31/10/2017 Tuesday in Parliament

Hello, and welcome to

Tuesday In Parliament,

our look at the best of the day

in the Commons and the Lords.

Coming up: The Government

is to review the maximum stake

for fixed-odds betting terminals.

It could be reduced to £2.

MPs hear the terrible

toll of gambling.

450,000 children who gamble at least

once a week.

Otherwise it was an

especially hectic day

on the committee corridor.

I have reports from five

committees for you, including

International Development,

where witnesses described

the horrors of Hurricane Irma.

But among the misery,

one uplifting moment.

Even though we lost the roof of our

prison, I believe our prisoners sat

tight and waited for it to be put

back on.

But first, the maximum stake

for a fixed-odds betting terminal

could drop to as little as £2 under

a government review.

Currently, people can bet up

to £100 every 20 seconds

on electronic casino games,

FOBT machines, as they're known.

But ministers are considering

a new limit of somewhere

between £2 and £50.

The idea is to reduce the risk

of people suffering big losses

and to tighten up advertising rules.

But Labour's spokesman declared

that the announcement was a victory

for the gambling industry.

He set out the scale of the problem.

430,000 people addicted to gambling.

Up one third in three years. A

further 2 million problem gamblers

at risk of developing an addiction.

£1.8 billion lost on FOBTs each

year. An increase of 79% over the

last eight years. The gambling

industry who have the amount they

win in debts increasing by billions

of pounds and yet they only paid £10

million for education and treatment

services on a voluntary levy this

year. Worst of all, 450,000 children

who gamble at least once a week.

I

appreciate his concerns about the

fact that this is a consultation,

but it is clearly the fact that the

Labour government in 2005 rushed

through the gambling act, without

paying proper focus on the issue of

these machines that have led to the

proliferations of these machines.

These machines didn't exist in 1997

when the Labour Party came into

power. It is this government who has

recognised the harm that is being

caused and is taking action on this

issue. There is a consultation, it

is due process and I expect people

to contribute to that process.

By

announcing yet another consultation

we are attentive to keep this

further into the long grass. The

move to cut the maximum stake, while

welcome, doesn't go far enough. In

Scotland £4 billion is spent every

year on 2000 gaming machines and

this is at a time when more people

are being identified as being

problem more at risk gamblers.

Action is needed now and if this

parliament is unwilling to act, then

the Scottish parliament is. Will the

Minister start today the process of

devolving all gambling powers to the

Scottish Parliament.

Mr Speaker, we

have already devolved a number of

powers to the Scottish Parliament

and they haven't yet taken up those

powers.

The gambling commission over

the summer published a report into

problem gambling and found the

highest levels were in spread

betting, then through betting on a

betting exchange, then through

playing poker in pubs or clubs, then

betting online on events other than

sports all horse racing greyhound

racing and only then followed by

playing gaming machines and

bookmakers. Given that the much

higher levels of problem gambling

all come with unlimited stakes and

unlimited potential winnings, if the

government is so focused on evidence

why is it focusing so much betting

machines and bookmakers or is it

just playing to the gallery as most

of us know it is really all about?

Would my honourable friend agree

with me that bookmakers do actually

provide considerable employment,

they contribute to the economy, and

for the vast majority of gamblers a

bit of enjoyment and light fun and

we should not forget that.

The scale

of harm being inflicted by these

appalling machines in my area

prompted Newham Council to lead

calls for a £2 maximum stake. We

have heard fears today that if that

happens a number of betting shops

could be almost halved across the

country but could I reassure my

minister that if the number of

betting shops in East Ham high

Street was halved there was still be

too many of them. Can we still

introduce this £2

maximum stake as quickly as

possible.

It was a mistake to

introduce these machines to the high

Street in my view, a complete

mistake. It is not just a reduction

in stake, could she say a bit more

about the proliferation of betting

shops across our country and our

high streets?

The issue

proliferation of bookmakers in our

high streets is one of those we

looked at in the call for evidence

and we conclude that the local

authorities have the powers to

address this issue. I think when we

take the whole thing, the whole

package of measures, I am sure that

there is something that will be a

reduction in if the stakes are

reduced significantly in the future.

This goes way beyond addicted

gamblers and affects children

desperately. Can I implore the

Minister to suggest that a reduction

of £50 will not resolve the issue

for those?

I am grateful for my

honourable friend 's comments and it

is clear that actually we have

listened to all the public concerns

about the risk of high-stakes

gambling which is why we have

published this overall package of

gambling measures today. I would

like others to make their views

known as part of the consultation.

The minister, Tracey Crouch.

Now, was Britain's rescue effort

good enough when a succession

of hurricanes struck the Caribbean?

At the start of September,

Hurricane Irma battered several

small island states.

It was said to be the most powerful

Atlantic storm in a decade,

recording winds of 180

miles an hour.

It caused a trail of destruction,

with many islanders made

homeless and thousands left

without power for days.

The lessons of Hurricane Irma

are now being examined

by a committee of MPs.

Representatives from

Britain's Caribbean territories

spoke about the destruction.

We were engulfed by the eye of the

storm which was some 23 miles in

width. The island being a mere 3.5

miles in width. As a consequence we

suffered a fatality, very sadly, and

a great deal of injury. It was a

huge strain on the 32 bed hospital,

bearing in mind that our population

is some 17,000 permanent people.

The

islands post Irma assessment report

said that the island suffered nearly

80% damage to its buildings across

the entire chain of islands.

Approximately 400 homes were

completely destroyed and there was a

need to shelter approximately 1000

persons before both Harry Kane 's

Irma and another hurricane.

Neighbouring islands

experienced widespread looting.

Social distressed and armed looting

did kick-off. There was no

lawlessness at all, even though we

did lose the roof of our prison. I

believe our prisoners sat tight and

waited for it to get put back on.

A journalist who'd been to the area,

summed up the mood of the residents.

They felt that, I think there was an

issue of contrast. One person used

the phrase third class citizens, if

you like, third class citizens,

because seeing the contrast with the

French and the Dutch. That feeling

did persist, yes. It took a week for

the first aid plane to land, and

that was the one the Foreign

Secretary went on, and that brought

more millenary personnel but not

much more aid, I understand. --

military personnel. The power was

out for a long time, much longer

than it was represented to be and

that was a source of anguish and

communications were very difficult.

Her colleague described

what had been found

by a journalist who was observing

the military efforts.

She wrote a summary that said from

the few conversations I was able to

help with local people it appeared

that while shifting boxes of aid

from the backs of trucks and planes

made good pictures for PR purposes

but they were not the resources

required at the time. The main issue

faced by Leland 's was the lack of

power, communications and transport.

The box of aid was regarded as a

drop in the ocean and all in all it

seems that the most positive thing

to come out British efforts in the

region was to have a presence the

streets. In the eyes of the island

is this appeared to be the bulk of

the British contribution.

A military chief defended

the British rescue effort.

We had the military moving ahead of

the Cobra meetings, based on our own

appreciation of the situation as it

was unfolding, so even though our

forces were at 48 hours notice to

move, the Marines were at Aria Brize

Norton within eight hours on the

first night. Three left on that

Friday, aircraft. They all moved

very quickly against the 48-hour

timeline. That is the speed with

which we responded.

Going back to

the lessons, I think a key lesson is

that we are concluding this from the

process of preparing for this

hearing, is that we lost the media

war. When we have looked at all of

the objective indicators we have a

military assessment there from the

US. We have looked at the amount of

aid in terms of tonnage and money

spent by other partners on

neighbouring islands. The UK

responds far exceeds what other

countries have done.

Richard Montgomery.

You're watching Tuesday

in Parliament, with me, Mandy Baker.

If you want to catch

up with all the news

from Westminster on the go,

don't forget our sister programme

Today in Parliament is available

as a download via the BBC Radio 4

Website.

The Brexit Secretary David

Davis is a busy man.

Not only is he negotiating the UK's

withdrawal from the European Union,

but he's regularly appearing before

Parliamentary committees.

Last week it was the Commons Brexit

Committee, this week, The Lords'.

He was asked whether the UK

or the EU would benefit

most from an agreement.

The withdrawal or agreement on

balance would probably favour the

union in terms of things like money

and so on, where as the future

relationship will favour both sides

and will be important to both of us

and, of course, in Article 50, as

you know, it says taking into

account the ongoing relationship.

Well, it seems to us you cannot take

something into account until it

exists, you know. So we see those

things separately.

What does no deal

mean in practice? What will be the

consequences for the United Kingdom

if there were to be no deal under

Article 50? Following on from that,

all at what point in the

negotiations, if all goes well, will

you be able to confirm that no deal

is no longer an option?

Well, the

first thing to say is that right at

the beginning no deal is not what we

are seeking. I may sound like a

cracked record on this but

unfortunately every time we do not

say people assume that somehow you

want no deal. I am not one of those

people who think that no deal is the

best deal. I think that is to be

plain from the beginning. In terms

of answering the end of your

question, because we are, precisely

because we are seeking a good deal,

a deep and special partnership, to

use the words of the Prime Minister,

we will be trying to do that right

to the end so that I would expect.

That is where I think the answer is.

Now, in terms of what does no deal

con cyst of? Well, firstly I think

no deal is improbable but if we end

up with no deal, in my mind that

tends to mean no free trade deal,

and no customs arrangements go with

that. That is the primary thing you

lose. What I don't think is that we

will end up with a circumstance

where there is no agreement over a

number of fairly fundamental issues,

I do know, take aviation for one. I

think whatever happens we will have

some sort of basic deal, so my view

of no deal is when there is a basic

deal without the bits we really

want. The reason I say that is that

it is so painterly in everybody's

interest that we have, let's say, an

aviation deal, not just for us, not

just for our holiday-makers but what

would it give the economy of Spain

or Italy or the countries that have

heavily dependent regions on

tourism? Formally do to Poland if

the million polls in Europe could

not go backwards and forwards

between them? I think what is

commonly of as no deal is almost,

not impossible, but very, very, very

improbable.

David Davis.

The household appliance manufacturer

Whirlpool has told MPs that

a million faulty tumble dryers

could still be in use.

The firm started on a repair

programme after discovering

a fault in 2015.

In August 2016, a tumble dryer

awaiting repairs caused a fire

in a tower block in west London.

The Business Committee asked safety

experts if the firm should have

replaced the machines instead.

In 2015 the decision to initiate a

repair programme on tumble dryers,

which was agreed by Peterborough

Trading Standards, rather than a

full product recall, was this the

right decision, and if not, why not,

and how does the system work? Who

decides whether a recall or a repair

programme is necessary?

It wasn't

the right decision and we are very

frustrated that Whirlpool continued

to refuse to do a full recall.

Safety issues came to light in 2014,

prompting Whirlpool to start

a repair programme.

Our concern is that by 2016, 750

fires had been reportedly linked to

these tumble dryers, and of course

in August of that year, you had the

Shepherd's Bush fire, where a tower

block burned down and tragically...

Well, it left 50 people unable to

return to their homes. Throughout

that process we consistently saw

Whirlpool docking its

responsibilities to customers.

He criticised Whirlpool's

advice to consumers.

Where they were saying it was

effectively still safe to use those

machines was concerning as well, and

following the Shepherd's Bush fire

they didn't change that advice until

a judicial review by Peterborough

Trading Standards, and our advice

has been changed and people are

being advised not to use those

machines. So there's a whole range

of things Whirlpool have failed to

do. The critical one is they have

failed to recall these machines.

In

quite an unprecedented move, wrote

to the company before the Shepherd's

Bush fire, six months before, and

expressed my concern about the

advice being given that they were

safe to use, and regrettably,

subsequently six months later we had

all those people displaced in what

we would certainly regard as a near

miss, because had that fire at

night-time, it could have been a

different picture.

The work we did

with Trading Standards identified

the risk, identified what the action

plan was and the guidance to

consumers, and that was consistently

applied in all of the communications

as well. And it was a clear

definition of not using the product

unattended, and what that meant was

not to go out of the house or when

you go to sleep at night. That's

quite common advice for a number of

white goods.

People have quite busy

lives these days, haven't they?

They've got new products and digital

products, smart, automatic. Do you

think that in this period this is

sound advice? That everybody has to

stay in when they are doing their

washing on a Monday? Washing day?

The advice we would give is not to

use the product unattended, whether

it be a product subject to this

action or not, with something like

that.

I'm getting even more scared

now as somebody who owns one of your

products.

Rachel Reeves wondered how many

appliances were left to repair.

How many are left in Britain today?

We think 1 million as the estimate.

If you think of the life cycle of

this type of appliance, which is

typically 7-8 years.

And you are

satisfied with that? That this

modification programme, which still

sees 1 million tumble dryers with

potentially that fault in our homes.

I mean, from a reputational

respective and also a company who,

in a letter from your managing

director, says having safety is

priority. Having 1 million with this

tumble dry with his faults, it

doesn't seem safety is your number

one priority.

What I would point out

is that the number of resolutions so

far that we've achieved through this

programme, and it has been

recognised that that is a very

significant number.

And he told MPs he was still

using his tumble dryer,

even though it hasn't

been modified yet.

The Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt,

has already announced

that the public sector pay cap,

limiting rises to 1% a year,

is to be abolished for staff

in the NHS in England and Wales.

But where is the money to pay

for it going to come from?

Appearing on the BBC's

Andrew Marr Show at the weekend

Mr Hunt appeared to suggest

the Chancellor Philip Hammond

was proposing to link extra money

to better productivity.

When Jeremy Hunt appeared before

the Health Committee,

MPs were keen to press him

on what exactly he meant.

So any sort of pay increase, will

that come with efficiencies within

the NHS or will that come from extra

money that may come from the

Chancellor?

Well, what the

Chancellor has said is that he will

consider providing extra money if I

am able to secure some productivity

improvements in the contractual

arrangements that we have with staff

members.

OK, thank you.

Just to

clarify, is he saying it all has to

come out of that or that there will

be some kind of mixture of the two?

He hasn't given me any more detail

than I've given you on this matter.

He will consider finding extra

funding so that any pay rise, all or

in part, wouldn't have to come out

of savings in the NHS, but he would

like to see some productivity

improvements as part of those

contractual changes.

The Secretary of State was also

asked about newspaper reports that

some GPs were threatening to break

away from NHS and set up

a private alternative.

I think we have to look at the

underlying reason why those kind of

motions are being debated, and I

think it is that GPs feel their

workload is too high, their job has

become too stressful. Sometimes they

feel they are on a sort of hamster

wheel of between 13 and 14 minute

appointments a day. The long-term

solution is to get more capacity in

the solution, which is why we have

our plan to approved 5000 GPs, which

we are in the middle of trying to

deliver. Some bits of that plan

going well, others less well, but

I'm determined to deliver that and

that is the long-term solution, I

think.

Jeremy Hunt.

The Paralympic gold medallist,

Tanni Grey-Thompson,

has agreed that the classification

of Paralympic athletes

is being manipulated.

She was speaking to

the Commons Sport Committee,

which is looking at whether some

athletes are being given an unfair

advantage by being grouped

with competitors more

disabled than themselves.

In your position, based on what you

know and have experienced, you

believe more needs to be done

because the current system isn't

working?

We should be gold standard,

we should have this at the heart of

everything we do, there should be

independents, and I think we can

achieve that.

You believe the system

is being abused. You believe that is

happening now?

Yes.

Also giving evidence was the father

of paralympian, Olivia Breen.

He was asked why athletes

were afraid to speak out.

I think they are really frightened.

I think they've been intimidated and

bullied over many years. And part of

that intimidation relates directly

to classification.

It's the International

Paralympic Committee that sets

the classifications.

No-one from the IPC gave evidence

in person, but it issued

nine pages of evidence

about its classifications.

But the British Paralympic

Association did talk

to the committee, and tried

to calm the concerns.

I don't believe where we're at now

is in a position where we are

looking at something that can be

considered not fit for purpose. I

don't believe that. I think there

are absolutely areas, and I'm sure

will touch on them, where this

process and the underpinning nature

of classification can and must be

approved. But that is not to say

that the sport as a whole and the

athletes as a whole are being failed

by the process that we have in place

currently.

Do you feel power

athletes that have been failed by

the system in the way they have are

owed an apology either movement for

the failures in the process so far?

-- are owed an apology by the

movement?

I have not... There has

not been any proven case of

intentional misrepresentation. There

has not been any proven case of

misrepresentation. There has not,

indeed, been any evidence that has

been presented that has gone beyond

the circumstantial and the

anecdotal. If I were to say that, it

would be to not defend the right of

those athletes who are otherwise

being accused.

Asked if an apology was owed,

Tim Holingsworth, said that

in the absence of evidence,

his answer was No.

In the Lords, the Government

suffered a defeat after peers backed

a cross party proposal to make sure

anyone who transfers out

of a pension gets financial advice.

The change to the Financial Guidance

and Claims Bill, approved

by a majority of 82 votes,

requires members of pensions schemes

to be asked if they've received

information or guidance before

transferring out of the scheme

or withdrawing their assets.

The debate on the Bill continues.

A former minister has called

for a ban on the use of tyres

which are more then ten years

old on buses and coaches.

Labour's Maria Eagle described how

three people were killed

when a tyre burst on the coach

they were travelling in.

One of the victims

was her 18-year-old

constituent, Michael Molloy.

The tyre on the coach

was older than he was.

His mother Frances is heartbroken.

She thought coach travel was a safe

form of public transport. Yet the

coach to which she entrusted her son

turned out to be a death trap

because of a 19 and a half year old

tyre that no one could see was going

to burst because of the

deterioration caused by its age. So,

let those of us now in this House

take steps to ensure that no other

family has to endure what Francis

has endured. Mr Speaker, these old

tyres kill. Let's get them off our

coaches and buses. Let's get them

off our roads.

Maria eagle.

And that's it for this programme.

So for now, from me

Mandy Baker, goodbye.