Oral Answers to Questions

John Bercow Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt]

The Minister will know that Stoke-on-Trent is blessed with many things, and among them are the great canals of England: the Trent and Mersey and the Caldon canal, where we recently had the Hanley regatta. In order to become a proper third sector organisation, British Waterways needs an appropriate financial settlement following the comprehensive spending review and a longer contract with Government to replace annual grants. Can British Waterways’ property endowment be put in a charity-locked mechanism, so that the Treasury does not sell it down the canal, and we can be assured that, as an example of the big—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but I think that we have the gist of his question.

[Richard Benyon]

I am grateful for all those questions, and I look forward to debating this matter with the hon. Gentleman and other colleagues to whom it is important. I know that he is particularly interested in the heritage of our waterways. The answer to his question is yes. For the third sector model to work, British Waterways will have to have access to its estate, or a large proportion of it, for it to gear up funding for sustainable funding in the future. I can assure him that it will not proceed unless it is locked in in that way. Those are the negotiations that we are taking forward with British Waterways.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

T3. It is a shame that the former Prime Minister and right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) made only a fleeting visit to the Chamber, as I would have liked him to have heard my question. Does the Secretary of State agree that the previous Government’s payments agency was an expensive shambles? Will she visit Matching and other villages in my constituency and meet farmers who were threatened with financial ruin when payments were delayed? Will she take steps to simplify that service?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I say very gently to the hon. Gentleman and to other Members that topical questions in particular are supposed to be brief, and that a Member has a topical question—singular?

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

I shall try to reply with one answer. I fully understand my hon. Friend’s concern. I would be very happy to visit his constituency, as I have done many times, and I am very conscious of the distress that the mistakes of the Rural Payments Agency caused to many farmers.