Sittings of the House (22 March)

Debate between John Spellar and Thomas Docherty

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Spellar]

The date of Easter is the first Sunday after the full moon following the March equinox. I thought the hon. Gentleman was going to ask me whether this was under the Julian or Gregorian calendar, but he did not.

[Thomas Docherty]

My right hon. Friend will be aware that we are a United Kingdom Parliament. I do not know whether he is aware, but for a long time Scotland had a different Easter.

[Mr Spellar]

Several areas did. Of course, we would be straying into history if we noted that the last time we changed the calendar and the method of calculation, it did not work out too well and London got substantially burnt down. “Give us back our 11 days”, was the cry of the London workers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Spellar]

I find it strange that the hon. Gentleman should talk about unravelling Budgets, given the experience of the last Budget—it was never fully ravelled, let alone unravelled. As I recall, he played some part in helping to unravel that Budget. We are happy and pleased that he took such a principled position. [Interruption.] Fortunately his Whip is in conversation with someone else and will not have noticed.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I tried to check how far back Budgets were changed from Tuesday to Wednesday. It is some way back, although I do not know whether it was anything to do with the bank rate or whatever. It is an interesting subject; unfortunately, I did not have time to research it. However, when Budgets were on a Wednesday, with PMQs on Tuesdays and Thursdays, that would have enabled questions to be asked of the Prime Minister. It would be perfectly proper—I would have thought it would be extremely helpful for the public debate—if the Budget was on a Tuesday and then the Prime Minister answered on the Wednesday. However, that is slightly separate; we would be able to fit in that time scale. What all this shows, yet again, is an inattention to detail and organising the business of the House.

[Thomas Docherty]

My right hon. Friend is a distinguished and long-serving parliamentarian. Can he recall whether it was custom and practice under the Labour Government that if the Budget was on a Wednesday, Prime Minister’s questions were sooner than four weeks later? Is that not one of the big problems we have with the proposal before us this evening?

[Mr Spellar]

It is very much—this ties in with when Easter is. It would be much better not to have such substantial gaps. Given the Prime Minister’s experience of trying to answer questions about the bedroom tax and his inability to answer the questions or, even more fundamentally, show an understanding of his own legislation, that is fairly worrying.

Let me turn to the question of Fridays. I am slightly surprised by the Leader of the House’s comments—as though Friday and Wednesday were comparable in terms of the constituency pattern. Members of Parliament often establish a pattern with their local organisations—schools, charities and businesses—that ties in with having their advice bureaus on a Friday. Members will ensure that they have a full programme during the day on a Friday and, often, an advice bureau in the evening. It might be all right for Members who only have to nip up the road to St Albans if Parliament sits until 2.30 pm, but for those who have to go further afield, getting back to undertake their advice bureaus becomes a significant problem. I suspect that most Members will have publicised when and where their advice bureaus will be at least six months in advance; many will have done it a year in advance. Indeed, they will have put up posters around their constituencies to advertise them, because they had not anticipated that the Friday under discussion would be a sitting day in the Commons.

Surprisingly, the Leader of the House has said that Members can speak on other days, but that is not how things work. Usually, under a very helpful Speaker, there is a bit of flexibility with regard to Budget debates, but the reality is that particular issues are debated on particular days. Members therefore need to know when subjects in which they are interested will be the prime focus of debate.

The Leader of the House has also said that the Government do not intend to make statements, but if he does some research, he will find that statements have been made on Fridays in the past. That would make the situation even more difficult for certain Members.

Draft Financial Services Bill (Joint Committee)

Debate between John Spellar and Thomas Docherty

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Thomas Docherty]

The hon. Gentleman asks a valid question. As a new Member who unseated a former Member who had to pay back thousands of pounds, I am very much alive to these issues. I absolutely believe that if someone is forced to pay back £56,000 to which they were not entitled because they had knowingly misled the taxpayer—the Fees Office—they should be excluded from being a member of a committee that oversees the new financial services regulation. That goes to the heart of the issue. If the hon. Gentleman does not agree with me, I respect that, but I hope that he will indicate that that is his view. I do not see him indicating dissent, so I assume that he agrees.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is focusing largely on the Commons composition of the Committee. Does he believe that the Lords composition makes it any broader or, to take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), any more representative?

[Thomas Docherty]

rose—

Afghanistan and Pakistan

Debate between John Spellar and Thomas Docherty

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Spellar]

Similarly, the symbol of the end of the cold war was the appearance of McDonald’s in many capitals in eastern Europe.

We should also remember how much of Afghanistan’s ancient civilisation was destroyed by nihilist tribes, in a pattern not dissimilar to what is happening today. We need to focus on the process of political dialogue and reconciliation in Afghanistan, as well as on a political settlement in which enough Afghan citizens from all parts of the country have a stake. The central Government there also need enough power and legitimacy to protect the country from threats, from within and without. That first proposition depends on there being a new external settlement that commits Afghanistan’s neighbours to respecting its sovereign integrity, as well as a process by which the ex-combatants there can acquire civilian status and have an opportunity to gain sustainable employment and income.

Afghanistan will then require reconciliation. This will include ensuring that tribal, ethnic and other groups are represented and recognised. Parliament and parliamentarians should also be recognised and encouraged. In that context, we were all interested in, if not intrigued by, the proposal for an exchange of Speakers. We were wondering whether the Speaker might seek to delegate that responsibility, a prospect that caused some alarm to your predecessor in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I shall turn first to Pakistan, however. I say to the Chairman and other members of the Select Committee that, if I have a concern about the report it is that the content does not fully reflect its title, “The UK’s foreign policy approach to Afghanistan and Pakistan”. The section on Pakistan takes up only about six of the 97 pages, and looks largely at the effect on the campaign in Afghanistan of action in and by Pakistan. Frankly, the more important strategic issue is the impact of Afghanistan on Pakistan.

Pakistan is a country of 160 million people. It is the second-largest Muslim country in the world, and it has a significant military and nuclear capability. It is also, as the Foreign Secretary has rightly acknowledged on behalf of Britain, a country that has suffered considerable losses from fundamentalist terrorism, and it continues to do so. We need to think seriously about Pakistan’s concerns and prospects, and to take into account a factor that is sometimes overlooked—namely, its need to recover from the horrific flooding that it has experienced.

That is why the announcement of continuing aid to Pakistan by the Department for International Development is encouraging, and welcomed by the Opposition, especially the scaling up of investment in effective, non-fundamentalist education to £446 million a year by 2015. Pakistan faces, in the words of a DFID publication, “an educational emergency”, with 17 million children not in school, half the adult population and two thirds of the women unable to read or write—and the population is escalating. We have to be clear in this context that there is a considerable onus on the Pakistan authorities to ensure that the money reaches its intended recipients. As DFID says, aid is

“dependent on securing value for money and results and will be linked to the Government of Pakistan’s own progress on reform, at both the federal and provincial levels, including taking tangible steps to build a more dynamic economy, strengthen the tax base and tackle corruption.”

That places a clear obligation on Pakistan to improve its administration, especially in tax collection, to foster a more open and pluralistic society and, last but by no means least, to engage in dialogue to reduce tension with India, which occupies so much attention and resources in both countries. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) mentioned the Indian obligations, and there is an obligation on both sides of the divide if dialogue is to be used to reduce that tension.

What of India and the other regional powers? They were mentioned by a number of hon. Members—the hon. Members for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) and for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) and particularly the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind). It is true that all the regional powers could seek to pursue their own separate interests, looking on Afghanistan as a zero-sum game. We should make no mistake; it certainly could be like that. Indeed, if the situation in Afghanistan unravels, it could end up being a negative-sum game for those countries. The creation of a black hole of political intrigue, anarchy and violence in Afghanistan could impact in very different but very significant ways on all its neighbours.

China, as we know, has considerable Islamic problems in its western province, but also has considerable investment in Afghan resources. Russia faces the potential of instability on its southern flank and also has a significant drugs problem. Iran has a minority group in Afghanistan and also feels the impact of the drugs trade. Turkey has growing regional influence. India has a long and historic, but also a current and dynamic, interest in Afghanistan. Part of our strategy for disengagement will thus depend very heavily on the extent to which the regional powers can co-exist and work together for a progressive solution for Afghanistan.

[Thomas Docherty]

Does my right hon. Friend share my concern about the role of Tehran in destabilising both Afghanistan and the wider region? Does he share my assessment that we cannot allow Tehran to continue down this destructive path indefinitely?

[Mr Spellar]

That is certainly to be encouraged, but Tehran will have a degree of involvement. It has a Persian minority within Afghanistan, it is a significant power within the region and it suffers considerably from the impact of the drugs trade on its own population. It will thus have to be engaged in its own interest.