Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(9 years, 1 month ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right to say that the Labour party has never sought to look after the interests of the south-west, nor the interests of the national economy more broadly. Without a stronger economy, it is impossible to create a fairer society in which power is distributed to all parts of the United Kingdom, including the south-west.
The Deputy Prime Minister
We have been more open and transparent about the employment of special advisers than any previous Government, and I have never hidden the fact that in a coalition Government of two parties, clearly both parties will wish to employ special advisers in order to facilitate the mechanics and workings of government.
Mr Speaker
I call Mr Richard Graham. [Interruption.] Get in there, Mr Graham; your moment is now.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
T11. May I thank the Deputy Prime Minister’s office warmly for all its hard work in ensuring that growth deals for Gloucester and Gloucestershire have been delivered over the past five years, and may I exhort him to do more of the same in the next Parliament?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend. I agree that the growth deals have set an important precedent in handing more power, money and decision-making authority to local communities, and I hope it sets a trend that will not be reversed in the next Parliament.
Mr Speaker
It is no surprise that the previous career of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) was as a Foreign Office diplomat. He is able to react to any situation, even when he is busily consulting his iPhone. We are deeply obliged to him.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
T9. I notice that the Deputy Prime Minister is responsible for building strategic relations with Europe. Given how weak our country is in Europe and NATO and how so many people compare this Prime Minister with Neville Chamberlain, is he proud of the job he has done promoting Britain in Europe?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Ian Murray
The Deputy Prime Minister says that he supports the Prime Minister on a full range of Government policy; I should think that as the Deputy Prime Minister he supports the Prime Minister on the whole range of Government policy. The Government have been incredibly complacent about the role of individual voter registration. I have over 10,000 students in my constituency, many thousands of whom are not registered. What is the Deputy Prime Minister going to do about that? How is he going to spend the £10 million emergency fund? Is it not a recognition that this is a huge problem across the country and should be dealt with?
Mr Speaker
Order. I remind Members that topical questions are supposed to be shorter.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The new system is supported on all sides of the House. It was originally planned by the previous Government to move to a system of individual voter registration, so that we move beyond the paternalism which assumed that the head of a household would always register the people in that household. The new system gives everybody the individual right to decide for themselves how and when they want to be registered. As the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), just explained, we are providing resources and are considering providing more resources to local authorities in those areas where certain groups are at present under-registered.
Mr Speaker
Order. Whether the question is well prepared or not is not for the Chair to decide; what the Chair does want is to hear the answer.
The Deputy Prime Minister
A well prepared and obviously much rehearsed question. My view, as the hon. Gentleman’s party hares off to the right and the Labour party hares off to the left, is that the majority of the British people want us to stick to the course of fixing the economy but doing so in a spirit of fairness and compassion. That is why my party, unlike the other two, will remain firmly camped on the centre ground.
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Gentleman may know, the growth deal for London had a particular focus on giving greater flexibility and freedom to decision makers in London to address the skills gaps not only in the economy as a whole but in London in particular. As he rightly alluded to, there are of course pockets of real deprivation in our capital city, but there are also pockets of folk, both young and old, who simply do not have the skills needed to get themselves back into the labour market.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
T4. From Lincolnshire to London, chief constables are expressing mounting concern over the Government’s proposed cuts to policing leading to neighbourhood policing being hollowed out, response times getting longer, victims being let down and, crucially, public safety being put at risk. Are they right?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(9 years, 5 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
We will stick to the timetable to which all the main parties in Westminster committed themselves at the time of the referendum. We have stuck to that timetable religiously so far. In fact, despite predictions to the contrary by the Scottish National party, we have over-delivered on the commitments regarding further devolution to Scotland.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, a lively debate is taking place about the franchise for 16 and 17-year-olds. My party has always believed that we should give them the right to vote. They took up that right with alacrity at the time of the Scottish referendum, but the issue will clearly continue to be debated across parties in the House.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(9 years, 6 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I would be delighted. I was fully in support of the money resolution for that private Member’s Bill, and for the Affordable Homes Bill on the spare bedroom subsidy, which the Conservative party blocked. If the hon. Gentleman did not like what happened, he should address his own party’s leadership, not me—[Interruption.]
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
I was quite enjoying that, Mr Speaker.
The Deputy Prime Minister will be aware of the anti-Westminster mood around the country, and he has spoken of anomalies in the way our country is governed. I welcome his support for a peoples-led convention, which the Lib Dems, the Labour party and other parties all support. Why does he think the Conservatives are so against that proposal?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The hon. Lady says I did not respond at all. As she will have noticed this morning, there are many Members of this House who have local infrastructure projects and who, quite rightly, want to see them advanced. I defer to nobody in my zeal to see road and rail improvements across the country. I know that this is an alien concept to those on her side of the House but affordability is something that one must attend to. If she is saying that there is a fully formed and fully affordable means by which electrification can be provided, of course that is something that all of us would back.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(9 years, 7 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman might need to write to me on the issue and I will then look into it for him.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
The North East LEP has done great work, but does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that in rural Northumberland we need the LEP to support rural connectivity and economic regeneration projects such as The Sill and the Gilsland station rebuild?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(9 years, 10 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I still marvel and admire the zeal and energy with which the hon. Gentleman delivers every question—well, they are not questions really; they are a sort of outpouring of bile. This Government will see the course through to the end of this Parliament. We have legislated for a fixed-term Parliament. That is an important constitutional innovation. As I said earlier, I personally think that coalition Governments of different compositions are more likely in future. That is why, among many other reasons, it is important that we do what we say and see through this Parliament from end to end until May 2015.
Mr Speaker
It is my ambition one day to be as youthful and dynamic as the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner). Last but not least, I call Mr Peter Bone.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I understand that, to strengthen the coalition, there may be a reshuffle on Monday. How does that work? Does the Deputy Prime Minister have specific posts that he appoints, such as the post of Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills? Can he appoint only Liberal Democrats to those posts, or can he approach other Members? If so, does he have my mobile telephone number?
The Deputy Prime Minister
There is no better way to finish Deputy Prime Minister’s questions than with the hon. Members for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) and for Wellingborough (Mr Bone). I am afraid I do not have the mobile telephone number of the hon. Member for Wellingborough. I am not going to ask for it; I hope he does not take that too badly. He is a versatile politician, but I do not think in anyone’s wildest imaginings he could ever approximate a decent Liberal Democrat.
Mr Speaker
I have allowed this to run on because there are fewer questions to the Attorney-General, but to those questions we now come.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(10 years ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I have a lot of sympathy with what my hon. Friend says. Consumers need the right information about the food that they are buying. Some meat is already voluntarily labelled as halal or kosher. This is an issue that provokes strong responses, and for some people it is important that all meat is labelled clearly. We are working with other EU countries to look at the best options for compulsory labelling, to give consumers the choice they want. A study into this matter will finish this summer, and we will review the options then.
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Gentleman knows, there has been a significant reduction in the number of people coming to our country from outside the European Union. I have never been an advocate of specific net migration figures, because there are many factors—not least freedom of movement across the European Union—over which we do not have any control. I want to have an immigration system that is tough where it needs to be tough. That is why I am a leading advocate of the reintroduction of exit checks—which were removed by previous Governments—so that we can count people out as well as in, but being welcoming to those people who want to play by the rules, pay their taxes and make a contribution to British life.
Mr Speaker
I note that the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) is sitting in a diagonally opposite position to his usual preferred berth.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
T14. It is difficult to hit a moving target, Mr Speaker. There are enormous variations in the numbers registered by electoral registration officers: the best figure is in north Wales, where up to 97% of eligible voters are registered, but it is clear that some areas are not doing the same job. What will the Deputy Prime Minister do to encourage these English laggards to catch up with the splendid example set by Wales?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)
After the general election, I had the privilege to be the first MP to introduce 100 apprentices in 100 days for Eastbourne, which was a huge success. Since then, more than 3,000 new apprentices have started in Eastbourne, which is more than in the previous seven years put together. However, I have a real concern. A lot of the apprenticeships have come through on a level 2 pathway, which is crucial for people who are less academic, and I am concerned that the Labour party appears to be pulling that rug out from under them. What does the Deputy Prime Minister have to say about that?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I certainly share my hon. Friend’s pride in the fact that this Government, led by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in the Business Department, have spearheaded the largest expansion of apprenticeships in living memory. I am utterly dismayed that the Labour party wants to pull the rug out from under hundreds of thousands of youngsters on level 2 apprenticeships by no longer calling them apprentices. What a great way to support young people in our country!
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(10 years, 2 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
However the right hon. and learned Lady wishes to characterise things, she has a record that she needs to defend: of boom and bust, of sucking up to the City and of presiding—[Interruption.]
The Deputy Prime Minister
She has a record of an increase in relative poverty, an increase in unemployment and an increase in youth unemployment, and of bequeathing to a generation the country’s worst peacetime deficit ever. Is that really a record that the right hon. and learned Lady is proud of? As ever, we are clearing up the mess that she left behind.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I also express my condolences to the family and friends of Bob Crow. Whether one agreed with him or not, he was someone with forthright views, and he always worked tirelessly for what he believed in and for the people he represented.
On the issue of Dounreay, the Ministry of Defence sought to be as open as possible. It is important that all of us work together to ensure that the nuclear deterrent is managed and maintained safely, and that is exactly what everyone seeks to do.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(10 years, 4 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
The Conservative party has a long-standing aspiration to reduce net immigration to tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands. The Business Secretary was entirely right to point out that the Government need to be open with the British people about those factors in the immigration system over which the Government have control and those over which they do not. He rightly pointed out that the number of British people leaving Britain to live elsewhere, or those Brits living elsewhere coming back, is something that no Government can necessarily control.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(10 years, 5 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
The right hon. and learned Lady talks about standing up to vested interests, in the week that we discover that the great courage of the Labour leadership to stand up to its trade union paymasters is—[Interruption.] Guess what? It is mañana, mañana, mañana; all too difficult, an absolute—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. This House should be the bastion of free speech. Neither the Deputy Prime Minister nor the right hon. and learned Lady must be shouted down and we will keep going with this session for as long as it takes for proper order to be observed.
The Deputy Prime Minister
And, Mr Speaker, if I may say so, it should be the bastion of political parties free of vested interests, and it is high time that the Labour leadership does what it says and stands up to its trade union paymasters. The right hon. and learned Lady should stand up to her bosses first.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Without the Liberal Democrats there would not be a recovery. [Interruption.]
The Deputy Prime Minister
We have our differences on this side of the House, but the one thing that unites us is that we would not have gone on a prawn-cocktail charm offensive sucking up to the banks, which created the problem in the first place. We would not simply say to our children and grandchildren, “You can pay off this generation’s debts.” No one on this side of the House would have broken the British economy in the first place.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(10 years, 5 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who is dealing with the city deals, tells me that he will be meeting all Cornish MPs, including my hon. Friend, to discuss the matter. I know that there is frustration about it in Cornwall, as well as great enthusiasm for a greater devolution of powers, which I admire and pay tribute to. As my hon. Friend knows, we provided city deals for the eight largest cities in the country first and are now looking at the next rung of the ladder, which involves a further 20 city deals. We will of course look at whether we can spread the approach to other parts of the country subsequently.
Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)
The UK Youth Parliament voted for it, the Labour party has put it in its general election manifesto and the Liberal Democrats have always supported it. When will the Deputy Prime Minister bring forward proposals to lower the voting age to 16?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(10 years, 7 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I read in the Sunday papers that the Labour party was going to get even tougher on welfare than the coalition, yet it has opposed £83 billion-worth of welfare savings. We have to bring the housing benefits bill down somehow. I assume that our rationale for the change is exactly the reason why, in government for 13 years, Labour maintained the same rules for households receiving housing benefit in the private rented sector.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Could the Deputy Prime Minister let us have the Government’s view on having televised party leader debates before the next general election? Will he ensure that the fourth party is allowed to take part in the debate so that he would be able to speak? [Interruption.]
Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(10 years, 8 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I can be unequivocal and unambiguous; yes. The motion is very clear on this point. There will be no decision taken on any military participation on the part of the UK without a separate debate and a separate vote. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. There is a rather disorderly atmosphere now in the House. I want to hear the Deputy Prime Minister and I feel reasonably confident that he wants to hear himself.
The Deputy Prime Minister
On the issue of legitimacy, as the motion stipulates, we are of course committed to a proper UN process in which we hear at the earliest possible opportunity from the weapons inspectors and, of course, where the matter is brought to the Security Council.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(10 years, 10 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I am sure that all Members from all parts of the House will agree that it is important that we give young people more opportunities to get into work. That is why we have massively expanded the number of apprenticeships that are available to young people, on a scale that dwarfs anything the previous Government had planned, and why we have made available £1 billion for the Youth Contract. I urge the hon. Lady, if she has not done so—[Interruption.] She says that it is not working. It offers funding for 250,000 new work experience places, which is a great way of getting young people into work. If she worked with us, she could explain to employers in her constituency that wage subsidies are available under the Youth Contract so that if a local employer takes on a young person, they get paid for doing so by the Government.
Mr Speaker
Order. Members need to be much briefer if we are to get through the questions.
Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)
T2. Will the Deputy Prime Minister update the House on the development of single pot funds and on what that will mean for east Kent in respect of the access to devolved money?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(10 years, 11 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
Obviously it is important for all proceedings in the House to be conducted as transparently as possible, and for the motives of Members to be made obvious to their constituents and to the public.
Mr Speaker
Order. It is always helpful when Members look at the question on the Order Paper and ask a coherent supplementary that relates to it rather than to something else. That should be a helpful part of the learning curve for the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans).
Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
14. The Deputy Prime Minister may have missed this while dealing with all his other duties yesterday, but his noble colleague Lord Oakeshott suggested that the House of Lords was full up. Does he agree?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(11 years ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
I have been asked to reply. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The Deputy Prime Minister must be heard—from the start of the session to the end of the session.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I have been asked to reply. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is visiting the United States for meetings with President Obama, making the case for a transatlantic trade agreement between the United States and the European Union and chairing the high-level panel on development in New York today. This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
The Deputy Prime Minister
As my hon. Friend knows, our commitment was for a referendum when there is a fundamental change in the relationship—[Interruption.] Read our manifesto—I have. I helped to write it, and I can guarantee that that is what it says, and we have acted on that. I have an old-fashioned view—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I do not think the Deputy Prime Minister particularly minds being shouted at, but I do not want him to be shouted at excessively. The House should hear his answer, and certainly the people of the Isle of Wight should hear his answer.
The Deputy Prime Minister
That is very kind of you, Mr Speaker, thank you.
I have an old-fashioned view that when a Government put forward a Queen’s Speech that has a lot of good things in it—a cap on social care costs, a decent single-tier pension for everybody and a cut in national insurance contributions for employers to create jobs—we on this side of the House should go out and promote it and not spend days bemoaning what is not in it.
The Deputy Prime Minister
That man, whom I believe to be me, was stating something then that my party has restated ever since: that we should have a referendum on Europe when the rules change. We said that— [Interruption.] We said that at the time—[Interruption] We said that at the time of the Lisbon treaty and we said it in our manifesto. We even legislated on it, and we will say it again. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Mr Gray, I was thinking of calling you to ask a question, but if you continue to misbehave, I might not.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
Q8. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree with me, the late Baroness Thatcher, senior Government members on the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, the Liberal Democrat manifesto, the Minister in charge of the Royal Mail and his own Government, and does he still agree with himself, that the privatisation of the Royal Mail is a step too far?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(11 years, 1 month ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
As the right hon. and learned Lady knows, the reason we have developed Help to Buy—which has two components: Government equity in new build construction and mortgage assistance —is of course not to subsidise people who have no stake in this country, nor is its intention to provide subsidies for people buying second homes. It is there to restore confidence in the housing market as a whole and ensure that the construction industry is given a significant boost, so that we employ more people and give people the opportunity to own their own homes.
Mr Speaker
Bob Blackman. Not here. It looks as if the hon. Gentleman is quickly getting to his seat without further delay. Hurry up. Mr Bob Blackman.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
T2. Thank you, Mr Speaker. My apologies; I was held up on London transport. With the local elections coming in May, will my right hon. Friend comment on the initiatives he is taking to combat postal vote fraud and impersonation at polling stations?
Leveson Inquiry
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(11 years, 5 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I think the hon. Gentleman’s idea is, in effect, to turn the Information Commissioner into an information commission. I am no great expert, but that does not seem, in and of itself, to be the worrisome part of the proposals. As he will know better than I do, it is worth bearing it in mind that further and new European data protection legislation is in the pipeline on a separate timetable. That is one example of something we need to examine, but it would put the cart before the horse were we to pass all these data protection provisions, and then have to reinvent it all in the light of a new EU data protection directive. That is exactly the kind of level of detail I hope we can get into very rapidly.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
By the way, I support the idea of separate statements— I would have liked to make some myself in the past.
I think I know the answer, but, because it will strengthen the message, will the Deputy Prime Minister confirm the call that the Prime Minister has now backed for proprietors to meet the National Union of Journalists and others to start work immediately on the introduction of a conscience clause into journalists’ contracts?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(11 years, 5 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I know the right hon. Gentleman thinks otherwise, but being a member of the Liberal Democrats is not yet a crime. By the way—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. This is Question Time; Members cannot divide the House now. There is no opportunity for that.
The Deputy Prime Minister
We always rely on my right hon. Friend for such erudition and grasp of history, which he possesses but unfortunately I do not. I am grateful to him for pointing that historical quirk out to us, but I hope he will agree that that is not reason enough not to modernise the rules of succession and bring them into line with the 21st century.
Mr Speaker
We can so rely on the right hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell), which is one of the reasons why I particularly enjoy calling him.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Deputy Prime Minister
On taxational levies on higher value properties, it is no secret that there is a difference of opinion in the coalition Government. There is no point in pretending otherwise. My view is that a police officer seeing 20% cuts in the policing budget, a teacher whose pay has been frozen or someone whose benefits are being reduced would find it very difficult to understand why we are not asking people in large multi-million pound homes to make an additional contribution as we have to tighten our belts further. I do not think that most ordinary people in this country think that it is fair that a family living in a family home, working hard to provide for themselves, has to pay the same council tax as an oligarch living in a £5 million mansion. That is why we will continue to make the case for a fairer approach to taxation. As we tighten our belts, and as I have said on numerous occasions, we should start at the top and work down, rather than the other way around.
Mr Speaker
We have a lot to get through, so may we have short questions and short answers, please?
Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
T5. The Deputy Prime Minister will at least be pleased that last Thursday his party won the by-election in Wallsend, even though the turn-out was low. As the public largely boycotted the police and crime commissioner elections, which cost £100 million, does he think that it would have been better for his party’s fortunes if that money had been spent on the 3,000 front-line police he promised in his election manifesto?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(11 years, 6 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
At least people can trust the Conservatives and Lib Dems on the economy. Let me explain. The shadow Chancellor is not here—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The right hon. Gentleman is in danger of being heckled rather noisily and stupidly by both sides. His answer will be heard, however long it takes, so the juvenile delinquency should stop now.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am used to getting it from both sides.
The shadow Chancellor is not in the Chamber, but just to underline my point, last year, in a television interview, he denied that there was a structural deficit while Labour was in power. Last month, in another television interview, he denied the denial. Now that he is briefing against himself in television interviews, how an earth will anyone ever have any faith that his lot can sort out the economy?
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Lady has asked the Deputy Prime Minister a question. I hope that hon. Members will have the courtesy to listen to the answer. I certainly want to hear it.
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Lady knows, her own leader has said that this is a voluntary process by which we need to encourage councils and employers in the public and private sectors to pay the living wage. No one will disagree with the idea of a living wage, with people being paid a fair wage for a fair day’s work, but there is a lot of extra work to be done to make that a reality. But guess what? It is this Government’s tax changes that will mean that as of next April someone on the minimum wage will have their income tax cut by half.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(11 years, 7 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
Yes, I have also read press reports that the chairman of the Conservative party wishes to strike a deal with us on boundaries in return for a party funding deal. I suppose that is finally a “get rich quick” scheme which he is prepared to put his name to. Let me be clear—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. We want to hear the words of the Deputy Prime Minister. I want a full hearing.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Let me put it this way: a change of mind on my part on the issue as is likely as the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) going to Norway to accept the Nobel prize on behalf of the European Union. It is not going to happen.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The right hon. and learned Lady says, reasonably enough, that there is no reason why we cannot establish an inquiry while the police are doing their work, but I think that the practical issue is the other way around: what kind of work could an inquiry do while the police are conducting their investigations? We should not imagine that an inquiry that cannot pursue certain avenues of investigation because the police are conducting their own investigations would necessarily be the best answer for the victims at this time. Let us at least agree that we must first do everything we can to ensure that proper answers are given to the victims. I am grateful to her for her signal that she is prepared to work together on a cross-party basis as we get to the bottom of what on earth happened.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
May I ask the Deputy Prime Minister what he thinks politics in this country should be about? I remind him that he argued with some passion for more equal constituencies and fairer boundaries on their own merits. Is politics about arguing for what one believes in on a point of principle, or is it about getting what one can out of a particular situation for one’s own political advantage, in which case why should we ever believe anything he says?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I know a thing or two about apologies, musical and otherwise, and I think that when someone is big enough to say that they made—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. It is not a criminal offence to shout at the Deputy Prime Minister, but it is notably discourteous. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) is used to practising in the courts as a barrister. He is a senior and sober fellow, and should behave accordingly.
The Deputy Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend the Chief Whip has made it clear that he acknowledges that what he did was wrong, he has apologised, and the police officer in question has accepted that apology. I hope that we can move on from there.
House of Lords Reform Bill
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(11 years, 8 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I thank the right hon. and learned Lady for her questions and I am sorry to hear that she has an early autumn sore throat to battle with. She gets 10 out of 10 for spectacular insincerity, nevertheless. The Labour party used to campaign against privilege and patronage. The Labour party used to say that it was the party of the people. The Labour party used to believe that the second Chamber should be abolished altogether. Yet when push came to shove, what did it do? It—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Mr Lucas, I thought you were auditioning to be a statesman but I am starting to have second thoughts. Calm yourself, man. We have only just come back and there are many long evenings ahead. I want to hear the Deputy Prime Minister.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Of course the Labour party does not like to be reminded that it has been converted from a party of the people to a party of the peerage. What did Labour Members do when they had the opportunity? They voted for the idea of reform but not for the means to deliver it. They delivered lofty speeches about the need to give the people a say about how to elect the legislators in the other place, but they would not even tell us how many days they wanted in the timetable motion to make that lofty rhetoric a reality.
I think the history books will judge the Labour party very unkindly indeed. When they had the opportunity to translate the great work of Robin Cook and of the right hon. Member for Blackburn into reality and finally had it within their grasp to be the friends of reform, they turned into miserable little party point-scoring politicians instead.
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I said before, that barely scratches the surface of the issues that exist in the House of Lords. On the first point, the failure of collective responsibility is a political one in which one party in the coalition Government has not honoured the commitments set out in the coalition agreement to proceed with reform of the House of Lords. Let me be clear—[Interruption.] If I can make myself heard, let me be clear: I have asked Liberal Democrat Members countless times to vote for things to which they strongly object, because they were in the coalition agreement. The hon. Gentleman cannot reasonably ask me to ask Liberal Democrat MPs to continue as if nothing has happened, when the other side of the coalition chooses not to do so on an issue as important as reform of the House of Lords. That is coalition politics, and it will continue until one party—the hon. Gentleman’s party or another—wins an outright majority. That did not happen in the previous election; that is why we have a coalition, and the country is better for it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Rosie Cooper
The Deputy Prime Minister said in the House yesterday:
“Surely, it is simply time to trust the British people.”—[Official Report, 9 July 2012; Vol. 548, c. 26.]
Can you explain why you do not trust the British people to decide on the House of Lords in a referendum?
Mr Speaker
I am not going to be explaining anything, but the Deputy Prime Minister might want to try.
The Deputy Prime Minister
First, as I said, unlike other issues on which we have held referendums, on which there were profound differences between the stated positions of the political parties, all the main parties in the House have committed to reforming the other place for many years in their manifestos. Secondly, at a time like this, on a subject on which we are supposed to agree and when much of the country expects us to instil democracy in Parliament, it would be difficult to justify wasting about £80 million asking the public a question that they do not find controversial in the first place. That would nonplus many members of the public.
The final, very important point is that we as a country are going to face a hugely important issue in a referendum on the future of the United Kingdom during the course of this Parliament. I genuinely ask the hon. Lady, other members of her party and others who advocate a referendum to reflect seriously on the wisdom of saying that there should be another, parallel referendum that the public are not clamouring for, at a time when we are seeking to settle the future of the UK.
Mr Stephen Hepburn (Jarrow) (Lab)
T5. You were elected on the promise to scrap tuition fees, yet you trebled them, to such an extent that there is now a 12% reduction in the north-east in university applications. How can we trust you on anything, let alone House of Lords reform?
Mr Speaker
First, I have not broken any pledge. Secondly, I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not inclined to distrust me, but I will assume that his question was directed at the Deputy Prime Minister.
The Deputy Prime Minister
First, I have never hidden the fact that, as leader of a party that has 8% of MPs in this Chamber, I cannot deliver—much to my regret: not enough people voted for us at the last general election—every single line, and every crossed t and dotted i of our manifesto. That is the nature of plural compromise politics, and it is something that some of us are grown up enough to acknowledge.
On the all-important issue of the number of applications to university in the recent UCAS figures, which have been published overnight, the proportion of English school leavers applying to university is, in fact, the second highest on record. The percentage of 18-year-olds from disadvantaged areas applying to university is, according to the figures we have seen overnight, higher than at any time under the Labour Government.
Mr Speaker
Order. The Deputy Prime Minister is contending with a great deal, about which I am sure he makes no complaint. I know that the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) wants an answer—that message is clear—but he must not keep ranting from a sedentary position. It is not statesmanlike, and ordinarily, I expect him to be statesmanlike.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Liz Sayce, the expert in question, said that the practice of effectively segregating people in one part of the labour market, away from everyone else, was not a sensible way of protecting their interests in the 21st century.
House of Lords Reform Bill
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(11 years, 10 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Bill, has consented to place her prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
Mr Speaker
I am extremely grateful, as will be the House, to the Deputy Prime Minister. Before we get the debate under way, I can inform the House that several dozen right hon. and hon. Members are today seeking to catch the eye of the Chair. The Deputy Speakers and I have compiled a list, very painstakingly. We are doing our best to accommodate as many colleagues as possible, but let me say at the outset that I ask colleagues please not—repeat, not—to come to the Chair inquiring whether and, if so, when they will be called to speak. Colleagues must display some patience. Just wait, attend to the debate and hope for the best. The Chair is trying to accommodate colleagues. To that end, in view of the level of interest, there will be a six-minute limit on Back-Bench contributions.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
No one doubts the commitment and public service of many Members of the House of Lords, but dedicated individuals cannot compensate for flawed institutions. The Bill is about fixing a flawed institution, so let me begin by setting out why our upper Chamber is in need of these reforms—the three simple reasons why I hope Members will give it their full support. The first is that we—all of us here—believe in democracy. We believe that the people who make the laws should be chosen by the people who are subject to those laws. That principle was established in Britain after centuries of struggle and it is a principle that we still send our servicemen and women halfway across the world to defend, yet right now we are only one of only two countries in the world —the other being Lesotho—with an upper parliamentary chamber that is totally unelected and instead selects its members by birthright and patronage.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will give way in a minute, if I may make this point.
Right now, we have an upper Chamber that is ever-expanding. That is one of the main consequences of the unfinished 1999 reforms. Very simply, after a general election, new Governments will always seek to reflect the balance of the vote in the Lords. But it is impossible to get rid of Members: the only way to leave is to die. So new Administrations inevitably have to make more appointments to get the balance right. [Interruption.] The current membership is 816. That will soon be over 1,000. Clearly, the status quo is unsustainable. [Interruption.] The House of Lords is already—
Mr Speaker
Order. I apologise for interrupting the Deputy Prime Minister. There is a permanent cacophony in the Chamber and Members might think that it is some sort of laughing matter, but as far as a lot of people observing our proceedings are concerned, it is just discourteous. The right hon. Gentleman has a right both to speak and to be heard with reasonable decorum. That is what Members would want for themselves; that is what Members should extend to the right hon. Gentleman.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The point that I was making, then I shall give way, is that the status quo is unsustainable. The House of Lords is already too big, and it will continue to grow bigger still under whichever Government, unless we do something about it.
The Deputy Prime Minister
What the hon. Gentleman misses is that the Bill will in fact make space in Parliament for a different kind of politician. [Interruption.] Let me explain. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The right hon. Gentleman must be heard. All this noise just slows up the proceedings. A lot of Members—more than 80—want to speak today, and only a small proportion will do so.
The Deputy Prime Minister
What we are doing is what the Joint Committee itself recommended. The Government not only accepted its recommendation that appointed Members should be able to combine membership with a role outside the House, but have extended that principle to elected Members.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(11 years, 12 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I certainly hope that my reform proposals will be successful.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Yes, I strongly agree that, as I have said, we should just get on with reforming the House of Lords with the minimum of fuss. I ask those who want to hold the whole of Government and parliamentary business hostage on this matter why on earth they think it is such a priority for the country that that business should be brought to a standstill. Given those manifesto commitments, we should work on a cross-party basis to finally complete reform of the House of Lords.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
T5. I did not hear the Deputy Prime Minister say anything about ethnic inequalities in his speech on social mobility this morning, yet black youth unemployment is twice that of white British young people, ethnic minorities are under-represented in apprenticeships and although increasing numbers are entering higher education, they are more likely to attend less prestigious universities. If the Deputy Prime Minister is serious about social mobility, does he agree that we need targeted policies to address ethnic inequalities in education and employment?
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
On 10 May, Rosehill street in Cheltenham was devastated by a major gas explosion. Within 24 hours, 600 residents of Hatherley in my constituency had also been evacuated following a police explosives alert. Will the Deputy Prime Minister join me in congratulating the emergency services, the council and residents on their response to that unprecedented combination of emergencies and send a letter of special support to the jubilee street party in Rosehill street, which is going ahead anyway in a great show—
Mr Speaker
Order. We are grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I do not want to guide the Deputy Prime Minister unduly, but I should say that there is no violation of parliamentary rules in offering the House an answer that consists of a yes or a no.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(12 years, 1 month ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
If my understanding is right, the hon. Gentleman campaigned at the last general election on a commitment in his manifesto to reform legal aid. There have been countless reviews—[Interruption.]
The Deputy Prime Minister
Countless reviews have been conducted on legal aid funding, which has ballooned out of all recognition in recent years. As on so many other issues, the Government have the guts to confront the difficult decisions that Labour ducked for 13 years.
Mr Speaker
Order. May I remind the hon. Gentleman that he should exclude me from that list of charges?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am proud of the fact that we have stepped up to the plate to clean up the mess the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) and his party colleagues left behind after 13 years in office. It is convenient for him to airbrush out of history the fact that when his party was in government it went on bended knee to Rupert Murdoch, yet now it will not even talk to his newspapers. It also let the banks get away with blue murder, but it now wants to tax them to the hilt. The country will not forget the mess it left the rest of us to clear up.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. We must hear the response from the Deputy Prime Minister.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Indeed. The right hon. and learned Lady’s own party manifesto said that
“to safeguard the NHS in tougher fiscal times, we need sustained reform.”
The Labour party was right then and is wrong now. What happened?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The right hon. and learned Lady has invited me to make a comparison. Let me make three comparisons. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I say it again: the Deputy Prime Minister’s response must be heard, and that is all there is to it.
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Lady’s party acknowledges, the police need to make savings. The key thing is not what the total number is, but where the police—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I do not know what hon. Members have had for breakfast, but I want no part of it. The Deputy Prime Minister’s answers must be heard.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The key thing is whether police officers are properly deployed. Over the past decade, far too many police officers have been tied up in knots, filling out paperwork in the back office, rather than being out in our communities and on the streets where they belong.
The Deputy Prime Minister
We had to wait a while for the hon. Gentleman to get going, but it was great when he did. I think we are soon going to celebrate, if that is the right verb, 42 years of his presence in this House, and I am delighted to see that in all that time he has not mellowed one bit.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
When the Deputy Prime Minister talks to the bishops and the archbishops about their futures, will he gently remind them that the overwhelming majority in Parliament, in the country and in the Church of England want women to be able to become bishops, and that it might not be in the interests of the House of bishops to try to amend or water down the current measure before Synod this week?
Mr Speaker
I am sure that that question refers to membership of the upper House by women bishops. I am sure that that is what the right hon. Member meant.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I was struggling to see what I could usefully contribute to this issue, as I do not think it is a matter for Government, but I admire the strength of feeling with which the right hon. Gentleman has expressed himself on this important issue.
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the Health Secretary has explained many times, the central purpose of the Bill is to ensure that those who know patients best, the GPs, surgeons, nurses and clinicians, have a greater say—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. First of all, Members should not shout their heads off at the Deputy Prime Minister; it is deeply discourteous. Secondly, I say to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) that if he had yelled like that when practising in the law courts, the judge would have kicked him out. We cannot have it.
The Deputy Prime Minister
It would be so much easier to take the Labour party members seriously on the NHS if they committed to actually spending more money on it. They will not. In their manifesto at the last election, they said they believed in “bold reform” of the NHS, yet they will not tell us what that is. It was under the Labour Government that £250 million of taxpayers’ money was wasted on rigged private sector contracts which never ever delivered a single thing for a single NHS patient. It is this Government who are making it illegal to provide the sweetheart deals for the private sector that occurred under Labour.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The hon. Lady is following her instructions dutifully, and I congratulate her on doing so. I think that she is referring to—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The House must calm itself. I am worried about the shadow Justice Secretary. I have a concern about his long-term health and well-being, and I am not sure that he is safeguarding it.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I think that the hon. Lady was referring to Harry Potter. I suppose that the Labour party and Harry Potter have something in common—they both believe in magic. How else can we explain the Labour party’s economic policies and its complete, collective amnesia about its responsibility for failing to run the national health service effectively so that, as in so many other areas, we have to clear up the mess that it left behind?
The Deputy Prime Minister
It is truly ironic that the hon. Gentleman gets on his high horse once again to talk about the private sector in the NHS when it was his Labour Government—I am not sure whether he had disowned them—who crowbarred into the NHS sweetheart deals with the private sector that were deliberately designed to undermine the publicly owned parts. Some £250 million of taxpayers’ money was wasted by his colleagues in government on private sector contracts that delivered nothing. It is this coalition Government—two parties coming together—who are making privatisation by the back door illegal.
Mr Speaker
I call Zac Goldsmith—[Interruption.] Order. The House must calm down. Let us hear Mr Goldsmith.
Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)
The proposals for a register of lobbyists will require lobby groups to list their members, but when those groups meet Ministers, will they be required to list on whose behalf they are meeting them?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(12 years, 4 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
We are not removing the civic duty, as I think the hon. Gentleman knows. It is not an offence at present not to register to vote. We are maintaining the offence that is on the statute book whereby there is an obligation for people to provide information about voters in their household. That is being kept intact. As to the hon. Gentleman’s first point about the link between the register and crime, the Credit Services Association recently supported the move towards individual electoral registration, saying:
“We believe that the proposed approach will lead to a reduction in financial crime, in particular fraud. In our view any proposal that will result in a reduction of financial crime is to be welcomed.”
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
5. What steps he is taking to increase participation in elections by service and overseas voters.
The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
As Deputy Prime Minister, I support the Prime Minister on a full range of—[Laughter.]
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I was saying, I support the Prime Minister on a full range of Government policies and initiatives, and within Government I take special responsibility for this Government’s programme of political and constitutional reform.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman refers to the reasons why this coalition Government were created—it was to clear up the mess that his party left behind. It is not easy, what we are doing, but it is right. At the beginning of this year, his party had nothing to say about the economy—[Interruption.]
The Deputy Prime Minister
At the beginning of this year, the right hon. Gentleman’s party had nothing to say about the economy. At least they are consistent: they are completing this year with still nothing to say about how to save our economy.
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the whole system has been devised so that it is not in the gift of politicians, still less the Government, to draw lines on the map to decide where these new boundaries are set; that is for the independent boundary commissions. There is a process of consultation and appeal, which is now ongoing. But I am glad he recognises that the principle is a perfectly valid one: that people’s votes should be worth the same weight and esteem, wherever they live in this country.
The Deputy Prime Minister
As he knows, we have legislated to make it quite clear—the Foreign Secretary has pioneered and led on this legislation—that if there were to be a major transfer of power from this House to Brussels and from the UK to the EU, there should absolutely be a referendum. We are the first Government to have guaranteed to the British people that if we give up more power to the EU, they will have their say. I do not think we could be more crystal clear than that.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister said earlier that there was no criminal sanction on individuals if they failed to register to vote. The only reason that is so is that the obligation rests on the householder, on whom there is a criminal sanction. Does the Deputy Prime Minister accept that as we move towards individual registration, Ministers must reconsider the proposal to allow opting out without any criminal sanction whatsoever?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
T7. I strongly support the principle of fairness in constituency size, which is behind the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, but does the Deputy Prime Minister recognise that the Boundary Commission’s proposal to relocate Gloucester’s entire city centre into the Forest of Dean constituency seriously damages the link between the Member of Parliament and the city, and the accountability of the MP for Gloucester’s regeneration? Does he agree that the Boundary Commission could split a ward? Will he confirm that that is in order?
Mr Speaker
Order. We have got the thrust of it. This is topical, so it has to be brief.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I feel in a slightly invidious position having to answer that question while the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) is sitting next to me, because I know that he has an adjacent constituency. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) knows, this is simply not a matter for Ministers. We have legislated—[Interruption.] I know that the idea of an independent Boundary Commission is alien to the Labour party, but that is what is going to happen.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Will he just listen? That offence will remain on the statute book.
Mr Speaker
Order. The House must come to order. Members must not keep shouting at the Deputy Prime Minister simply because they do not like what he is saying. It is called democratic exchange, and the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) should be used to it.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
T10. The Deputy Prime Minister will be well aware that Cornwall is a distinctive region within the UK, with its own unique language and history, and that it has modest ambitions for devolution, not to cut itself off, but to cut itself into the celebration of diversity. Will he meet a delegation from Cornwall so that we can explore how Cornwall can help the Government to make better and more efficient decisions there?
The Deputy Prime Minister
No Front Bencher in the coalition is talking about the unilateral repatriation of powers from the European Union. Why? Because it simply is not possible—it does not work like that. We have to seek agreement with 26 other countries to get that repatriation. The idea that one could simply get on to the Eurostar, go over to Brussels and come back with a bag load of powers simply is not feasible. Yes, let us examine the balance of powers, as we committed to do in the coalition agreement. I am a pro-European, but I believe in reforming the European Union. I do not believe the status quo is right, but I also believe that we need to act smart and move sensibly.
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Gentleman knows, that matter was independently examined; the Liberal Democrat party was entirely within its rights, and it was entirely reasonable, to accept the money at the time, even though, of course, we would not have done so if we had known then what we subsequently knew. Given that his colleagues on the Front Bench are tabling amendments and deciding how to vote according to what their paymasters in the trade unions say, we need to know whether he and other Labour MPs are voting for what they think is right, or what they think is right for the trade unions.
Mr Speaker
I am sure that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) is duly flattered, but it is no part of his responsibility in the House to answer questions, or at least not at this mid-point in his parliamentary career.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
Will the Deputy Prime Minister tell the House when he intends to join the headlong rush to join the euro?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(12 years, 7 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
As my hon. Friend knows, I personally have a great deal of sympathy with that view, but it is not reflected in the coalition agreement or shared across government. Clearly, it is a debate that we will continue to have on both sides of the House.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. On the issue of compulsion, the Electoral Commission has already said that to move to individual electoral registration without compulsion will see the registers fall from more than 90%—this is what the Electoral Commission says, and the Deputy Prime Minister is nodding his head—to 65% coverage. Ethnic minorities, young people and the urban poor will be disfranchised. Apart from gerrymandering the constituency boundaries, fixing the election timetable and now letting millions of people fall off the register, what else is he doing to let the Tories stay in power for a generation?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The Prime Minister, the Chancellor, I and others are of course in constant contact with Governments elsewhere—in the eurozone and, indeed, in other parts of the European Union. We have been quite clear that it is not our role to seek somehow to dictate what should happen, other than to say that the solution needs to be developed urgently; to be comprehensive and decisive; to deal with the Greek situation decisively; to create the means by which contagion can be stopped spreading from Greece to elsewhere in the eurozone; and to create binding rules so that fiscal disciplines in the eurozone are respected and banks are recapitalised. Further, and something on which Britain could really lead, we should work as 27, not as a fractured European Union, in order to increase competitiveness and to further liberalisation within the single market, because that is the way we will increase the European Union’s welfare in the future.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
The country watched in amazement yesterday afternoon and evening as, one by one, apologists for the Secretary of State for Defence explained that the ministerial code was not written in stone. Indeed, it is not; it is written in black and white, so why are the coalition Government trying to rewrite at least the spirit of the ministerial code, if not the letter?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
Does the Deputy Prime Minister not understand that even those of us who support Lords reform cannot help wondering whether he has masochistic tendencies in trying to win this fight with one hand tied behind his back, and with the Prime Minister simply holding his coat and egging him on from the sidelines? Does he believe that he has the overwhelming support of his coalition partners to steer the Bill through both Houses? If not, is he not just wasting—
The Deputy Prime Minister
I remind the hon. Gentleman that all parties went to the country in last year’s general election with a clear manifesto commitment to reform the House of Lords. As I have said, it does not strike most people as a radical suggestion that the democratic principle that operates in Parliaments around the world should gently and incrementally be applied to the other place.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am not sure what case the hon. Lady is referring to—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. First, the House must show some courtesy to the Deputy Prime Minister as he responds to questions. Secondly, I want to hear from Mr Gordon Henderson.
Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)
T5. Does my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister understand the resentment felt by many taxpayers in my constituency when they see their taxes being used to help to provide a range of free services in Scotland that are not enjoyed by the English? When will the Government take action to bring that unfair subsidy to an end?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(12 years, 11 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right: the issue is applicable not just to this place, but to councils up and down the country. There are clearly barriers impeding the participation of people with disabilities in politics at all levels. I pay tribute to those who were involved in the Speaker’s Conference on Parliamentary Representation, which was started some years ago and identified this as a problem. In our access to elected office strategy, which we will announce, we will address how that might affect local councils as well as this place.
The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
I have received many representations expressing a wide variety of views—
Mr Speaker
Order. I believe the Deputy Prime Minister is seeking a grouping.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Yes, forgive me. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] I would like to group questions 3, 4, 5, 11 and 12. A major issue—my omission to group the questions. That is how over-excited Members on the Opposition Benches get.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The principles of the White Paper were less bureaucracy, more patient-centred health, greater control for people who know patients best so that they can decide where money circulates in the system, greater accountability, and less centralisation. First, those are worthwhile reforms. Secondly, they build on many of the reforms that the Labour party introduced when in government. If the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues were more honest, they would back our attempt to listen to the British people and reform the NHS so that it is safeguarded for future generations.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sure no one is suggesting that any right hon. or hon. Member would be dishonest in this Chamber. [Interruption.] Order. I take that as read.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
T4. Did not the Government inherite an unreformed, unwieldy, unaccountable health service that was partly privatised, and are not these reforms necessary to secure the future of the health service for the next generation?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(13 years, 3 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman keeps saying “Split the Bill” from a sedentary position. We believe it is right to proceed together on reforming—[Interruption.] No—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I apologise for interrupting the Deputy Prime Minister. Let me say to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and other Members that it is not too much for the Chair to ask that Members treat the Deputy Prime Minister with courtesy, whatever they think of him or his policies.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I find it extraordinary that, as I said, just a few days ago the leader of the Labour party said that he believed in new politics, but he is now using the oldest tricks in the book in the other place simply to stop the British people having their say. That is the worst kind of old politics I can imagine.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I heard the same predictions before the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election—that we would disappear without trace into complete oblivion—but our share of the vote went up. Honestly, the utter—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I wish to hear the Deputy Prime Minister. I would happily hear him for longer if there were more time, but there is not.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(13 years, 5 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
The coalition Government are sorting out the mess they inherited from the previous—[Interruption.] This always gets Opposition Members going from the beginning. The coalition Government are sorting out the mess they inherited from the previous Administration, including a woefully unreformed political system. That is why we are giving power back to Parliament by establishing five-year fixed-term Parliaments, why we are offering the public a choice, for the first time, on using a different and fairer electoral system, and why we will create fairer, more equal-sized constituencies in time for the next election.
The Deputy Prime Minister
A year ago, the previous Government announced that they would require—[Interruption.] It is worth listening to this as a contrast between inaction and action. They announced that they would require the banks to sign up to the code of practice on taxation. Last month, only four of the top 15 banks had signed up, which was in our view completely unacceptable. We want the banks to play not just by the letter of tax law but by its spirit. That is why the Chancellor instructed Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in October to work with the banking sector to ensure that the remaining banks implemented the code by the end of this month, and I can today confirm that all the top 15 banks have now signed the code. That is an extra 11 banks in one month versus the four that signed previously. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. First, I want to hear the answers. Secondly, the greater the noise, the longer the delay and the fewer Back Benchers will have a chance to be called. That would be a great pity.
John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)
T9. If the right hon. Gentleman had his time again, would he be for or against tuition fees?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I can tell the House what it is above and beyond everything else. It is a contrast with the big state. That was the governing ethos of the previous Government: every problem, every dilemma and every question, it was felt by the previous Government, should be sorted out by officials in Whitehall and politicians in Westminster. We believe—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman asked the Deputy Prime Minister a question. Members must have the courtesy to listen to the reply.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Mr Speaker, they are enjoying asking their questions so much that they are not bothering to listen to the answer.
We believe in empowering individuals, communities and families to be able to do what they think is right to improve their lives in the way they think is best.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(13 years, 6 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
None the less, we have stuck to our wider ambition to make sure that going to university is done in a progressive way, so that people who are currently discouraged from going to university—bright people from poor backgrounds, who are discouraged by the system that we inherited from the right hon. and learned Lady’s Government—are able to do so. That is why our policy is more progressive than hers.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The poor Chief Secretary to the Treasury is picked on all the time—first for being ginger. Did the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) make an impact assessment of her outrageously discriminatory remarks?––[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. First, the Deputy Prime Minister must be heard. Secondly, the public thoroughly disapprove of this level of destructive barracking from wherever in the House it comes: note that, and learn from it.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I was simply making the point that any form of discrimination against rodents or ginger-headed folk is wrong.
As the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) knows, on forestry issues, as on many others, there is a devolved division of responsibility. He should know that better than anyone else.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
Q5. The Deputy Prime Minister might be aware that, in response to the comprehensive spending review, the three most senior officers of Pendle borough council have announced a wage cut of 27%. In contrast, the chief constable of Lancashire police, Steve Finnigan, has started a 90-day consultation on making all Lancashire’s police community support officers redundant. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the chief constable should think again and that he should support our PCSOs—[Interruption.]
The Deputy Prime Minister
Of course I welcome the decision by Pendle borough council and its executive directors to reduce the council’s wage bill. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has called on all local authority chief executives earning £200,000 a year to take a 10% pay cut, and those on £150,000 to take a 5% cut. They need to make sacrifices, just as everyone else is. On policing, of course I understand everyone’s attachment to PCSOs, but it would be a flagrant breach of the traditions of policing in this country if we were to start second-guessing chief constables. I think we all want more visible policing; it cannot be right that the system we inherited from Labour means that only 11% of police officers are ever seen on our streets at any one time. That is wrong and it must change.
The Deputy Prime Minister
We have sought to introduce a strong element of realism, not only in the extra resources and support that are required for our troops in Afghanistan, but in the recognition—I think this is the implication of the question—that there is not a military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan. There must be a marriage of a military strategy, which applies pressure on insurgents who want to disrupt the peaceful co-existence of communities and people in Afghanistan, with a political process of reintegration and reconciliation, so that we can leave Afghanistan—
Mr Speaker
Order. May I ask the Deputy Prime Minister to face the House? Otherwise, it is difficult for him to be fully heard. [Interruption.] Order. I want to hear the Deputy Prime Minister.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I was always taught to address the person who had asked me the question, Mr Speaker. So let me say, addressing my hon. Friend, that we need to marry a political strategy with a military strategy. Only by balancing the two will we be able to leave Afghanistan with our heads held high, knowing that we have done the difficult job that we were asked to do there.
Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)
The Times Educational Supplement recently published a feature article stating how effective the pupil premium would be. Does the Deputy Prime Minister share my frustration at the fact that the Labour party appears to be more interested in scoring partisan points than in supporting the coalition Government’s serious attempts—
Mr Speaker
Order. We have got the gist of it, and we are grateful to the hon. Gentleman.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I think that the pupil premium is a significant policy. It puts an end to the system that we inherited from Labour, which meant that if you were a poor child at school in one part of the country a lot of extra money would be allocated to your education, whereas that would not happen if you were a poor child in another part of the country. The pupil premium is attached to children from poor backgrounds wherever they live, to lift their sense of aspiration and to improve the one-to-one tuition support that they need if they are to have the fair chance in life that all children deserve in our country.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. May I say to the Deputy Prime Minister that I am not claiming to be right?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The hon. Lady is right that there are differences of view in this Government, as there were in the previous Government, about the merits or not of moving to votes at 16. On the issue of whether such a move should apply only to the referendum and not to other votes, the feeling, not unreasonably, was that the matter needs to be looked at in the round. If we are to take a decision in this House, it should be taken on the principle, across all elections and votes, and not just the referendum.
Mr Speaker
Order. I want to hear the answers from the Deputy Prime Minister.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I was not going to turn to the sensitive issue, at least in my household, of smoking. However, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that on this issue, as on so many others, the Labour party seems wholly inconsistent. It was silent—[Interruption.] They were silent on votes at 16 when in government, and now they are arch campaigners for a change that they never delivered when they had the chance to do so. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Opposition Back Benchers must calm down. I am very worried about you, Mr Gwynne. You just calm down. You have a fit of the giggles, but you will overcome it, do not worry.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his ministerial responsibilities.
Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con)
T10. The Deputy Prime Minister will be aware of Labour’s catastrophic defeat in Tower Hamlets last week at the hands of the Ken Livingstone-backed independent candidate, but will he examine the issue of electoral fraud, because serious allegations of it were made at the local elections in May and again last week? Some 18 postal votes came from one four-bedroom house and eight postal votes came from a maisonette above a shop, and more than 5,000 new names were added to the roll just before the deadline. Will—
Mr Speaker
Order. I say to the hon. Gentleman that that is quite enough and we need an answer.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Where there are incidents and allegations of serious electoral fraud they need to be reported to the police. These are very serious matters; these are potentially criminal offences, and they need to be investigated by the police. So if there is evidence, it needs to be passed to the police as soon as possible.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(13 years, 8 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Bill, has consented to place her prerogative, so far as it is affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the Deputy Prime Minister and I invite him to introduce the measure and address the House.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(13 years, 8 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I certainly agree that the previous Government have left us with an extraordinary legacy, with the largest deficit in our peacetime history. It was they who took their eye off the ball and allowed the banks to lend money irresponsibly, and it was they who racked up these extraordinary debts and deficits—[Interruption.] They were irresponsible in government, and they are now living in denial in opposition.
We did not just inherit a legacy of deficit; we also inherited a legacy of bureaucracy. As Sir Denis O’Connor, the chief inspector of constabulary, pointed out in July, 2,600 pages of guidance were issued to police officers last year alone. He said that, if they were laid end to end, they would be
“three times higher than the Eiffel tower”.
We need less bureaucracy and more police on the streets. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. First of all, we need much less noise. Secondly, I remind Front Benchers of the need for pithy exchanges to enable as many Back Benchers as possible to contribute.
Mr Speaker
Order. I have not read the book yet. I want to hear what Mr Blair has had to say.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am relieved that Mr Speaker wants to hear that the book says
“if governments don’t tackle deficits…This then increases the risk of prolonged slump…If we fail to offer a convincing path out of debt, that...will itself plunge us into stagnation.”
I agree.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The legacy we inherited—[Hon. Members: “Oh!”] I know Opposition Members do not want to hear this, but it is worth reminding people in the country at large that after 13 years of Labour the United Kingdom has the highest—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
I apologise for interrupting the Deputy Prime Minister. The Deputy Prime Minister will be heard. There is far too much noise. Members must restrain themselves and give the Deputy Prime Minister a proper and fair hearing.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The United Kingdom now, after 13 years of Labour Government, has the highest number of children in workless households in Europe. That is an absolutely shameful legacy, and one of the things that this Government are going to do, which the previous Government failed to do, is create incentives to get people off benefits and into work. That is the surest way out of poverty and the surest way we can look after those children who were abandoned and not looked after by the previous Labour Government.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(13 years, 8 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
As the right hon. Member will know, anyone can seek judicial review in normal practice, but on the criteria given to the boundary commissions, it is worth stressing that they will retain their existing ability to refer to local links, geography, county boundaries and so on, but subject to a principle of equality. That is a simple—yes, it is simple—straightforward principle of equality that we are enshrining in the legislation.
By having more frequent boundary reviews—one every five years—constituencies will be kept more up to date, reflecting changes in where people live. In order to make that possible, we are changing the consultation process. Consultation is, of course, vital, but as leading academics concluded in a report published just last week, local inquiries have become “the playthings” of political parties and have had, in practice, little impact on the commissions’ final recommendations, so we will abolish local inquiries. Instead, we will triple the time that people have to make representations to the commissions to have their say—from one month to three months. Residents will have—
Mr Speaker
Order. I apologise for interrupting the Deputy Prime Minister. Let me assure him and the House that I am no authority on the subject of the equality of size, but the reason I rise is that the House should know that no fewer than 74 Back Benchers are seeking to speak in the debate, so a little self-restraint is necessary. The more noise and the longer the Front Benchers take with their speeches, the greater the delay.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Aside from these improvements, the arrangements for drawing the boundaries will remain untouched. For more than 60 years, the responsibility for drawing constituency boundaries has rested with the four independent boundary commissions. That guarantee of impartiality will remain. This is not, as some critics have sought to suggest, an elaborate attempt to gerrymander the boundaries, because the Government will have no say in where the new constituency perimeters will fall.
Mr Speaker
Order. It is helpful if the Deputy Prime Minister indicates clearly to whom he is giving way.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I said I was giving way to the right hon. Lady. Is the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) answering to that?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Marsden
The Deputy Prime Minister talks a good talk about devolution and localism, but that is about all he does. In fact, he and the Business Secretary acquiesced in the abolition of the regional development agencies. I have here a letter from him in which he acquiesced in the abolition of Government offices—one of the few areas in which local representatives can have an input.
Will the Deputy Prime Minister now give an undertaking to the House that he will intervene on his colleagues in the Government to make sure that the new regional growth fund decisions have a proper input from elected councils and local authorities, rather than—
Mr Speaker
Order. We have got the gist of it. Questions and answers must be brief.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am interested that the hon. Gentleman should think that the abolition of the regional development agencies and Government offices is somehow a blow against localism. Our view is that the Government offices had become a representation of Whitehall in the regions, rather than a voice for the regions in Whitehall. Equally, some RDAs do a good job, but he knows as well as I do that many local communities do not identify with regional development agencies. That is why we were right to say that it was up to local communities to come together with the private sector and others to create local enterprise partnerships, which are genuinely representative of what local communities want.
Mr Speaker
Order. Witticisms aside, I want to hear the reply of the Deputy Prime Minister.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
My constituent Karen Taylor received a letter from the Deputy Prime Minister on 21 June saying that we can cut public spending in a way that is fair and responsible and asking her to provide ideas about getting more for less, not to hold back, to be innovative, radical and challenge the ways things are done. I know that my constituent has replied to you, indicating that she wants you to invest more in public services, to pull the economy out of recession and stop the use of consultants. How do you intend to reply?
Mr Speaker
Order. I do not intend to reply at all, but I hope that the Deputy Prime Minister does.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I certainly agree with the last suggestion—that there was a bonanza of consultants in the programmes conducted by the last Government. One consultant was even made a millionaire from the fees alone in the Building Schools for the Future programme. So of course we need fewer consultants. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have entered government having to deal with a very difficult situation. The last Government announced £50 billion of cuts, but had not bothered to tell people what they meant in practice, so we are having to do the work for them. The structural deficit is £12 billion higher than we were told by the previous Government. These are difficult decisions. However, I hope the hon. Gentleman will agree that what we have said in the Budget on increasing the allowance—the point at which people start paying income tax—on the extra, including up to £2 billion over the coming years in child tax credits, on the guarantee that pensions will be increased by 2.5% above inflation—
Mr Speaker
Order. This sounds like a suitable subject for an Adjournment debate.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
T10. [11091] Just this morning, the Deputy Prime Minister sent us all a very helpful letter about the forthcoming Bill on the alternative vote system and so on. In it, he wrote: “The Government also believes it is important to give people a choice over their electoral system.”Given that, why will the forthcoming referendum offer only a choice between first past the post and AV, which he himself described as a pathetic excuse for a voting system? Why will it not also offer the single transferable vote?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(13 years, 10 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
That was not a question—it was a sort of dissertation. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman talks about openness and transparency. It would have been more transparent if Lord Mandelson and his Government had admitted that there was no money. [Interruption.] Hon. Members should not take it from me; the position was summed up rather well in Sheffield Forgemasters—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I must appeal for calm. I can see Members ranting at the tops of their voices at the Deputy Prime Minister. It is wrong, and it must stop. Whatever the feeling, it must stop. The public detest it and so do I.
The Deputy Prime Minister
If the right hon. Gentleman thinks that is a lot of noise, he should try it from the Bench I formerly occupied—it is even worse.
Let me cite what a worker on the shop floor of Sheffield Forgemasters said in Sheffield’s The Star only last week. He said that on a visit by Lord Mandelson to Sheffield Forgemasters:
“I asked Lord Mandelson, if the country was near to bankruptcy, where would the money come from? He turned away to speak to my gaffer. I asked again and he said very”—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the Deputy Prime Minister, but that is very discursive and not relevant to the precise responsibility of a member of the Government. [Interruption.] Order. I do not require any guidance. We will leave it there.
Mr Straw
Let us consider affordability—not the reason that the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister gave originally, but affordability. The Deputy Prime Minister says that he is concerned about affordability, but we are talking about a loan, not a grant, to help Sheffield Forgemasters build Britain’s future in low-carbon manufacturing. He is not prepared to make that loan, but why is he prepared to acquiesce in spending £550 million a year on so-called tax breaks for marriage—a policy that he described as “patronising drivel”?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I agree with my hon. Friend. The authoritarian record of the Labour Government is one of the most dismal records in modern British history, featuring the illegal invasion of Iraq, the turning of our prisons into overcrowded colleges of crime, the decimation of our civil liberties, the invasion of our privacy, and the roll-out of a surveillance state without any checks or balances; and look at what we have managed—
Mr Speaker
Order. I thought that the right hon. Gentleman was going to talk about what the present Government had done, not what the last Government had done; and he is now coming to an end, I am sure.
The Deputy Prime Minister
This Government have scrapped ID cards, they will table a freedom Bill, and they have launched a counter-terrorism review to create the right balance between security and liberty.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I certainly agree that just because poverty in rural areas is sometimes more invisible than more visible poverty in some of our inner-city areas, it does not mean that we should not make real efforts to address it. It is a matter of concern that under the previous Government a child from a poor family in an inner city area tended to get much more money allocated to their education than a child from a poor family in a rural area. That is why we are so determined to introduce a pupil premium that will provide extra resources to children from the most deprived backgrounds no matter where they live in our country.
Mr Speaker
Before I call the Foreign Secretary to give a statement, I appeal to hon. and right hon. Members whose lungs are probably exhausted now anyway to leave the Chamber quickly and quietly so that the House can hear the Foreign Secretary.
Political and Constitutional Reform
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(13 years, 10 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the Government’s proposals for parliamentary reform.
Every Member of this House was elected knowing that this Parliament must be unlike any other—that we have a unique duty to restore the trust in our political system that has been tested to its limits in recent times—and if anything was clear at the general election it was that more and more people realised that our political system was broken and needs to be fixed. They want us to clean up politics. They want to be able to hold us properly to account.
So the Government have set out an ambitious programme for political renewal, transferring power away from the Executive to empower Parliament, and away from Parliament to empower people. That programme includes: introducing a power of recall for MPs guilty of serious wrongdoing; tackling the influence of big money as we look again at party funding; taking forward long overdue reform of the other place; implementing the Wright Committee recommendations, and taking steps to give people more power to shape parliamentary business; speeding up the implementation of individual voter registration; and increasing transparency in lobbying, including through a statutory register.
Today, I am announcing the details of a number of major elements of the Government’s proposals for political reform. First, we are introducing legislation to fix parliamentary terms. The date of the next general election will be 7 May 2015. This is a hugely significant constitutional innovation. It is simply not right that general elections can be called according to a Prime Minister’s whims, so this Prime Minister will be the first Prime Minister to give up that right.
I know that when the coalition agreement was published there was some concern about these proposals. We have listened carefully to those concerns, and I can announce today how we will proceed, in a Bill that will be introduced before the summer recess. First, traditional powers of no confidence will be put into law, and a vote of no confidence will still require only a simple majority. Secondly, if after a vote of no confidence a Government cannot be formed within 14 days, Parliament will be dissolved and a general election will be held. Let me be clear: these steps will strengthen Parliament’s power over the Executive. Thirdly, there will be an additional power for Parliament to vote for an early and immediate Dissolution. We have decided that a majority of two thirds will be needed to carry the vote, as opposed to the 55% first suggested, as is the case in the Scottish Parliament. These changes will make it impossible for any Government to force a Dissolution for their own purposes. These proposals should make it absolutely clear to the House that votes of no confidence and votes for early Dissolution are entirely separate, and that we are putting in place safeguards against a lame-duck Government being left in limbo if the House passes a vote of no confidence but does not vote for early Dissolution.
I am also announcing today the details of the Government’s proposals to introduce a Bill before the summer to provide for a referendum on the alternative vote system, and for a review of constituency boundaries in order to create fewer and more equally sized constituencies, cutting the cost of politics and reducing the number of MPs from the 650 we have today to a House of 600 MPs.
Together, these proposals help to correct the deep unfairness in the way we hold elections in this country. Under the current set-up, votes count more in some parts of the country than others, and millions feel that their votes do not count at all. Elections are won and lost in a small minority of seats. We have a fractured democracy, where some people’s votes count and other people’s votes do not count; where some people are listened to and others are ignored. By equalising the size of constituencies, we ensure that people’s votes carry the same weight, no matter where they live. Only months ago the electorate of Islington North stood at 66,472, while 10 miles away, in East Ham, the figure was 87,809. In effect, that means that a person voting in East Ham has a vote that is worth much less than a vote in Islington North. That cannot be right. These imbalances are found right across the United Kingdom.
Reducing the number of MPs also allows us to bring our oversized House of Commons into line with legislatures across the world. The House of Commons is the largest directly elected Chamber in the European Union, and it is half as big again as the US House of Representatives. It was never intended that the overall size of the House should constantly keep rising, yet that is precisely the effect of the current legislation—the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986. Capping the number of MPs corrects that, and it saves money too. Having 59 fewer MPs saves £12 million a year on pay, pensions and allowances alone.
On the referendum, by giving people a choice over their electoral system, we give that system a new legitimacy. Surely, when dissatisfaction with politics is so great, one of our first acts must be to give people their own say over something as fundamental as how they elect their MPs. The question will be simple, asking people whether they want to adopt the alternative vote, yes or no; and the precise wording will be tested by the Electoral Commission. [Interruption.]
As for the date of the referendum, in making that decision we have been driven by three key considerations: first—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the Deputy Prime Minister. The statement by the Deputy Prime Minister must be heard with courtesy. If Members want to question him, they will have the chance to do so. The Deputy Prime Minister will be heard.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The first is that all parties fought the general election on an absolute pledge to move fast to fix our political system, so we must get on and do that without delay; secondly, it is important to avoid asking people to keep returning to the ballot box; and finally, in these straitened times we must keep costs as low as possible. That is why the Prime Minister and I have decided that the date for the referendum on the Bill will be 5 May 2011, the same day as the elections to the devolved legislatures in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and local elections in England. That will save an estimated £17 million. I know that some hon. Members have concerns over that date, but I believe that people will easily be able to distinguish between the different issues on which they will be asked to vote on the same day.
Our Bill will make explicit provision for the Boundary Commissions to report on more equally sized constituencies and for the process to be completed by the end of 2013, allowing enough time for candidates to be selected ahead of the 2015 election; and we will ensure that the boundary commissions have what they need to do that. That means that, in the event of a vote in favour of the alternative vote, the 2015 general election will be held on the new system, and according to new boundaries. These are complementary changes—the outcome of the referendum is put in place as the new boundaries are put in place, too.
The Bill will require the Boundary Commissions to set new constituencies within 5% of a target quota of registered electors, with just two exceptions: Orkney and Shetland, and—[Laughter.]
The Deputy Prime Minister
The exceptions are Orkney and Shetland, and the Western Isles, which are uniquely placed, given their locations.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry to have to interrupt the Deputy Prime Minister, but the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) must not, however strongly he feels, shriek from a sedentary position in that way. It is very unseemly and, if I may say so, very untypical of the hon. Gentleman, who is normally grace itself.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The two exceptions are Orkney and Shetland, and the Western Isles, which are uniquely placed, given their locations. We have listened also to those who have very large constituencies, so the Bill will provide that no constituency will be larger than the size of the largest one now, and we intend that in future boundary reviews will be more frequent, to ensure that constituencies continue to meet the requirements that we will set out in our Bill.
I understand that this announcement will raise questions from those in all parts of this House, as these are profound changes. Let me just say that, yes, there are technical issues that will need to be scrutinised and approached with care as these Bills pass through Parliament, but ensuring that elections are as fair and democratic as possible is a matter of principle above all else. These are big, fundamental reforms that we are proposing, but we are all duty-bound to respond to public demand for political reform. That is how we restore people’s faith in their politics once again. I commend this statement to the House.
Mr Speaker
Order. I apologise—[Interruption.] Order. There is simply too much noise in the Chamber. The House must behave in a more seemly fashion.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will also agree, however, that the measures that we have announced today will strengthen the role of Parliament in holding the Executive to account. They will strengthen the power of this House to throw out a Government through a motion of no confidence, and if a Government are not re-formed within 14 days there will be a general election and a Dissolution of the House. That seems to me to be a very significant shift that takes power away from the Prime Minister, which has never been done before, and gives more power to the House. It is something that I hope the hon. Gentleman will welcome.
Mr Speaker
Order. I genuinely apologise that I have to keep interrupting the Deputy Prime Minister, but I want to hear him. I want to hear the content of his arguments and his mellifluous tones, and I keep being prevented from hearing him by people chuntering away from a sedentary position. Please do not.
The Deputy Prime Minister
They chunter because they do not like to be reminded that they did nothing on voter registration for 13 years. They did nothing to give people the chance to have a say about how we are elected to this House, or to rectify the unfairness of the way in which votes are distributed across constituencies. If we could work together across parties to deal with these big issues, including ensuring that those who are not registered become properly registered, I would welcome that, but I just do not think it is helped by the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) somehow accusing a new coalition Government, who have been in power for only a few weeks, of failing to do something about a problem that his Government did nothing to rectify for 13 years.
The Deputy Prime Minister
At the rate the Opposition are going, there is never going to be another phase.
Mr Speaker
Order. It has been a bit broad so far. I gently remind the Deputy Prime Minister that we must focus on the policies of the Government, rather than those of the Opposition.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that it is the responsibility of local authorities to address their record in electoral registration in time for this new electoral roll to be used in his boundary review?
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I did appeal for economy in questions and time is moving on; we must progress. I think that we have got the thrust of his question, and we are grateful for it.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The figures I cited were the figures that prevailed at the time of the last general election.
Mr Speaker
May I ask the Deputy Prime Minister not to read a history book before providing his answer?
The Deputy Prime Minister
This is 20 questions by a historian. The last Government—the hon. Gentleman’s party in government—governed for five years. We are merely legislating—[Interruption.] Instead of setting history questions, why does he not think about why his party, which was once a party of political reform, now seems to be backing off from that long-standing political tradition? It is a great shame that that is happening.
The Deputy Prime Minister
They may do, but the intention is that they will none the less retain the key building block of any constituency, which is ward boundaries. We want to keep that building block in place, as it would be simply too complicated to conduct the boundary review on the scale that has been proposed by any other means.
Mr Speaker
Order. We shall now move on to the statement on education funding. I ask Members wishing to leave the Chamber to do so quickly and quietly.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and John Bercow(13 years, 10 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
The coalition agreement is clear. We want to proceed with the preparations for a referendum, giving people the choice to choose a new electoral system—the alternative vote system—and, in parallel, to proceed with a review of boundaries. Reviewing boundaries in this country is not a new thing. If the hon. Gentleman would care to look back at the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, which establishes the provisions for reviews of boundaries, he will see that the legislation imposes a requirement on us to keep the size of the House of Commons lower than it currently is, and to have greater equality between the sizes of constituencies. I do not think that anybody will quibble with the principle that people’s votes should count equally, wherever they so happen to live.
Mr Speaker
Order. From now on we must have timely progress, with short questions and short answers.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend give an undertaking that there will be no move to hold a referendum on voting reform on the same day as any other elections, after the ruling given by the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution, which said:
“we recommend there should be a presumption against holding referendums on the same day as elections”?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Clearly, in line with existing legislation dating back to 1986, it is right for us to continue to provide for more equal constituencies in this country. [Interruption.] Here in London, for instance, Hackney South and Shoreditch has an electorate of just 57,204, while a few miles down the road, on the other side of London, Croydon North has 22,615 more voters. Its electorate is more than a third larger. That cannot be right.
Mr Speaker
Order. I recognise that there are people who are angry, but before we continue, let me appeal to the House to have some regard to the way in which we are viewed by the public whose support we were so recently seeking.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
On 7 June, the right hon. Gentleman told the House that he accepted the case for smaller island and heavily rural constituencies in the north of Scotland, which happened to be Liberal Democrat. Does he also accept that in urban areas there is a very heavy case load of constituents, that it is growing, and that in every urban area there are tens of thousands of citizens who are not on the electoral register and who ought to be taken into account in these calculations?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I hold that view that it is important to give people back their liberty where it has been taken away from them, that it is important to give them back privacy where that has been taken away from them, and that it is important to give back power to communities where that has been taken away from them. That is the kind of liberal society I believe in.
The Deputy Prime Minister
No, interestingly enough I do not have any information on his whereabouts. If I did, I should of course be sure to pass it on. It is clear—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. This is very discourteous to the Deputy Prime Minister and I do not think that the public like it. Above all, I want to hear the answer from the Deputy Prime Minister.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Talk about the great disappeared—where is the former Prime Minister and where are all the leadership candidates? The contest for the Labour party leadership increasingly resembles a political version of “Big Brother”. They are just talking to themselves. The rest of the country lost interest ages ago and just wants it to finish.