Angela Browning: I have yet to make my maiden speech, and I had no intention of participating in this debate. The hon. Gentleman is mistaken, because I was not discussing his remarks but a quite different subject. He was wrong to suggest that I was laughing at what I believe to be a serious matter. Will he withdraw his accusation?
Angela Browning: I am grateful for this opportunity to make my maiden speech in a debate on agriculture. I am well aware that my predecessor, Sir Robin Maxwell-Hyslop, robustly defended all those who worked in agriculture in Tiverton. I hope to follow in that tradition as enthusiastically as he did. Sir Robin represented Tiverton for more than 32 years. I know that he was well regarded and respected by right...
Angela Browning: If I have understood the hon. Gentleman correctly, he is saying that many residents in care homes are capable of independently living or living with some protection in the community. In Devon, his party has had the most to say when the social services department has rightly analysed the needs of people in care homes and has proposed the closure of residential homes. At the last Labour party...
Angela Browning: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Angela Browning: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Angela Browning: When I intervened on the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe), he was saying—if I understood him correctly, and I asked him whether I had —that as circumstances, local area needs and the needs of the individual residents change, we should be much more open minded about considering the needs of residents who could go back into the community, having been in residential care. By the...
Angela Browning: I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. Based on that —
Angela Browning: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the works of Shakespeare have a central place in the teaching of English in our schools? Is he not appalled at the negative view taken by the National Union of Teachers, which describes Shakespeare as boring and irrelevant? Is that not another example of how out of touch the NUT is with teachers, parents and the needs of pupils?
Angela Browning: The right hon. Gentleman made allegations about Conservative party conferences. With the benefit of his knowledge of the background to sterling, will he comment on the statement made by the Liberal Democrat economic spokesman, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) last Wednesday, during the course of that party's annual conference, that sterling should move as swiftly as...
Angela Browning: Will my right hon. Friend pay careful attention to the fifth report of the Select Committee on Energy, and look at the medium-term projections for energy costs? I sympathise with his view that there are many conflicting statistics and figures, but every business in this country has to project supply and demand and estimate costs in the medium term, so that it should not be beyond the wit of...
Angela Browning: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Angela Browning: Parental choice is exercised rather differently in rural areas from how it is in urban areas. Both at secondary and primary level, there is often no obvious choice for parents in rural areas, which is why we have a tradition—particularly in the part of Devon that I represent, which has more than 90 parishes —of local schools providing an education for children right across the spectrum,...
Angela Browning: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but it was not relevant to special educational needs. Those needs will continue to be dealt with by local education authorities. I have already said that there are areas of special educational need with which I am not entirely happy. The hon. Gentleman has mentioned Devon, a county with one of the highest percentage rates of statemented...
Angela Browning: The issue that I raise tonight is crucially important to small businesses, not just in my constituency but throughout the United Kingdom. As all hon. Members know, Britain's small businesses provide the very bone marrow of our economy, and the retail sector alone—from the corner shops, which are the kernel of a local community, to the large retail chains—directly employs well over 2...
Angela Browning: My hon. Friend makes a good point. That has exacerbated the position for small businesses. While the market mechanism has responded in boom conditions, it has completely failed to respond to recession. In a free and fair market, rents for leasehold premises should have taken account of all the relevant economic factors and fallen accordingly. Instead, they have defied the laws of economic...
Angela Browning: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I hope that he will forgive me if I press on with some speed, because I have other factors to mention. Allied to the blatant negation of the market is the second problem—the dominance of the 20-to-25-year institutional lease, which is virtually unknown outside this country. These long leases mean that tenants are unable to escape unjustified rents. In...
Angela Browning: Many hon. Members have experience of constituents being placed in that distressing situation. These four burdens—the outdated arbitration system, a complete lack of transparency, upwards-only clauses and original tenant liability—are bravely borne alone by Britain's small businesses. Our punitive system of commercial leasehold exists nowhere else in the European Community, and it is high...
Angela Browning: I have raised a lot of problems today, and in the short time available in an Adjournment debate I have little opportunity to outline in detail the possible solutions. A number of organisations, most notably the Property Market Reform Group, with which I have had a number of interesting discussions, and a group of businesses organised by Sir Desmond Pitcher, are working hard on behalf of...
Angela Browning: I congratulate my right hon. Friend. Does he agree that the package that he has announced today will be extremely helpful to the small business sector? As he will be aware, in the south-west, and particularly in my constituency of Tiverton, we have only small businesses; we do not have large companies. They will welcome the reduction in interest rates, help with exports and, particularly, the...
Angela Browning: Does my hon. Friend agree that another burden that banks put on small businesses is that they often exercise the right to impose a floating charge on a loan? When businesses experience difficulties, therefore, the banks are able to pick and choose which assets should be liquidated, which results in many businesses that could have overcome their difficulties going bankrupt and having to be...