Clive Betts: ...think that all members of the Select Committee are cynical and sleazy, I suppose that we will have to live with that. [Interruption.] Perhaps we will not. The idea that the hon. Members for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) and for Harrow East were not merely cynical and sleazy but involved in a plot with the Labour party to cream off money is a little too far-fetched for the chairman of the...
Clive Betts: ...have been somewhat reluctant to do it as well. There is cross-party support for such a move. I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) and the hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) are present. They were both members of the Select Committee in the last Parliament. We produced a report on fiscal devolution to local government in England that received widespread...
Clive Betts: ...from the Select Committee’s report in the previous Parliament on rent recovery and civil penalties. That was something the Committee agreed unanimously. I see the hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) in his place. He was a member of the Committee at that time. It is right to give local authorities a lighter-touch way of dealing with the less serious problems that may exist in private...