Madeleine Moon MP
Madeleine Moon MP - Working hard for Bridgend
Madeleine Moon MP - Working hard for Bridgend
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This Week in Westminster - December 13th - December 16th
This week saw major changes to police governance receive their first airing in the House of Commons with the Second Reading of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, the Home Secretary face questions about police tactics, Carry On references in Foreign and Commonwealth Questions, an attempt by Scottish MPs to force a debate on RAF base closures, a Westminster Hall debate on the withdrawal of the Education Maintenance Allowance and Chris Huhne is reminded of the price of coalition government.
My own contributions this week have included interventions on the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill and maritime security.
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Maritime Security
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab): Sea lanes of communication are a critical component of the global economy, especially those in the north Atlantic that facilitate trade between the US and the UK. What discussions has the Foreign Secretary had with his counterparts on maritime security co-operation within NATO, especially since the axing of the Nimrod MRA4?
Mr Hague: Maritime security is an important component in NATO. It is primarily the work of my colleagues in the Ministry of Defence to hold those discussions, but the hon. Lady can be assured that Defence Ministers have done so. In particular, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence has been working with international colleagues on maritime security around the high north and the north Atlantic. That work is going on, primarily in the Ministry of Defence, but it is of course supported in the Foreign Office.
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Police Governance
The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill includes several different measures; one of the most controversial of which is the proposal to replace police authorities with elected police and crime commissioners with the aim of making police governance more democratic and responsive to the community. There are however real concerns that a single commissioner will not be able to represent the views of a police authority area and that the scheme, estimated to cost £50m for just the first round of elections, is a waste of money.
Mrs Moon: South Wales police currently have a police authority that contains cross-party representation from the leaders of a number of local authorities as well as people who are independently selected. How can it be said that there is greater democratic accountability when one person is directly elected than when there is cross-party representation from across the whole police authority area?
Ed Balls: I do not know, and that is one of the flaws in the Bill that we will need to investigate in Committee. As I understand it, that problem was why the Liberal Democrats did not support the policy. They rejected it in their policy documents in the past two years, stating that
"police authorities must be representative of the whole community, including women and ethnic minorities, which is why we reject...plans for elected sheriffs."
That was why they rejected the policy in the first place.
Mr Hanson: Will the Home Secretary clarify one point? Under current legislation, it is illegal for a police officer to be a member of the British National party or of other extremist groups, but will she clarify whether these elected individuals, at local council level or at commissioner level, will be able to be members of such political parties? Will that be compatible with managing police officers, who cannot?
Mrs May: I am about to come on to exactly that point. The right hon. Gentleman asks whether it is appropriate for such individuals to belong to a political party of which a police officer cannot be a member, but one could argue that the same position already exists: Home Secretaries are elected under political banners. I actually trust the people of this country on elections.
Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op): On consultation with the Association of Police Authorities, there is a letter in The Guardian today- [ Interruption. ] It is signed by the Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour leaders on the APA, and it says:
"There is no evidence that PCCs"-police and crime commissioners-
"will improve the service the public receive, and every reason to reject this proposal."
Why has the Home Secretary failed to persuade Conservatives on the APA that her proposals are good proposals?
Mrs May: Comments about turkeys and Christmas might be appropriate at this point, and I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman think about that.
Ed Balls: Is the right hon. Lady really calling Mr Rob Garnham, the highly respected chair of a police authority, a turkey? Should she not withdraw that remark?
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Kettling
The Home Secretary had a busy Monday. As well as the Bill above, she was called to the Chamber to give a statement about police tactics
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab): Is not the point of a kettle that it brings things to the boil? Is the Home Secretary comfortable that largely because of her Government's decisions on the education maintenance allowance, minors and other young people were caught up in the kettle? She says that those who remained peaceful and wished to leave Whitehall were able to do so, but can she confirm that the IPCC is investigating a number of complaints about young people not being able to leave?
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab): I accept that the police had a very difficult job to do last Thursday, but last night when I met students at the university of the West of England who had been in London to carry out a lawful and peaceful protest, I was disturbed to hear their accounts of how they felt the police had overstepped the mark, to see video footage of horses charging into protesters, and told of injuries from truncheons and so on. Can the Home Secretary assure me that if I write to her giving personal accounts from people who were there on Thursday, she will treat their complaints seriously?
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Carry On North Korea
Stephen Pound, MP for Ealing lightened the mood in Foreign and Commonwealth Office questions
Stephen Pound: The people of Ealing North keep a very close eye on rising tension in the Yellow sea, partly because the embassy of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is in Ealing-oddly enough, in the house that was formerly occupied by my hero, Sid James. Has the Foreign Secretary had any recent conversations with his colleague the Secretary of State for Defence about any British maritime presence in the area?
Mr Hague: We are interested to know of the history of buildings in Ealing in this respect. I imagine the building in question saw much more amusing times when occupied by Sid James than when occupied by the North Koreans.
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Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA)
EMA is being retained by the Welsh Assembly Government, but its cut in England along with the increase in tuition fees and the devastating funding cut of 40% to higher education will have a drastic effect on higher education as a whole.
Teresa Pearce: I agree. It makes a difference if people know that they can concentrate on their education without worrying about the bus fare.
Some 43% of students at Bexley college and 38% of students at Greenwich college-the two largest colleges serving my constituency-receive EMA, the vast majority receiving the higher rate of £30 a week. Some argue that this money does not have an effect, but the principal of Bexley college, Danny Ridgeway, has confirmed that, in the past two academic years, students at his college in receipt of EMA have been more likely to pass their course than their colleagues who have not received EMA support. I believe that this positive outcome is linked to the attendance requirement attached to EMA payments.
The Government's current line is that many students would have stayed in education anyway and that EMA is therefore a dead-weight. When the Minister makes this point-I am sure that he will-I would be grateful if he commented on the following points. First, research underpinning the dead-weight assertion was flawed, because it was undertaken only among schools, when 69% of the recipients of EMA attend colleges not schools. Furthermore, a significant number of EMA recipients are black and ethnic minority, yet those surveyed were 91% white. If a survey is undertaken with an unrepresentative sample, I believe that the results are irrelevant to the debate.
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Coalition government
Robert Halfon: I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. More than 850 households in my constituency are thought to be suffering from fuel poverty, and fuel prices are rising now. Will the Minister explain what the Government are doing specifically to warm up Harlow homes this Christmas and in the years ahead?
Chris Huhne: As my hon. Friend knows, the discount scheme available to people is a voluntary scheme. We are bringing forward the warm home discount bonus for next year, a scheme that will be clearly underpinned by legislation.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab) rose-
Mr Speaker: With reference to Harlow, England or both?
Paul Flynn: In order to inform myself of the effects of the green deal on Harlow, I researched a website this morning, which states:
"The nuclear industry's key skill over the past half-century has not been generating electricity, but extracting lashings of taxpayers' money."
That was on the website of someone called Chris Huhne. Does this person have any connection with the Secretary of State? Has he sold his principles for a Red Box?
Chris Huhne: The hon. Gentleman should be very aware that the coalition Government are committed to no public subsidy for the nuclear industry for some very good reasons, one of which is in the quotation that he so gracefully supplies to the House.
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