Backbench Business Committee - Minutes of EvidenceTranscript of representations made on Tuesday 26 November 2013

HOUSE OF COMMONS

REPRESENTATIONS

MADE BEFORE THE

BACKBENCH BUSINESS COMMITTEE

BACKBENCH DEBATES

TUESDAY 26 NOVEMBER 2013

MR MICHAEL MEACHER AND SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY

GERAINT DAVIES

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Representations

Made before the Backbench Business Committee

on Tuesday 26 November 2013

Members present:

Natascha Engel (Chair)

Mr David Anderson

John Hemming

Pete Wishart

Mr Michael Meacher and Sir Peter Bottomley made representations.

Q1 Chair: We have officially been given by the Government two end-of-the day slots. The first is Wednesday 4 December, and the second is Thursday 5 December. Now, 5 December is the autumn statement, which is usually two hours, so we anticipate that the slot that we have available on 5 December is four hours, and the slot on 4 December could be anything. It could be as little as half an hour, or it could be four hours. We never know at the end of the day. With that in mind, could you let us know what you are after? Are you looking at something that is further along in the calendar?

Mr Meacher: In the light of what you have said, I think we would certainly want Wednesday if possible.

Q2 Chair: Would you like to speak to your proposal?

Mr Meacher: Yes. Everyone has been given the title: "that a committee of inquiry be established to investigate the impact of the Government’s welfare reforms on the incidence of poverty." Obviously, it is topical in view of the fact that we have now had something of the order of 40% cuts in departmental expenditure, amounting to somewhere towards £80 billion, and cuts in benefit that amount to about £18 billion, with the Chancellor saying that there will be something of the order of £40 billion after the election. Those are very large cuts, as everyone knows. It is necessary and proper that there should be an official and authoritative examination of the impact that it is having on poverty. There has been a lot of discussion about it, but there has not been that kind of official and authoritative statement. That is what we are asking the House to agree.

Q3 Chair: Okay.

Sir Peter Bottomley: May I add two points? The first is that this is asking for something to happen, which is a proper role for Parliament. Some inquiries such as that of Booth were unofficial. Other studies in the blue papers going back over 150 years were more official and very useful to parliamentary understanding and Government action. There may be different views about whether cuts to avoid more borrowing are worse or better. To have a study of the impact on people is worth while. We are not asking the Committee to agree that there should be that study or inquiry. We are asking that Parliament should have the chance to debate it and put the issue forward.

Q4 Chair: The Clerk has just passed me a note to say that it would be better for the motion to read, "That in the opinion of this House a commission of inquiry should be established." I do not think that we ourselves have the power.

Sir Peter Bottomley: If I had not become so tongue-tied, I would have said we would accept happily advice on how the motion could best be put.

Q5 Chair: The only other thing I would say is that you have cross-party names but not very many.

Sir Peter Bottomley: Can I say that I came into Parliament because my wife had been working for the Child Poverty Action Group with Frank Field, where he paid her £12 a week and thought that was overpaying her? She was doing budgeting studies on low-income families, which were crucial to the then Government’s understanding that brought in family allowance for the first child. That developed into a credit where the tax allowance changed. The number of people we would expect to start or support this inquiry is relatively low. The importance of it is about as broad as you can get. We have 700,000 children born each year. Half of them are born to first-time parents, so there are more than 2 million people each year where the poverty question is in front of them.

Q6 Chair: I was not disputing that. I was talking in terms of a debate. I assume you are asking for three hours.

Mr Meacher: For three hours.

Q7 Chair: While all of you have a lot to say, with only three names down, we would need to be persuaded that you had enough names of people who would take part in a debate that would last for three hours.

Sir Peter Bottomley: Frank Field has written books on the subject and argued strongly for it. He was involved as a Minister as well as a Back Bencher. There are others on my wing of the Conservative party who are trying to get a mixture of wealth and welfare. I think you will find the numbers coming in as willing volunteers rather than as pressed men and women.

Q8 Chair: Could you supply us with those names? That would be really helpful.

Mr Meacher: Yes. Before the end of the week, I could give you a dozen names.

Q9 John Hemming: I would presume they could have a motion to establish a parliamentary Committee.

Sir Peter Bottomley: If a parliamentary Select Committee decided to do it, that would be fine. I do not think it is one for a banking commission. I think it requires experts to do it in the open.

Mr Meacher: Parliamentary Committees to my mind means Select Committees, whereas this would be something appointed by the Government and therefore have that status. Select Committees have status but not in quite the way of those appointed by Government.

Q10 John Hemming: If that is not what you want it to do then it is no good to you.

Sir Peter Bottomley: Chair, one thing you might think of asking in private session is which of your fellow Members are disinterested in the subject.

Mr Anderson: That would be about 647.

Q11 John Hemming: If I could speak in defence of the Chair’s points on this. The difficulty is comparing objectively different people’s presentations to the Committee. Regardless of our knowledge of other people, if we say to everyone, "You have got to turn up with at least 10 or 20 names," that is an objective comparison that can be made. We are aware that it is an important issue.

Mr Meacher: I did ask Simon Hughes from the Liberal Democrats, and he did say he would make every effort to attend, although he has obviously not been able. He was very keen to support it.

Q12 Chair: That’s fine. In terms of the representation and the idea, you have brought a very good idea to us. The content is not irrelevant, but we judge it by how many people there are, what you are asking for and whether we have the time to allocate. Those are the things we look at. We will need numbers and names of people who you know will be able to participate in the debate.

Mr Meacher: I would be very surprised if it was fewer than 20 or 30.

Sir Peter Bottomley: He’ll do it over the next few days.

Q13 Chair: Fantastic.

Sir Peter Bottomley: We are also prepared to take the risk if the time that becomes available is smaller than possible because of what is happening that day.

Q14 Chair: Sure. It’s the vote you’re after, not the debate so much.

Sir Peter Bottomley: To win a vote would be marvellous, but we know in practice that that seldom happens in this House unless the Government are formally in favour. The key point is to get the idea launched and to get the parliamentary expression of opinion and that kind of thing, which has led to all kinds of change in the past, such as votes for women, old-age pensions and my being able to go to university without having to pay for it.

Q15 Chair: Thank you very much. I think we have got everything we need. We will get back to you after we have had our private session this afternoon.

Mr Meacher: And I will get the names to you.

Chair: That’s wonderful. Thank you.

Geraint Davies made representations.

Q16 Chair: Geraint, you’re on.

Geraint Davies: The form has been put in by Stephen Metcalfe, who is the chair of the all-party group on Visteon pensioners, of which I am the vice-chair. People may know that Visteon was a spin-off of the Ford Motor Company. It provided parts to Ford and was put to one side. It was basically the only supplier of parts to Ford. Part of Ford’s strategy was to have other sourcing methods in Korea and elsewhere and to run down Visteon. Thousands of workers across Britain in Visteon had been guaranteed that their pensions would be protected, but the pensions were £49 million light to start with, and by the end of the 10-year period, in which Visteon lost £1 billion, they were something like £350 million short-changed and they ended up with half their pensions.

I have tabled a private Bill, the Multinational Motor Manufacturing Companies (Duty of Care to Former Employees) Bill, which has a wider brief. The onus of this debate is on the duty of multinational companies generally to former employees, alongside a general interest in their duties to provide-

Q17 Chair: So what would be the title of your debate?

Geraint Davies: The current one is "Ford UK duty of care to Visteon pensioners", but I think we will change it to "multinational motor companies’ duty of care to former employees". Obviously, it has been titled that way is because there is particular interest about that company at this time.

Q18 Chair: It is a general debate that you are asking for?

Geraint Davies: That’s right, yes. In terms of the breadth of interest, there are 45 names on this form supporting an early-day motion. I should mention that the all-party group contains a number of other names. In terms of balance, there are another eight names of Conservatives who do not habitually sign early-day motions.

Q19 Chair: Geraint, sorry. Has the list of supporting Members been taken off an early-day motion, or is it a list of people who have indicated to you that they are interested?

Geraint Davies: Yes, this is a list from an early-day motion, but in addition there is an all-party group, which contains another eight Conservative MPs who are not on that list because they don’t sign early-day motions, including Rebecca Harris, John Baron, Charles Walker and David Burrowes.

Pete Wishart: I don’t know that signing an early-day motion necessarily means that you want a debate on the issue.

Q20 Chair: The way that we do it is that if we allocate time-this is just from past experience-we ask the lead Member to ask other Members to say that they will take part in a debate if they are here. That is in order that we can allocate the time accordingly. If three Members guarantee that they will be there that will not fill three hours, whereas if 40 Members all say they are absolutely desperate to debate this issue then we will look at giving you more time. That is all it is, but we need to have a list of Members who you have either spoken to or e-mailed with, who have said that they will participate in the debate.

Geraint Davies: Right. At least 20 Members will participate, because we had a Westminster Hall debate which had something like 15 Members involved.

Q21 Chair: When was that? [Interruption.] Right, December last year, so it was a year ago, Geraint. Was that a half-hour debate?

Geraint Davies: No, it must have been 90 minutes, because a number of people spoke. We are hoping to get a debate which is between 90 minutes and three hours. Stephen Metcalfe, who is the chair, sends his apologies because he cannot be allowed out of a Bill Committee on Europe, for some reason; but, anyway, there we are.

This has been running for some time, and something like 3,000 workers across the country are going to court with Ford about this issue. Part of the issue is that Ford has basically been blanking the all-party group and the debates and so on. The reason why we want to go to this next stage is to provide more parliamentary amplification and to say that massive multinationals cannot simply say, "Oh, forget Parliament." This sort of debate would obviously have an impact on the brand values of Ford and hence its bottom line. That is the ambition for doing this.

Q22 Chair: Okay. The only thing is that, because you do not have a votable motion and it is a general debate, it would not necessarily have to be in the Chamber. What you are after is length of time rather than a vote, isn’t it?

Geraint Davies: I take your point. I don’t mean to duck and weave, but it would be quite easy to formulate a motion which in essence would say that we assert that formulated companies have a duty of care to former employees in Britain, to Visteon workers, and should duly pay compensation into their underfunded pension fund to make good their pensions, in parallel to other Ford workers in the rest of Europe. That would be in essence the most-

Q23 Chair: Could I ask you to do something? Could you take this with you and find a cross-party group of supporters of this debate? They don’t necessarily have to come with you, but they need to decide whether you want to have a votable motion or you want to have a general debate on the topic. We really do need a longer list of names and also a decision about whether you want a votable motion or a general debate. You don’t necessarily have to come back to us, but perhaps you could communicate to us before we allocate this. Also, is there a time issue? Is there anything that you need to have this debate before, or is there an anniversary of any sort?

Geraint Davies: There is a commemoration of an anniversary, but again our ambition is to keep things going. It says in this note that we wish to commemorate "another wasted year and remind Ford that we believe it has a duty of care to former employees." This could in principle, I guess, move to after Christmas, if it wasn’t before Christmas. On your previous points, just to be clear, there are the EDM people and I can provide a list of the all-party group. I am not trying to make excuses and it is my fault, but this was drafted by Stephen and I think it might be useful to include the list of who in the all-party group would be prepared both to speak and to support a motion, but I can put that in writing.

Q24 Chair: No, it’s fine. Lots of Members come as a first step to having a debate. All I’m saying is that it would be very useful for us if after this meeting you could collect a group of cross-party Members who would participate in a debate. Also, if you have a cross-party group and decide whether what you actually want is a votable motion or a general debate, that would be very helpful.

Geraint Davies: May I ask whether a votable motion is preferable from your point of view? Otherwise it could just be another Adjournment debate, could it?

Q25 Chair: No, no; it is entirely up to you and what you think best serves your purpose. It’s just that if there is not a vote on it, then if we are completely overcrowded in the Chamber then we can put it into Westminster Hall. We have more time in the Chamber than we have in Westminster Hall, so the chances are much more likely that it will be in the Chamber anyway. So it is entirely up to you.

Geraint Davies: So you can have debates in the Chamber without a vote, as you said?

Chair: Yes. Absolutely.

Geraint Davies: So basically now I leave and provide you with more information. After you’ve had that information, you’ll make a decision. Is that right?

Chair: Yes.

Geraint Davies: On what timeframe do you need that information?

Chair: As soon as possible. As soon as you bring us that information, we can make a decision.

Geraint Davies: When would that be? Next week?

Chair: That would be next week, yes.

Geraint Davies: Thanks very much.

Chair: Thank you very much for coming in.