13/06/2011 The Record

Hello and welcome to the Record, a round-up of the day in Parliament.

The Government says there'll be no U-turn on the benefit cap, because

it's a good policy. Those on benefits should not be earning more

than those who are living and working harder.

Lawyers, writers and scientists join forces to highlight the

failings of the law on defamation. And, making sure the taxpayer gets

the best deal when the Government sells off its shares in the bailed-

out banks. The one group that should not be allowed to bid for

those shares other bankers who got us into this financial mess in the

first place. But first, the Government's Welfare

Reform Bill includes plans to limit the amount of money one household

can receive in benefits. It will be set at the average annual earnings,

currently �26,000 a year. In an interview at the weekend, the

Welfare Reform Minister, Lord Freud, appeared to suggest a shift in

policy on the benefit cap. His comments were seized on at Question

Time by Labour's work and pensions spokesman. The cap on overall

benefits is an important part of the bowl but yesterday, the noble

lord Freud said on television there would be a significant U-turn and

when pressed on the detail, he said this. Well, it is wherever we think

that, you know, there is something happening that is undesirable. I

don't wish to be pedantic but that is not a clear structure on welfare

reform. Will we have a new proposal? He should not believe

everything he reads in the media. The reality is that this policy is

not changing because it is a good policy. Near on half of those of

working age are all working earn less than �26,000 a year and they

pay taxes to see some people on benefits earning much more than

that figure. I simply say to him, as we proceed through the report

and third reading, I look forward to seeing him actually support this

and the support and vote for the welfare bill on the third reading

because he believes that those on benefits should not be earning more

than those who are living and working hard. His Welfare Reform

Bill would be easy to support if we actually knew what difference it

was going to make in the real world but at the moment we don't know

what it means for childcare, people with disabilities or the benefit

cap either. Since he took office, the housing benefit bill has been

projected to go up by the Treasury by �1 billion. If he cannot tell us

what his policy on exemptions is, will he tell us what the Lord

Freud's policy is going to cost the taxpayers? We are not changing the

policy, as I said to him. In fact, we are doing what we already doing,

which is discretionary payments to make sure the policy is eased in

exactly right. Wait a minute. He cannot have it both ways. He has

just said that we are not cutting housing benefit enough. He would

like to talk to his honourable friend who says we are cutting it

too much. This is the problem with the opposition. Today we had a

speed from the Leader of the Opposition where they said they

would be tough on those on benefits. This whole idea of welfare and

change is a lot of wriggly worm he returns from the opposition.

Government's benefit cap will force many people to be uprooted from

their jobs and schools in my constituency. According to his

colleague, the Member for Chelsea and Fulham, such people are making

lifestyle choices. Is that the Government's view? The position on

the cap is very straightforward and that is to say that those who are

on benefit should not, of course, receive more money than those war

working and paying their taxes. There are, of course, exemptions

for that. Those who are disabled and widows and war widows, they are

exempted, but for the rest, the simple principle lies that if you

can, you should be helping to try and work and �26,000 a year seems

like a reasonable sum of money to Now, the big political story of the

day was the future of the NHS in England. The NHS Future Forum,

commissioned by the Prime Minister to review the Government's proposed

changes, has published its findings after a two-month listening

exercise. The Forum has called for substantial changes to the Health

and Social Care Bill, including the gradual introduction of the new

regime and a greater emphasis on collaboration instead of

competition. The head of the Forum, Professor Steve Field, went to

Downing Street to brief the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister,

Nick Clegg, and the Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley.

Professor Field said there were "genuine and deep-seated concerns"

about the legislation. Back in the Commons, there was concern about

how the Government was going to take his recommendations forward.

Mr Speaker, you are of course aware there is a major bill before

Parliament proposing huge changes in the National Health Service. It

has been announced in the press today that the Prime Minister and

Deputy Prime Minister are to hold a staged event at 12pm tomorrow,

announcing the changes they intend to make in the stationary. Is it

not utterly unacceptable, particularly when a bill is before

the House of Commons, that announcements should be made about

what is to be done to that bowl should take place two-and-a-half

hours before the House sits, and do you not agree that that statement

should be made first to the House of Commons and that this stunt

should be called off? I reiterate my point. If ministers, be they

ever so high, have important policy announcements to make, including

about any changes in policy, those announcements should be made first

to the House of Commons. One MP tried to draw the Speaker

out a bit more. I am letting your original pronouncement in relation

to my honourable friend for Manchester sink in. I would not

want to put any words in your mouth, obviously. But it seemed to me you

might have been suggesting that the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime

Minister would not be right to go ahead with an announcement before

coming to this House in another venue? If the honourable gentleman

have not made his name as a Member of Parliament I feel sure that he

would have had a very fruitful career at the bar. Behind the bar!

Not downstairs but in the law courts. What I would say is that

have not suggesting anything and I do not feel the need to add

anything to what I have already said in response to the honourable

gentleman. First I thought I said was pretty clear and secondly, the

honourable member for Manchester Gorton is not in any way slow on

the uptake. I hope that his clear! The Speaker, John Bercow. A

committee examining the libel laws in England and Wales has been told

that the costs for claimants and defendants should be cut. The

Government has produced a draft Defamation Bill aimed at reducing

the number of cases and the expense involved. It would also tighten up

the definition of what is libellous. A joint committee of MPs and peers

heard from a number of journalists and authors who've been sued. Tom

Bower, who successfully defended a libel action brought against him by

the newspaper proprietor Richard Desmond, said the bill didn't go

far enough. I would not have been helped in any way by the

recommendations which you are suggesting. And I have actually

bought it here because I wanted to see, here is a book that describes

Richard Desmond's dishonesty. I cannot get it published not because

it is not true but because of the libel. The publishers in London are

not afraid of publishing the truth and the insurers are not afraid of

financing of the information, but it is the time and costs and the

fact that the complications within the trial process make it

impossible to actually produce this book and sell it without consuming

a huge amount of effort and time. Is the problem rather than being

with the law of libel a problem with the mechanisms by which

defamation trials are conducted and decided? The cost is the chilling

factor for all publishing houses at the moment and it has got worse. It

is in the interests of an aggressive, ruthless litigant to

increase the costs to stifle the publisher.

He wanted a key change. You must include within your bill a

presumption of public interest of publication as they have in America,

and that the threshold for somebody like a public figure, whether it is

Richard Desmond or another, to prove that the author is motivated

by malice. Once that threshold is decided and discussed, then you can

go into the issues of whether it is true or not on reputation -- and

whether reputation has been affected. But until then, I do not

think you will get over the problem. Other witnesses thought businesses

should be barred from suing for libel. The inequality of arms

between a corporation and an individual is extremely huge and I

don't see any justification for corporations being treated and is

they -- as if they have human rights. I think it is entirely

reasonable to expect that they can use this where there is a higher

bar to take cases against individuals. Some of the most

concerning cases over the last couple of years have involved

companies, so I was sued by a company, several others have also

been sued by companies. Bloggers have also been threatened. It is

companies too often have the most chilling effect and they're often

people we should be challenging... Well, they are not people, that is

the point Maghreb. They are entities we should be challenging

in order to get to the truth. Having said that, the question is,

or what redress do we have? And the Press Complaints Commission and

very large advertising budgets, I think it those other ways companies

can seek to redress if the claim has been false. It is my view that

wherever somebody is writing critically about ideas and

practices where it is clearly in the public interest that they do so,

I think the Bar should be said very high for somebody trying to sue

them for libel. If a public interest can be shown they should

then have to show malice or recklessness on the part of the

person making assertions about them if it turns out they were wrong.

all of these cases where people have been sued for libel, the

claimants thought they had a real chance. In my case, the law was so

grey, so messy, most lawyers thought it could have gone either

way. When the case was eventually resolved, it looked as though it

should have been a slam dunk from day one. The material was removed

and I think my views have been vindicated completely. So what

should have been a slam dunk becomes a horrendous mess because

the case law is so fuzzy. This is why the goal is a welcome because

the people who face these issues, it brings clarity to the law and

common sense to the law for them, and hopefully, the sort of measures

you will be bringing will block those cases by having a high hurdle

in clause one and by hopefully stopping corporations from suing

and that. These things happening. The journalist and author, Dr Simon

Singh. You're watching The Record, on BBC Parliament. The main

headlines. The Work and Pensions Secretary has

insisted there's no change of policy on capping benefit at

�26,000 a year. He said Labour was making what he called "wriggly

worm" U-turns on welfare reform. Coming up, more questions for

people who've filled out their census forms! They are required to

stand on a doorstep for 10 minutes answering personal questions to a

Peers have been trying to find out when and how taxpayers' added to

recompense by the banks. The organisation that manages the

government's shares in the banks is called UK financial investments. At

Lord's Question Time, a Treasury minister explained what its next

move would be. The gunmen will be advised on the

timing of the dispose of these assets. The Office of National

Statistics will decide how to account for the proceeds, taking

into account the nature of the transaction. How the proceeds will

be used will be determined as a part of the normal annual budget

process. I would like to thank the Minister that the Government has

been able to tell us little about their future banking policy.

Perhaps we could be a light and bore. She complained about project

Merlin, a scheme to get the bank's lending more to small businesses.

When are the banks actually going to lend to small enterprises at

rates they can afford? I could be churlish, or be fair to other noble

lords will want to ask about the question. We seem to be strain

rather far from the question. Let me briefly say, indeed project

Merlin, agreed between the government and the banks means that

the banks have put aside more lending capacity this year than

last year. We have transparent reporting and a range of other

initiatives which the banks have committed to to ensure that lending

flows, as well as putting money into a considerable new equity fund

for smaller businesses. Given that all UK citizens have had to bear

some of the costs of the government bailing out the banks, can the

Minister confirm that the Treasury is giving serious consideration to

a distribution of the estate owned shares in RBS's to the UK

population as a whole. I can confirm to my Noble Friend that the

UK financial investments will be considering retell participation in

the distribution of the shares. That does not mean a quite what he

says, which is some form of distribution but mass participation

in some form is very much to be considered but value-for-money is

one of the considerations that but they are required to take into

account. Could I ask, particularly in the use of the word value-for-

money, is it not the Government's duty to determine that the taxpayer

gets the maximum proceeds from the sale of the shares. Is it not also

clear cut that the one group that should not be allowed to bid for

the shares are the bankers that got us into this financial mess in the

first place. The obligation on UK Financial Investments is to provide

advice to the Government on the time and the form of the sale and

the value-for-money. The Government does not in Stent to be a permanent

investor -- intend to be a permanent investor in the bank's

and the disposals will have to take into account many considerations

including market conditions at the time. Staying with Lords Question

Time, the once-in-a-decade Census form may be a forgotten memory for

many people. But some households are having to answer yet more

questions, even though their forms have been filed correctly. It's

part of an exercise by the Office for National Statistics to evaluate

the census. The current Office for National Statistics census coverage

survey is a validation exercise which will greatly enhance the

statistical authority and value of the census. It will cover 17,000

postcodes across England and Wales. It represents a sample of 1.3% of

all postcodes in England and Wales and will cover 330,000 addresses.

The cost is expected to be �6.5 million, representing 1.3% of the

total sense as costs. The cost of processing the information

collected in the survey is included in the overall costs of the

processing operation. I thank the Minister for that full answer but

the Minister will be aware that this is a survey of the people you

have filled out the census form and about whom are no questions have

been raised as to accuracy and we are required to stand on a doorstep

for 10 minutes answering questions to a complete stranger. Surveyors

are instructed that if someone refuses to answer to return up to

10 times to wear them down into actually answering the survey. As

someone said to me, it is fascinating to watch an exercise

that not only wastes public money but also manages to alienate the

public. Will he give us a guarantee that future evaluations of the

census of proportion it and targeted and designed with a dose

of common sense? If one has to halt a objective survey, is it necessary

to get complete strangers to ask questions. Wider complete strangers

ask questions, of course strangers after ours questions. -- have to

ask questions. There is a short interview on the doorstep and a

form that can be filled in if people prefer to fill in a fall.

People may ask, why are we doing this if we have already completed

the census form? It is to ensure that the figures in the census are

no accurate representation of the household. I think it is worth

investing as little bit of extra effort. It is a valid statistical

exercise. It is compliant with quality assurance. It is an

international practice. It makes sure that the census really does

achieve its adjectives -- objectives. I thought if you filled

in the form it did not have to be on the doorstep but from what he

has just said it sounds as if they set a number of people are still

interviewed, even if they have filled in a form. How can they

assess which ones have completed the form? This is done on the basis

of post code and it is designed to structure those postcodes where

information has, in the past, been difficult to obtain and to make

sure that the information that has been returned his valid. I thank my

Noble Friend for pointing it out that the actual or household may or

may not have completed a form in the first place. This is designed

to make sure that the information that is available is correct.

a surprising admission from Lord Taylor. If it is the purpose of the

survey to ensure the information on the census forms is accurate, I

wonder if it is possible to ensure that members of this House are

included in that survey. The way that the census form was designed

made it extremely difficult for people who are members of this

House to give accurate information about how they spend their working

days. I thank the noble lady for that question. I struggled a little

crew complete my own form and I was rather a embarrassed considering I

occasionally have to answer questions on the subject. I can

reassure the noble lady that were she part of the postcode lottery,

if one might put it like that, the postcode selected for this into the

process, she might indeed find somebody wanting to interview her

about her census form. Later in the Lords, the Government

suffered another defeat on its European Union Bill, intended to

give the British people a greater say on European issues. Peers voted

by a margin of just four votes to reduce the number of issues on

which referendums could be held. It means referendums could only be

held on joining the single currency, creating a single European military

force and on changes to border controls.

Just to focus our debate at this important stage on what the essence

of these amendments are. That essence is to reduce the 56

varieties of referendum loch that this Bill contains two new treaties

plus three major issues, joining the euro, joining showing an, and

the setting up of a single European army, or racing all-European force.

There are clearly some aspects of transferring the power where the

government has decided not to make its subject to a referendum. It is

not in terms of what issues are being protected here by the

referendum. It is not something that is new and pulled out of the

air. It is about issues that have been seen as important red lines

not to cross by governments of both persuasions. We must recognise that

people will only vote in a referendum on issues which are of

real interest to them. So far the principle of the way in which

referendums should be used have been recognised and observed.

who are moving these amendments would argue, as I do now, that we

actually strengthening Parliament's powers over the handling of any

changes to the treaty, not, as the government does, weakening of

Parliament's powers by giving them referendums and the possibility

overall the British Government. It is important if you are trying

to support the Bill that to give your name to a referendum that

there are l lot of things that tunnels objected to referenda any

more. There should be more protection for them so that we can

be sure that if at some stage the European train goes tearing along

towards an ultimate destination of a united Europe, and we will get

off befall British sovereignty is lost and we cease to be an

independent nation. I am not attracted at all by this piecemeal

approach and that this is all done in a spirit of compromise and we

can take away the right to have referendums here and there and it

does not matter, it is just like the language we have had for the

last 25 years and I do not find it attractive.

And to finish the programme, we're going back to the start of the

day's proceedings in the Commons. The Queen delivered a message to

MPs, via the Government whip Mark Francois. With the official title,

Vice-Chamberlain of the Household, Mark Francois is technically one of

the Queen's officers. Order, order, Mr Speaker, and message from Her

Majesty the Queen. I have received your address concern in the 90th

birthday of his Royal Highness, the Duke of Edinburgh. It gives me

great pleasure to here of the affection and regard of the House,

the nation and the Commonwealth on this special occasion and I welcome

your intention to send a message to MPs enjoying that military-style

twirl and stamp of the foot. In case you missed it, here it is