Devolution (Scotland Referendum)

Debate between Oliver Heald and Clive Betts

Tuesday 14th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Heald]

No, not at the moment.

Devolution for England is not an arcane topic—it is a demand of the people. The same constituents who wrote to me very strongly in favour of the Union and Better Together are also writing to me saying, for example:

“We are very encouraged by David Cameron’s determination to put right the inequalities of the…UK.”

Another constituent says:

“English votes on English affairs has the advantage that it is the simplest and cheapest solution”.

Another says:

“The unfair treatment of England must be rectified.”

Yet another says:

“I am not a…Conservative voter, so this is not a Party political view, but it is about time the English were given some self respect…The Labour Party will not like this but the present situation regarding Scottish MPs voting for English issues cannot continue. What’s sauce for the goose has got to be sauce for the gander.”

[Mr Betts]

I have listened very carefully to the words that the hon. and learned Gentleman has used. He talked about “devolution” in England. Frankly, for my constituents in Sheffield it is not devolution if all that changes down here is that English MPs in this Chamber vote on English matters instead of UK Members voting on English matters. That is not devolution as far as Sheffield is concerned.

[Sir Oliver Heald]

I bet that the people of Sheffield want English votes for English laws, and now is the time for that.

One way of resolving this would be completely symmetrical devolution for England and Scotland, with an English Parliament and an English Executive, perhaps located in Birmingham. Some people argue for that, but my view is that it would be costly and that it is unnecessary, given that we have a perfectly good Parliament here.

Since the second world war, Standing Order No. 97 has allowed procedure for Scottish MPs in this place to pass laws for Scotland. It would be easy to adapt that for England. I spent time as a Conservative constitutional affairs spokesman and helped develop a form of English votes for English laws based on that approach. The various commissions that have looked at the issue—from the Conservative democracy taskforce to the recent McKay commission—are all on the same page. It is all about English votes for English laws.

The British public will listen to the arguments deployed by the right hon. Member for Torfaen and some of his colleagues who say, “Oh, it’s all impossibly difficult, technical stuff,” but the fact is that the public are not very interested in academic constitutional arguments; they want a practical solution. English votes for English laws, and English and Welsh votes for English and Welsh laws, is not complicated. It is a simple solution to a simple problem.

As I put it to the former Prime Minister, there is no reason why a Scots MP from Kirkcaldy should vote on education in Letchworth when I do not get a vote on what happens in his constituency. At the moment there are two categories of Members of Parliament: there are those such as the former Prime Minister, who is not allowed to vote on domestic matters in his own constituency, and there are those like as me who are able to vote on such domestic matters. In fact, he is in a category all on his own, because there are things he can vote on in my constituency that he cannot vote on in his own. [Interruption.] He is not here, but if he was he would be able to do that.

We all understand that the Labour party has a lot of Members of Parliament in Scotland and it is obviously concerned about its ability to win a majority in an election. However, English votes for English laws is a demand of the people. If it is not done in the context of this Parliament with our Standing Orders, we will end up with a demand for an English Parliament and an English Executive, which would undercut and sideline this Parliament and be bad for the United Kingdom. Labour should think on that.

Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between Oliver Heald and Clive Betts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Betts]

I do not want to get into a debate about whether people in rural areas or urban areas suffer most. The reality is that people throughout the country are likely to suffer and that it will be councils, whether they are Conservative councils in rural areas or Labour councils in metropolitan areas, that get the blame, but it will not be the fault of local councillors, whichever party they represent.

Coming back to my point about speed, I say to the Minister that this is an accident waiting to happen. Some of us have been through significant benefit changes before. When Sheffield outsourced its benefits administration to Capita a few years ago there was complete chaos for 18 months. Some of us have experienced elderly people coming into our surgeries and breaking down in tears because although they have always paid their bills on time they have been unable to do so owing to the fact that their benefit application had not been dealt with appropriately. That is what will happen in the rush that the Government are embarking on. Some councils will get it right but others’ systems will fail because of the speed at which this is being done.

[Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman amplify his comments about universal credit, because I understood that with universal credit as someone went into work the taper arrangements were such that they would always be considerably better off than they were on benefits? If that is the case and those taper arrangements are to be respected by councils, surely he is wrong to say that people who are just over the limit—those who are in work and on the lowest levels of income—will be worse off.

Housing Benefit

Debate between Oliver Heald and Clive Betts

Tuesday 9th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

From what the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) has said, I take it that he will be voting with us in favour of this motion, because it seems that that is where his heart lies, if nothing else.

The issue as presented by the Government is that we have a problem with housing benefit. Two explanations have been given for that. One is that local housing allowance levels are pushing up rents, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) dealt with that very well. The other is that housing rents and housing benefit levels are rising because there is a shortage of houses in this country. The hon. Member for Colchester said that that was the case, and I have a lot of sympathy with his point about the need for more social housing.

Let us look at Government policies on housing provision to deal with this fundamental problem. The hon. Gentleman mentioned social housing provision, but he ought to understand that this Government’s policy is to withdraw from social housing provision, and that is what they are doing. Under the comprehensive spending review, the budget for new social housing is being cut in half, and the half that is left will simply fund the houses to which the previous Government were committed, which is about half of the 150,000 target. Where will the other 75,000 come from? The answer is that there is an assumption that social housing landlords will raise the rents on new lettings to 80% of market rents and that that increase in rental income will then fund the building of these extra 75,000 so-called social houses. They will not be social houses, however; they will be houses at 80% of market rents—or at intermediate rents, if we prefer that term. Effectively, therefore, the Government are withdrawing from the provision of social housing.

I know some Liberal Democrat Members will not agree that that is what the Government are doing—indeed, the Lib Dem Communities and Local Government Minister, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell), said exactly the opposite in a recent Westminster Hall debate—but that is the policy. If it is not what they intend to do, the Minister who is currently in the Chamber should stand up and say so.

As the Government claim that their key policy is to reduce housing benefit costs, they must also explain how the two bits of their agenda join up. If getting housing benefit costs down is the right thing to do, will there not be an increase in housing benefit costs from these new 80% market rents they are going to introduce, and how much will they increase by? I have asked that question, but no one can answer it. Do the Government not know or have they not done the figures? Is this another consequence of the impact assessment that they have not done? The Minister has done a lot of jumping up and down in the Chamber today, but he is surprisingly silent and sedentary at present.

That is another major question to which we need an answer. Why are the Government intent on pushing up rents in the social housing sector? What will be the housing benefit costs of that, and is the fact that there will be such costs not an inherent and fundamental contradiction in the Government’s policy?

[Mr Heald]

I do not think the hon. Gentleman understands the scope of the ambition of this Government. They want to get people back to work. They do not want there to be 3 million homes where nobody works and everybody is on housing benefit. They want to change that, and that is how the costs of welfare will come down.