27/05/2016 The Week in Parliament

Hello and welcome to The Week In Parliament,

where, with the EU referendum campaign in full swing,

the head of the Bank of England comes under fire

As soon as you become political and you support one

side in the campaign, why should anyone now trust

you to set interest rates other than for the benefit of the government?

The only side we have supported is the pursuit of low,

stable and predictable inflation, which is our remit.

MPs begin an inquiry into British Home Stores,

and ask why it was sold it to a twice-bankrupt

If this deal had not been done with this particular buyer,

the BHS business would have gone into administration 12 or 13 months,

or whatever the period was, earlier than in fact it did.

And I'll be reporting on the race to become the next Lords Speaker.

The EU referendum campaign passed another milestone in the week.

There's now less than a month to go until the UK decides whether to stay

in or whether to leave the European Union.

At the start of the week, a Treasury forecast claiming that a vote

to leave would result in an economic shock was dismissed as rubbish

We all know that these forecasts are just rubbish being produced

by a government that is now obsessed with producing propaganda to try

and get its way in this vote, rather than to enlighten the public.

This analysis is an attempt to assist the British people

in making an informed decision, based on the likely consequences

of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union.

Indeed, there have been many supporters of the Leave campaign

who have been prepared to acknowledge that leaving

the European Union would at the very least have a short-term impact

The honourable member for Harwich tries to rubbish this report

Well, if we were to leave the European Union, we would have

to negotiate in very short order trade relationships

with the rest of the world, including over 50 other countries.

Leaving aside the Treasury's notorious incompetence

at forecasting, would my right honourable friend,

for whom I have a lot of time, normally, not agree that this

document really does plumb new depths in Project Fear?

What the Government is trying to do is scare the public witless.

And if the consequences are so dire, why on earth did the Prime Minister

say on record that Britain could prosper perfectly

Well, while we're on the subject of predictions, earlier this month,

the Bank of England gave a stark warning about the economic

dangers of the UK leaving the European Union.

That angered Vote Leave campaigners, with one, Jacob Rees-Mogg, calling

on the Bank's governor, Mark Carney, to resign.

So there were some prickly exchanges when Dr Carney appeared in front

of the Treasury committee, of which Jacob Rees-Mogg

Don't you have a responsibility to be apolitical? We are apolitical. As

soon as you support one side, why should anyone trust you on interest

rates, that you will do anything other than act in favour of the

government? We have not supported any side, the only side we have

supported is the pursuit of low, and stable inflation, which is our

remit. By our actions, which may be inconvenient for you, but by our

actions, we have made it more likely that we will bring inflation back to

target, whatever the outcome of the referendum, sooner and more

sustainably. And that will be a better economic outcome. That is our

contribution for the British people. To suggest otherwise is to try and

undermine that. I do suggest otherwise. And so you try to

undermine that. I think you have become politically involved, when

quite clearly you said you would not. Jeremy Corbyn, an important

speech, and about whether his new economics is a good idea. Alas, you

weren't... I mean... Answer that at all? I don't think it's worth a

reply. Well, the row over the EU referendum

campaign spilled over into PMQs, where, with David Cameron

on his way to a G7 summit, it was down to George

Osborne to hold the fort. As is tradition if the Prime

Minister is away, Labour also fields a deputy,

so Angela Eagle took to the despatch box for the opposition,

and turned her fire on the divisions in the Conservative

Party over Europe. With 29 days to go until the most

important decision this country has faced in a generation, we have

before us a government in Bartekova as, split down the middle, at war

with itself. The stakes could not be higher, and yet this is a government

adrift at the mercy of its own rebel backbenchers, unable to get their

agenda through Parliament, instead of focusing on the national into,

they are focusing on their own narrow self-interest. What we need,

Mr Speaker, is a government which will do the best for Britain. What

we've got is a Conservative Party focused only on themselves. They are

like a Parliamentary party on day release, aren't they, when the

honourable lady is here. They know the member for Islington will be

back and it is four more years of hard labour! Mr Speaker, today we

are voting on a Queen's Speech which delivers economic security, protects

our national security, enhances life chances for the most is advantaged,

and it doesn't matter who stands at that dispatch box for the Labour

Party these days, they are dismantling our defences, they are

wrecking our economy, they want to burden people with debt, and in

their own report, published this week, called Labour's Future,

surprisingly long, they say this, in their own report - they are becoming

increasingly irrelevant to the working people of Britain.

Now to the altogether more civilised realm

where it's time for peers to choose a new Lord Speaker.

The current incumbent, Baroness d'Souza, is standing down.

Gary Connor has been finding out who wants the job.

The question is that this bill be now read a first time. The contents

have it. Presiding in the Lords and representing the upper house at

Westminster and beyond. The job of Lord Speaker is becoming vacant.

Stepping down from the ?100,000 a year post at the end of the summer

term will be Baroness d'Souza. So let's had over there now to hear

from the candidates. Standing at the hustings hailed amid the splendours

of the robing room. If the Lib Dem Baroness garden wins, she would be

the third female Lord Speaker in a row. I would like to try to explain

to people outside what it is that we do, particularly with younger

people, which is my background, in education. That is something I would

like to do. I think to be the third woman in a row would be a fantastic

sign that women can hold down these posts. We've had two excellent women

Lord Speakers. The job has never gone to a man, and it has never gone

to the Conservatives. So could it be the Tories' turn? I am a passionate

believer in Parliament and in the House of Lords. I believe it has a

real important role in our constitution. The House of Commons,

where I have the privilege to sit for 40 years, is without doubt, has

supremacy, it is the supreme House politically more than we do an

enormous amount of important work here. And I want to be able to help

explain around the country just how important that work is. I was

chairman of two newspaper companies, and I was a journalist. So perhaps I

am equipped to actually carry out a campaign of explaining to the public

more what the House of Lords is about, because I think at times we

simply do not get the press that we deserve. I think sometimes we are

simply cast to one side and no-one takes any notice. And I think that

is unfair and unjust. Candidates were quizzed about the work of the

House and its public image. And about the tricky question of

membership, which currently stands at 800-plus. They agreed, it's

tricky. So, would the trio rank themselves as traditionalist or

champions of change, on a scale of one to ten? The first two declined

that offer. All I want on my tombstone is the word

parliamentarian. I don't think I want to ruin my chances totally by

putting myself anywhere on your particular grade. And you really

don't want to be in the middle lover but Lord Fowler was prepared to come

up with a figure. I will be thoroughly boring but not duck it,

and I will put in for five! Because I am a Conservative, with a small

sea, but Parliament does need to develop. Thank you very much, in

particular to our three distinguished speakers. So that is

how the contest is shaping up so far. He is will vote on the 8th of

June and the winning candidate will be announced in the Lords Chamber on

the 13th of June. Now let's take a look at some

other stories in brief. Scotland's First Minister,

Nicola Sturgeon, set out her priorities following this month's

Holyrood elections. She said the defining mission of her

government would be education. So, free university tuition

would continue in Scotland, but children needed to get

to that stage first. The target we are setting is clear.

A child born today in one of our most deprived communities must by

the time they leave school have the same chance of getting to university

as a child of the same ability from one of the most well-off parts of

our country. That is a fundamental part of what I mean by a fair and

equal society. this parliament would have

huge new responsibilities. We are not here simply to argue over

how best the government spends a sum of money. We now must decide how

best a government can raise money and how we best encourage the

economy to ensure those funds increase. The rewards and the risks

are great. It is clear to me that if the last Parliamentary session was

about deciding the shape and identity of our country, this next

Parliamentary session should be about setting the policy direction

and goals of our country for the coming years.

Labour's leader thought the SNP government

was taking a different line to SNP MPs at Westminster.

In a Parliament 400 miles from here, the SNP MPs have tabled an amendment

to the Queen's Speech. From opposition there, they call for an

end to austerity and for investment in public services. Meanwhile, SNP

members sit on the government mention is in this Parliament with

the power to act, the power to stop the cuts, to invest in education,

and they refuse to do so. -- on the government benches.

The boss of EDF Energy told MPs he didn't know when a final decision

on the ?18 billion Hinkley Point nuclear

The decision on the project in Somerset had been due this month,

but the company's trade union members have suggested it should be

The project is not on hold. At the moment we speak, the project

continues to prepare for the final decision, at which time we will

confirm the date of commission. Efforts to save jobs at Tata Steel

may entail cuts to the pension Paying for pensions is seen

as a major obstacle to Tata's sale The British Steel pension scheme has

around 130,000 members, with a deficit running into hundreds

of millions of pounds. One option is to base annual

increases on the Consumer Prices Index or CPI measure of inflation,

which is usually below the Retail Prices Index

measure currently used. But many MPs are worried

about the precedent that might set. What assurance can the secretary of

state give me that this will not be extended to other groups. Can this

be sensibly and safety ring fenced, because if not it is difficult? It

is the scheme's trustees who have come forward and asked us to look at

legislation. They believe it would lead to better outcomes for their

members. This is a product of the scheme trustees approaching us

The aim of UK airstrikes in Syria is not to "kill

as many Daesh as possible" but to "undermine their will

to fight", Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has told MPs.

He was answering questions from the Defence Committee.

It is estimated that more than 1,500 fighters allied to so-called

Islamic State have been killed in Iraq since December,

while the death toll among IS fighters in Syria is 22.

It is extremely misleading to look at statistics in that particular

way. We are only able to estimate enemy killed in action. These are

crude estimates because we do not have people on the ground and we

cannot investigate every single attack. The aim of these missions is

not to kill as many as possible, it is to degrade them by tackling their

leadership on occasion, but in the end to try and undermine their will

to fight by attacking their command and control, the infrastructure and

and control, the infrastructure and so on.

A health minister has accepted that the advice on healthy eating

has become very "muddied" in recent days.

The UK is facing a growing problem with obesity.

At the start of the week, a row broke out in the

scientific community after the authors of a controversial

advice on fatty foods and carbohydrates.

We used to be told that we should not eat salt, now we are told we

should. We used to be told we should not eat fatty foods, now we should.

We used to be told one glass of red wine a day was good for us, then we

were told we should have known, now we are being told we should have

two. Which of these items should exit our diet and which should

remain? My noble friend makes a very good point. He is as confused about

this as most of us are in this house. It will be an important part

of the obesity strategy when it is announced in the summer that we

address this very clearly. All the evidence from over 600 separate

studies reinforces the advice that is already out there, but it has

indeed been very muddied over the last five days.

It's been a week for first speeches in both the Commons and the Lords.

On Monday, Labour's Gill Furniss made her maiden speech.

The new MP for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough had

particular reason to pay tribute to her predecessor,

I am doubly proud to say that not only was he a dedicated and

conscientious Labour MP, but as many colleagues will know he was also my

husband. He served in this house for less than a year before his death,

but in that time he made his mark. He spoke powerfully against tax

credits, knowing the suffering it would cause the people he

would cause the people he represented.

Next day, the new MP for Ogmore made his maiden and spoke

about one of his predecessors, Sir Raymond Powell.

We are both playing in butchery. So Raymond master butcher and butcher'

assistant. I am not sure if my skills with a knife will to use in

this has, that I am told by members it is a useful skill to have. I

And on Wednesday, the Bishop of Newcastle debuted - she spoke

One of those pictures was Mrs Boyd who started debating society in our

school. She had a passion for the art of debating and wanted us to

catch that passion. Her sister, the noble Baroness the late Lady Burke,

had just be introduced into the Lords as one of those pioneering,

early women life peers. Through good offices she brought our little

debating theme to this place to inspire us by witnessing debating at

its best. How could I have imagined as a 16-year-old girl up in that

gallery that one day I would find myself making a maiden speech in

Now off to the committee corridor, where MPs have begun a detailed

inquiry into the collapse of British Home Stores.

BHS had debts of ?1.25 billion when it went

It also had a pensions deficit of ?571 million.

In 2000, BHS was bought by the retail billionaire Sir Philip Green,

who made it part of the Arcadia Group.

Last year he sold it to "Retail Acquisitions",

a group whose leader, Dominic Chappell, had been declared

I am confident the trustees did everything they could within the

regulatory framework to ask questions of the seller and buyer to

try and understand the situation. They also made very clear to the

They also made very clear to the seller and buyer the scale.

The session then quizzed a representative from the City firm

Goldman Sachs, which gave advice on the sale of BHS to

In a the situation, Goldman Sachs are the premier advisers in

transactions, it has presented to its client, he has got no experience

in the industry and has a history of being bankrupt three times, your

advice is to carry on? Goldman Sachs name means a lot. In a similar

situation would you not be waving a red flag? Not your one. Would you

not be waving a red flag to say this is a walking disaster, do not touch

it? Goldman Sachs says do not go in. In the early stage of a transaction

with many months to follow before the deal could hypothetically close,

we would identify the risk and save these risks need to be assessed.

A legal adviser on the sale said he had had

conversations with a legal firm, Olswang, that represented

In the conversation I had I learned that the firm carried out a

thorough, detailed due diligence process on their customer and that

nothing in what they had done had given rise to any concerns in

relation to impropriety and that their client had been open

throughout, and that if they had had any sense there might be any

impropriety there, it is not something they would go anywhere

near. We had reached the stage when the board as a whole had decided

that either BHS was going to have to go into insolvency, or alternatively

it should be sold. If we could find a buyer, that was the most desirable

outcome because it would protect the jobs and it would protect the

position of the business as a going concern. What we are discussing in

my view, for what it is worth, the most fundamental point in the story

which is if this deal had not been done with this particular buyer, the

BHS business would have gone into administration 12 or 13 months

into administration 12 or 13 months earlier than in fact it did.

And that committee will be hearing from all sides of the argument

Time for a look now at what's been happening

Here's Alex Partridge with our countdown.

More than 50 words and phrases have been ruled unacceptable when used

Unparliamentary language includes "bumbling idiot", "rentagob",

No pussyfooting around at Foreign Office Questions.

Philip Hammond was asked whether the departmental moggy

The Foreign Secretary said that Palmerston the cat

A relic believed to come from Saint Thomas Becket was

in Westminster this week, centuries after he was martyred in Canterbury.

The elbow fragment was on display at St Margaret's,

the parish church of the House of Commons.

There could be a new Lord Lucan in the House of Lords.

A death certificate was finally issued for the absent peer

in February, 42 years after he went missing.

Now, his son, George Bingham, has added his name to the

register of hereditary peers, allowing him to stand for the

Chamber next time there is a vacancy.

And backbench MPs got to put their name

into the hat to win the chance to introduce a

Top of the list was the SNP's John Nicholson, followed

by Conservatives Bob Blackman and Alec Shelbrooke.

We're talking about 1975, the FIRST time that Britain went

Angela Rippon was reporting on the story then, and she has been

looking back at that campaign for a special night

She told us there are striking similarities

In 1975, I was reading the news and being a reporter and I remember

going out and talking to people on the streets. What was extraordinary

was they did not have any better idea than than many people have now

about the main issues and how they will vote. I remember Margaret

Thatcher's jumper, the one with the flags of the nine nations at that

time in the European economic community. I thought, where did she

get that awful sweater? We want a jumper parade. What I find quite

spooky is that 1975 and 2016 are almost interchangeable. It is quite

extraordinary that we had virtually exactly the same main topics and

virtually the same reaction coming from the general public. First of

all you had the party is split down the middle, that is what you have

got now with politicians arguing against each other from the same

party, those who wanted in and those who wanted out. No change there. And

similarly with the general public. Unless they were polarised into

coming out or staying in, there was that area in the middle where people

were still confused and that is the word. They are now. There are so

many arguments that you can say is a perfectly valid argument as to why

we can come out, and then you hear perfectly died arguments as to why

we should stay in. People then as now were left thinking I am not sure

what to do. Frankly, apart from in 1975 food was a very big issue in

the campaign, and the price of food because people were worried about

the Common agricultural policy, no food does not feature at all. What

features is immigration, which did not turn after tour in 1975.

And 75: Not Out will be shown on BBC Parliament at 7pm

MPs and peers have left Westminster for their Whitsun recess.

So we'll be back when they return on Monday June 6th.