Paul Flynn - Read My Day

Reform?..but not for a generation.

Q1  Paul Flynn: I will ask questions briefly and perhaps you could give brief answers because there are a number of subjects I want to raise. Do you think that the Police and Crime Commissioners’ jobs now are so degraded in the eyes of the public that the first election is likely to be the last election on the grounds of the derisory turnout and the shameless cronyism by the Commissioners in appointing their pals as deputies?

Nick Clegg: I think it is an obvious point. They have their work cut out now to prove that they are a worthwhile addition to the policing and political landscape.

 Q2  Paul Flynn: St Augustine said in his prayer as a young man—I am sure you are very familiar with the lives of the saints—“God make me chaste, but not yet”. We will have a Bill in the next half an hour going through the House that will have the support of, I think, everyone in the country suggesting we get rid of gender bias from the succession. Why does it not apply immediately?

Miss Smith: The answer to your question is that the agreement will apply retrospectively, dated back to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Perth last year.

Q3  Paul Flynn: So it will apply to the next succession that comes up on the unfortunate demise of the Queen?

Miss Smith: I beg your pardon, I am misunderstanding you. I am sorry, you are referring to Prince Charles as opposed to the baby of Prince William? In simple terms, because you do have to plan ahead, and we are planning ahead to the next generation.

Q4  Paul Flynn: If it is a reform why do we have to wait decades until it applies? Everyone agrees that it should not be done on the basis of gender. Why not do it straight away?

Miss Smith: Because in this area of constitutional reform, I think it is fair to look to a generation to come. The Palace is content to move forward to this generation and that is a reasonable agreement with which to move forward.

 

Q5  Paul Flynn: So God make me free of gender discrimination, but not yet.

The House of Commons has changed over the last 20 years. It represents the country in that there are more women there, not enough, and more ethnic minorities there, not enough, but it has few octogenarians there. Is this not a major defect in view of the outrageous ageism of my colleague? Should we not have people in the House of Commons who remember what life was like before there was a health service?

Miss Smith: As I was at one point in my career the youngest MP, and indeed am now the youngest Government Minister, I suppose I ought to answer that from that other end of the scale. I have always said that we need people from all walks of life and that means young and old as well as every other axis in the Commons. St Augustine, if I were to use him on this side of the argument, I suppose would look to time to do its work, and some people will say that time ticks on and those who may be 78 now could look forward to being 80.

            I will do, as others have just done, suggest that the Father of the House is doing an admirable job.

Paul Flynn: I believe that was the situation a short while ago. There are about five who are 77, and there might be one or two who have had birthdays recently who might well be 80.

Miss Smith: We wish them all a long and flourishing life, and a happy birthday.

 Q6  Paul Flynn: Are you happy about a Bill that will have a cull of the elderly in the House of Lords in this outrageous way that we have heard this morning?

Nick Clegg: Another reason why the Lord Steel Bill might not curry all the favour that Eleanor wishes.

Q7  Paul Flynn: I will stick to my brief. Do you not think when we talk about defects in democracy, and I think you deserve credit for many of the things that you have listed this morning, that the outrageous injustice in our democracy is the cheat of first past the post?

Nick Clegg: Don’t get me on to that. You do not want to invite a Liberal Democrat to talk about the virtues of electoral reform. We will be here all day. The short answer is yes.

Paul Flynn: Thank you, I am very grateful.

 

Cameron helping al-Qaeda?

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab):

The Prime Minister said that Syria is attracting and empowering elements linked to al-Qaeda, presumably to help the Government side. What evidence does he have for that?

The Prime Minister:

Tragically, the elements that are linked to al-Qaeda are actually linked to elements of the opposition. There is strong evidence that groups such as the al-Nusra front take an unacceptable view about Islamic extremism. There are very real concerns about the issue, which lead to the argument about how involved we should get with the Syrian opposition. There is a strong argument that by being more involved with like-minded allies we could try to support the elements of the Syrian opposition that most want to see a free, democratic and inclusive Syria.

 

Tories out to politicise Civil Service

 

It happens with many Governmnents at mid-term.

Ater blaming the last lot, then the EU they come round to blaming civil servants for all their woes. Francis Maude made a ferocious attack on the rubber levers. Ministers decide, pull the levers and nothing happens. Yesterday Michael Heseltine rejected Maude's suggestion that politicians should appoint their own permanent secretaries. David Cameron has dumped David Kennedy under pressure to retreat from his claim to be a green Government. Slippery David has surrendered again to his own yahoo backbenchers.

 

Early Day Motion

That this House is alarmed at attempts by the Government to politicise the Civil Service; notes that the Prime Minister personally overruled the appointment of David Kennedy, Chief Executive of the Committee on Climate Change, who had been selected as the new permanent secretary of the Department for Energy and Climate Change; is surprised at the claim of the Minister for the Cabinet Office that some top civil servants have deliberately obstructed plans that Ministers want to be implemented; recalls that many past failing governments, in mid-term, blamed civil servants for government ineptitude; and asserts the prime need for the independence of the Civil Service to provide stability and moderation in government.

Tories try to bully Charity Commision

 

David Ainsworth in the Third Sector reports 5 December 2012

 

MP Charlie Elphicke tells Public Administration Select Committee that the decision not to grant a Brethren congregation charitable status has made Parliament a laughing stock

MPs have discussed curbing the independence of the Charity Commission since its decision to deny the Plymouth Brethren charitable status, a parliamentary committee heard yesterday.

Charlie Elphicke, Conservative MP for Dover and Deal, said that the commission’s decision to refuse charitable status to the Preston Down Trust, a Brethren congregation in Devon, had made it into a laughing stock in parliament.

Speaking at a meeting of the Public Administration Select Committee that was hearing evidence from the chair and chief executive of the Charity Commission, Elphicke said: "I think the independence of the commission is important. But MPs are saying maybe we should start legislation to take away that independence and have a greater sense of control. There’s a feeling that such decisions don’t strike the right balance."

He referred to a recent Westminster Hall debate, attended by more than 40 MPs, at which the commission was criticised for its treatment of the Brethren and was accused of an anti-Christian bias. Elphicke said yesterday that the debate had been "a bad day for the Charity Commission".

But another member of the committee, Paul Flynn, Labour MP for Newport West, said that the debate had been a "very bad day for parliament" and that it had featured "a group of MPs of extraordinary gullibility with an enhanced sense of victimhood falling for one line of an argument".

William Shawcross, chair of the commission, said it was unfortunate that the commission had angered MPs, but it had no intention of withdrawing from the tribunal or reconsidering its position.

He denied that there was any secular bias at the commission and said he would "never be chair of any organisation that was running a crusade against Christianity – or, indeed, any other religion".

Appearing after Younger and Shawcross, Nick Hurd, the Minister for Civil Society, defended the commission’s right to make judgments in individual cases and said he would not intervene in the process.

"The commission is an independent regulator," he said. "It took a decision. The tribunal will make the final judgment. "My view as a minister is irrelevant."

Hurd said the commission had been given "an incredibly difficult job" by parliament and was doing it to the best of its ability. "What concerns me is that the underlying process is robust," he said.

Not a secretary or permanent

 In a recent meeting of the Political and Contsitutional Reform Committee the subject of Permant Secretaries was raised with top Civil Servant Bob Kerslake.

Paul Flynn: In one episode, Sir Humphrey gave an explanation of the mysteries of secretaries in Government, explaining what a Secretary of State, an Under-Secretary of State and a Permanent Secretary of State did, until he got down to Mrs Brown and said, “She is the secretary, because she writes letters”. Now, the secretaries in Government are not secretaries in any way that the public would understand the role, and neither are they permanent, because since the last election two-and-a-half years ago 18 of the secretaries have changed; the Permanent Secretaries. How disruptive is this? Is it a problem, and do frequent changes of so-called Permanent Secretaries increase the instability in Government?

Sir Bob Kerslake: I agree with you about the title. I can remember recently going into an estate agent and him asking me what my job was. I said I was a Permanent Secretary, and they said, “Secretary? Now, that is a good job, and isn’t it great that they made it permanent for you?”

Paul Flynn: They thought your career had stuck in the mud a bit.

Sir Bob Kerslake: True. So you are right to say explaining this to the wider public is quite hard. Of course it helps to have stability in the Permanent Secretaries. I said earlier we have had more movement and more change than I ideally would have wanted. There are particular points where you do see change—typically, at elections. In terms of career planning, Leigh Lewis and David Normington, for example, took it past the date of the election, and then went. That is not unusual; indeed, very helpful. But by and large I would like to see more continuity, and I am hoping we will get this having been through a period of a lot of change.

 

Paul Flynn: What happens if there is a change of Permanent Secretary and Secretary of State that coincide? Does that not have a devastating effect on the Department?

Sir Bob Kerslake: Not necessarily, actually. As I said earlier, we tend to think of this from the top, but think of it as a Department, and actually there is a whole lot of stability that is potentially still there both from the private offices and others. It is not necessarily a problem. Indeed, many Permanent Secretaries who go speak very fondly of their first Minister, and it was often the case that they came in alongside a new Minister. While in theory it could be a big problem, I am not personally convinced that it is.

 

Paul Flynn: We have this view of Government that Ministers are here today and gone tomorrow and that the role of the civil service is to provide the continuity, the stability, to provide the memory of the Department, but if they are changing, that does not apply.

Sir Bob Kerslake: No, I agree that in an ideal world you would not want to see as much change as we have seen recently. I am quite clear about that, but I am also saying there is a lot of continuity and corporate memory within Departments that you can draw on. I came into the job not having worked as a civil servant at all, and I relied hugely on people inside the Department who had worked in the area that I am responsible for for quite a long time, knew the field and were immensely helpful and supportive to me in the job. The fact that there is discontinuity at the top does not mean the whole thing is a problem. You actually have a lot of stability and continuity within Departments that you can draw on.

 

Paul Flynn: On the question of diversity in the civil service, have the recent changes reduced the percentage of women as Permanent Secretaries? Can I raise another point with you on this? I saw a report that of the 20,000 applicants for the fast-track entry into the civil service last year—I think about 600 actually get through—none of them were black.

Sir Bob Kerslake: On the first point, about the reduction in women, the short answer is yes. A number of people have left either because of serious illness—in the case of Lesley Strathie—or for jobs and other reasons. We have seen a reduction in the number of women and clearly that is a matter of regret. I want to achieve a representative work force. The focus for me is not just on the Permanent Secretary level, though; it is on the whole of the senior civil service, because that creates the pipeline for Permanent Secretaries in the future. I am doing a lot of work there to see how we can strengthen the number of women and representation of women in that group. There has been a lot of progress. It has doubled over the last decade. Over a third now are women, but we should be on 50%, and that is where I would like to get to. I would like to over time return to the point that fleetingly Gus got to, which was 50:50 at Permanent Secretary level. Hopefully, that answers your first question.

The second question on the fast stream is a more complex one, and I did a lot of work on this. The specific issue was actually the number of black Africans that we recruited. The number of people from ethnic minorities, in fact, is quite high and representative of the population, but we have done less well on a particular group within that. That is the thing we have to focus on improving. We have a lot of work being done with outreach groups to improve that particular representation. I am happy to send you a note on that if it would help.

Paul Flynn: What I quoted to you was reported at a private seminar recently.

Sir Bob Kerslake: I am very aware of the issue, but we have to distinguish between the proportion who are from ethnic minority and the proportion who are from a particular ethnic minority where we did not do as well.

Paul Flynn: Okay; thank you.

'I hate smoking ban'

 

Cross-examination of witness at a recent PASC committee - uncorrected and slightly edited.

 

Paul Flynn: You say there have been no examples of political bias from the IEA.  I have just read this remarkable document and I would suggest it is not a balanced document, but we will come back to that.  The Atlantic Bridge: what lessons do you draw from the fact that the Atlantic Bridge was advised by the Charity Commission to end their activities?

Christopher Snowdon: I don’t know enough about the case, I am afraid.

 

Paul Flynn: Would you describe the Atlantic Bridge as having a “militant agenda”?

Christopher Snowdon: I don’t know anything about them.

 

Paul Flynn: I can fill you in on it.  The Atlantic Bridge was an organisation dominated by prominent members of the Conservative Party and prominent members of the Tea Party tendency in America.  They existed to promote things like the Iraq war, the Afghan war and other American agendas in Britain.  They also imported brainwashed young people as researchers in this place, who were distributed to Conservative MPs and bored us all stiff on the Terrace with their extreme views.  You are not aware of it.  

Christopher Snowdon: Not really, no.  Sorry.

 

Paul Flynn: Just on the question of “militant”: you describe certain organisations as having a “militant agenda” in the non‑political view of the IEA, and the militant groups are the Child Poverty Action Group, War on Want and Pesticide Action Network.  Can you enlarge on why these people are militants?  

Christopher Snowdon: Militant?  Both War on Want and the Child Poverty Action Group are on the far left politically.

 

Paul Flynn: That is militant, is it?  

Christopher Snowdon: I think that is a reasonable viewpoint.

 

Paul Flynn: You have a fixation about smoking and the smoking ban.  You claim in your document, you pray in aid evidence, that taxes on alcohol are intrinsically unpopular with the population, and you would say the same about tobacco—that it was unpopular to ban tobacco.  The evidence you offer is a report from the World Health Organisation in 2004.  Are you happy that that is a rational basis on which to found an argument: the popularity of the smoking ban?

Christopher Snowdon: The World Health Organisation in that particular paper said that a tax on alcohol is intrinsically unpopular, as indeed taxes on most things tend to be unpopular with the people who purchase them.  With the smoking issue, ASH themselves—Action on Smoking and Health—said in their financial accounts from some years back, which I quote in there, that it is very difficult to raise funds for the anti‑smoking cause, because it does not seem to be particularly popular.  

 

Paul Flynn: The theme running through this book is that popularity should determine causes.  If it is a popular cause, is should be enacted, and if it is an unpopular cause, it should not be supported.  Could I just say that, if you had got figures more up to date than 2004, you would find that there was 56% support for the smoking ban in 2003 and 81% support in 2011?  I can give you each individual year.  Clearly this has been an example of a ban being imposed—obviously smokers objected—that then became very popular and very successful, which is absent from your document.

Christopher Snowdon: That is not relevant to my point, which is that, at the time the campaign was ongoing for the smoking ban, most people were against it.  This is the argument I am making.

 

Paul Flynn: Do you think Government should just do those things that are popular, not the things that are necessarily right?  

Christopher Snowdon: No; I am suggesting that Government should not fund lobby groups to campaign for causes that may be dearer to their hearts than they are to the public’s.  

 

Paul Flynn: Does not Government have a duty to do good things in their simplest form?  There are already hugely well founded organisations like Forest and others that are in the pay of the tobacco industry and are encouraging young people into this addiction that will lead to their early deaths.  Does the Government not have a responsibility to ensure that another point of view is put forward and that is funded as well?

Christopher Snowdon: No, I don’t think so.  What you are making there is basically what the European Commission’s argument is for funding all these environmental groups and, indeed, think tanks: to act as a counterweight to all the industrial lobbying that they receive.  I do not think it is the place of Government to deliberately create front groups.

 

Paul Flynn: Would you agree there should be a balance between those who are lobbying for their own greed, their own profit, and those who are advocating the public good with health?  If you are a lobbyist with a bottomless pocket, you can pay £250,000 and have a dinner with the Prime Minister to lobby him personally.  Is that reasonable?  In those circumstances, should the causes that are lobbying for the public good have some assistance?

Christopher Snowdon: No, because it is dishonest.

 

Paul Flynn: Is it not dishonest to buy an MP, and for countries like Azerbaijan and Israel to invite lots of MPs to their country, butter them up, pay for their hotels, pay their expenses and then bring them back and expect them to deliver?  Is that dishonest?

Christopher Snowdon: I don’t know if it is dishonest.  It is an attempt at persuasion.  Even if it were dishonest, two wrongs would not make a right.  If the Department of Health wishes to bring in a smoking ban, plain packaging for cigarettes or a ban on display, which it clearly does, then it should just get on and do it, rather than go through this charade of creating numerous front groups, using public money to finance campaigns that, on the face of it, do not look like Government‑funded campaigns.  They look like civil society campaigns to try to persuade the public on a policy that has already been decided within the bureaucracy and has not been decided democratically or through reasoned debate.  It has been decided on high, and then these policies are pushed to the people using what we would describe, if industry was involved, as front groups.

 

Chair: It is passing off organisations that purport to be independent but actually are agents of government.

Christopher Snowdon: Of the state, yes.

 

Paul Flynn: You make no apologies for the fact that the piece of research you quote is eight years old and you did not check the subsequent research.

Christopher Snowdon: No, because it is completely irrelevant that it is eight years old.  The point being made there is that, at the time the Government was funding groups to campaign on their behalf, the policy was unpopular.  My argument throughout this report is that many of the things that the Government did create groups to campaign for are unpopular.  There would be no need to go through this charade if they were popular policies.  If you have popular policies, you simply put them in your manifesto and then you bring them about.  

 

Paul Flynn: In your ideal world, Mr Snowdon, because there was not a majority among smokers for a smoking ban, we should not have had a smoking ban.  The great benefits that have resulted from that would not come about.  

Christopher Snowdon: I personally hate the smoking ban and I wish it had never come in, so it does not have any great benefits for me.  The fact that 80% of the people may approve of it still means that 20% of the people disapprove of it.  Incidentally, 20% of the population are smokers, so we probably disagree on how beneficial the smoking ban has been.

 

Paul Flynn: Do we judge all Government policies on the effects they have on Mr Snowdon?  Is this a rational argument? 

Christopher Snowdon: No, we do not, but nor do we judge them on Mr Flynn.  Whether the smoking ban is a good or bad thing is by the by.  I am using it as an example to show a tendency that has been in government for the last 15 years.

 

Paul Flynn: You claimed quite erroneously in this book that people who advocate the smoking ban, and I would class myself amongst them, all intend to prohibit tobacco in the long run.

Christopher Snowdon: I do not say that.

 

Paul Flynn: I have never come across anyone anywhere else who wanted to prohibit the use of tobacco.

Christopher Snowdon: I don’t think I say anything about prohibition in this paper.

Paul Flynn: Yes, you do suggest it.  You may have forgotten it, but could we just have a general view of prohibition?  Prohibition of tobacco would set off the biggest crime wave this country has ever seen.

Chair: I am not sure this is relevant to the inquiry.

Paul Flynn: It is.  It is relevant to whether Mr Snowdon is a competent witness.  I think this is a really shoddy piece of work.  The most remarkable thing about this document is that it was actually published.

Chair: By a charity.

Paul Flynn: By anyone.

 

Yates is innocent, OK?

Old sparring partner former Deputy Commissioner John Yates had a mention in a question I asked the Prime Minister on Leveson. We crossed swords in 2007.

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab):

Lord Leveson says that he regrets that former Deputy Commissioner John Yates did not reflect on his close friendship with the deputy editor of the News of the World before he decided in 2009-10 not to reopen the hacking inquiries. Is not the great shock of this report the revelations of the very close relationships between press, police and politicians? What is the right hon. Gentleman going to do, personally and as a Prime Minister, to ensure that the corrosive effects of cronyism are reduced?

The Prime Minister:

On the relationship between the press and politicians, this Government have taken unprecedented action to publicise and make transparent all the meetings between politicians and editors, and politicians and proprietors. All that is now declared on a quarterly basis and that is how it should be. That did not happen in the past. The report recommends that that should also apply between senior officers and members of the press and that, to try to end excessively close relationships, there should be a cooling-off period before police officers go and work for newspapers. Lord Leveson does address those issues. We have not waited for the report; we have gone on and put those things in place.

 

 

Yates, innocent OK? 

Now time has caught up with Yates of the Yard, it's interesting to recall how the Wales on Sunday were on the side of the righteous  in 2007. A column written by an apprentice reporter named Matt Withers (whatever happened to him?) was unhappy because I had  pointed out to Yates that suspects were all treated as innocent until they were proved to be Labour.

Unlike Rebekah who was invited to drop into the Police Station at any time that suited her, the Labour secretaries and typists were turfed out of bed at 5.00 o'clock in the morning. Amazingly the Press and TV cameras arrived even earlier. Yates vehemently denied that there was any  collusion between press and police. Of course.

Now we know the truth.  Good to have Wales on Sunday standing up for the police in their abortive inquiries. Of course, even though they were blameless, those typists and secretaries had it coming to them. the prophetic words of Withers read:

"• MEANWHILE, we’re sure you’ll all join Newport West MP in sharing the pain of those poor Labour donors and workers treated so cruelly by police investigating the cash-for-peerages scandal.
Mr Flynn is a member of the House of Commons Public Administration Committee who last week interrogated John Yates, the Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner who carried out the investigation.
Mr Yates admitted it had been “uncomfortable? for the suspects.
“Uncomfortable?,? says Mr Flynn. “They went through hell. 
“Several wrote to us of their ‘prolonged deep distress’, and the ‘continuing ordeal’ of being hung out to dry with constant press stories that were unfair and untrue.?
All heart-rending stuff, and we’re sure it’s only the time constraints of his job that has prevented Mr Flynn from voicing his concern over similarly badly-treated suspects in long-running enquiries who weren’t multi-millionaire benefactors of his party."

 The report on which Withers based his calamitous comments was on this blog in 2007. Subsequent resignations have been kinder to me than to Wales on Sunday's snide remarks. It reads:-

Outwardly calm, his body language eloquently expressed fury. Yates of the Yard is not happy this afternoon giving evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee.

His most eloquent answer was the five seconds of silence that followed this question from Committee Chairman Tony Wright. “Have you discovered there’s a trade in peerages?

Of course there is a trade, has been for 70 years and all three main parties are up to their necks in it. Our political system is – apart from Scandinavia- the cleanest in the world. Labour brought in a major reform act to make donations transparent. Sadly there was a loophole on loans and we appeared to have jumped straight through it.

Of course the police should have investigated an opportunistic complaint by a Scottish Nationalist MP quite legitimately on the political attack. But it should have been done and dusted in a few months. A complaint against Tories was over very rapidly without dawn raids, leak to the press and the torment that the witnesses went through.

One myth was nailed firmly by Yates. There has been a persistent story that Tony Blair refused to be interviewed ‘under caution.’ I asked Yates, ‘Did Tony Blair lay down any conditions under which he agreed to be interviewed.”. “No” was the unequivocal answer.

I accused Yates of being ‘cavalier’ in his treatment of witnesses. He said that he knew it was ‘uncomfortable’ for them. ‘Uncomfortable?’ They went through hell. Several wrote to us of their ‘prolonged deep distress’, and the ’continuing ordeal’ of being hung out to dry with constant press stories that were unfair and untrue.

As a committee we remain irritated that this investigation forced us to suspend our own. Had we continued we would have delivered practical proposal to reform the system.

  The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) stonewalled many questions that appeared legitimate to us. ‘That’s an area I can’t discuss.’ This is a big area - the size of a sub-continent. But the Inspectors inner fury occasionally slipped out. When the CPS refused to say why the diary of one of the witnesses was ruled out as inadmissible, Yates chipped in. His answer gave more than a hint that he thought that the diary might be the ‘crown jewels’ that would have allowed a prosecution to go ahead.

As a Committee we will be pilloried by the press as apologists for a rotten system. None of the committee is. But without a witness who was prepared to say that a bribe had been offered in return for a peerage, a prosecution was never a serious possibility. In the only successful case brought in the 82 years since 1925, there was such a witness.

The investigation has been futile. It has delayed reforms and inflicted a year and a half on torment on honourable people who are bewildered because they believe they have done nothing wrong. Sound and fury signifying nothing.

Cronyism rampant

On the day that the Leveson Report was published the Welsh Affairs Select Committee debated a report in Westminster Hall on Inward investment.

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab): The Government’s response to recommendation after recommendation in the Committee’s report is:

“This is a matter for the Welsh Government, who may wish to respond.”

Does not the hon. Gentleman think that his report has been weakened by the Committee’s trespassing beyond its own responsibilities? The Welsh Assembly Government are likely to respond negatively. The report would have been far better and more incisive if it had concentrated on matters that are the responsibility of this Parliament.

David T. C. Davies: The Welsh Affairs Committee is perfectly entitled to have an interest in anything affecting Wales. Although some in the Welsh Assembly might take the view that they are not willing to talk to the UK Government about things that they consider to be their own prerogative, it is noticeable that our Committee has considered such issues as defence, which the Ministry of Defence could say was its responsibility. We have also considered broadband, which is cross-cutting and affected by both UK Government and Welsh Assembly Government policy. We consider anything. I am proud to be Welsh and proud to be British, as hon. Members can see from my cufflinks. I make no apology for the fact that the Welsh Affairs Committee would be perfectly happy to consider anything affecting Wales.

Paul Flynn: Throughout the long history of Denbighshire county council, its longest ever meeting, which went on beyond midnight, was to decide the council’s policy on the war in Vietnam. That might have seemed to be a sensible thing to do, but I do not think that it had a great effect on world opinion or the conduct of the United States at that time. Does the hon. Gentleman think that his Committee is likely to end up in a position where it takes up any subject, whether or not it has any influence on or knowledge of it?

David T. C. Davies: First, although I was a mere boy at the time, I seem to remember that the hon. Gentleman was either a member of, or involved in, Newport council at the time when I lived there, and that he used to help with discussions of whether Wales should be a nuclear-free zone, so perhaps he has experience of long discussions about things over which he is likely to have little influence. Secondly, inward investment is clearly a cross-cutting issue that is affected by both Welsh Assembly and UK Government policy. I do not want this sitting to go on for as long as that meeting of Denbighshire county council—it is not a record that I am hoping to beat—so I would like to continue my speech.

Paul Flynn rose —

David T. C. Davies: Which I shall do after I have given way to the hon. Gentleman for the third time.

Paul Flynn: The hon. Gentleman is being very generous. The nuclear-free Wales policy was a remarkable united expression by every county council in Wales—there were eight in 1981. “Nuclear-free” was about nuclear power, not nuclear weapons. Every county council passed an identical resolution saying that it did not want nuclear power stations in Wales but, sadly, the then Government defied that call.

Paul Flynn:

I admire the skill of the Select Committee in choosing a day for this debate when there is no other subject to distract the media. One abiding impression of the report is that it is part of the begging bowl psychology in which we have one dominant partner in a relationship with another subservient partner, and we know which one is which. As it has come from the party, would not a more accurate title for this report have been, “One Hundred Shades of Blue”?

Jonathan Edwards:

As always, the hon. Gentleman makes a fantastic contribution.

 

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab):

Lord Leveson says that he regrets that former Deputy Commissioner John Yates did not reflect on his close friendship with the deputy editor of the News of the World before he decided in 2009-10 not to reopen the hacking inquiries. Is not the great shock of this report the revelations of the very close relationships between press, police and politicians? What is the right hon. Gentleman going to do, personally and as a Prime Minister, to ensure that the corrosive effects of cronyism are reduced?

The Prime Minister:

On the relationship between the press and politicians, this Government have taken unprecedented action to publicise and make transparent all the meetings between politicians and editors, and politicians and proprietors. All that is now declared on a quarterly basis and that is how it should be. That did not happen in the past. The report recommends that that should also apply between senior officers and members of the press and that, to try to end excessively close relationships, there should be a cooling-off period before police officers go and work for newspapers. Lord Leveson does address those issues. We have not waited for the report; we have gone on and put those things in place.

 

Call for Government 'inactivty'

 

Yesterday I spent a few hours in the Chamber after finding time from Select Committee and charity meetings. It was eventful.

Harrowing testimony

http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=11911&st=11:38:45

http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=11911&st=11:40

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab): Hon. Members may recall the visit of Mr Matthew Lammas of Newport to the House just over a year ago. At the age of just 23, he gave a harrowing account of his wait, the frustrations and delays, for a heart transplant. Tragically, Matthew died two months ago, but is not the example of the difficulties and delay that he faced a powerful argument for supporting the proposals of the Welsh Assembly Government?

Stephen Crabb: The hon. Gentleman brings a powerful example to the House of why we need to do more at different levels, in both the UK and the Welsh Governments, to increase the number of organ donors across the UK, and to that end we look forward to seeing the detail of the Welsh Government legislation.

Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab): I very much welcome the Welsh Government’s initiative of introducing legislation to increase organ donation, but after the Supreme Court justices described as “bizarre” the referral by the Secretary of State to the court of the Welsh Government’s byelaw legislation, will the Minister give the House unreserved assurances that the Wales Office will not delay this life-saving legislation and will not waste taxpayers’ money by making any more spurious referrals to the Supreme Court?

Stephen Crabb: My Department and the Department of Health have been in close discussion with the Welsh Government about the detail of the legislation, and we are optimistic that all outstanding devolution issues will be addressed before publication of the legislation.

Secret of happiness

http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=11911&st=14:06:07

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab): Studies show that those countries in the world that are happiest and have highest levels of contentment and well-being are the Scandinavian nations that have relatively high taxes and high minimum wages. Is it not strange for the Government to believe that we make the rich work harder by giving them more money but the poor work harder by taking money from them? 

Rachel Reeves: My hon. Friend makes an important point. The work of Wilkinson and Pickett in “The Spirit Level”, and other academic research, has shown exactly that. Some people will be a lot happier next year—the 8,000 millionaires who will have their taxes cut—but ordinary working people who see their taxes go up will be a lot worse off and, I expect, not very happy with either their finances or the Government who have inflicted that situation on them.

Party Money

http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=11911&st=14:22:00

Mr Graham Stuart: I appeal to my hon. Friend not to be too harsh on the Opposition. Does he not understand that the Labour party now gets 90% of its funding from the trade union movement? If the trade unions insist that there should be a 50p tax rate—even if it does not raise money and undermines public services—it may feel obliged to put it in its manifesto regardless.

Mr Gauke: My hon. Friend displays an unusual degree of cynicism. I am still hopeful that Labour Members will share with us a desire for the UK to be a competitive environment for business that attracts high net worth and high-earning individuals to locate and pay tax in the UK, and that we can raise more revenue from them. Perhaps, however, my hon. Friend will turn out to be right and they will be driven more by their trade union paymasters.

http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=11911&st=14:23:10

Paul Flynn: Did the hon. Gentleman see the filmed interview with the treasurer of the Conservative party who demanded £250,000 for an invitation to dinner with the Prime Minister? Does not that give us an idea of the source of the Tory party’s funds?

Failure welcomed

http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=11911&st=17:48:09

Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con): Does my hon. Friend agree that a number of councils out there are working in partnership with Jobcentre Plus? They include Medway council, which reduced youth unemployment from 1,600 to 1,200 between April and October. That clearly shows that where there is the will, the Government’s policies, with local councils working in partnership with Jobcentre Plus, are reducing youth unemployment.

Guto Bebb: Indeed, and that example should be replicated in other parts of the country, where partnership working can make a difference.

http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=11911&st=17:50:11

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab): The results that we heard about yesterday cannot be compared with anything else that ever happened. It is probably true that if the Government did nothing at all, there would be a better outcome. Can we therefore conclude that the best we can expect from the Government for the next two and a half years of their miserable existence is a long period of inactivity?

Guto Bebb: The hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) seldom sees the bright side of life. The truth is that I am not willing to see 31,000 job outcomes so far as immaterial. That is something that we should be proud of. To be perfectly frank, if that is failure, give us more.

 

 

Bile and prejudice

Online charity blog reports:

Government should not give grants to charities to lobby for changes in the law, a parliamentary select committee has heard.

Christopher Snowdon, a research fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs, was giving evidence this morning to the Public Administration Select Committee as part of its inquiry into charitable regulation.

Snowdon, who earlier this year wrote a report into political lobbying called Sock Puppets: How the government lobbies itself and why, told MPs that he objected to charities "campaigning among the general public and representing themselves as grass-roots groups when they really represent the government in power".

Snowdon gave examples including charities such as Alcohol Concern and Friends of the Earth, which he said had taken government money to lobby government itself, and the public, on behalf of government.

"The great campaigning successes of the centuries – anti-slavery and votes for women – all of these were pursued by genuine civil society based on voluntary donations," he said. "They did not come about because the government decided to rig the system using public money."

He said that rather than lobby for unpopular ideas itself, government could pay charities to lobby on its behalf.

"Whenever there’s an attempt to raise our taxes or restrict our liberties, it’s a charity doing the legwork," he said.

But Paul Flynn, Labour MP for Newport West, called Snowdon’s views "a diatribe of bile and prejudice" and said that charities were competing against vested commercial interests with "bottomless pockets". "In that situation, it’s entirely reasonable that a benign government should give the charities a helping hand," he said.

"The endemic cowardice of politicians of all parties means they won’t move forward without a comfort blanket of public support."