Private Members’ Bills

Debate between Melanie Onn and Rupa Huq

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I join others in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) on securing this important debate. I thank all my colleagues who have spoken passionately on this procedural subject. In particular, I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) and my hon. Friends the Members for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) and for Burnley (Julie Cooper) on their contributions. It has been valuable to hear the experiences of those who have tried to introduce their own Bills and who took part in the lottery that we were all excited about at the beginning of the Session, only to find that it is a cruel joke not only on the public, but on us as individuals starting our adventures in Parliament.

It is clear to the majority of us that the current system for debating and voting on private Members’ Bills is undemocratic. It looks outdated to the public and it needs to change. Individual MPs currently have virtually no chance of influencing legislative change. This place has nothing to fear from the duly elected representatives from all parts of this nation raising important issues that are a high priority for constituents or large sections of society.

As the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) mentioned, other parliamentary systems make specific provision for individual Members to be able to create, generate or better influence change to legislation, and now we have the opportunity to do that ourselves. Since the election, Bill after Bill that could have saved lives and money, and helped those who most need it has been blocked. That is not only damaging to those pieces of legislation that have not passed into law; it is hugely damaging to our democracy, because they were blocked by filibuster and were not even voted on.

[Dr Huq]

Is my hon. Friend aware that there is currently an e-petition called “Reform the rules on filibustering or ‘talking a Bill to death’”? It has 50,000-plus signatures. This has gone beyond an anoraky issue of constitutional reform.

[Melanie Onn]

I am well aware of that. It just shows the importance of the issue to members of the public. I would urge anybody who is tuning into Parliament TV today to sign up. Maybe we will have a private Member’s Bill on private Members’ Bills at some point.

I do not want to echo comments that have already been made too much, but it is really not fair that one Member of this House can block legislation from being voted on and possibly becoming law. We never hear a defence of the filibuster rule. We hear objections to changes to the procedures and we hear Members justifying their actions by working within the rules, but very rarely do we have an outright defence of the system. That is because it is unjustifiable for one or two MPs to deny the representatives of the rest of the country a voice on important and potentially life-saving legislation.

Very often—we have heard examples of this—it is a Government Minister who does the filibustering and not some rogue Back Bencher, which often seems to be the general impression. An Education Minister blocked the Bill that would have made it compulsory for children to be taught emergency first aid at school, and the Minister for Community and Social Care talked out a Bill to allow the NHS access to low-cost medical treatments for conditions such as multiple sclerosis, cancer and Parkinson’s. The same Minister prevented a Bill from passing that would have exempted carers from paying hospital parking charges.

Equitable Life

Debate between Melanie Onn and Rupa Huq

Thursday 11th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

I have been contacted by a number of constituents who were affected by the collapse of Equitable Life. One woman wrote to me to say:

“I myself have lost over £40,000, and have only received £12,000 in compensation. Does this sound fair to you?”

Successive Governments have failed to appreciate the anger that this issue has caused people. A couple who contacted me asked why the Treasury had provided 100% compensation to Icelandic bank depositors, when they had received only a fifth of the sum that they were due and had planned their retirement around. They said:

“In the years prior to our retirement we actually took money from our own savings to top up our pension payments and feel that we have lost twice over. We would have been better off being irresponsible and spent every penny we had and then relied on the State. It seems the government departments are hoping that we will die and the problem will go away.”

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

The Library briefing points out that there is a ticking time bomb because the beneficiaries of the scheme are elderly. Like my hon. Friend, I have received representations from many constituents. Has she heard the same sentiment that I heard expressed by Brian Watkins, who faces losing up to £40,000 and thinks that the Government are waiting until policyholders die, so that they do not have to deal with them? Surely, we should reassure those people, and the Chancellor should find that money down the back of the sofa.

[Melanie Onn]

I agree, and our constituents in London and the north of the country clearly share the view that this is a significant issue. People feel seriously let down by the Government’s failure to act on this matter in a timely fashion. I wonder whether the Minister is confident that the current regulations are strong enough to prevent any repeat of what happened. Future investors will be particularly keen to know that they are not going to fall into a similar trap and that if a similar situation were to come to light in the future, the Government would engage with the victims and allow their voices to be heard when trying to devise a solution.

Riot Compensation Bill

Debate between Melanie Onn and Rupa Huq

Friday 4th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Just as everyone from an earlier generation remembers where they were when JFK was assassinated, everyone from Ealing remembers where they were when riots hit our corner of west London, which is known, justifiably, as the queen of the suburbs. [Interruption.] It is, yes, and correctly so.

Footage of the shop front of Helen and Stuart Melville’s Bang & Olufsen franchise on Bond Street in Ealing went viral. It showed rioters trying to smash the glass several times before giving up and scurrying off. Helen, who had had warning through the grapevine, told me recently that, at 5 pm, she was on her way back from Peppa Pig World, when she was given a tip-off that rumours were circulating on Facebook. That shows the modern nature of the 2011 riots. She could not believe it. She thought, “Why Ealing? Why us? I don’t believe this.” The same sentiment of incredulity also hit Ravi and Amrit Khurmy, of Ealing Green local store, who said that the word of mouth was that something might happen.

Both were small businesses into which the proprietors had sunk everything they had, and both, like Ealing itself, were rocked by the 2011 riots. Sadly, the initial prophecies became a reality. Both received a phone call from the company that maintained the alarm system saying, “Something’s up. Can you come?”, and both returned to scenes of destruction and carnage. Mr Melville said it was like something out of a zombie movie: “28days Days” comes to Ealing—is that the one?

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

“28 Days Later”.

[Dr Huq]

Sorry, I am not into zombie movies. It was Mr Melville’s example. They found cars burning and other such things one does not expect to see in Ealing. Bang & Olufsen closed early, as a precautionary measure, but even so, the glass was shattered and the footage attracted many millions of views on YouTube. Ravi found his store in flames. The London fire brigade was in attendance for 24 hours. It was not just the shop; there were flats above as well.

The Bill attempts to redress some of the imbalances in the current legislation and revamp the compensation provisions, as the hon. Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) described. The existing legislation is on the aged side, if that is not too much of an understatement. Very few statutes—very few anything—dating from 1886 continue completely unaltered today. It was a time when Queen Victoria was on the throne, and I think both Lord Salisbury and Gladstone had turns at being Prime Minister that year. A house dating from 1886 would at the very least have needed a bit of updating: a lick of paint, central heating and other mod cons. Riots in the UK are, thankfully, relatively rare, but the legal framework needs to be brought into the 21st century, as the hon. Member for Dudley South said.

A lot of people called the riots of four years ago the social media, high-tech riots. Some commentators even likened them to the contemporaneous Arab spring, which I think is going a bit far—the riots in Tunisia and those countries had a different cause. To pursue the parallel, if we were updating an 1886 house in line with what the legislation needs, we would need several coats of paint, not just a lick of paint, and total rewiring and heating, with a new boiler and radiators. The cumulative effect is that it becomes too much of a job to stick with the existing structure, so we do need new legislation. It makes perfect sense, and I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing the Bill to the House today, because we need to bring that Victorian legislation kicking and screaming into the present day.

Ealing council’s riot scrutiny panel report from 2012 stated that over 1,000 999 calls were made on 8 August 2011, many of which went unanswered. The report states that there was damage to 100 shops and businesses and that “one supermarket burnt down”—Ealing Green Local, which I referred to. It took 18 months to reopen. It now has half its original footprint and has been rebranded as a SPAR. When the riots happened, I was cowering indoors watching Twitter, but I remember going the next day and seeing an Edwardian turret from the roof structure of that building being lifted away by crane. It was quite surreal.

Ravi outlined what happened in the aftermath and told me what he would like to see in future riot compensation legislation. He said that the insurers had paid out, but that the process was painfully slow. He reckoned that his claim was accelerated somewhat because he knew someone on the inside. That should not be so: we should be a nation above corruption in those things. He pointed out—the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) also made this point—that consequential loss should be covered as well. Ravi said that, at present, compensation covers only fixtures and fittings, whereas he would like loss of earnings to be included.

Ravi’s other point was that the role of the council was relatively limited. Ealing’s report said:

“Feedback on the Council was very positive—the payment of £1,200 was delivered promptly, and the named officer had been in frequent contact with advice and support.”

That is what the council said.