Consumer Rights Bill (Carry-Over Extension)

Debate between John Spellar and Kevan Jones

Monday 12th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Spellar]

I understand, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is an age-related thing.

I congratulate the Minister on moving the extension right up to the end of her period in Parliament. We wish her well in her future career. As she and the Opposition spokesperson said, this is an important Bill, in which case one wonders why the Government have taken so long to bring it to fruition on the statute book. What is their problem? It is not as though we are burdened with business. Week after week, the Government are filling time in this Parliament—not just since we came back after the Christmas holiday, but certainly since we came back in September. What have the Government been doing and why are they taking so long to pass the Bill? This Parliament has rightly now been described as a zombie Parliament.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that since the introduction of fixed five-year Parliaments, there is no excuse for not knowing when the general election will be, meaning that the proper programming of Bills should be a piece of cake for the Government?

[Mr Spellar]

My hon. Friend is exactly right; it should be a piece of cake for any properly run Administration. We realise that there are substantial internal tensions in the Government. That is why several private Members’ Bills are held up in the proceedings, and why other important issues, such as one dear to his heart in his role as deputy defence spokesman for the Opposition—the failure to advance the programme on the renewal of the Trident submarine programme—are also held up. On those matters, we understand, although we do not agree, with the delay. The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) has several times drawn to the attention of the House and the Prime Minister some of the internal contradictions of the coalition. We understand those problems.

What are the problems with the Bill before us? There might be differences between the Government and the Opposition, as we saw with the Government’s disgraceful support for the ticket touts against the interests of supporters and fans of sport, music and the arts, but there are no internal differences to hold up the progress of the Bill. That brings us to the underlying point: the Government’s programme is in a bit of mess. We have to consider this point, because it is important for the constitutional arrangements of the House. Although there are strong differences of opinion within the Chamber, things really fall down when we have a Government who cannot handle their own business, do not know what they are doing and—equally important, although for some this is a more trivial issue—do not understand the dynamic of Parliament, not just in this House but in the relationship between the two Houses. We are seeing many examples of that.

It might be that the Minister can give us some clues as to where the problem lies. Who is in charge of Government business? Who should be steering the Bill through Parliament, and why have they failed so singularly to do so inside a year—a very long time? Normally, when there is good will in the House—as the Minister rightly said, the Bill has broad approval and is important—Bills can progress at a reasonable pace. Have there been unreasonable obstacles from the Opposition or within the coalition? Or is it that the Government are asleep on the job?

Many Members, including Back-Bench Government Members, have raised concerns about that issue. It is clear that the Prime Minister and the crew at No. 10 are not in charge of Government business. We have seen in the newspapers and heard personally many complaints from Members about his “chillaxed” approach, and we remember the comments about the fish rotting from the head down. He makes a virtue of his “chillaxed” approach to policy and, in particular, to administration and organisation—those dull details that actually ensure that government and Parliament run properly.

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[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (Mr Spellar). I agree with him that this is an important Bill, although, as my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) stated, much should have been in it that is not in it, so it has been a missed opportunity. I give credit to my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) and others who have argued for greater transparency over ticket touts. I cannot for the life of me think why the Government think there are votes to be gained from ticket touts rather than from the mass of the public who buy tickets. My hon. Friend helpfully highlighted cases where people had clearly been ripped off or misled under the present situation.

The motion before us relates to paragraph (13) of Standing Order 80A, which states:

“Proceedings on a bill ordered to be carried over to the next Session of Parliament shall lapse on the expiry of the period of twelve months from the date of its first reading in this House and the bill shall be laid aside unless the House shall order, in pursuance of a motion under paragraph (14), that proceedings on the bill be extended for a specified period.”

This Bill had its First Reading on 21 January 2004, as the Minister mentioned—[Interruption.] I meant 2014.

Very little legislation has gone through Parliament over the past year. Another habit of this Government is trying to push things through the House very quickly, with limited days allotted for the scrutiny of legislation, which means that the other place has more time to examine a Bill at leisure. I have a fundamental objection to that, because this House is the supreme body for framing and scrutinising legislation and for tabling amendments. The rush to get everything through this House as quickly as possible has left us with what has been described in many newspapers as a “zombie Session”. The programme for next week and subsequent weeks shows that very few votes on legislation are going to be provided for. We are waiting on their lordships’ House to return legislation that has speedily been channelled through this House.

I do not believe it right that an amendment such as the one debated today to deal with ticket touts should have been agreed in the other place. It should have been agreed here. The Government should have taken more time to consider it in detail and to ensure that hon. Members understood the implications of what they had done. We have seen legislation—badly drafted legislation—rushed through this House time and again during this Parliament; it has then gone to the other place and been filleted like a fish.

[Mr Spellar]

My hon. Friend draws attention to a further aspect that causes difficulty. In the initial enthusiasm of the coalition, a number of ill thought through constitutional changes were brought through—changing the date of the Queen’s Speech and the five-year Parliament, for example. However, no consideration was given to the natural rhythm of legislation in this Parliament, either on a sessional or a whole-Parliament basis. In both cases, the coalition has run into considerable difficulties in respect of running through legislation in this place and of the inter-relationship between this place and the other place.

[Mr Jones]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. After passing the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 for five-year Parliaments, it should have been easier for the Government to programme their business motions through this House. At the time of the last general election, the Prime Minister talked freely about reducing the cost of politics, but since then he has absolutely stuffed the other place with new peers and peeresses. He is obviously trying to ensure that the Conservatives maintain their in-built advantage in the other place.

It is clear that the whipping system in the other place is not working very well, which is laughable. Either Members who have just been ennobled are not turning up or other Members are rebellious, because they are clearly not voting along Government lines on every issue. The amendment on ticket-touting, for example, was tabled by a Conservative peer.

A five-year Parliament ought to ensure that programmes are completed, but motions such as this mean that Bills are stuck in the other place and we must wait for them to come back. That applies to some important Bills, such as the Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Bill, which would create an armed forces ombudsman and must be keenly awaited by members of our armed forces. It has been argued that there has not been enough time during the current legislative Session, but we should bear in mind the number of Opposition days and Thursdays devoted to business tabled by the Backbench Business Committee. I mean no disrespect to any of those debates, but space could have been made for debates on important Bills.

Moreover, during the current Parliament an unprecedented number of Committee stages have been dealt with on the Floor of the House rather than in Committee Rooms upstairs. That has used up days that could have been devoted to more lengthy consideration of Bills.

[Mr Jones]

No, I am not. I cannot think of an example at the moment, but a number of Committee stages that would previously have been dealt with upstairs have been dealt with on the Floor of the House. That leads us to ask whether the Government are simply trying to fill up time on the Floor of the House—and I think that that is exactly what they have been doing.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, this is an important Bill, and it will clearly be given a great deal more scrutiny and attention in the other place than it will be given here. Given the current logjam in the other place, we shall have a very thin February and March as we wait for Bills to return to us. There is also the broader issue of the reputation of the House of Commons. I do not think that headlines about, for instance, zombie Parliaments or MPs coming to the House on only two days a week do our reputation any good. We cannot expect the public to understand the minutiae of parliamentary timetabling, especially given the incompetent way in which the Government are handling it.

[Mr Spellar]

My hon. Friend may recall press reports about a memorandum sent by the Government Chief Whip to his Members of Parliament, indicating that they were unlikely to be needed on Thursdays and, possibly, Mondays, and therefore, effectively, they had to be here on only two days a week. In fact, this level of inactivity was being “programmed in” by the Chief Whip, partly because of failure to run the business, but also for party political purposes.

[Mr Jones]

That is an interesting point. I do remember seeing press reports about the letter sent to Conservative Back Benchers. If I thought that the Chief Whip and the Leader of the House were well organised enough, I would say that there was obviously a plot, but I do not think that there was. I think that they have found themselves with time on their hands, and Conservative Back Benchers have been told not to come here on Mondays or Thursdays.

[Mr Bone]

May I state categorically that I have never received such a letter from the Chief Whip?

Sittings of the House (22 March)

Debate between John Spellar and Kevan Jones

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Spellar]

Not just of recent vintage, I said. I know the hon. Gentleman is a new Member who thinks that history started with Tony Blair’s election. I know this belief is common within the Conservative party, but actually we did have Prime Ministers—both Labour and Conservative alike—before that. I was actually thinking of Harold Macmillan, but the hon. Gentleman was probably in short trousers when he was Prime Minister.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I am interested in the line that my right hon. Friend is taking, but actually we are talking here not about the procedures of the House, but about the incompetence of the Government in handling the timetable. They have tabled this motion tonight because they did not realise that they needed the extra Friday to fit in the four days of debate on the Budget.

[Mr Spellar]

My hon. Friend rightly draws me back to the immediate topic, tempting, interesting and attractive though it is to discuss the broader issues of parliamentary sovereignty and procedure. He is right that most of the factors, including the date of the Budget, were well known when the motion was laid. The number of days that we traditionally take for the Budget debate was known, as too was the date of Easter. In fact, the date of Easter could have been known several decades, if not centuries, ago. The procedure for calculating Easter was decided at the Council of Nicaea in 325. At that time, they could probably have calculated when this Easter would be.

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[Mr Spellar]

Several areas did. Of course, we would be straying into history if we noted that the last time we changed the calendar and the method of calculation, it did not work out too well and London got substantially burnt down. “Give us back our 11 days”, was the cry of the London workers.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

My right hon. Friend is showing a detailed knowledge about how Easter is calculated. Was he actually at one of these meetings when it was decided?

[Mr Spellar]

I said 325, not 7.24.

It is absolutely right that we need a full debate on the Budget. I therefore question why the Budget needs to be on a Wednesday—I hope the Leader of the House will intervene—if we wish to fit in those four days and, quite rightly, have the Back-Bench pre-recess debate. Why not have the Budget on a Tuesday and the debate on the following days? That would work perfectly well, although I do think—mention has been made of staff who work here, and so on—that having recesses in the middle of the week rather than in full blocks can affect many people, particularly those who are trying to adjust to have holidays with family or, frankly, those without children who are trying to avoid going on holiday at the same time as those with family. Not much thought seems to have been given to how these things are organised—or, indeed, to parliamentary delegations. These partial weeks do not seem to be a particularly good idea.

Draft Financial Services Bill (Joint Committee)

Debate between John Spellar and Kevan Jones

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Gentleman is being a bit petulant—[Interruption.] Pedantic, even. I do not understand why. In my conversations with him, we have never agreed about anything, but we usually get on quite well.

[Mr Spellar]

My hon. Friend agrees with the hon. Gentleman about his Front Benchers’ defence policy.