Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Mr Harper
I am sure that my hon. Friend is glad to have your endorsement for her question, Mr Speaker. The Government believe that local authorities are best placed to promote and take forward those schemes and, as I said, the local transport fund in the north will mean that £2.5 billion will be available for them. I encourage her to work with stakeholders such as Lancashire County Council. I had the pleasure of discussing a number of those local schemes when I recently met its leadership on a visit to Preston.
Mr Harper
I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman’s local authority will get £168 million. We have been clear that that money will come over a seven-year period, and we will shortly publish guidance for the local authority on how it can go about that. I hope he will be pleased to know that we will make it clear to local councils that when they put their plans together, Members of Parliament should be involved in developing schemes so that he and other hon. Members can represent their constituents and their local transport priorities.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
If the Secretary of State is not spouting conspiracy theories, he is exuding incompetence. Ashford authorities warned Parliament that 14 hours of queues were a “reasonable worst case” scenario with the implementation of the EU entry/exit system this autumn. Why has he failed to adequately prepare for the queues at our ports and airports?
Mr Harper
I just do not recognise the hon. Gentleman’s characterisation. We are working very hard with colleagues across Government. I recently had a very good meeting with colleagues at the port of Dover, and we meet with other operators. There are very good plans in place, work is proceeding at pace, and I am confident that the EES will go very smoothly when introduced. The plans are in place and work is under way.
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend has been a doughty campaigner for his constituents. He has already raised this issue with me on a number of occasions, and I am glad that he has raised it again.
I have had frequent meetings with Hitachi’s management in both the UK and Japan, and we are working very hard to deal with the situation. Hitachi’s HS2 order was confirmed on the original terms, and I am working with its representatives. The Rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), recently published the details of the future rolling stock that is in the pipeline, and Hitachi is very competitively placed to win orders for much of that. I hope we will be able to reach a successful conclusion in the very near future.
Mr Speaker
Before we come to business questions, I have to inform the House that there is an error in the Future Business section of the Order Paper. The Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill, introduced by the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar), should appear as the first item of business tomorrow. It has been corrected in the online version, and will appear correctly on tomorrow’s Order Paper.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(2 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Mr Harper
No, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman on that at all. We have given local authorities more than £5 billion of funding for local road maintenance. The £8.3 billion in the Network North plan is over and above that. I would have thought he would welcome the fact that when we announced the money for local road maintenance, I decided that in London, 95% of that extra funding would go to London councils, rather than Transport for London, so that it gets spent on fixing the roads, rather than being wasted by the Mayor of London.
The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Mark Harper)
This week, the Government showed once again that we are on the side of Britain’s drivers. New measures from our plan for drivers will make it simpler to charge electric cars, with schools and colleges receiving grants to boost charging and the release of the first payments from our £381 million levy fund. We are also consulting on speeding up charge point installation.
We have a plan to decarbonise transport that is working. The Labour party is in disarray. Its leader, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), would ditch Labour’s flagship spending promise, despite only committing to it on Tuesday. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) must feel uncomfortable, having said weeks ago that it was very important. It is not the first time that she has been in that position. She said a month ago that cancelling phase two of HS2 would make transport worse; the very same day, the leader of the Labour party overruled her and agreed with the Prime Minister’s plan. Labour has no plan, no direction, no clue—
Mr Speaker
Order. Just a second, Secretary of State. You know that you have no responsibility for the Opposition, and I am sure that you would not want to take it on as part of your portfolio. I need to get through topical questions.
Tim Loughton
I am pleased to hear about the Secretary of State’s plans, but does he have a plan to deal with some of the apparent traffic jams in responding to consultations on private Members’ legislation in his Department? In 2020, the consultation on pavement parking closed. Pavement parking causes huge problems for guide dogs, wheelchair users and everybody else. When will we have a response to that? On the Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019, introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight), when will we see the plans to cut down on cowboy parking enforcement companies? When will that traffic jam be eased?
Mr Harper
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising those issues. We will come out with a response on pavement parking very shortly. I cannot give him a specific date. On roadworks generally, we will consult on plans to improve the measures that stop utility companies causing roadworks to overrun, putting more pressure on them to ensure that our roads can keep moving, to support drivers.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(4 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Mr Speaker
Margaret Beckett is not here. Will the Secretary of State answer the question as though she were, so that I can call the shadow Minister?
The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Mark Harper)
My officials and I have held regular meetings with senior management at Alstom. We have also convened, under my direction, a cross-Whitehall group to advise on ways to support continued production at Derby, and on how best to support the workers who could lose their jobs. This must be a commercial decision for Alstom, but the Government have been working with the company to explore every option to enable it to continue manufacturing at its Derby site, and local Members in Derby—including the fantastic colleague sitting beside me, my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Amanda Solloway)—have been raising these issues with me regularly, effectively representing their constituents.
Mr Harper
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. As I set out, the objective of the decision is to ensure that that £36 billion of transport spending, which we are reinvesting in transport projects, will benefit more people, in more places across the country, more quickly. We are investing £6.5 billion pounds of savings from HS2 outside the north and midlands, which will benefit his constituents as well. That includes additional funding for London—
Mr Speaker
Order. Come on boys, you’re going to have to help me. I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Mr Speaker
Order. Hang on a minute. Do not take advantage, Barry, because I will not call you again otherwise.
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman is simply wrong. Not only are we not briefing against hydrogen combustion engines; we are very supportive of them. I have been to Cummins. I have been to JCB. I have looked at the fantastic work that is being done developing hydrogen. We have some world-leading companies here. The Department is very supportive, and working closely with them.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Mr Harper
I think the hon. Lady is missing the fact that every single penny that we are not spending on phase 2 of HS2 in the north is being—[Interruption.] No, she raises a good point. Every penny of what was going to be spent in the north is being spent in the north, and every single penny that was going to be spent in the midlands is being reinvested in the midlands. It is the money that has been freed up from our more ambitious development project at Euston that will be spent in the rest of the country. The north of England is getting exactly the same amount of money, it is just being spent on transport projects that are better fitted to what people actually need, rather than phase 2 of HS2.
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend is a great champion for transport schemes in his constituency and I welcome his recognition of the funding we have allocated to the Tees Valley Combined Authority under Network North. I encourage him to raise the issue of those schemes with the combined authority, which will be able to use the money allocated to it to focus on the transport projects that matter most across the combined authority, particularly in his constituency.
Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)
In June 2019, Ministers were reportedly told by the new chairman that HS2 was billions over budget and years behind schedule, yet as MPs in this House debated the Third Reading of the High Speed Rail (West Midlands – Crewe) Bill on 15 July none of that was made clear to parliamentarians. Does the Secretary of State agree that if the true cost was hidden from Parliament, that would represent an outrageous breach of the ministerial code? Will he say right now whether that was the case?
Mr Harper
First, let me welcome the hon. Gentleman to his position on the Opposition Front Bench. Obviously, at the time he mentions I was not in the Government. I am sure that all of my ministerial—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) would allow me to answer the question rather than chuntering from a sedentary position, that would be welcome. As I say, I was not in the Government at that time, but I am sure that all of my ministerial colleagues, both past and present, are well aware of their responsibilities under the ministerial code and that they gave truthful answers to Parliament at the time.
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. The wait times for theory driving tests are within target. He is absolutely right to draw the House’s attention to the fact that there is currently a longer waiting time for practical driving tests. That is why both I and the roads Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden), have tasked the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, which has a plan to get back within target in the next few months, exactly to help those constituents of the hon. Gentleman who are keen to get their practical test and get on the road, so that they can take advantage of the freedom that being able to drive offers.
Mr Harper
The Rail Minister and I continue to hold Avanti to account for matters within its control, and I know the Rail Minister recently visited my hon. Friend’s constituency to talk about services to Holyhead. The temporary changes she referred to are necessary to accommodate Network Rail engineering works to improve and maintain the network and minimise unplanned, short-notice cancellations due to train crew shortages as Avanti trains more drivers. In the spirit of my hon. Friend’s question, given that she has mentioned Christmas, I hope she is grateful for the early Christmas present from the Prime Minister of £1 billion to electrify the north Wales main line.
Mr Harper
I am very surprised that the hon. Lady is not welcoming the massive improvement Network North will make across the country, including for her own constituents. I am shocked, Mr Speaker, that she is not taking this opportunity to welcome the electrification of the Hull to Sheffield line, the upgrade of the Sheffield to Leeds line, the electrification of the Hope Valley line or the reopening of the Don Valley line. That is just on rail, the only mode of transport that the hon. Lady ever raises with me; it is not to mention the £500 million—
Mr Speaker
Order. Secretary of State, I am being generous, but such long questions and answers need to come earlier, not in topicals.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(9 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Mr Harper
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question and for his kind comments about my hon. Friend the roads Minister. Between the M42 and M6, the A5 is a key artery for business and motorists and, as he says, it is integral to local growth plans. National Highways continues to develop options to upgrade the route, as part of the pipeline of its potential future schemes, including considering measures that address stretches of the route where safety issues are of greatest concern, such as the pinch points that he talks about. Outputs from that work will feed into priorities for future investment strategies.
Mr Speaker
Order. It is topicals. You know better than anyone, Sir Christopher, as an experienced gentleman.
Mr Harper
It is not a sudden leaving of his job—the chief executive has announced that he is going to go in September. We have a clear plan in place: the experienced chair of HS2 will step up to be executive chairman for the period while we are searching for a successor, so the leadership of the organisation will be in hand. As I said, Mark Thurston has done a very good job in getting the organisation into delivery of phase 1, and he himself has said he wants to hand over at this point to enable continuity as the project moves into the next phase of delivery.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
Scots are used to getting a poor and unreliable cross-border rail service, but recently the cross-border air service provided by British Airways, particularly from Glasgow, has been awful. That said, we need to get on with decarbonising aviation, so when will we see the airspace modernisation process simplified and accelerated, not decelerated? When will the Government bring forward price stability plans for sustainable aviation fuels, which everyone bar the Treasury knows has to happen?
Mr Harper
On the hon. Member’s first point, the work on airspace modernisation is under way, as he knows. On his second point, this Government are leading the progress on sustainable aviation fuels worldwide. We published the new report, which set out some clear plans, and we published our response to it. We are taking that forward and we are at the leading edge of this work globally, setting the agenda, as I hope he would welcome.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
As we approach the end of the school year, many families will be looking forward to setting off on their summer holidays, but there are concerns that industrial action in Europe will lead to flight cancellations and delays. People will also be mindful of the disruption at our ports and airports in recent times. What assurance can the Secretary of State give me and those families that the system will be resilient to ensure that they can get away?
Mr Harper
I am sure that my hon. Friend’s question was prompted by one airline making some modest changes to its flight schedule during the summer. No other airline has indicated to the Department that it will be cancelling flights ahead of the summer. We will continue to engage with airlines on that matter. The Aviation Minister is meeting with the chief executive officer of EasyJet later today to discuss its announcement. My team is meeting with the CEO of National Air Traffic Services to get an update on its operational readiness. We have already worked with the aviation industry to make sure that, this year, it is prepared for the busy summer period so that we avoid the problems that we had last year. We have received appropriate assurances, but I hope that we can reassure those whom my hon. Friend referred to in his question.
Mr Speaker
Order. Make a guess at that, Minister. I am not going through another five minutes.
Mr Harper
All right. I think I know what the hon. Lady was driving at on that question. We said in response to the new report that we would continue to talk to the industry and, if required, consult on a mechanism—an industry-funded mechanism. That work is under way, but we continue to have the ambition to get those SAF plants developed in this country and I am glad that she supports that work.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(11 months ago)
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Mr Harper
The Government remain committed to GBR. As I have said, we have already announced that the HQ will be in Derby. Many of the benefits can be achieved without legislation, and we are getting on with them. It is worth noting, based on statistics published this morning by the Office of Rail and Road, that we still face a massive challenge with the rail industry: leisure is now much more important than commuting and business; and passenger revenue is still 28% down on the pre-pandemic level. A successful railway needs to change to reflect passenger demand, and that is exactly what this Government are going to deliver.
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman will know that we have set out a significant amount of rail investment. We will be investing £40 billion overall across the transport portfolio over the next two years, and we do have to make choices about how to spend that money sensibly. The Labour party is making unfunded spending pledges, with £44 billion on rail and, interestingly, nothing on buses or on roads.
Mr Speaker
We now come to a person who will have done 40 years tomorrow, I understand. I call Sir Edward Leigh.
Mr Harper
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his service in the House. This campaign may be coming to a successful conclusion. He has been working closely with the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), and we hope to be able to implement the change in the next timetable update. My hon. Friend is working carefully to ensure that none of the things that have hitherto stopped it will prevent it from happening this time. I hope that there will be a successful conclusion.
Mr Speaker
Make sure he’s not closing the station. [Laughter.] I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Mr Harper
The hon. Lady should recognise that, as I said in answer to the previous question, the North East Combined Authority and the North of Tyne Combined Authority were awarded £117.8 million to deliver their ambitious bus service improvement plan. That is the mechanism that we have set up for local authorities to have ambitious plans to work with bus operators to deliver better services for constituents, properly funded from central Government. I hope that they use that revenue and those powers to deliver the improved bus services that she wants.
Mr Harper
I am able to tell my hon. Friend that officials in the Department are already working with Chiltern on looking at how we deal with those issues. I know that the rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), will be delighted to meet him to give him more detail of the work already under way so that we can deliver a better service for his constituents.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(1 year ago)
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Mr Harper
This Government strongly support devolution, and not just to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but through what we are doing with combined authorities across England, because we think that having decisions taken more locally is a good thing for the country. The Scottish Government have an enormous number of powers and they should use them widely. I am pleased to see that in the past couple of weeks they are starting to be held to account for their decision making.
Mr Harper
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker, it may be helpful for the House to know that we had a detailed question and answer session on this yesterday when I was giving evidence to the Transport Committee. It is a complicated matter and I committed to write to the Committee to set out the details in full. I will arrange for a copy of that to be placed in the Library of the House for the benefit of all hon. Members so that they can see the facts.
Mr Speaker
I thank the Secretary of State. We will leave it at that, since we at least have the answer.
Rail Services
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(1 year, 1 month ago)
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The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Mark Harper)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I wish to make a statement on the progress the Government are making in improving rail services for passengers.
Let me begin by saying how pleased I am that, today, members of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers at Network Rail have voted to accept a 5% plus 4% pay offer over two years. Seventy-six per cent. of members voted to accept the offer, on a turnout of nearly 90%, showing just how many of them wanted to call time on this long-running dispute.
From the moment I became Transport Secretary, the Rail Minister and I have worked tirelessly to change the tone of the dispute. We sat down with all the rail union leaders and facilitated fair and reasonable pay offers. Now, all Network Rail union members have resolved their disputes, voting for a reasonable pay increase and accepting the need for a modern railway.
But not every rail worker is being given that chance. Despite the Rail Delivery Group putting a similar fair and reasonable offer on the table on behalf of the train operating companies, the RMT has refused to put it to a vote. It refused to suspend last week’s strike action even to consider it. Such a lack of co-operation is disappointing—and what does it achieve? It deprives the RMT’s own members of a democratic vote, denies them the pay rise they deserve and, most importantly, delivers more disruption to the travelling public.
My message to the RMT is simple: call off your strikes, put the RDG offer to a vote and give all your members a say because it is clear from the vote today—the “overwhelming” vote, in the RMT’s own words—that its members understand that it is time to accept a deal that works, not only for their interests, but for passengers.
Let me turn to the steps we are taking to help passengers and fix the issues on the west coast main line. Members will know that rest-day working, or overtime, is a common way for operators to run a normal timetable. However, last July, drivers for Avanti West Coast, who overwhelmingly belong to the ASLEF union, simultaneously and with no warning stopped volunteering to work overtime. Without enough drivers, Avanti had little choice but to run a much-reduced timetable, with fewer trains per hour from London to destinations in the midlands and the north. Passengers, businesses and communities along vital routes up and down the west coast main line rightly felt let down, facing cancelled services, overcrowded trains and poor customer information. Put simply, it has not been good enough.
While the removal of rest-day working was the main contributing factor, my hon. Friend the Rail Minister and I repeatedly made it clear to Avanti’s owning groups, Trenitalia and First Group, that their performance needed to improve, too, because we should always hold train operators to account for matters within their control. That accountability should come with the chance to put things right. That is why my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), extended Avanti’s contract by six months in October. She rightly set a clear expectation that performance had to improve—no ifs and no buts.
I am pleased to say that not only was Avanti’s recovery plan welcomed by the Office of Rail and Road, but it has led to improvements on the network, with weekday services rising from 180 to 264 trains per day, the highest level in over two years, and cancellation rates falling from around 25% to an average of 4.2% in early March, the lowest level in 12 months. Nearly 90% of Avanti’s trains now arrive within 15 minutes of their scheduled time, over 100 additional drivers have been recruited, reducing reliance on union-controlled overtime working, and it is very pleasing to see Avanti’s new discounted ticketing scheme benefiting passengers on certain routes.
As you would expect me to say, Mr Speaker, there is much more still to do to ensure that Avanti restores services to the level we expect and to earn back the trust that passengers have lost, but we should welcome those improvements and recognise the hard work undertaken to get to this point. The Rail Minister in particular has overseen weekly meetings on Avanti for months and kept hon. Members from both sides of the House regularly informed. He deserves credit, along with Avanti, for that turnaround.
October’s extension was not popular, least of all in parts of this House, but it was the right decision and Avanti is turning a corner. Its recovery so far has given me sufficient confidence to confirm that today we will extend its contract by a further six months, running until 15 October. However, that short-term contract comes with the expectation that it will continue to win back the confidence of passengers, with a particular focus on more reliable weekend services, continued reductions in cancellations, and improvements in passenger information during planned and unplanned disruption. My Department will continue to work closely with Avanti to restore reliability and punctuality to levels that passengers have long demanded and have a right to expect.
I realise some hon. Members will also want to hear about TransPennine Express. I will update the House separately about TransPennine Express ahead of the contract expiring at the end of May, but let me be clear: its current service levels are, frankly, unacceptable and we will hold it to account on its recovery plan. We have made it clear that, unless passengers see significant improvements, like we have on Avanti, all options regarding that contract remain on the table.
I spoke earlier about holding operators to account, but if we stand here and rightly criticise poor operator performance, we should also recognise that across the industry train operating companies have few levers to change it. Avanti, like others, relies on driver good will to run a reliable seven-day-a-week railway. Like others, it is at the mercy of infrastructure issues out of its control. In fact, seven separate infrastructure issues affected Avanti’s performance in the first week of March alone.
Outdated working practices and track resilience are why predictable calls for nationalisation wildly miss the point. Any operator would face those constraints and struggle to run a reliable service. Ideological debates about ownership are therefore a distraction, like wanting to paint your car a new colour when what it needs is a new engine. Only fundamental reform will fix rail’s systemic issues, which is what the Government are delivering, bringing track and train together under the remit of Great British Railways, taking a whole system approach to cost, revenue and efficiency, and freeing up the private sector to innovate and prioritise passengers. Having set out my vision for rail last month, very soon, I will announce the location of the headquarters of Great British Railways, another clear sign of the momentum we are building on reform.
We are getting on with the job of delivering a better railway. It is why we are finally seeing improvements along the west coast main line, as we continue to hold Avanti to account. It is why we are making progress on rail reform. It is why we will always defend the travelling public from unnecessary strike action. And it is why we will always play our part in resolving disputes in a way that is fair to rail workers, the travelling public and the taxpayer. Unlike others, I am not interested in pointless ideological debates about privatisation and nationalisation. The Government are focused on gripping the long-standing issues facing the industry for the benefit of its customers—freight customers and passengers—taking the tough but responsible decisions in the national interest, and building the growing, financially sustainable and modern railway Britain deserves. I commend this statement to the House.
Mr Harper
The hon. Lady must have been listening to a completely different statement; what she just said bears very little relationship to either facts or the things I set out. Let me take her points in turn. I am pleased that she welcomed the acceptance by RMT members of the deal on Network Rail, and that—she obviously did not say this—she recognises that my approach since I became Transport Secretary has clearly been the right one, having helped lead to the situation we are in today. I did not expect her to pay me any credit for that, but I note that she welcomed the result.
The hon. Lady said that the Avanti figures speak for themselves, and they absolutely do. Weekday services have risen in the new timetable since December to 264 trains a day. The cancellation rate that she talked about was last year; the most recent rate is down to 4.2%, the lowest level in 12 months. That is a clear improvement. I have said that it needs to be sustained, which is why Avanti has an extension only until October. Some 90% of its trains now arrive within 15 minutes of their scheduled time, which is not good enough—it is in the pack with the other train operating companies, but at the bottom of the pack. I have been clear that Avanti needs to deliver improvement in the next six-month period. But the figures do speak for themselves: they demonstrate an operator that is turning things around but still has more to do, which was exactly what I said in my statement.
I was clear that TPE’s current service levels are unacceptable and that no options were off the table. I am interested in the hon. Lady’s focus on guarding taxpayers’ money. If I have added this up correctly, she and her Front-Bench colleagues have made unfunded promises of £62 billion of rail spending with no demonstrable means to pay for them. I am afraid that she will have excuse me for finding her professed concern for the taxpayer a little incredible.
Finally, I was surprised that the hon. Lady does not seem to have noticed that far from talking about the status quo, last month I set out in detail a clear set of proposals for reform to bring track and train together in Great British Railways, which I reiterated in my statement. That is what we will continue doing: not having an ideological debate about who owns the railways but talking about delivering better services for passengers. That will remain our relentless focus.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
May I start by welcoming the resolution of the industrial dispute? I congratulate my right hon. Friend and the Rail Minister on their constructive work to bring that about.
In his statement, my right hon. Friend rightly pointed out that there are many reasons behind train cancellations and delays, including infrastructure works and failures, industrial action and the weather, as well as those that are the responsibility of the train operating companies. Would it not help scrutiny and accountability of those operators—not just Avanti and TransPennine Express, but all operators—to have available a clear breakdown of the reasons behind poor performance, so that we can hold to account those who are responsible for which bits of the delays?
Mr Harper
I would say two things about that. I will look carefully at whether there is more we can do to show the public clearly and transparently the reasons for delays, so that they can understand their cause. To some extent, I do not think that it is that important to passengers, because they do not really care whether the train operating company or Network Rail has caused the problem—they want it to be fixed. My hon. Friend makes the case for reform. It is exactly why we need to bring together the guiding mind on track and train operators—to join up the system, make better decisions for passengers and, ultimately, deliver a better service, which is what passengers are interested in.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Mr Harper
The hon. Lady will know that we have electrified 1,200 miles of the rail network in Great Britain since 2010, and that work continues. We clearly think that electrifying the rail network is important for our net zero commitments, and we will continue to make progress. I hope she will welcome that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. This is topical questions. Other colleagues want to get in. Tell me who you do not want to get in, because that is who you are depriving.
Mr Harper
I will give a pithy answer. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for all her campaigning work. Dover is a strategic port for the United Kingdom. This project will ensure that we can meet our requirements and keep that flow of trade and traffic going. I am pleased that we have been able to get that money to help the port of Dover.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Mr Harper
I am glad the hon. Gentleman mentioned the covid pandemic, because that has caused a number of issues for a range of transport providers. We are still seeing that bus users have not returned to using buses since the covid pandemic, and that puts those bus services under tremendous financial pressure, which is exactly why we put the support in place to deal with the pandemic. We have extended it through to the end of March, as he knows, and we will keep that under review, depending on what the situation requires. I know how important buses are, but the impact of the pandemic on buses and rail services is a challenge, and the important thing is to encourage people back to using buses to grow revenue and make sure the sector is financially sustainable.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
There is no point in making promises to level up communities through transport if Ministers announce yet another punishing rail fare rise next month. A 3.8% rise, like this year, would mean £129 more for an annual season ticket between Chester and Manchester, and 8% would mean Swindon to Bristol commuters paying £312 extra. The retail price index figure—the usual figure used for rail fare rises—of 12.3% would burden Dover to London passengers by an additional £909 every year. Given that the rail recovery is fragile and given the Conservative cost of living crisis, does the Secretary of State agree with me that now would be the worst possible time for yet another brutal rail fare rise?
Mr Harper
I am glad the hon. Gentleman raises that question because he flags up a very important issue. There are only two places that revenue can come from in the rail sector—the passenger, through the fare box, or the taxpayer. I am very well aware of the challenges facing people with the cost of living and inflation, but we also have to make sure that the cost does not fall on taxpayers, many of whom never use rail services. One of the things we will do as we are making this decision is to weigh up exactly those two things—the pressure on the passenger through the fare box but also the burden that falls on the taxpayer. We will balance those, and when we have made a decision, we will announce it in the usual way.
Mr Harper
I thank my hon. Friend, the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, for her kind words. On the priority for spending on transport in rural areas, I represent a rural constituency myself, of course, and am well aware of the extra challenges in rural areas. We will take those matters into account as we develop our plans, following our settlement in the autumn statement.
Mr Speaker
Order. You all want to get in. This is topical questions and you have to be sharp and punchy. Come on, Secretary of State, you will give an example.
Mr Harper
Let me try to give a short, punchy reply. National Highways is well aware that there are a range of opinions and views about its proposals for the A5036, and it is committed to working with all stakeholders to try to achieve the right result for all. I am sure that it will have heard the hon. Gentleman’s clear opinions expressed in this House.
School Openings: January 2022
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Harper
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You heard me ask the Minister, in the urgent question, whether there were plans for a press conference today. No. 10 has now confirmed that the Prime Minister and the chief medical officer will be carrying out a press conference. No. 10 has briefed the media that new information and the latest data on omicron will be provided. I understand that the chief medical officer was scheduled to give evidence to a Select Committee this afternoon. That has now been postponed until tomorrow, so it looks like the new information, instead of being provided first to Members, will be provided to the media. Have you had any notice of an intention of a Minister to come to the House at the end of business today to update Members on the booster roll-out and the latest information about omicron so that we can ask questions on behalf of our constituents?
Mr Speaker
Nobody has been to see me about a statement, but of course my office door is open, and I hope that those on the Front Bench will be listening to me say that I would welcome that statement. Once again, I say that Members of Parliament are elected to this House to hear things in this Chamber, not on the media. I hope the message goes back that new information should be shared with Members of Parliament. I would like to believe that somebody will be knocking on my door very shortly to say, “Can we have a statement later?”, and of course I would welcome that statement.
Committee on Standards
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to give way, he will give way. I think his slight indication was that he does not wish to give way to Mr Harper. [Interruption.] Well, whether he is right or wrong is totally different to the rules of the House.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
I strongly support what the Paymaster General has said, and I welcome the team to their positions.
When I had responsibility for these matters, I visited and spoke to the electoral officials in Northern Ireland, which has had this system for 18 years and where it works perfectly well. People in Northern Ireland are perfectly capable of using it, and I have no doubt that it will be a great success when we roll it out in the rest of the United Kingdom. Frankly, these scare stories are more likely to depress voter turnout than the introduction of voter ID.
UK Gas Market
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Can I just say that the ministerial code says that Ministers are answerable to this Chamber, not to anybody outside? It is about being here. I do not think this is acceptable. It is continual. I thought we had got the message through to the Prime Minister when I had a meeting with him, but it is obviously not reaching Secretaries of State and Ministers.
If you want to make some statement afterwards, Secretary of State, I hope you have it covered by somebody making a statement at the same time. This House deserves its respect. People here, on all sides, are elected to hear from you and to be told here first, not to be told second hand by the media and that somebody might come to the House tomorrow if they feel like it. What would have happened if it had been Thursday? It is not right, it is not acceptable and we are going to have to get this right. I am telling you now: I will begin to change the course of what you think the direction is.
Mr Harper
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. The reason that I raised this matter is that, if announcements are made this afternoon by Ofgem about the Government’s policy, which is what it says in this statement, I need to be able to ask the Secretary of State questions about consumers who are off the gas grid, who are not protected by the price cap. About a third of my constituents are in that position. It is no good saying that those questions can be asked by the Select Committee on Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy; I am not on that Committee, and I need to be able to ask them in this House. I just ask the Secretary of State: when will he come to the House?
Mr Speaker showed last week that, when the Government want to make an urgent statement, he was willing to facilitate it. The House is sitting late tonight. The Secretary of State could come back tonight, make the statement and we could ask those questions that our constituents want us to ask at the earliest opportunity. That was the point of the question that I asked during the statement, and Mr Speaker has given his very clear steer.
Mr Speaker
I go out of my way to ensure that this House hears, but I cannot work on my own; it works two ways. I am saying to you that this House needs to hear. Ofgem is very important, but it is not elected. The people here are elected to serve constituents. The ministerial code needs to be sent to every Minister and every Secretary of State, with the point about where responsibility lies underlined.
Point of Order
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker, of which I have given you notice and also notified the Leader of the House. You will be aware that yesterday a statement about vaccine passports was made at the Dispatch Box by the Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment. There is a relevant part that potentially pertains to the House of Commons. He said:
“By the end of September, everyone aged 18 and over will have had the chance to receive full vaccination and the additional two weeks for that protection to take hold. At that point, we plan to make full vaccination a condition of entry to nightclubs and other venues where large crowds gather. Proof of a negative test will no longer be sufficient.”—[Official Report, 19 July 2021; Vol. 699, c. 688.]
It seems to me that when we get back to normal, that definition, particularly on a Wednesday, could equally apply to the House of Commons. It would be outrageous if the Executive were to attempt to prevent any Member of Parliament from attending this House to represent our constituents without first undergoing a medical procedure.
I raise this matter with you, Mr Speaker, because I hope you will be able to make a ruling on it. In closing, I just note that your 17th-century predecessor, Speaker Lenthall, stood up very effectively against an over-mighty Executive and it did not end well for the over-mighty Executive.
Mr Speaker
It did lead to the end of the monarchy as well, I might add, for a short period, so let us hope we are not quite going back that far.
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for giving me notice of his point of order. I have had no indication that the Government consider that the policy he mentions should apply to this House. What I would say, as Speaker of this House, is that there is nothing to stop a Member coming in here. You have the right to come to this House unless this House otherwise says so. The Government have not been in touch and I do not expect them to be in touch, because as far as I am concerned this does not apply to Members.
I will now suspend the House for three minutes to enable the necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.
Points of Order
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. It is important that, before the House is asked to take decisions on important matters, such as its being in recess for three weeks, it has available the essential information. If we are not to have an in-person Conservative party conference, we will not need to be in recess for that period. It therefore seems not unreasonable to ask the Government, in the person of the Prime Minister as leader of our party, to set that out before we are asked to vote tomorrow. That is not just important for us. As we have just heard in the urgent question, thousands of businesses across the country depend on conferences and events. If the governing party is not able to set out with confidence that an event scheduled for October can take place, the sector will draw its own conclusions, which will be very damaging to many thousands of businesses and hundreds of thousands of employees.
Mr Speaker
First of all, I thank the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) for giving me notice of his point of order. On booking tickets, he need not worry as he lives in Greater Manchester, so I think I can overcome that little difficulty for him. [Laughter.] I cannot comment on the arrangements that parties make for their conferences. I can confirm that the motion on yesterday’s Order Paper was objected to and will therefore be subject to a deferred Division tomorrow—I am sure the Whips are really pleased with him about that. If it is agreed to, the House will adjourn for the days indicated on the motion.
In fairness, there is a genuine concern. There are jobs at stake; it is an industry that really does matter. This matter is beyond me, but at least, if nothing else, the hon. Gentleman’s point is on the record. The Whips will definitely want a word with him, so he will be able to pass on his concerns directly to the Chief Whip.
I will now suspend the House in order for the necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.
Covid-19 Update
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Harper
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Listening to the Secretary of State, I was struck by what he said about the need to get people vaccinated and about the very important difference that that makes to the level of risk. In the House’s decision making about how we conduct our affairs, would it be relevant to look at the proportion of Members who have been single or double-vaccinated? My judgment would be that if the vast majority of us have been vaccinated, this level of social distancing is simply not necessary and the House could get back to what I know you want, Mr Speaker: much more effective holding of the Government to account.
Mr Speaker
I have a lot of sympathy with getting this Chamber absolutely back to normality. What I would say is that it is not just about Members having double doses; it is also about the staff, to whom we have a duty of care. That is why I said, quite a long time ago, “Let’s see if we can’t get our staff and Members inoculated more quickly than we are doing at the moment.”
On the other point of order, we have an important Opposition day tomorrow. Let us see whether the Government bring forward proposals on Wednesday for the House to decide on its own procedures from Monday up to the summer recess. I expect the Leader of the House to consult other parties in the House before the Government bring forward those proposals; I hope and am sure that those conversations will take place, and take place quickly, in order for the House to know where we are going. Because the date is so close to the summer recess, my suggestion is that it would be easier to take it through to then, for the sake of three days, if this House agrees to what is being proposed.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
Mr Speaker, I am very grateful that you could fit me in at the end.
Yesterday during the statement the Secretary of State did not have the information to hand on the efficacy of the covid vaccines in reducing serious disease and hospitalisation. He made a commitment, rightly, to set them out today at Health questions at the Dispatch Box; and I am delighted, with this question, to give him the opportunity to do so.
Matt Hancock
First, I can say that a single dose of the Pfizer or AstraZeneca jab offers protection of 75% to 85% against hospitalisation, while data on two doses, which is currently available only for Pfizer, indicates 90% to 95% effectiveness against hospitalisation and 95% to 99% effectiveness at preventing death. However, my right hon. Friend also asked specifically about the delta variant, and I said that I did not have the figure in my head for the reduction in hospitalisations. I do not know whether I should be glad, but I can report to him that the reason is that there is not yet a conclusive figure. This morning I spoke to Dr Mary Ramsay, who runs this research at Public Health England, and she told me that the figure is currently being worked on. The analysis is being done scientifically and should be available in the coming couple of weeks. This is obviously an absolutely critical figure and I will report it to the House as soon as we have it.
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark HarperFriday 1st December 2017
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
I was the Minister who tried to bring in a Bill to ensure that the House of Lords was elected, and of course it was because the Labour party would not support the programme motion that we were not able to make any progress. On the hon. Gentleman’s point about cost, it is true that more Members have been appointed to the House of Lords but, since 2010, the cost of running the other place has actually fallen each year—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. The right hon. Gentleman is hoping to catch my eye early in the debate, so I suggest that he saves his speech. As he should know, we need short interventions—we have a long day.
Social Security (Statutory Instruments)
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(9 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister for Disabled People (Mr Mark Harper)
I beg to move,
That the draft Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2015, which were laid before this House on 14 January, be approved.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With this we shall take the following motion, on pneumoconiosis:
That the draft Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2015, which were laid before this House on 14 January, be approved.
Mr Harper
I am sorry that the names of these regulations are not very catchy, but they are important none the less. I confirm that they are compatible with the European convention on human rights. The two schemes stand apart from the main social security uprating procedure, and there is no legislative requirement to review the level of payment each year. However, I am happy to increase the amounts payable for 2015 by the consumer prices index—that is, 1.2% as at September 2014, which is the same rate being applied to some social security disability benefits and industrial injuries disablement benefit. I was here for the previous debate when my right hon. Friend the Minister for Pensions clearly set out why CPI, rather than the discredited retail prices index, is the right measure by which to increase these benefits. I do not propose to detain the House by repeating his very clear and detailed explanation.
The Government recognise that people suffering from diseases as a result of exposure to asbestos or one of a number of other listed agents may not be able to bring a successful claim for civil damages, partly due to the time lag between exposure and the onset of the disease, which could be as long as 40 years. As well as compensating people who cannot make civil claims, these two schemes fulfil an important role by ensuring that most sufferers receive compensation while they can still benefit from it.
The Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979 provides a lump sum compensation payment to those who suffer from one of five dust-related respiratory diseases, who are unable to claim damages from employers who have gone out of business, and who have not brought any action against others for damages. The 2008 scheme provides compensation to people who contracted mesothelioma but were unable to claim compensation for that disease under the ’79 Act, perhaps because their exposure to asbestos was not due to their work. The 2008 scheme means that payments can be made quickly to mesothelioma sufferers at their time of greatest need.
Under both schemes, a claim can be made by a dependant if the sufferer has died before being able to make a claim. Payment levels under the ’79 Act scheme are mainly based on the level of the disablement assessment and the age of the sufferer at the time the disease is diagnosed. The highest amounts are paid to those diagnosed at an early age and with the highest level of disablement. All payments for mesothelioma under the ’79 Act scheme are made at the 100% disablement rate—the highest rate of payment. Similarly, all payments under the 2008 scheme are made at the 100% disablement rate and based on age, again with the highest payments going to the younger sufferers. In the last full year, April 2013 to March 2014, over 3,700 payments were made in respect of both schemes, totalling over £54 million.
These regulations increase the levels of support through the Government compensation schemes. I am sure we all agree that while no amount of money can ever compensate individuals and families for the suffering and loss caused by mesothelioma, those who are suffering rightly deserve some form of monetary compensation. I commend the regulations to the House.
Immigration Bill
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) has made his point—he wants to get in—but it is up to the Minister to give way, and quite obviously he wants to make some progress.
Mr Harper
I am trying to do justice to the many Members who spoke in the debate, including the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart).
I particularly enjoyed the remarks from my hon. Friends the Members for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) and for Crawley (Henry Smith), all of whose constituencies I have had the opportunity to visit in my current role, and the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), from whom I am sure I will receive an invitation in due course.
The right hon. Member for Delyn is right about the issues that we will not have a chance to debate in the remaining seven minutes; I want us to have a good debate in Committee and to go through the issues in detail, and I am confident that when we lay out our aims, we will take Members with us, having first tested their concerns. We want the Bill to leave Committee and this House in good shape. As Members will know from my previous roles and challenges, I do not think we should leave it to the other place to put Bills in good shape. I want to ensure it leaves this House in good shape, and I look forward to the debate in Committee to do so.
In the time remaining, I shall try to deal with some of the issues raised. A number of Members raised important points about the proposals on health. To be clear, we are not talking about denying access to health care. We are talking about making sure that those who have no right to free health care have to make a contribution towards it. One of the points raised by the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash) was about public health and access to health for HIV treatment. I intervened on her to say that public health access will still be available for free. What I did not remember at the time was that this Government abolished treatment charges for HIV for overseas visitors exactly to protect the sorts of public health concerns she raised.
We are talking about making sure people pay a fair share. For those temporary migrants coming to Britain either to work or to study, we will collect the money before they come into the UK. It will go into the Consolidated Fund, and it is well above my pay grade, Mr Deputy Speaker, to tell colleagues in the Treasury how to do public spending. But if money is then distributed, any funds that go to the NHS in England will of course be distributed to the devolved Administrations in the usual way according to the Barnett consequentials. I hope that that is clear. We are not proposing to change the way in which the devolved Administrations can charge under the overseas visitors arrangements. Those aspects of charging are of course devolved. We will talk to the devolved administrations to make sure that there are no unforeseen consequences from different parts of the UK having different regimes for visitor charging.
As I said earlier in response to the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), these are significant sums of money. She asked my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary how much we thought was not collected from health tourists. In the report that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health published today, we say that we think that between £20 million and £100 million is the cost of deliberate health tourism for urgent treatment and between £50 million and £200 million for regular visitors taking advantage. Clearly there is a range, but this is an independent report that has been peer-reviewed and it is the best information we have. The hon. Lady is right; it is not a massive proportion of the overall NHS budget but £500 million that we are not collecting is a significant sum and it would make a real difference if we were able to collect it.
The Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), made some points about landlords, and we will test those issues in Committee. He also referred to e-Borders. He deserves a reasonable reply since he shared the blame around with the previous Government. We do already collect a significant amount of information on those coming into Britain and those leaving and we are working on improving that. I know that he will continue to question my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and myself when we appear in front of his Committee.
The hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) and I do not always agree, but she made an important point about refugees. The reason I think it is important to deal with people who have no right to be in Britain is that I want Britain to continue to be a welcoming place for those genuinely fleeing persecution. I fundamentally believe that we will only carry the public with us and have the public support a system where we protect genuine refugees—those fleeing persecution—if where we decide someone does not need our protection, and an independent judge does not think they need protection, those people leave the UK. By the way, we are not removing appeal rights for those where there is a fundamental right involved. If they abuse our hospitality by trying every trick in the book to stay here, they are damaging the interests of genuine migrants. It is our duty to make sure we do that.
Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. As Mr Chope should know, we must keep our powder dry on that point until Third Reading. I ask the Minister not to be tempted.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Once again we are being tempted to address matters that should properly be discussed on Third Reading, and I know that the Minister does not want to do that.
Mr Harper
You are always very quick to keep Members in order, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I was about to resist the temptation offered by my hon. Friend and instead ask him if he would permit me to come back to the point. I do not have to ask him now as you have instructed me not to address it now. We touched on this point in the written statement I tabled yesterday, and I will flesh it out on Third Reading.
Returning to the points the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife made on the amendments, we will not support them because they widen the scope of the Bill significantly and are therefore not just technical in nature. It is helpful that the Opposition have tabled them, because they have demonstrated, as I started to say, why this legislative approach is likely not to be the solution to the West Lothian question—this was the point suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh). If the West Lothian question is about how this House legislates, any solution will probably have to be carried out through Standing Orders so that this House remains in control of it rather than the courts being permitted to start interfering, which is the last thing we want.
Having dealt with the amendments as a whole, let me turn now, briefly, to amendment 6, which defines legislation as both primary and secondary legislation. It is worth making the point that there is no need to include secondary legislation because it is made by virtue of the powers given to Ministers in primary legislation.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(12 years, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.
Mr Harper
I should like to make it clear that I am proposing that the House disagrees with their lordships on amendments 1, 2 and 9, and I shall set out the reasons for that. For the benefit of Members who have not had the chance to study the amendments in detail, they provide that the provisions in this excellent Bill be subject to a sunset clause after the next general election. Each subsequent Parliament would have the choice of whether to be a fixed-term Parliament or not. The Government want to oppose the amendments because we think that they fundamentally undermine the purpose of the Bill, which was welcomed by, among others, the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee of this House. I see a member of the Committee, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) sort of agreeing with me on the Opposition Benches.
In bringing forward the Bill, we are seeking to put in place a provision that we hope will become an established part of our constitutional arrangements—namely, that fixed-term Parliaments for this UK Parliament become the norm, just as they are for local government, for the devolved legislatures and for the European Parliament. Two of the most important things in the Bill—in the form that the Government would like it to take—are, first, the proposal for an ability to deny the Executive the ability to choose a date for a general election to suit their own ends and to ensure that the Prime Minister gives up that power for the first time, and, secondly, to deliver certainty on how long a Parliament will last, which will benefit not only parliamentarians but the public.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. It would be helpful if the hon. Gentleman could let us know which part of the amendment he is referring to.
Mr Harper
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. The polling that has been carried out suggests that the public support fixed-term Parliaments. Indeed, if we think back to the previous Parliament, there was a general sense, both in the House and among the public and commentators, that the “will he, won’t he” debate about whether the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) would call an election on becoming Prime Minister was not helpful to good Government or to good democratic accountability. It will be helpful to have greater certainty, as that will benefit us all. Let us ask ourselves this question: if the Bill became law, and fixed-term Parliaments became the norm, would any Minister realistically be able to come to the Dispatch Box and suggest with a straight face that we should change the position and give the power back to the Prime Minister to hold an election at a time of his choosing to suit his political party? Would anyone take that proposition seriously? I suggest that they would not.
Mr Cash
Has it occurred to the Minister that part of the problem with this wretched Bill is that it is trying to organise things to suit the requirements of this coalition? Decisions on the future should actually be down to the public at large, and if they want to get rid of a Parliament, they will do so in their own way. That is where the question of a confidence motion starts to kick in.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. We are not dealing with the whole Bill; we are dealing with the amendments. I am sure that the Minister will take that into account in his answer.
Mr Harper
To be fair to my hon. Friend, Mr Deputy Speaker, he was speaking to the amendments that we are discussing. He made the assertion that our proposals would suit this particular Government during this particular Parliament, but that is simply not the case. If the Prime Minister wanted to ensure that this Parliament ran for the full five years and that the general election took place on 7 May 2015, he would need to do only one thing—namely, not approach Her Majesty the Queen to seek a Dissolution before that date. We could thereby achieve a five-year Parliament for this Parliament, but we want to make a change to our constitutional processes—I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) does not agree with it—to remove from Prime Ministers the ability to choose the date of a general election.
The second part of my hon. Friend’s question effectively suggested that a sunset provision would be a good thing. Under our democratic system, the public elect Members of Parliament for a term. At the moment, they do not have a choice about when the general election will be; the sole decision about that sits with the Prime Minister. The Bill seeks to give that power to Members of this democratically elected House. I would have thought that my hon. Friend, as a champion of parliamentary control of the Executive, would welcome that proposition.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Mr Brennan, the Minister has given way once and he has said that he is not going to give way again.
Mr Harper
I am grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
A related point made in the other place was the argument that Lord Rooker’s threshold was appropriate because the question being decided in the referendum was constitutionally significant. My argument is that we are having the referendum because this is an important issue—it is about how we are elected. It is not right that we make that decision, because the people should decide how Members are elected to this House.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to consider amendment (a) and Lords amendment 8.
Mr Harper
The first amendment to be moved on Report in the other place by the noble Lord Rooker and agreed to by a majority of just one vote provides that:
“If less than 40% of the electorate vote in the referendum, the result shall not be binding.”
The Government oppose the inclusion of this amendment in the Bill on two key grounds. First, it goes against our view that people should get what they vote for, and, secondly, it introduces the perverse consequences associated with thresholds.
Before going into those arguments, however, I should remind colleagues that we have debated the question of whether to impose a 40% turnout threshold before, when an amendment to this effect was tabled on Report by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash). I note that he has tabled an amendment today that seeks to reintroduce his proposal from Report, turning Lord Rooker’s proposal into a straightforward turnout threshold by mandating the Minister to repeal the AV provisions in the event that turnout is less than 40%. It is worth recording that, when this House voted on that proposal the first time round, it was resoundingly rejected by 549 votes to 31. On that occasion, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), speaking for the Opposition, said that he did not think it appropriate to bring in a threshold.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Let me be quite honest: a number of Members are still seeking to catch my eye, so we need shorter interventions.
Mr Harper
I will take your injunction as implicitly indicating that I should give way to fewer of them.
On the effect of AV, it is not, of course, the case under our system of optional preferential voting that it is necessarily 50% of the votes cast that counts; rather it is 50% of the vote remaining in the count. If lots of people choose not to accept a preference, AV does not imply that a Member of Parliament must get more than 50% of the vote. I simply disagree with my hon. Friend. He will know that I am as unenthusiastic about the alternative vote as he is, but I think the right thing to do, which is the Government’s policy, is to have the referendum so that he and I can go out and argue for a no vote, while other colleagues wanting a yes vote will make that case. We can then both seek to get as many people as possible to vote on our behalf. The Government’s view is that if there is a turnout threshold, it will provide an incentive for those who favour a no result to stay at home. I do not think that we should be encouraging that.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Harper
Frankly, the point of order that the hon. Gentleman raised last week was nonsense. He did not give me notice of it, so I was unable to respond. I listened carefully to last week’s debate and responded to it. I then made an announcement of Government policy in this House at the Dispatch Box, which I thought was the usual way of conducting business.
The following day, I wrote to the leaders of parties in each of the devolved Assemblies, as I said I would. I did not put anything in those letters that I had not announced in the debate. I also wrote to the shadow Justice Secretary, who leads on political and constitutional reform for the Opposition, to keep him properly informed. I placed copies of all those letters in the Library.
The Chairman
Order. We should not be rehashing previous points of order. We should be dealing with the amendment. I am sure that Mr Bryant wishes to do so.
The Chairman
Order. After such a long debate, may I inform the Committee that I do not propose to allow a debate on clause stand part?
Mr Harper
There are several other groups of amendments, and we can expand on these matters further in due course. I shall go only as far as I need to in discussing this group, rather than trying to accelerate the debate. I want to deal briefly with the timetable. I do not think that the Bill has been rushed in any way. It was published in July, it had its Second Reading in September, and the first day of its Committee stage did not start until November. We have another day in Committee today, and the House passed a programme motion earlier that gives us an extra day in Committee on Thursday. I do not think that we are rushing ahead with this. No knives were included in the programme motion, and we are taking the debate at the proper pace that the Committee requires.
The Chairman
Order. I would like to stop this bickering between the Front Benchers. Let us move on.
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend moved amendment 33, although many members of the Select Committee pretended that they wanted nothing to do with it; to be fair, so did my hon. Friend. She explained why the amendment was tabled—to enable this Committee to debate and test the concerns raised by the Clerk. I shall touch on them briefly. I will not overdo them, as we may have an opportunity to debate them further in a later group of amendments on the Speaker’s certificate. However, I shall deal with the amendment. I know my hon. Friend said that she does not want to press it to a Division, but it is the lead amendment.
The amendment would remove two central provisions—the two mechanisms that provide for an early general election to take place: the vote through which the House can choose to have an early election and the mechanism for having one following the loss of a vote of confidence. Instead, the amendment provides that the early election could take place only on the House’s address to the monarch, which can be made only
“by the Prime Minister acting with the agreement of…the Leader of the Opposition; and…the…leader of a registered party that received more than 20 per cent. of the total votes cast at the previous…general election.”
I have a number of serious issues with the amendment. First, it would prevent the Prime Minister from calling a general election only if he did so for political advantage. It ignores and does not address the circumstances where there is a loss of confidence. It also focuses greatly on Front Benchers, as our debate has made clear. I exempt my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest from this criticism, as she said she did not agree with the amendment, but given their views about the role of Front Benchers, I am surprised that the other signatories to the amendment thought that that was a good idea. The hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) is not in his place, but I do not think he would mind my saying that he is somewhat sceptical about the power of Front Benchers and the usual channels. I am surprised that he supported an amendment that suggests they should have a lot of power. As the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) pointed out, not every registered leader of a party is necessarily a Member of this House.
The amendment also fails to deal with what would happen to a party such as the Liberal Democrats, our coalition partners, part-way through a Parliament. How would we take account of the vote it had received at the previous general election? Indeed, the 20% threshold would leave Northern Ireland parties out of the picture completely. If this measure had been in place following the 1992, 1997 and 2001 elections, only two people would have been required to table the motion—the leader of the Labour party and the leader of the Conservative party. In view of what has been said about the need to remove the power of the Executive and Front Benchers, that does not seem a sensible step forward.
It would thus be fair to say that amendment 33 is not well drafted. From what I heard, it does not sound as if it had enormous support across the Committee, including even from my hon. Friend. Despite the fact that she did not agree with the amendment, she moved it in a way that was very becoming to her parliamentary experience and the Committee enjoyed the opportunity with which it was presented.
Mr Harper
In a moment; let me first address the question I have just been asked.
Earlier in the debate, we had a conversation about motions that were not specifically in these terms, and several Members on the Government Benches referred to certain votes. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) referred to some votes on Europe and my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) talked about a vote on VAT on fuel. How the Government behaved after the debates on those motions was determined by Ministers, not the House.
The Chairman
Motions of no confidence are an issue to be debated later. Members ought to be speaking to amendment 33.
The Chairman
Order. I am sorry, but I am making a ruling from the Chair. I feel that this is a debate that we are going to have and I am concerned that we are getting drawn into it now. The Minister may answer quickly, if he wishes, but I do not want to let this go any further after that.
Mr Harper
Mr Hoyle, you are pointing out that we can discuss this at length when we get on to a later group of amendments. My view on the hon. Gentleman’s example is very clear: if the Prime Minister so wishes, he can cease being Prime Minister whenever he feels like it. The House could then see whether an alternative Government under a different leader could be formed—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda says not under this provision, but this provision is for an early election. The Prime Minister can cease being Prime Minister whenever the Prime Minister chooses and Her Majesty will then be able to send for an alternative person to form a new Government. That is not what the Bill is about. The Bill is about fixed-term Parliaments, not fixed-term Governments.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Mark Harper(13 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
I beg to move amendment 261, page 14, line 8, at end insert—
‘Counting officers
1A (1) The counting officer for a voting area that is—
(a) a district in England,
(b) a county in England, or
(c) a London borough,
is the person who, by virtue of section 35 of the 1983 Act, is the returning officer for elections of councillors of the district, county or borough.
(2) The counting officer for the City of London voting area is the person who, by virtue of that section, is the returning officer for elections of councillors of the London borough of Westminster.
(3) The counting officer for the Isles of Scilly voting area is the person who, by virtue of that section, is the returning officer for elections to the Council of the Isles of Scilly.
(4) The counting officer for a voting area in Wales is the person who, by virtue of provision made under section 13(1)(a) of the Government of Wales Act 2006, is the returning officer for elections of members of the National Assembly for Wales for the constituency that forms the voting area.
(5) The counting officer for a voting area in Scotland is the person who, by virtue of provision made under section 12(1)(a) of the Scotland Act 1998, is the returning officer for elections of members of the Scottish Parliament for the constituency that forms the voting area.
(6) The counting officer for the Northern Ireland voting area is the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland.’.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government amendments 262, 168, 169, 263, 265, 266 and 270.
Amendment 353, in schedule 2, page 49, line 15, at end insert—
‘(aa) certify as respects the votes cast in each parliamentary constituency within his area—
(i) the number of ballot papers counted by him in that parliamentary constituency; and
(ii) the number of votes cast in favour and against to the question asked in the referendum.’.
Government amendments 279, 280, 307, 309 to 322, 325 and 326.
Mr Harper
The Government have tabled a number of amendments relating to the referendum that are necessary to allow for the smooth running of the poll on 5 May. A number of the amendments—261 to 263, 270, 279, 280, 307, 309 to 322, 325 and 326—provide that all returning officers appointed for the local district council or borough elections in England, for Assembly elections in Wales, or for the parliamentary election in Scotland, are automatically designated as counting officers for the referendum. The provisions also appoint the chief counting officer for Northern Ireland as the counting officer in the referendum. That displaces for the referendum the standard position under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, which provides that the chief counting officer would need to appoint the individuals.
The key advantage of the approach that we are taking is that the returning officer and the counting officer will always be the same person, and that will provide returning officers with certainty that they will be the counting officers for the referendum. It will also ensure that the counting officers in the referendum have the necessary experience. The approach that we have taken to the appointment of counting officers is generally consistent with the practice for other statutory elections where legislation automatically deems, or provides for, the appointment of certain postholders in local authorities as returning officers for different elections—for example, local authority returning officers automatically become returning officers for the purposes of European parliamentary elections.
Government amendment 326 makes changes to the definition of the voting area for Scotland and Wales. The change ensures that in Scotland and Wales the referendum will be run on the same respective boundaries as the Scottish parliamentary and Welsh Assembly elections. No changes are required in respect of the current provisions in the Bill for England, which already allow for the referendum to be run on the same boundaries as the local government elections, which are scheduled to take place on 5 May.