Deregulation Bill

Debate between Philip Davies and Baroness Primarolo

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

I begin by drawing the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. As I have previously made clear in these debates, I am a tenant in two properties: my home in Shipley and where I stay when I am working in Parliament. I am also the landlord of one other property that I rent out. I therefore like to think that I have a good perspective on these matters and I want to see a situation in which we reward good landlords and good tenants. That is the basis for my amendments to Lords amendment 18.

In the interests of time, Madam Deputy Speaker, and in order to be helpful, I intend to speak only to my amendments, because other Members have already ably put forward their cases on the others. From what I have heard, the shadow Minister might want to press one of his amendments to a Division, so I will not seek to divide the House on mine, in order to protect time for Members across the House and facilitate debate. I am being as helpful as you know I always am on these occasions, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Before you proceed, Mr Davies, let me say that that is extremely helpful and that I am very grateful. Given that the debate must end at 4.46 pm, it gives us a better idea of how to proceed. Thank you.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a shame that the debate clashes with the first day of the Cheltenham festival, but that is a hardship we shall have to bear. Anyone who has their doubles and trebles might like to know that Ruby Walsh and Willy Mullins have won three of the first four races today.

UK Borders Control Bill

Debate between Philip Davies and Baroness Primarolo

Friday 9th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Fascinating as it is to hear the hon. Gentleman’s views on what Peter Mandelson thought about immigration, thousands of people in this country today hope to hear a debate on Second Reading about the dangerous, costly and unpopular practice of pavement parking, my private Member’s Bill that is a little further down the Order Paper. As the hon. Gentleman promised to be brief, I wonder whether he will be able to bring his remarks to a close at some stage. That would be very helpful.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) was making a speech on the current Bill. It is not for the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) to stand up and give an advert for his Bill. The hon. Member for Shipley is in order and has been speaking for a very short period of time thus far. We should allow him to make his points without interruption. That might help the speed of business.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful for that, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am not entirely sure what has happened to the patience of the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), but as you said, I have only just got started. He has ensured that the chances of getting on to his Bill have become more limited, but I shall make progress. I can see why he is anxious—he does not want us to talk about Liberal Democrat immigration policy and wanted to divert attention away from it.

The Government have faced a perfect storm. In some respects, this country will always have much higher immigration. Many more people from the EU want to come to this country rather than go to other EU countries. That is partly, or perhaps mainly, because of language. If a person is looking for a job, they will go to a country where they can speak the language. It is great benefit to all that English has become a universal language, but immigration is a downside, because people from the EU who speak English who are looking for a job are more likely to come here than go to other EU countries.

The benefits system is another factor. I applaud the Government for the efforts they have made to restrict access to benefits for people from the EU. It is much tougher for people coming to this country to claim benefits. The Government intend to make it tougher still, which I very much support. Many EU countries have a system of benefits under which people have to pay in before they can take something out. Under our system, people can to a large extent take things out even if they have not paid anything in. That is also a pressure on immigration into this country.

There is also—the Government could never have predicted this—the collapse in the economy around the EU and the fact that economic growth in this country has been so much better than in the rest of the EU. I think I am right in saying—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—that this country created more new jobs in the last year than the rest of the EU put together. Of course, that will be a magnet for people looking for a job, and they will want to come to this country. I fully accept that there is no way the Prime Minister could have predicted that five years ago, when he made the promise that he did. He has faced a perfect storm.

That is why my hon. Friend’s Bill is so important. We may be a victim of our success in some ways, and other things may be beyond our control, but the fact is that, although people want to control immigration into this country, they also want something else: some honesty in the debate on immigration. Whatever anybody says, and no matter what rhetoric people use, the honest fact—the public know this, so I have no idea why politicians are so reluctant to admit it—is that while we are a member of the EU under the current regime, we cannot control immigration. We cannot say that a certain number of people will come into this country—we simply cannot. The Prime Minister made his promise in good faith, but it was one he was not entitled to make, because we do not have the ability to control the numbers of people coming into this country. My hon. Friend’s Bill would allow us to do that.

In my view, we need to leave the EU; that is the only way we can control immigration into this country—not just the numbers, but the nature. My hon. Friend made the good point that the free movement of people may sound like a great principle to some, but it also means free movement of criminals. If we look at the nationality of the prison population, we see that there has been a massive increase in recent times in the number of Bulgarians and Romanians. If we had had proper controls, we could probably have stopped those people coming into the country in the first place because of the criminal records they have back home.

We need to control immigration—I think that is something the Minister agrees with, and the Government also seem to agree with it—but we have to be honest with people. We have to acknowledge and accept that the only way we can control immigration is by stopping the free movement of people in the EU. As long as we have that, we cannot control immigration, and we will just be spitting in the wind with the measures we take. I therefore hope that, to properly control immigration, the Government will accept my hon. Friend’s Bill.

International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Debate between Philip Davies and Baroness Primarolo

Friday 5th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Mr Davies, that is very gracious of you. We both made our views clear last week, but today is another day. Of course I accept your apologies, because I know that you would not mean any discourtesy to the House or to whomever was in the Chair. Please continue with your speech in order.

[Philip Davies]

Thank you for graciousness in accepting my apology, Madam Deputy Speaker, which is, I might add, typical of you.

After that brief interlude, amendment 37 would remove clause 6(2), which states that the Act will come into effect in June 2015. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has tabled a sensible amendment, and I cannot see why anybody should object to it, to the effect that the legislation should come into effect the following January. It is the will of those who promoted and sponsored the Bill, and of those on both Front Benches, that it should be a calendar year operation. I think I have made it clear that it should operate on a financial year basis. Given that they have proposed that the Bill should operate on a calendar year basis, it is quite extraordinary that they have included the provision that it should come into effect in June 2015.

How on earth do we square that circle? How on earth will we determine, at the end of 2015, whether the Government have hit their half-yearly target? If they have overspent in the first bit of 2015 but underspent in the second bit of 2015, will the evaluation state that they have missed their target, even if they have spent 0.7% over the whole year? I am happy to be corrected by anybody who claims to know any better, but it seems to me that if the Bill comes into effect in June 2015, the Government will be required to have spent 0.35% on overseas aid between June and the end of the year, otherwise they will have broken the rules. If the Government had spent, for argument’s sake, 0.4% between January and June, and at the end of the year the international body that is set up to scrutinise how much every country has spent says that we have spent 0.72%, are we going to chastise ourselves because in the second half of the year we did not meet the legal requirement? I genuinely do not understand that. Perhaps the Minister could explain what his obligations will be under the Bill as drafted.

Tenancies (Reform) Bill

Debate between Philip Davies and Baroness Primarolo

Friday 28th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

If the Minister would like to intervene on me again and tell me his view of the English housing survey and how much weight should be put on the figures, I would be interested to hear that. The survey has, in just one set of tables, completely undermined the case for the Bill.

Given that the smallest figure that had a category—non-payment of rent—was 18,000, we can deduce that the number of households with tenants who were asked to leave because they had complained about problems with the property has to be substantially less, because it was the fourth category down in the “other” section. The figure must therefore be considerably less than 18,000. That figure also relates to people who have been asked to move from a household in the past three years, so this represents a three-year figure, not just a one-year figure. We know that the figure is very small, but, whatever it is, it will include tenants who have complained but who did not have a genuine complaint, because the complaints in the survey were never verified.

In fewer than 18,000 households were tenants renting in the private sector asked to leave because of a complaint made about problems with their property. Even if the figure were 18,000, that would amount to only 0.7% of all households where the tenant left their rented property in the past three years. That means that fewer than 6,000 households a year were affected. We do not know the exact number, because the figures are too small to be helpful, as the statistician behind the English housing survey confirmed.

Another way of looking at this is provided by the Association of Residential Letting Agents, which has said of retaliatory eviction:

“A recent poll undertaken by possession specialists, Landlord Action, suggests it could be the reason behind around 2% of landlord possession claims.”

It is also important to consider that, according to the English housing survey for 2010-11, only 9% of tenancies ended at the request of the landlord. Based on those two pieces of research, we can conclude that the figure we are talking about is 2% of that 9%. So, according to the best evidence we have, retaliatory evictions might occur in only about 0.18% of tenancies, yet we are told that it is essential that we pass this Bill today. Given that the English housing survey suggests that there are currently almost 4 million tenancies in the UK, that 0.18% would equate to approximately 7,120 tenancies ending in retaliatory eviction.

Richard Lambert, chief executive officer at the National Landlords Association, has said of retaliatory eviction that

“it should not be confused with using the no fault possession procedure to end a tenancy, which in the vast majority of cases is the final resort, not a response to a request for repairs or because landlords are out for revenge. We don’t talk about any other service provider seeking revenge from their customers and there is no reason to suspect landlords are any different. Sarah Teather’s private member’s Bill is aimed at tackling a perception of the ‘worst case scenario’, which is not the experience of the majority of renters who rely on private housing. There is a lack of hard evidence to support a need for the changes proposed”.

How well do the official figures that I have given to the House tally with the claims being made by those in favour of the Bill? Not very well—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has been talking for a very long time on the same point. He has made the point very eloquently, but he is in danger of repeating the same point continuously by drawing on different comments from elsewhere. He is now repeating himself and—dare I say it?—repetition can sometimes get a bit tedious. This comes under Standing Orders, so I hope, given that there are others waiting to speak, that he will acknowledge that he has made his point and conclude his remarks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

I shall stay in order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I recall, back in 2005, when I was first here, the then Member for Hendon spoke for three hours and 17 minutes on a—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. Whether a contribution in the House is in order or not is measured not by time but by whether it continuously repeats a point or argument. However good the hon. Gentleman’s memory might be, the fact is that I am in the Chair now and I have given him my ruling. It is the content of a speech, not its length, that is the measure. He has made his point, so perhaps he will move on to another one. I do not want him to keep going over the same ground.

[Philip Davies]

I am absolutely not going to go over the same ground, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am going to compare the official figures with those given by the campaigning organisations that have asked for this Bill to be introduced, because they simply do not tally.

Shelter, which has been making a lot of noise on this subject, says on its website that last year 200,000 renters faced eviction just for speaking out about bad conditions. The official figures are nowhere near 200,000; Shelter has just picked a figure out of thin air and decided to run a campaign on the back of it. In the briefing note for this Bill, Shelter says that more than 200,000 renters have been evicted or served notice in the past year because they complained to their local council or their landlord about a problem in their home—that is simply not true. I am confused: is Shelter saying that 200,000 renters faced eviction, that 200,000 were either evicted or served a notice, or that 200,000 were evicted and many more live in fear of eviction? I do not know which it is, but I am certainly not sure that that is true. The Liberal Democrat Lord Stoneham has said that every year 300,000 tenants are evicted after making a complaint to their landlord about the state of their home, so we have fantasy figures inflation about this. I am not sure where the figures come from, and I would be very interested to know, but that is 150% of Shelter’s worst-case scenario of 200,000 people being evicted.

[Philip Davies]

Absolutely. The official figures are there; but the Government have just decided, presumably because an election is coming and the Minister thinks he might get a few cheap votes out of it, to ignore the evidence Paul Shamplina of Landlord Action has said that Shelter is

“engaging in a lot of guesswork”

on the figures. He said that the Government statistics show that last year there were 170,000 possession claims issued—the Minister might want to confirm that these are his Department’s figures—of which 113,000 were for the social sector. So that just leaves 57,000 in the private rented sector, 23,000 of which were through a hearing route—section 8—and 34,000 of which were through the accelerated possession routes. He says that

“most of the time tenants may not know the reason”

why a section 21 notice is issued, because it is the landlord’s prerogative. Does the Minister want to confirm that that is the case and so those figures from Shelter are just completely wrong?

Landlord Action also carried out a survey of landlords who had served section 21 notices, finding that 28% of landlords said they had served a notice because their tenant was in rent arrears, with 2% advising that their tenants had asked for repairs to be carried out so they served a section 21 notice. It could be argued that those were retaliatory evictions, but the precise details are not known. The Competition and Markets Authority also notes that the database it analysed in preparing its review of lettings did not identify retaliatory eviction as a problem of any significance at all.

Given all that, we could be forgiven for being completely confused and wondering what the reality of the situation is. Helpfully, however, the Government have been answering parliamentary questions on this subject. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) asked how many section 21 notices were served in each of the past 12 months and in each of the past five years. The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) said:

“The Government does not collect this information.”

But he went on to say that the serving of such notices was

“like any other termination of a contract…a private matter between the landlord and tenant.”

That raises the question of why the Government now do not seem to think it is a private matter between the landlord and the tenant, and seem to have figures that they did not have when the question was asked.

My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport also asked what records the Department keeps and what criteria they use to define retaliatory eviction. Again, the Minister replied that none of that information is collected centrally. Having looked at that some more, it seems that my assessment of the situation chimes with what previous Housing Ministers have said. My right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), now Conservative party chairman, when he was Housing Minister, referred to the English housing survey and gave the figures I have used today. He was using those figures as the official Government figures. If they are the official Government figures, why does the Minister not accept them? Why are the Government now trying to pretend that a YouGov poll is more important and worthwhile than the official figures that his predecessors used when discussing the matter?

The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mike Thornton) asked earlier this year, on 28 April—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. Okay, Mr Davies, under Standing Order No. 42, a Member may be called to order for

“tedious repetition either of his own arguments or of the arguments used by other Members”.

That is now what is happening with regard to the reference to evictions in the Bill. The Member has been speaking for nearly an hour. I am directing the Member to make his closing remarks now. Otherwise, I will require him to take his seat so that we can hear from the other Members who wish to participate in the debate. Is that clear?

[Philip Davies]

Well, your position is clear, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was not sure that the Chair had positions, but your position is clear.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order! Sit down, Mr Davies. That is an outrageous challenge to the Chair. Your speech is now finished. I call Mr Christopher Chope.

Immigration Statistics

Debate between Philip Davies and Baroness Primarolo

Friday 28th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. These latest figures are not just disappointing, they are catastrophic. I do not doubt that when the Government and the Prime Minister pledged to reduce net immigration figures to the tens of thousands they hoped and intended that that would be the case. I also accept that nobody could have predicted that the UK would create more jobs in the year than the rest of the EU put together, acting as a massive pull factor when that pledge was made. However, is not the simple problem that the Government made a pledge that they were in no position to be able to guarantee while we are in the EU and while there is free movement of people within the EU?

Is it not time that the main political parties were honest with the British public and simply admitted to them what they already know—that is, that we cannot control immigration while we remain a member of the European Union. Why is it so difficult for the Government to say what is merely a statement of the bleeding obvious?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Thank you, Mr Pound. I know I can always rely on you for sound advice.

Mr Davies, I think that you need to rephrase that sentence. Using the word bleeding on the Floor of the House is not acceptable.

[Philip Davies]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I meant the blinding obvious.

We know that the EU is not going to budge on the principle of the free movement of people and therefore we need to leave. Will the Minister explain why the part of the immigration figures that the Government can control—non-EU immigration—also went up in the past year and what the Government are doing to bear down on that?

Do the Government agree that these levels of immigration are completely unsustainable? Does the Minister accept that we cannot cope culturally with immigration at these levels? Does he agree that the NHS cannot cope with immigration levels of this magnitude? Does he accept that we cannot provide the school places fast enough and that we cannot build the houses needed for this level of immigration? We would have to build an entire Bradford district every two years to keep up and it is ridiculous to think that that is possible in any way. Does the Minister accept that?

The British public want immigration to be controlled, but more than that they want politicians to be honest and the honest truth is that we can control immigration only if we leave the EU. Does the Minister at least accept that?

EU Justice and Home Affairs Measures

Debate between Philip Davies and Baroness Primarolo

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

My hon. Friend says that it is very easy for people to get from one country to another and that we need to do something about these crimes. Surely the solution would be to make it much harder to get from one country to another. What we should be doing is stopping this free movement of people which is allowing all these criminals to come through our border controls daily with impunity. Surely that is what we should be dealing with.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. We are very short of time, and I am trying to protect the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who has been waiting patiently to speak. Taking interventions from people, however eminent, who have just entered the Chamber in the past few minutes would not really be fair on the final speakers.

Affordable Homes Bill

Debate between Philip Davies and Baroness Primarolo

Friday 5th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

That is not in order. The relevant Standing Order has been used, and the House has given its view, so I do not accept that.

[Philip Davies]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

It must be a different point of order, because I have ruled on the previous one.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker. Given that those of us who were against the setting up of the coalition in the first place always knew that the Lib Dems were devious and untrustworthy, and given that the vote on the Affordable Homes Bill shows that the coalition Government have come to an end and that we will clearly have a free-for-all for the rest of the Parliament, has the Leader of the House given any indication that he wishes to make a statement to the House to say that the coalition has officially come to an end?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

That is not a point of order for the Chair, however much Members may speculate on it. We will move on to the next business. Will Members please leave the Chamber quickly and quietly because we need to proceed to the next Bill?

Apprenticeships and Skills (Public Procurement Contracts) Bill

Debate between Philip Davies and Baroness Primarolo

Friday 1st November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

Does my hon. Friend question the arrogance of people who think that they should be able to introduce a Bill and have it nodded through Parliament without any scrutiny whatever? Is that not the type of activity that does disservice to the House?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. This morning’s debate is not on the process of private Members’ Bills or its merits. There has been an exchange but I am sure that the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) now wishes to come back to his specific points on the Bill. That would help all of us.

London Local Authorities and Transport for London (No. 2) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Philip Davies and Baroness Primarolo

Wednesday 11th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope). I was a little worried when he began. I thought he had been got at by the Whips Office and had been turned into a more left-wing version, but as he got through his speech I realised that the authentic voice of Christchurch was once again being heard.

I congratulate my hon. Friend, who does such a great service on private Bills, which the promoters understandably would like to be nodded through in the minimum time. I echo his praise for our hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who is not somebody who wants to see legislation nodded through, but engages in the debate and the process. We should commend him for that. Without my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, some rather nasty parts of private Bills would go through without anybody raising an eyebrow. Even if his amendments do not always find favour, it is essential that they are debated and considered, and that people can see their merits or otherwise. I hope that plays its part in making the legislation that goes through this House better than it would otherwise be. So I am grateful to him for the amendments that he tabled.

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch set me a challenge to give him some guidance as to which amendment I thought was the one that he should press, so I shall try to give—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that preamble to the remarks that he is now going to make on the Bill. I just remind him and his hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) that it is up to the Chair to decide where the votes are, but obviously the hon. Member for Christchurch will need to consider which amendments he wishes to move or, with leave, withdraw. Mr Davies, if you could come to the amendments, rather than the general skills, excellent though they are, of the hon. Member for Christchurch in considering private Bills, I would be grateful.

[Philip Davies]

I, too, am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker. You are of course right, so without further ado I will get straight down to the amendments.

Amendment 21 is one that I cannot possibly support, but I understand where my hon. Friend is coming from. I am not entirely sure—perhaps the promoters of the Bill can let us know—but I presume that the Bill, and clause 16 in particular, was introduced to enable the implementation of “An Electric Vehicle Delivery Plan for London”, a document issued by the Mayor in May 2009. I presume that that document was the genesis of the Bill. Clause 16 currently states:

“A London authority may provide and operate charging apparatus for electrically powered motor vehicles”.

The amendment would make that:

“A London authority shall provide”.

It seems to me that the merits of the amendment, as far as the Bill is concerned, can be determined by asking whether the clause would fulfil the pledge and the ideas behind the Mayor’s document.

The Mayor’s document sets some ambitious targets for the use of electric vehicles. It states that the delivery plan will

“Work with the boroughs and other partners to deliver 25,000 charge points across London by 2015… including a network of fast charge sites—500 on-street, 2,000 in off-street public car parks, station car parks”.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East knows much more than I do about the number of these things in London and their geography, so perhaps he can say whether the Bill, as currently drafted, with the word “may”, would deliver the numbers set out in the document, or whether it needs the harsher wording, with “shall”, to hit those targets, because the document seems to be the genesis of the Bill. Having said that, whether we agree with the Mayor’s ambitions is a slightly different matter.

My view, for what it is worth, is that we should not compel London local authorities to provide and operate charging apparatus in every public off-street car park, as amendments 21 and 22 propose. There might be no demand in certain parts of some London boroughs. We might not really want local authorities doing it themselves anyway. Perhaps we would like other people involved in provision, not least to get some competition going. Competition, of course, is the best way to drive down prices. It seems to me that the monopoly my hon. Friend envisages, unusually, would not be in the best interests of the consumer or the taxpayer, who might end up paying unnecessarily to have charging apparatus installed in places where it is not needed and never will be. Putting such apparatus in every public off-street car park under the control of the local authority seems extremely demanding. It is something that I cannot support. I urge my hon. Friend not to press amendments 21 and 22, and on that basis, I could not support amendment 23, as it is consequential to amendments 21 and 22.

Unusually, my hon. Friend and I have got off on a bad footing, and the situation is not particularly helped by amendment 24; we may have started off badly with amendments 21, 22 and 23, but we appear to be going downhill rapidly with amendment 24. It would strike out subsection (2), which allows a London authority to

“grant a person permission to provide or operate charging apparatus”—

in effect, on its behalf. It seems that, strangely, my hon. Friend wants to prevent the local authority from introducing any private enterprise, in effect ensuring that all such things are state owned and run. That is an extraordinary state of affairs to be asked to support.

Beer Duty Escalator

Debate between Philip Davies and Baroness Primarolo

Thursday 1st November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend on his speech, which is excellent as ever. Is not the point that beer duty disadvantages pubs against supermarkets? Supermarkets have 40,000 other products that they can cross-subsidise, perhaps by selling beer at a loss or a reduced price. We are in an economic mess because we have over-spent, not because we are under-taxed, and the Government’s solution should be to reduce spending, not to seek to increase taxation for ever.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. There is a great deal of pressure on this debate, and I wish it took only a look from the Chair to remind Members that introductory remarks are supposed to last for 10 minutes or so. The speech by the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) has already lasted considerably longer, and I would be grateful if he would make progress so that others can contribute in full speeches, rather than interventions.

London Local Authorities Bill [Lords]

Debate between Philip Davies and Baroness Primarolo

Wednesday 25th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I beg to move amendment 15, which is, leave out clause 5.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

With this, it will be convenient to consider amendments 16 to 20, 3 and 4.

[Philip Davies]

I begin by apologising on his behalf for the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), in whose name the amendments stand. He asked me specifically to apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer), the Bill’s sponsor. I assure him that our hon. Friend has not lost interest in the Bill, but decided—questionably, I think—that it was more important for him to listen to the Prime Minister’s speech on reforming the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg than to be here for this debate. I am not sure that that was the correct decision, but I am sure that he will be able to justify it to the Bill’s sponsor at a later date.

As you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch had begun to move the amendment when he was cut short the last time the Bill was debated in the House. I will not repeat the remarks he made then, but it might help the House if I recap his main points. The amendment would remove clause 5, which states:

“Section 94(1)(a) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (street litter: supplementary provisions) shall apply in Greater London as though for ‘commercial or retail premises’ there were substituted ‘premises other than dwellings’”.

Thus, only in London, that provision would apply not just to premises such as retailers and takeaways, but to all premises that are not dwellings. The main thrust of my hon. Friend’s argument was that that related to people smoking outside buildings because of the smoking ban, and the resulting litter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I remind the House that interventions must be brief.

[Philip Davies]

I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman said. He may think that all this is for the benefit of council tax payers and local residents, but I do not agree. Businesses pay lots of money through rates and so on, and they expect a service in return. The Bill wants businesses to cough up for the council to provide services. At the end of the day, the council can say, “By the way, even though you have coughed up for services, we don’t want to provide you with any services. We’ll get you to pay extra on top for anything that you might ever want to use.” That is an unfair system. If the hon. Gentleman is advocating that we scrap the rates that businesses pay and hold them responsible for anything that goes on, I might have a bit of sympathy, but he is trying to have the best of both worlds.

It seems as if we are doing this for the benefit of council officials who do not want to spend time trying to identify the individual responsible because they file that under “Too difficult”. They want to make businesses generally be responsible for anything that goes on anywhere near their premises—in that way, they can crack the problem and do not have to do anything.

Sentencing

Debate between Philip Davies and Baroness Primarolo

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

No, there is not time.

That is what the Secretary of State is proposing. That is what happened to Gabrielle Browne, who sparked the debate when she questioned the Secretary of State—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman will be heard. Members will have an opportunity to contribute to the debate in due course. This is quite unacceptable when he is speaking.

[Philip Davies]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Gabrielle Browne was attacked by an African immigrant, Mohammed Kendeh, who had just been let out of prison four months into a one-year sentence. He had sexually assaulted five other women in the same park a year before, but was spared jail for those offences. Non-custodial sentences do not appear to work in such cases. Similarly, in a recent case in west Yorkshire a serial rapist was freed from jail early only to commit another sickening attack. He had subjected a string of women to terrifying rapes and sexual assaults as far back as 1984, but served only eight years of a 14-year sentence for raping an 18-year-old woman. Upon his release, he carried out a further rape on a 24-year-old as she left a nightclub.

We will get more and more such cases, with people serving more and more derisory prison sentences, then let out to create more and more unnecessary victims of crime. When people with no offending history are caught for crimes and have to wait to be convicted, it is understandable that it should take time to bring them to justice. However, it is unforgivable for people in government to preside over a system that lets people out of prison earlier than necessary, in order for them to go on and commit more crimes and create more victims of crime. We need to review the current situation, in which people are released from prison early.

People keep telling me that Scandinavian countries are marvellous when it comes to these things, so I went to Denmark to see at first hand what they did. One thing that never seems to come out is that in Denmark, people are not automatically released halfway through their sentences. They are released only if they behave well; and in fact, 30% of prisoners in Danish prisons serve their full sentences because they are not deemed safe to release from prison early. Those are the things that the Secretary of State should be looking at, not trying to have people serve lower sentences in the first place. Indeed, it is his proposals that are causing the British public to lose confidence in the British criminal justice system and in this place.

Last week I asked the Secretary of State to read some research commissioned by Lord Ashcroft into the opinion of the public, victims of crime and police officers. Some 80% of those polled thought that sentences were too lenient. Similarly, when asked whether they expected the new coalition Government to be tougher on crime than the last Labour Government, 50% of those polled said that they expected them to be tougher, while 9% said less tough. When asked their views now that they had seen the Secretary of State in action for a year, only 13% thought that the Government were tougher, while 23% thought that they were less tough.

These proposals have to go. I very much fear that if the Secretary of State does not listen to the widespread opposition to these plans, then for us to restore our reputation as a party of law and order, he will have to go as well.

Lawful Industrial Action (Minor Errors) Bill

Debate between Philip Davies and Baroness Primarolo

Friday 22nd October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I think that the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) has already made that recommendation about how the Bill could be better drafted. We might be repeating the point.

[Philip Davies]

It is a red letter day for me, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I have just found out that you were listening to my speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. May I say, Mr Davies, that I listen to every Member of the House’s speech, and I particularly listen when you are speaking. As you are such an accomplished parliamentarian, it behoves the Chair to concentrate.

[Philip Davies]

You are very kind, Madam Deputy Speaker. It really is a red-letter day now. I shall put that in the literature I will distribute at the next election. However, what surprised me was not just that you were listening to my speech, but that anyone was listening to it. I am afraid that my experience is usually otherwise.

I hope that the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington will accept at least some of my suggestions of alternative ways in which to promote his side of the argument.

Use of the Chamber (United Kingdom Youth Parliament)

Debate between Philip Davies and Baroness Primarolo

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

Will the hon. Lady give way? Or has she finished her speech?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Has the hon. Lady finished her speech?

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

I am sure that the House is grateful for that clarification.

The first point that I want to make is that the debate is not about the merits of the Youth Parliament. One weakness of the argument put forward by those who support the motion is that they try to characterise the debate so that if you are in favour of the motion you are in favour of the Youth Parliament and that if you are against it you must be against the Youth Parliament.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is a very experienced Member of the House and I know that he does not mean to drag me into what is an obvious disagreement among some in the Chamber. Given that he is so keen on procedure, I know that he will want to stick to it exactly.

[Philip Davies]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Surely it is not sensible to suggest that people who support the motion must be in favour of the Youth Parliament and that those who are against it must be against the Youth Parliament. Nobody could be more supportive of the UK Youth Parliament than I am.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend touches on the crucial point that simply holding a debate—a one-off debate or annual debates—in the Chamber runs the risk of taking away these people’s lifelong interest. Does he agree that one’s interest in politics over a long time is driven by the desire to sit on these green Benches?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. May I remind Members of the procedure of the House? Interventions are supposed to be brief, not speeches in their own right. I know that everyone is really interested in the debate and that the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) has said that he would like to make progress on his main points, so if interventions were a little briefer, that would help.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

My hon. Friend makes a fair point in the sense that the people who proposed using the Chamber last time round argued that the Youth Parliament could not go back to the House of Lords or Westminster Hall because, having already been there, its members were bored of them. The logic of that argument, as my hon. Friend says, is that the more time they stay here, the more bored of it they will become, so they might feel less inspired to want to come here as MPs because they have already done so.

Representing one’s constituency in Parliament is a tremendous privilege. Everyone in the Chamber will have worked incredibly hard to achieve what for many is a lifetime ambition of representing their constituency in Parliament. It is a great privilege finally to take one’s seat. Why would we want to undermine that achievement by allowing people who have not gone through the rigmarole of getting here to take their seats in the Chamber? To come back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), why is the UK Youth Parliament, worthy as it is, so special? If the argument is that young people do not feel that there is sufficient focus on their issues and, therefore, such a debate gives them an opportunity to advance them, I should argue that many of my constituents feel that pensioners’ issues are not particularly well covered in Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who certainly is not the antithesis of Conservatism. I am checking whether the Whips are still writing notes, because it would be helpful if they have noted that I am not the antithesis of Conservatism: that would be helpful for my career prospects. I am grateful that he made the point that I am the antithesis of Conservatism. Thank you for that, Madam Deputy Speaker.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) made the most salient point: younger people do not vote at general elections, not because we do not allow them to use the Chamber or because we do allow them to use it, but because we do not inspire them to vote. The onus is on us. [Interruption.] I note the laughter from the Liberal Democrat Benches, but the point I am making is that what inspires people to vote in elections is people who stand up and have clear views and beliefs and are prepared to stand on matters of principle. That is what inspires people to vote. Perhaps Liberal Democrats might wish to consider that.

It is delusional to pretend that we can carry on as we always have done and trot out the same meaningless stuff that will not offend anybody, or that we can go around saying nothing worth while or meaningful and hope that nobody notices, while claiming that allowing the Youth Parliament to sit in the Chamber will inspire young people to vote. Young people do not want to vote because they never hear arguments and ideas; they never hear a battle about ideas. I was lucky enough to be brought up to be interested in politics in the 1980s, when there was a clear difference between the main political parties. Whichever side of that divide one happened to be on, it was perfectly clear where we were. I was a great admirer of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister. She was the person who inspired me to enter politics. No doubt lots of Opposition Members felt exactly the opposite. They knew exactly which side of the fence they were on.

The problem that we now have with inspiring young people to vote is that when they listen to debates, they are not entirely sure which side they agree with, or even which side sticks up for their principles. Indeed, when Tony Blair was the leader of the Labour party and my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) was the Leader of the Opposition, it was sometimes difficult for young people who were just getting interested in politics to know which side of the political divide they were on, or which way they should vote in an election. My point is that if we want to inspire young people to go out and vote in elections, the onus is on us to start having a battle of ideas and stand up for what we believe in, rather than just saying what we think might be popular or politically expedient.

To all those people who have been grandstanding in here about how important it is for the Youth Parliament to sit in this Chamber, let me say this. I hope that they will go away from this debate and think about what else they can do. Part of that battle might be about standing up and saying something controversial or unpopular every now and then—standing on a point of principle, arguing their point of view and trying to change public opinion, rather than just trying to follow it and saying “motherhood and apple pie” things, in order to get a nice little press release in their local papers. That is not what inspires young people to get involved in politics, and if people think that they can cover all that with an annual debate in this Chamber, they are sadly mistaken.

Other people may want to have debates in this Chamber—other people whose issues do not—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. This may be a good opportunity to remind the hon. Gentleman and the House of Standing Order No. 42, and to draw hon. Members’ attention to the need not to allow their contributions to become somewhat tedious through repetition of the same arguments. I hope that in continuing the debate this evening, the hon. Gentleman and others will pay attention to that Standing Order.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, although I am not entirely sure to what in my speech you were referring. I am certainly open to clarification, but I hope that you will also accept that if an intervention is repetitive, I will still want to answer the question. If other Members mention a point that has already been mentioned, I will feel obliged to deal with it, but perhaps you could give me some guidance on that point.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has been speaking for a long time, and as he has pointed out, he has done his best to stay in order. However, staying in order does not include questioning the Chair with regard to the proceedings. I therefore hope that he will now continue to make the important points that he says he wants to make to the House, but which he has not already made.