Oral Answers to Questions

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2017 Commons Chamber

The Attorney General was asked—

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

1. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union on the requirement for legislative consent motions for the proposed great repeal Bill.

[The Attorney General (Jeremy Wright)]

I have regular discussions with ministerial colleagues, including with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, on various issues of importance to the Government. The Government will publish the great repeal Bill in due course, and the content of the Bill will determine the process to take it forward.

[Marion Fellows]

Last month, the Secretary of State for Scotland confirmed that a legislative consent motion would be required from the Scottish Parliament for the great repeal Bill, but in his answer just now the Attorney General stopped well short of that. If the UK Government’s position is the same as the Secretary of State for Scotland’s, will a legislative consent motion be required?

[The Attorney General]

The hon. Lady tempts me to explore what will be in the great repeal Bill. I am not going to do that, but she knows, and I am sure her colleagues know, that if the Bill affects the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament or the executive competence of the Scottish Government, there will need to be a legislative consent motion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

11. What assessment the Government have made of the effect on equality for disabled people of its policies on welfare.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Delivery (Caroline Nokes)]

Spending to support people with disabilities and health conditions will be higher in real terms in every year to 2020 than it was in 2010. The Government have set out their assessment of the impact of the welfare policies in the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016, and made similar assessments for previous changes.

[Caroline Nokes]

Spending on the main disability benefits rose by more than £3 billion in real terms during the course of the last Parliament, and overall spending on personal independence payments and disability living allowance will be higher this year in real terms than spending on DLA was in 2010. Our welfare reforms will ensure that the billions we spend better reflect today’s understanding of disability and offer targeted support to enable disabled people to live independent lives.

[Marion Fellows]

I welcome the Minister, a former colleague on the Education Select Committee, to her position. She will be aware of the Government’s long-promised Work and Health programme and of how disabled people are still awaiting publication of the Green Paper to map out what employment support will be made available for those with disabilities. Does she agree that her Government must now map out the timeline for publication and ensure that sufficient funding is made available for disabled people, who have borne the brunt of Tory austerity cuts?

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. Lady for her welcome. I very much enjoyed our time together on the Select Committee. She is absolutely right that we will publish a Green Paper to engage with disability groups and disabled individuals in order to build a strategy that works for them. It is critical that we get more disabled people into work. I spent some time before the general election as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the then Minister for Disabled People, and I know how hard he worked to promote the Disability Confident campaign and to ensure good examples of companies we could champion for showing that employing disabled people was good not only for disabled people but for the economy and individual companies.