Dame Angela Eagle
MP for Wallasey · Labour · United Kingdom
“The Kremlin increasingly relies on proxy organisations to pursue its objectives, seeking to undermine our security while maintaining a degree of plausible deniability. The so-called GRU Volunteer Corps is a clear example of that approach. It is not an independent force or a loose collection of volunteers.”
“This Government have introduced support for the Jewish communities who have been threatened and directly targeted by IRGC proxies. Just a couple of days ago, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced an extra £250 million for policing to ensure that we can support and protect our Jewish communities.”
“I will move on to the Islamic Movement of Companions of the Right. The IMCR has publicly claimed seven attacks at UK locations linked to Jewish and Israeli communities and to Persian-language media, including the antisemitic arson attack on four Hatzola ambulances in Golders Green on 23 March.”
“We expect platforms to act responsibly and not to provide space for state threat-linked activity, propaganda or recruitment. We will be keeping a close eye on that, as well as liaising with social media companies to tell them about how this law impacts them.”
“The IRGC Quds Force and the IRGC Intelligence Organisation, together with the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, form the Iranian intelligence apparatus. As a key component of the Iranian state’s security apparatus, the IRGC is answerable directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader.”
“It provides a targeted and proportionate means of disrupting those involved in foreign power threat activity based on the recommendations of Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of state threat legislation. To answer the hon.”
The complete record
Every one of 5,924 lines we hold for Dame Angela Eagle, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 77 of 119.
“We know that for 39 out of the 40 months since the election prices have grown faster than wages. Will the Deputy Leader of the House now admit what we all know: that it was the Chancellor’s city bonus tax dodge that accounted for the surge in earnings in that one isolated month? So while living standards are falling bonuses are soaring, and the Chancellor creates a bonus tax loophole for his mates. Will the Leader of the House therefore arrange for a statement from the Chancellor about why he prioritises his millionaire friends over tackling our cost of living crisis? Last week, I asked the Deputy Leader of the House why he is campaigning against the closure of his local hospital, despite being in the Government responsible for it.”
“So will the Deputy Leader of the House arrange for an urgent statement to clarify Government policy on energy, and can we have a statement from the Prime Minister on whether he thinks Sir John Major is living in a Marxist universe too? The Conservative party in the 1992 Parliament is remembered for being one of the most disloyal in its history, but I have been looking at the numbers and it turns out that the current crop of Government MPs are three times worse than they were then, and I think the Patronage Secretary’s expression says it all, because he has to deal with them. It sounds like the Prime Minister needs to listen to his predecessor not only on energy prices, but also on how to control his rebellious Back Benchers. While Sir John told them to put up or shut up, the current Prime Minister just caves in.”
“Two weeks ago, the Prime Minister said we were living in “some sort of Marxist universe” —[ Official Report , 9 October 2013; Vol. 568, c. 152.] for suggesting a 20-month energy price freeze, and he said it was not possible to intervene in a market to set prices. This week, his Government signed a nuclear deal with the Chinese which sets prices not for 20 months, but for 35 years. On Tuesday Sir John Major announced his conversion to a windfall energy tax and worried about the silent have-nots who have to choose between heating and eating this winter. Meanwhile, No. 10’s advice to those who are cold was to wear a jumper. It speaks volumes when the Tory ex-Prime Minister responsible for the creation of the big six energy companies sounds more in touch than the current Prime Minister.”
“In opposition, the Prime Minister hugged huskies and pretended to be green, and only last year he was boasting that his green levies were bigger than ours, but last week his Back-Bench climate change deniers were agitating to abolish them, reducing bills by hitting the poorest hardest and abandoning energy efficiency altogether, and yesterday, in a blind panic, the Prime Minister announced that he had given in to them. The Deputy Prime Minister looked like he had swallowed a wasp, and Lib Dem spinners dismissed it as a “panicky U-turn” which will not be allowed to “dictate Government policy.” So I think we now know what the new Tory policy is, but can the Deputy Leader of the House tell us what the Government’s policy is?”
“The Chancellor’s inadequate Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill has been substantially changed by last-minute amendments in the Lords, making it a very different and much longer Bill from the one we debated here originally. Given the importance of banking regulation to everybody’s living standards, will the Deputy Leader of the House now give us an assurance that sufficient time will be allocated to debate what will be essentially a very different piece of legislation when it finally returns to this place? In the last two weeks, three of the big six energy firms have announced price rises of around 10%. To stand up to this abuse of market power, Labour will freeze prices until 2017, but the Government’s energy policy is in chaos.”
“At the rate they are losing members, next year they could hold it in a telephone box over the weekend. This business statement once again shows we are kicking our legislative heels in the Commons while the other place is yet again stuffed full of legislation. The Government still have to find time for us to discuss the Offender Rehabilitation Bill even though it completed its Lords stages months ago. It has now taken Labour to announce an Opposition day debate for the Government’s underhand privatisation of the probation service to be discussed at all. This is now the third time I have had to ask: can the Deputy Leader of the House confirm when this Bill will return to the Commons?”
“I thought for a minute there that time had reversed and was going backwards, but the Deputy Leader of the House has put us straight. May I again pass on my best wishes for the speedy recovery of the Leader of the House? We hope to see him back in his place next week—no discourtesy is intended to the Deputy Leader of the House, who has filled in entirely, as we would have expected him to, with great aplomb. May I thank the Deputy Leader of the House for giving us next week’s business and also next year’s recess dates, especially around the conference recess? I understand why the Scottish referendum has disrupted the usual arrangements but it does seem a bit strange that we have had to make changes to accommodate the 2014 Liberal Democrats conference.”
“Is there not a pattern of behaviour here: the Deputy Leader is campaigning against himself on St Helier, the Deputy Prime Minister is campaigning against himself on library closures forced by Government cuts in Sheffield, and now they are ready to sign up to a new pledge on tuition fees? The more they protest, the more we see right through them: you can’t trust the Liberal Democrats.”
“I noted this week with interest that the Deputy Prime Minister has made another Lib Dem pledge on tuition fees: he has promised not to increase them to £16,000 a year. Will the Deputy Leader be signing up to that one, too, or has he learned his lesson? I am sure nothing will worry the hundreds of thousands of young people considering going to university more than another promise from the Liberal Democrats on tuition fees. I understand that the Deputy Leader is heavily involved in his local save St Helier hospital campaign. In fact, he is so involved that the phone number and address on the campaign website is that of his own constituency office. To clear up any confusion, can the Deputy Leader of the House confirm that he is actually a part of the Government who are closing the hospital?”
“Yesterday the Prime Minister could not clear up the confusion over his own policy on marriage tax breaks, which will benefit only one third of couples. The Deputy Prime Minister has made his opposition clear. So when this policy eventually comes to the House, will the Deputy Leader of the House and his party be voting against it, or will this just be another example of the Liberal Democrats saying one thing and doing another? The Deputy Leader of the House will remember that before the last election he signed the National Union of Students pledge to vote against any increase in tuition fees. I am sure he also remembers that just months after the election he was voting to treble them.”
“I suppose that we are going to find out today. I am sure the Deputy Leader is aware, however, that for 39 of the 40 months for which the Government have been in power, prices have risen faster than wages. Labour’s promise to freeze energy bills until 2017 would be of real benefit to those who are struggling. What is the Government’s policy? The Tories want to scrap energy efficiency measures for the poorest in order to reduce bills, but the Deputy Prime Minister thinks that that would put prices up. What does the Deputy Leader think? We have heard only this morning that British Gas is going to increase its prices by nearly 10%. Is the Deputy Leader proud that the Government are arguing among themselves while the cost of living squeeze just gets worse? Would it not be easier to freeze energy bills?”
“At the Tory party conference, the Health Secretary was at it again, promising “for those who need residential care…We’ll stop them ever having to sell the home they have worked hard for all their life to pay for the cost of it.” However, during the debate on the Care Bill in the other place, those grand ministerial claims have been exposed as empty PR posturing, and the truth has finally emerged: older people will be helped only if they have less than £23,000 in the bank. Given the huge disparity between the Health Secretary’s claims and the modest reality, will the Deputy Leader of the House arrange for an urgent statement to be made? It is a rare treat to face the Deputy Leader across the Dispatch Box. I often wonder what he is thinking when he is sitting next to the Leader of the House on Thursday mornings.”
“Last week, I asked where the Offender Rehabilitation Bill (Lords) had disappeared to. I note that it is still missing. Will the Deputy Leader of the House confirm my suspicion that the Government are deliberately holding up the Bill so that they can privatise the probation service before they bring the Bill back to the House of Commons? When the Government announced new plans for the funding of social care, they claimed that no elderly person would be forced to sell his or her home to pay for it.”
“I thank the Deputy Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business. I also send my best wishes to the Leader of the House as he recuperates from his minor operation. Let me begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), who yesterday won the election to become Deputy Speaker. I hope that she will not mind my saying that it is unusual to see a Scottish Tory being elected. I am sure that I speak for many Labour Members when I say that it has certainly been an experience to be on the receiving end of the vote-gathering techniques of the Conservative party. We enjoyed welcoming all the candidates to a parliamentary Labour party hustings, and I am pleased to say that we managed to resist the temptation to set them a bushtucker trial.”
“Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) is shooting up the Amazon charts as a result of all the unwanted publicity. I am sure we all look forward to the new Minister telling us what really happened at Roswell, whether NASA faked the moon landings and whether Elvis ever did actually leave the building.”
“All that was missing on Monday was some tense music and Dermot O’Leary giving out hugs at the end of Downing street, although I did think that some aspects of the Government’s reshuffle really were worthy of reality TV. First, a Liberal Democrat, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), was sacked for being too right wing. Given that criterion, I am surprised the Deputy Prime Minister managed to spare himself. Then we realised that the Prime Minister’s new strategy to stop his Back-Bench rebellions was to give as many people as possible a job. It seems that a small state needs a very big Government. It then emerged that the Deputy Prime Minister had put a conspiracy theorist in the Home Office behind the back of the furious Home Secretary. I understand that the book written by the Minister of State, Home Department, the hon.”
“Reshuffles on either side are a difficult time for everyone and I want to take a moment to recognise the service of all those leaving their respective Front Benches as a result of Monday’s events. The Leader of the House and I have both been on the right and wrong sides of reshuffles in our time, so we have a personal insight into what people go through. I salute the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who lost his Government job on Monday and was good natured enough to repeat a tweet he received after he had been given the bad news, which said: “Fisheries Minister sacked. Word is he’s gutted”. Inexplicably, our friends in the Press Gallery treat reshuffle day as though it were a nerve-wracking episode of “The X Factor”.”
“We are just back from the conference recess and we learned a lot from the conferences of the two parties in power. The Liberal Democrats believe they have a right to be ensconced in their ministerial cars in perpetuity, whoever wins the election, and the Tories dream of a land of hope and glory. The reality is that, with this incompetent Government, it is more a land of hopeless Tories. I also understand that, following his conference speech, the Business Secretary has changed his voicemail to that old Liberal Democrat staple, “Please leave a message after the high moral tone.” I am relieved to see both the Leader of the House and his deputy, and, indeed, the Patronage Secretary, in their place after the Government reshuffle at the beginning of the week.”
“Could the Leader of the House prove that my theory is wrong by telling me when we can expect to see the Bill in this House? The Government succeeded in rushing through their sinister gagging Bill last night without giving us adequate time for scrutiny. It now goes on to the Lords in similar haste so that the Government can get their gag in place in time for the next election. Given that Parliament has not been given the chance to scrutinise the Bill properly and it was not consulted on before it was published, an independent commission has been established to analyse its impact. Will the Leader of the House join me in giving evidence to that commission, and will he give his assurance that the Government will not proceed with the Bill until the findings are published?”
“The Leader of the House will know that on Report in the other place the Government lost a crucial vote and that clause 1 now reads: “No alteration or reform may be made to the structure of the probation service unless the proposals have been laid before, and approved by resolution of, both Houses of Parliament.” We have had no such document, so will he explain why the Government have published contracts to sell off £800 million-worth of probation services and why probation staff have been given notice that they might be offloaded to companies such as G4S or Serco next spring? It looks to me as though the Government are deliberately ignoring the will of Parliament by delaying the passage of this Bill until after they have privatised the probation service, so rendering their defeat in the Lords irrelevant.”
“I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business. May I begin by echoing the Prime Minister in congratulating Professor Higgs, this year’s joint winner of the Nobel prize for physics for his work in explaining why the universe has mass? I think his theory may even be able to explain how the badgers managed to move the goalposts. I note that the Offender Rehabilitation Bill is still strangely absent from future business, despite the fact that it completed its Lords stages well before the summer recess.”
“What a straw man the hon. Gentleman has just raised. Does he not realise that that is all avoided by the existing law, which was put in place in 2000? What we are dealing with here are changes that this Government are introducing, in a partial and partisan way, without any consultation or any attempt to discuss them with wider civil society, campaigners or third parties. What we need to do is take the Bill off the agenda and do it properly so that we can develop the electoral law for third parties and political parties on a cross-party basis in order to prevent the kinds of abuses he is talking about, which the existing law, unamended by the Bill, already prevents.”
“Tonight, then, the Government will succeed in using their majority to ram this illiberal Bill—virtually unamended—through the Commons. It will now be for the House of Lords to give it the scrutiny that Government timetabling has made it impossible for us to deliver in this place—and it is vital that the other place now does so. This is a very bad Bill. It is badly drafted and in places unworkable; it lets vested interests proceed unchecked in the shadows, while it gags charities and civil society. It is a sinister Bill that seeks to silence the Government’s critics in the run-up to a general election. It will have a chilling effect on the quality of our national debate, which is why we will vote against it the Lobby tonight. I urge all Members to join us there.”
“It must be removed or else we will see the triumph of the new breed of Tory authoritarians who, like the Justice Secretary, believe: “Britain cannot allow a culture of left-wing-dominated single-issue activism to hold back our country”. Presumably, he refers to the TaxPayers Alliance, the many right-wing blogs, the Adam Smith Institute and ConservativeHome, which have all opposed the restrictions in part 2. Part 3 seeks to punish all trade unions by burying them in pointless and expensive administrative requirements for their membership lists because some of them have had the temerity to be affiliated to the Labour party. It should be seen for the grubby little piece of partisan legislative abuse that it is.”
“But as we have seen, those amendments barely scratch the surface of what would be needed to make the Bill workable. A lucent gag is still a gag. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations has said: “The assurances given by ministers on the floor of the house to ensure that charities will still be able to support specific policies that might also be advocated by political parties have not been met.” The Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations has said that “these amendments don’t prevent the Bill curbing freedom of speech around elections.” Just yesterday, an impressive coalition of Church groups including the Quakers, the Church of Scotland, the Methodist Conference, the Assembly of Reform Rabbis, the Evangelical Alliance, Islamic Relief, the Muslim Council of Britain and the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development stated: “Following legal advice and a statement from the Electoral Commission, we remain concerned that…we still do not have the necessary legal certainty that Part II of this Bill could not be applied to a wide range of legitimate campaigns, despite such activities being intended to be party politically neutral.” In other words, the gag is still very much in place.”
“The Bill significantly lowers the spending thresholds for third parties during the general election period, which will ensure that many thousands of small charities, bloggers and campaigners will be caught by the strict regulation required by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. Indeed, the Bill will make that regulation far more onerous for all third parties and create a massive new administrative burden for them, further increasing the incentive for them simply to keep quiet. The Bill introduces a new constituency spending limit, which the Electoral Commission has described as unworkable. After their initial bluster, the Government have at least acknowledged the furore that part 2 has caused by tabling their rather modest amendments to clause 26 and schedule 3, which we have debated today.”
“It will create regulatory uncertainty, and it will undoubtedly have a chilling effect on civil society and on local campaigning in the year before a general election. Indeed, it has been deliberately designed to do so. Instead of dealing with the funding arms-race between political parties during election periods, the Bill slashes the amounts that can be spent by third-party campaigners, leaving the political parties untouched, despite the fact that third parties spent only one tenth of what political parties spent at the last general election.”
“The Bill is so inadequate that it has achieved the previously unheard-of feat of uniting the transparency campaigners and the lobbying industry in opposition to it. It is so narrow that it would not apply to a lobbyist lobbying a Member of this House about the lobbying Bill. During the unacceptably rapid passage of the Bill through the Commons, we have argued that there should be comprehensive coverage of the entire industry, a code of conduct and sanctions for misbehaviour. We continue to believe that such a system must be legislated for in the future, and if this Government refuse to do that, we will do it. Part 2 of the Bill has caused the most outrage and worry in civil society, and quite right too. Part 2 will place a sinister gag on the Government’s critics as the election approaches.”
“The well-established tradition that changes to the law governing elections should be agreed on a cross-party basis has been abandoned by this Government in a partisan abuse of the legislative process that is aimed at hobbling their growing body of critics in civil society. This is an abuse that will not be forgotten. The Government promised to sort out lobbying, but the Bill defines it in such excruciatingly narrow terms that it renders all claims by the Government to achieve transparency completely laughable. Indeed, it could even worsen the current situation by undermining the existing registers. It excludes in-house lobbyists completely and instead applies only to consultant lobbyists. It has been estimated by the industry itself that it will catch only 20% of lobbyists and a minuscule 1% of lobbying episodes.”
“Even more astonishingly, the Electoral Commission, the Government’s own regulator, was not consulted either and continues to regard many of the proposals in the Bill as undesirable and other proposals such as the constituency cap as unworkable, yet it is expected to police these partisan changes in electoral law. No one in the Government has plausibly been able to identify the problems that parts 2 and 3 of the Bill are meant to address or, much less, to solve. It becomes clearer by the day that this is a disgraceful attempt by the Government to gag their critics in civil society in the run-up to the general election. It is a gagging Bill masquerading in true Orwellian style as a transparency Bill.”
“The Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights has written to the Leader of the House complaining that the Bill could have a chilling effect and risks damaging the quality of debate in the run-up to the general election. That is a serious charge in any democracy, but the Government have simply chosen to ignore it. Their decision to ram the Bill through the House has ensured that the Select Committee will not even be able to publish its report until after the Bill has completed all its Commons stages. The Government did not consult the many thousands of campaigners, trade unionists and charities directly affected by the sinister gagging proposals in part 2 prior to the publication of the Bill.”
“Those proposals had not been consulted on because nobody even knew they existed. Report and Third Reading were then scheduled for the first two days back after the conference recess. Three Select Committees were caught unawares and had strong objections to the Bill, but the Government’s timetabling, by deliberate design, gave those Committees little time to develop or publicise their views. The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee had to meet in the recess in order to be in a position to publish its highly critical report on the Bill. The Standards Committee had significant worries about the Bill, some of which the Government have been forced to address.”
“In his more candid moments, even the Leader of the House must know that the proceedings to which he has been a party on the Bill have been an affront to Parliament and a stain on any reputation he might have wished to develop as a parliamentary performer. Let us consider the history of the Bill. The House has been subjected to an abusive and disgraceful process that brings shame on the Government. The Bill was published after three years of inaction on the day before the House rose for the summer recess. Second Reading was scheduled for the day after the House returned for its September sitting, and the Committee stage was then scheduled for the week after, on the Floor of the House, thus ensuring that there could be no pre-legislative scrutiny of the proposals in parts 2 and 3, which the Government drew up in secret.”
“It does absolutely nothing to ensure greater transparency in the Government’s cosy relationship with the big six energy companies, which make record profits while forcing energy prices ever higher for households and businesses, and which reacted so hysterically to Labour’s announcement of an energy price freeze. The Bill seeks to silence critics of the Government in the run-up to the general election, while letting vested interests operate out of sight. It demonstrates all too clearly that they are a Government who stand up for the wrong people and are willing to abuse the legislative process in their own partisan interests. The one success that the Bill can claim is that it is an object lesson in how not to legislate.”
“I wish her well, but it is a pity that the Bill did not disappear with her. The Bill will do absolutely nothing to shine the light of transparency on lobbying, which the Prime Minister himself called the next big scandal waiting to happen. It will let Lynton Crosby, the tobacco lobbyist at the heart of Downing street, continue lobbying undisturbed, and does not even require him to publish his list of clients. It does not regulate big tobacco, but seeks to silence cancer charities that campaign against the malign influence of big tobacco nestling at the heart of this Government.”
“On Second Reading, I said that this was one of the worst Bills any Government had brought before the House in a very long time. I called it a “hurried, badly drafted…agglomeration of the inadequate, the sinister and the partisan.” —[ Official Report , 3 September 2013; Vol. 567, c. 186.] The Government have chosen to ram this disgrace of a Bill through the Commons as fast as they can, and nothing that has happened during this process has changed my verdict. If anything, my initial judgment has been reinforced. The unfortunate disappearance in the Government reshuffle of the former Minister with responsibility for constitutional and political reform, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), halfway through the Bill’s Commons progress was a cruel reward for her willingness to stand up and defend the indefensible.”
“As we all leave and head off to our party conferences, I would like to congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister on his unprecedented outburst of realism on his radio phone-in show this morning. He announced that it was “unlikely that at the next general election we are going to get an outright majority”. I think he just might be right about that one.”
“It is a scandal that since they came to power, one third of a million more people have had to use food banks, and all this Government can do is berate them for it. The Chancellor used the phrase “living standards” 12 times in a speech that he gave earlier in the week. He can say it all he likes, but it will not make up for the fact that it is his squeeze on living standards that means that people cannot feed themselves and their families by the end of the month. Prices have risen faster than wages in all but one of the 39 months that this Government have been in power, and all they have done is give tax cuts to millionaires and defend the privileged few. So will the Leader of the House arrange for a debate on how we can build a recovery for all in an economy that works for working people?”
“He hoped no one would remember that it had only got on to the statute book, a few months earlier, with Liberal Democrat support. Who do they think they are kidding? In that dictionary, they might also want to look under C for consistency, and then move down the page and check out the meaning of “cynical”. It is no wonder that the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) used an interview with one of the weekend papers to announce that she was in despair over her own party. This week, the Education Secretary underlined just how callous the Government are when he asserted that those who turn to food banks have only themselves to blame. The Transport Secretary promptly agreed with him, and the Prime Minister refused to disassociate himself from the remarks during Prime Minister’s Question Time. How out of touch can this Government be?”
“Is it not time that they listened to the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), and went back to the drawing board? This week, the Liberal Democrats have been left to do the Tories’ dirty work on the gagging Bill. In fact, they have become the Bill’s most fulsome defenders. Such has been their enthusiasm for this gag on free speech that I am prompted to suggest that they invest in a dictionary, so that they can look up the meaning of the words “liberal” and “democrat”. I never cease to be amazed by the sheer effrontery of the Liberal Democrats. This week the Minister for Schools, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws), unveiled an election promise to repeal secret courts legislation.”
“The reality is that the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) was spot on when he said that part 2 would “chill free speech”, and was right to vote against it along with nine of his Conservative colleagues. What a pity that the Deputy Prime Minister, who I am told cooked up the Bill at a “high-level meeting” with the Prime Minister, was mysteriously absent from the vote. Will the Leader of the House tell us whether that was because the Deputy Prime Minister could not be bothered to turn up and vote, or because he was ashamed of his own authoritarian Bill? We must be clear. The Bill is a crude and cynical attempt by the Government to shut up their many critics in the run-up to the next general election. However, they have been found out.”
“Given that the Leader of the House has just announced that the Bill will return for its Report stage on the first day following the recess, will he tell us how on earth we are expected to judge any amendments that the Government may table? When does he intend to publish any new amendments, and whom will he consult? Does he not agree that, in order to give the House time to consider the changes to clause 26 and to allow the views of charities, campaigners and his own regulator on the problems with the rest of part 2 to be heard, he should delay Report stage? Some of the more generous critics of this mess of a Bill on the Government’s own Benches have suggested that the sinister gag on charities and campaigners might just be an innocent drafting mistake. I usually appreciate optimism, but I think that is taking it a bit too far.”
“We are always grateful to the Doorkeepers for looking after us. May I take the opportunity to wish Bill Perkiss, who has served as a Doorkeeper for 26 years, a long and very happy and retirement? It is well deserved. The House has spent this week dismantling the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill. Members in all parts of the House have lined up to condemn the Bill as a sop to vested interests and a sinister gag on free speech. On Tuesday, the Government caved in to pressure and agreed to an unspecified concession on clause 26. May I ask the Leader of the House whether that will include amendments to schedule 3? Does he not realise that the rest of part 2 is riddled with problems as well?”
“Why not start by listening to the important report from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, published today? He should scrap the timetable he has just announced for Committee stage and arrange some much-needed pre-legislative scrutiny. Even better, why does he not just go back to the drawing board?”
“The Electoral Commission, hundreds of charities, campaigners and many thousands of members of the public are fighting the Government’s sinister gag on free speech in the run-up to a general election. It seems that the Bill’s only success has been to create a huge coalition against it, so wide that it includes the TaxPayers Alliance, the Royal British Legion, HOPE not hate and 38 Degrees. Yesterday the Prime Minister accused the trade unions of mounting a concerted lobbying campaign against the Bill, but he omitted to mention that Con. Home is against it, too. The Leader of the House does not seem to have learnt many lessons from his last disastrous attempt at a Bill, the Health and Social Care Act 2012, but I would like to ask him to learn just one: he needs to pause, listen, reflect and improve.”
“Next week, we have the Committee stage of the comically named Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill, which had its Second Reading on Tuesday. The Opposition are committed to cleaning up lobbying, getting big money out of politics and keeping dodgy donors out of Downing street, but the Bill achieves none of this. The Leader of the House got a very rough ride, including from three Select Committees and his own Back Benchers, for this rushed, incompetently drafted and sinister mess of a Bill. He has already tabled 23 amendments and there will be a lot more, I am sure, before we have finished. This Bill has united the lobbying industry and transparency campaigners, who agree that it will make lobbying less transparent, not more.”
“Today, the sheer scale of the failure at the heart of the Secretary of State for Work and Pension’s flagship universal credit programme became clear. The National Audit Office report says that the scheme has been beset by “weak management, ineffective control and poor governance”. We have also learned that £34 million has been wasted on IT and they have spent £300 million on a computer that they do not know what to do with. The NAO blames a fortress mentality where only good news is released. Will the Leader of the House arrange a debate on this fortress mentality and the impact it may be having on the ability of the civil service to operate effectively in the culture that this Government have created?”
“In spite of all this, I was still surprised to see Boris Johnson say this week that he would change his name to “Barclays” in return for £100 million in sponsorship. How long will it be before we see the Cabinet touting for sponsorship too? We have been back only a few days and it is already back to normal for this Government. We have had a rebellion, chaos in the Whips Office and abject incompetence, and we have had our first U-turn this morning with the dropped plans on legal aid price competition. Where there is chaos there is waste. We have already had the pointless top-down reorganisation of the NHS at a cost of £1.5 billion. This week we have discovered that they have squandered £74 million forgetting to add VAT on the troubled aircraft carrier programme.”
“This is an out-of-touch Government, complacent on living standards, building an economy that works only for their rich millionaire friends. So may we have an update from the Chancellor about this week’s understanding of his favourite phrase, “We are all in this together”? The lobbying Bill that we have been discussing this week shows us that instead of getting the big money out of politics, the Government would rather put a gag on campaigners while protecting Lynton Crosby. But that is not surprising when with this Government money seems to buy influence. Hedge funds gave the Conservatives £32 million and then got a massive tax cut, and then there was the tax cut for millionaires.”
“I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business. A report from the Resolution Foundation yesterday showed that one in five workers is paid less than the living wage, a rise of nearly 1.5 million in three years. We now know that the Government’s economic policies have meant that people are £28 a week worse off than they were in 2010, and for all but one month since the election prices have risen faster than wages. It is not a recovery if it leaves everyone but those at the top behind, and the public are not buying it either. Polling shows that 70% of people believe that recent improvements in the economy have not benefited middle and lower income families, and 81% believe that politicians who say that household incomes have grown faster than price rises are “out of touch”. I could not have put it better myself.”