European Union (Withdrawal) Acts
Debate between John Bercow and Nicholas Brown(4 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Michael Gove
Our first duty to our constituents and our country is to keep our promises. This House said that we would honour that referendum mandate. The time has come. The question that all of us must answer when we return to our constituencies is: did you vote to end the deadlock? Did you vote to end the division of these days? Did you vote to bring the country together? I know that Members across the House will support the Government this afternoon, to do just that.
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
I beg to move that the Question now be put.
Mr Speaker
I am indeed putting the Question. I am extremely grateful.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019 (Rule of Law)
Debate between John Bercow and Nicholas Brown(4 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).
Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
Question agreed to.
Main Question put accordingly.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the welcome completion of all parliamentary stages of the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill and has considered the matter of the importance of the rule of law and Ministers’ obligation to comply with the law.
Mr Speaker
Order. There is quite a lot of noisy chuntering from a sedentary position. The hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries) is quite beside herself in an extraordinarily irate condition, which I feel sure will not endure for very long.
I was trying to explain to our French counterparts at the weekend the significance of the term “chuntering from a sedentary position”. They were beginning to understand it, but I would have to reinterpret it tonight as yelling from a sedentary position to which, apparently, there is no equal in the Assemblée Nationale.
I was going to call on the Minister to move the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 Section 3(2) motion, but I am underestimating the exalted status of the right hon. Gentleman who graces the Dispatch Box. The motion is indeed to be moved by no less a figure in our affairs than the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
European Union (Withdrawal)
Debate between John Bercow and Nicholas Brown(4 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).
Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
Question agreed to.
Main Question put accordingly.
The House proceeded to a Division.
Environment and Climate Change
Debate between John Bercow and Nicholas Brown(4 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
The process of government, and the process of scrutiny of Government by Parliament, otherwise known as continuing debate.
Mr Nicholas Brown
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In view of your statement to the House earlier about the results of the Peterborough recall petition, I hope it is helpful, if you will allow me, to inform the House that I will move the writ for the by-election at start of business tomorrow.
Mr Speaker
Thank you. That is certainly informative, and I appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman, on behalf of Her Majesty’s official Opposition, has said.
Points of Order
Debate between John Bercow and Nicholas Brown(5 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
Order. [Interruption.] I think the record will show—and I have the highest regard and affection for the hon. Gentleman—that I have listened to all the points of order. The only reason why I interrupt him at this point—I hope he will forgive my doing so—is that there was a factual error in his opening remarks. I am sure it was an inadvertent error, and I mean that most sincerely, but it was a factual error. He said that in recent months it had been noticed that there was a sticker in my car. That sticker on the subject of Brexit happens to be affixed to, or in the windscreen of, my wife’s car. [Laughter.] Yes, it is. I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not suggest for one moment that a wife is somehow the property or chattel of her husband. She is entitled to her views. That sticker is not mine, and that is the end of it.
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think the House is now ready to move on. We have a long day ahead of us, and I beg to move that we proceed to the next business.
Mr Speaker
Well, that is not a motion that I can accept, but I would like to propose that we come now to the ten-minute rule motion. I call Mr Leo Docherty.
Windrush
Debate between John Bercow and Nicholas Brown(5 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Police Funding
Debate between John Bercow and Nicholas Brown(6 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
The point of order is not required. I think the Minister has concluded his speech, so we will go straight to the vote.
Mr Speaker
It would, but it would equally possible for me not to see that person. None the less, I think that the right hon. Gentleman is going to achieve his objective perfectly properly in procedural terms, and I thank him for what he has said.
Question put.
Universal Credit Roll-out
Debate between John Bercow and Nicholas Brown(6 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36.)
Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
Question agreed to.
Main Question accordingly put.
The House proceeded to a Division.
Justice Committee
Debate between John Bercow and Nicholas Brown
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder whether you could clarify to the House what the rights of Members of other parties—parties that do not have nominating rights—are in these matters now that we have changed our rules so that each party selects and nominates its preferred candidates.
Mr Speaker
It is the House that appoints to the Committee, and it is for the House to decide. It is on that basis that these matters are brought to the House and subject to motions moved by the Committee of Selection. Of course, as the right hon. Gentleman’s long experience will tell him, it is normal and commonplace for these matters to go through without objection, but it is perfectly orderly for someone to object if he or she so wishes.
Supported Housing
Debate between John Bercow and Nicholas Brown
Mr Speaker
The Minister says that he has concluded his speech.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between John Bercow and Nicholas Brown(7 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
I hope that the hon. Lady is content with that answer, although, whether she is or is not, she has had it.
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
7. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of a UK withdrawal from the EU on the UK’s digital industries.
The Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy (Mr Edward Vaizey)
With your permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to take Question 7 with Question 14, if that is okay.
We think that leaving the EU would be an absolute disaster for Britain’s digital industries.
Mr Speaker
It would be okay, if the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) were here, but he isn’t, so it isn’t, but we will proceed unabashed by his absence, because we have the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown).
Mr Brown
The digital sector is very important to the north-east of England, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) made clear earlier. Some 25,000 jobs are now directly involved in the sector. What reassurance can the Minister give the House that there will be market access arrangements with our partners in the EU in the event of a no vote?
Nuclear Deterrent
Debate between John Bercow and Nicholas Brown(11 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to make a very short contribution to the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) not only on having secured it, which is a triumph in itself, but on how he argued the case for Britain’s independent nuclear submarine-based deterrent. It was the strongest series of arguments that I have heard made in one place for the renewal of the Trident platform. I do not agree with those arguments, but they were strongly made and the hon. Gentleman drew together all the different points that can be made.
Let me make two points back to the hon. Gentleman. First, we are purchasing something we cannot use, and secondly, we are doing it with money we have not got. They seem to me to be two pretty strong arguments to weigh in the balance. The hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) referred to the cost and the impact on the defence budget. Frankly, we should think about the impact on the public finances more generally. We are in danger of sleepwalking into a commitment of some £80 billion to £100 billion, with a deployment cost of £1 billion a year, without properly discussing it in this place, so I congratulate the hon. Member for New Forest East on having secured this short discussion.
I ask all hon. Members in what conceivable circumstances in the world today they could envisage the United Kingdom taking the decision unilaterally to use nuclear weapons against another nation. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to envisage such circumstances. An independent nuclear deterrent does not address the security demands or the realities of international instability which the United Kingdom faces. This is not to argue that we do not face international threats in the 21st century. Of course we do. What I am arguing is that they are more complex and sophisticated and require a more intelligent response than a big 20th century bomb—a weapon of the cold war whose time, if it ever existed, has most certainly passed.
International terrorism is not combated or deterred by an independent deterrent. Trident does not counter the ever increasing number of cyber attacks on our nation’s digital infrastructure. It does not address political, socio-economic or environmental injustices that lead to global instability. These are the pressing issues that the United Kingdom faces and we hamper our ability to deal with them by focusing our defence priorities and spending on a cold war weapons system.
I am in favour of our membership of NATO. We make a strong contribution to the alliance and we should trust it and rely upon its possession collectively of a strategic deterrent, if there is an argument for the strategic deterrent at all.
In summary, this is a weapons system that we cannot use. The cost is disproportionate to the hard-to-identify benefits and it makes no sense in terms of our alliance with other friendly nations, of our international obligations or even as a response to the security threats faced by the United Kingdom.
Mr Speaker
A model of pithiness, which I know the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) will want to emulate or better.
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill
Debate between John Bercow and Nicholas Brown(11 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 4—Town and country planning: Amendment of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007—
‘(1) Class 3 of Schedule 3 to the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007, (Classes of advertisements for which deemed consent is granted) is amended as follows.
(2) In item 3A, after “sale”, leave out “or letting”.
(3) In item 3A(2), after both uses of “sold”, leave out “or let”.
(4) In item 3A(2), after “sale”, leave out “or letting”.
(5) In item 3A(8), after “sale”, leave out “or letting”.’.
New clause 5—Town and country planning: responsibilities of housing authorities—
‘(1) Local authorities in England which enjoy day-to-day responsibility for housing policy within their local authority area may make by-laws regulating for all or part of the authority the display of external advertisements concerning property lettings.
(2) If a housing authority has not specifically provided for the display of external notices advertising a property to let then such a notice is not permitted.’.
New clause 6—Town and country planning: offences—
‘(1) It shall be an offence to display an external notice prohibited by subsection (2) of section (Town and country planning: responsibilities of housing authorities).
(2) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (1) is liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.
(3) A person guilty of a second or subsequent offence under subsection (1) is liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard for each seperate such offence.’.
New clause 7—Town and country planning: commencement and extent—
‘(1) Sections (Town and country planning: Amendment of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007, Town and country planning: responsibilities of housing authorities, and Town and country planning: offences) come into force two months after the day on which this Act is passed.
(2) Sections (Town and country planning: Amendment of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007, Town and country planning: responsibilities of housing authorities, and Town and country planning: offences) extend to England only.’.
New clause 20—Local authorities: powers relating to deemed consent—
‘(1) Part 2 Regulation 7 of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007 is amended as follows.
(2) In item (1) delete “Secretary of State” and insert “local authority”.
(3) In item (1) delete “upon a proposal made to her by the local planning authority”.
(4) In item (1) delete “she” and insert “the local authority”.
(5) In item (2) delete “ Secretary of State” and insert “local authority”.
(6) In item (2b) delete “her” and insert “the local authority’s”.
(7) In item (3) delete “Secretary of State” and insert “local authority”.
(8) In item (4) delete “Secretary of State” and insert “local authority”.
(9) In item (5) delete “ Secretary of State” and insert “local authority”.
(10) In item (5b) delete “the local planning authority and to any other” and insert “any”.
(11) In item (5) delete part (c).
(12) In item (5b) delete “her” and insert “the local authority”.
(13) In item (5c(i)) delete “she” and insert “the local authority”.
(14) In item (5c(i)) delete “her” and insert “the local authority’s”.
(15) In item (6) delete from “Where” to end and insert “Where the local authority makes a direction it shall send a copy of its reasons to every person who has made a paragraph (3) representation.”.
(16) In item (7) delete “unless the Secretary of State otherwise directs”.
New clause 21—Restriction of advertisement relating to property lettings—
‘(1) Local authorities in England which enjoy day-to-day responsibility for housing policy within their local authority area may make by-laws restricting for all or part of the authority the display of external advertisements concerning property lettings.
(2) It shall be an offence to display an external advertisement concerning property letting in areas or cases where the Local Planning Authority has, under subsection (1), passed a by-law prohibiting external advertisements concerning property letting.
(3) A person found guilty of an offence under subsection (2) is liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.
(4) A person found guilty of a second or subsequent offence under subsection (2) is liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale for each such offence.’.
Amendment 91, line 7 after ‘directors;’, insert
‘to make provision about advertisements concerning property lettings;’.
Mr Brown
New clause 21 is subsidiary to new clause 20, as are amendments 91 and 69. I will not speak to new clauses 4 to 7, which offer an alternative way of dealing with the same problem. I believe that new clause 20 offers the better of the two routes forward, and I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), the Front-Bench spokesman on these matters for the parliamentary Labour party, for suggesting it to me. New clause 21 sets out the offences; amendment 69 sets the date of enactment, which will be the same as for the rest of the Bill. I have been advised by the Public Bill Office that amendment 91 is a technical necessity for my principal proposal.
I wish to amend regulation 7 of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007, so that matters relating to the control of estate agents’ “To let” signs are under the control of the local authorities that make byelaws about such matters, rather than being governed by primary legislation and the central regulation that currently applies. The proposals do not abolish the central regulation of the original enactment; they merely give local government the right and ability to supplement it. That could mean extending the use of “To let” signs, but it is far more likely to mean restricting it.
This is a moderate proposition, and when I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill on the subject it had all-party support and its First Reading was not opposed. The problem is that the “To let” sign regime is widely abused in urban areas, and properties with short-term leases find that the signs are left up all year round. Why would an estate agent or landlord want to do that? Because the sign serves as a form of advertisement for the lettings agent. In the modern era, the signs do not facilitate the search for flats; they just advertise the estate agent.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between John Bercow and Nicholas Brown(11 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
T2. The Government have recently designated Tyneside a centre for offshore renewable energy. In welcoming that designation, I ask the Minister to set out the economic development advantages of such a designation. What assistance can the initiative expect from UKTI, which operates under BIS? Will Ministers urge senior officials to visit Tyneside, and to promote this Government initiative at home and abroad?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between John Bercow and Nicholas Brown(12 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
Order. The right hon. Gentleman is being saved up for later. It would be a pity to waste him at such an early stage in our proceedings.
EU Council
Debate between John Bercow and Nicholas Brown(12 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Nicholas Brown
Will the Basel III regulatory regime for financial services apply in the United Kingdom?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between John Bercow and Nicholas Brown(13 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
Order. That was a nice try but the hon. Gentleman’s question must specifically relate to the north-east, about which I thought the hon. Gentleman probably had extensive knowledge.
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
Is not the danger of the Minister’s enterprise zone policy that it enriches landlords and developers by drawing economic activity from one area to another? When considering locations for the north-east, will he focus on the creation of jobs in industrial areas?