Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, this is primarily a commercial decision for GKN. My right hon. Friend the Business Secretary is in discussion with the parties on an impartial basis and has sought reassurance from them on their plans. If the hon. Gentleman has evidence that illegal activity has taken place, that should be reported to the proper authorities.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

The first words of the Speaker’s Chaplain this afternoon repeated Jesus’s instruction to love others.

I hope that the Prime Minister and leaders of Opposition parties will help to protect Jews from anti-Semitism and Muslims from Islamophobia.

If the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Home Office and others fail to have an independent inquiry into the recent prosecution of Gurpal Virdi, a Sikh, will the Prime Minister please meet me to discuss the matter?

EU Referendum: Electoral Law

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I have to start by saying that it is truly shocking that Government Members do not seem to think that this debate is worth taking part in. The staggering hypocrisy of MPs—

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Will you confirm that listening is taking part in a debate? We do not have to speak to learn.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman has made his pithy point pithily, and it is on the record. People can listen and be attentive, and I have become accustomed to listening to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) over the years, which I have always found an enjoyable experience.

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[Geraint Davies]

Well, I am profoundly concerned about that. Again, facts are emerging day by day, and they need to be forensically examined and it is very important that the resources are there to do that. That sort of information coming forward gives us greater reason to be enormously concerned about this. That is why I am so saddened to see that the Government Benches are empty, when the essence of our democracy, as we are about to step on the biggest journey—

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I do not want to cast any aspersions on the hon. Gentleman’s ability to see if he cannot see that these Benches are not empty. If he can see, he can see that they are full, and he should not say what he said.

[Mr Speaker]

The Benches are not empty. The hon. Gentleman has made his point, and I invite the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) to continue his speech.

Debate on the Address

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Wednesday 21st June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that. Paul stepped down from the House in 2010, but he was a friend and colleague of mine. I am bound to say that, among his many other achievements, he was the defence spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats during the Iraq war. People will remember—wrongly—that the Liberal Democrats took the popular side in opposing the Iraq war, but we did not: we took the unpopular side. Sometimes it is important to do right, and Paul Keetch sat on the Front Bench, next to the equally late and great Charles Kennedy, making that case at that very difficult time for our country.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

May I just reinforce the hon. Gentleman’s message about Imam Mohammed Mahmoud? His words—that, by God’s grace, they managed to stop the attacker being attacked and prevent worse things from happening—should be in everyone’s mind. Heaven knows what would have happened if the attacker had suffered serious damage. The headlines would have been very different, so we owe a great deal to that imam and people like him.

[Tim Farron]

We absolutely do, and he is an example of what genuinely unites us and of our love and concern for others. Indeed, he reflects the values of the colossal majority of Muslim people in this country, and it is important that we reflect that.

In their absence, let me also pay tribute to the humorous, witty and wise remarks of the mover and the seconder of the response to the Gracious Speech, and move on to my own remarks, which I promise will not be all that lengthy—whether they are wise, Members can judge at the end.

The Prime Minister is not in her place now; she is entitled not to be. She and I have a lot in common. We both contested North West Durham in 1992, and neither of us won; we both led our parties in the recent general election, and neither of us won; and soon neither of us will be leading our parties any more, but at least I have got the honesty to admit it publicly. Britain, for all its immense and glorious heritage, its potentially wonderful future, and all its tremendous values, is nevertheless a country in a mess. It is essentially a mess caused by two choices made by two Conservative Prime Ministers who put their party before their country. First, David Cameron called a referendum on Europe for no other reason than to attempt to put a sticking plaster between two sides of the Conservative party. Secondly, our current Prime Minister thought she could gain narrow party advantage by calling a snap election. Pride comes before a fall. It is tempting to be amused at the hubris turned to humiliation that has now come upon the Conservative party, but the problem is that this is a mess that damages Britain—that damages the future for all of our children.

So, to the Gracious Speech. Her Majesty has launched many ships in her time, but never such an empty vessel as the one today. I am not sure whether wasting the monarch’s time is a treasonous act; I hope for the Prime Minister’s sake it is not. The Queen’s Speech shows that we have a Government who have lost touch with their people and lost touch with reality. If they have the first, foggiest idea of what the will of the people is now, they have chosen to ignore it. Why is there no additional investment in health or social care? As two in three of our head teachers across our country in the next few weeks are having to lay off teaching staff, why is there no plan to cancel the £3 billion-worth of cuts to our schools?

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[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

This Parliament has been given a mighty task by the electorate. A year ago, the voters decided that they wanted to take back control of our laws, our borders and our money. They charged us with that duty, and they recommissioned us collectively in the election just held. Eighty-two per cent. of them voted for the two main parties, which both said that they would deliver Brexit as the referendum requested.

I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke). This Parliament has a duty to have its debates, its disagreements and its arguments, but to do things in the right way. It would ill become this Parliament if it precipitated an early party-based crisis and went back to the electors to seek a new mandate. The electors had criticisms of all our parties. They did not give any party the result it wanted. They knew what they were doing, and it is the duty of this Parliament to do some governing, and some criticism of governing, as are our mutual roles. There is nothing to stop us doing that.

On that central issue that dominates the Queen’s Speech, it is clear that the British public have resolved again—they resolved in the referendum and in the election. Had they changed their minds since the referendum, they would have voted for the Liberal Democrats, who gave them a very clear option to say in effect: “Change your mind. Here is the way to do it.” The Liberal Democrats were very honest about this in the election: they said not only that they wanted a second referendum, but that they would want us to rejoin the European Union. They could not see circumstances in which they would change their mind on that. The electorate said that that was not the way they wished to go.

Those who say that the Queen’s Speech is thin clearly have not understood it. This is perhaps the most important Queen’s Speech I have seen in my time as a Member of Parliament. There is fundamental legislation to give this Parliament back, on behalf of the people, powers over all our lawmaking. Parliament will then be invited to go on to make substantial amendments to how we run agriculture and fishing, how we conduct international trade, and how we carry out many of our arrangements. The purpose of the legislation will be to amend and improve on European schemes that we are currently unable to amend, or able to amend only with the agreement of all 28 member states, which is very unlikely.

I campaigned in the election on a different slogan from the one recommended by Conservative Front Benchers. My slogan was “prosperity not austerity”. I did that deliberately, because I believe we have had enough austerity, and I want to see the promotion of higher living standards and better family incomes as our main purpose. I am conscious that schools and social care in my area need more public money support. That is true of many of my hon. Friends in English constituencies. The good news is that the Government are coming to the same conclusion, and I look forward to the public spending statements and Budget statements that will make more money available for our priorities. We will clearly need more money for the health service—the Government have promised substantial new sums—and we will need to commit to substantial sums for our healthcare over the years ahead.

The Brexit issue is relevant. It was not misleading in the Brexit referendum for the leave side to say that there will be money to spend when we cancel our contributions. I look forward to our negotiators making it very clear to our friends in the European Union that we will pay our contributions up to the point when we leave, but that we do not owe them any great bill, and we certainly will not be paying contributions once we have left. That money is then available for this Parliament, on the advice of the Government, to decide how to spend. I would be happy if we began to spend a bit of it even before March 2019 when we come to the end of our contributions, because there is a need now and our borrowing is under very good control. As we have heard, borrowing is down by three quarters since the programme began after the big crash—the programme was initiated by the Labour Government, then continued by the coalition and the Conservative Government. We need to be prudent and sensible—there is no magic money tree, and we cannot spend all the money we would like to spend, or all the money envisaged in the Labour party manifesto—but to relax in those areas where the public services clearly need it. I believe that that is possible, given the Brexit context.

I was conscious in the election that young people were critical of the Conservative party. They were often very attracted to the Labour party’s offers. The Labour manifesto offered attractive financial changes for current students and those who have accumulated student debt that they have not yet got rid of. I would like Conservatives to take on board the fact that we need to provide a better offer to students and young people, so that next time we can engage rather better with the younger person vote than we do today.

There is one ambition on which younger people above all would like the Conservatives to do better. We are uniquely well placed to help more of them to become homeowners. It is a worrying social change in our country that many people in the 25-to-40 age range feel that they cannot afford to buy a property. We have good schemes to help with deposits and mortgage affordability, and we have schemes to help with the affordability of homes, but it is not enough and we need to do so much more. We need to redouble our efforts to show that we understand that ambition, and that we wish to empower young people.

In practice, the Government are working hard in a number of important ways to help young people. The phenomenal job-generation powers of the economy since 2010 have been extremely helpful, because the first thing a young person graduating or leaving school needs is a job. The training and qualifications support that we are putting in place is very important, because we do not want them to have any old job. We want them to go into jobs that allow them to grow into more responsible and better qualified roles, which can lead to much better pay.

We in this House are in practice—although we like to pretend that we are not—completely united in wanting people to have good employment and better paid jobs. The issue is how quickly people get there, what Government can do and what people and private institutions have to do for themselves to bring that about. I am pleased that the Government have a number of schemes—on technical qualifications and on student support—but we need to do far more, because we need to show young people that we are on their side when it comes to launching them on a path to better paid and better qualified employment.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

Does my right hon. Friend also agree that employment taxation is far too high? If we take the total cost to an employer of employing somebody and see what the employee is left afterwards, the gap is enormous—there is not even a single word to cover it, although some would call it a wedge. The gap is enormous and we ought to bring it down.

[John Redwood]

I quite agree. I have always believed that lower tax rates are the answer, and I think there are areas where we could lower the tax rates and get in more revenue, which is exactly what we need to do. We need more money for the public services, but we need more incentives, we need people to be able to retain more of what they earn and we need employers to be able to afford the extra employees, so that is very important.

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[Keith Vaz]

I hope I get an extra minute for that.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Do you or your Clerk know whether an intervention by the occupant of the Chair adds a minute to the time of the Member speaking?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I am lost for words, and that is most certainly not a point of order.

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[Sir William Cash]

That is a terrific question to which I shall return emphatically in a few minutes. The basis of my hon. Friend’s argument is completely wrong, as I shall explain in a moment.

The reckless spending alternative—the false alchemy of the Labour manifesto—would, in contrast with the Government’s economic success, simply bankrupt us and wipe out our success, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies made clear the other day. The Chancellor was right to say that stronger growth is the means by which reasonable taxation can be raised to deliver better public services and better living standards. We need sound money to go with that growth.

The Chancellor mentioned the European Investment Bank, in which we have a massive 16% shareholding, worth more than €10.2 billion. He and others should bear in mind very carefully indeed the fact that the EIB was set up under articles 307 and 308 of the European Union treaty, along with article 28 of protocol 5 on the statute of the EIB. That demonstrates that, as far as I can judge, the EIB is within the jurisdiction of the European Court. I am convinced that that is the case. We should find an answer to the question without surrendering our commitment to insisting on our own Westminster jurisdiction and not that of the European Court. We are going to have to think through this matter very carefully.

The Chancellor discussed the importance of free trade and how the Prime Minister’s Lancaster House speech made clear we would seek a comprehensive free trade agreement. He also confirmed—I repeat: confirmed —that we were leaving the customs union, for which there is a good and fundamental reason. I shall now address the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman). When we leave the EU, our independent trade policy will be made by our Government, elected at Westminster, not by the unelected European Commission and by majority vote, which, as with all decisions taken under the European Communities Act 1972—as the European Scrutiny Committee made clear in its report in May last year—is made by consensus behind closed doors, with nobody knowing how the decision is arrived at. There is no public record, as we have in Westminster. It is all far removed from the democratic, transparent accountability of our procedures, our Hansard and our parliamentary system, in which people know who is deciding what. Furthermore, most EU business is done through the aegis of covert decision making in unsmoke-filled rooms. The EU is intrinsically undemocratic, as the recent Malta declaration of the 27 clearly indicated. I note that the Chancellor stated that as regards our trading policy he believes that we must negotiate

“mutually beneficial transitional arrangements to avoid unnecessary disruption and dangerous cliff edges.”

This mirrors, I think, what has been said by the CBI, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, the manufacturers’ group EEF and a number of other trade bodies, some apparently and some actually seeking to keep us in the single market and the customs union for up to five years, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe indicated and with which I disagree.

The Chancellor also emphasised that we need an implementation period and frictionless customs arrangements, albeit, he said, outside the customs union. That poses a serious problem. Against this background, we need to understand where we are with the customs union and the single market and why it is important we leave both on leaving the EU, on which the Labour party is completely confused.

I want to draw attention to our trading within the single market, and ask our friends who are still at heart remainers to please take note of what I am saying. The Office for National Statistics and the House of Commons Library tell us that last year we ran a trade deficit with the 27 member states of £71.8 billion, up £9 billion in that year alone. In the same year, Germany ran a trade surplus with EU countries of £98.9 billion, up £16 billion in that year. Yet we enjoy a trade surplus with the rest of the world of £34.4 billion, which is accelerating rapidly. Yes, 44% of our trade is with the EU, and our trade with it will continue if we leave the single market and the customs union, but our global trade is where our successful economic future lies as soon as we leave the European Union and we have to get real about that.

Furthermore, although many describe leaving the customs union as a cliff edge, if done wisely it will be a launch pad for new and greater opportunities for growth and prosperity, providing trade deals with other countries, improving our regulatory environment, achieving a free trade agreement with the EU with zero-for-zero tariff deals, dealing with rules of origin, mutual recognition of goods, including agricultural products, and allowing expedited customs arrangements based on new technologies.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

My hon. Friend might find it easier to speak less fast once this intervention has given him a few more seconds.

[Sir William Cash]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend; I am determined to get through what I have here.

In the context of the City and financial services, there is so much for us to learn from the experience of the European Free Trade Association and its jurisdictional relationships with the European Court of Justice. These provide guidelines and lessons to be learned in achieving mutual respect while retaining our sovereignty and unshackling ourselves from the European Commission’s exclusive jurisdiction over external trade policy, which does not work for us even though it does specifically for Germany.

We are fortunate to have Mr Crawford Falconer as our chief trade negotiation adviser and a strong team to deliver a first-class trade policy with major countries such as the USA, Canada and Australia. A few days ago, the Secretary of State for International Trade had an extremely good meeting with the US Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross. We have had similar reactions from the other countries I have mentioned. These provide the launch pad for us to enable the growth that will accelerate us towards a global prosperity zone for the United Kingdom. This is a massive new opportunity for the United Kingdom to resume its 300-year-old role in international trade in goods and services, in which we have always delivered throughout our commercial history.

To give some flavour of that, the House of Commons Library tells us that in the last year alone we had a trade surplus of £39.6 billion with the USA, of £1.3 billion with Canada, and in 2015, the most recent year for which data are available, a trade surplus of £3.7 billion with Australia. They have already said that they want to trade bilaterally with us, and we would be crazy not to do it. Out of the customs union, we will build on this—inside it we cannot—and our economic growth and prosperity will expand exponentially, and there will be the means of providing security and stability, and, with that, the provision of good and effective public services mentioned by the right hon. Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan).

I believe that leaving the EU while achieving acceptable jurisdictional answers to our financial services and other regulatory arrangements, which are currently with the EU, is eminently achievable. An overly narrow view of the potential jurisdictional difficulties is wrongly pessimistic, particularly as regards our potential trading relationships with the rest of the world and our recognition that the single market does not deliver for us.

I was glad that the Chancellor did not refer to the words “soft” and “hard” Brexit in his speech. The words “soft” and “hard” Brexit, so favoured by the BBC and others in the media, are an exercise in casuistry, a weapon of propaganda intended to create a fog when we need above all else clear lines and meanings. This applies equally to the expression “transitional arrangements”. Where do we draw the lines? What does it mean? Under what jurisdiction?

Leaving the EU is in the national interest and it is our duty, which we are obliged to deliver. I refer now simply to the exchange between Humpty Dumpty and Alice in “Through the Looking Glass”:

“‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master—that’s all.’”

No longer will our master be the European Union and its political puppet masters. They sought to absorb us into a political union, now on the cards as Angela Merkel has demonstrated this week as regards the new financial arrangements—

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[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

There is a habit of some in the Labour party of making personal attacks on Conservative Prime Ministers. They did it with Ted Heath, they did it with Margaret Thatcher, and some tried to do it with our current Prime Minister. I think she has the common sense, resilience and sense of humour not to worry too much about that. It is far better that we understand that the leadership of the party can be tested by what people do in action, and during her years as Home Secretary, the Prime Minister had no hesitation in coming to the House, picking up the most difficult issues, and finding ways forward that were supported across the House. I am pleased to back her in what she is trying to do with our Government.

On the Brexit theme—I do not usually discuss that as much as my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash)—I think it will take twice as much effort to make a success of leaving as it would have taken to make a success of staying, but the people made the decision that we should go, so the responsibility of someone in my position is to give the Government the support that I can while trying to make sure that problems are recognised and solved as far as possible.

May I wish the new leader of the SNP in the House good luck? His predecessor, Angus Robertson, will be missed, especially in the all-party group on Austria. I hope that as he is no longer in the House he will regard himself as an honorary member of the group. Much of what he has done is much appreciated by successive Austrian ambassadors, and I hope that his input will continue.

I think that the departing leader of the Liberal Democrats was treated unfairly. It is crazy that one answer to one question can come back to haunt someone. The question of someone’s view of other people’s behaviour, as long as it is held privately, does not really matter. We ought not to say that someone’s orientation or their answer to questions about what other people do should be a test of their political ability or leadership. I wish the Liberal Democrats well in finding a new leader.

To those who are arguing too much about the possible understanding between the Democratic Unionist party and the Conservatives, I remember saying a week ago on Monday, when the question first arose, and when 38 Degrees got everyone on its mailing list to write in saying that that was a frightful thing, that the alternative Government arrangement would be the Labour party trying to introduce an understanding with the SNP, the DUP, the Lib Dems and the Green party. The DUP would have to take part in that arrangement as well; without it, Labour Members could not be in government, so there is no point their pretending there could be an alternative Government by shaking their heads at the DUP. I hope that the DUP will read my description of the shaking heads on the Opposition side who want nothing to do with them. We are clear that the Government will come from this side and my party.

I mentioned 38 Degrees. I deplore how it pretends to be progressive but not partisan. At some other stage, I will refer the activities of 38 Degrees to the Electoral Commission and the Information Commissioner. I cannot say that it has committed an offence, but I cannot say that it is in the clear. On the last day of the election, it put out something inviting people to see which party was closest to them. If all someone’s answers were closest to the Conservatives, as the majority of voters were at the last election, there were then more questions trying to dissuade the person from thinking that they were what they thought they were. That is wrong. At present, the organisation is running its third campaign in a week and a half: there have been the DUP issue and fire regulations, which clearly will have to be reviewed following that terrible fire in Grenfell Tower, and today it is asking people to sign a petition about national health service spending. Such activity means that that it should be considered as a political organisation, and should meet the same requirements as political parties.

On housing, one of the big issues is leasehold properties. Up to 6 million residential leaseholders are exposed, by accident or design, to mistreatment by managing agents, some freeholders and, sadly, by some property tribunals and courts; I thank the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) for her interest and help in this matter. If courts and property tribunals feel that they have to make a judgment that is clearly unfair but goes along with precedent or the argument of some clever lawyer, they should say in their judgment, “We find for this party, but we declare that this is an unjust decision.”

Mr Barry Weir, or his company, is the landlord of a park home site in my constituency who has used judgments and expensive lawyers to—in my terms—bully and intimidate. People spend £50,000 to buy a so-called mobile home on the basis that it is residential. It turns out to be for holiday use, and when Mr Weir or his companies get permission for it to be for residential use, he starts to claim another £1,000 a year. He takes people to court and they lose their £50,000. In my view, that is depriving people of assets that they ought to be able to keep. Through this House, I invite Mr Barry Weir to meet me so that we can sort things out person to person. If there is still a dispute, we will go to some outside tribunal and see whether the way he is treating people is right or fair.

The same applies to a freeholder called Martin Paine, who has given people extended leases but written the clause in such a way that even good solicitors fail to find the fact that he is doubling ground rents back to the start of a lease, not to the point at which they were extended. That would not be allowed as part of a formal extension of a lease; again, such behaviour needs exposing in public, and MPs can do that.

I return for a moment to the tragedy in Kensington. I first went to Golborne ward in the early 1970s, when I was setting up the second neighbourhood council in the country; the first was in Golborne. I have seen what has happened in some tenant management organisations. The question of responsibility is important, also in respect of the first reaction to the fire and how it was treated. The fire service will have lessons to learn and it will be happy to learn them. I think the tenant management organisations will do the same. Clearly, the building regulations are wrong: it should not be possible to put up that kind of cladding in that material. However, people should not regard cladding as just aesthetic. In my first constituency 25 years ago, people were spending £30 a week to be cold in a tower block; after the cladding was fitted, they were spending £5 a week to be warm. That £25 a week and the fact of being warm made a big difference to people. We have lessons to learn, we will learn them and I say to 38 Degrees that it should stop trying to wind people up.

There is a side of the Labour party that I admire. I used to meet Bill Hamling, my first Labour opponent when I stood for Parliament in 1974—he was Harold Wilson’s Parliamentary Private Secretary—at lunchtime on Saturdays. We would buy each other a drink and declare hostilities over until the Monday. He appears in many political plays, including “This House”. I ask the people behind that play to revise how they portray Bill Hamling: he was not a foul-mouthed person. They should also revise their portrayal of Carol Mather, a gallant gentleman and officer and my wife’s Whip—she was the first woman in his regiment. He is also portrayed as foul-mouthed, but he was not. People who knew them are still alive and we do not need that kind of dramatic effect.

I will campaign in my constituency for funds for a proper A27 that gives protection to local residents but makes it possible for people to move through without traffic jams. With other West Sussex MPs, I will continue to fight for fairer funding for schools. If we had anything like the funding for schools in London, we would not have half the problems we have. I will work with anybody—parents and others—to try to make things right.

The job of those of us in political and public service is to try to reduce avoidable disadvantage, distress and handicap and improve wellbeing through a mixture of wealth and welfare. We can do it together. We should not have so many disagreements, and I commit myself to doing my bit.

London Attack

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. and learned Lady speaks very well and I utterly agree with her words.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

Some of us were present 38 years ago and nearby when Airey Neave was martyred. The lesson that we learned then was not to damn a community because of the actions of a single person. The message from the imam at the Worthing House of Prayer and Peace was:

“We will always be with those who work for peace.”

May I suggest that we try to disappoint those who calculate that publicity and public reaction will work in their favour by making sure that we work together?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. The Metropolitan police are bringing together a number of faith leaders for a meeting today to show the importance of that coming together. They are of course working with communities up and down the country, especially with those that are concerned about the possible reaction that might take place, to reassure them that the job of the police is to keep us all safe.

Debate on the Address

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

The first reference I want to make to a referendum is to the words of Dr Johann Malawana, the junior doctors’ leader, who has said he is going to put forward the agreed proposals from ACAS in the referendum for junior doctors, hoping that they will agree them.

I pay tribute to Sir Brendan Barber of ACAS, to the British Medical Association leaders and to the national health service employers, together with the Secretary of State for Health and his Ministers, for finding a way forward that will be good and better for doctors in training and for patients, and that will help to make the national health service work in a way that people want it to. It will not abolish all the problems, but it is a great way forward.

As I understand it, some of the adaptations that have come forward during the last 10 days’ negotiation will be even better for doctors who have caring responsibilities. It seems to me that we lost sight of that in the years since my wife was Secretary of State for Health. It is a good idea if people can become fully qualified no matter what their caring responsibilities are at any one time. If they have had to hold back because of taking time out, they could then come forward and catch up with the rest. I pay tribute to that.

I will not say much more about the referendum coming up on 23 June because, as I have tried to explain to some of my people before we start having meetings about it, it is not a clash between two things in total. If we come out, we will still almost certainly be part of the Common Market, and we will almost certainly be contributing our money and having free movement of labour. If we stay in, we will not be proposing to join the euro or the Schengen area, so it is a question of how we move forward.

On balance, my personal view—I agree with the majority of the population about this—is that it is better to stay in and to help Europe to do things that are good for Europe and good for us, rather than saying that we are concerned about only ourselves, not our near neighbours.

I shall speak about general issues facing Members of Parliament. I look on being a Back Bencher—that was the reason I came into Parliament; I did not come in to try to become a Minister or a Cabinet Minister—as rather like being a general practitioner in politics. A large aspect of that is trying to reduce avoidable disadvantage, distress and handicap, and to improve wellbeing—it is a mixture of wealth and welfare. What really matter are such issues as getting better education and training, and a better start in family life, and getting better support for those whose families go through deformation and reformation.

The role also involves looking at issues of the day with two eyes. I represent junior doctors and their patients. I also represent rail workers and rail travellers. To those involved in the disputes in the Southern and Govia Thameslink rail services at the moment, I see no reason to justify the interruption to services, whether that be through organised sickness absence or strikes.

Many people who have caring responsibilities, and the many people travelling on the railways whose jobs bring in less than rail workers, need a reliable service. This is a public service. Obviously, some issues can be so great that they justify a strike, but the fact is that about 40% of Southern services are driver controlled all the way through—drivers operate the doors and everything else, although there may be other staff on the train. Moving further on that approach is not a convincing reason to justify an all-out strike.

Sometimes I suspect operators do not use the right language. If they propose that ticket office staff should be operating in a ticket office without walls, that would be a better way of putting it than saying that they are going to close ticket offices during certain hours of the day. They need to find the language, as Sir Brendan Barber and his team have with ACAS, that will allow people to come together and find out what they can do together that will be good for those they serve, as well as for themselves.

Let me turn to other issues that come up for Back Benchers. I pick up causes, one of which came about as a result of an incident in my constituency regarding leasehold, when some elderly, frail and poor people found themselves paying for something they should not have paid for. They tried to go to the lower-level property tribunal, but found that those representing the freeholders managed to spin the issue between different courts, keeping the case away from low-cost dispute resolution. With the help of the Bar pro bono unit, it took one barrister one day to cut through all that, and my elderly people were paid a rebate of £70,000 without further court action.

That case led me to meet people in Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, now a charity, which was created, and is mainly supported and led, by Martin Boyd and Sebastian O’Kelly, who I think give more advice to more leaseholders in trouble than most people who do the same thing professionally—and they do it without pay. What they have achieved is remarkable.

We need to respond by making sure that Parliament recognises the 6 million residential leaseholders in this country, who can often find themselves exploited. Why is it that people who buy a retirement flat find that when they try to sell it, or their executors do so after they have died, it is worth so much less? There is something wrong with the system. As it happens, the Chancellor loses out because lower property values mean that less is obtained through stamp duty when new buyers come in.

Another problem is caused by court-created law. I cannot explain this issue off the cuff because it goes beyond me, but I can refer to a recent upper tribunal lands chamber decision, whose neutral citation number for 2016 is UKUT 0223 (LC), case Nos. LRA 20, 21 and 35/2015. The case was between the trustees of the Sloane Stanley estate and Adrian Howard Mundy; between the trustees of the Sloane Stanley estate and Arnaud Lagesse; and between Sophie Nathalie Jeanne Aaron and the Wellcome Trust Ltd. A decision of 160-odd clauses was reached about the value that applies when people are trying to get a leasehold extension.

We all know that George Thomas—Lord Tonypandy—a former Speaker, came to public notice when he fought for leasehold rights for south Wales residents. We now need to do the same thing again. As I understand it, the judgment has transformed the valuations of expiring leases. No consideration was undertaken in Parliament, yet this upturns what was believed to be the way to approach these valuations for the last 10 years, so it is time that we got Departments—whether that is the Ministry of Justice or the Department for Communities and Local Government—to come together and, perhaps after putting it before a Select Committee first, assess whether Parliament needs to take formal action on this issue. Otherwise, we are letting a judgment go forward regarding three cases that have been argued by lawyers at great length in a way that few of us would understand. Indeed, I challenge most people to look through the document and find the actual judgment—I tried to do so in 10 minutes but could not; it took me 20 minutes. This is wrong.

When it comes to leasehold, we need to say what is right, what is wrong and what we can do about it. Martin Paine has interests in leasehold at a different scale—not the high-value area. That relates to the Wellcome Trust buying the Henry Smith properties and turning them into an investment trust. The Wellcome trustees should start looking to see whether what they have done is fully justifiable. I am not making an accusation, but asking for their interest.

Returning to the Martin Paine issue, it applies where a young person or couple buy a low-valued flat and have the lease checked by their lawyers, but later on discover that Martin Paine has informally rewritten the terms of the lease—extending it but, for example, doubling the ground rent every 10 years. That situation might be difficult in itself, but the greatest difficulty comes from the way the lease is written, as lawyers do not normally spot that the ground rent has been doubled back to the time when the lease was originally granted.

Let us say the lease was originally granted in 1959. The first ground rent demand could be not the expected £15 but, say, £2,000. That would mean that the rent would increase to £4,000 in 10 years’ time, and then later to £8,000, £16,000 and so on, so the flat becomes worthless. I understand that if enough fuss is made or enough publicity issued, Martin Paine will offer to buy the property back. He sometimes appears to remarket it without drawing the attention of the potential auctioneers or the potential purchasers of what those buying it will be letting themselves in for.

It is not for me to judge whether that is criminal, but doing this on an organised basis certainly demands attention. I ask the Competition and Markets Authority, the Office of Fair Trading or the police to check this and stop it. I warn the solicitors that their indemnity societies mean that they should be looking to see why this is going on.

I could provide a number of other examples that I would not suggest are necessarily criminal, but they are certainly odd. I mention embedded management companies, and I would ask some of the major developers to check whether there are clauses in their leasehold agreements that make clear the right of leaseholders to come together to buy their properties or to take over the management company. They need to make sure they are effective, and if they are defective, they should be made to put it right at their own cost. We should not ask the victims to pay all the costs and take all the risks—especially of going to court—to get things put right.

Let me turn briefly to medical cases. I shall shortly meet two of the people I most admire in the medical world. One is Dr Kim Holt, who suffered persecution by her trust when she warned about the baby P case, before it acknowledged that it did not have the right staffing. The other is Dr Peter Wilmshurst, who had to face a crooked company that threatened him with defamation when he pointed out that its research was wrong. There are other examples.

I am waiting for the result of an Manchester employment tribunal case involving Mr Aditya Agrawal. I shall make no further comment, because we have not yet seen the result, but when it comes out, I hope to ask Mr Speaker whether we can have a debate on why the hospital trust had had over 100 confidentiality agreements over the last five years—and a compromise agreement that is a secret as well. This is the sort of pattern that we should not have in our national health service.

Then there is the police and the case of Gurpal Virdi. He is still waiting for the police to accept his case when they prosecuted him for a week and a half unsuccessfully—it was obviously going to be unsuccessful—in Southwark Crown court, when he was said to have assaulted somebody 28 years ago.

The police did not interview the officer recorded as arresting the complainant. When Mr Virdi arrested the complainant six months later, the police did not interview the officer with him, who could have given evidence about the relationship, if any, between the complainant and the police officer.

Our job in Parliament is to stand up, without making wild accusations, and to be persistent about issues until either the law or practice changes. Anyone in our constituencies who feels they have suffered an injustice should be told, “Do come to a Member of Parliament or a caseworker, and if it is serious and if it matters, we will work at it.” We may not always be successful, but it is our duty to try to help.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2016 Commons Chamber

The Prime Minister was asked—

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 23 March.

[The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)]

Adrian Ismay, a Belfast prison officer, died last week as a result of injuries caused by a bomb placed under his vehicle. A murder investigation is under way, and one man has been charged in connection with the attack, but we should today offer our condolences to the family and friends of Mr Ismay.

Let me also update the House on yesterday’s terrorist attacks in Brussels. Details are still emerging, but our understanding is that at least 34 people were killed and many others injured. Daesh claimed responsibility for the attacks, which follow the horrific suicide bombing that they carried out in Istanbul on 19 March. We are aware of four British nationals who were injured in the attack, and we are concerned about one missing British national.

We face a common terrorist threat, and I am sure that the whole House will join me in expressing our full solidarity with the people of Belgium following these terrible attacks. I spoke to the Belgian Prime Minister, Charles Michel, yesterday to pass on our condolences. Our police and agencies are doing everything they can to support the investigation. In this country, we have increased police patrols and border screening. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will make a statement later setting out all the steps that we are taking.

Britain and Belgium share the same values of liberty and democracy. The terrorists want to destroy everything that our two great countries stand for, but we will never let them.

Mr Speaker, this morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

Bombers, everywhere and every time, aim for publicity, public reaction, and disunity. Can we disappoint them by uniting for hope, not hate?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that. These people packed their explosives with nails in order to kill as many innocent people, including women and children, as they possibly could. We should unite in condemnation of them, and we should stand with the people and the Government of Belgium and with all countries that are being afflicted by this appalling terrorist menace, and say that they shall never win.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with every word that the right hon. and learned Lady has just said. I would say that Britain, uniquely among countries in the world, meets its 2% NATO spending target—so we can play a role in terms of defence and helping to secure these countries—and reaches its target of spending 0.7% of GDP on aid. No other major country in the world meets those two targets, and I am proud that we do.

The right hon. and learned Lady talks about going to the causes of these crises, and she is absolutely right about that. We have to be frank: the eastern Mediterranean crisis, in particular, is because Assad has butchered his own people and because ISIL has, in its own way, butchered others, and millions have fled Syria. We can do all we can, as a moral, humanitarian nation, to take people, spend money on aid and help in refugee camps, but we have to be part of the international alliance that says, “We need an approach in Syria that will mean we have a Government that can look after their people.” Assad has to go, ISIL has to go, and some of that will require not just spending money, not just aid, not just diplomacy—it will, on occasion, require hard military force.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

Q2. The last exchange is the most important: with other countries, we have moral and practical responsibilities. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said that we are presently the only country meeting the commitment to the world’s poorest and on military spending, and it would be helpful if he could explain how each helps us to deal with the situation in Syria and the surrounding areas.

[The Prime Minister]

The point I would make to my hon. Friend is that the spending on aid is vital, because 11 million people have been forced out of their homes. Some of them remain in Syria and they need support, and some of them are in refugee camps and they need support. Many are being looked after in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, and those countries need our help. The aid budget has always been a controversial issue in our country, but people can now see the connection between the money we spend, the lives we save and the national security that we help to enforce back in the UK. The point I am making is not to change the debate now about what happens next in Syria, but we have to keep thinking about the fact that in the end nothing will make ISIL go away other than a confrontation, which we are seeing in Iraq and in Syria. We should be clear that ISIL being degraded, destroyed and ultimately defeated is in not just this country’s interests, but the interests of civilisation more broadly.

Her Majesty the Queen

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

May I add the thanks of everybody involved in all the voluntary organisations and charities to which the Queen has given leadership and inspiration over the years?

[Mr Speaker]

A great speech—possibly the hon. Gentleman’s greatest ever!

Debate on the Address

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Wednesday 27th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Amess]

My right hon. Friend has stolen part of my speech. The Gracious Speech says:

“Other measures will be laid before you.”

I absolutely think that we should now ban opinion polls during the three weeks of an election. We must never have a six-week campaign again. We had those ridiculous opinion polls day in and day out, and there has been no humility from the media; they are just carrying on as though they got it right. And let us never forget what the BBC told us about the exit polls. At 10 o’clock, it told us that the Conservatives would be the largest party with, I think, 316 seats.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

The problem is that we cannot ban private opinion polls; there would simply be rumour and speculation. It is far better to let the press and the pollsters get on with it, in the hope that they will accept the criticism and that that will help them to get it right more often.

[Sir David Amess]

I was my hon. Friend’s Parliamentary Private Secretary for a little while. I am not going to fall out with him over this matter, but I do not agree with him.

Debate on the Address

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I apologise to Members of the House for not being present for the whole debate. I enjoyed the important speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), but I think that he will forgive me for saying that the best speech today was by my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt). By keeping a straight face, she was able to make some serious remarks and some very entertaining remarks. She just about matched the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), who has been known to keep the House entertained on occasion.

One reason I have not been here for the whole debate is that I have been considering issues of leasehold. If I may, I will read out a paragraph from “UK Over 50s Housing” entitled “Vincent Tchenguiz – Apology” from 19 May 2014. It states:

“On 1 May 2014, we published an article entitled ‘Peverel to be pursued in compensation claim.’ We suggested that Vincent Tchenguiz owned, controlled and was involved in the day to day affairs of property company Peverel. We now accept that there is no truth whatsoever to this suggestion. Prior to going into administration, Peverel was owned by the Tchenguiz Family Trust of which Vincent Tchenguiz is a beneficiary. Peverel always had an independent board of directors. Vincent Tchenguiz never had any day to day involvement in the management of Peverel. In particular, he had no knowledge of or involvement in any collusive tendering. We also accept that we have no basis for the claim that Mr Tchenguiz subjected Peverel residents to ‘constant financial clipping.’ We apologise to Mr Tchenguiz for the distress and embarrassment caused.”

I received that quotation from a man called David Leslie of New Century Media. I responded to him, saying:

“I have read the attached piece. A copy of this response goes to the magazine editor. Has your client ever made an apology on any leasehold issue or action?

Can you kindly help on some issues?

May I see in detail any and all exchanges with UK Over 50s Housing Weekly? As you mention them, I copy this to them and I can make it available to others interested.

Please let me know when you or your firm were first engaged to represent or to advise your client.

May I be sent a chronology of Tchenguiz links, including of influence, control, ownership and benefit in by and from Peverel and anything associated with it?”—[Interruption.]

If the hon. Member for Ealing North is asking why this matter is relevant, it is because the Queen’s Speech refers to Bills that are carried over, including the Consumer Rights Bill, which has to finish its Report stage in the Commons and has to go on to the House of Lords. In my meeting, I discussed the matter with Lord Best. If we cannot do so, I hope that he, probably with Baroness Gardner, will have the opportunity to add to that Bill provisions for the protection of leaseholders, who in many ways have been brutally abused, financially challenged and often intimidated.

What we know about collusive tendering is that when people complained to the economics crimes unit of the police, to the Serious Fraud Office and to the Office of Fair Trading, because Peverel declared that they had been involved in collusive tendering, when it turned out that they had obtained through their subsidiary Cirrus all the work for new calls systems, which were often not needed and almost always at prices which were unjustified, there was no penalty. That is relevant to what Mr David Leslie has told me about Mr Vincent Tchenguiz not being involved at all.

I have asked for a chronology of the Tchenguiz links of influence, control, ownership and benefit in and from Peverel and anything associated with it. I continued:

“If relevant, I anticipate being told who established and who controlled the body that did control and had influence on Peverel when so many bad things were done to so many.

Who was responsible for selecting the professional advisors and others associated with the valuations of properties bought, the loans obtained, the audits of and the responses to leaseholders when presenting valid questions and challenges to the way they were treated.”

I offered to meet these people. I went on to say:

“My intention is to lay out in Parliament the details of problems of the past, of the present and how life can be better in the future.”

I added that I have an interest in a leasehold flat in Worthing, where our managing agent was good, our freeholder was good, and I have had no problems whatsoever.

One thing that the Government should think of doing is asking the professional standards bodies whether they believe they should be disciplining their members—chartered surveyors, valuers, accountants or bankers—when they go along with valuations created apparently out of thin air by the owners of freehold blocks. For example, at Charter quay in Kingston a trust bought a freehold for about £700,000. It revalued it at over £3 million and borrowed £2 million against it, and when eventually the leaseholders managed to get the prospect of having a court decide what the value was, it turned out to be £900,000.

A company cannot have a valuation trebled or quadrupled in its company accounts without a valuer putting their name to it, an accountant doing the accounts, and auditors and bankers getting involved. I believe that all the professional standards bodies should be saying, “We’re going to find an example that we can make a decision on which will terrify the life out of others who go along with clients who say, ‘I can arbitrarily increase the value.’”

The only way a freeholder can put up the value is to have an income stream that goes way beyond the ground rents in the original leases. If, for example, they get insurance commissions of 40% or 60%, and if they can take exit fees that have been decided by the OFT and Peverel to be unjustified, we have an opportunity of saying that unfair contracts terms law can be imposed by the Competition and Markets Authority or the OFT saying that these things will not happen.

As it happens, virtually every Member of Parliament in England has some of these blocks of leasehold properties in their constituencies. I know that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has them in Witney. I know that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has in them his constituency. I could probably go through each Member present from an English constituency, but I will not do that as that would be extending the courtesy of the House in listening to me, but I declare, and if necessary, I warn that this is an issue that does not just affect my constituents; each individual constituent may be old, elderly, vulnerable or poor, and without good advice cannot stand up against the big people.

I am glad that the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership is going to turn itself into a charity. Carlex, the campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation, is doing well. I ask the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Ministry of Justice, if necessary, together with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to get together an interdepartmental group, to ask what are the simplest things we can do to make the lives of leaseholders simpler.

[Stephen Pound]

The hon. Gentleman has quite rightly and properly mentioned his own possible interest in this matter. Does he feel that the House should be made aware of the gigantic sums of money that the Tchenguiz family give to the Conservative party?

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

That is true. Certainly it should be known. I am a great believer in transparency. I believe that if things can be said in the open and justified or criticised, we are much better off.

I had not intended to make this speech against the Tchenguiz family. I want to spell out what is happening, and if members of the Tchenguiz family say that by getting a newspaper to produce a paragraph, their hands are clean, by all means discuss that in public. All I am trying to say is that leaseholders deserve protection, I am here to help to protect them, and I am glad that other Members are interested as well.

Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.— (Mr Gyimah.)

Debate to be resumed tomorrow.