate that they will do so again today, so I want to point out why I think they would be wrong. Effectively, the sunset provisions drive a coach and horses through the principle of the Bill. On 24 November last year, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said:

“I want to reaffirm our commitment”

—the Labour party’s commitment—

“to fixed-term Parliaments. That means we have to lay down in statute that it is for the House, not the Prime Minister, to dissolve Parliament.”—[Official Report, 24 November 2010; Vol. 519, c. 328.]

I agree, but under these sunset provisions at the end of this Parliament we would give back to the Prime Minister the power to dissolve Parliament by seeking a Dissolution from Her Majesty the Queen. I do not think that that is in accordance with what the hon. Gentleman said then.

There are a number of other useful quotes. The Labour party manifesto of last year stated that

“we will legislate for Fixed Term Parliaments…We will let the people decide how to reform our institutions and our politics: changing the voting system and electing a second chamber to replace the House of Lords.”

I do not agree with the first, but I do agree with the second.

“But we will go further, introducing fixed-term parliaments”.

Furthermore, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath said that a vote for Labour was a vote for fixed-term Parliaments.

I accept that Labour did not win the election, but it seems to me that if the hon. Member for Rhondda is going to carry out the spirit of that commitment, all the people who voted Labour at the last election will expect him to vote in favour of fixed-term Parliaments. If he does not agree to disagree with their lordships, he will not be carrying out that manifesto commitment.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I have not read the Conservative party manifesto recently, but so far as I remember it did not contain a commitment to fixed-term Parliaments. Therefore, if the hon. Gentleman were to take his own advice, he would withdraw his support for the Bill.

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman sets me up very nicely for my final quotation. In this Bill’s Second Reading debate—which took place a long time ago, on 13 September 2010, which goes to show that the Bill has enjoyed leisurely progress through both Houses with proper scrutiny in both Chambers—the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) said:

“I have long been in favour of fixed terms. I could dig out correspondence I had with Margaret Thatcher in 1983 about fixed terms. The Labour party committed itself to fixed terms in the 1992 election. What typically happens—this is why I welcome the measure and why I wanted that commitment in our manifesto—is that parties in opposition that are in favour of fixed terms go off the boil on them when they come into government.”—[Official Report, 13 September 2010; Vol. 515, c. 645.]

Interestingly, we have done the opposite. We were not very keen on them in opposition, but we have become keener on them in government, and this was in our coalition agreement.

Oral Answers to Questions

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

T9. The Deputy Prime Minister has said on many occasions that if the House of Lords was reformed, this House would retain its primacy over the other place. In an article last week in The Times, his predecessor as leader of the Lib Dems, Lord Ashdown, said that if the House of Lords was reformed, it would have the right of veto over the decision to go to war. Who is right: the Deputy Prime Minister or his predecessor?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The House of Lords will clearly enjoy greater democratic legitimacy if it is wholly or largely elected, but that does not call into question the primacy of this House. Bicameral chambers all round the world manage this relationship perfectly adequately, with two directly elected chambers that have a relationship of subservience between the one and the other. That is precisely what will continue under the reforms that we have proposed.

House of Lords Reform

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is the view of the Government that this reform, which is long-overdue and long-debated, can take place without the embellishment and framework of a written constitution.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman says that the Parliament Acts are the reason why this House will retain primacy, but they apply only to legislation that starts in this House, not to that which starts in the House of Lords or to secondary legislation. When the House of Lords overturned a piece of secondary legislation concerning large casinos that this House had supported, the right hon. Gentleman supported the House of Lords and not the House of Commons. That was the first time that that had happened since the Southern Rhodesia issue.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Perhaps I have not followed the hon. Gentleman’s point carefully enough, but that arrangement will not change. The asymmetry between the two Chambers rests not only on the Parliament Acts but on the different mandates, different terms and different electoral cycles of the two Houses, as occurs in the vast majority of the 61 bicameral, elected systems around the world, which seem to rub along perfectly well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sadiq Khan]

The hon. Gentleman heard the speech from the Deputy Prime Minister, who gave a number of examples whereby the other Chamber—[Interruption.] I will give the hon. Gentleman an example. Is it right that we have 828 Members in the other place, all of whom, except for the 92 who by good fortune of their DNA have to go through elections, are not elected? That is not acceptable in a modern democracy.

There are those who have, I accept, legitimate concerns that a directly elected upper Chamber might seek to assert its newly found democratic mandate by facing down the Commons, and it is critical that the Joint Committee addresses that issue. After all, the primacy of this House must remain. It currently rests on two principles, the first of which is legislative. The Parliament Acts removed the powers of the Lords over money Bills and empowered the Commons to override the Lords on non-money Bills. The second principle underpinning the primacy of the Commons is drawn from the elected nature of its Members, so if we move to a directly elected upper Chamber it is not unreasonable for some to ask whether this House faces a threat to its primacy.

[Graham Stringer]

I will try to have another go at the point I made to the Deputy Prime Minister. In today’s edition of The Times, the previous leader of the Liberal Democrats, Paddy Ashdown, says that the newly reformed House of Lords—the Senate—would be able to stop this House doing what it wanted on a manifesto commitment. I was completely against the poll tax, but it was in the Conservatives’ 1987 manifesto. The Liberal Democrats want more power to go to the other place. How would my right hon. Friend guarantee the primacy of this House on non-legislative matters?

[Sadiq Khan]

There are big questions about the powers and functions of the second Chamber, and my hon. Friend has given one example of the anomalies that arise. The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) gave another example of the issues that those of us who are in favour of a 100% elected second Chamber need to address if we are going to win the argument not only in this House but in the other Chamber. That is why a simultaneous debate on powers, conventions and the relationships between the two Houses is absolutely fundamental if we are to get the reform right so that it delivers the bicameral system that serves our democratic needs effectively. Form and function go together, and I am afraid that there is scant evidence that that is recognised in the draft Bill and in the White Paper.

--- Later in debate ---

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I do not complain, Mr Deputy Speaker.

This is both a bad Bill and a half-baked Bill, and I shall certainly vote against it. It is not improvable in that sense because of the principles on which it is based. Admittedly, we are in strange territory with the new coalition, but some very strange policies and constitutional principles are coming out. First, in the name of democracy we are reducing the number of elected MPs and increasing the number of Members of the other place. That is pretty strange.

Secondly, the Deputy Prime Minister—I am sorry that he has left the Chamber—annunciates, as the basis of his support for many policies, that he can support any policy he wants, even if it is in contradiction to his manifesto, because he did not win the election. Who ever expected the Lib Dems to form a Government on their own? He is saying that because they were not going to form a Government on their own, he can support any policy he wants, irrespective of what he said to the electorate.

Thirdly—this is a difficult but fundamental point—reform of the House of Lords was in the manifestos of all three parties. However, that means that there was no differentiation. The electorate could not choose to vote for one party or another on the basis of what was in a manifesto. We have just had a fairly ridiculous referendum between first past the post and the alternative vote, but how much more important are making fundamental changes by introducing a voting system and changing the balance of power between this House and the other place? Are we having a referendum on that? No we are not, even though the electorate had no choice during the general election.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman mentions the lack of differentiation in the manifestos, but in actual fact one manifesto called for a referendum on the subject—the manifesto was for a party that was defeated at the election.

[Graham Stringer]

The hon. Gentleman may not have noticed, but all the parties lost the election. Nobody got a majority.

What is the problem? Is the problem in our democracy really the relationship between this House and the other one? I do not think so. Where has all the power gone from these Houses of Parliament? It has gone to Europe. Depending on which area people are in, 60% or 70% of our legislation is now passed by Europe. The proposals do not deal with that, but it is one of the most fundamental problems.

Within the power structure of our constitution—I accept that a lot of that power has gone away—the problem is not the House of Lords but the Privy Council, the royal prerogative and the fact that there is no separation between Ministers and Members of the legislature, which is almost never talked about when we compare Parliaments. It is fairly unusual in Parliaments around the world for Ministers to be accountable to themselves within a legislature. That is a big problem, and one reason why there is less Government accountability than one might expect, so the arguments for it are second rate and do not deal with the main problem.

Most of the debate we have had today has been about whether these reforms would affect the primacy of the House of Commons. If we introduce a democratic element into the House of Lords, it is bound to undermine the primacy of this House for several reasons. First, what would happen if we introduced proportional representation—STV or any other form of PR? Some Members of this House believe that PR is a superior and more democratic system to first past the post. The electorate disagreed, but that is those Members’ honest and openly held view. If we were to elect the other place by PR, it seems reasonable that they would then argue primacy.

Secondly, is it more democratic to elect people who never have to go back to the electorate who elected them and account for themselves? I do not think so. It is just a method of appointment. Democracy implies not only the ballot box, but accountability in terms of justifying which way Members have voted. Otherwise Members could vote any way they wanted without any consequences.

[John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)]

In the election to this Chamber, someone could be elected on a Thursday night and on Friday announce to the world that they had no intention of seeking re-election five years later. Where is the accountability there, according to the hon. Gentleman’s argument?

[Graham Stringer]

It is difficult to argue that the fact that individual Members of this House could say that they would not stand again is a justification for every Member in the other place never standing again. That would be a very odd argument to make.

My third point is one that the Deputy Prime Minister made a great deal of, and it is that the elected senators or Lords in the other place would never have a fresher mandate than we have in this place. However, that cannot be guaranteed. Even the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill contains mechanisms that allow for elections and one could still have elections twice a year, so we could get out of phase with the other place and their mandate would be fresher. They would then argue that they had primacy. I have never come across anyone standing for election who does not really believe that their view is the right view or who does not want to prosecute that view as hard as they can. Otherwise, why stand for election in the first place?

My final point is about how this House would assert its primacy if the other place were 80% or wholly elected. If legislation started in this place, it would be subject to the Parliament Acts. That process takes a long time and is of limited use. Further, some lawyers would argue that there are real difficulties with the second Parliament Act of 1949.

Much discussion and debate is not about legislation, but about policy. It is about secondary legislation, and some Conservative Members were pleased when the House of Lords overturned the decision of this House on a statutory instrument on the super-casino. That was not a principled issue of this House against the other place—people who did not like very large casinos voted against it, even though the primary legislation had been passed in this House. The House of Lords overturned a detailed decision—and that happened before they had elections.

I can see no situation in which an elected house would not want to have more power. That would mean that we would have less and we would not be dealing with the fundamental issues. These proposals do not deal with the biggest issues facing our society at the moment. International experience is prayed in aid of the Bill. In nearly every international case there is a written constitution, often set up by the British Government after wars or revolutions, when people have to define the various powers of the president, the legislature and the Government. We do not have such a constitution and the real fight in history has been between the House of Commons and the Government, of whatever stripe. Unfortunately, increasing the power of the House of Lords is likely to reduce the power of the House of Commons and all elected Members to the benefit of the Government. That is why this is a very bad Bill.

European Council

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, although I would not put my efforts in the same class as the famous Fontainebleau negotiation, because the British rebate still benefits Britain to a huge extent—even after the Labour party signed a large portion of it away. But I do hope people agree that they were a good step forward to keep us out of the situation.

On the budget, we have secured a very strong letter to the European Commission about future financial perspectives, saying that effectively there should be nothing worse than a real-terms freeze. That is what we got other countries to commit to, and I am sure that Government Members, like me, would wish to go further, but we are laying down the baseline of a freeze going into a negotiation, and that is a pretty good start.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

What is causing disorder and instability in Europe is the fact that Greece is bankrupt. The whole world knows that, and nothing said in this Chamber will alter it or create greater instability in the world markets. If Greece can neither withdraw nor default, good money—our money—via the IMF, or European Union money via other mechanisms, will be wasted bailing it out. Why does not the Prime Minister discover his Eurosceptic self and lead an orderly withdrawal of Greece from the euro?

[The Prime Minister]

First, as I said earlier, the IMF cannot lend money unless it believes that a country can undertake a programme that will lead it to pay back that money. Secondly, Britain’s interests are protected, because we will not contribute via the financial mechanism to Greece. Thirdly—I have said this before but I do think it important—the Greeks want some time, via some extra liquidity, so that they can take steps to get themselves back on a path to fiscal sanity. Of course, people can doubt whether that can happen, but the Greeks want to be able to get people to pay their taxes, to reduce spending programmes and to privatise assets so that they can get back to a position of financial sanity. That is the decision they have taken; that is the decision taken by members of the eurozone; and that is what the eurozone members themselves will support.