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3.11 pm
Mr. Jeremy Browne: This stage of the legislative process is a little bit like an Oscars ceremony, as we run through all the people who are worthy of appreciation and thanks. I should like to thank the witnesses who appeared before us in the Public Bill Committee a few months ago, the civil servants for the assistance that they have given and the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) for his thorough and intelligent scrutiny of the Government. I thank the Economic Secretary for the considered way in which he has taken on board all the representations that have been made to him.
The hon. Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) is right to draw our attention to the way in which the Minister has found himself persuaded—I shall not call it a concession—by arguments that carers should be brought within the scope of the Bill. That is an important change, which will be appreciated by many people who feel somewhat neglected in other regards or feel that their burdens are not sufficiently appreciated by society as a whole. They will have looked upon our deliberations, and when they come to feel the full consequence of them they will appreciate what has been done.
There are two important features of the Bill, which have been the reasons why it has commanded support from all parties. First, it will provide a buffer for people who otherwise run their finances down, often because they have very little money, to a point where they have no security if there is some external shock for which they have not budgeted. That can make people’s lives difficult. As we have said before, if the washing machine breaks down or some feature of their life is suddenly changed without their being able to anticipate it, those people have no scope to address that difficulty. If the Bill helps in that regard, it is very much worth while.
The bigger objective is to give people who currently have the smallest stake in society a bigger stake, and particularly a financial one. The amounts of money saved do not have to be particularly large, but the people who are enticed to save money because of the Bill will feel that they are participating in a wider collective endeavour and that the actions that are taken in their community, whether by Government or other organisations, have some bearing on their lives. They will then feel that they have a stake in the process, which is hugely important. As I said on Second Reading, it is the equivalent of the share-owning democracy being extended to people in the bottom 10 to 20 per cent. of society. That will bring widespread social benefits if the Bill works out as successfully as we all hope.
Of course, we will see whether we have got some of the details right once the Bill takes effect, such as whether the 50p rate is correct, too high or too low and what people do after the two-year period has elapsed. However good the pilots were, we will never really know that until the scheme is properly up and running. I very much hope that it will succeed, and I have enjoyed participating and wish the Bill well.
3.15 pm
Mr. Walker: The Bill is a small step towards ensuring that this country rediscovers the savings culture. Our long-term prosperity will be built not on spend now, worry about it tomorrow but on savings and investment for the future. This is a small but important step.
We must drive discipline through the income scale. The Bill is about low earners, but the savings culture is relevant to everyone, wherever on the scale they appear, because they all have costly needs and demands. When people lose their job, it does not matter whether they are earning £10,000 or £100,000, they find themselves in difficulties. We must ensure that in future, people put some money aside for a rainy day.
We must remember that although the current financial crisis was not caused by people on low incomes, they are too often paying the price. Credit is drying up at their end of the scale as well, and they are struggling even more to gain affordable credit. As a result, they are being forced deeper into the arms of loan sharks charging exorbitant rates. We talk about putting things on the never-never, but as we know, as soon as someone misses a payment to loan sharks, they are on the doorstep making their life extremely difficult and miserable.
I need to be able to sell the Bill in Broxbourne, because it will be relevant to many of my constituents. I hope that the Minister and his civil servants will put
together a pack of information leaflets, brochures and so on so that I can play my part in selling it to my constituents and getting the citizens advice bureau involved. I want to play an active part in giving it the push that it deserves.
I congratulate the Minister on all his work on the Bill. I hope that when he gets back to his office this afternoon the phone will be ringing off the hook, with all the chastened chief executives of major clearing banks calling him up and demanding the chance to deliver this initiative as soon as it comes into being next year. It has been a great pleasure to serve on the Public Bill Committee and to participate in the Bill’s various parliamentary stages. I wish it the best of luck.
3.18 pm
Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): The Bill is a mouse of a measure to handle an elephant of a problem. The Liberal Democrats say that this is the Oscars ceremony, but can anyone believe that the Bill deserves an Oscar when it is well below the standard of an amateur production, albeit by a group of professionals who should know better? Indeed, Ministers’ audacity in not realising how feeble the Bill is in relation to the savings problem that they confront takes one’s breath away.
We meet against the background of a huge economic crisis, in which savers are being wiped out daily. If they have risky assets, they are falling in value catastrophically. If their money is on deposit in the banks, the interest rate is now tiny. In the stages of the Bill in which I participated, one of my biggest disappointments was the unwillingness or inability of the Economic Secretary and the Government to tell us anything about how the money would be invested and what sort of return it might earn, yet they have had a decade to prepare the measure. They tell us that they have consulted the savings industry, which will help effect the Bill, but there the Economic Secretary sits, thinking of something else, because he knows that he will get his Bill and he has not a clue about what sort of offer or deal will be available when it is enacted and translated into action on the ground.
It is a disgrace that so many people in this country are so poor that they have no savings. It is a disgrace that a savings culture for such people has not been more actively promoted to give them a buffer and more options and choices in life. It is a common aim of all the parties represented in the House to do something about it. However, do the Government genuinely believe that such a measure will work if interest rates for savers are 0.5 per cent. or 1 per cent.? Do they believe that it will work if all they do is borrow more and more, thus conveying the message that the way to get ahead and have a decent job is to borrow and borrow, not save and be prudent?
The Government are by far the most imprudent with whom the country has ever been cursed. They add trillions to the public debt— [Interruption.] They think that that is funny, but they have the audacity to say to the very poor that they must never borrow, but save, and that the Government will give them a tiny increment from the money that they will borrow on behalf of us all. They cannot even tell the prospective savers what sort of an interest rate they might get on their money.
It is typical of a Government who have lost the plot, who are wrecking the economy and driving us deeper and deeper into gross national debt that they introduce a pathetic, limp, delayed and inadequate Bill and feel proud of themselves.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
Delegated legislation
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): With the leave of the House, we shall take motions 4, 5 and 6 together.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),
That the draft Mutual Societies (Transfers) Order 2009, which was laid before this House on 19 January, be approved.
That the draft Industrial Training Levy (Construction Industry Training Board) Order 2009, which was laid before this House on 22 January, be approved.
That the draft Industrial Training Levy (Engineering Construction Industry Training Board) Order 2009, which was laid before this House on 22 January, be approved.— (Mr. Ian Austin.)
Business of the House
3.21 pm
The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Chris Bryant): I beg to move,
That, in respect of the Northern Ireland Bill, notices of Amendments, new Clauses and new Schedules to be moved in Committee may be accepted by the Clerks at the Table before the Bill has been read a second time.
The motion simply allows amendments to be tabled before Second Reading of the Northern Ireland Bill next Wednesday. That will be necessary if the programme motion, which will allow all the Commons stages of the Bill to be taken in one day, is accepted on Wednesday.
The context of the Bill is important and, indeed, is the reason for tabling the business motion, which, I hope, is for the convenience of the House. The agreement by the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland on 18 November set out a process that would move Northern Ireland towards the completion of devolution with the resolution of the thorny matter of policing and justice. That will be a crowning achievement, if we can get there.
The Northern Ireland Bill affects those elements of the November statement and the Assembly and Executive Review Committee report that require primary legislation. The Bill provides a framework for the post-devolution Administration—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. I am sorry to interrupt the Deputy Leader of the House, but, to echo his first words, the motion is narrow, and we should not start to anticipate the programme motion, which may be tabled at a later stage. If he seeks to widen the argument now, apart from my having the duty to rule him out of order, he would widen the debate to the extent that other hon. Members might want to participate. Then we really would have a problem.
Chris Bryant: That is of great assistance to my speech. I do not wish to stray into considering the programme motion—I merely wanted to provide some context so that people understand that the only reason for the business of the House motion is to enable Members to table amendments in the next few days. If they are tabled tomorrow, Monday or Tuesday, they could be published before Second Reading. That is not the House’s normal custom. It is necessary only because we hope that the programme motion will be carried next Wednesday. That would enable us to take all the Bill’s stages in one day.
One other point is material. The House requires speed only because there will be further stages after the Bill completes its passage here—namely, a Bill in the Assembly to establish the department of justice and a resolution by the Assembly, followed by Orders in Council, which must then come before the House.
Mr. Deputy Speaker, you agreed with me that the motion is a simple one. I recognise that the time scale for the legislation is compressed, but the Government have allowed 10 days between the introduction of the Bill and the debates to ensure that all right hon. and hon. Members can familiarise themselves with the detail and, if necessary and if they choose to do so, table amendments before Second Reading. I hope that the motion has the support of the House today.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I call Mr. Shailesh Vara. Let me say to the hon. Gentleman that it is helpful to rise in one’s place if one is seeking to be called.
3.24 pm
Mr. Shailesh Vara (North-West Cambridgeshire) (Con): I may have been here three and a half years, but your advice is always welcome, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It shows that no matter how long one has been here, there are always things to learn. I will keep my comments brief. We are operating under unusual circumstances, and, in a different context, we on the Conservative Benches would perhaps have taken a different view. However, all things considered, we will be supporting the motion before us.
3.25 pm
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD): This debate is about an unusual procedure, although obviously not one that is out of order, because it has occasionally been used before. However, it is an unusual procedure to enable amendments to be tabled before Second Reading. We have procedures in this House for a reason. We have them to allow orderly debate, particularly on legislation, in order to ensure that Members have proper opportunities to raise points that they think are important, that those points are properly considered by the proposers of the Bill—in this case the Government—and that there is a possibility to amend the legislation.
That is why we have the well-established procedure of after First Reading having, Second Reading, which is an opportunity to consider the principles of a Bill. Following Second Reading, we have the opportunity to table amendments, with careful provisos to ensure that amendments are not tabled at the last moment and, therefore, that amendments do not come before the House that hon. Members have not had the opportunity to peruse properly. Then we have the Committee stage, which enables proper clause-by-clause, line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill. Then, again after an appropriate period, the Bill, as amended, is reported to the House, with the opportunity for amendments to be tabled and for further consideration before Third Reading.
Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD): We are talking about hon. Members having the opportunity to peruse amendments, but it is crucial that the process should give outside organisations and outside interests the time to look at what has been tabled and therefore the chance to influence hon. Members.
Mr. Heath: I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend: that is why there should be substantial reasons for deviating from the normal process.
I do not wish to pre-empt the consideration of the programme motion, which we anticipate will come before us next week. However, in considering the motion before us today to enable the tabling of early amendments, which is predicated on the assumption that the programme motion will go through and that it will require the House to consider all stages of the Bill in one day, we should at least have the opportunity to raise our concerns.
Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) (Lab): The problem with the programme motion next week is that it is like a mafia offer. If we debate the programme motion, protest at how short it is and relate it to this debate, we will be eating into the precious minutes available for Second Reading, Committee and Report. Also there might be statements. It is a charade.
Mr. Heath: I have a good deal of sympathy for what the hon. Gentleman is saying.
What might be the reason for the proposal to table amendments before the basic principles of the Bill have been considered on Second Reading? There are two possible arguments. One is that the urgency of the matter will be such that a programme motion will receive ready assent from hon. Members once it is put before the House, because the urgency is transparent. However, we know that the deadline to complete the remaining stages of the Bill in good order—as many of us want to do—before Royal Assent is not until the end of March. This is the lightest legislative Session that we have ever had, and there is ample time to give more than one day to the consideration of this important Bill. It could have historic significance for Northern Ireland and we ought to give it proper consideration. The argument that we need to be able to table amendments early because this is a matter of urgency is unsustainable, because it would be quite possible for the House to maintain its normal procedures without difficulty in this regard.
The other, less satisfactory, argument would be to suggest that there was consensus among all those in the House on the objectives and details of the Bill and that any amendments should be tabled early to enable proper and swift progress to be made. I do not believe that such consensus exists, however. Yes, there is consensus on the final objective of the Bill. I doubt whether any hon. Member does not wish to see the repatriation to Northern Ireland of the justice functions to ensure proper devolution. The issue is not the final objective, but the detail.
The Bill is not that long; it contains only five clauses. It would not take long to give any amendments proper consideration in Committee in the normal way. So we are talking about a week—or perhaps two, at a maximum—in Committee. That would not disturb the timetable— [ Interruption. ] The Minister says that it would, but he cannot deny that we have a window of opportunity between now and the end of March for the Bill to be given Royal Assent— [ Interruption. ] He says that that is not the case. Will he please tell the House why not?
Chris Bryant: The Government are very keen to ensure that all the processes to which I have referred—some of which, including the timing, are not within our gift and have to be undertaken by the Assembly in Northern Ireland—can be completed by the summer recess. In order for that to happen, the Bill has to be out of both Houses by mid-March.
Mr. Heath: I think that the Minister is badly advised on that point. I think that that is not the case, but he will no doubt check the actual terms with his colleagues in the Northern Ireland Office.
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