Debate on the Address
Robert Goodwill Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Ian Blackford
Actually, no, there is no civil war in the SNP. The hon. Gentleman will find that the SNP is absolutely united.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), who talked about singing. I am sure that SNP Members could make a number of suggestions —perhaps the “Anthem of Europe” or, indeed, “Freedom Come-All-Ye”.
Let me move on to the serious situation in which we find ourselves. We have entered very dark days. In just 17 days, the UK is set to leave the European Union. I wish to take some time to reflect, with the House, on why this Government’s actions are leading to such a tragedy—and, Mr Speaker, I do not use my words lightly. Leaving the European Union is a tragedy. At the inception of the European Community, it was stated:
“The contribution which an organised and living Europe can bring to civilisation is indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations.”
Perhaps the Prime Minister might show some respect to the debate, rather than sitting and laughing about those who established the European Community.
The European Community was born in the aftermath of the second world war, after two devastating world wars that brought death, destruction and misery. The European Union is the greatest example of political co-operation and peace, leaving behind the scars of war and the pain of loss and instead choosing to take the hand of friendship across the continent. The United Kingdom joined with European partners to say that never—not ever again—would we compromise peace and stability, and that the European Union would work as a beacon of hope and the guiding light for continued peace, to avoid conflict and the loss of more lives. That is the European Union that my colleagues on the SNP Benches are so proud of.
For decades, the United Kingdom has played its role as an equal partner with member states across Europe in the pursuit of inclusion, tolerance, solidarity, freedom and peace. Through the European Union, we have prioritised human dignity, worked together to deliver equality, protected human rights, and preserved the importance of the rule of law and democracy.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
How would the right hon. Gentleman rate the performance of the common fisheries policy over the past few years?
Ian Blackford
I will come on to fishing and agriculture, but when I am talking about the principles and what the European Union has meant for peace and stability, that is the response that we get from the Conservatives. Frankly, that is telling. I am amazed that the right hon. Gentleman, for whom I have respect, has lowered himself to a situation where he is talking about fishing when we are talking about the peace and stability that the European Union has brought us.
We have not yet left the European Union, yet we already have a preview of the Prime Minister’s contempt for democracy and lack of respect for the rule of law. Leaving the European Union risks the protection, rights and values that have made our democracy possible. The rights that we have all shared as EU citizens—to live, to work and to receive an education in each member state—are about to be torn from us if this Government get their way. They are rights that perhaps many of us have taken for granted. The great right of freedom of movement is to be stopped by a Government whose warped sense somehow sees this as a victory.
Early Parliamentary General Election
Robert Goodwill Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)
I am absolutely desperate to have a general election. I want to see a Government who will halt the privatisation of the national health service, who will properly fund our public services, who will stop the wealth of this country being squirreled away in tax havens in the Caribbean and who will care about the majority of people in this country and not just about the very wealthy, but that is not why the Prime Minister is calling for a general election. The Prime Minister is not calling for a general election so that we can have a Labour Government. The Prime Minister is calling for a general election so that, when and if we were to vote for it, he would be in sole control of what happened in this country, and there would be no Parliament here to hold him to account when we leave with a no-deal Brexit.
In my constituency of Ipswich, more than 50% of the people who voted in the referendum voted to leave. It was not much more than 50%, but it was more than 50%. I would not vote for a straight vote to revoke article 50, because that would be wrong. After there has been a referendum and people have voted to leave the European Union—albeit by a narrow margin—it would be entirely wrong for this House simply to go against those wishes.
Sandy Martin
I am sorry, I will not give way.
I want to see this Parliament agree on a viable deal that will not destroy the economy of this country. When we have a second vote—a people’s vote, a second referendum or whatever you want to call it—which I think we should have if we are to bring the country back together, I want there to be a viable choice. I do not believe that a no-deal Brexit is a viable choice. A no-deal Brexit is a suicide note. If anybody on the Government Benches thinks that, as passengers in a car speeding towards a cliff edge, we will take the option of jumping out just before we reach that cliff edge, they have another think coming. Yes, we will have a general election. This Government will not survive for very much longer, because they do not have an overall majority, but we will not have that general election while there is the danger of a no-deal Brexit.
Oral Answers to Questions
Robert Goodwill Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I am sure the hon. Lady will look forward to working well with the largest group on Brighton and Hove City Council, which is now the Conservative group. She raises the issue of education funding, and she refers to answers I have given in the past. We have been putting more funding into education, and we have been doing it in a number of ways. We have announced extra support, as she says, for children with complex special educational needs, and that is building on the £6 billion in place for it this year—the highest level on record. She says it is not enough, but it is the highest level on record. We are also putting money into new school places and better facilities for children with special educational needs.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
Communities across the country are installing defibrillators. The village of Brompton in my constituency has one in a former telephone box that is a stone’s throw away from the main road but is not directly visible from it. Does the Prime Minister think it is a good idea to have a nationally approved defibrillator road sign so that these lifesaving devices can be quickly accessed in the event of an emergency?
The Prime Minister
I commend the action being taken in my right hon. Friend’s constituency, and I see the same action being taken in my constituency, with people ensuring that defibrillators are available. He raises a very interesting point, and I will ask the Department for Transport to look at it seriously.
Oral Answers to Questions
Robert Goodwill Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman, in his peroration, talked about the importance of the issue of Brexit facing this country. Later today, we will have the no-confidence debate. He has been calling for weeks for a general election, yet when he was asked on Sunday whether he would campaign to leave the European Union in a general election, he refused to answer not once, not twice, not three times, but five times. On what he himself describes as the key issue facing this country, he has no answer. The Leader of the Opposition has let antisemitism run riot in his party. He would abandon our allies, weaken our security and wreck our economy, and we will never let that happen.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
Oral Answers to Questions
Robert Goodwill Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
As the hon. Lady said, it is clear that Ministers should correct the record in Parliament, and the Welfare Secretary will be correcting the record at the Dispatch Box after PMQs, as I believe she has advised you, Mr Speaker.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
The Prime Minister
It was a great privilege to attend Armed Forces Day in Llandudno on Saturday; it was a fantastic celebration. Other events took place up and down the country, and it was a great opportunity to recognise the bravery and professionalism of our armed forces and the wonderful job that they do day in, day out for us, putting themselves on the line and making sacrifices for our safety. I am delighted that Salisbury and Scarborough will host the day in 2019 and 2020 respectively. Armed Forces Day will give people yet another reason to visit the great resort of Scarborough in 2020, and I certainly look forward to continuing to celebrate Armed Forces Day in the future and to joining my right hon. Friend in celebrating it in Scarborough.
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill: Committee Stage
Robert Goodwill Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Valerie Vaz
Under the Bill, the number would be fixed at 18. The seats would be allocated on the basis of the 2011 instructions, but nothing would be in perpetuity. No Parliament can bind another Parliament, so that could all change. The instructions could change.
Fourthly, what about the procedures of the House? I am sure you will agree that they are important, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Procedure Committee recommended in its 2013-14 report on private Members’ Bills
“that the Government be required to make a written Ministerial statement on the reasons for the delay if a money or ways and means resolution, where required, has not been put to the House within three weeks of a bill being given a second reading.”
The Government response stated:
“It is the responsibility of the Member in charge of the bill to make a request to Government to table any money or ways and means motions that may be required. It is the practice of the Government to accede to such requests… The Committee has not produced any clear evidence to suggest that current arrangements are not working or that a new rule is needed.”
However, the Government have not acceded to the request for a money resolution, and the current arrangements are clearly now not working. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton has been thwarted six times. Will the Leader of the House join me in writing to the Procedure Committee to inform it that the Government are not following the procedure laid down by the Committee and rules of the House?
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
I was elected on a manifesto that called for a reduction in the number of MPs to 600. How can I look my constituents in the eye and spend the equivalent of 600 nurses’ salaries on something for which they did not vote?
Valerie Vaz
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I will write to him and place in the Library the list of things that the Government have reneged on since their manifesto.
More importantly, this matter is pressing because hon. Members will have received an email from the Boundary Commission, which says that it wants to report before the conference recess, so this is not about the Westminster bubble. Hon. Members were elected to be the guardians of democracy. Now more than ever, we need to stand as beacons of fairness, upholding democratic values and doing what is right. I hope that hon. Members will support the motion.
Christian Matheson
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for correcting me, and he is absolutely right.
This has not only become a routine drain on parliamentary time and resources for everyone involved, but is deeply disrespectful to Members across the House who sent a strong message to the Government last December that they wanted the Bill to be considered in Committee. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton that it is now 200 days since that vote took place. It is vital that we uphold parliamentary sovereignty, which is why I am pleading for all Members across the House to support the motion.
We are where we are, and I pay tribute to hon. Members for their participation in the debate. The right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper)—or, dare I say it, West Gloucestershire?—talked about the fact that his constituency might become West Gloucestershire. Of course, he would also have to be adopted by the association to be the candidate, but I am sure that it would have no problem adopting him. He mentioned the 35,000 responses to the Boundary Commission’s review. I will hazard a guess that most of those responses were complaining about how daft the review was, based on the parameters set by the Government. I will say one thing about him: he has been an assiduous attender of the Bill Committee, even when only a motion to adjourn was moved, and I pay tribute to him for being one of the few Conservative Members who has taken that procedure seriously.
My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton, who is an old friend, told us that he has become an expert in parliamentary procedure. With that expertise, he reminded us that the convention is that the Government always table a money resolution on Second Reading.
The hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) gave a brave speech and said that the circumstances in the world have changed. He talked about the motion setting a dangerous precedent, but I put it to him that the dangerous precedent is surely the Government ignoring the will of the House by ignoring the Second Reading vote.
The hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) talked about her introduction to politics in 2009-10 and all the demands for parliamentary reform at that time. I suggest that those demands were for reform of the expenses system, which is what was causing all the difficulties around this place, not of parliamentary boundaries.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) presented us with an easy solution to the problem: an early vote, so that the Government could test the will of the House on a reduction from 650 to 600 seats, which would save time and resources. He made the important point that we need to remember that we represent place as well as simply numbers.
Then we come to the G. K. Chesterton fan, the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), who talked about the difficult and treacherous business of taking forward legislation. He is right that legislation should be difficult and should be tested, but if there is any treachery, dare I say it?—I hope I am not being unparliamentary—it might lie on the Government’s side of the House, with Ministers not respecting the will of the House on Second Reading.
The hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) reflected on his experiences on the Procedure Committee and reminded us that money resolutions are always provided. The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) said that his constituency is 103 miles one way by 115 the other—as big as London—and that the new boundaries would make it even more impossible to manage.
Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), who represents the constituency of her birth, talked about the history of those parishes providing a real sense of community. She reminded us that our role here is to represent the voiceless, and she spoke of the 11,000 residents of her constituency who are not on the register but nevertheless need representation. It has been an excellent debate.
Mr Goodwill
People not being on the electoral register is not just an urban issue. In constituencies such as mine, many people have second homes and are not on the electoral register. They vote in local elections in many cases, but they require help from their MP if they have problems concerning the local authority. It is not just in inner-city constituencies that there are more constituents than the number on the register.
Christian Matheson
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Of course, someone who has a second home is perhaps registered elsewhere, but my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden was making a particular point about those who are not on any register but still require representation.
The Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton seeks to resolve a controversial 5% variation in the size of constituencies. As we all know, under the new rules outlined in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, all constituencies are required to have a quota between 95% and 100% of the national quota. The consequences of that rigid 5% threshold are that some communities will be split up, while others are merged and dragged into other communities. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) discussed that and spoke about the crazy effect on his high street, which would be split, with the shopping centre on one side and other shops on the other.
The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee recommended that that constraint be relaxed to 10%—a proposal rejected by the then Government in 2015—so I welcome the flexibility that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton has shown. He has listened to Conservative Members who believe that the 10% quota is too large, and he has taken their views into consideration. Relaxing the quota to 7.5% would mean that a majority of constituencies would not change at each election, which would strike the right balance and mean that each boundary review would be less disruptive.
The reduction in the number of MPs from 650 to 600 runs contrary to good sense in many ways. At a time when we are planning to leave the EU—hon. Members made this point—and supposedly return control to the UK, we need to maintain numbers in the House. All that the reduction in numbers would achieve is a reduction in the ability of Parliament to scrutinise the Government—another point made in the debate. At the same time, the Government have appointed more unelected peers to the other place than any other Government, so it is absurd that they should reduce numbers in the elected Chamber.
The Hansard Society did not find any rationale for the Government’s decision, noting that there was
“real concern”
that the number had been
“plucked from thin air—600 simply being a neat number.”
Cutting 50 MPs represents a crisis of scrutiny—a concern expressed by the Electoral Reform Society and by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon. Finally, it is vital that constituencies represent the communities that they serve.
Chloe Smith
I very much welcome that reminder from my right hon. Friend.
Turning to the motion, the debate has been about a fundamental principle of how this House functions, but this is not about the Bill from the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton. It is about whether a Committee—any Committee—can be permitted by the House to disregard this place’s rules and conventions.
The Opposition motion seeks to undermine a fundamental principle and cornerstone of our constitutional settlement: the financial initiative of the Crown. It is a long-standing constitutional principle that the Government of the day initiate financial resolutions. I can only apologise to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire if he thinks this another lecture—perhaps in his day students walked out of lectures if they did not like them. It would be regrettable if he felt the need to walk out of this discussion. The Government have to be responsible and accountable to taxpayers for the money they spend. The motion seeks to erode the fundamental principle that the Crown, through its Ministers, who are accountable to Parliament, has the exclusive right of initiation and of defining the purposes for which the money is required.
Mr Goodwill
The Minister drew our attention to the situation over the border. Do the Scottish Government delegate power to the Scottish Parliament to set spending, or do they protect the money as the UK Government do?
Chloe Smith
I welcome the opportunity to add to this discussion, but the question of whether we can learn from the mechanisms of other Parliaments and Governments might have to be a debate for another day.
The mechanisms of this Parliament are that a Committee requires a money resolution to go through the substance of a Bill. If a Committee is allowed to consider the substance of a Bill in the absence of such a resolution, the Crown, through its Ministers, loses its important constitutional right to define the purposes for which that money is required. That is not just about being able to make progress; it is not just about saying, “Don’t worry about the money. It’ll come later”; as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House set out earlier, to do this to a Committee would strip it of the ability to consider matters properly. As she set out, without such a resolution, a Committee would just be aimlessly wandering through a Bill with or without amendments but not properly guided by a money resolution. At best, it would be theoretical, at worst farcical, and that is not what our constituents expect of us.
The motion questions the role of the Executive—that is regardless of what party is in power. The fundamentals of any Government are that they take decisions and are accountable for them—to taxpayers where it is about how public money is spent. That is what it means to be a responsible Government. From what I see on the Order Paper today, I do not think the Opposition believe in responsible government; they believe in political points scoring. The House runs on its conventions and the assurance that centuries-old practice and procedure is there to protect the rights of all parliamentarians. The Government respect those rights of the House, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House set out earlier. To undermine that for party political reasons by tabling such a motion compromises the idea of the Opposition ever being a responsible Government. The Government are elected by the people and have the right and duty to initiate financial proceedings in the interests of the taxpayer.
As my right hon. Friend made absolutely clear at the start of the debate, the motion has nothing to do with the private Member’s Bill of the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton. I am sorry about that. I am sorry that he has come here today, as he does every Wednesday morning, to talk about a Bill for which the House has not granted him financial authority. I am sorry about that because he is a lovely man—we get on well on Wednesday mornings—and clearly has the support of his friends around him in the Chamber, but I am afraid that his party is letting him down with the motion on the Order Paper tonight. They are suggesting a huge move in the procedures of the House, all hung around his Bill. His Bill has merits, and those could be discussed, but there is not the time to do so.
Voter ID Pilots
Robert Goodwill Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Chloe Smith
This policy is in no way about suppressing votes. It is a huge shame that any voters listening to this debate today will hear one side of the House talking their prospects down and saying that they are somehow unable to produce the kind of ID that we routinely produce in everyday life. The five co-operating local authorities have come forward to run the pilots because they can best serve their citizens by doing so and providing alternative arrangements.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
Has the Minister had the same experience on the doorstep as I have, with voters who have mislaid their polling cards finding it hard to believe that they can turn up to vote without any form of identification?
Chloe Smith
Yes, I have had that experience, and I would be surprised if many Members had not heard that from voters. The widespread assumption among voters is that ID is needed already. What we are doing is bringing Great Britain’s electoral system into line with other parts of the world, including Northern Ireland—inside the UK, of course—and Canada, which already run such a system successfully with turnout remaining up and evidence of fraud down.