Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Stuart Andrew

Thursday 20th July 2023 Commons Chamber

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

My question is about the regulation of charities, following on from the question asked by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry). Does my right hon. Friend the Minister read Private Eye? If he does, he will have seen the saga of the Actors’ Benevolent Fund, where it appears that the people who did right have been put out and the people who did wrong, over and over again, have been supported by the Charity Commission. Could he say to the Charity Commission that people in Parliament are watching this with some surprise?

[Stuart Andrew]

Of course the Charity Commission is an independent body, but I have regular meetings with it. I am not a regular reader of Private Eye, but I will make sure that I seek out that article ahead of my next meeting with the Charity Commission.

Arts Council England: Funding

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Stuart Andrew

Wednesday 18th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend has made that point clearly. I know that those discussions are ongoing. I hope we will hear something by the end of March.

ACE’s investment in opera, orchestras and other classical organisations will represent around 80% of all investment in music. Through the ’23 to ’26 investment programme, opera will continue to be well funded, with it remaining at around 40% of overall investment in music. Excluding the funding for the ENO, that is more than £30 million per year for opera alone. Organisations such as English Touring Opera and the Birmingham Opera Company will receive increased funding, and there are many new joiners, such as OperaUpClose and Pegasus Opera Company. The Royal Opera House and Opera North will continue to be funded.

Some Members have set out a view that where an organisation is headquartered is a blunt instrument when it comes to levelling up. My noble Friend the Minister for Arts set out a view on this late last year. He said:

“Touring is important…We do not, in any respect, disparage or undervalue that vital work, but… There is a difference in having an organisation based in your community from just being able to visit it as it passes through your town or city.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 December 2022; Vol. 826, c. 852.]

That said, the Government will continue to work with the Arts Council to understand all the impacts of its investment in arts and culture, including opera.

We remain committed to supporting the capital. We recognise and appreciate that London is a leading cultural centre, with organisations that do not just benefit the whole country but greatly enhance the UK’s international reputation as a home of world-class arts and culture. That is clearly reflected in the next investment programme: around a third of the investment will be spent in London, equivalent to approximately £143 million per year for the capital. Historically, Arts Council spending per capita in London has always been significantly higher than in the rest of the country, at £21 per capita in London but just £6 per capita in the rest of England.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

If I have a spare place, I could invite the Minister to come to “Carmen” with me in a week-and-a-half’s time at the ENO. Most people there will not be Londoners; people come to London for the show, so I think that those figures are not quite right.

I say to the Arts Council and the ENO, through the Minister, that if they had sat down together they could have worked out a better future. There are six weeks now for the Minister to encourage them to do that. If they do not succeed, he should come back here and there will be a much rougher debate.

[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend has obviously missed the other debates, because they were fairly rough, I have to say.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

That was the warm-up!

[Stuart Andrew]

There have been questions about the arm’s length principle. I want to make clear that were any arm’s length body, including the Arts Council, to breach the terms set by the Government, or to be found to be acting unlawfully, we would take the steps necessary to review the matter and determine the appropriate action.

There has been criticism of the board. I do not think it is fair to totally criticise the expertise that we have on many of those boards. They have a great deal of expertise in the performing arts. The board features musicians, concert hall chief executives, a Royal Shakespeare Company governor, a theatre chief executive—I could go on. Those are people who are obviously interested in the arts.

On the process, applicants receive lots of guidance, all of which is set out very clearly. Applicants know the criteria they are applying against and will have received, or be in the process of receiving, feedback on their applications. The Arts Council also runs webinars and is available to support organisations as they make those applications. In addition, there is a complaints process that is published on its website. If anybody has concerns about any process that has taken place, they can follow that. I will happily speak to hon. Members if they want more information.

I believe the arm’s length principle is right, and successive Governments have observed that. That said, no organisation should avoid scrutiny. A number of points have been raised today, particularly around consultation, and I will raise those with the Arts Minister, my noble Friend Lord Parkinson.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) was right that we should point out that there have been no cuts to the Arts Council’s core cash settlement. In fact, in the spending review, the Government increased that settlement by more than £43 million over the period from April 2022 to March 2025. That means that the Arts Council investment programme will soon be supporting more organisations in more places than ever before, all off the back of our unprecedented cultural recovery fund, which supported around 5,000 organisations and sites during the pandemic, and the ongoing increased rates of creative tax reliefs.

I am grateful for the opportunity to set out how the Government—

Building Safety Bill

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Stuart Andrew

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 20th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew]

Yes. I think I am correct in saying that. Yes, I am; I have just double-checked.

Colleagues have mentioned the 11-metre rule, and I reiterate that they should please write to my Department if they are aware of buildings under 11 metres that are facing costly remediation. We are clear that costly remediation should not be undertaken on buildings under 11 metres, and we would be glad to look into specific cases and to question freeholders on why they are insisting on commissioning costly and unnecessary remediation works.

In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), let me say that we are retrospectively extending the limitation period under section 1 of the Defective Premises Act. The duty under the Act applies to those taking on work in connection with the provision of a dwelling, which includes architects and contractors whose actions have contributed towards defects, as well as developers.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

As I understand it, the difficulty is that a claim would need to be made on behalf of leaseholders by their landlord, who would insist on indemnity funding. The Minister and his advisers should get together with the Law Officers to find a practical way to ensure that claims to have a prospect of getting people to pay up, rather than people trying to resist. After Tony Pidgley sadly died, the new bosses resisted paying up to put right the defects in the Worcester Park block. That situation needs to be challenged.

[Stuart Andrew]

It is always wise for a Minister answering the Father of the House to take his sage advice, and of course I will speak to my officials.

The hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) asked about valuations. I am aware there has been a discussion about how the Bill proposes to assess the value and banding of individual flats. The process set out in the Bill—further detail will be set out in regulations—takes the last price at which a flat changed hands, which will be recorded at the Land Registry, and uprates it in line with the national house price data produced by the Office for National Statistics. We recognise that this may produce a value that differs from the flat’s current market value, but we are using this approach for two specific reasons. First, it uses publicly available data and so avoids any potential for gaming the system. Secondly, it avoids the need to value a large number of flats individually, which would likely be both expensive and time-consuming and could delay the needed changes and improvements to those properties.

Prisons (Property) Bill

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Stuart Andrew

Friday 30th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

I welcome the interest of my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). I have no doubt that he wants to do all he can to make sure that the Bill achieves what we all want it to achieve.

It was said on Second Reading and in Committee that this was a simple Bill—led by a simple person, I suppose—and I hope that we are not going to over-complicate it. As I say, I want the Bill to do what we set out to achieve through it. Let me go through all the points that my hon. Friend made, as I hope to persuade him that many of the legitimate issues he raised are already covered in the Bill.

Beginning with amendment 2, the power already exists for these items to be confiscated wherever they may be. If a prisoner is in a hospital or at another venue as my hon. Friend described, they will, on return to prison, be searched, and if an item is found, it will be confiscated. Equally, if it is found on them in the hospital, it can be confiscated and taken back to the prison where it will be dealt with through the processes that we seek to introduce through the Bill.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

On that point, proposed new subsection (1)(a) refers to

“an article found in the possession of a prisoner who is not authorised to have it in his or her possession”,

while (1)(b) refers to

“an article found inside the prison or in a prisoner escort vehicle”.

My hon. Friend may be able to assist us now, or perhaps the Minister later, to clarify why the prisoner escort vehicles provisions are sufficient to deal with the point that the amendment addresses.

[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend is challenging me, so I am going to defer that one to the Minister. I thank him for his interest, but I am going to move on to amendment 3.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart Andrew]

The issue here is that the item can be taken from prisoners, but that the confiscation process would happen back at the prison. I believe that the provisions cover this point clearly.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend wants to intervene, so perhaps he can help me.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

I think we are beginning to get closer to the issue, but the Minister will no doubt be able to sort us all out. As I pointed out before, (1)(a) talks about

“an article… in the possession of a prisoner who is not authorised to have it”.

Wherever the prisoner has such an article, it can be removed from them. On the other hand, (1)(b) refers to prison-controlled areas

“inside the prison or in a prisoner escort vehicle”,

so everything else is presumably not controlled by the prison. If the prisoner happened to be somewhere else and either leaves property there himself or it is left there for him, the escort officers may not be able to show that the item is the prisoner’s or was left for him, so they may not be able to take it. If people are trying to pass items to prisoners in a non-prison-controlled area, it should be possible for someone to say, “This item is suspicious” and something should then happen to it. My guess is that either the Minister or my hon. Friend will tell us that the item will go to the police who will judge it on its merits, and they will probably have powers of disposal.

[Stuart Andrew]

I think that is probably correct, but we need absolute clarification from the Minister. I see the point, but as I understand it, the processes involved are clearly dealt with in the Bill and in the guidance notes for governors that will follow implementation. Let us wait for the Minister to clarify.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

On that point, we may be able to help the Minister. Amendment 9 refers to items that

“might contain or constitute evidence of a criminal offence.”

With a criminal offence carried out outside the prison or outside the prison vehicle, the article may need to be taken back by the prison, and the police may need to liaise with it. There is therefore going to be an issue about what happens in practice. It may not be essential to the Bill or to the amendment, but if we are trying to deter crime, knowing how often people in prison or under prison control obtain illegal or unauthorised substances—mobile phones or street drugs—we need to ensure that any potential evidence is taken and linked to the prisoner. I add a last statistical point. On how many occasions when a prison has illegal drugs is it recorded as a crime? If it is detected by the prison warders, it probably is not, or if it is detected by the police, it probably is. There is a degree of uncertainty regarding liaison between the two services.

[Stuart Andrew]

We are talking about unauthorised items here. Illegal items would be referred to the police, and there would then need to be a criminal investigation. I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s points, and I feel sure that the Minister has taken note of them and will answer them in due course.

On amendment 3, I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley said. The people at the front line are often those who know the circumstances best. It is not true to say that we do not trust them. Prison officers currently have the ability and the right to confiscate items under powers given to them by the prison governor. They have the delegated authority of the governor to confiscate the item in the first place, and it is then up to the governor to decide what to do with it.

Prisons (Property) Bill

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Stuart Andrew

Friday 14th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew]

No, my hon. Friend is quite right. We would not be giving guns back; they would, of course, be given to the police to deal with. However, there will be anomalies along the way, and I am sure that many hon. Members will help me to ensure that the Bill is as tight as possible on such issues.

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

As my hon. Friend has made such a generous offer, let me congratulate him on introducing the Bill and ask whether during its progress, perhaps in Committee, he might consider the question of illegal drugs. The last time I looked, which was some time back, prisoners were being found with illegal drugs more than 20,000 times a year. Are those recorded as crimes, or does it depend on whether the drugs are discovered by the Prison Service or the police? What happens afterwards? Presumably drugs will not be given back if they have not been consumed already.

[Stuart Andrew]

This debate is already demonstrating that there will be a lot to talk about in Committee. Indeed, I hope that my hon. Friend will consider joining me on that Committee. He is absolutely right: items that are illegal would never be returned. They would be sent to the police to deal with.

To return to the point I was making, it is frankly astonishing that items seized by the governor are held in safe keeping simply to enable prisoners to claim them back on their release. That is not only a perverse part of the law; it is frankly wrong. It is also astonishing to discover that the system is having a huge impact on the public purse in what are very difficult times.