Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Anne Main Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I rise to support the Bill on Second Reading. As many colleagues have said, some measures need more scrutiny in Committee of the whole House and some need tightening.

I should like to draw the Leader of the House’s attention to one element of the Bill so that he can think about it as an area to explore in Committee. Inappropriate lobbying is a pertinent issue. I welcome the Government’s bid to clean up that murky pool and to shine a light on some of the movers and shakers behind the scenes. That is where much of the public’s concern lies. Who is gaining access behind the scenes through special relationships?

I congratulate the Government on starting the process by publishing details of departmental meetings quarterly, although they could be made fuller. Hon. Members have referred to the fact that “broad discussions” does not tell us who is lobbying on behalf of whom. Hon. Members need to know how influence is gained, where it is gained, how deals are done and who is pushing a pet project, particularly with reference to our constituencies.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Main]

I will give way only briefly because many colleagues wish to speak in the debate.

[Debbie Abrahams]

What does the hon. Lady make of the statistic that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills held 988 meetings with lobbyists in 2012, of which only two would be eligible for inclusion on the register? Does that not make a mockery of the Bill?

[Mrs Main]

The hon. Lady makes a valuable point. The House is where we raise such concerns. I am sure that those things will be taken into account in Committee, and in the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee report. The debate is not about playing ping-pong with blame; it is about drawing such matters into the public domain. Perhaps that area will be tightened up. I am hopeful that it will be.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Main]

I will not give way to the hon. Lady. I have read only about a paragraph of my speech. Many Opposition Members wish to speak, so I am sure she will have an opportunity to intervene.

Hon. Members are the voices of their constituencies. The hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) made exactly that point when he said that we are the strongest lobbyists. If something is not right in our constituencies, we speak up for our constituents. It is up to us to ferret behind the scenes and find out what is going on. We need to be aware of how lobbyists play and by whose rules, and the extent of their schmoozing.

I want to point out a worrying grey area that is not covered in the Bill but that could be captured as we work on the Bill in the next few days. I have been trying to track the influence of lobbyists on a major project in St Albans. I have made no bones about the fact that I am completely and implacably opposed, as is my council at every level, to a strategic rail freight interchange on 300 acres of green-belt land. I am concerned that lobbying behind the scenes may have led to a shift in the decision-making process, and have made every effort to try to find out how hon. Members, as representatives of our constituents, can find out who or what has gained the ear of influential people. I fully accept that that does not always mean the Minister—it could be someone in the Minister’s office. Members need to have a clearly defined route to find out what has gone on. Our constituents do not have that opportunity.

The project has been led by Helioslough. One of its key lobbyists is Mr Simon Hoare, who operates under various guises—it is therefore pertinent that we have a full register. We have been fighting the proposal since 2006. It has been turned down twice—once by the previous Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, and once by the current one. There have been two refusals, but now there is a minded-to-approve decision, which has set off my radar. What has altered? The plans are the same, so has pressure been applied behind the scenes?

The last refusal was quashed by the High Court in 2011, and the process has become murky and opaque—it is very much the sort of thing that I believe the public want hon. Members to clamp down on. In this world, personal connections and relationships can come in very handy. I have dug very deep to try to get to the bottom of how much access the developer of the rail freight proposal has gained via his lobbyists. The proposal has implications for planning and transport, and for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Not only one Department is involved, but many.

Like many colleagues who have concerns about the undue effects of lobbying, I asked a series of parliamentary questions—that is one route, albeit a tortuous one, open to hon. Members—and, ultimately, made freedom of information requests. I discovered in a parliamentary answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers), the then Transport Minister, admitted to having had a private luncheon meeting with the lead lobbyist for Helioslough, the developer, just after the refusal—[Interruption.] I would be grateful if Opposition Members listened to what I have to say. I am making the point that the Bill will not capture those private, personal connections over lunch, where things are discussed.

I found out that the matter was discussed over lunch in a private, personal capacity with the Minister. Since then, I have been chasing those private comments to see what they have led to. My right hon. Friend has also admitted that, since that meeting, her Department received an e-mail from Simon Hoare entitled “Radlett SRFI—The economic benefits”. Simon Hoare was tirelessly making his case behind the scenes, despite the fact that the process was closed to me and my constituents.

I submitted freedom of information requests, because the role of all Back-Bench MPs is to speak up and defend our constituents against what I would describe as inappropriate lobbying. I have the contents of the e-mails and an attached document. I also have the Department for Transport letter to Mr Hoare informing him that the e-mails were about to be disclosed. When Mr Hoare received notice that his e-mails and private correspondence were about to be disclosed, he sent an attachment, saying:

“I would prefer for my email not to be sent to the MPs”.

I am sure he would prefer that. Unfortunately for him, the Department disclosed his e-mail, which makes for disturbing reading. Among a lot of other things, it states:

“I am aware the DfT is a strong supporter of the development of rail freight”

and

“will also doubtless be aware”

of

“a number of schemes…In the last 10 years my client has incurred costs over £12 million”

on that planning application. The letter goes on:

“I do not believe that DCLG has a clue as to the costs of the planning process…While appreciating that DCLG is a quasi judicial role vis à vis the Public Inquiry, anything your department can do to press the case for a speedy and supportive decision would be a real shot in the arm…As a courtesy, I ought to advise you that we are also in contact with HMT…and…BIS.”

I would not have known that without a freedom of information request. It goes on to say a lot more, but my time is constrained.

This is what we have to clamp down on. I am sure that this is sounding very unhelpful, but at least this Government are tackling it—[Interruption] They have an opportunity to tackle it through the Bill. Sadly, such private meetings will not be covered by the current proposed legislation—that is the point I am making. I am sure that the Minister would like to know that I have asked the Library about this matter. It has confirmed that this is still a grey area, even with the introduction of the Bill: it will be up to Ministers to decide whether they feel that they have been influenced over lunch and a good glass of wine.

I give the Department for Transport some credit for letting me see the information trail. So far, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has not let me see anything, saying that it did receive documents and correspondence but that letting me know all about it would involve a disproportionate cost. Well, one Department can let me know and I do not like what I read—it stinks. Something has changed a decision affecting my constituency. Somebody beat up somebody in some Department somewhere and said, “Make this thing happen, please”. I know we have an economic imperative to get Britain moving, but not by building an inappropriately located rail freight interchange.

I have asked parliamentary questions and I am dissatisfied with the level of response. My freedom of information requests have been rather more fruitful, but at what cost? The paper trail involved in trying to get to the evidence is not without cost to the taxpayer. I have gone to the Information Commissioner for adjudication on the rather opaque way that this matter has been dealt with. As the duly elected representative of my entire constituency, I represent everybody, as we all do in our constituencies, not just Conservatives. If this decision is imposed on them, they have a right to know that any lobbying has been transparent. I am not anti-lobbying—I lobby like crazy on behalf of my constituents—but I want to know who has had cosy lunches and I want to know if quiet conversations behind closed doors have effected changes of mind. I want to know, on behalf of my constituents, whether lobbying is helping to change decision-making processes.

In the end that is surely what we should all be agreed on, as the hon. Member for Nottingham North said. We should all want fairness from the Bill. Given that the Library has admitted that this is a grey area and that at the moment the Bill does not capture this—it perhaps captures a few other things—I desperately hope that we can come up with guidance on the Floor of the House. If not, those cosy conversations will increase, and paper trails will be quietly hidden away—nobody can track down a quiet conversation over lunch.

I thank my right hon. Friend the. Member for Chipping Barnet, who admitted that the application was discussed. I gave her the courtesy of letting her know that I would refer to her correspondence. She admitted that additional information was later sent to the three Departments—I have the proof of that. The trail has gone somewhat dead and I am disappointed about that. I am still hopeful that there is time to see sense and overturn the decision, but what has come out of this situation is the unedifying spectacle whereby I can go through many weeks of appeals with my constituents in the public domain where everyone can hear everything and then, unbeknownst to us, when the process is stalled, the developer can have private lunches at which, because there happens to be a university connection, old friendships have been called in. That is not acceptable; that is not democracy. I am sure that the Bill will now appropriately consider this grey area.

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[Stephen McPartland]

I am delighted that we are the most transparent Government ever. I cannot imagine any of our Ministers wanting to remove those provisions, but that is one of the matters that could be debated and tightened up in Committee next week.

We are the most transparent Government ever, and transparency is very important to me. I know that this is not an appropriate time, but there should be a debate at some point about whether privacy is a 20th century concept and transparency is a 21st century concept, given that we spend so much of our lives online and involved in the data world. For me, transparency is key, and that is why I support the Bill. Part 1 represents the first step towards recognising that lobbyists might have some influence. That might not go far enough for some Members, but we should agree that it is a step in the right direction and support it for that reason.

[Mrs Main]

I thank my hon. Friend for complimenting me on my comments on lobbyists, who have enormous influence. The fact that the case I mentioned involved two refusals followed by a permission being granted not long after a significant amount of heavy lobbying suggests the amount of influence that they really have. That is what we need to debate today.

[Stephen McPartland]

My hon. Friend makes another wonderful point. As I have said, that was the first example I had heard of a lobbyist having any influence. I am sure that his clients were delighted, as they had probably spent a lot more than the £12 million they spent on getting the planning permission on employing previous lobbyists who had no impact whatever.

Government procurement is an incredibly bureaucratic process that can go on for ever. We all have small businesses in our constituencies that struggle to engage with those bureaucratic procedures that never really get anywhere. I question how much influence those procedures have, but the Bill represents a step in the right direction.

I want to move on to part 2 of the Bill, the part that has elicited the most consternation today. I understand that charities will still be able to support specific policies advocated by political parties if that will help them to achieve their charitable purposes, and that the law currently prohibits them from engaging in party politics or party political campaigning, from supporting political candidates or from undertaking political activity that is unrelated to the charity’s purpose. The Bill seems to be dealing with trust. The Government trust the charities to engage in the policies that they want to engage in, and to do so responsibly. There also seems to be a lack of trust on the part of the charities, however, which is understandable. They are regulated by the Charity Commission, and a number of concerns and grumbles have been expressed about that over the years. The charities are asking for more specific guidance. Many of the issues that have been brought to my attention will be relevant under the current law. The charities are already having to make a judgment call under the existing law about whether their activities would affect the outcome of an election and whether they are dealing with regulated expenditure. Many of those issues are already relevant today.

I was asked earlier about the spending limit. Reducing the spending limit from just under £1 million to just under £400,000 is a positive step. Taking the big money out of politics is the most important thing—[Laughter.] Opposition Members might laugh and joke about that, but I remember when the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 was introduced and the Electoral Commission came into being. One of the prerequisites of being employed by the commission was that a person should have had no experience of doing anything related to elections. The process was approached from the point of view that all the local organisations that we represent are hugely well funded by mysterious millionaires behind the scenes. I can assure hon. Members that the only millionaire funder in my constituency does not support my party; they support the party to which the previous Member of Parliament belonged.

The introduction of the Bill is a positive step because it allows us to talk about the issues of transparency that matter to the public. Like many Members, I have had a lot of e-mails about the Bill from various organisations. I had one from an organisation whose name I shall not deign to mention that referred to a “gagging” Bill. The Bill will do no such thing. Not one of the 400 charities and organisations in my constituency has complained to me about the Bill, and none of them would consider themselves to be involved in political campaigning.

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[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

I feel that we are almost repeating the debate we had in January, when I introduced my private Member’s Bill on lobbyists—I think today’s turnout is slightly higher than it perhaps was on that Friday. I am sorry that the Government have not reflected on that debate or on last year’s excellent report by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, and have introduced this dreadful Bill.

Owing to time constraints, I will speak about part 1, but, in the interests of transparency, let me put on record the fact that my wife works for a charity in Scotland and is therefore indirectly affected by the proposed legislation.

Fred Michel, Adam Werritty, Fiji-gate, MPs for hire like cabs, peers for questions—all are scandals that have blotted Parliament and politics in the past four years. It is not an unreasonable test to ask the Government which, if any, of those scandals this Bill seeks to prevent from happening again. The harsh reality is that part 1 of the Bill would have avoided none of them, because the Government have drafted it so narrowly—I suspect deliberately—that the only type of activity covered is direct communication with a Minister of the Crown and a permanent secretary. Therefore, if a lobbyist or even a consultant lobbyist communicates with a private secretary—I would suggest that the Prime Minister’s private secretary has a great deal of influence, perhaps more than the Deputy Prime Minister, on certain areas of policy, such as tobacco packaging and other things—that will not be covered. If, as the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) said, a lobbyist speaks to a senior official in the Department for Transport, that is okay, provided it is not the permanent secretary. If a lobbyist speaks to the special adviser, as Fred Michel clearly was in the News International scandal, that would okay. That is a failure of the Bill; it is one that I cannot support this evening.

[Mrs Main]

For clarification, may I point out that I was referring to a private lunch with the Secretary of State for Transport?

[Thomas Docherty]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, because I intended to come to the point she made. It is an important point and one that I raised this morning. I had a meeting with the Deputy Leader of the House and the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith). It was very civil and I got a cup of coffee out of it, but I do not think we made much progress in agreeing on very much.

The problems with the Bill are so fundamental that even the impact assessment is wrong. The civil servants who drafted the Bill—who, ironically, would not be covered by the lobbying Bill they are seeking to introduce—have failed to understand the lobbying industry. That is not surprising, given that they failed to meet anybody, from either side of the argument, in the last 12 months. They have not met Spinwatch, Unlock Democracy, Charter88, the charities or the Association of Professional Political Consultants—I could go on. Those civil servants have met nobody. They have stuck their fingers in their ears and produced a Bill that no one in the industry or on either side of the argument is prepared to support. That is a shocking state of affairs.

The civil servants who drafted the Bill have also misunderstood how to calculate the number of lobbyists. Their impact assessment claims that there are between 800 and 1,000 lobbying firms, but the evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee shows that there are fewer than 100. So the £500,000 that it will cost to set up the register, and the £200,000 a year running costs, will have to be met by 50 or 60 firms. Great free-marketeers and defenders of business such as the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) should join us in the Lobby tonight, because the burden that that will place on the companies caught by the legislation, many of which are small businesses, is ridiculous and disproportionate. The Bill will do nothing to solve that problem.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Anne Main Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

We had a triple lock on that issue.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

The Liberal Democrats stood on a manifesto that said:

“Liberal Democrats will do things differently, because we believe that power should be in the hands of people, not politicians. We will give people a real say in who governs the country”.

I would say that people need no bigger say than on the constitutional changes that are being proposed. I do not see what is any different about the need to have a referendum and talk to people about who is going to be governing the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Eagle]

I do not think that is the logic of what I was trying to say. I was merely pointing out that having such long terms and not allowing for re-election would be only a marginal improvement on not having an election at all.

[Mrs Main]

rose—

[Ms Eagle]

I have already given way to the hon. Lady.

[Mrs Main]

On this point.

[Ms Eagle]

Go on, then.

[Mrs Main]

On the hon. Lady’s point about safe seats and unaccountability, the average time in office for a Member of Parliament is two terms, which was previously eight years. The Bill would enshrine safe seats for 15 years, which is double the expected length of time spent here by a Member of Parliament who has to face the public.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Straw]

I had such wonderful support from my right hon. and hon. Friends for all those measures.

On some, such as the Human Rights Bill and the Freedom of Information Bill, there was an understanding across the Chamber that it was appropriate for Parliament to have the final say. On others, however, there was a growing consensus that matters affecting the location and balance of powers in our constitutional arrangements required the endorsement of the British people because the fundamentals of the constitution belong to the people and not to us.

Among the measures I sought to introduce was the European Union constitution Bill, which made very significant changes in respect of our obligations within the EU. The Labour Government’s initial view was that we should do what successive Governments had done, most notably over Maastricht, and have this House make the final decisions. In making that case, as in previous debates on the principle, I advanced arguments against introducing a referendum for that Bill that were similar to those put forward by the Deputy Prime Minister. Those arguments related to cost, complexity and the fact that two of the main parties—his and mine—supported the measure. I have to say, however, that behind that—unwritten and unspoken—was the fear, particularly among my colleagues who were enthusiasts for the measure, that the British people might give the wrong answer. I believe that that fear also lies behind the refusal of a referendum in this case, even though I want a referendum and will passionately argue for a yes vote in any referendum.

[Mrs Main]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case, but I gently remind him that the British people do not give the wrong answer; the British people give the right answer for the British people. That should never be a reason for not asking them.

[Mr Straw]

I entirely accept the hon. Lady’s point. In my written text, the word “wrong” is in inverted commas. Of course I accept what she says—that there is no wrong answer from the British people, and we have to respect the result of what they say.

The more I made the case against a referendum on the EU constitution, the less convinced I became by my own arguments; and, significantly, it was, among others, Liberal Democrat leaders who were most influential in causing me to change my mind. The Liberal Democrats were strongly in favour of the constitution, but argued that the measure was of such constitutional importance that it should be for the British people to decide. I then persuaded Tony Blair and the Cabinet that we must organise a referendum, and we would indeed have done so but for the fact that the French and the Dutch voted “no” before we could do it.

For reasons about which I wrote to you and the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Speaker, I could not be in the Chamber yesterday, but I have read the report of the speeches with great care. The Deputy Prime Minister made many points of considerable substance, but I have to say that on the referendum issue he was, at the very best, treading water. His argument against a referendum lacked both conviction and coherence. He talked about cost and about the distraction caused by a Scottish referendum, and he claimed that a referendum was unnecessary because all three parties had agreed on the principle of reform.

The Deputy Prime Minister knows that the £80 million cost of a referendum is a one-off which creates no continuing liability. That is what the contingency reserve is for. As for his point about the alleged distraction caused by the Scottish referendum, it is frankly absurd. The Scottish referendum has a different time scale, and will involve just one UK voter in 10. However, the Deputy Prime Minister was at his most disingenuous when he claimed that agreement between the Front Benches trumped the need for the British people to decide. It does not.

Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)

Anne Main Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Paul Flynn]

rose—

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is calling a right hon. Member a poodle parliamentary language?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

It was not a named Member, but we should be careful with language because we are in danger of reheating the Chamber, and that is what we do not wish to do—because we all want to hear each other’s speeches.

Charging for Access to Parliament

Anne Main Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend, as so often, has come up with a very good question, which I hope the Chairman of the Commission or the Leader of the House will answer.

We cannot talk just in generalities, so I will propose some real savings to the Commission.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I will expand on this point in my contribution, should I catch the eye of Mr Deputy Speaker, but I have discovered through questioning that there are additional ongoing costs of £1.5 million simply for Parliament to come back for two weeks and then be off for another two weeks in September. If we compressed that time and did not have a break for party conferences, which are for political purposes after all, we could save £1.5 million.

[Robert Halfon]

With that point, my hon. Friend augments my argument that we should be able to debate savings on the Floor of the House, and not just through consultations or by filling out surveys, which people rarely notice among their e-mails.

I am grateful to the director of the savings programme and the Secretary of the Commission for providing me with a lot of detail about the important work that the Commission is doing to save money. I recognise that a lot of savings are being made. However, let me add a few ideas. We could cut corporate initiatives by an additional 10%, which would save £150,000 a year and leave 80% of the original budget. We could trim overseas trips and delegations by just another 10%, which would save £125,000 a year and leave 80% of the original budget. We could streamline parliamentary outreach by just another 10% in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, which would save £194,000 a year and leave 80% of the original budget. The total savings from those things would be £469,000 a year. Hon. Members may have other ideas, but we have never had the chance to debate properly on the Floor of the House what savings there should and should not be. That is why the decision that has been made is fundamentally wrong.

I have also said that this decision is unaffordable. We received an e-mail late on a Friday afternoon a couple of weeks ago, saying that individuals would be charged £15 a head. A family of four would therefore have to pay £60. For people on average earnings of just £20,000-odd, that is unaffordable. It will therefore discourage people from coming to Parliament and coming to see Big Ben. To return to the precedent argument, even if that figure was reduced—I accept that the Chairman of the Commission has said that it will consider that—it would be likely to increase in future years. First it will be £15. In two years’ time it might be £20, then £30, and then £40 or £50. Where does it stop?

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon]

I can always rely on my hon. Friend to ask such a question. I have no objection to people who are not British citizens paying to come into Parliament.

[Mrs Main]

Perhaps I can be helpful, because I have looked into that very point. The reason given is that it takes two weeks to provide security clearance and to do passport checks before people are allowed to go up Big Ben. That might not be possible for visitors, foreign or otherwise. That might be the answer.

[Robert Halfon]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that information. I hope that these points are brought out in discussion.

In conclusion, I have a romantic belief in Parliament. I still genuinely believe that this is the best Parliament in the world, even with all the problems that we face as a country. I came here as a small boy when I was 10 years old, and from that day on, I wanted to sit in this place. We have to make our Parliament a special place and encourage people to come here. The hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) made an important point a moment ago. I worry hugely that, rather than being a Parliament for the people, this place is becoming—

[Mrs Main]

A theme park.

[Robert Halfon]

As my hon. Friend says, it is becoming a theme park. It is advertising itself for weddings, bar mitzvahs, engagement parties and big corporate entertainment shows. I have no problem with businesses coming here and having dinners at which particular issues are discussed. However, this is not a theme park. We should not be selling ourselves short to businesses and hiring ourselves out to them when ordinary people cannot come here. Businesses will inevitably be privileged over ordinary people. I am reminded of the parable of the moneylenders at the temple. Let us not become a place of moneylenders and be just about money, money, money; let us be the Parliament of the people, by the people, for the people.

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[John Thurso]

The hon. Gentleman might say that; I think I will move rapidly on.

On the first part of the motion, I thank my hon. Friend for succeeding, in one debate, in giving more publicity among Members to the savings programme than I have managed to do in the past 18 months. In fact, the process began shortly after the election and continued through 2010. I have carried out a number of consultations and had the honour of speaking to various party groups. I have twice been honoured to appear in front of the 1922 committee. All the points that have been set out in the current savings programme were contained in the consultation documents that were put out, as they were in e-mails, reminders and a number of surgeries for which I made myself available. The Commission and the management have tried very hard to consult Members on all aspects of what is proposed.

[Mrs Main]

It was the hon. Gentleman, of course, who responded to my inquiry about the ongoing and additional costs of breaking up our sitting and coming back for two weeks in September. Has he made any further progress on that? There could be a massive saving in one lump.

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[Thomas Docherty]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that there is a difficult choice, but the reality is that we must make cost savings. He knows that there are difficult decisions to make. I see the Minister of State, Department of Health, the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), chuntering away next to him. He knows more than anybody that the real-terms cuts—they have been made in his Department—are difficult, yet he does not say that we should not make them. [Interruption.] Real-terms cuts have been made.

We are not all in this together. Members on both sides of the House do not recognise that the House needs to show fiscal responsibility.

[Mrs Main]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Thomas Docherty]

No. I have given way enough and the hon. Lady is on the list of speakers.

We must make fiscally responsible decisions. Those are not choices that any of us wish to make, and I agree with the hon. Member for Harlow that we should look carefully at whether or not we proceed and how the proposal is implemented, but I hope he therefore graciously accepts the amendment. We can then look at the fine detail.

We must accept, however, that some difficult choices must be made. We should not for a second interfere with the rights of our constituents to come and see how the democratic process works—that should be an absolute red line, and hon. Members on both sides would not allow those rights ever to be compromised. However, I say again that if we are to be taken seriously and show the public that we mean what we say about the need for fiscal responsibility, that must begin at home.

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[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

It is a delight to support my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) in this very valuable debate. I accept completely the surprise expressed by the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) at the fact that we are focusing on costings when there are so many savings to be made, but then I am surprised that the Commission is focusing on this issue. I wrote and elicited the response that it is costing us £1.5 million every year to have a break for two weeks just because we all choose to go off to party conferences. Surely in this day and age we can make that work. If we saved £1.5 million there, it would give us some spare money to keep the Clock Tower free and open to those who choose to go up it. The number of people who can go up the Clock Tower will always be limited to those able and fit enough to walk up the 344 steps—I have not done it yet—and because we need the clearances put on it.

[Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Main]

I will not give way, because I only have five minutes and many other colleagues wish to speak. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman was going to be helpful though.

There are so many other things that we can look at. I have asked various questions about costings here, and was amazed to find out that £750,000 was spent developing a crèche that is hardly ever used. Early-day motions cost Parliament £1 million. When EDMs started out, they were relatively few and far between. In 2009-10, they cost £87,000 but £776,000 to print. That is £1 million. Since then, we have developed online petitions, so there are other ways of flagging up issues of importance to members of the public. EDMs are an outmoded way of doing so. We could scrap them and save another £1 million. There are plenty of ways to save money in this place.

The savings to be made—or not made, if the figures drop off—from charging a mum, a dad and a couple of youngsters £60 to walk up the Clock Tower will be paltry. Potentially, it will cost that family even more if, as a consequence, fewer people go, because the administration costs will remain the same and therefore they will have to ratchet up the prices. It will become something that only wealthy people can do. Many people come here because they want to see inside this place. With great respect to hon. Members and interesting though many of our debates are, many people also come here because of Big Ben. It is in all the London guides that it is free to come in this place. It is one of the few places students can visit for free—the Crown Estate parks are another example of that.

If we are to save money, which I completely agree we have to do, do not let us pick on a relatively small saving in an area that delivers so much pleasure. Even those people, like me, who have not gone up the Clock Tower always believed that at least we could if we wished. That opportunity is there for visitors who might wish to watch a debate and look around the House, but who might also wish to say, “I went up Big Ben.” This is important. What happens once we start picking off little bits of the estate and saying, “We’re charging for this, and we’re charging for that”?

There is some confusion about the fact that we already charge for tours in the summer recess. I say to hon. Members who raised this point, however, that constituents can visit for free on only three mornings a week unless accompanied by their Member of Parliament, in which case it is free with the tour. For most of the summer, then, constituents could be in the barmy position of having to pay to come into the House of Commons, because their MP is not there to accompany them, but then being able to go up the Clock Tower for free. There are daft anomalies in this place, but I do not think that we should be picking on a very small saving when we could be looking at so many other low-hanging fruits which would save a lot of money.

Unfortunately, we are sending the message that this iconic part of our British heritage is closed for business unless someone can afford to pay. That is a bad message to give, and I hope that the House votes for the motion. We do not want to send this back to the Commission. It could have tackled many other bigger issues but it picked this one. It was the wrong one to pick, and the House should be the decider of that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Vickers]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow and I will agree to support the amendment, but one thing I have learned in my short time in the House is that, when I am on my feet, the fact that I might repeat something that has been said, or the fact that the outcome is inevitable, should not stop me saying what I intended to say. I shall therefore take advantage of my moment in the sun to make a couple of comments, if I may.

As has just been pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow, those of us who support his motion recognise that savings must be made. A number of important issues have emerged from the debate, most notably the urgent need to consider other possible areas of savings. Grace and favour accommodation seems to be at the top of most people’s hit lists, and that may well be one of the areas that should be considered.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries) spoke of schoolchildren imagining her working in Big Ben, and, in a rather strange way, it is a symbol of our democracy. I remember coming up from Cleethorpes on my first visit to London at the age of eight, and one of the photographs in my album shows me with the Clock Tower in the background. The Clock Tower is capable of sparking people’s interest in the whole democratic process. That is something extremely valuable, and something that we should not lose.

Bearing in mind the offer that has been made, I shall cut my remarks short. I was going to urge the House not to support what I had described in my notes as a “Sir Humphrey amendment,” but, of course, Sir Humphrey has ways of achieving his ends in the end. My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow and I are prepared to accept the amendment, with the on-the-record statement that no charges will be made, at least for the period of this Parliament.

Amendment agreed to.

Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House accepts the need to make financial savings, but considers that the fundamental principle that the House of Commons is a people’s Parliament should not be put at risk; and invites the Commission to reconsider its current proposal to charge for Clock Tower tours.

[Mrs Main]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am delighted that the hon. Members for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) and for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) have put it on the record that they will look at this matter again. If decisions are made that do not accord with what has been stated in this debate, however, what recourse might we have to bring the matter back before Parliament?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I think the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) has given his word, and I am sure that he is a man of his word and that we do not need to bring that into question today.

Business of the House

Anne Main Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. There is no need for me to make the announcement because she has just done so. It is up to the Backbench Business Committee to reconfigure the days that we have allocated to it and there is no obligation on the Committee to adhere to the pattern of days adopted by previous Governments. She has the flexibility and I understand the strength of feeling on both sides of the House regarding the motion she has mentioned. I am sure that a debate on that issue is an intelligent use of time.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Given the number of people who travel abroad for cosmetic operations, may we have a debate on the merit of taking out private insurance to cover the cost of any post-operative care, which people often hope the NHS will pick up at great expense?

[Sir George Young]

I understand the point that my hon. Friend makes, but I am sure that she would not want to suggest that those who come back to this country, having been let down by treatment overseas, should be denied access to NHS treatment. If she is suggesting that people should insure themselves against such costs, that is a sensible and prudent suggestion, which I am sure my hon. Friends will want to take on board.

Business of the House

Anne Main Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

May we have an urgent debate on the number of roads that are not brought up to adoptable standard by developers? This is a nationwide problem. There are roads in my constituency that have been awaiting adoption for 10 years, and Taylor Wimpey is refusing to engage with the local authority. We must debate this issue, especially if we are going to increase housing development in this country.

[Sir George Young]

I suspect that many other Members have also encountered precisely that problem, where residents living in recently developed estates find that the roads are still in the ownership of the developer, that they are not up to a standard that the local authority will take over, and that the developer will not bring them up to the appropriate standard. I will contact my colleagues at the Department for Communities and Local Government to see if there are any steps that the Government need to take to ensure private developers honour their obligations, often under section 106, so that the residents on such estates have roads of a quality to which they are entitled.

Business of the House

Anne Main Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting some of the initiatives we have already taken to help small businesses, and I was interested to hear about his experience. I cannot promise an immediate debate, but I am sure that when the House returns it will want to debate the economy, giving him a platform to talk about the schemes that have already been introduced and the further steps he would encourage the Government to take in order to make more progress in his constituency.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I wrote in June to the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), because Network Rail was missing eight out of 10 of its targets. In November, the Office of Rail Regulation said that its projections showed that Network Rail would fail to meet many of the targets that had been reset for it. The latest report from the ORR said:

“Train performance continued to deteriorate”.

That is having a massive impact on my commuters, as 60% of delays have been attributed to it. When can we have a statement? Network Rail is being monitored still for failing so many targets. May we have an urgent statement on its performance in the new year?

[Sir George Young]

I am sorry to hear about the problems that my hon. Friend’s constituents face because of the failures of Network Rail, which has a somewhat unique governance structure that makes it difficult to hold it to account. I will share her concerns with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport. My hon. Friend will know that additional funds were announced in the autumn statement to help railway infrastructure. I hope that some of that might filter through to her constituency and reduce some of the problems she has mentioned.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne Main Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

The courts have always recognised the right of each House of Parliament to regulate its own affairs. I accept that there are legitimate questions about the House’s enforcement powers and the punishments available to it. It is right to look afresh at whether the powers of each House are appropriate. That is part of the work that we are doing to bring forward a draft Bill on parliamentary privilege. If the hon. Gentleman is a little patient, he will see shortly that we are considering that matter.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Further to an answer that I received in September, in which the House of Commons Commission said that it costs the public purse a further £1.5 million for us to come back for the two-week September sitting, is it not time that we looked carefully at the programme of sittings of the House so that we are not constrained—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I do not wish to be unkind to the hon. Lady. I am sure that her question is of great importance to her and possibly to others, but it suffers from the disadvantage of bearing absolutely no relation to the question on the Order Paper.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Second time lucky, Anne Main.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Thank you for your indulgence, Mr Speaker. Again, September sittings will cost £1.5 million. Is it not time that the House moved its sittings so as not to cost the public purse an extra £1.5 million?

[Mr Heath]

There is a slight sense of déjà vu about that question. This is matter that the hon. Lady ought to put to the Procedure Committee, which is currently looking at the calendar of the House of Commons. She will be able to present her case to that Committee, and we look forward to its report in due course.

Business of the House

Anne Main Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman and happy to have those discussions with the Secretary of State about the Northern Ireland Grand Committee and report back to him.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Network Rail has given an abysmal performance, missing eight out of 10 of its own targets. Surely it is time we had a debate on that, given the impact it has on First Capital Connect, other train lines and commuters in my constituency.

[Sir George Young]

I hope that my hon. Friend will apply for an Adjournment debate in Westminster Hall, or indeed on the Floor of the House. Network Rail needs to be made much more accountable than it is at the moment, and its corporate governance structure is obscure to say the least. If we get that right, we will be better able to hold it to account on the specific issues she mentions.

Business of the House

Anne Main Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s concern. The Government’s view is quite clear: those who are elected to the House should take their seats in the House like everybody else. As he may know, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is discussing this very issue with the political parties, and I will remind him of the continuing need to find an appropriate solution.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

In an answer that the Minister for Immigration gave me yesterday, it was confirmed that we could extend to 2013 the transitional arrangements for migrant workers from new accession countries who have access to our job market. I would like to protect British jobs for British workers where possible, so may we please have a statement from the Minister on why we are not taking advantage of that extension of protection for our labour market?

[Sir George Young]

I understand my hon. Friend’s concern. There will be an opportunity at Home Office questions to cross-question the appropriate Minister, who I believe was before the House during Home Office questions earlier this week. In the meantime, I will share my hon. Friend’s concern with him and see whether there is any possibility of changing the date that she has mentioned.