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Sir Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield) (Con): Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on family courts, because she will be aware of growing concern about their operation? The judiciary and social services appear to decide the future of children—in some cases, the children have been kidnapped from their natural parents—and there is no opportunity for the parents or the media to cover these particular events. Is it not time that there was justice and fairness for natural parents? Children should not be dealt with in court, behind closed doors and in secret, where only the social services and judiciary have any say and they cannot be held to account.
Ms Harman: The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the family courts are incredibly important. They do decide children’s future and make life-changing decisions in respect of parents, especially when they order children to go for adoption or be placed in care. It is because of the importance of their work and of all those who work in them that we have introduced a measure of openness into the family courts. Although we must ensure the anonymity and privacy of children whose detailed family circumstances are being discussed in the courts, it is also important that there should be public confidence that people can see the evidence on which the courts are making those decisions. In the past week or so we have introduced openness in the family courts, so that people can see that the courts are doing their work fairly and that justice is not only done, but is seen to be done.
If I could say to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy)—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have made a ruling on this matter. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) is making an argument at the side of the Chair, but let us not take that matter any further. It is not helpful when hon. Members come to the Chair to put the case to me that the Leader of House had something to reply on the matter. [Interruption.] Order. I am not privy to what the Leader of the House might say, and I must decide what is taken on the Floor of the House and try to make sure that things are properly done.
Mr. Speaker: The right hon. and learned Lady is not going to mention anything about the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton, so I take it that that is the end of that matter. I call Mr. Hancock.
Mr. Mike Hancock (Portsmouth, South) (LD): May I draw to the attention of the Leader of the House early-day motion 581, in my name and that of 242 other hon. Members on the question of a proper requirement for food labelling, especially regarding chicken?
[That this House believes that all chicken meat, including imported chicken meat, should be labelled as to farming method and preferably stocking density; further believes the labelling regulation that requires packs of shell eggs to be labelled as to production method should be extended to chicken meat; congratulates Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Compassion in World Farming on their Chicken Out! campaign calling on supermarkets to introduce labelling as to farming method to allow consumers to make informed choices; notes that most UK chickens are still reared
intensively in overcrowded conditions and have been bred to grow so quickly that many suffer from lameness and heart problems; and calls on the Government to make it a requirement for all chicken producers to meet the conditions of the RSPCA’s Freedom Food scheme.]
When her ministerial colleagues come to the House next Thursday for the debate on food, farming and the environment, will she ask them to introduce proposals to make it a requirement on chicken producers to follow the freedom food scheme promoted by the RSPCA to provide proper transparency and an understanding of what people are actually eating when they eat chicken products?
Ms Harman: As I said to the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight), there is a debate on food, farming and environment next Thursday. The questions of food labelling, nutritional standards, school meals and healthy diets should perhaps be the subject of a topical debate.
Tony Lloyd (Manchester, Central) (Lab): May I urge on my right hon. and learned Friend the argument for a debate on public spending because it is in the interest of the whole country to know where cuts would fall. People in the public sector want to know whether those 10 per cent. of cuts would impact on their jobs, and on education and many other areas. Even people working in private firms dependent on Government contracts need to know how they would be affected. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) mentioned the steel industry, and that too would be hit by a 10 per cent. cut in public spending. It is important that we tease out where the Opposition parties—not just the Conservative party—stand on public spending, because it will affect people’s lives.
Ms Harman: I will take that as a suggestion for a topical debate. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) said that we needed a further debate next week on the economy, and we do have the opportunity of a topical debate. Perhaps we could have a topical debate on the impact on the economy and on public services of future investment in public spending.
We are clear that every penny of public money invested must be properly spent; that we have to bring the public finances back into balance over the medium and longer term; and that the taxes that should go up should be those on the highest earners. We are determined to protect capital investment in policing, education, health and transport. A 10 per cent. cut in public investment would cause serious concern for those services and all those who work in them. I will look to make that the subject of a topical debate next Thursday, so that the Opposition will have plenty of time to explain to those who depend on the public services how they will withstand 10 per cent. cuts.
Sir George Young (North-West Hampshire) (Con): In the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday on constitutional renewal, he said that the Government
“will work with a special parliamentary commission comprising Members from all sides of this House, convened for a defined period to advise on necessary reforms”.—[ Official Report, 10 June 2009; Vol. 493, c. 797.]
I welcome that statement. Can the Leader of the House now fill in the details? Who will sit on this new commission, what form will it take and when will it be set up? Is not the need for this commission the final nail in the coffin of the Modernisation Committee?
Ms Harman: I realise now that I failed to respond to the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) on the time frame for the announcements that were made by the Prime Minister yesterday. There will be the opportunity for me to bring before the House a resolution that will establish the Committee of the House, made up of—I hope—senior Members who have put a lot of time and effort into these issues, as the right hon. Gentleman has done, so that we can look at many of the proposals that have come, not just from the Modernisation Committee, but from the Procedure Committee and ad hoc groups such as Parliament First. Then we can see whether we can complete this work within a limited time frame, preferably before the House rises for summer. After all, most of these proposals have been knocking around for some time.
Members of the House need to get together and say what we need to do now to ensure that the House can work more effectively, especially in relation to the choosing and timetabling of non-Government business, especially on e-petitions and on strengthening the integrity and work of Select Committees. We should not hang around: we should make some decisions. It is right that that is not led by the Government, but by a Committee of the House. To facilitate that, I will bring a resolution to the House to set that Committee up.
I cannot tell the House at this stage how many members the Committee will have or who they will be, because we will have to have discussions on that. However, if hon. Members would like to put themselves forward to be considered for the Committee, they can let me know.
As for the timeliness of the measures to restore public confidence, the House will know that shortly we will have complete transparency on all the claims made by hon. Members and the allowances paid over the last four years. The House authorities will put those on the website very shortly. That transparency will be reassuring to the public.
The House will also know, from the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday, that there will be legislation on a new parliamentary standards authority. The Justice Secretary and I held talks with the leaders of all the other parties yesterday. I hope that we can have the necessary legislation before the House—and conclude all stages—before the House rises for the summer. The public want complete transparency. They also want to see that we are no longer deciding the rules for our allowances and administering them. They want that to be done independently, and that is something on which all the party leaders agree. It is not technical and complicated, so we should just get on and do it.
The third element of restoring public confidence concerns those occasions on which Members were paid allowances to which they were not entitled and that did not comply with the rules as they were at the time, which might have been the result of a mistake, not wrongdoing. Whatever the reason, those overpayments need to be paid back. The reassessment process will apply to all Members, not just those of a particular
party. All claims for the past four years will be considered. The public can then be sure of complete transparency. All the claims will be on the website and there will be a new independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to administer all claims, and money that needs to be paid back will be paid back. We can also improve the way in which this House does business, and in that way we will ensure that the public have the confidence that they are entitled to have in this House of Commons.
Mr. Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op): Would my right hon. and learned Friend agree that some of the constitutional issues trailed yesterday by the Prime Minister are so fundamentally important that they should be fully debated in this Chamber? As Chairman of the Children, Schools and Families Committee, I single out the proposed change to voting age. It is fashionable to think that reducing the voting age to 16 is a brave, new approach, but the implications of becoming an adult at 16, and losing all the protections of “Every Child Matters” and the five outcomes, are very serious. We must not imperil children and truncate childhood without serious deliberation.
Ms Harman: The argument about the age at which people are entitled to vote is worth having. No one could get the impression from the statement that the Prime Minister made yesterday that a snap decision would be made on that. I have indicated those aspects of the statement on which we want prompt and expedited action, but the Prime Minister also mentioned areas in which further debate is necessary. I know that people have strongly held views on different sides of the argument about voting at 16. I think that there is a strong case for very good citizenship education in schools, and as soon as that is finished, people could come out of the classroom into the polling station. There is an argument for votes at 16. I appreciate that some people do not think so, but no one can seriously argue that giving young people the right to vote at 16 is equivalent to child abuse. We need a sensible debate.
John Bercow (Buckingham) (Con): Further to the question by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) and in the light of the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday on constitutional renewal, may we please have a debate next week in Government time on the Floor of the House on pre-legislative scrutiny? Given that there is widespread agreement across the parties about the benefits of such scrutiny, but that in the Session 2007-08 only nine of 31 Government Bills were published in draft, would not such a debate allow the Government the opportunity to state whether they agree that in future, pre-legislative scrutiny in the name of better Bills should become the norm rather than the exception?
Ms Harman: I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s sentiments. We need more scrutiny in advance. The publication of the draft legislative programme is an attempt to ensure that the public can be more involved in the likely legislative process. We need more Bills to be published in draft, but if the time scale is urgent we also need to retain some flexibility for the Government. The ability to publish clauses in draft also exists.
I agree with the sentiment that the hon. Gentleman has expressed, although I am not quite sure where his suggestion would come in the process, but I will reflect on that point.
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab): I am grateful to the Leader of the House for organising a general debate on European affairs. Will she arrange for the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy), who has been working very hard in the European Councils to try to get an amendment on the extension of copyright for recording artists, to be at that debate? Is she aware that a meeting of COREPER takes place today and that the Czech presidency is abusing its position as president to keep the British proposal to extend copyright to 70 years off the agenda? The Czech presidency is trying to keep it off the agenda for the Council meeting at which the matter should be decided before its presidency ends.
The work of the British Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills must be commended for getting the issue on to the agenda and on getting it the support of Parliament. Surely we cannot allow subterfuge by the Czech presidency to prevent this matter, which has a majority in Council, from going to Council.
Ms Harman: My hon. Friend has made a number of important points that I will draw to the attention of the Ministers who will be participating in the European affairs debate next Tuesday.
Julia Goldsworthy (Falmouth and Camborne) (LD): May we have a debate on the effectiveness and accountability of regional development agencies? The Government say that RDAs are key to promoting economic recovery, but this week, the South West of England Regional Development Agency announced tens of millions of pounds-worth of cuts in funding, which means that projects such as dredging the docks in Falmouth, which will safeguard existing jobs and create new jobs, will now not go ahead. Does that not make a mockery of the scrutiny process, as the Regional Select Committee will, at best, get to take a look at the decision after it has already happened?
Ms Harman: The Regional Select Committees, in particular—and the Regional Grand Committees, when they start their work—will be able to hold the chief executives of RDAs to account for their plans. They will be able to require them to set out their plans and will scrutinise them, especially if the agencies do not stick to those plans or deviate from them in a way that damages the local economy. I do not know whether the hon. Lady plays a part in the Regional Select Committee, but hon. Members should not complain about the democratic deficit in terms of the RDAs unless they are prepared to participate in the Select Committees that have been established precisely to hold them to account.
Dr. Phyllis Starkey (Milton Keynes, South-West) (Lab): I have been making complaints on behalf of my constituents for some time about the poor performance of rail services on the section between Milton Keynes and Euston. Those services have been improving but last week there were a series of failures that were the responsibility of Network Rail involving speed restrictions, points failures, loss of signalling and a complete signalling failure, which caused major disruptions. May we have a debate about Network Rail’s stewardship of the west coast main line track and its inability to allow the train operators to deliver reliable services for my constituents?
Ms Harman: I know that this issue affects a number of Members. Indeed, it was raised in last week’s business questions. I think it would be a useful subject for a Westminster Hall debate and I pay tribute to the work that my hon. Friend has done on behalf of her constituents in Milton Keynes, because railway services are an important issue for her constituents.
Mr. Michael Jack (Fylde) (Con): At its conference yesterday, the NHS Confederation indicated that it believes that, after 2011, the NHS will face the most sustained and severe fall in funding in its history. Given that that is an important ingredient in the requests that have been made for a debate on public expenditure, will the Leader of the House temper her enthusiasm for granting that debate for a moment until the National Audit Office has had a chance to publish an independent report that illustrates what public expenditure actually means—Department by Department—in years two and three of the current public expenditure round? It is clear from what the NHS Confederation says that that is when the Government cuts will bite.
Ms Harman: Obviously, we consider any reports from the NAO and listen to what is said by the NHS Confederation, but nobody could doubt the Government’s commitment to the national health service since 1997. We have made a massive investment in hospitals, clinics and in the training of doctors, dentists and nurses, and have given a massive commitment to health services across the board, none of which would have happened had the Conservatives remained in power. If public spending is slashed, the people who will suffer will be those who cannot afford to go private. We will protect public services.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab): May I say to my right hon. and learned Friend that when we have the debate on public expenditure, we should examine the Tory 10 per cent. cuts, but it is also important that we should have a balanced debate? Does she agree that we should consider the impact of the Government’s public expenditure of the past 12 years on constituencies such as mine, which have seen massive investments of capital expenditure on schools, health care facilities, children’s centres, nurseries and sports facilities, with a new running track and a massive refurbishment of the library and learning centre in my constituency. Should we not consider the impact on our constituencies of the Government’s public expenditure?
Ms Harman: I will take my hon. Friend’s contribution to mean that he adds his weight to the suggestion that we have a debate on the economy, and, in particular, on the effect of capital spending. The important point is that capital spending is not just about jobs, such as those in the construction industry—when the private sector construction has been hard hit, it would be disastrous to cut investment in public capital, which provides jobs—but we also need to continue to invest in education, transport and policing. I shall take his proposals as a suggestion for a topical debate next week.
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