Oral Answers to Questions

Pat McFadden Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. No British taxpayers’ money is spent on World Bank loans to Argentina, and I think that that is an important point, but what is even more important is what happened yesterday. The Falkland islanders have decided that they will hold a referendum to demonstrate that they believe in self-determination. That is important because Argentina continues to try to hide the argument and to pretend that the views of the Falkland islanders do not matter. They do matter; I hope that they will speak loudly and clearly and that Argentina will listen.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

Q3. The Prime Minister just said that he believes that the Leveson inquiry dealt with all the relevant issues regarding the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, but it did not deal with section 118 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, which deals with market abuse and the passing of information to one party that is not available to others in a market situation. Given the hundreds of texts, e-mails and memos in this case, will he ask the Financial Services Authority to examine the evidence and see whether there has been a breach of section 118 or any part of that Act?

Oral Answers to Questions

Pat McFadden Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

Q5. The existing UK controls on the movement of terrorist suspects lapse today, including in the case of suspect CD, of whom Mr Justice Owen said at his appeal last year that relocation was a “necessary and proportionate measure to protect the public from…an immediate and real risk of a terrorist-related attack.” Will the Prime Minister tell the House why his Government supported the relocation power at the court hearing last year, but have since legislated to remove it and to give suspect CD and others like him the freedom to come to London in the run-up to the Olympic games?

[The Prime Minister]

I think that most people across the House realise that the control order regime needed to be reformed, as it did not have public confidence, nor did it have the confidence of many people in the police and security services. We have reformed it, and we have worked with the police and security services. We have put in all the resources that they believe are necessary to make sure that our country is kept safe.

Public Disorder

Pat McFadden Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is right, but in setting out, as it were, a hierarchy of message, it is important to get it across that there is simply no justification for the sort of looting that we saw. There is no excuse for it.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

I thank the Prime Minister for coming to Wolverhampton yesterday and meeting retailers who were affected by what happened, including Mr Sham Sharma, whose computer shop was ransacked and looted. What we have seen in recent days is what happens when order breaks down. When order breaks down there is no liberty; there is fear. The Prime Minister is right to say that those who did this are responsible, but Governments also have responsibilities. Will he reconsider his Government’s plans to make CCTV harder for our communities to use instead of easier, and will he also look again at police numbers? The idea that the budgets cuts he is making will not affect numbers may look good as a line to take, but it will not convince the public—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman.

House of Lords Reform

Pat McFadden Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

After many years of debate on this issue, it might be thought that there is little new to say. It is important, however, and the first thing we should do is leave aside the argument that because the subject is not raised very often on the doorstep and because other pressing issues face our nation we should somehow set it aside. If we took that view, we would never carry out any constitutional reform, so I do not think it should be the starting point for the debate.

The debate is important because in the past the House of Lords has been at the heart of sometimes titanic struggles with the Commons. If we look at our history, we can see that the Lords stood for old interests and old power. That is less so today, but historically it was true. When the great reforming Labour Government were elected at the end of the second world war and there were practically no Labour peers in the House of Lords, they felt the need for the Salisbury convention, which said that the House of Lords would not oppose manifesto commitments carried through by the elected Government of the day.

The discussion about reform always starts with composition and percentages. Indeed, as we have heard, when we discussed this matter a few years ago we had a series of votes on the percentages—20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and so on—with little discussion about the relationship between the two Houses.

The first point to be made about the argument on an elected Parliament is that we already have a 100% elected House of Commons. The discussion often takes place as though the House of Commons does not exist, but that must be the starting point for debate. It is a crucial part of our democratic system that general election day is the decisive democratic moment for the country. That is valued by the voters and if anyone doubts it, they need only look at the referendum result a couple of months ago.

The second and closely related flaw in the traditional argument is the assumption that we can change the democratic legitimacy of the upper House and nothing else will change. The Government’s document and draft Bill repeat that assertion, and clause 2 states:

“Nothing in the provisions of this Act…affects the primacy of the House of Commons”.

It is simply not possible, however, for a second Chamber to be elected without the power relationship between the two Houses being changed. There is no way that politicians elected to the second Chamber will not do their job by asserting themselves and claiming the authority that comes from democratic election in doing so. I have some experience of such reform as an adviser during Labour’s first term of office, when we removed the bulk of the hereditary peers. Even that fairly minor reform was responded to with the threat that from that moment on, the Salisbury convention would be taken off the table. If that was the response to a fairly minor reform, there will also be a similar response to a much more far-reaching reform, such as the one under discussion.

We can decide whether we want a second Chamber that is 80% or 100% elected, but we must also follow the logic of that argument. This is not a cosmetic change. After all, what would be the point of asking the public to take part in elections for the second Chamber if they did not really matter? They will matter. An elected second Chamber would mean a recasting of the relationship between both Houses and would certainly claim greater legitimacy and alter the nature of general election day in the future. Some Members may welcome that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (David Miliband) did earlier, but let none of us deny that it will be the case.

There are other consequential changes, some of which are discussed in the Government White Paper, to do with pay, pensions and so on. I do not believe that they are fundamental and I think we should take the decision on its merits, not by adding up the cost of a Member of the House of Lords or House of Commons. I mention in passing that the Government will give this elected second Chamber the gift of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, and I wish its future Members all the best with that relationship.

There is one difference between the proposals and the situation for Members in the Commons and that is that the second Chamber will be given democratic legitimacy but not accountability, because of the single 15-year term. The accountability that informs us daily will not inform the Members of the second Chamber.

The second Chamber is in need of reform. It is too big and too many people do not turn up, and we ought to be able to do something about such things. There is also the question of the separation of peerage and membership of the House of Lords. I do not stand here opposed to all reform, but I do say that although Parliament can choose to have an elected second Chamber, we must follow the logic of what that will mean. If the Government say that such an alteration will not change the relationship, they will have to do far more in their Bill to ensure that that is the case.

Counter-terrorism

Pat McFadden Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and I know that he suffered a loss in that Bali bomb. We can never bring back someone who has been lost, but he is right that the best tribute we can pay to the people who were lost in the murderous attacks in New York, London, Istanbul or Bali is not only to roll up the terrorist network that has created so much hatred, poison and death, but to see the Arab and Muslim world move towards democracy and freedom. That would be the most fitting tribute of all.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

Bin Laden is dead, but the ideology he represented is not, even though al-Qaeda has been a follower rather than a leader of the Arab spring. Does the Prime Minister accept that parts of that ideology—the perverted use of victimhood and the warped sense of faith—are often used as justification to kill others of the same faith? Is he aware that that ideology is sometimes shared by those who are not active supporters of terrorism? Does he therefore accept that even though bin Laden is gone, the struggle against the ideology he represented must continue at a political, an ideological and a security level?

[The Prime Minister]

I very much agree with the right hon. Gentleman and I hope there can be cross-party consensus on that. It would really help if we recognise in the review of Prevent and in what we do to deal with that ideology that it is not enough to say that we will prevent violent extremism, because we need to prevent extremism as well. Sometimes in the past, we have made a mistake in thinking, “Let’s talk to the extremists in order to stop the really violent ones,” but that is like trying to get the British National party to help to deal with a violent fascist. That would not be sensible in that context, and it is not sensible in dealing with extremist Islamism either.