European Council
Chris Bryant Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)
May I thank the Prime Minister for his statement and associate myself with his words on Somalia and Serbia?
Let me turn first to the pressing issue of the continuing violence in Syria. The pictures and testimony coming out of Homs in the past few days, and again today, are truly horrific, with women and fathers telling of their children being murdered in front of their eyes. Responsibility for the brutal repression and murder of innocent people lies firmly at the door of President Assad and his regime. It is appalling—I agree with the Prime Minister on this—that the Syrian Government have so far even refused requests for humanitarian access. In this context, it is even more important that Britain puts pressure on the international community to back a United Nations resolution and address this desperate situation.
May I ask the Prime Minister a few questions? First, will he update the House specifically on what he believes the UK and the EU are able to do to support the Arab League and the joint special envoy in his efforts somehow to broker an end to the bloodshed? Secondly, what steps are now in train to strengthen sanctions against the Assad regime, including through the proper enforcement of the Arab League sanctions? Thirdly, given that the Russian Government are responsible for vetoing the last UN resolution on Syria, does the Prime Minister agree that they will be judged by their actions rather than their words on Syria? No doubt he will be speaking to President-elect Putin in the coming days. What will he be telling him in those conversations? I hope—I am sure that I speak for the whole House and the country in saying this—that he will make it clear to President-elect Putin that action is necessary and that the Russian position is frankly unacceptable.
Let me turn to other matters discussed at the European Council, particularly jobs and growth. At his press conference on Friday, the Prime Minister was uncharacteristically shy—indeed, totally silent—about the main event of the summit: the signing of the fiscal compact. He did at least mention it today at the end of his statement, although I am very struck by the fact that in the written copy that was kindly distributed to me before he delivered it, the word “treaty” was used, but he could not bring himself to use that word. Of course, the reason he was uncharacteristically coy in his press conference is that his veto was not a veto; the treaty has gone ahead. Can he confirm that for all his claims, both the European Court of Justice and the Commission will be fully involved in implementing the treaty? Can he tell us how he will find out about the result of the meetings, in which a whole variety of economic questions that will affect the UK will be discussed? Apparently, his spokesman was asked about this last Wednesday, and the best that he could manage was to say, “The Prime Minister may not be in the room, but he will be in the building.”
Edward Miliband
Yes, he is Elvis. I do not think that the spokesman’s comment is very reassuring.
It is a matter of record that the Prime Minister spent Thursday complaining that he felt frustrated because he did not feel that the other 25 leaders were taking enough notice of him as they prepared to sign the new treaty. However, on Friday, he claimed that in less than 24 hours, his powers of persuasion had once again triumphed:
“The communiqué has been fundamentally rewritten in line with our demands.”
After the experience of the veto, I am sure that he will forgive us all for being a little sceptical about his claims.
Let us examine the Prime Minister’s claims. He said that big strides forward were clear from the communiqué on energy, micro-enterprises, the single market and reducing trade barriers. However, will he confirm that the commitment on the energy market was in the conclusions of last February’s Council, that the commitments on the single market and trade simply echo those following the October 2011 Council, and that the supposed progress on micro-enterprises was in the conclusions of last December’s Council?
Listening to the Prime Minister, I had a sense of groundhog day. I then realised why. He sent the same letter to the European Council a year ago. Believe it or not—of course, we do believe it—he claimed the same triumph then:
“I organised a letter…making the case for action on growth, on deregulation, on completing the single market, on extending it to services… I think this has had a real impact”.
The people behind him are not looking amused. If last year’s letter had such an impact, why did he have to send it again? For the avoidance of doubt, I will place last year’s letter in the Library of the House, because it will probably be next year’s letter as well. For all the Prime Minister’s slapping himself on the back, the reality is that not one job has been created, not one family helped and not one business boosted. Why does he not learn the lesson that empty claims of a European triumph lose him credibility at home and influence abroad?
Why did the Prime Minister not press those countries with fiscal headroom at the summit to stimulate growth in Europe? Why does he not lead by example and sort out the jobs crisis here at home? He said on Friday and repeated today that there was not an air of crisis about the euro. Will he tell the House whether he thinks that a sustainable solution has been put in place for the euro area, because that is one of the most important long-term issues that we face and that the European economy faces?
The reality is that we have a Prime Minister who is isolated and without influence. He is unable to argue for jobs and growth because of his own failure at home. He achieved nothing for Britain at this summit. For all the good it has done us, he could have given the summit a miss and gone horse riding instead.
The Prime Minister
The roadblocks come in two forms. First, there is the fact that the services directive has not been fully implemented, and some countries have been blocking it. Those countries—Germany is among them, I think—are now undergoing infraction proceedings by the European Commission. The second part of the problem concerns the number of regulated professions in Europe that countries continue to regulate separately rather than open up to competition. Britain has a relatively good record on both the services directive and getting rid of regulated professions but we need to keep up the pressure.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Was there any discussion of the European arrest warrant? I ask because the Prime Minister will know that a lot of his Back Benchers want Britain to withdraw from it, whereas the Liberal Democrats want no change at all. If he insists on riding two horses at once, may I suggest that he campaign for reform rather than withdrawal?
The Prime Minister
This was a European Council devoted to discussion of the economy and foreign affairs, so there was no discussion of the European arrest warrant.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Bryant Excerpts(14 years ago)
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The Attorney-General
I am not in a position to give my hon. Friend a precise date. What I suggest, as he will appreciate that the issue is outside my departmental area, is that I write to him when I have ascertained whether we have further detailed information on it.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Surely we are going to get many more convictions only if there is much more effective co-operation between prosecutors and police in this country and elsewhere. Given that many such gangs are elsewhere in the European Union, is not the European arrest warrant a vital part of the necessary armoury? Will the Attorney-General tell his Back Benchers that he is not going to step outside the European arrest warrant, even if they want to do so?
The Attorney-General
I have no doubt at all that mechanisms for co-operation throughout the European Union and, indeed, elsewhere can be very useful in the apprehension of criminals, particularly in this field. How that should best be carried out is, if I may say to the hon. Gentleman, ultimately I suppose a matter for this House, if it ever comes up for review.
Informal European Council
Chris Bryant Excerpts(14 years ago)
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The Prime Minister
To answer my hon. Friend’s second question first, obviously this treaty cannot be folded back into the EU without the agreement of every EU member state. We did not sign this treaty, because we did not get the safeguards that we wanted, and that position absolutely remains. My hon. Friend is right to make the point about the danger of a slippery slope that can be created by signing EU treaties and the use of the EU institutions. The whole point is that because this is not an EU treaty—because it is outside EU law—we are not in danger of that happening.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
So, basically, the Prime Minister was afraid that if he went to the European Court of Justice and asked the European Court of Justice whether the European Court of Justice should have power to adjudicate on the so-called non-EU treaty, he would lose? That is basically the sum and total of it, is it not?
The Prime Minister
Let me explain again, because I know the hon. Gentleman takes great interest in European affairs. The point is that it is in our interest that these eurozone countries get on with the job they need to do. It is absolutely important that they stick to the fiscal union and do not encroach on the single market. Clearly, there are uses for the institutions they have set out in this treaty, some of which are legal under existing EU law and some of which are highly questionable. We are going to use that leverage and that legal position to make them stick to the position of sticking to the fiscal union. That is the most sensible thing to do, and I would have thought that, with all his experience in European politics, he understood that.
The Prime Minister
Thank you very much—you are so charitable.
On unemployment, the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain) is absolutely right. There was a very good and strong discussion in the European Council and it is really worth looking in particular at examples of countries that have lower youth unemployment than Britain—there are many with higher youth unemployment —to see what lessons we can learn from them.
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. There have been occasions on which EU directives have been added to by Government Departments and implemented with more vigour than in other parts of the European Union. We have tried to put a stop to that under this Government.
EU Council
Chris Bryant Excerpts(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. If I am to accommodate the large number of Back Benchers, as I always wish to do, we will require brevity, a textbook example of which will now be provided by Mr Chris Bryant. [Laughter.]
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I think, Mr Speaker, that that was an example of irony.
The single most important thing that our voters have seen over the past weeks and months has been the crisis in the economies across the whole of Europe, which is depressing the economy in this country as well. They want to ensure that they have jobs to go to next year. Last week, the Prime Minister surrendered an opportunity to do that; he surrendered his seat; and he surrendered to his Back Benchers. Is he not ashamed of himself?
The Prime Minister
And it all started so well! The hon. Gentleman is right to say that there is a crisis of jobs and opportunity across Europe, and a lot of that is linked to the chilling effect of the eurozone crisis. Some of that crisis needs to be resolved by better fiscal integration, and we can argue about whether that requires the treaty change being pushed for by France and Germany, but the real agenda—to help the eurozone and to help growth and jobs—is about competitiveness and the single market, and about ensuring that, even in the short term, there is the big bazooka, the re-capitalisation of the banks and the proper programme for Greece, which are all things that Britain has been pushing for.
Industrial Action
Chris Bryant Excerpts(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Maude
As has been said, to achieve the same pension as many public sector workers will continue to enjoy after these reforms are put in place, many people working in the private sector would end up having to pay no less than a third of their salary in pension contributions. These are good pension schemes. They will continue to be good pension schemes. We want them to be so.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I know that those on the Government Benches want to denigrate trade unions, but I am proud of being a trade unionist. I first joined a trade union when I was a vicar, though it was always a bit difficult to strike, because nobody noticed and it was difficult to identify who one’s employer was. What angers many public sector workers is that, even where there are pension funds, as the Minister admitted today, the extra 3% that is being asked for is not going into those funds. It is going straight to the Government. That is what makes it feel like a raid on public sector workers.
Mr Maude
I feel confident that if the hon. Gentleman was on strike today, we would definitely miss him. I commend him, as a member of a trade union, for having crossed the picket line today to come to work. The issue he raises is where the extra contribution is going. He fails to understand that these schemes, for the most part, are not funded schemes. What is not paid by staff towards the cost of their pensions is picked up by the general taxpayer. And I say again—I assume this is the basis on which the shadow Chancellor said this morning that further reform of public sector pensions is needed—that whatever is not paid by staff is picked up the taxpayer, and that all the extra cost in the past 10 years, which has risen by a third—an extra £10 billion a year—has fallen on the general taxpayer. That is why we need a fairer balance.
Parliamentary Lobbying
Chris Bryant Excerpts(14 years, 3 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Paul Flynn
No. The position is this. Someone may want to lobby on a subject, but what a Member is allowed to do should be a question of their interest, conscience, constituency and so on. If someone who is taking a considerable sum of money from an outside body appears then to be pursuing its business—what it is asking for—that is extremely foolish and dangerous. I have explained that at length and had a long conversation with the Member in question. I believe that there is only one Member in that position.
When I came into Parliament 25 years ago, probably a majority of the Members in one of the parties took money from outside sources. Some were openly referred to as the Member for this or that company. In the previous Parliament, one was referred to as the Member for Boots, with some justification—there is some truth in that view of things. We are Members for our constituencies, and are paid handsomely for our work. We are paid a full-time wage. We should not have income from outside. There is a splendid book on the subject, which I commend to hon. Members, that suggests that all MPs should put any income they receive above their salary into a charity fund. That would do something to restore the public’s trust in us.
What else has been going on? New interest in the debate has been precipitated by the Werritty scandal. That will continue and other hon. Members might want to speak about it. We have allowed honeyed words to be used, and have talked about a blurring of the ministerial code, when we know that what happened was a flagrant abuse of the code. The investigation will continue, and many matters arise from the Werritty scandal, which should be of interest to us.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Is not one of the ironies of the Werritty case the fact that Sir Gus O’Donnell’s report declared that Mr Werritty was not a lobbyist?
Paul Flynn
Indeed. I read it with some interest. Yesterday, three very senior figures, including past Cabinet Secretaries, came before the Public Administration Committee to discuss the matter. I was very concerned about what has happened. We know that in this case it seemed that a secret foreign policy was being created. Money was coming in from organisations that many of us would regard as having extreme aims, to subvert Government policy. Where commercial firms were involved, were they there to buy influence, or to influence contracts? Anything on those lines is entirely wrong, and if those contacts were made, they should have been made publicly and declared. They were not. We will have to learn the lesson there.
Even on smaller matters, can we trust the Government, who last year altered the ministerial code so that all meetings with lobbyists should be declared by Ministers, when this week we learn that one Secretary of State enjoyed a five-star dinner at the Savoy, held by a major lobbying firm, and that among the other guests was a company that was lobbying his Department? Instead of transparency and openness, we have the Secretary of State defending himself and saying that on that day he was eating privately, not ministerially. [Interruption.] Indeed, he is eating very well, and his eating habits are a matter of some interest to the House, and parliamentary sketch writers. However, that is a small example, although not of enormous significance: it is a sign of the lack of any conviction in government about instituting genuine reform.
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
I will start by declaring an interest: I am a former lobbyist and an unpaid board member of a group which spends part of its time lobbying this place and other places.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) on securing this debate. I hope that I encourage him when I say that I sympathise with much—but not all—of what he has said.
The Government’s progress in their first 18 months of office is rather more promising than that which their predecessors achieved in 13 years. The coalition agreement strikes the right balance between encouraging lobbying and ensuring transparency. People should know what we are up to over and above what they can obtain from the register and under the Freedom of Information Act. None the less, we must be cautious about some of the unintended consequences. I do not want to over-simplify things because, as I have said, I am on the same page as the hon. Gentleman in so many ways. The solution is not only the register but the codes of practice and the professional standards that underpin the register. As a former lobbyist, I attach the greatest importance to those matters.
As a Government and a party, we promote and champion self-regulation over statutory regulation. Having dealt with a number of regulators in my previous life, I have some experience of such matters. My experience of the Advertising Standards Authority as a regulator was pretty good. The organisation had teeth, it did things and it applied standards with which the lobby industry was entirely comfortable. My experience with other organisations, such as the Market Research Society, was less than satisfactory. When trying to table a complaint against an individual member of the MRS, we found that the president of the MRS was the very same person against whom we were lodging the complaint. I am talking about not just blurred lines, but real confusion, and I had a similar view of the Press Complaints Commission. I am probably one of the few Members in this Chamber who took Piers Morgan to the PCC when he was editor of the Daily Mirror. I was astonished by the complete contempt that he showed for that body—it was as if it was not there. He did not give a damn. At that particular moment, it was, as far as he was concerned, a toothless organisation.
Simon Hart
The hon. Gentleman has more recent experience of the organisation than me.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I warmly congratulate the comrades, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), and the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon). It is an unusual alliance; perhaps they met around the sides of politics, from the ends of the Back Benches. I completely agree about transparency; it is key. Several Members have referred to the fact that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has said that he was eating in a private capacity, not a ministerial one. I suspect that he might, on occasion, have eaten in both capacities on the same evening and that, like a cow, he has more than one stomach, and is therefore able to ruminate on behalf of several people.
Robert Halfon
On a point of order, Mr Robertson. That seems to be a case of fatism. Is that not inappropriate?
Chris Bryant
We need to remember that, in essence, we politicians are all lobbyists. We go through lobbies and try to advocate causes, and nearly every one of us—if not all of us—was in one shape or form a lobbyist before we came into Parliament. For example, my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) campaigned for workers’ rights when he was working for a trade union; I, as a vicar, argued that my local authority was not doing the right thing by local youth services; others have campaigned for better policing, and so on. We are by nature lobbyists—advocates—trying to persuade people of a better cause. For a couple of years I was a paid lobbyist for the BBC, doing its lobbying in Brussels. I am proud of that work, because at the time Rupert Murdoch was saying that the BBC licence fee was illegal state aid, and that the BBC should be closed down. I am delighted that we won that battle in Brussels, and I believe that it is perfectly possible to be an entirely honourable lobbyist.
I remember when the Mental Health Bill was going through the House in 2007. As a Back-Bench member of the Bill Committee, I knew remarkably little about mental health and the specifics of legislation. If it had not been for a wide range of people who lobbied me and argued about elements of the Bill, I would not have been able to make as effective a contribution. In the end, I tabled the amendment that became the following provision in the Act:
“In this Act, references to appropriate medical treatment, in relation to a person suffering from mental disorder, are references to medical treatment which is appropriate in his case, taking into account the nature and degree of the mental disorder and all other circumstances of his case.”
To the ordinary eye—and, I suggest, to most MPs, unless they have a background in mental health—that seems a perfectly innocuous statement of what should be the case, but every single word of that provision was fiercely battled over, and rightly so, because of its effect on people who might be sectioned. It was not just mental health charities such as Mind and others that lobbied and provided advice; it was also pharmaceutical companies. If there is a list of evil people in the country, it starts with journalists, then politicians, and then lobbyists, and way at the far end are lobbyists for pharmaceutical companies, but my experience in that situation was that they provided invaluable advice. In the end, it was for me to decide the rights and wrongs and how I could best serve my constituents, but if people had not had such access to me, it would have been impossible for me to do a proper job.
Paul Flynn
The main opposition to any reform comes from those who wish to muddy the issue and suggest that we wish to hamstring some worthy body. The Prime Minister has given the definition of “secret corporate lobbying”; we should realise that that is the subject of this debate and the area in which reforms are long overdue.
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend misunderstands me, I suspect. I do not seek to muddy reform; I want reform. I want a register, and I will suggest a couple of other things as well, but I think that we must be absolutely honest, and part of that involves honesty about the important role that good lobbying can play in the political process, particularly for Opposition Members. Ministers have a host of civil servants who can produce briefings and so on; Opposition Members simply do not have access to that much support. Often it is provided by organisations. If at any point a Member succumbs so completely to the blandishments of some organisation that they effectively become its subsidiary, they stop being a good parliamentary Member and constituency representative. That is the line that I want to draw.
We should also bear in mind that lobbying is a British tradition. It is because there was a lobby outside St Stephen’s chapel that the whole system arose. I remember clearly that when Paris lost its bid for the 2012 Olympics, Delanoë complained that the British had engaged in lobbying. I saw all too often in Brussels that although Britain was good at advocating its case, other countries were not, because they simply did not understand how to go about it properly.
Some industries are particularly lobbyacious—and, Hansard reporters, that is a word, because I have created it. Broadcasting is particularly lobbyacious, because so many elements of its work are determined by legislation. We must take special care to ensure a level playing field for everybody.
There are enormous problems, many of which have been referred to, including corrupt lobbying: offers of financial inducements, nice holidays, easy trips and so on. Some methods are directly corrupt and illegal, and the House should deal ferociously with Members who abuse in that direction. Sometimes Members would be best advised not to go to the meal or engage. The rules applying to this House are much stronger than those that apply to the other House. If one wanted to engage in dodgy lobbying, one would be far better advised to do so through the House of Lords—the House of patronage—rather than through the House of Commons. That is another reason why I support reforming the House of Lords to make it an elected second Chamber.
Another way in which it is probably much easier to do a dodgy deal is with civil servants rather than elected Members. There is far less openness; often even the names of people who make important decisions on tenders are not known to the public. Some countries have purposely selected individual Members of both Houses as being more pliable and biddable than others, and have enabled long-term relationships with them. Those relationships need close scrutiny.
What counts as a lobbyist is also a problem. I do not mean to say that we should not have a register; it is one reason why we should. The Prime Minister was a lobbyist before he came into Parliament, and most journalists advocate most of the time in one way or another, especially those with opinion columns. When my constituents set up an organisation to oppose the closure of the Treherbert baths or protect the minor injuries unit at Llwynypia, they are lobbyists. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw is absolutely right. If their space to lobby me were crowded out, I would be failing utterly in my job. Every single diplomat who works for the Foreign Office is also, in essence, a lobbyist. I often feel that they are sent abroad to eat for their country. It is important to recognise the advocacy role of what we do.
The first key thing is that there should be no paid advocacy. That is a rule of this House, but it is more honoured in the breach than in the observance. We need absolute transparency about funding and who is engaged in lobbying, and particularly about who meets any Minister or civil servant engaged in making key decisions.
Thomas Docherty
On the point about influence, does my hon. Friend think that that should apply to Select Committee Chairmen, who have a lot of influence over policy?
Chris Bryant
That is a good point. Members of Select Committees that publish influential reports are often targeted by lobbying organisations. It would be no bad thing if each Select Committee had an open register of lobbying meetings held.
Passes to this place are a problem. When I worked in Brussels, getting a pass to enter the European Parliament on legitimate business was a simple, straightforward and open process. Here, it is clandestine. Lots of people end up finding an hon. Member who is prepared to give them one of their three passes. We should have a complete review of the system. Of course we must ensure security in this building, but everybody should have equal access. I would prefer to open the doors than keep them closed so that only some people have enhanced access. Nobody should have enhanced access due to big bucks or cronyism. That last element is difficult to control. I look forward to legislation introducing a register soon. I am not naive about the difficulties of determining what a lobbyist is, but it is essential that we clean up the industry.
John Robertson (in the Chair)
I said that I would call the Front-Bench spokesmen at 20 minutes to 11, but I will give a few minutes to another speaker, as that is only fair.
Mr Harper
Let me come on to that at in a moment because I want to set out my thoughts logically.
I thank the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David) for his relatively consensual approach because it is important that we get dealing with the issue right. The subject affects all parties, and all parties have lessons to learn. We need to ensure that we approach the issue on that basis. He struck the right note, but to encourage other Labour Members also to take such an approach, I will remind them of what they did or did not do in Government. An amendment tabled by the Liberal Democrats on having more transparency on lobbying was mentioned. Every single Labour MP here who was in the House at the time happily voted against that. The hon. Member for Newport West clearly paid very little attention to the new clause when he voted against it because if he had read it, it sounds as though he would have agreed with most of it.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Chris Bryant Excerpts(14 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
I beg to move, That this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendments 1, 2 and 9 but proposes the following amendment to the Bill in lieu of those amendments:—
(a) Page 3, line 23, at end insert—
‘(4) The Prime Minister must make arrangements—
(a) for a committee to carry out a review of the operation of this Act and, if appropriate in consequence of its findings, to make recommendations for the repeal or amendment of this Act, and
(b) for the publication of the committee's findings and recommendations (if any).
(5) A majority of the members of the committee are to be members of the House of Commons.
(6) Arrangements under subsection (4)(a) are to be made no earlier than 1 June 2020 and no later than 30 November 2020.’.
The Government have been prepared, both in this House and the other place, to consider and support amendments that improve the provisions of the Bill. That is the normal process for refining and agreeing legislation. However—again, quite normally—we have consistently opposed amendments that would wreck the Bill. Members of this House and those in the other place have had a chance to debate the Bill at length, and one issue remains outstanding: whether or not there should be a sunset clause. Some have called it a sunrise clause, and it was referred to in the other place as a Lazarus clause.
We have discussed Lord Pannick’s amendments—which inserted the sunset clause—before, and they were roundly defeated by 312 votes to 243, because they offended against the principle of the Bill: that parliamentary terms should be of a fixed length, and that the legislation should apply to each Parliament in the normal way unless repealed through the normal considered legislative process.
The Bill as we would have it rightly does not attempt to entrench parliamentary terms. If a future Parliament wishes to move away from fixed terms, it may of course do so by either amending or repealing the legislation. We have, however, maintained consistently that a constitutional change such as a move towards or away from fixed-term Parliaments is not a small matter, and that it should be subject to the full scrutiny of Parliament, as this Bill has indeed been. In contrast, the sunset amendments passed by their lordships would switch fixed terms on and off like a light switch, defaulting to non-fixed terms if a simple resolution failed to be tabled or, if it is passed, to “sunrise” provisions for fixed terms.
In our view, it is clearly not appropriate for constitutional legislation to be applied or disapplied simply as a result of a resolution, and such changes should be made only following the normal legislative process. That view appears to be shared by the Lords Constitution Committee, whatever its misgivings about the lack of pre-legislative scrutiny for first-Session Bills. Its recent report on the process of constitutional change emphasises the need for proper scrutiny of such constitutional changes. A particularly relevant paragraph states:
“We believe that both government and Parliament should recognise the need for constraints on the process of constitutional change so that a situation whereby the government is effectively able to change the constitution at will may be avoided.”
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I am sure that the Minister was not going to suggest that the Constitution Committee supported the Bill. As he knows, it clearly does not.
Mr Harper
I did not say that it did. I said that it had misgivings about the fact that there had been no opportunity for pre-legislative scrutiny because this was a first-Session Bill. My point was that in its recent report—and not just in the paragraph that I quoted; throughout the report—it had said that constitutional change should be carried out properly. The idea that constitutional provisions such as this should be switched on and off through simple resolutions rather than through the proper legislative process, which involves consideration by both Houses of Parliament, is not appropriate. We agree with the sentiment expressed in the paragraph that I have just read out, which is why we oppose Lord Pannick’s amendments. Given that Lord Pannick is a member of the Constitution Committee and presumably supports the proper conduct of constitutional change, it is surprising that he is trying to insert in the Bill something that we do not think appropriate.
We should also bear in mind that both Houses recently engaged in a debate similar to this during the passage of what is now the European Union Act 2011, and that both Houses decided that it would not be appropriate to include a sunset provision in that Act. In the debate, Lord Lamont wisely noted that a sunset provision was not appropriate because it would provide for primary legislation to be reversed by a simple resolution. We believe that the Lords amendments would have the same effect on this Bill, turning important amendments to the statute book on and off without proper scrutiny.
The report of the European Scrutiny Committee on the European Union Bill states:
“All Parliaments legislate for the future. Laws passed by one Parliament do not contain a sunset clause at the Dissolution. The real point is whether a government can, in law, make it difficult for a future Parliament to amend or repeal the legislation it has passed; in our view it cannot. Our conclusion therefore is straightforward—that an Act of Parliament applies until it is repealed”.
That can also be said of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill. Should a future Parliament wish to amend or repeal the legislation, it could of course do so, but we believe that it should do so through the normal legislative process, not simply by passing, or failing to pass, a resolution.
That, however, is not the only problem with the Lords amendments. They clearly assume that it would be possible for the Prime Minister to regain the option of asking Her Majesty the Queen to dissolve Parliament, but it is entirely possible that, by failing to provide for the prerogative power to dissolve to be reinstated, they have left matters in the position where neither the rules in the Bill nor the previous prerogative powers can have effect. Indeed, it is worth asking whether it is possible to reinstate a prerogative power that has been removed. It should also be noted that the United Kingdom Parliament did not think it appropriate to include sunset clauses when legislating for fixed terms for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is not entirely clear why it should consider it appropriate to “sunset” the fixed terms for this Parliament.
Mr Harper
The right hon. Gentleman is leaping far ahead. We are considering this Bill now. Meanwhile, our reform proposals for the House of Lords have been published and are being scrutinised by the relevant Joint Committee. If at some point in future it is decided to change the arrangements under this Bill, that can be done in the normal way. The Bill can be amended or repealed through the normal legislative process. We are not seeking to constrain that. We are simply saying that the rather novel constitutional provisions that the Lords has inserted are inappropriate to a constitutional Bill.
Chris Bryant
Let me raise a few protest points at the outset. First, the Bill started its lengthy process on 22 July last year. In the normal course of parliamentary business, this parliamentary Session would have come to an end by now and therefore this Bill would already have fallen, so it would not be becoming law. Indeed, there would have been a point at which the House of Lords would have been able to hold the Government’s feet to the fire so as to extract greater concessions from them. I merely note that the Government have managed to give themselves a two-year Session. When the Leader of the House announced that that was going to be the case, I complained that it would give added powers to the Government. This is yet another example of how the Government have abused the constitution over the past year.
Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman is wrong. We were both elected in 2001, so I am sure he will recall that in both the 2001 and 2005 Parliaments the first Session lasted about 18 or 19 months.
Chris Bryant
No, we would now be in the mop-up session, and during that time there would be many other Bills that would need to be dealt with in limited time. Indeed, there are plenty of other Bills clamouring for time in this Chamber at present. That is precisely my point. There is no pressure on the Government to come to an agreement because they have another six months in which to do so.
Chris Bryant
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support for my argument.
The other process point that I wish to make is that the lords debated their amendments in July and the Government tabled their amendment last Friday, but the amendment was not available in the Vote Office until this morning—that was despite my having asked for it on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I had no access to the amendment tabled by the Government until today. I understand it to be normal practice, just as a matter of courtesy, for ministerial offices to write to shadow spokespeople when the Government table amendments to Bills in which the spokespeople have been involved, in order to give them notification. I say gently to the Minister that it would have been nice if he had been able to notify us of amendments.
It would also have been good if the Whips Office had, instead of stating categorically all this week, until about 3 pm yesterday, that we were not going to be dealing with this Bill this afternoon, owned up to the truth, which was that the intention was always to deal with this Bill this afternoon. Indeed, the Whips Office had told the Minister so, and the fact that this Bill was going to be discussed this afternoon had been set out in his diary for several weeks.
Chris Bryant
I am happy to abolish the Government Whips Office, but I am very fond of my Whips Office. It is always best to remain in as good an odour as possible with one’s Whips.
The simple point of process is that when the Leader of the House announces in the future business—as has been said, we hope that the Backbench Business Committee will do this in future—that consideration of Lords amendments may take place, he never specifies the Bill to which that relates. That is an unfortunate way of doing business, and it might make much more sense if, in future, the Government were to announce the Bills in question. If every Member of the House had known at the beginning of the week that we were going to be dealing with this Bill today, the Chamber might have been packed to the rafters—I note that it is not. That is despite the fact that we are sure to hear a wonderful speech from the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), and many would have crowded in just to see her jacket this afternoon.
The amendment, in essence, confesses that the Government have not achieved consensus on a major constitutional change. Again, I say gently to the Minister that when any constitutional change is being made, especially when pre-legislative scrutiny has not been undertaken, when no draft legislation has been produced, when the change was not adumbrated in one of the governing parties’ manifestos and when it is a significant change from what was in the manifesto of either of the two governing parties, it is all the more important that Ministers and the Government in general proceed on the basis of consensus. Although I am often a fierce critic of the House of Lords, of its hereditary principle and of its appointment principle—I call it the “patronage principle”—I believe that the Lords plays an important stop-gap role in constitutional affairs. That is why I believe that this amendment owns up to the fact that, as Lord Butler of Brockwell put it, this legislation has been introduced
“without proper consultation, preparation or consideration.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 18 July 2011; Vol. 729, c. 1080.]
For many years, we relished listening in this Chamber to Lord Cormack, the greatest par-li-a-ment-ar-i-an of his age—he used about seven syllables when saying that word. As he said, this is an
“ill thought-out, unnecessary and bad Bill.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 18 July 2011; Vol. 729, c. 1087.]
There are specific problems with this amendment, most notably because it does not add anything. If their lordships think that it is a concession, they are completely mistaken, because already the Government will have to undertake post-legislative scrutiny on this legislation in the next Parliament. All the amendment does is provide for another version of post-legislative scrutiny, but such scrutiny will already have taken place four years before the date in 2020 when the amendment suggests it should occur.
I am somewhat of a suspicious mind; I think that the reason why the Deputy Prime Minister has insisted on this date in 2020 is his ambition to put up joint Liberal Democrat-Conservative candidates at the next general election and to be able to continue the coalition for two parliamentary Sessions. I say that because it was not an immaculate conception that led to this constitutional Bill; it was conceived behind the bike sheds as a result of the coalition partners—the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats—trying to fix the length of this parliamentary Session so that nobody could abscond should any difficulties arise. [Interruption.] I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) is just waving to me or whether he would like to intervene. It appears that he wishes to intervene.
Andrew Percy
The hon. Gentleman’s argument about joint candidates falls down because he needs to be able to find someone willing to stand as a Conservative and Liberal Democrat candidate.
Chris Bryant
I believe that earlier this week the Prime Minister described himself as a “Pragmatic liberal conservative Eurosceptic”—he used different arrangements of those words in different arenas, as is his wont.
In addition, the amendment presumes that not only this Parliament, but a second one will run for a full five years. If that was not the case, choosing to specify dates in June and November 2020 would be particularly bizarre, as they might fall two years into another Session. This is where the following statement by Lord Armstrong of Ilminster is correct, although I confess that I do not quite understand the first bit:
“It is all Lombard Street to a China orange that the time will come when a premature Dissolution would be to the manifest benefit of the country”.——[Official Report, House of Lords, 18 July 2011; Vol. 729, c. 1088.]
I think that that is true. If we consider the recent history of the United Kingdom, we see that even on occasions when the Government had a decent majority, such as in 1964 and 1974—although the latter situation was more complicated—they decided to hold a new election because they felt that they needed a mandate to deal with a specific set of issues that had not arisen at the previous general election. I believe that that will happen again and that it will be in the interests of Parliament to have the greatest degree of flexibility to allow it to happen, if not to encourage it to happen. That is why this amendment, in trying to entrench not just one fixed term, but two—in the interests of the coalition rather than the country—is misguided. As I said, the amendment adds nothing because post-legislative scrutiny, a fixed part of the way in which we carry out our business, will apply to this legislation.
The Minister, charming as he is, tried to assert that fixed-term Parliaments are used in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as in relation to local government elections and so on. However, these do not seem to have been very fixed in the past few years. Indeed, in the short time that he has been in power he has already changed the term for the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the local government elections in Northern Ireland. Now the Government have just decided that there will not be a fixed term for the police commissioners, because the first term will be slightly shorter than the second one, as the Government are not going to be able to get their legislation through in time to have elections next May and so the first elections will take place next November. So I am profoundly sceptical even about the ability of the hard-line fixed-termers, such as him, to deliver a fixed-term Parliament, because of the way in which politics works.
I wish to make a few comments about the specifics of the amendment. It states:
“A majority of the members of the committee are to be members of the House of Commons.”
I do not believe that the Government consulted anyone in the Opposition on this amendment. I am sure that had the Minister done so, he would now be leaping to his feet to defend himself—it appears, therefore, that he has not sought a consensus on this constitutional change. If consultation had taken place, we might have made some suggestions about how to constitute such a committee. It might have been better to state from the outset that it should involve Members of the House of Commons. I think that we should return to the practice of the 15th and 16th centuries—I am sure I have one hon. Member on my side here—which was that Joint Committees of both Houses should have two Members of the House of Commons for every Member of the House of Lords. I admit that that was at a time when there were perhaps 60 or 70 Members of the House of Lords and 480 or so of the House of Commons, whereas they are getting towards having double the number we have in this House. None the less, while this is a democratically elected House and that is not, it would make more sense for the majority from this House to be 2:1.
I note en passant that one Member of the Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform—not from the Opposition side of the House—pointed out that having such a large number of members of a Joint Committee makes it very difficult to do serious business. It is quite difficult with large Select Committees, but with 24 or 26 members of a Joint Committee of both Houses, it is phenomenally difficult to make progress.
Chris Bryant
Yes, I was noting the acceleration. The coalition has a commitment in its agreement that it will keep appointing more Member of the House of Lords until the numbers mirror the representation in the House of Commons. That means that they have another 269 to appoint. We are pretty much getting on for having up to double the number of Members at that end as there are here. In addition, the Government want to elect some Members so that if the Government get their way, without sensible amendments from the Opposition, we will have twice as many Members of the House of Lords as of the House of Commons.
The Minister said that the danger of a sunset clause would be that it would be like switching a light bulb on and off. What he fails to understand is something that some of us have been arguing for through several Bills—that is, many of the measures contained in the Bill would be far better dealt with through the Standing Orders of this House, particularly anything to do with a no confidence motion. There is a danger that otherwise they will be justiciable in the courts. He refuses to accept that. If it had been a question of Standing Orders, then as with any other Standing Order this would be a matter for the House to change. It would not need three readings, nor would it have to go to two Houses; it would just be a matter of a simple vote.
The Minister sets his mind against sunset clauses, but I remember when he used to sit over on the Opposition Benches—what halcyon days—and used to campaign for sunset clauses galore on Government legislation. With virtually every change we introduced through legislation on security and policing, for instance, the then Opposition demanded a sunset clause. On civil liberties, control orders and all these different elements of legislation there was a campaign from Opposition Members saying that there must be a sunset clause. Quite often, we succumbed to that campaign and we put them in. In a large amount of our civil liberties legislation, there were sunset clauses and provisions had to be renewed every year.
One of the most significant sunset clauses in our constitution refers to the inability of the Crown to have a standing Army unless there is a vote in the House of Commons every five years. That is a sunset clause on the single most important part of our constitution: namely, the Crown’s ability to defend the country. The Minister is completely wrong to invent this new concept that we cannot have a sunset clause in a constitutional Bill—and only in such a Bill.
The Minister also said that there are no sunset clauses in relation to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but the single difference between this case and those instances is that there was absolutely no consultation with the wider public on this legislation. As for setting up devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, there was lengthy and protracted cross-party consensus on precisely how everything should be set up. I think he is whispering something about the Conservatives not agreeing to devolution in Scotland, but we rejoice that the sinner repenteth. They had the opportunity to take part in that lengthy process of consultation and that is surely the proper process for changing the constitution.
Let me come to my penultimate point. The Minister says that those in the Lords who have presented amendments have good intentions, but he reminds me of something that happened when I went to a theatre a few years ago. There was a couple who had had a terrible row sitting in front of me and just before the play started, the woman turned to the man and said, “And the worst of it is that you’re so blasted pate-ronising.” He kissed her on the forehead and said, “It’s pat-ronising, dear.”
To be honest, I thought the Minister’s approach to their lordships—who are senior constitutional experts and have seen many of the corridors of power far more extensively than he or I—was downright patronising. I think they have come up with a good solution. The coalition Government can have their five years and there will be a general election in 2015 unless one of the Members for Bedfordshire manages to split the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister from one another, but thereafter it should be for the House of Commons and the House of Lords to decide whether to continue with this legislation.
I am sure that the Government Whips, through their nefarious processes, will have engineered that there are plenty of people to see off their lordships’ amendment this afternoon, but I tell their lordships that the Government are attempting to get them to sell their soul for a mess of pottage. The Government amendment is not an amendment that is worth supporting—
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. While he is urging their lordships to stand firm, I wonder whether he might like to remind them that the Parliament Act does not apply so they can insist for as long as they like.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, although I am surprised he is only taking us back to 1911. He normally takes us back a little further. The Parliament Act cannot be used in relation to this legislation because the Bill would allow for the extension of Parliament beyond five years—possibly to five years and two months—and that Act expressly prevents the Speaker from forcing the Bill on their lordships. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: your lordships, stand firm.
Mr Reid
The Lords amendment we are debating requires the Bill’s provisions to be renewed if they are to be used in each future Parliament, but the Pannick amendment defeats the purpose of the Bill by permitting fixed-term Parliaments only if agreed by both Houses in a future Parliament. It effectively annuls the provisions of the Bill unless both Houses of every future Parliament vote to put the provisions back in place.
The Lords amendment is effectively a wrecking amendment, because it does not even require a resolution to be brought forward to annul the provisions—it is the other way around. Resolutions have to be put forward in future Parliaments to re-establish the provisions. That is completely unnecessary, because if a future Parliament wanted to amend this Bill, it could do so through the normal process of legislation. The amendment simply creates an unnecessary layer of law and its real purpose is to wreck the Bill. It would have been better if the Lords had simply been honest about it and voted against the Bill rather than trying to insert this clause, which is simply a wrecking measure by another route.
The Government’s new amendment, which I support, provides to the Lords a reasonable compromise in that it allows post-legislative scrutiny after we have seen the effects of the Bill through the full cycle. I urge the House to accept the Government’s amendment and reject the Lords’ wrecking amendment.
Chris Bryant
The Minister says that we should clearly take it as read that the Prime Minister would engage in consultation with the Opposition, but I note that the Minister tabled a written ministerial statement this morning on the West Lothian question and the setting up of a commission, but he does not indicate at any point that he is going to consult the Opposition on its terms of reference or its membership.
Mr Harper
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point on that and thank him for making it. Given the nature of the matter, it would be helpful if the committee were wide ranging. That is also a good reason not to be too specific about, for example, the size of the committee. Clearly, we need to ensure that Members from all parts of the House are able to be represented properly. On setting down how big the committee should be, there is, of course, a tension if committees are too large, but if they are too small they can be too narrow. It would be helpful to be able to have that debate when we know something about how the measures have worked in practice.
Chris Bryant
Will the Minister be straight and guarantee that he will ensure that there is consultation with the opposition parties on the terms of reference of the West Lothian commission?
Point of Order
Chris Bryant Excerpts(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This relates to what we have just been discussing, so I am sorry that the Minister has already fled the Chamber. A written ministerial statement relating to the commission on the West Lothian question was tabled this morning. It states that the Government will
“consult with Mr Speaker and other Parliamentary authorities”
on how the commission can be created and how it will consider matters relating to how Parliament should address the West Lothian question. We note that that puts any onus to consult other political parties on the Speaker. I hope that you will take back to Mr Speaker the Opposition’s hope that all political parties in the House will be consulted before terms of reference are brought forward and the membership of the commission is agreed. I raise this as a point of order only because the Government have decided to put the matter of consultation in the hands of Mr Speaker.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
As the hon. Gentleman knows, strictly speaking that is not a point of order for business today, but he has made his point on the written ministerial statement, and I am absolutely confident that Mr Speaker will have considered all the necessary matters that will involve him. The hon. Gentleman can rest assured that Mr Speaker will discharge his duties accordingly.
Oral Answers to Questions
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
One quango that has done a really good job since it was brought in by the Labour Government is the Security Industry Authority, which licenses bouncers outside pubs. One role that it has not yet been given is the licensing of private investigators. We have seen over the past year that some private investigators are very good people, but some of them are the scum of the earth. Should we not be licensing them and giving that power to the authority?
Libya
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The Prime Minister
My right hon. and learned Friend is entirely right. As I put it in my statement, the accusation is that after Libya came in from the cold and gave up the weapons of mass destruction, the relationship almost became too close at times. There was a degree of credulity. I think that is the accusation. It is important to put on record our thanks to the security services for what they do. What I have tried to do and what the Government have tried to do is put in place a new set of arrangements—proper guidance to intelligence and security services personnel to clear out these Guantanamo Bay cases that were going to drag through our courts and bring our security services and our country down, to deal with them properly, and then to have an inquiry, so that we get to the bottom of what happened and if there was any malpractice, we deal with it. It is important that we clear up the issue once and for all, and I believe the steps that we have taken will do that.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I, too, commend the Prime Minister on the role that he has played this year, but I urge him to use the same dedication when it comes to Syria, because many of us—all of us, I suspect—are scandalised by what we have seen throughout these summer months. He is visiting Moscow, as I understand it, next week. I hope that he will make it absolutely clear to the Russian Government—both sides of the Government; the President and the Prime Minister—that thus far their protection of the Syrian Government has been wholly abhorrent to those of us who hate the human rights abuses in such countries.
The Prime Minister
I certainly join the hon. Gentleman in loathing the human rights abuses that are taking place in Syria. What we have seen happening is simply appalling—the loss of life, the damage and terror that the President has been inflicting on his own people.
On Russia, one of the encouraging things is that the Russians came to the Paris conference, were one of the 63 countries represented there and supported the statement that came out of it about NATO continuing its work and making sure that we complete the job in Libya—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is right then to say from a sedentary position, “What about Syria?” I think that the whole international community can learn the lesson of some success in Libya and apply that elsewhere in terms of the unity that we need to see in the UN Security Council to put pressure on Syria.