Business of the House

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I agree that that is an important subject, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be ingenious enough to raise it in the course of numerous debates we will be having on European issues in forthcoming months.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

This is not the day to labour the point—I do not expect the Leader of the House to reply to this in any detail—but when we finally have the long-delayed debate on whether the House should leave this building in the full decant that is proposed, we should, in the light of what has happened in the past 24 hours, give great consideration to both the symbolism of this place and the security considerations of dispersing MPs and peers around Parliament Square.

[Mr Lidington]

The security of not just Members, but of staff—let us never forget that there are something like 14,000 passholders to the parliamentary estate—is at the forefront of the consideration by the parliamentary officials who have been leading on this matter. I can assure my hon. Friend that, whatever is finally approved by this House and the House of Lords, as these works are carried through, on whatever timescale and in whatever fashion, security will continue to be at the forefront of everybody’s mind.

Business of the House

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I cannot promise a debate in Government time, but I applaud the initiative that is taking place in the hon. Lady’s constituency. There are many parts of the country in which local sports clubs and other voluntary organisations are supporting schools in comparable ways.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Some in this place can talk for Britain—not me, of course—but we can hardly complain that we are getting five days on a two-clause Bill, including until midnight on Tuesday. No more delay. The Bill is just implementing the will of the British people. But, just to put the icing on our cake—[Interruption.] If we get something, we should always ask for something more. Can the Leader of the House confirm that he will try to avoid urgent statements on any of those days?

[Mr Lidington]

We will try not to have unnecessary statements, but obviously events happen and other business has to be presented to Parliament. That explains why we have said that, next Tuesday, Second Reading will continue until midnight. I am sure that hon. Members will have every opportunity to speak and make all the points they want to make during that debate.

Business of the House

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

As the hon. Lady knows, there have been a number of debates already on particular aspects of our leaving the European Union. I fully expect that there will be other such debates related to additional specific topics in the months to come. Whatever does or does not happen next week, we will have a Bill in the new parliamentary Session to repeal the European Communities Act 1972. That will provide plenty of opportunities as well. At my last count, more than 30 different Select Committee inquiries into different aspects of our leaving the EU were being conducted by Committees either of this place or of the House of Lords. Of course, mechanisms exist to bring those Select Committee reports to the Floor of the House for debate as well.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

In this week, of all weeks, it is absolutely right that we say in the House of Commons that we want to proceed with the building of a Holocaust memorial museum. As the Leader of the House is responsible, at least in part, for the environs of the Palace of Westminster, does he accept that there may be merit in a debate on the siting of the museum? There is a view among many people that the best place for the museum would be within or outside the Imperial War Museum, so that its many visitors can see the link between the Holocaust and war and hatred, rather than siting it in Victoria Tower Gardens, which is one of the last green spaces around this Palace and visited by many hundreds of thousands of people each year. As the museum will be two storeys underground, there might also be a flood risk. There is a need for a debate on the siting of the museum.

[Mr Lidington]

My hon. Friend may well want to seek a Westminster Hall debate on the subject. The previous Prime Minister gave a commitment to the Victoria Tower Gardens site, and that has been reiterated by the current Prime Minister. Ultimately, the planning matters to which my hon. Friend alluded will be the responsibility of Westminster City Council.

Business of the House

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I am obviously not aware of the details of the particular case that the hon. Lady has described. In my experience, to promote good community relations requires commitment and steady hard work by members of different communities at local level in towns and in cities, right down to the level of individual estates and neighbourhoods. In my years in this place, I have seen members of all political parties getting stuck into that kind of work. As a result, if we look at opinion poll findings, we see that although there are problems—I am not going to pretend otherwise—for the most part this is a country where people feel at ease with their neighbours, whatever colour skin, whatever religion or whatever background those neighbours may have or have come from.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) and my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) have a point. Irrespective of the court case, is a general debate on triggering article 50 good enough? Why should we fear a debate on a substantive motion? It would be a brave Member of Parliament who voted against the will of the people. When it comes to Brexit, the only thing to fear is fear itself—let’s get on with it.

[Mr Lidington]

As I said earlier, some important constitutional questions were raised by the case in the High Court, and by the court case in Northern Ireland last week. The Government are going to appeal against today’s High Court judgment. We shall see what the appeal brings.

Business of the House

Edward Leigh Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Thursday 13th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words. I think that somewhere in my loft I have the programme card that lists him as a CUCA college secretary at some distant date in the past. He raises a really serious subject. Yemen is too often overlooked as we focus on the appalling situation in Syria. As he will, I think, know by now, he has obtained an Adjournment debate on Yemen on 18 October, which will enable him to raise some of these matters, and we have Foreign and Commonwealth Office questions on 18 October, too, which will enable him and other colleagues to raise these matters with the Secretary of State and Foreign Office Ministers. I completely share the right hon. Gentleman’s view that the Government need to continue to do all that they can to help to support the UN special envoy for Yemen and his valiant efforts to establish a credible peace process, and to devote a decent slice of our humanitarian aid budget to helping people in desperate need in that country.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The Leader of the House will soon bring to the House a debate on the full decant of Parliament from the Palace of Westminster. He knows my views—I question the proposal—but that is not important; what is important is that we get a range of options. Will he consider, when he brings forward the debate, having not just one nuclear option—that we all leave for six years—but a range of options? For instance, one option could be that we start the work now, during the summer breaks, and we do so from 20 July to 12 October, either by abolishing the September sitting or, if that is not possible, holding it in Edinburgh, to buttress the Union, or Belfast or Cardiff. May we please have a full range of options? Sometimes in life, a Marmite solution that one loves or hates is not the best solution; sometimes a more nuanced approach is a better way of doing things.

[Mr Lidington]

As I said earlier, there will be, as recommended by the Joint Committee on the Palace of Westminster, a debate and decision by this House, and separately by the House of Lords, on the proposals in the Committee’s report. I am giving thought to the precise wording of the motion to be tabled. Whatever the form of words used, the motion will be, subject to your ruling, Mr Speaker, capable of amendment. I am sure that hon. Members of all parties will want to look at the motion and see whether they want to change it in any way.

I hope that hon. Members take the time to read the Joint Committee’s report. It is a completely cross-party Committee. It spent a lot of time on the subject and interrogated a lot of witnesses before reaching its recommendations, and the House owes it to colleagues who served on the Committee to look seriously at the arguments and evidence that it has presented.

Business of the House

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. As colleagues know, ordinarily it is my practice to call everyone in this set of exchanges, and I should like to do so again today, but I am very conscious that there are two statements to follow, and then two debates under the auspices of the Backbench Business Committee, of which the first is notably well subscribed. There is, therefore, a premium on brevity, which I know will be exemplified by Sir Edward Leigh.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The Leader of the House has on his desk a report on the full decant of Parliament. Will he take his time over bringing the decision back to the House, and ensure that a full consultation takes place? Given that 1 million people visit this place every year, including 100,000 children, the issue is extraordinarily serious, and many of us are deeply concerned about the vacation of an historic Palace for five or more years. Many of us think that we should get on with the work now, abolish the September sittings, and start repairing the building in good time.

Notification of Arrest of Members

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Charles Walker]

With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall respond to the debate. I think the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) missed my speech, because I think I did answer most of the questions he raised. I hope I answered the one put by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), as I tried to do so twice.

The hon. Gentleman talks about creating another law for Members of Parliament. No, what we are doing is bringing Members of Parliament in line with the law—the law that governs our constituents. I greatly enjoyed the speech made by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner). He is a fantastic orator, and whatever he has to say, I always enjoy listening to it, so I thank him for being here this evening.

Let me try to answer the shadow Deputy Leader of the House’s questions. There were quite a lot of them and I am not very good at writing very quickly. If I fail to answer any of them, she can come back in. First, I wish to draw the House’s attention to “Erskine May’s” first edition. It records the case in 1815 of a Member

“convicted of a conspiracy”

and

“committed to the King’s Bench Prison.”

He escaped custody and took refuge in the Chamber of the old House of Commons, on the Government Front Bench, where the prison “marshal” found him and took him back into custody—rearrested him. Even though the marshal had come right into the House, albeit when it was not sitting, to take the Member into custody, the committee of privileges found that no breach of privilege had occurred. This measure is not to protect us; privilege has never protected us from being arrested for criminal activities, and it is a myth to suggest otherwise.

If a Member is arrested and chooses to tell the House of his or her arrest, or chooses to the tell the media of it, they are perfectly entitled to do that. What we are suggesting—what this report suggests and puts to the House—is that there is no automatic notification of the arrest of a Member, in line with the rights that extend to all of our constituents.

Let me just say something about social media. We cannot govern social media, but a lot of what appears on social media is hearsay and gossip. Let us also not forget that the media in this country have been very good at extracting information illegally, through the payment of cash to public officials, and some of those public officials have gone to prison for that. Both the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the Home Secretary recently wrote to the College of Policing, reiterating the fact that police officers must not under any circumstances, unless it is to do with safeguarding, release the name of an individual on arrest. Details of their age can be given, but not their name.

Many people mistakenly believe that the point of arrest happens towards the end of an investigation. Actually, it does not. It happens very early on in an investigation. Indeed, someone could present themselves voluntarily to a police station to be arrested and then be released on bail. The Deputy Leader of the House asks where this would have made a difference in recent times. There were three arrests notified to the House between 2011 and 2014 where this would have made a difference. In reality, it probably would have made a difference in only two of the arrests, because one of the acts for which the individual was arrested was committed in public, in the precinct of this House, so it was seen and reported by many people.

There were two colleagues—one in 2011 and one in 2014—who were arrested. Their names appeared on the front of national newspapers and they suffered huge reputational damage. In both those cases no charges were brought. It would not make a huge difference to a lot of people, but it would certainly make a difference to some people in this House.

On circulating the procedures, there is a protocol attached to our report and that will be circulated by the Clerk of the House and those who work in his office to police constables across the country. That will happen only when—and if—this House approves the motion here this evening.

The hon. Lady asked when privilege would have applied, and I gave an example in my speech. There was clearly the case of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) whose offices on the precinct of the House of Commons and at home were entered by the police. That would have been a matter of privilege, but it would not be for me to determine whether that encroached on privilege, but a matter for the Clerk, in discussion with the Speaker and the legal counsel. That is the best example.

The hon. Lady also asked why there were no reports for 30 years—between 1978 and 2008. It was probably because this process fell into disuse—it is nothing more sinister than that. The reason that more arrests were reported goes back to what happened in 2008 when the police entered the precinct of the House of Commons without any advance notification. The Serjeant at Arms at the time was rather taken by surprise. It was a bit of a procedural disaster. An edict then went from the Speaker’s Chair, saying that we need to be notified of action. The police being diligent then started notifying the Chair of all arrests and actions, and that is where the difficulty arose.

I have some scribbled notes here. I hope that I have answered most of the hon. Lady’s questions. There is still the ECHR question, and there has been some gentle chiding of the Leader of the House. I did say in my speech that, regardless of what we think about the ECHR—whether we like it or love it—regardless of what we think about data protection—whether we like it, love it, or tolerate it—the truth of the matter is that, as of today, they are the law of the land. As I said in my speech, we have a duty in this place to obey the law of the land. I know that some people have a great conscience and sometimes take part in demonstrations and get arrested. When they do get arrested, they want that to be in the public eye because that is part of their action. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), for example, was recently arrested, but that was very much in the public eye. I hope that I have answered most of the questions put to me by the shadow Deputy Leader of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

It is worth emphasising this point, because we had quite an incendiary speech from the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), and we need to nail this argument on the head. As a member of the Procedure Committee, with its Chairman sitting next to me, I can say that no extra privilege of any sort is being given to any Member of Parliament. We are being put on exactly the same level as members of the public.

[Mr Walker]

I can assure my hon. Friend that that is the case. He is right—no Member of this House is above the law, but likewise no Member of this House is below the law. We have to be equal in the eyes of the law, and that is what this report tries to do.

Question put and agreed to.

Business of the House

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Gentleman says from a sedentary position that it is not true. I can only say to him again that, in a Government that believe in Cabinet Government, it is right and proper that a decision of this magnitude should be taken and discussed around the Cabinet table, and that is what took place this morning.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the moving of the Opposition day. I absolutely accept the importance of the issue of mental health. We will, of course, re-provide that Opposition day at an early opportunity and the Opposition will be able to bring that important subject to the House, but I am sure he would not disagree that the matters tomorrow morning are of the utmost importance to this country and should be brought before this House at an early opportunity.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the opportunity for debate and discussion. I would simply say to him that, over the past week, we had a two-hour statement from the Prime Minister last Monday, a two-and-a-half-hour statement from the Prime Minister last Thursday— 78 people spoke in the first; 103 spoke in the second—and a Back-Bench debate yesterday for five hours, with 41 speeches. Tomorrow’s debate is the equivalent of two normal days’ debate in terms of length. As for the idea that we have been bounced into the vote, in total this matter will have been discussed in the House for 20 hours since last Monday.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the timing of the motion. We have taken care to ensure that in tabling the motion we have listened to views in all parts of the House. I make no apology for taking time to listen and consider those views and coming up with a motion that I believe reflects the views of the majority of Members of this House and that will, I believe and hope, command the support of the House tomorrow. I am absolutely confident that we are doing not only the right thing procedurally, but also, if we vote that way tomorrow, the right thing for this country.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Over the weekend the Foreign Secretary said that this was a very important matter and a matter of conscience, and he therefore called on the Labour party to provide a free vote. I take it we will not be having a free vote on this side of the House—I am not even going to press the Leader of the House on that, because I know the answer will be no—but he must know that it is not only on the Opposition Benches that people are agonising about this. There are many Conservative Members of Parliament who have very serious questions that they want to put tomorrow and, depending on the answers, they will not necessarily vote for the motion tomorrow. Could we therefore not extend the debate even further? Do we have to have the vote at seven? Could we not have it at 10?

If the answer is yes, I will be very happy with that, but how will manuscript amendments to the motion be published? If, say, a Back Bencher such as myself wanted to table a manuscript amendment on the basis of a proportionate response, how will it be published and debated, if at all?

[Chris Grayling]

First, the motion is available in the Table Office now; I would encourage my hon. Friend to take a look at that.

Standing Orders (Public Business)

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

No, I do not accept that at all. Indeed, it has already happened. The former Member of Parliament, John Reid, was Health Secretary while representing a Scottish constituency over which he had no jurisdiction in health matters. I happen to believe that we want the best people in this House to do the jobs. Nothing in the proposals will prevent that.

I will make a few points about the Procedure Committee and then take more interventions. I recognise that this is a change to the workings of the House. I have therefore sought to ensure that the views of the House about the process are taken into account. I have given evidence to the Procedure Committee and the Scottish Affairs Committee. I am grateful to the members of both Committees for their work. I have met representatives of the parties across the House and many individual Members over the past few weeks. I listened to the comments that were made earlier in the summer and provided extra time for debate. I extended the timeframe beyond the original 100-day commitment. I also ensured that this debate took place after the Procedure Committee had completed its work.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way on that point?

[Chris Grayling]

I will just make some points about the Procedure Committee’s recommendations, then I will happily take my hon. Friend’s intervention. I thank him and other members of the Procedure Committee for the work that they have done since July. The interim advice they gave me in September, which was published this week, contained some valuable thoughts. I have made amendments to the proposed Standing Orders to take into account many of their recommendations.

I have accepted the Procedure Committee’s proposal to give Mr Speaker discretion over whether to give his reasons for decisions during the trial period. I have accepted its proposal to allow the Speaker to appoint two senior Members to assist him in the task. I have accepted that it should be set out formally in Standing Orders that Members who represent constituencies other than those in England and Wales should, subject to the decision of the Chair, be able to take part in debates in the Legislative Grand Committee stage, should they choose to do so. I have accepted its proposal to strengthen the guidance notes to make it easier for all Members to work with the new process.

The Procedure Committee made a point about trials and pilots. In practice, we are embarking on the kind of trial process that it asked for in the report. My estimate, subject to confirmation through the new certification process, is that the change will affect three or four Bills in the next few months, as well as statutory instruments, before we get to the review that I have committed to undertaking. We will effectively have a trial period to road test the proposals and will then review them in discussion with the different Committees of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am really grateful to my right hon. Friend for the careful way in which he has listened to our representations. He is a model Minister in that respect. He knows that I have raised on many occasions the problem of Barnett consequentials. It might be argued in Scotland that its Members do not have exactly the same voting rights and that that affects spending in Scotland because of the Barnett formula. As part of the piloting process, will he undertake to review that matter and report back to the House, so that if there are Barnett consequentials, we can think again about that point?

[Chris Grayling]

I have looked carefully at that issue, as my hon. Friend knows. I have not identified measures outside the estimates process that create a Barnett consequential. I have been very clear in the proposed changes to Standing Orders that the estimates process remains outside the proposals. I have asked officials to continue to monitor this matter over the period leading up to the review and to produce information that can be presented to the House in due course. I give my hon. Friend and the House a commitment that if we identify a problem in this area, I will return to it as part of the review.

I intend this to be a process of development, rather than a one-off. The House will undoubtedly take decisions over the next 12 months about how we want to modify the system to make it work. That is right and proper with a new approach. I give my hon. Friend an absolute commitment that that information will be provided to the House ahead of the review.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I apologise for arriving late to the debate but I was attending the Trade Union Bill.

I sat on the Procedure Committee and have gone through this issue in great detail. English votes for English laws is a manifesto commitment that must be carried out, and I have argued consistently that the complete exclusion of Scottish MPs would be a disaster. The Leader of the House has listened to our views carefully, and Scottish MPs are not being completely excluded—there is a double veto.

This issue is fearfully complicated—our new Standing Orders take up 700 lines—and we need a careful piloting stage. It is a cliché to say that this is like the Schleswig-Holstein question—only three people understand it and one is mad and one is dead—but only two Clerks understand it, and neither is mad or dead. The Leader of the House of Commons says that it is okay because we can all vote on estimates, but I wrote a report for the Chancellor on that issue, and under our procedures, on estimates days the only thing Members cannot talk about is estimates. In that sense, this is a serious matter.

The most serious matter for me, my right hon. Friend and our colleagues to consider is that we love the Union beyond everything else. Nothing we do in this House should add to a sense of grievance in Scotland, and that most important consideration should be in the forefront of our minds.

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I cannot. The point about Barnett consequentials that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) mentioned is of supreme importance. It is essential that it cannot be argued in Scotland that Scottish MPs were prevented from taking part in all stages of a Bill that ostensibly affected England, when because of the Barnett formula that decision also affected spending in Scotland. The Leader of the House says that that will not happen, but we must have a careful piloting stage. We on the Government Benches love the Union above all else, and we cannot do anything that will add to a sense of grievance in Scotland. There would be a genuine sense of grievance if Scottish MPs were excluded from some stages of a Bill, when that Bill—through non-estimates procedure and debate—affected spending in their own country.

Finally, we must do nothing to politicise the office of Speaker, because this is different to the certification of money Bills. When we pilot this measure, we must ensure that the Speaker is not dragged into politics—that is one of the most important principles to abide by. The Leader of the House understands those points and is listening. We are fulfilling a manifesto commitment, and I wish him well in the parliamentary process.

Human Rights (Joint Committee)

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

My hon. Friend is, of course, right. We could change the Standing Orders at any time, and we shall be changing them tomorrow in order to diminish the rights of Scottish Members of Parliament. Within 24 hours, we shall find that our rights in the House have been diminished to second class—and we are being denied a place on the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

I am sure that the people of Scotland are observing what is happening down here, and the way in which Scottish Members of Parliament are being treated in this House. I am sure that they are reaching their own conclusions about what is being done to Scottish Members in this place. Just because we are the third party in the House and it is not the Liberals this time, it is apparently all right to exclude us—but it is not on, and I am pretty certain that the Scottish people are observing, very darkly, the way in which Scottish Members are being treated in this House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I am a member of the Procedure Committee, and, if it would be helpful, I will take this matter up with the Committee. I will suggest to the Chairman that we produce a report, and that the SNP is represented on the Joint Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Following the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), may I also pay tribute to Michael Meacher? The work he did, particularly in my experience with Parliament First, is a lasting legacy and demonstrated his great commitment to this place. One of the great things about the proposals before us tonight is that many of those being chosen to serve on this Joint Committee are people like Michael Meacher, who have independent minds. That is what this House needs on such Committees.

I suggest that we pass this motion tonight, because if we do not we will be unable to set up the Joint Committee. It is a matter of regret, given that their lordships’ House named its people back in July, that we are only now naming ours. Once the Committee is set up, the Procedure Committee could look into the issues and I am sure that it could produce a report in due course. It would be unfortunate if this situation were to be used as a stick with which to beat the rest of the United Kingdom. I say that as a member of the Scottish Affairs Committee; I have the privilege of serving under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), and we had a successful visit to Dundee earlier this week.

I want to thank the Scottish National party for ensuring that we have had a debate on this important issue. We debate human rights, and the parliamentary scrutiny of human rights, all too rarely. I have had the privilege of serving in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for some 10 years, during which I spent two years as chairman of the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee. During that time, the United Kingdom had the chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers and a lot of work was done jointly with the Joint Committee on Human Rights to spread the good word across the other 47 member states of the Council of Europe on how Parliaments can scrutinise work of their Governments in relation to human rights. It is fair to say that this Parliament is an exemplar for the Parliaments in those other member countries. I have spoken about this at seminars. It is important that, when the Joint Committee on Human Rights looks at the convention, it should do so in an independent way. One consequence of that happening can be a significant reduction in the number of cases that end up in the European Court of Human Rights. I suggest that that is really important.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

My hon. Friend does himself a disservice. Not only has he served as a distinguished chairman of the migration and legal affairs committees of the Council of Europe but he is also the chairman of the European Conservatives group. He has done sterling work on keeping that group together. He mentioned that some time has passed since this Committee was set up in July. I presume that he has now heard that he has been reappointed, in the light of his great and distinguished work in the Council of Europe.

[Mr Chope]

The House is anticipating that this matter will be decided soon. I hope that it will be, because six months after a general election, the right of this Parliament to be represented in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will expire. I hope that our new members of the Parliamentary Assembly will be chosen soon and presented to the House. I understand that that is normally done through a written statement from the Prime Minister. I also hope that that statement will include the names of some Scottish National party Members, because even if they cannot at present participate in the work of the Joint Committee, they could play an important role in the Parliamentary Assembly—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

This is a very important debate and it is good that we are having it. Human rights are incredibly important and this country led the world in 1950 in drawing up the European convention on human rights, which created the Council of Europe, and the Joint Committee on Human Rights is a direct child of that.

I hope the Government are listening, as some good points have been made. Those of us who take the Union very seriously want to ensure that the Scottish National party, as the properly elected representatives of the Scottish people—no one can deny that they are that—are given an absolute, complete and full role in our Parliament.

As I said earlier, I will take this matter back to the Procedure Committee. We should resolve it as quickly as possible. It has been a good debate and my personal view is that the SNP should be on this Committee. It would be very easy to resolve the issue. I do not want to repeat attacks on cronies and donors in the other place. I have never been a donor—I have no money—or a crony.

[Patrick Grady]

You will get there one day.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I wish I was a donor and a crony, because it sounds like a rather nice place to be.

Seriously, it would very easy to increase the Committee’s membership. I do not think for one moment that anyone would mind that. Without reducing the excellent contribution of highly skilled lawyers in the other place—people who have tremendous knowledge of human rights legislation— it would be perfectly possible to increase the size of this Committee and have a full role for the SNP.

Finally, this whole human rights thing is so important that the Government must take it very seriously, particularly in the light of what they want to do with the Human Rights Act, which I fully support. They have to show that they take this matter seriously and that they want to get the Committee set up quickly, and, if I may crave your indulgence for one second, Mr Speaker, they must establish the delegation on the Council of Europe as quickly as possible, because otherwise we are in danger of losing the plot there as well. I am sure that the Government are listening—they are, after all, a listening Government—and that this debate has had some effect, and in that sense, it is all to the positive.