09/02/2018 The Week in Parliament

Hello and welcome to

The Week In Parliament.

Coming up, Carillion's senior

executives seem lost for words.

And you are still all right? All of

you, argue?

The Brexit debate gets a bit shouty.

Stand up to the man to the EU and

get on with living that you.

And 100 years after the first women

get the vote, female MPs

are still suffering abuse.

What this is about is about

misogynists seeking to silence women

who dare to speak out.

But first, the chairman

of the collapsed construction firm

Carillion has told MPs how upset

he is at the firm's demise.

The company which provided

services for schools,

hospitals, and prisons went

into liquidation last month.

An array of senior executives

gave a joint committee

of MPs their side of the story.

But the chairs of those

committees were not impressed,

saying afterwards that the directors

were "delusional characters"

who "maintained that everything

was hunky dory" until it all went

suddenly and unforeseeably wrong.

Words cannot describe the depth of

my despair. I am devastated. By the

impact that the collapse has had and

as I said, on the pensioners, on

customers, on suppliers, on staff.

We have had one session where

everyone is pointing figures, your

main evidence so far is that you had

these advisers, and ineffective

pointed her finger at them, but what

is your, out to this question is

what is your responsibility for the

collapse?

Full and complete. No

question in my mind about that. Full

responsibility, no question, and if

I look back, there are things I

would do differently.

I am asking

whether you think it is justified at

a time when the share price of the

company is falling quite

substantially, whether it is right

to increase the renumeration of the

chief executive...

It was right at

the time because he wanted to retain

the chief executive in that

business, and period when the

separate -- it was volatile.

Do

think that decision was right?

I

have thought a lot about many of the

decisions that we would have made,

and I think that decision was

correct.

All of you sitting here,

with multi-million pounds of payment

from the company over a period of

years, and you say how sad and

disappointed you are, but what

actions do you take to show that?

Because it is just words, is it not?

It is just worth, I am saddened by I

am disappointed, which I could do

things differently, but the money is

in the bank but it does not for the

people who are retired or coming for

retirement?

All for if you have done

rather well from the company, which

you then in different ways helped to

crash. Does that not movie you at

all? I mean, why should we believe

you, that you feel so sad about all

of this? It does not extend to your

chequebook.

I am genuinely, shocked

and saddened by the events. I

genuinely am. And I am very happy to

engage with the company and

understand what...

You do not have

to wait for someone to have an

engagement with you, it is part of

your DNA. Is it not?

It is, but I do

need to understand what the position

is, I do not know what the position

is today.

It is clear is it not? As

she said pages are taking cuts

people are not going to get paid for

contrast, other people have lost

their jobs, you are still all right.

I love you. Argue? -- are you not?

Carillion's executives,

lost for words there.

Well, the next day it was

the turn of the Government.

The Liaison Committee

which is made up of the chairs

of all the other committees summoned

the Cabinet Office minister.

But he was being very

cautious in his answers.

This exchange was typical.

One of the lessons from the

financial crisis, was to have more

tougher rules about being able to

pull back bonuses, and when things

go wrong at a business, do you think

we should look again at the

claw-back arrangements for bonuses

so that we can get some of that

money back?

Again sitting here

today, I am open-minded on that, but

there have been serious allegations

of misconduct by the Board and

former board members of them. Those

are being independently did --

investigated by the receiver and it

would be wrong before a Minister to

make any comment that could be

prejudicial of the findings on that.

I know this isn't the first time

I've said this and it won't be

the last, but it's been a big

week for Brexit.

Theresa May chaired two key meetings

with senior ministers.

The Brexit cabinet committee

sketched out what the future

relationship between the UK and EU

might look like.

What conclusion they came to,

they haven't told me,

but the issue came up several times

in the Commons.

First, in a spirited

intervention by one DUP MP,

echoing the words of his father

during the Troubles.

Does the Minister agreed that but it

is time the Government demonstrated

that no surrender attitude to the

bureaucrats who bully us over air

flights, passenger and everything

else and stand up to them and stand

up to the EU and get on with leading

it.

Well, that plea came

moments before the start

of Prime Minister's Questions

where the matter was raised again.

The Prime Minister will be aware

that all free-trade agreements

involve some customs checks and

therefore infrastructure at

frontiers of which will be

completely incompatible with

maintaining an open border between

Northern Ireland and the time

subcommittee is getting around to

discussing this, could be a Minister

explained to the House at why she's

so opposed to the UK remaining and a

customs union with the EU when not

only would these be better for the

British economy, and a vague

partnership whatever that is, but

would also help to ensure that that

border remained as it is today,

which is what we all want.

The UK's

leading the EU, that means relieving

the single market, we are leaving

the customs union, because if we

were members of it, we would not be

able to do trade around the rest of

the world. And we are going to have

an independent trade policy and due

the stills. And he asks me about the

arrangements, well I have second,

say to data looks of the paper that

was published by the Government last

summer.

And a question about reports

that the EU could suspend "certain

benefits" during any transition

phase, came from the other end

of the Brexit spectrum.

In the committee last December I

wonder about all tomatoes from the

EU, and again and might you queue

only last week, which he be good

enough to be very robust in

discussing the matters and the

Brexit committees, I'm sure she will

be, in order to ensure that we

repudiate any of these threats.

As I

said from the beginning, we will

hear all sorts of thing being said

about positions are being taken.

What matters is the position that we

take in the negotiations as we sit

down and the best deal we has shown

that we can do that we did in

December, I would do it again.

Jeremy Corbyn's battleground

of choice for this week's

Prime Minister's Questions

was crime figures.

Last month the Office

for National Statistics said

the number of violent crimes and sex

offences recorded by police

in England and Wales has risen

sharply over the past year.

But the separate Crime Survey, based

on people's experiences, suggested

crime was continuing to fall.

And with that in mind,

battle commenced, with

a particularly pithy question.

With crime rising, does the PM

regret cutting down police officers?

Will you seem from the crime survey,

is that crime is now down at record

low levels. That is, that is what is

being achieved and it has been

achieved by conservative government

that the symptom has been protecting

the budget.

The Chief Constable says

we do not have the resources to keep

residents safe the position is a

scandal. Too many people do not feel

safe and too many people are not

safe. We had just enough highest

rise in recorded crime for a quarter

of a century. The Chief Constable of

Lancaster said that the gut -- the

police can't make it much more

difficult to keep people safe. Is he

wrong?

Can I say to the right

honourable gentleman, on this issue

of recording crime, he mentions it

is precisely because when I was Home

Secretary, I asked them to look at

the recording of bullies crime, to

make sure that police forces were

doing it properly and indeed, some

changes were made as a result of

that. So we now see the better

recording of a crime post-op we also

see, 450 million pounds extra being

made available to the police. But

what have we seen and ICS? The

creation of the national crime

agency, our police taking more

notice to protect multiple victims,

doing more on modern slavery and

domestic violence. Taking issues

seriously, that they were not taking

seriously before.

If you asked to

look at unrecorded crime in Italy

what is going on, the least you

could do is act out what they tell

you.

This week marked a 100 years

of the Representation

of the People Act, which gave women

over 30 who had property,

the right to vote.

And in a debate to mark

the centenary, the Commons

was awash with the white,

purple and green emblem

of the suffrage movement.

I am proud to be part of the most

diverse House of Commons in British

history. We have our second female

Prime Minister. A third of those

attending Cabinet are women and we

had the highest ever number of

female MPs. Outside of politics, we

have seen so much progress since

1918. More women are in a more

diverse range of jobs than ever

before, and are increasingly at the

top of their field.

I was hoping

that the Minister was going to make

an announcement today that the

Government was going to issue may be

an official apology to the women of

the suffragette movement or a part

in maybe, for those who were wrongly

imprisoned. And sexually assaulted

in their battle to get women the

vote. But instead, all we have is a

nether renouncement, how utterly

disappointing.

I would be doing a

disservice to suffragette who stood

up for the causes which are more

than just getting a book for women,

if I did not say that today we still

have a government that pursues

policies like the rape clause, and

Social Security cuts, which hit one

budget 85% of the cuts have come

from their pockets, and we are yet

to see a justice for the campaign

is.

I support the Government moved

to asked the Lord commission to

consider the case for making it and

that went to the brain and abused

Parliamentary candidate. What this

is about, is about misogynist

seeking to sign into women who dare

to speak out. Particularly, very

lately, this against younger women

and black women. Voters have the

right to choose who they want, man

or woman, to represent them. And

once that Representative is elected

to Parliament, it is the right and

duty to be able to get on with the

job without being subjected to

intimidation, threats, or Biden.

This is about our democracy. So I

hope members on our side of the

House will get this our -- their

full support.

And women MPs past and present...

Were in Westminster Hall on Tuesday

to mark that centenary.

The suffrage campaigns

were led by women, but some male

supporters played a key role.

In a film for BBC Parliament,

the former deputy speaker

Natascha Engel reports on the Votes

for Women campaign and the men

who backed the cause.

We get thousands of petitions from

1860 to 19 it is signed by more than

3 million women.

A were undermined,

questions raised about their

manliness, their fitness for their

careers. They tried to rush the

building and chained themselves to

doctors and so long, they're in the

height of the storm.

You will go

down in history as the man who

tortured innocent women.

They went

on how the strikes. -- hunger

strikes. Daley from his first

election he introduced a women's

suffrage bill every year. But this

was the great opportunity.

This is

also a story about Parliament.

Campaigners ended to win allies from

the all-male Parliaments of the day.

We will be looking at the

politicians have eventually agreed

to change the law.

And the film, Suffragette Allies,

is on BBC Parliament on Sunday

evening at half-past-eight.

MPs who are found to have bullied

or harassed their staff could be

be suspended and voters could force

them to face a by-election.

The Leader of the Commons announced

a package of measures to tackle

misconduct at Westminster.

The working group was formed to

bring about change. It is a right,

not a privilege, to be treated with

dignity and respect at work. This

ambitious report is a major step

towards a safer and more

professional environments.

This is a

significant, substantial document

that has managed to secure all

partisan support, as signal the

beginning of the end of the poison

is culture that has characterised so

many other relationships of this

House. Of such harassment is will

now have a process to make formal

complaints independent of the

political parties and that is the

key feature of what is being

designed and delivered today.

The

media spotlight can be very harsh on

a member of Parliament on the basis

just of an accusation made. But it

can also be very harsh on a

complainant. We have to bear that in

mind.

Publication of the accused's

name might bring forth corroborating

evidence of what otherwise might be

one person buys that against the

other. Where should the difficult

balance lie?

My honourable friend

will appreciate that this has been

an incredible difficult balancing

act. But we all made clear, all of

us on the working group is that the

commitment to protecting the

interests of the complainants would

be at the heart of this. And that

means very often that complainant

does not want and will not come

forward with a complaint if they

then run the risk of being hounded

Indymedia and having effectively --

Indymedia and having a trial in the

full glare of the public spotlight.

And that was one of the core areas

that we sought to address. What that

inevitably means is that there are

compromises.

Which you not agree

that we need consent training but

also mandatory, and sanctions

available for those members were not

persuaded to take it up because

quite frankly, those members who are

likely to be resistant to taking up

training are those who need it most?

The training we've mentioned in

consent and unconscious bias and had

to recruit and how to employ people

and what constitutes harassment, all

of these things are vital. They will

be available as compulsory sanctions

and we will be seeking means to

encourage people across the estate

to take him up voluntarily where we

make it mandatory.

The head of the Parole Board has

said action is needed to make

the reasons for its decisions public

and its judgments

easier to challenge.

The comments come in

the wake of the decision

to release John Worboys.

Worboys was jailed indefinitely

in 2009, with a minimum

term of eight years,

for drugging and sexually

assaulting women.

Two of his victims have

been given the go-ahead

to challenge his release

at a judicial review next month.

The Government has ordered

a review of the transparency

of Parole Board decisions.

We could do much more than we do at

present. To explain individual

decisions. But there are a number of

risks to doing that. And they need

to be carefully explored and

considered.

It's an awareness and

education programme. What proposals

can you second to train yourself?

If

there are a number of different

steps that we are in the process of

taking. I think there is... We need

to have information accessible about

the process in a number of different

formats and it is never a different

platforms. I think we should use, we

are talking about some very

impressive stuff from other

jurisdictions. Written information

that can be produced to be much

improved. But we can't do and we're

absolutely... Approved by Parliament

earlier, is explain anything about

any individual case. Even the most

basic things. For an example,

talking about completely different

cases, you have victims ask for

information about licence

commissions. We have information

about licence conditions that would

reassure them. They would find them

comforting. And we can't tell them.

We can go much further. In

explaining our decisions to people

so they have a real sense of what we

are doing. They may not like what we

are doing, or they may agree with

what we have done. But at least they

have a basis to know why they do

agree or not. Then it makes it

challenging -- it makes a child

process better. You can challenge it

at the moment. So then you have to

grant funded.

That he said needed to

change.

Is undignified to me. I

don't think it's acceptable. But we

can't make every decision twice.

Professor Nick Hardwick.

It's not often a reality TV star

is called to give evidence in front

of a parliamentary committee.

But on Tuesday the model Katie Price

appeared before MPs to make

an impassioned plea for criminal

action to be taken against malicious

trolling on social media.

Katie Price has long campaigned

on behalf of her son, Harvey,

who has several disabilities.

What I am thinking is it's bad. What

goes in people's had when what they

want to do this to an innocent child

who can provide back. I went to a

bunch of governments and the police.

I went to the police twice and they

arrested two people, got their

computers, microphones, and the

police were embarrassed because it

got to the point where they couldn't

take it any further because it could

not charge him because there was

nothing in place. They had to drop

the cases. Since then, it has

discontinued and got worse. My

petition, I have 220,000 signatures.

A lot of people say that I don't...

We are not fans of yours. We don't

like you, but what you are doing is

amazing. Because it will help a lot

of people. I know that you don't sit

there and agree with me, really.

Now, you'll remember civil

servants came under fire

for pessimistic Treasury reports

about the effects of Brexit.

On BBC Radio, the Tory backbencher

Jacob Rees-Mogg accused civil

servants of "fiddling the figures".

So can the Treasury be trusted?

A Labour peer took up the issue.

My lords, given that the Downing

Street at Number 10 and the prime

Minister have failed to slap down

those Ministers and those MPs in

their own party that had made these

disgraceful slurs, is it too much to

ask for the Prime Minister finally

to show leadership?

I think I have

done on and off 20 years more than

anyone else in this House with many

discontinuities. -- with a

discontinuities. And I have never

had occasion to question the

impartiality or the objectivity of

civil servants. They have spoken

truth onto power and quite often has

said things I did not want to hear.

But I would never accuse them of

some of the accusations that have

recently been levied against them.

We should be proud of our civil

service. And I reject these smears

that have been made against them.

He

will be familiar with this document,

the Treasury analysis of May 2016

forecasting the complete collapse of

the British economy if we were to

vote to leave. I have maintained

this document as propaganda from top

to bottom. And it turns out to be

utterly untrue and reality. My noble

friend as praise the objectivity of

those who produce government

statistics. And I asked my noble

friend this. If I continue to

criticise the mandarins and the

Ministers who approved the

statistics and this document, does

that make me a snake oil salesman or

a 1930s German Nazi or a bit of

both?

He impugned DM partiality and

good faith of our civil servants.

They marked the -- the remark as

president Trump does in the United

States with regard to the FBI.

While

I don't often want to open up a

fresher front from the despatch box.

But President Trump I hope will read

what my noble friend... Has just

said.

And finally, the recently-appointed

Secretary of State for Digital,

Culture, Media and Sport fully

embraced the Digital part

of his new brief by becoming

the first MP to launch his very

own smartphone app.

The Matt Hancock App features

picture galleries and videos of him.

It also allows users to sign up

as friends and chat with other fans

of the Matt Hancock app.

But there've been concerns

about the app's privacy policy

and whether it complies

with the Data Protection Act.

What action does the Secretary of

State think should be taken as the

app which prevents key provisions of

the data protection act and is not

GDP are compliant?

I think that all

apps should be compliant with the

law and I am delighted to say that

the Matt Hancock app is, Mr Speaker.

Exactly because the app I am talking

about is not -- it doesn't belong to

them. It is named after him. The

general public needs protecting, Mr

Speaker, from their privacy being

invaded by Matt Hancock, their

information be shared with third

parties by Matt Hancock, and their

private photos being accessed by

Matt Hancock. Will the under take to

ensure that Matt Hancock complies

fully with all data protection

protections in the future and why he

things other people should abide by

their legal obligations to data

protection if Matt Hancock doesn't?

Of course the app does comply. More

importantly, I think we should use

digital communications Mr Speaker to

communicate with our constituents

and all their modern forms. I am

delighted by the response of the app

has had so far is bigger than I

could have possibly imagined. And I

look forward to him -- can --

committed to it -- communicated with

our decisions over Matt Hancock for

years.

Matt Hancock singing

the praises of, Matt Hancock.

And that's it.

Parliament is on a short half-term

break so we are too.

We'll be back in a week's time.

But for now, from me,

Mandy Baker, goodbye.