G20 Summit
Simon Hughes Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
What I did, which was the right thing to do, was to have a very frank exchange about human rights with the Chinese in the meetings that we had, and I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that nothing and no one was off the agenda.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
May I associate myself and colleagues with the warm words about Aung San Suu Kyi and congratulate the Prime Minister on his mission to China?
I have read the communiqué, which contains an undertaking to ensure that we have a
“resilient financial system by reining in the past excesses of the financial sector and better serving the needs of our economies.”
What does that mean in practice for ending in the G20 excessive bank profits and bonuses and excessive use of tax havens?
The Prime Minister
There is very strong agreement that we need to deal with the issue of tax havens. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor made an announcement about that while he was in Seoul. We can see real progress in the G20 on the nuts and bolts of regulation, particularly of levels of capital through the Basel accords, but also progress covering the issues that the hon. Gentleman mentions. National steps should also be taken, and I know that he very much supports the bank levy that we have put in place, which is raising serious money. In a way, it is saying to the banks that it is right that they should now be making a contribution as we deal with our fiscal deficit.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Simon Hughes Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Sadiq Khan
We also did a novel thing in those days—Labour still does this now—of putting the things that we stand for in an election manifesto. Even if someone wins a popular mandate for that manifesto, they should ensure that there is proper debate and scrutiny on the Floor of the House. The coalition Government have a smaller majority than the previous Labour Government, but they have rushed the Bill through.
The Bill is more far-reaching than the Acts to which I referred, but there have been fewer than 40 hours of debate on it in the House before it goes to the other place. Day after day, colleagues on both sides of the House have been denied their wish to speak and deprived of the opportunity to make important points, and their speeches have been truncated when in full flow. The Liberal MPs on the Front Bench below the Gangway have had their mouths zipped because of the way in which the coalition Government have rushed the Bill through.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
The right hon. Gentleman obviously has not quite understood that in a coalition, more than one party must be accommodated. The Labour party is not in the coalition. Can he be very clear whether Labour party policy is the same as it was at the election, which is to support the alternative vote? I am referring not only to the Leader of the Opposition, but the shadow Cabinet, Labour Members and the party as a whole.
Sadiq Khan
The deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats wants to start a new convention—have a manifesto, not win the election, get involved for five days in a shabby deal with the Conservative party, and reach an agreement for the sake of power rather than principle.
Simon Hughes
I will deal straight away with the remarks of the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth). This is not a perfect Bill—I am not pretending that it is—but it is a good Bill, and the two things that it does needed to be done.
First, we needed to give the British people a chance to improve the electoral system. The alternative vote is not a proportional system—I have never claimed that it is—but it has two advantages that our current system does not have. I appeal to anybody who is a progressive politician in any party to come to the view that we should support a system that, yes, keeps single-Member representation, but sends us here with a majority of support from those of our electorate who vote—
Simon Hughes
Yes it does, compared with the current system. [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman will just calm down—he is far too overexcited most of the time.
Secondly, the system allows people to express preferences—it is positive, not negative, voting that allows them to say what they really want politically as opposed to being forced to say what they do not want politically. That is definitely progress.
There is another practical consideration, as the right hon. Member for Knowsley knows. This House does not have a majority in favour of a proportional system at the moment—I accept that. I want a proportional system. Personally, I prefer alternative vote plus, because it has the balance of a single-Member seat plus top-up. But there is not a majority for those things. This measure allows Parliament to come to a view, as put forward by the Labour party in the general election, that the British people should be given the option of moving to a better system. It is not the perfect system—there is no such thing as a perfect system—and not the best system, but it is a better system. I hope that this House and the other place will allow the great British public to decide on this. Then, if the referendum comes up with a yes vote, as I hope it will, we will have a better political system and a better democracy.
I share one of the views of the right hon. Member for Knowsley and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram). It is a scandal and a shame that in this country, throughout the time of the Labour Government and now, 3 million or more people are not on the electoral register when they should be. I have made it clear to my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister and colleagues that there is a duty on our Government, just as there was a duty on the Labour Government that they did not discharge, to work across parties and outside parties to ensure that we get all those registered who should be registered.
Simon Hughes
No, I am trying to be very quick.
I will go on arguing from these Benches that the Government need to do more to increase electoral registration. Yesterday, with my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, I urged our party members to do more, and I hope that the Labour party and the other parties will do more as well. I hope that the Government will assist in every way—this month, before the December register comes into force—to ensure that the maximum number of people are on the electoral register. There are all sorts of ways of doing that, and the sooner we can start sharing our wisdom, the better.
I want to make one more substantial point. There is an absolutely overwhelming argument for more equally sized constituencies. The disparity between the number of voters per constituency is scandalous. I speak as somebody with Welsh, Scottish and English roots. It is no longer justifiable for Wales or Scotland to be over-represented in this place when England does not have any devolved government at all and is therefore already relatively under-represented.
Simon Hughes
No, I am not giving way.
Nobody argues that there should not be exceptions in extreme cases, which is why two seats have been singled out. That has never been in dispute. There is an argument, which has been tested, as to whether there should be other exceptions, such as other island communities. That is an argument that will not go away in the debates up the corridor, and nor should it, because there are reasonable arguments for an extension down that road. However, I hope that we accept the principle that, wherever humanly possible, the number of electors should be similar, because that is the only way to ensure that this place can proportionately reflect the views of the electorate and that we can all be elected in a similar way.
Mr Winnick
What possible justification can there be for the boundary changes taking place without any public inquiry at all? Is that not a travesty of democracy? The hon. Gentleman should be ashamed of defending and justifying what is intended.
Simon Hughes
I will give the hon. Gentleman the answer, having appeared at inquiries in the past. The justification is that the job will be done by an independent set of boundary commissions, which are no more or less likely to treat people and arguments fairly by receiving representations in writing than in oral evidence. Often, the main argument at public inquiries has been not among real people about their communities, but among political parties’ paid officers.
One argument that has been made is that we cannot reform one part of the constitution without reforming the others. I say gently to colleagues in the Labour party that unlike them, we will secure a predominantly elected House of Lords, which they did not do. Unlike them, we have on our agenda a reduction of the number of Ministers in future. [Hon. Members: “No you don’t.”] Yes, we do. We have it on the agenda—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I have never known a situation in which the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) is virtually shouted down. It is not only unprecedented, it is unacceptable. We must hear the hon. Gentleman, notwithstanding the strong feelings.
Simon Hughes
This is the first of a series of radical constitutional reforms that Labour never delivered, and that the coalition is willing to deliver. I hope that the House is radical enough to support it, and that the House of Lords does a proper job of ensuring that we have the best possible form for the two proposals that I have mentioned. It does Labour no good to argue against changes none of which it introduced in 13 years.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Simon Hughes Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Graham Stringer
Unfortunately, I think that my hon. Friend may have encouraged the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) to attempt to intervene. I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound).
Paul Blomfield
I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, because it highlights the particular difficulty of using the December register. There can be only two reasons to use December as the point at which to measure registered electors: either because there is undue haste in trying to push through this process, or because there is a recognition that at that point those voters who some would wish to see disregarded will not be reflected within the register.
The Government would claim that the Bill is about new politics, but a failure to address these concerns will send a message to the public that this represents the very worst of old politics, putting party advantage before democracy and, as one Government Member said on Second Reading, putting decisions behind closed doors before transparency. If the Bill proceeds unamended, it will not only damage the Government but damage confidence in our democracy.
Simon Hughes
I wanted to make a couple of brief comments, even before I was provoked by the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies). As it happens, I was inaccurately provoked, because he misread the table produced by the Library. I am one of the Members of Parliament whose constituency is in the top 10 of those where the proportion of the population registered to vote is smaller and the population is larger. The official figures in a House of Commons table show that Bermondsey and Old Southwark has a population of 122,510—we are No. 10 in the list—and an electorate of 77,628: almost the quota that is suggested across the country. The electorate make up 63.4% of the population according to the latest figures.
There are two explanations. One is that a lot of the differential is accounted for by people under 18; that applies across all our seats. The second is that there is a mixture of people—inner London has this in common with many places—who live there perfectly lawfully but are not entitled to vote. They are not UK citizens, they are not Irish citizens, they are not EU citizens and they are not Commonwealth citizens. We have a lot in my constituency; we are very proud to do so, and I serve them without discrimination, just as I would serve anyone on the electoral roll.
However, there is a problem of under-registration of those who should be on the electoral register, and I am never going to take any lessons from the Labour party because throughout the period of Labour Government the problem was exactly the same, and the legacy is that the Labour party left us with an under-registration of 3.5 million people.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Simon Hughes
I am going to be brief, because the debate is time-limited until 11 pm, but I will give way.
Emily Thornberry
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in Islington we had the second-worst voter registration rate in the country when the Liberals were in charge of my local council, and when we, the Labour group, tried to pass a resolution to increase voter registration, the deputy leader of the council shouted across the council chamber, “Bu that’s how we win elections”? The voter registration went up by 9,000 from 2005 to 2010, and my vote went up by 6,000.
Simon Hughes
If the hon. Lady had been present a few minutes ago, she would have heard that point made by one of her colleagues. I have heard it made before. [Hon. Members: “It is still true.”] I am making the point that for Labour to be critical of the fact that 3.5 million people are not registered but should be registered is entirely unjustified, because for 13 years Labour were in government. They could and should have done much more.
Simon Hughes
No, I am not going to get into a big debate. I address my comments to my ministerial friends, and they know what I am going to say next. There is a duty on Government to do much more to ensure that people who should be registered are registered. In my constituency there is a turnover of about a quarter of the electorate every year, so registration is difficult.
I want to make publicly the point that I have made privately to Ministers and to the Deputy Prime Minister. My first proposition is that one of the things that I want us to do—the deputy leader of the Labour party, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), made this point when she was in government—is to work across parties and to put our heads together to think of all the ways in which we can increase registration. I hope the new Labour leader, his Front-Bench colleagues and the deputy leader will work with the Government and all other parties to make sure we—
Simon Hughes
No, not now.
We need to work across parties, with all parties, to ensure that in every constituency in Britain, whatever the number of constituencies, everybody who can possibly be registered is on the electoral register.
Simon Hughes
Absolutely. I am keen that we do with registration this autumn.
I have a second proposition. The deputy leader of the Labour party argued—I put the argument to her and she made it publicly—that we should have a regular democracy day, democracy week or democracy month. Using Government resources, the Central Office of Information, and the publicity of Government and local councils, we should have a campaign that goes out to find people to register and does not do the traditional, routine, perfectly proper thing—knocking on doors, finding that people are not in and not tracking them down.
My suggestion is that this November we have a big effort led by the Deputy Prime Minister’s Department and my right hon. and hon. Friends who are Ministers, using the radio and television and getting people out on the streets, outside the tube stations in London, outside the railway stations and the bus stations, outside the further education colleges throughout the country, and outside the supermarkets and at the shopping centres, so that rather than relying on people being found to be at home, there is a way in which people are encouraged to vote.
We need collectively to own a failure of a generation to ensure that people are registered to vote in the numbers that they should be. It is not a party political matter. It should not be regarded as a case for party banter and provocation. We all have a duty, because it is unacceptable that so many people are not on the voting list when they should be. I hope that the Government will come forward with positive proposals on a cross-party basis that will engage us this autumn—next month—to do something about that so that we on the Government Benches, at least, can be seen to be trying to remedy a problem which for 13 and a half years was not remedied by the Labour party.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Simon Hughes Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Austin Mitchell
Exactly—that is the point. What we want to do in the amendment is quite simple. We want to give the people the choice that the Liberal Democrats did not have the strength or the guts to give them. The Liberal Democrats are in favour of a system to allow people to vote in a referendum on the alternative vote, which is largely irrelevant—it is a system that allows people to list candidates in one constituency in order of preference—because they hope to benefit from the fact that they are everyone’s second preference, but the first preference of very few people.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
As far as I recollect, in New Zealand there were two votes in sequence: one on whether people wanted to have a change, and a separate vote on which change to have. The hon. Gentleman must also recognise what my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) said: in the House, given the way in which the Labour and Tory majorities have voted, there is not likely to be a majority, whatever others think, for a wide proportional system. There is a majority for progress, but not for what we might want. We should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Austin Mitchell
I know that there are a thousand excuses for gutlessness, but that is just another one. The Liberal Democrats are going to have to live on a diet of their own words for the next few months. It was the leader of their party who called the alternative vote “a miserable little compromise” before the election. Now it is central to Liberal Democrat policy.
The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) is mistaken about the referendum in New Zealand. The first referendum, which I have discussed, gave the exact alternatives that would be given in our Bill. I want to make the case for proportional representation. We are working in a system that has become a multi-party one. Fewer people are voting for the two main parties, whose share of the vote has gone down from about 90% to about 60%. A multi-party system is in the process of being born, with nationalists, including Welsh nationalists, Liberal Democrats, the UK Independence party, and all the rest of it. We are trying to fit that within the constraints of a first-past-the-post system that works well only with two parties. [Interruption.] I forgot to mention the Greens—I apologise, but that is another indication of our multi-party system.
We cannot fit the burgeoning multi-party system into a first-past-the-post system, which works only with two parties. The question is still why did the Liberal Democrats, in pushing for a referendum—I congratulate them on securing one—not give people the real choice between a preferential system, an alternative vote and first past the post, as that is the choice that they have to make? I would want them to choose the preferential system, but it is not up to us. It is not my views that are important, or those of Government Members—it is the views of the people. That is all that we are asking: let us consult the people on a system, and let them have their say. Every Member here thinks that the system that elected them must be the best system in the world, but that is not important. We are prejudiced witnesses, and we should give the people the power to speak. That is all that our amendment does.
Individual Electoral Registration
Simon Hughes Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Harper
What I announced was that proceeding with the voluntary phase was going to cost £74 million, and we are doing away with that. The hon. Gentleman is an experienced Member of the House, and he would not expect me to announce things that are going to be announced in the comprehensive spending review. I am confident, however, that the funds that we need to implement this in a sensible way will be forthcoming.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
The Minister’s statement is very welcome. May I ask him to invite leaders of all parties in the House together to maximise our input into getting all those electors on to the list who should be on it? I should like to suggest that this November should be a democracy month, involving a campaign to do that, so that the register published in December has the maximum number of people on it for the immediate and long-term future.
Mr Harper
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that suggestion. I said in my statement that I wanted to work with local authorities and with Members of the House to promote electoral registration. His second idea is a very good one, and I shall think about it some more and see what we can do, ahead of the registration for this December, to make a significant impact.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Simon Hughes Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Margaret Beckett (Derby South) (Lab)
The Bill is as dangerous as it is dishonest because it is rooted in a set of false premises. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) completely demolished the argument that it is either necessary or desirable to redraw almost every constituency boundary, especially when the independent Boundary Commission has just redrawn them. He highlighted the danger of removing the previous process of scrutiny and appeal.
I want to address the second half of the gerrymander—the proposal to change our electoral system. We are told that it is necessary to change—“reform” is the word used—because our current system is “unfair”; that the reform will give greater power and influence to the people, and that that is what the people demand. I contest each of those premises. It is dishonest to say that our current system is somehow unfair and that proportional representation is fair. There is no such thing as an electoral system that is absolutely even-handed and fair in every respect. Each has its own fairness and unfairness.
It is legitimate to argue that our current system can give majority groups an outcome that is somewhat disproportionate to the scale of that majority, but it is equally true—I believe that it is even more so—that the major effect of more proportional systems is to give wholly disproportionate power instead to minorities. The views supported by a smaller number often hugely outweigh in the balance of power those of the majority of the population. There may be reasons for saying that that is desirable—I can see from their reaction that the Liberal Democrats share that view—especially, of course, for those in minorities, but I struggle to see how it is more democratic.
Margaret Beckett
I am sorry, but time is so short.
I recognise the argument that the alternative vote does not create a fully proportional system, but I oppose the proposal for exactly the same reason that the Liberals support it. Like them, I regard it as the thin end of the wedge, and I oppose their ultimate goal. Incidentally, it is now clear that in the formation of the coalition, the Liberals tried to force both the Labour party and the Conservative party to push through the change to alternative vote without a referendum and without seeking the views of the British people at all, so I hope that we will not hear much from them about what a great idea a referendum is.
Our current system has substantial strengths and virtues. It is simple and easy to understand, and the British people know exactly how to operate it to get the result that they want. For decades, I have listened to the most arrant rubbish about how our electoral system somehow cheats the British people of the Government whom they want. I have never believed that, and I do not know how anyone can continue to argue it with a straight face after the elections of recent years.
In the ’80s and ’90s, those who support PR argued that votes cast for the Labour party, the Liberals and others outweighed those cast for the Thatcher and Major Governments, and said that our system prevented the people from removing them. However, people knew perfectly well that if they voted Tory or for a third party rather than the Labour alternative, they were actively choosing or risking the re-election of a Tory Government. I deeply regretted their decision, but I never doubted that it was a conscious one. The argument that our electoral system stood in their way was surely demolished for ever by how they voted in 1997. Indeed, so well did they understand our system, they could even produce a Parliament such as this one, when no party has a clear majority.
The people therefore have the influence and the power, and they understand how to make change if that is what they choose. It is not true that the Bill will give more power and influence to the people. The Bill takes power away from the people and gives it to the politicians, as the coalition Government daily demonstrate. If the Bill is enacted and if the British people choose to give away their power in the referendum that the Liberals tried to deny them, so be it, but they must be told the truth about the choice that they are making and the effect of their decision. They must not have the wool pulled over their eyes by politicians who believe that they stand to benefit.
Over the years, many people, especially in other countries, have asked me to explain why Britain has such comparative political peace and stability. I believe that that is in large part because the British people know perfectly well how to make dramatic electoral change if that is what they want. If on the basis of a false prospectus of giving them more power and influence that power is taken away or diminished, I believe that there is a risk of a backlash that jeopardises precisely that stability.
Oral Answers to Questions
Simon Hughes Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Streeter
The hon. Lady raises an important point. I am not aware of any such research, but I will certainly pass that suggestion on to the Electoral Commission.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
Will the hon. Gentleman invite the Electoral Commission to come up with radical proposals for improving the level of registration of people entitled to vote in the UK and to consult with the public urgently on ideas for achieving that, because there are many ideas out there that need to be collected and shared with Government so we can have a much better registration system?
Mr Streeter
I am very happy to pass those suggestions on to the Electoral Commission. It is worth making the point that Governments of all colours have attempted over the years—indeed, over the decades—to improve voter registration and the Electoral Commission runs well-resourced public awareness campaigns, but there is still a group of hard-to-reach people in this country. I will certainly pass his suggestions on to the Electoral Commission, however.
Political and Constitutional Reform
Simon Hughes Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
We have inherited a register from the previous Labour Government. For 13 years, nothing was done about the large numbers of people who are not on the register. We are now looking at the matter urgently. I disagree with the hon. Gentleman that individual electoral registration would not help to deal with the problem if it is done properly, and if it is properly resourced and given sufficient time to be implemented correctly. That is what we will be seeking to do.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
Does the Deputy Prime Minister not agree that, in addition to the three welcome modernising proposals, which give more power to the legislature over Government, more power to the voter and more power to individual MPs, who will have greater authority because a majority of their constituents will support them, the Bill gives us the opportunity to respond to the other fallacious argument—that there is gerrymandering in the Bill—and ensure that we can have a modern electoral registration process that captures everybody in the months before voting, so that there can be no excuse for anybody who wants to vote not being on the list and no argument that the constituencies will not be fair in future?
The Deputy Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right. Once the synthetic fury about the proposal dies down, I hope not only that Members in all parts of the House will see that the proposal to cap the number of Members of this House at 600 is a sensible one, based on the simple principle of fairness and equality, but that this will be accompanied by greater efforts—I hope that we will be able to work on this across party lines—to ensure that those who want to vote are registered to vote in the first place.
Oral Answers to Questions
Simon Hughes Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
10. What recent representations the Electoral Commission has received on issuing ballot papers to voters who arrive at polling stations before the time specified for the close of polls at a general election.
Mr Streeter
The Electoral Commission informs me that it has received representations from voters, candidates, political parties, returning officers, Members of Parliament and professional bodies regarding queues at some polling stations on 6 May. In its urgent report published two weeks ago after the general election, the commission identified a total of 27 polling stations in 16 constituencies where it was able to confirm that there were problems with queues at the close of the poll.
Simon Hughes
Will the hon. Gentleman ask his Committee to write urgently to the Ministers responsible, so that we can put right the legislation that currently prevents people who turn up to vote in time from being able to do so? That could and ought to be done this year, and with the Committee’s support it will be.
Mr Streeter
It is certainly the view of the Electoral Commission that the matter can in part be put right through a change in the law. The commission is encouraging the Government to introduce appropriate primary legislation.
Saville Inquiry
Simon Hughes Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I agree that we should look forward rather than back, and I hope the report will enable us to do that. Of course the hon. Gentleman is right to refer, as I did in my statement, to the 1,000 members of the Army and security services who lost their lives during the troubles, and all that they did to try to keep Northern Ireland safe and secure. Of course he is right to refer to the many thousands of families who have lost loved ones through terrorism and who have not had an answer and have not had an inquiry into what happened to their loved ones. When it comes to answering questions, yes, it is important that IRA members and people who were responsible for things even now come forward and answer so that people can at least bury those whom they lost. Of course that is important.
I hope, as well, that the hon. Gentleman will understand that there is something about Bloody Sunday—about the fact that 13 people were shot by British Army soldiers and died on that day—that necessitated a proper inquiry. That is what the report today is about. Yes, we must come up with the answers to other people’s questions and yes, we have to go through with the historical inquiries team to try to settle those issues of the past, but let us not pretend that there is not something about that day, Bloody Sunday, that needed to be answered clearly in a way that can allow those families—all those people—to lay to rest what happened on that day.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
I thank the Prime Minister for his courageous and honourable statement and, through him, Lord Saville for a very clear and unequivocal report which has, at last, answered the questions to which 27 families have been waiting for answers for so long. Does the Prime Minister agree that, given that the truth is the precondition of closure, justice and reconciliation, we now have the best possible way to move on because we have, at last, the truth about all those events on that terrible day?
Does the Prime Minister have any plans, when we have all had a chance to digest the report, to go to Northern Ireland and to Derry not just to express the solidarity of the whole House with the people there, and to confirm our support for the troops who for so long did honourable things in the name of the democratic Government, but to encourage the families of the bereaved and all those who, since that day in Derry and beyond, have worked so hard to make sure that Northern Ireland will never again have the terrible past that it had, but always have the prosperous democratic future which events such as Bloody Sunday made much more difficult, but which, in spite of adversity, so many people, including the women of Northern Ireland, did so much to achieve?
The Prime Minister
I certainly agree. This is about trying to heal the wounds of the past. As the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan)—the former leader of the Social Democratic and Labour party, who represents so many of the families in his constituency—put it, people in Londonderry have not just lived through it, but lived with it. That is the point, and that is the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) makes.
In terms of going to Northern Ireland, I am keen that as Prime Minister I should visit Northern Ireland regularly, and as I said, I have already been there in the relatively early days of my being Prime Minister. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was in Londonderry two weeks ago and met the families, and he has plans to go back and do that again. I know that many people support Derry’s bid to be the European city of culture, and that is another part of the healing process in closing that painful chapter around the past.