Business of the House

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Thursday 5th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

This week marks the 40th anniversary of when my secretary, Linda Spencer, first came to work at the House of Commons. I would like to thank Linda for all her hard work on my behalf and that of former colleagues, Gisela Stuart and the late John Fraser. Does the Leader of the House think she might find time for a short debate in which we can pay tribute to the hard work of all the staff—cleaners, catering staff, secretaries, researchers, admin workers, doormen and women, Hansard reporters, Clerks, librarians, maintenance workers, and police and security staff—because without their hard work, we could not possibly carry out our duties on behalf of our constituents?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I just say to the hon. Gentleman that I am very much aware of this matter and that a letter from me will be winging its way to Linda Spencer today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe]

I am grateful for that information. About this time last year, Ministers and officials told us that they could afford to close Baverstock school in Druids Heath because they had more than sufficient places in south Birmingham. Now it transpires that around that time they were planning to build another school a mile and a half down the road on playing fields used by local residents, including Maypole Juniors FC, for a variety of recreational activities. Can the Minister talk us through the economics of his decision?

[Mr Speaker]

Briefly.

Report of the Iraq Inquiry

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe]

In paragraph 402—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We cannot conduct debate with people yelling from a sedentary position in a disorderly manner, and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) must not do that. If the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) wants to give way later, he will, and if he does not, he will not. We will see how things go.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I do not want to keep our VIPs waiting too long—and they are our VIPs today—but there are a couple more Members whom I wish to accommodate.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

The latest analysis shows that the young people referred to in Question 3 stand to lose between £30,000 and £20,000 over their retirement, as a direct result of Government policy. Will the Minister explain how that contributes to intergenerational fairness?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Monday 8th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Dr Alan Whitehead—not here.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

What does the Minister estimate the total percentage rise for residents of Birmingham will be once the Chancellor’s social care tax, the increased police precept and the 1.9% council tax are added together?

Business of the House

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Thursday 10th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe]

That’s not what your Department says.

[Mr Speaker]

We are grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s sedentary chunter.

Water Cannon

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is a very important part of the hon. Gentleman’s constituency.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s decision. It feels as though the Government are preparing for a number of confrontations. Is she confident that the police have the necessary resources for what could prove to be a long, hot summer?

Serious Crime Bill [Lords]

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Monday 23rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I will concentrate on new clause 17. I assume that the Solicitor-General will not accept the proposal, but I hope he will tell the House where he is with the 12-week consultation. I join the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) in asking that we try to hammer out a sensible agreement on the issue—preferably between all parties and before the election—so that we get something done in the interests of children.

I assume that most of us here want children to be protected and that the vast majority of decent people who choose to work with children want to protect them. However, I do not want people to be driven into some kind of defensive posture whereby they are more concerned about protecting themselves than using their professional judgment because of a badly framed mandatory reporting rule. No one who has looked at Rotherham or at any of the other scandals can fail to have a sense of revulsion at those senior staff who turned a blind eye, those who did not want to know when they should have been asking serious questions of the more junior staff, and those who blamed the victims whom they should have been protecting.

We need a measure of mandatory reporting that prevents people from evading their responsibilities, and ensures that there is no, “I didn’t know; they didn’t tell me” get-out clause, and no opportunity for institutions or individuals to view reputational damage as an excuse to sweep things under the carpet. That kind of mandatory reporting could be useful in helping the rest of us to protect children. I therefore hope that the Minister will tell the House what his intentions are and where he is with the consultation and that, in the spirit of cross-party support, he will consider the offer from me and the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman finished just before I expected him to and the Minister will now wind up this group of amendments. There has been considerable demand to contribute to the separate groupings, so perhaps I can say publicly what I would otherwise have said privately, namely that if the Minister is able to wind up on behalf of the Government so that it is possible for us to move on by 7 o’clock—perhaps even earlier—we will dance round the mulberry bush in joyous appreciation of his efforts.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Monday 19th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

On 27 October at Education questions I asked the Minister for a rigorous evaluation of the Department’s various experiments in the provision and management of children’s services. The Minister denied he was experimenting and said he was engaged in a series of “carefully thought out” improvement measures. Strangely enough, he failed to mention improvement experts, so when did the need to appoint external improvement experts by tender become Government policy, how many experts does he estimate he will need, what will they cost, and who will evaluate whether this experiment is value for money or just another step down the slippery slope of commercialising services and commoditising children?

[Mr Speaker]

That is a fourfold question, but I know the dexterity of the Minister will facilitate a speedy single response.

Pensions and Benefits Uprating

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Thursday 4th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman did not appear to be in the Chamber at the start of the statement. Was he present then?

[Steve McCabe]

I think I was 25 seconds late, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

If the hon. Gentleman was not in the Chamber at the start of the statement, it is not seemly for him to seek to participate. I would not want him to behave in an unseemly manner—wittingly or unwittingly. I am in a sense saving the hon. Gentleman from himself in saying that he should not participate on this occasion. We will store him up and look forward to his words of wisdom subsequently.

Stamp Duty Land Tax

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Thursday 4th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Let me say to the hon. Gentleman, on the strength of having been in the House for 17 years, that I have from time to time observed quite a lot of things that do not constitute normal practice. Let me also say to him, for the avoidance of doubt, that government is seamless in procedural terms, and any Minister can move the motion on the Order Paper.

Is it commonplace for the Minister who has direct responsibility to be absent at the material moment? It is not, although, in fairness, it having happened now under this Government, I should point out that it did happen on one occasion under the last. It is an irregular state of affairs, but the Minister who should be here will, as I have said, be immensely grateful to the Minister for Pensions, both for his presence and for his quickness of mind and fleetness of foot in taking to the Dispatch Box. I think that we will leave it there for now.

It must be said that this sort of thing is to be deprecated—very strongly deprecated—but it does not happen very often, and I hope that it will not happen again. No doubt words can be had. It is everyone’s responsibility to keep an eye on the Annunciator. The Minister has a duty to be present at the appointed moment, and the appointed moment can be a movable feast. It is the responsibility of the Minister and the Whips to make sure that the Minister is present. He or she was not present, but the Minister for Pensions has helped out.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I just want to clarify something. If the Minister eventually manages to turn up, will it be seemly for him to take part in the debate, having not been here at the beginning?

[Mr Speaker]

The point about being here at the start relates to statements. I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not feel too sore about that.

[Steve McCabe]

Not at all.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his rather adroit piece of time-wasting.

Business of the House (Today)

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Monday 10th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This House agreed that the Home Secretary should speak so that she would right something that we all knew was wrong. This is simply a scoundrel’s defence. This is wrong.

[Mr Speaker]

No, no, no. The Home Secretary is entitled to say—and she will say—what she thinks, and the House must hear that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am always disappointed when I do so. I think that the “War and Peace” version should be lodged in the Library of the House for the delectation of hon. and right hon. Members in the long winter evenings that lie ahead.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

The Minister has decided to establish a second independent trust to provide children’s services in Slough, following the experiment in Doncaster, but what evidence is there of the success of that approach? Will he place such evidence in the Library and will he, like me, call for a rigorous independent evaluation of the experiment?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

The hon. Gentleman will know that the formation of the Doncaster trust was carried out over a long period with much reflection on what was the best solution for Doncaster, bearing in mind the specific issues it faced. Part of that has been making sure that the lessons we learn from Birmingham, and from Slough and other local authorities where there has been too much failure in children’s services over too many years, will form the picture of understanding of what works best. There is no “one size fits all” solution. The Hackney education trust was an extremely effective example of how standards can be raised over a 10-year period of stability. Our thinking reflects much of the result that came out of Hackney, but we have worked closely with the relevant local authorities and found the best solution for each individual local authority.

[Mr Speaker]

Mr McCabe.

[Steve McCabe]

I will just come back on that—[Laughter.]

[Mr Speaker]

I am not forcing the hon. Gentleman!

[Steve McCabe]

That is perfectly all right, Mr Speaker. Does the Minister want an independent evaluation of the experiment?

Royal Mail

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The Secretary of State did not hear the hon. Gentleman. I did, but perhaps he can put his question again.

[Steve McCabe]

I will try to say it louder, Mr Speaker. I asked if the Secretary of State regarded the sale as a personal political triumph.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

In terms of reducing reoffending, will the Secretary of State look urgently at the case of John Cronin, a convicted sexual predator who was originally given a life sentence? He has now been released on licence and has broken the terms of that licence, and apparently has not been returned to jail and cannot be put on the sex offenders register. He is a very dangerous man. Will the Secretary of State look urgently at that case?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. He is indeed, by all accounts, a dangerous man, but it is not immediately apparent what the relevance of his case is to the issue of financial inclusion programmes—

[Steve McCabe]

I was talking about reoffending.

[Mr Speaker]

Indeed, but not financial inclusion, which was the purport of the question. However, the Secretary of State is a dextrous fellow, and I am sure he can respond appropriately.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We are now all agog.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Very agog, Sir. Will the Secretary of State say when he plans to end the scandal of making welfare benefit payments to prisoners serving a sentence?

NHS Risk Register

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Wednesday 22nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe]

Off the top of my head. I can check the figure, because the Secretary of State wants to be accurate, but I think it is 36%—since he became Secretary of State. It is going up, and he must know that, because he was quite happy to cite other figures earlier.

The money should be spent on reducing waiting times; it should not be withheld by the SHAs to cover the cost of the reorganisation. The Minister of State says that that is not happening, but his own operating framework shows perfectly well that that is exactly what the money is being withheld for. It is spelt out in black and white in his own documents, and that is what is wrong at the moment.

The public feel that waiting times are rising, they have difficulty accessing GPs and they are worried about the confusion surrounding the measure. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) said earlier, in some parts of the country it is already destabilising the NHS, but what we have today is the Government dismissing all those arguments while hiding behind a cloak, saying, “Everything’s going to be okay, but we’re not going to tell you the facts of the matter.” It is disgraceful, and the Secretary of State knows perfectly well that during the years that he spent in opposition he would never have tolerated such behaviour. His behaviour since taking office has been to undermine the NHS and to waste every bit of political capital that the Tory party accumulated during its years in opposition.

That is what is fundamentally wrong with the measure. It does not matter how many times people try to deal with the minutiae of the risk register; the reality is that the report is there and the information is there. There is only one person hiding it, and he is sitting opposite me on the Government Front Bench at the moment. That is what the public know. This is no longer an argument confined to what happens in this Chamber; it has gone way beyond that. It has got to the stage where the Secretary of State’s credibility is on the line, and I am afraid that it has been lost.

[Mr Speaker]

We are grateful to the hon. Gentleman. The winding-up speeches will begin at 6.38 pm.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman should resume his seat. I fear that points of order might be in danger of transmuting into comments on past ministerial statements on a range of matters. If the hon. Gentleman is seeking to prove to me and the House what an assiduous member of the Health Committee—and of the previous Health and Social Care Public Bill Committee—he is, he has succeeded in his mission.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I just wonder whether you are keeping any score of how many mistakes, misquotes or misdirections to the House Cabinet Ministers are allowed to make before there is some attempt to call them to account.

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is no, but he has made his point. If there are no further points of order, we can come now to the ten-minute rule motion, for which the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) has been patiently waiting.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe]

Perhaps I can clarify matters a fraction for the hon. Gentleman. My point is that the police Minister and the Secretary of State inevitably have some responsibilities for the police that go beyond localism, as was discussed extensively in Committee. In fact, if I recall rightly, we discussed what would happen if the budget was set too low and therefore did not enable the police force to fulfil its obligations. The argument that the Minister advanced at the time was that the Secretary of State should have the power to step in. The hon. Gentleman seems to arguing for a pure form of localism that completely ignores that—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Interventions are becoming increasingly lengthy, and they need to be rather shorter.

Business of the House (Thursday)

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I think I am right in saying that the reference is to proceedings on an order, and if that be correct I stand by the proposition that I have just put to the House, which is that there is nothing further upon which I need to rule. But the right hon. Gentleman, although he has been here two decades or more, is, like we all are, on a learning curve, and, if in pursuit of those procedural matters he wishes to improve his knowledge, he can always consult the Clerks at the Table. He might find that a profitable exercise.

[Steve McCabe]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. What advice would you give me when I try to deal tomorrow with constituents who will want to know why I am not able to represent their views in the debate on tuition fees because of the disgraceful timetable, and why it was not possible, when 30 Labour Members sought to catch your eye tonight, for us to continue to query the business motion? When my constituents ask me if that smacks of a coalition dictatorship, what advice should I give them?

[Mr Speaker]

We must not continue the debate that has just been had. I would say that the hon. Gentleman is an experienced Member, and the notion that he needs advice from me about communication with his constituents is as flattering to me as it is insulting to him.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Monday 6th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The Minister of State will resume his seat. His purpose here is to answer questions about the policy of the Government, not that of the Opposition. I hope that that is now clear to him.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I know that some members of the coalition have trouble understanding what a pledge means, but after a bit of probing, the Home Secretary gave the House a commitment the other week to reduce immigration to tens of thousands by the end of this Parliament. Does that commitment still hold this week?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I beg the right hon. and learned Lady’s pardon, and I also beg Mr McCabe’s pardon as we have not yet heard from him and we want to do so. I call Mr Steve McCabe.

[Steve McCabe]

I feel so let down, Mr Speaker.

In her paper comparing the coalition to a difficult marriage, Miss van der Laan advises Back Benchers that they should

“never take advice from those who have secured Government jobs because their self-interest clouds their judgment.”

Is she right?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Tuesday 14th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is okay, but another time. We are grateful to the hon. Gentleman.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

13. What his most recent assessment is of the state of UK-Iranian relations; and if he will make a statement.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Steve McCabe

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is very little time left, so we need exceptionally short questions and short answers.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary referred earlier to the problem with some CCTV cameras in Birmingham. I understand that more than £3 million has been spent on cameras that are now covered with plastic bags. Does she intend to unmask the bureaucrat who is responsible for that fiasco?