11/03/2016 The Week in Parliament

Hello and welcome to The Week In Parliament.

The English may be a nation of shopkeepers, but they're

still closing early on Sundays.

But the pressures on our high street are rising and the Internet plays

a part in that.

Do we want them to sit behind a till on Sunday or do we say to them,

yes, we believe that Sunday is special?

Shouldn't the customer comes first?

The numbers are up, but could we be doing better?

Women in Parliament talk about getting more

women in Parliament.

And women do bring something additional to Parliament.

We need more women shaping policies in think tanks and universities

across the country.

And look out, construction work ahead.

The leader of the Lords explains why we've got to get the renovation

of Parliament just right.

This is about preserving the Palace of Westminster

for the United Kingdom and for the people who live

here and pay for it.

But first, as if splits over Europe were not enough,

the Conservatives were divided this week over a location closer to home

- the local high street, or at least the out of town retail park.

At the moment, shops are open for only six hours on Sundays

in England and Wales.

The Government wanted them open for longer, but Tory

rebels had other ideas.

And they, combined with Labour and SNP MPs, managed to inflict

a rare Commons defeat on the Government after

a keenly-fought debate.

Actually, we should just trust our constituents to make

up their own minds.

In life, we all have to find our own balance

and we are all capable of deciding whether we work or shop on a Sunday.

It isn't actually the most complicated decision

that our constituents will make in their lives.

Don't we understand that when we have this great job here,

with all the privileges that we have, we have a duty to look

after people who are much less better off than us,

who work unbelievably hard, often in fairly grim jobs,

and do we want to force them, because ultimately all the pressure

will be on them from these big businesses, do we want them to sit

behind a till on a Sunday or do we say to them,

yes, we believe that Sunday is special?

To those who say that we need to keep Sundays special,

I respect that, but do you not shop on the Internet on a Sunday?

Do you not visit your local leisure centre?

Goods are delivered on a Sunday, we eat out in restaurants

on a Sunday, call centres open on a Sunday, many sectors

and professions work on a Sunday.

You talk about rights, what about their rights?

Many of us have been abroad, we've been in Spain or in Portugal

or in France and we've found real restrictions on finding

things open on Sunday.

We've been out at lunchtime and found that the shops

are on siesta.

Why is it that in this country this Government thinks we should put

the free market above everything else?

I think it is important to bear in mind that the laws on trading

in England and Wales were last updated in 1994.

That's back when the only time we'd heard of Amazon

was when we were talking of a river and our high streets faced

no external pressure.

The Internet is liberating, it's changing the way we live

and the way we work, but the pressures on our high street

are rising and the Internet plays a part in that.

Surveys of Internet shoppers show there is no relationship

between them Internet shopping on a Sunday because they want to go

to extended hours in local stores.

In fact, if you follow that argument, those

who are on the Internet between midnight and 3am

in the morning, is that an argument for the shops being open

at that time?

Even in workplaces with trade unionreps to support members,

many staff are pressured into not using the Sunday opt out and in fact

something like a third of workers, shop workers, are pressured

into working Sundays or having their working hours cut.

Before entering This Place, I was in business for 25 years

and it's absolutely right to consider the needs of large

business, and of course small business, and the family

lives of workers.

As all business people know, shouldn't the customer comes first?

If the customer wants to shop at other times of the weekend,

shouldn't they be allowed to do that?

People work to live, they don't live to work.

There are lots of things we could do that would be more efficient.

We could propose to our partners by text.

We could read to our children on Skype from the office.

Nobody would suggest these things.

This constant denigration of family life is truly unhealthy.

Order!

At the end of the debate, MPs voted for the rebel amendment,

rejecting the longer opening hours.

The ayes to the right, 317.

The noes to the left, 286.

CHEERING.

The debate over Sunday shopping.

It was International Women's Day this week.

Time to assess the progress made by women around the world

in reaching positions of power and responsibility.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has been described

as the most powerful woman in the world, but are there more

following her to the top?

In the UK, we have women in the jobs of Home Secretary and

Northern Ireland Secretary, but the Commons remains 71% male

and just 29% female.

In a moment, I'll talk to two prominent Westminster women

about how to shatter that so-called glass ceiling.

But first, some moments from the latest debate

in the Commons marking International Women's Day.

And do women make a difference?

Absolutely, they do.

I remember at the turn of the century asking the clerk

to the Defence Select Committee what a difference having women

on that committee for first time had made.

I wasn't sure what the answer would be.

"Of course it's made an enormous difference,

Fiona," this rather stuffy clerk said.

I said, "What?"

He said, "Well, we just used to talk about how big the bombs were and now

we talk about the families of the people who fight."

And I just know that what would make me brave is knowing

that my family is safe.

And women do bring something additional to Parliament.

We need more women in politics.

I don't just mean in the House of Commons, we need more

women across the board.

We need more women in every party standing up for local communities

in councils, we need more women reporting on national and local

politics, we need more women shaping policies in think tanks,

in universities across the country.

Women dominate the lowest paid apprenticeships, making up 83%

of health and social care apprentices and 91%

of childcare apprentices.

Meanwhile, men dominate the highest paid apprenticeships,

where only 3% of engineering apprentices and 2% of construction

apprentices and 10% in IT are women.

The workplace, whether it's in Parliament or whether it's

in the City or in other institutions was designed by men for men and has

not changed fast enough to retain women, not only in day-to-day

positions, but in positions of leadership.

As a former teacher, I would urge that we encourage

others, girls and women, to take risks, to be fearless,

and to embrace ambition.

As always, we are only limited by our imagination.

Marin Alsop, the first female conductor at Last Night

Of The Proms, said, and she admitted being quite shocked that it can be

2013 and there are still firsts for women.

Mr Speaker, let's hope by this time next year that women's place

at the highest levels will be commonplace.

We owe it to future generations.

Some moments from Tuesday's Commons debate marking

International Women's Day.

I'm joined in the studio now by two outstanding examples of female

success in politics.

Philippa Whitford is an SNP MP who speaks for her party on health.

And Lady Stowell is Leader of the House of Lords.

Welcome to The Week In Parliament.

We could end up at the end of this year with a female United States

President.

Do you think that will have a big effect in enabling more women

to maybe enter American politics, for example?

I don't know whether it's so much about enabling more women,

because women can do that now and they know they can do it.

I think when you see somebody in a position,

a woman in a position where there's not been a woman before,

it makes you stop and think.

I can remember when Mrs Thatcher was first elected leader

of the Conservative Party, when the Conservatives

were still in opposition.

My mum, who was not a Conservative at all, said to me very clearly,

I can see her now looking at the TV and seeing Mrs Thatcher

and her being fascinated by the fact that a woman was going to lead

a political party.

She said, "That woman is going to be the first woman Prime Minister."

It was very impactful.

And a very accurate prediction!

Philippa Whitford, did you have any role models?

Well, when I started out in surgery, there weren't any senior

women surgeons at all.

Halfway through medical school, I was told that I couldn't do

surgery because I was a woman.

Really?

It's that far back.

So it became a challenge, presumably, from that point?

Partly a challenge, but also that's why I went into medicine.

I decided to be a surgeon as opposed to a doctor, that was my aim.

For the first few hours, I thought they were

just winding me up.

I thought they were pulling my leg, and then eventually realised,

actually, they're serious.

I decided, OK, my back-up is palliative care, which was just

evolving at that time, but I'm going to give them a run

for their money and that's what I did.

Returning to politics, Britain is really ranking remarkably

low in the league table.

I think 36th in terms of female representation in Parliament.

It's been asked many times, but what sort of things

are we looking at?

Are we talking about women-only shortlists for political

candidates, for example?

In the Conservatives, women-only shortlists is not

something we support.

We shy away from that sort of thing because we want women to be

there on merit and not feel, having been successful,

they've somehow had an advantage they might not otherwise have had.

Although one MP in the Commons debate actually said that

argument falls away.

People forget you ever did get there on a quota.

That may well be something they would argue if they'd been

through that experience.

There was a debate in the House of Lords as well this week.

One of my colleagues, Baroness Jenkin of Kennington,

Anne Jenkin, who has been a trailblazer in helping other women

get into Parliament, she's in the House of Lords,

but she's been very, very instrumental in the way

we in the Conservatives have progressed in the number of women

MPs, and she said had we not made the progress we made at the last

election, getting more women elected, then she,

and it was a personal view of hers, but she would have perhaps advocated

all-women shortlists, but we made progress so we don't

need to go that far.

Cheryl Gillan in the Commons debate was making a point that's

been made many times, that it's little wonder people

are put off politics when they tune into Prime Minister's Questions.

She said there's better behaviour in a primary school playgroup.

Do you think that's a legitimate point in putting females off?

I think it definitely is.

I often describe it as a primary three class when the teacher has

gone out of the room.

Not just for women.

I think any person in the general public must

see themselves reflected.

You do need role models.

What we've had is looking at trying to ensure the selection panel

to choose a candidate must at least have women in it so that

members of the party, because ours is a members' vote,

can choose a woman candidate.

But if people turn up and all the candidates are male,

and most of the people are there, and the meetings are held in a pub,

they're held at a bizarre time, you won't get people coming.

If you hold a meeting in a pub, you won't get members

of the Muslim faith coming.

It's sometimes these other things.

People just think, that's not for me because there's nobody like me

in that group.

I certainly think it's true that you have to go out and find people

that you want to recruit in the places they are rather

than just expect them to come to you.

But back to the point you made about Prime Minister's Questions,

I don't think Prime Minister's Questions is a turn-off

to women at all.

I think Prime Minister's Questions attracts the attention it does

because of the way it is.

It's the one event of the week where the Prime Minister

of the day is held to account, and held to account

in a very robust fashion.

What I think women perhaps might feel when they look at politics...

As a woman, this is a bit of a generalisation.

As a woman, I want to get on and do things and politics

is all about argument.

What do they actually do?

That sometimes is where women might think, I'd rather actually feel

like I'm doing something rather than just talking

about it all the time.

One of the things that we as women in politics need to do in order

to encourage other women and advertise politics is something

which is worth them getting involved in is to be a bit more boastful

about what it is we achieve as politicians.

Women can be a little bit shy of bragging sometimes.

The men are often much better at this than we are.

Just finally, is this a subject where we're just going to be

here again in another few years' time and we'll be talking

about the same issue?

The UN has a target of 50-50 by 2035.

Do you think we can get anywhere near that at Westminster?

I don't think we're close to that.

I was number 391 and there are still more men sitting

in the chamber than have ever been women MPs since 1918.

I think we do actually have to try and accelerate it, and different

parties will have different approaches, or else we will be

still talking about it.

We still have more to do, most definitely, but we have come

quite a long way.

I think 30% of the Commons now is women.

That's significant progress.

We need to go further, absolutely.

Whether we'll get to 50-50 by the date the UN has set,

I don't know.

But we've got to keep going at it.

Some thoughts on women entering Parliament.

But how safe is the Parliamentary building for anyone to enter -

male, female, politician, staff or visitor?

The crumbling state of the historic Palace of Westminster is giving

plenty of cause for concern.

One expert report gave the renovation a price tag

of ?3.9 billion, with six years to get the job done

if everyone moves out.

A committee of MPs and peers has been set up to look at how best

to do the work.

This is some of what they heard this week.

The full-scale of the disrepair isn't really known, access

into voids is hampered by asbestos.

You're certainly well beyond, in a lot of areas, the extent

of your, what is sort of recommended life for a lot of areas.

I know there are some areas with fire alarms that are sort

of in excess of 30 years.

You've got some pipe work that is probably bordering 30 to 40

years as well.

A lot of the essential plant and things will probably be

at the end of their useful life.

Well, some moments there from Monday's committee session

looking at the refurbishment of the Palace of Westminster.

Joining me still is Lady Stowell, Leader of the House of Lords.

You are the co-chair of that committee.

Now, one or two of those details struck me as rather alarming.

Ageing wiring, rusty pipes, it's almost sounding a bit

like a deathtrap?

What you heard from the people who've been giving evidence to us

this week is the extent of the works that need to happen and that's why

it is a major, complex project and why we are considering very

carefully how best to approach this project and what we will want

to make sure is that we do those works, those necessary works,

in the most cost-effective way.

The minimum cost to the British public, but in a way that preserves

that building, which is the British public's building, and that it's

maintained, for them, for our country, for our heritage.

It's not just about parliamentarians.

This is about preserving the Palace of Westminster

for the United Kingdom and for the people who live

here and pay for it.

Just, finally, if the parliamentarians do have to decamp,

where would you like to go?

Well, that's one of the big questions that we are looking

at and that will be part of what we come forward

with in our report later on in the summer.

So in the summer we'll be able to say whether or not we think it's

right for us to leave the Palace in one go or in phases in order

for that work to take place and where we think the best place

for us to go to is.

No shortage of options for where you can go?

There are not that many options available to us because,

as you can imagine, I mean there's not that many place that is will be

available to us in a location which is still quite close

to where we are now.

We'll see what happens.

We'll watch with interest.

Lady Stowell, Leader of the House of Lords,

thanks very much for joining us on The Week in Parliament.

You're very welcome.

Some thoughts on the business of refurbishing Westminster.

Now, a look at some of the other stories inside Parliament

in the last few days.

The Government was defeated in the House of Lords

on Wednesday night.

Peers voted for a proposal, from the crossbench peer Lord Alton,

giving asylum seekers the right to work if their claims have not

been processed within six months.

He said his proposal would end the "workhouse destitution" suffered

by asylum seekers.

Number

Number 57,

would allow asylum seekers to be able to work if their claim is not

determined by the Home Office within a time frame of six months.

Why would any government oppose something they so clearly,

on common sense, and on the principle of self-help

and a removal of reliance on the state.

Of course there are also 1.5 million people who currently do not have

employment in this country.

It might be argued, it could be somebody who goes for a job

in a particular location and they find they don't get that

job because the job is offered to somebody who is here

on an asylum basis.

Was this man speaking out of turn, or just doing his job?

When the Bank of England governor wrote a letter

to the Treasury Committee, saying British membership of the EU

had reinforced the "dynamism of the UK economy", one MP

wasn't best pleased.

You are coming out with the standard statements of the pro-EU group

that the figure for foreign direct investment in 1970 was that the UK

received more than France and Germany combined before

we were a member of the European Union.

We have consistently received more foreign direct investment.

The statements you make about the dynamism of the economy

could just as well refer to the reforms introduced

by Margaret Thatcher.

It is speculative and beneath the dignity of the Bank of England

to be making speculative pro-EU comments.

I'm not going to let that stand.

The growth of the UK trade with the rest of Europe arguably,

not conclusively, but arguably because of the single market,

is greater than one would effect given the relative sizes...

It's 100 up for the Leader of the Opposition.

Since his election in September, Labour's Jeremy Corbyn notches up

100 questions to David Cameron at Prime Minster's Question Time.

On this auspicious 100th occasion, can I ask the Prime Minister to help

out a young man called Callum.

Callum asks - he's a bright young man who wants to make his way

in the world - will the Government acknowledge -

well maybe the Prime Minister does as well -

will the Government acknowledge the importance of sixth-form

colleges and post-16 education services in Britain?

What we're introducing in our country is a situation

where we uncap university places, so as many people who want to go can

go, and we're going to be introducing in this Parliament

three million apprentices.

"A black day for disabled people", how one member of the House of Lords

summed up the end of the fight by some peers to stave off

the Government's ?30-a-week cut in the benefit called Employment

and Support Allowance for certain claimants.

I just want to pose one question to the Noble Lord, the Minister.

Will he monitor the numbers of suicides in the year

following the introduction of this cut?

I, and I know others, spent a great deal of time last week

working through every possibility of tabling another amendment to try

and send this dreadful and punitive part of the Bill back

to the other place.

Unfortunately, because of parliamentary procedure,

it wasn't possible.

Having placed financial privilege on these amendments,

ultimately means the other place have their way.

There's more to democracy than just being elected.

Questions of representativeness, accessibility, openness

and responsiveness all come into it as well.

From these stand points this House, though unelected,

is much more democratic.

And, is it 'last orders!' for the newly appointed Pubs Code

Adjudicator?

The appointment of Paul Newby to referee between pub companies

and tied tenants is flawed, says a Lib Dem MP.

Right now, Mr Speaker, the very companies he's acting

for now currently are bullying and coercing tenants into signing

away their rights or forfeiting pubs and his company is actively involved

in selling off pubs.

How can he possibly be trusted to be impartial giving his salary has been

dependant for 20 years on those he must now adjudicate

and potentially impose financial penalties on?

And I take very grave exception to any allegation that either me

or anybody else has acted in anyway improperly or complicitedly.

Anna Soubry.

The only political leader to have won four British general elections

in modern times was born 100 years ago this week.

Harold Wilson had plenty of achievements to his name,

along with the odd setback, but he was, in electoral terms,

Labour's most successful ever leader.

His unexpected resignation as Prime Minister in March 1976 came

a few days after his 60th birthday.

Patrick Cowling has picked out some career highlights of the man

with the pipe.

# 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...#.

In 1964, Harold Wilson defeated the Conservative Government

to become Prime Minister, aged 48, and was then the youngest

of the 20th Century.

At four, that's the number of general elections that

Harold Wilson won as Labour leader.

In 1964, '66, and twice in '74.

Three.

In his most memorable speech speech, Harold Wilson told his party in 1963

he believed the Britain that is going to be formed

in the white heat of this revolution will be no place for restrictive

practices or for outdated methods on either side of industry.

Two.

In 1967 sterling was devalued to tackle Britain's economic

problems, but Wilson tried to reassure the British people.

That doesn't mean of course that ?1 here in Britain,

in your pocket or purse or in your bank, has been devalued.

One.

Wilson stunned the nation with his shock resignation

and retirement from front-line politics in March 1976,

five days after his 60th birthday.

# 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...#.

Patrick Cowling summarising the career of Harold Wilson.

Finally, returning to women in Parliament, the lingerie

businesswoman, Michelle Mone, has made a maiden speech

with a difference in the House of Lords.

To encourage girls to achieve success in business,

she turned to her musical heroine.

I love music and I would like to share with you the words

of a song by the late, great Whitney Houston

which inspired me when I was growing up.

I normally sing this at karaoke, but on the advice of our wonderful

door keepers, I thought I would spare Your Lordships' ears.

I believe the children are our future, teach them well

and let them lead the way.

Lady Mone.

I wonder who George Osborne will be taking inspiration

from as he presents his annual Budget on Wednesday?

We'll soon find out what surprises he's got in store.

So do join me for the next Week In Parliament.

Until then, from me, Keith Macdougall, goodbye.