Business of the House

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

Persecution of any individual on the grounds of their religious faith is unacceptable. I am aware of the problems faced by the Baha’i community in Iran. The FCO makes regular representations on this matter here, and we also make representations to the Iranian Government so that this persecution can be brought to an end.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

In south Wales over the past three years the theft of metal from train lines has cost £3 million. Last year alone, there were 84 instances of cable theft in our area, leading to train journey delays. May we have a debate on this issue, which is making the lives of train commuters miserable?

[Sir George Young]

I will draw the hon. Gentleman’s comments to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, who will no doubt want to contact the British Transport police to see whether more effective action can be taken to deter these sorts of thefts and bring the criminals to justice.

Business of the House

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

There will be an opportunity to raise that at DCMS questions next week. I thought that the FA did the right thing in arguing strongly for a postponement of the election, but it was not successful. It is now up to Sepp Blatter to reform FIFA and make it a much more accountable and transparent organisation than it is at the moment.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

May I, too, press for a debate on the future of regulation of our care homes? Southern Cross has 750 homes across the country that are in trouble with rental payments, and yesterday we learned that 3,000 staff are being laid off. Many Members across the House will want a debate to ensure that the Government have a grip on the situation.

[Sir George Young]

I understand the concern about this. I hope that before long it will be possible to offer time to the Backbench Business Committee for which it might consider a serious bid from both sides of the House for a debate on care. The Dilnot report will come out early next month. I am sure that the House will want to debate it, because its recommendations are closely linked to the problems in which Southern Cross and other care home providers now find themselves.

Business of the House

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

Yes, I agree that not only Cabinet Ministers but every Member of the House should be very careful about the language that they use. I will certainly draw my hon. Friend’s remarks to the attention of my fellow Ministers. I am sure that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, will do all you can to ensure that no inappropriate remarks are made in this Chamber.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

This week at the Ebbw Vale metallurgical society, I met the top brass from the Tata steel company. They are very concerned about the Chancellor’s carbon floor price proposals, which impose massive unilateral costs on the UK steel industry—costs that no other European country will enforce. Can we have a statement from the Energy Secretary and a debate on this issue?

[Sir George Young]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Administration are committed to moving towards a less carbon-intensive future. At Business, Innovation and Skills questions earlier—he may have been in his place—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that he would have a good look at those who are intensive users of energy to see whether the problem that the hon. Gentleman has described might be overcome.

Business of the House

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Will the Government make time for a debate on the proposed changes to the DNA database, following evidence to the Protection of Freedoms Public Bill Committee by the chief constable of the West Midlands, who said that 1,000 criminals would go free as a result of this Government’s changes?

[Sir George Young]

The Protection of Freedoms Bill is before Parliament at the moment; it is in a Public Bill Committee. Within that Bill are the clauses on DNA to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister who is taking the Bill through the House would like to respond to the hon. Gentleman’s assertion, with which the Government disagree.

Business of the House

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

As I said to my hon. Friend last week, universities are autonomous organisations and accountable for what they do. I will draw his comments to the attention of my ministerial colleagues at BIS. As he knows, we will have a debate on the middle east at this time next week, when he may want to amplify his remarks.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

May we have a statement on the impact of the Department of Health’s any willing provider policy on specialisms such as speech therapy? Such services transform lives, but they could be at risk in the new commissioning marketplace.

[Sir George Young]

The Health and Social Care Bill is in Committee and will be coming back to the Floor of the House for Report, which may be an appropriate time for the hon. Gentleman to table amendments and secure a debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

The county council is, I understand, not only part of the SPINE project, but works with Lincolnshire council under the future libraries programme. I will not comment on the specific proposals that the hon. Gentleman mentions, but I understand that Cambridgeshire county council is considering turning many of its libraries into community hubs and consulting extensively on its proposals.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

What assessment have the Government made about the impact of library closures and reduced library services on efforts to improve adult literacy?

[Mr Vaizey]

The improvement of adult literacy is incredibly important, and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has secured substantial funding for adult learning. Many library closures are simply proposals, and many local authorities are continuing to consult on them.

Business of the House

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I endorse the sentiments that my hon. Friend expresses. Next Thursday there will be an opportunity to raise the matter with BIS Ministers, who will be at the Dispatch Box. We have acted to improve the environment for manufacturers, both nationally and in the midlands, with lower and simpler business taxes, investment in apprenticeships, wider access to finance and the Government-wide commitment to boosting exports—plus, of course, the regional growth fund, for which my hon. Friend’s constituents will be eligible to bid.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Early-day motion 1367 has received support from over 100 MPs in just 10 days.

[That this House recognises and honours the immense courage and patriotism shown by UK armed service personnel and their dependants; commits to providing them with the highest levels of support and reward; notes with concern the Government’s proposed permanent switch to the consumer prices index from the retail prices index for the annual indexation of benefits and pensions since this represents a year-on-year reduction which will impact when the economy has returned to growth; further notes the cumulative financial loss this will cause service personnel and their dependants, including war widows and those serving in Afghanistan now; warns that a double amputee 28 year old corporal will lose £587,000 by the age of 70 and a 34 year old widow of a staff sergeant killed in Afghanistan will lose almost £750,000 over the course of her lifetime; and urges the Government to commit to making this switch temporary so that as soon as the fiscal climate allows and the deficit has been paid off our forces and their dependants receive that higher rate of pensions and benefits they deserve.]

It calls on the Government to honour the military covenant and give our disabled soldiers and war widows RPI rather than CPI increases on their pensions. Our servicemen have done their duty for our country, and are being let down when their need is greatest. Will the Leader of the House please agree to a debate on this important matter, so that the Government can hear the views of MPs who want a fair deal for our armed services families?

[Sir George Young]

I pay tribute to the work of our armed forces. We will soon publish a new tri-service armed forces covenant, which will be the first of its kind, setting out the relationship between the armed forces community, the Government and the nation. As the hon. Gentleman may know, the Armed Forces Bill, which is currently going through the House, places on the Secretary of State a commitment to lay before Parliament every year a report on what is being done to live up to the covenant, and he will have heard the Prime Minister yesterday, at this Dispatch Box, outlining the steps we have taken to support our armed forces.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Nick Smith Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comment. I will come later to the evidence, which is something the Government seem scared of. It proves his point that at the time when the public inquiries are serving their greatest function, they are being abolished. One has to ask why.

A balance needs to be struck between overlapping objectives, but in the Bill the Government have managed to get the weighting wrong in almost every regard. The limits on disparities between seats are too severe and inflexible, the time scale for the boundary review is far too tight, and the abolition of local inquiries in return for an extended window for written submissions is deplorable.

As I have said, because of the programming of the Bill we have dealt inadequately with the speed of the boundary reviews and with the strictness of the adherence to electoral equality. The abolition of inquiries is entirely at odds with the concept of localism and open politics, which my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) referred to a moment ago and which the Deputy Prime Minister, who has called himself the great reformer, has previously professed. In a speech five months ago, which I will quote because it is important that colleagues in the other place hear it, he said:

“I have spent my whole political life fighting to open up politics. So let me make one thing very clear: this government is going to be unlike any other. This government is going to transform our politics so the state has far less control over you, and you have far more control over the state.”

How does the abolition of local public inquiries empower people?

To suit their rushed agenda, the Government are simply withdrawing any meaningful element of public participation and consultation, thereby reducing the boundary review process to an opaque, bureaucratic and largely mathematical exercise. The loss of transparency and the ability to comment on and amend proposals will seriously damage the reputation of the boundary commissions. It will erode the high level of trust in their impartiality that they rely on for their reports to be accepted, and the quality of their proposals will be compromised.

Any significant boundary change is likely to cause some level of discontent and controversy, but that will be magnified to previously unknown levels of disquiet if the rigid new rules in the Bill are adopted and 50 seats are abolished. In a written submission to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, the secretaries of the four boundary commissions were clear:

“The changes to the total number of constituencies, and the tighter limits on the number of electors in each constituency, will result in a complete redrawing of constituency boundaries.”

They continued:

“The electoral parity target may require the Commissions to work with electorate data below ward level in many cases”

and

“will result in many constituencies crossing local authority boundaries…the application of the electoral parity target is likely to result in many communities feeling that they are being divided between constituencies.”

If there is no procedural outlet for that discontent, the boundary commissions and the entire review process will be rapidly discredited.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

As the Member for Blaenau Gwent, I have a coterminous borough. If I want to get things done, I go to one chief executive and one leader. I talk to the local police inspector or the person who manages the health board locally. According to the Electoral Reform Society, if the proposed change is pushed through, I will have to work with three or four different borough councils, which will make it much harder to be effective as a local politician and to get things done. It will be much more complicated to work on behalf of my constituents, and I will be much less likely to be able to stand up for them, because I will have to deal with numerous officials in all sorts of different places. Surely that is bad for democracy.

[Sadiq Khan]

That highlights some of the nonsense reasons given by the coalition Government for the Bill. We are told that the Bill will make MPs more effective. Clearly, it will not. We are told that the boundary changes will make things cheaper for MPs. Clearly, they will not. What is clear is that it is not only my hon. Friend who will become a number, but the citizens in his area. That is all for the partisan reasons that I have set out.

Business of the House

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend will have an opportunity to address those concerns when we reach the localism Bill. We have no plans to abolish the Planning Inspectorate, which allows individuals a right of appeal against refusals by local authorities, but against that background we want to push down decisions, such as those that were previously taken by regional bodies, to a local level.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

I refer the Leader of the House to early-day motion 742, which was tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy).

[That this House calls on the Secretary of State for Wales to propose a meeting of the Welsh Grand Committee to discuss the implications for Wales of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill.]

Under current proposals, Wales will lose 25% of its parliamentary seats, yet there will be little time for discussion on the Floor of the House of the implications of that for Wales. Will the Leader of the House discuss that matter further with the Secretary of State for Wales, so that legitimate questions and grievances in Wales are given a proper hearing in the Welsh Grand Committee?

[Sir George Young]

I understand that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales has written to all Welsh Members setting out her decision not to refer the matter to the Welsh Grand Committee. As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who is the Minister with responsibility for political and constitutional issues, is giving evidence today to the Welsh Affairs Committee. The hon. Gentleman will also know that one reason why the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill is being taken on the Floor of the House is to allow Members from all parts of the UK to make their contributions. We have provided five days for debate in Committee of the whole House and two days on Report, which is an adequate opportunity for all Members to make their points. The specific issues concerning Wales arise under clause 11, and I hope that he will have an opportunity to contribute to that debate.

Summer Adjournment

Nick Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) and my hon. Friends the Members for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) and for Livingston (Graeme Morrice) on their excellent maiden speeches.

I want to talk about an issue of particular interest to me: public health policy and the action that the Government can take to promote health and well-being. First, though, I want to wish my constituent Hilda Barwell a happy birthday and to mention National Eisteddfod, Wales’s greatest language, arts and cultural event, which is coming to Blaenau Gwent this week. Hilda Barwell has been a terrific example for all good Labour members in Blaenau Gwent. When she was 16, one of her first actions as a trade unionist was to lead a strike to improve working conditions in the Berlei factory in Ebbw Vale. There was no heating in the factory and mice were running across the feet of her fellow workers—it was a bit like the Tea Room in this place. Hilda has been a terrific campaigner over the years and, even now, she runs the Blaenau Gwent centre for the disabled. She is always putting others first, so a belated happy birthday to Hilda.

As I said, the National Eisteddfod is coming to Blaenau Gwent next week. Many share my belief that arts and culture can play their part in helping community regeneration. I hope that the Eisteddfod will be an important opportunity to help to renew our valleys and towns and to build a better Blaenau Gwent. I particularly want to highlight the fact that Susan Robeson will be visiting the Eisteddfod to show a documentary about her grandfather Paul Robeson, the great singer and human rights activist. He famously visited the Eisteddfod in Ebbw Vale in 1958 as a guest of Nye Bevan, the then local MP. Nye’s invitation followed on from the successful campaign to let Paul Robeson finally travel abroad, which he had been banned from doing by the American authorities because of his radical views on civil rights. It is good, more than 50 years later, that we are able to celebrate the historic occasion of those great men working together

Despite its shortcomings and omissions, I am proud of Labour’s record on public health, especially with regard to tackling smoking in public places. However, I am dismayed by the coalition Government’s recent abdication of their responsibilities on public health. It is well documented that alcohol abuse can cause physical and mental health problems, and we have all witnessed the antisocial behaviour that alcohol can fuel. Of course, the reasons for alcohol abuse are complex, and social drinking is an established part of our national culture, but we can take action.

Only a few weeks ago, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence set out proposals to curb excessive drinking. However, its recommendations of a ban on alcohol advertising and a minimum price for a unit of alcohol have proved controversial. Indeed, the Secretary of State for Health has already ruled out minimum pricing, and instead we are told that the Government will

“report back in the autumn on the scope for targeting alcohol duty at the products most associated with binge drinking and under-age consumption.”—[Official Report, 22 June 2010; Vol. 512, c. 178.]

The Secretary of State says that he is worried that minimum pricing disproportionately affects the poor, but so do public spending cuts and increasing VAT, and that has not stopped the Government, so I doubt that that is his main reason. Indeed, we do not know whether that is true. Academics argue that the better-off spend far more on alcohol than the poor. Logic leads us to believe that young people have the least to spend on alcohol, so raising the price might mean that they consume less. Surely that would be a worthy public health outcome. The fact that Tesco has come out in favour of a minimum price is a helpful start. I would like a sensible discussion about minimum pricing, because I believe that it would gain the support of the majority of the public.

The Labour Government gained such public support over time for their ban on smoking in public places and then, with the universal support of the medical profession and health campaigners, they legislated to remove cigarettes from public display and to ban cigarette vending machines from pubs. However, the introduction of those public health initiatives has stalled. Again, the Government are reviewing the matter,

“given the challenges facing business competition and costs.”—[Official Report, 15 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 891W.]

Labour prefers to tackle the challenges of smoking-related deaths and illness, and their devastating human cost and costs to the national health service. As Action on Smoking and Health has said:

“After all the election promises about public health, surely the coalition can make a better start than by caving in to the tobacco lobby”.

Of course, the coalition Government have given in not just to the tobacco industry, because the food industry’s advances have also been successful. The industry lobby has stopped the introduction of the consumer-friendly traffic light warnings for food, and instead we are to have guideline daily amounts. Linked to that, the Government are to weaken the Food Standards Agency. The agency will lose its role to promote healthy eating, which was described by a Government adviser on food policy, Professor Tim Lang of City university, as a “retrograde step”.

The Secretary of State for Health has also attacked initiatives to improve school meals. He says that he wants to avoid confrontation, which he claims was the hallmark of the Labour Government, but I do not believe that Labour’s promotion of healthy school meals was confrontational. Jamie Oliver’s promotion of good school dinners was hardly a public health blitzkrieg; rather, it raised awareness of an important public health issue.

However, we must confront stark health inequalities. In Blaenau Gwent, average male life expectancy is just over 78. Just 10 miles down the heads of the valleys road in Usk, it is 85. That cannot be right. Good employment is crucial for improved public health, but we must also address the key issues of diet, smoking and alcohol. Healthy living must be promoted by a real progressive Government. Where is the Lib Dems’ voice in this vital debate? Why have they not championed the consumer rather than the producer? In public health, why have they not intervened with their political partners to give our children and young people protection from less healthy food, from tobacco manufactures trying to recruit new smokers, and from low-price alcohol and the binge drinking that it sustains? When one man’s regulation can be another man’s vital public health protection, their coalition, laissez-faire agenda is already going too far. When the Lib Dems meet at their conference in the recess, perhaps they will look again at their public health policy, and strengthen, not weaken, these commitments. The public health agenda is too important to all our young people for the Lib Dems to be complete poodles and accept this laissez-faire lead from their majority party partners.