Committee on Standards: Decision of the House

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 8th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

As I just set out, we are committed to working on a cross-party basis and we regret that many hon. Members did not feel that they had been sufficiently consulted on the proposals last week. I simply refer to the article in The Times by the Chair of the Standards Committee, who said:

“I’m sure we need to review both the code of conduct and the way it operates.”

He went on to say that

“there are good arguments in favour of a more formal additional process, whereby a member could appeal against the sanction either to an outside body or to a sub-committee of the standards committee”.

It was to that that the debate turned last week.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

rose—

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

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[Steve Barclay]

I did not see that the Chair of the Standards Committee was seeking to grab my attention. We are committed to working on a cross-party basis and, with that in mind, of course I will give way to him.

[Chris Bryant]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman and acknowledge the apology that he has given on behalf of the Government. None the less, the whole of Parliament is still in a bit of a hole. We still have a motion that was carried last week, which leaves the question of Mr Paterson’s conduct hanging in the air. Earlier today, I gave a draft of a motion that, were the Government to table it tonight, could be considered by the House tomorrow. I think that it would have the support of the whole House in clearing up the fact that, as you referred to, Mr Speaker, we have not actually decided whether Mr Paterson’s behaviour was inappropriate. I think the whole House now accepts that it was. Secondly, we have created a Committee which, I think, even the right hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), who is meant to be chairing it, does not want to be on any more.

[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

indicated assent.

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[Chris Bryant]

It would be quite a good idea if we could clear this up tomorrow before we go into recess. I hope the Minister will say now that he will table that motion later on today.

[Steve Barclay]

I have been very clear that we will listen to the House and listen to the debate. [Interruption.] Will the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) just let me address the point made by the Chair of the Committee on Standards? Mr Paterson has now resigned, so it would not be possible for the House to endorse a sanction of suspension. I simply remind the House that he has suffered a serious personal tragedy. He has now resigned. In his statement, he said that he wants to continue his politics outside public life, and we should respect that. I hope, through your office, Mr Speaker, that there will be a way for us to engage on a cross-party basis, and that is what the Government will now redouble their efforts to engage on in the days ahead.

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[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. First, I want to congratulate the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) on securing this debate. Secondly, I want to thank all the members of the Standards Committee. As the House can tell, we do not always agree on everything in the Committee. The hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) is absolutely right to say that he has often raised process issues. I think he would also confirm that, quite often, the legal advice that is provided to the Committee by the House has disagreed with him very strongly. There are legitimate issues that we have to address, and that is why we are engaged in a code of conduct review. I take his points very seriously, and I have spoken to him many times on the phone, as he has said. He sounded a bit angrier with me in the debate just now than I think he really means. I am grateful to everyone on the Committee.

Let me start with a very simple point. I do not think we do ourselves any favours if we say that voters do not care about standards in public life. I do not know whether they care or not; I suspect that they do, but I do not know for certain and the opinion polls vary on this. We have always prided ourselves as a country on not being corrupt, unlike some other countries in the world, but that is not really the point. The question is not whether Mrs Jones at No. 32 cares about standards in Parliament; it is about whether we care about standards in public life and in Parliament. Every time we say that this does not really matter or that voters do not care about it, we give another excuse for bad behaviour.

I might also say that those of us who are MPs at any one time only hold our place here on trust. Sorry, this is going to sound a bit pious, but I think it is true none the less: we have a duty, not just to our constituents, but to the nation, and not just to this generation of voters, but to future generations of voters, to protect the reputation of Parliament rather than undermine it. Parliamentary democracy based on universal suffrage has not been around all that long; it has not even managed 100 years yet. It is a precious thing, and we need to defend it.

My second point is that independence is central to any standards system for the House. Anyone involved in a disciplinary process, either as a defendant or a complainant—we must remember that quite often there are complainants, many of whom are victims—needs to be completely assured that those involved in adjudicating the matter will always approach the decision with a fair and open mind, without fear or favour. That is what all 14 members of the Standards Committee seek to do.

That is why it is a breach of the code for any Member of the House to seek to lobby a member of the Standards Committee. We must be allowed to do our work without any interference. Sadly, as I have told you before, Mr Speaker, over the past 12 months I have been lobbied repeatedly by a significant number of hon. Members about their own or other Members’ cases. I have always sought to be polite, but extremely robust in response. I apologise if I have seemed rude, but this is an important part of maintaining the independence of the House and of the system.

The same applies to Whips. Some of my best friends are Whips—to get the confession in early—but I gently urge Whips to exercise a self-denying ordinance when it comes to Standards Committee reports, as has always been the case in every single instance in the past. Of course there are matters on which the Government have an understandable interest—matters of policy and finance—but it is inappropriate for anyone to whip House disciplinary matters. By definition, that turns our decision into a political one rather than a quasi-judicial one. Government should serve the House in standards matters, not the other way around.

The independence of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is also vital. She must be able to get on with her work without being repeatedly attacked, briefed against, lied about, shouted at, bullied, threatened or generally undermined. I think I am quoting a former Government Chief Whip when I say that the recent campaign against her has been very unedifying. It has been worse than that—it has been cowardly and unfair.

I honestly think the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster should have apologised not just for last week, but to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. That would be the right, gentlemanly thing to do. May I, on behalf of, I think, the whole House, apologise to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for what she has been put through in recent days?

I want to address the question of due process and ensuring a fair hearing. It is an important distinction that we on the Standards Committee are not a court of law. Indeed, there would be dangers if we were to become a court of law that we would all have to be legally represented. That might lead to a process that benefited the wealthy, who could afford lawyers, over those who could not. We are a Select Committee of the House, and sometimes we deal with matters that are really rather minor and that we would not want to bother a judge with, such as the use of parliamentary stationery.

I want to make it absolutely clear, however, as Speaker’s Counsel did repeatedly as we went through both this investigation and every other investigation since I have been Chair of the Committee, that we have bent over backwards to ensure that any hon. Member gets a fair hearing. Due notice of the charges has always been ensured, as has a full opportunity to put one’s case in writing and/or in person, a chance to make arguments in defence or in mitigation and the right to appeal the commissioner’s findings to the Committee. There is a right of appeal—it is an appeal to the Committee. Every lawyer I have seen comment on our process who has read the report has said that it was an entirely fair one, and of course we have taken legal advice throughout. Let me just quote from one—

[Sir William Cash]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I will give way, but before I do, let me say that the hon. Gentleman made a speech last week, and he has repeated this point today, about the additional measures available to us in the Standing Orders, but he should understand that those panels are there only where there are disputed facts. In this case, there were no disputed facts at all. So the point that I suspect he is about to make is completely otiose.

[Sir William Cash]

First, I would refer the hon. Gentleman to appendix 2, set out before the Committee by Mr Paterson. Secondly, let me make the simple point that when the Committee in 2003, which was composed of only three Conservatives, six Labour and two Liberal Democrats, decided on the investigatory panel, this was what was said:

“The proposal for an Investigatory Panel—

which is for serious, contested cases, as this one clearly is—

“is designed to deal with cases (expected to arise only infrequently) which…meet both the following criteria:

proof of the complaint would be likely to lead to the imposition of a serious penalty on the Member; and

there appeared to be significant contested issues of fact which would not properly be decided unless the Member was given the opportunity to call witnesses and/or to cross-examine witnesses supporting the complaint.”

The hon. Gentleman obviously does not agree with me on that, but the facts speak for themselves; there are seriously contested facts and they are disputed.

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[Chris Bryant]

I make two points. The first is that the hon. Gentleman basically just agreed with me wholeheartedly, because the whole point of these panels is that they are there only where there are disputed facts and there were no disputed facts in this case. The second point, where I would wholeheartedly agree with him, is that the facts speak for themselves—they certainly did in this case. Mr Paterson at no stage denied that he had engaged in the various different meetings with Government Ministers and officials. So I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman’s argument falls on both counts.

Let me just read the words of Thomas de la Mare, a highly respected lawyer at Blackstone Chambers, who reviewed this matter. He did not do so for the Committee; he has published this himself. He says:

“If the decision-maker has had the 17 witness statements, read them and rightly found them to be irrelevant there is no conceivable breach of natural justice in not calling them in…The idea that this pretty exhaustively conducted 2 stage case of inquiry by the commissioner and then full review by the Committee evinces a broken system or justifies the egregious step of changing the rules mid game is absurd.. All in all the Cmtee decision looks pretty bomb proof: balanced, fair once you understand how relevance of material works, carefully reasoned (and probably carefully lawyered) and the very appeal/review of the Commissioner OP”—

Owen Paterson—

“wanted. Given this what has happened next is tawdry”.

So what next? In the end, the Standards Committee exists only to serve the House and to try to protect the reputation of the House. First, we are already reviewing the code of conduct. There are perfectly legitimate arguments to be made about how we should change various different elements. MPs are now regulated by so many different bodies that it is sometimes difficult for right hon. and hon. Members to understand exactly what the rules are that affect them. I hate the idea that a right hon. or hon. Member will be tripped up by a rule that they simply did not understand through some inadvertent action. So I do want to make sure that we have greater clarity in the way that the whole of our code of conduct and guide to the rules is available to Members.

[Bob Seely]

The hon. Gentleman speaks with his customary eloquence, and he knows how much his speech was impactful last week. Are there specific issues that he would like to see improved or does he think that the current process is fundamentally sound?

[Chris Bryant]

I think we gave Owen Paterson a fair hearing; in all honesty, it is very difficult to argue that we did not. I have wracked my brain as to measures that we might evince, but I am only the Chair of the Committee and want to allow the Committee to come to a view on reforms that we might suggest, although I have suggested in the newspapers over the past few days a few things that I personally would like to see.

The important point is that we are reviewing the code of conduct, as we are required to do in every Parliament. We did not manage to do it in the 2015 or 2017 Parliaments because we kept on having general elections, so it would be great if we did not have a general election for a while so that we could finish our work on the code. It is worth saying that we published the terms of reference for our code of conduct review on 22 September 2020 and have been engaged in the review since then. We took evidence from the Leader of the House earlier this year.

There is an argument for improvements to some of the process. As the hon. Member for South Leicestershire knows, I personally favour clarifying what we do about appeals. There is currently an appeal, and a Member can appeal to the Committee on any basis whatsoever, whereas if we were to have a de jure appeal instead of a de facto appeal process, we would need a set of criteria against which a Member could appeal, which might actually restrict Members’ rights of appeal rather than enhance them. That is a difficulty that we have to deal with.

There is an issue in respect of whether a Member should be able to appeal against the sanction rather than the findings, and I am quite happy to listen to what the Committee eventually decides on that, as I am sure the House will want to do as well.

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I think the hon. Member came into the Chamber only recently, but if he has been present, I am happy to listen to him.

[Craig Mackinlay]

I have just been outside the Bar of the House.

The hon. Member is making a point about sanctions; I wonder whether this might be helpful. I am interested to hear that there is progress on a new code of conduct. If we put the specific case aside, does he appreciate that there is a world of difference between a sanction of nine days and a sanction of 11 days, for obvious reasons? Therein might be the reason for an appeal, because of the changes and outcomes that could flow from it that my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) so ably put forward.

[Chris Bryant]

I am not inimical to that view—there is a perfectly decent argument that perhaps there should be an appeal against sanctions—but in the Committee we try to stand by precedence, because otherwise we would be unfair. We list all the mitigating and aggravating factors in each of our reports and, at the end, come to a conclusion based on the precedents we have met. My suspicion is that any appeal body would do exactly the same, so I am not sure that it would necessarily change things, but there is an argument for bringing in such a thing. I note that the hon. Member referred to leaving this case aside, which is the most important thing for me: in the words of the Leader of the House, we cannot conflate one case with change of the system. In the end, that is the precise, polar opposite of justice: that is injustice and has brought the House into disrepute.

I have only a couple more points to make—

[Mr Baron]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way? [Hon. Members: “No.”]

[Chris Bryant]

Well, I like the hon. Gentleman, so yes, I will.

[Mr Baron]

I am grateful to the hon. Member, who is speaking with great eloquence, as usual, on this subject. I suggest to him that reform is a natural, evolving process—of course it is; no system is perfect—but, by and large, the system works quite well, so whatever the hon. Member does, will he make sure that it is transparent, as far as he is able to, and that it progresses as speedily as possible? What I take away from this debate and from last week’s vote is that the right thing to do is to let the Committee produce its recommendations and for the House to consider them in full debate.

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful for that point. It is true that the right way for the House to progress, on a cross-party basis and with the advice of independent members of the public, is for us to complete our job of work, which we will have done by Christmas, I am sure, and perhaps even by the end of this month—I do not want to prejudge what the Committee will decide—and to publish that. There will then be an opportunity for the whole House to consider the matter. We would probably want then to produce a further report, which would be our final report on the draft code and its operation.

Incidentally, the current system has not been in place for very long. The mixture of the independent expert panel for ICGS cases and the Standards Committee has been in place, arguably, only since 7 January 2019 when the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) introduced really important changes to the House, which were much valued by staff and Members across the House and by the public. In fact, the independent expert panel started its work only in January of this year, There is this idea that we should suddenly tear it all up and start all over again, but if I had only one thing to say to the House, it would be: let us just slow down. Let us consider this properly in the round, taking all the different issues together.

None the less, we do still need to tidy up what happened last week. I can see a lot of Conservative Members agreeing with that. I gently say to the ministerial team here that, if we want it, there is an opportunity for us tomorrow. We have two outstanding issues: one is the creation of the Committee, which the right hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) does not want to serve on, even though he is meant to be the Chair. I certainly hope that he is better from his covid.

[Mr Whittingdale]

indicated assent.

[Chris Bryant]

Secondly, of course, we all accept that Mr Paterson has left the House; he is no longer a Member. We cannot impose a sanction on him, as you said yourself, Mr Speaker, but, unfortunately, the House took a view on the report last week, which was basically to suspend it in mid-air. The motion, I suggest, would be a very simple one that we could consider tomorrow. It will be in all of our interests—the whole of the House —to get this sorted tomorrow. It would say that notwithstanding the practice of this House relating to questions already decided in the same Session, this House, first, rescinds the resolution and order of 3 November 2021 relating to the third report of the Committee on Standards (HC 797) and the appointment of a new Select Committee; secondly, approves the third report of the Committee on Standards; and, thirdly, notes that Mr Owen Paterson has been disqualified as a Member of this House. I think that would be in the best interests of the whole of the House, and then we could move forward.

One final point: we really struggled to create the ICGS and the independent expert panel. The right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire did a magnificent piece of work in trying to get cross-party support for all of that. We promised that the standards system would be independent, because that was the guarantor for the staff who felt that they had been bullied or sexually harassed. We cannot do anything that undermines that. Independence, fairness and justice should be the bywords not just of the Standards Committee, but of the whole of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) on securing this important debate. I have been a Member of the House for only six and a half years. I do not have an in-built affection for this place, its traditions or anything to do with it, but I do have an in-built sense of justice, fairness and how things should be done correctly.

It was an appalling day in the House last week and, unfortunately, I was acting Chief Whip of my party. I had to handle what was happening with the old boys’ network in this place and try to think on my feet—I do not think I acquitted myself terribly well. I do not want to go on about everything that has already been mentioned, but I have to say that one of my children was present in this House when the expenses scandal was on. I never thought I would be standing here speaking in any case, but certainly not about corruption, the old boys’ network and double dealing. I find it appalling.

What I have found even more appalling since last Wednesday is the attack on the commissioner for standards. It is absolutely egregious. Now, “egregious” was the word used of Owen Paterson, the former MP, because of what he did. It pains me that I am seen as a Member of this place when people think it is right to ride roughshod over the rules, to take part in bringing this place into disrepute and then to have their Government say, “Right, everybody on our Benches, vote for a new commission that we will make up and run.” That is not how any Parliament should be run. I find the Leader of the House to be a polite, affable gentleman, but I think he is squirming in his place today. He brought forward the motion last week, and he should be standing answering questions about why he did that and why it was in such ridiculous terms.

I said at the start I have been here only six and a half years. I do not want to be here much longer; I want to move to an independent Scotland. This kind of behaviour is not allowed in the Scottish Parliament. I do not want—[Interruption.] I do not want people in Scotland to think that because I am a Member of this Parliament, I would back such things.

[Chris Bryant]

To be fair, it is not allowed here either.

[Marion Fellows]

No.

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[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts). The former Member for North Shropshire, the right hon. Owen Paterson, served his constituency for 24 years and held some of the highest offices in Government. By any standards, what happened to him is a tragedy: he lost his career but, much worse, he lost his wife in the most distressing circumstances. On a human level, there cannot be a Member of this House who does not feel at least some degree of sympathy for him.

I have heard the proposal of the Chair of the Committee on Standards on how to deal with Mr Paterson’s case, but in reality, the specific issue of his personal conduct is closed as a consequence of his resignation last week. However, his case has highlighted issues that deserve the continued attention of this House. In retrospect, everyone agrees that it was wrong of the Government to conflate the specific issue of Owen Paterson’s conduct with the important wider issue of the regulation and enforcement of standards in this House, and I was glad to see the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster issuing what I thought was a very full apology for that.

What the case has thrown into focus are questions of natural justice that are not adequately addressed in Standing Orders Nos. 149 and 150. For example, Mr Paterson wanted to call no fewer than 17 witnesses to give evidence in support of his case, and he was not afforded the opportunity to do so. My hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) has expressed his concerns on the issue of natural justice. For my own part, I find it hard to see how the denial of a right to call witnesses and for those witnesses to be examined and cross-examined—a right that is taken for granted in civil and criminal proceedings in this country—can be compatible with natural justice.

[Chris Bryant]

I do want to correct this point. We did hear the witnesses in writing. Their witness statements are all available online. We considered the matter. As happens in every single court in the land, we considered the matter, as judges would and as many tribunals would.

I would just say to the right hon. Member that he voted for a motion that, I am afraid, did not close the matter on Mr Paterson. It left it completely and utterly open—deliberately so—and, indeed, Mr Paterson still asserts that he is innocent and that, if he were a Member, he would do the whole thing all over again, so I am afraid we will have to tidy this up.

[Mr Jones]

I hear what the Chairman of the Committee has to say, but, frankly, it is one thing to read written evidence, and it is another thing for that evidence to be tested in examination and cross-examination, and that was not allowed.

Furthermore, there is no provision for an independent appeals process under Standing Order No 150. I do not believe that that can be right either. Provision should be made for a proper appeals procedure under the Standing Order No. 150 process, as indeed there is under the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme, where an appeal panel is chaired by a High Court judge.

There should also be greater legal input into the entire process. Standing Order No. 150 does provide for the establishment of an investigatory panel, with a legally qualified assessor and counsel, but only at the behest of either the commissioner herself or the Committee. That, of course, was not done in Mr Paterson’s case. Indeed, ever since the procedure was first put in place, no such panel has ever been established. That is a matter of regret because the legal assessor has a duty under Standing Order No. 150(10) to

“report to the Committee…his opinion as to the extent to which its proceedings have been consistent with the principles of natural justice”.

That is the only occasion in which the words “natural justice” appear anywhere in Standing Orders Nos. 149 and 150, which, I suggest, is also a matter that needs to be rectified.

In the debate last week, the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), whom I am delighted to see in his place, made the important point that, while he was sympathetic to the proposition that the rules do need reform, this could only be done with consensus. I believe that Mr Paterson’s case, despite its wholly regrettable outcome and, frankly, the way it was handled last week, has highlighted deficiencies in the process that do need to be addressed by the House. I very much hope that, now that the sting caused by the conflation of the individual case with the wider issue of the need for reform has been removed, the House can proceed on the basis of consensus and seek to make improvements to a system that, whatever the rights and wrongs of the Paterson case, is so clearly in need of reform.

G20 and COP26 World Leaders Summit

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend knows a great deal about this issue, and he is right to draw attention to article 6 and the carbon credit issue. That is something on which our negotiators will be working flat out until the final hour of COP.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

One of the terrible effects of climate change is felt in south Wales valleys seats, where extreme weather conditions and heavy rain have destabilised some of the disused coal tips. People live in terror of another Aberfan, and I know the Prime Minister shares that fear. The majority of the dangerous tips are in my local authority area. I just wonder whether he would be prepared to meet me, the leader of the local council and the other Members from Rhondda Cynon Taf, specifically to discuss how we can make sure that all those tips are safe. I really do ask him for that meeting.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. He has raised this issue with me several times. I will see what I can do to oblige him. This is something that I do want to try to fix, but it is primarily something that the Welsh Government should be addressing themselves. I will talk to the Welsh Government and come back to him.

Speaker's Statement

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I am grateful to you for breaking the rules occasionally, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I want to add one adjective to the list that has been provided, and that is the word magnanimous. I think you could see, in every single moment of any engagement that you ever had with James, even if you were completely and utterly disagreeing with every single word in his sentence, paragraph or speech, that there was magnanimity in the way in which he dealt with you and in the way he dealt with everybody in this House. I can imagine it was exactly the same in his constituency.

I will let the House in on a secret, which is that there is something of a cancer survivors club here. I always hoped that James would always be in that club. He was magnificent with me when I had my cancer a few years ago, and I know that many others had exactly the same experience. Cancer is a bugger: you think it has gone away and then it comes back. You had no idea that it was there and suddenly find that you have stage 3 or stage 4 cancer. That is particularly true, as the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) said, in relation to lung cancer. You think to yourself, “Why didn’t I spot it earlier?” So it is not just sadness and fear that you and your family are surrounded with; it is anger, guilt and all sorts of complicated feelings. I am sure that for many of those in the House who have had cancer there will be a sense of guilt that some of us are still here and James is not.

What does that leave us with? A simple feeling that we must—we must—devote ourselves, especially after this year of covid, to making sure that early detection is possible for everybody and for all the different cancers, and there are so many different kinds. It would be helpful if Mr Speaker could circulate the details of the memorial website so that we might all be able to contribute and a bit more money goes back into cancer care. We need to get a lot of the cancer trials back up and running. We need to make sure that people are not frightened of going to the doctor, that they get seen and that all the backlog is dealt with.

My final thought is this. I do not know whether Members have ever read Thomas Hardy’s book “The Woodlanders”, but at the end Giles Winterborne has died, and the woman who has always loved him addresses him directly and says:

“I never can forget’ee; for you was a good man, and did good things!”

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am sure that my hon. Friend speaks for millions and millions of people up and down this country who abhor the fur trade and do not want to wear fur. Obviously, we have banned fur farming in this country for a long time, and we are going to look at what we can do, working with the fur sector, to prevent fur from being imported into Britain.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Q6. By the time my wonderful friend Lynda went to the doctor, the cancer was already so advanced that she had only a few weeks to live. Many hon. Members have been through cancer and they know well that early detection saves lives. Unfortunately, of course, long waiting lists will make it more difficult to save lives. The real problem we have is a massive shortage, in the thousands, in the number of pathologists and radiologists to catch the cancers in the first place, and a massive shortage of oncologists and dermatologists to do the treatment. So regardless of the money, how are we are going to make sure that we have the personnel, not in five or seven years’ time, but now, to be able to save lives?

[The Prime Minister]

First, I want to say how sad I am to hear about the hon. Gentleman’s constituent Lynda. I think her experiences have been shared by literally millions of people in this country during the pandemic, because they have not been willing or able to get the oncology treatment that they need because of the pressure of covid on the system. The system is now coming back, trying to help everybody as fast as possible to fix the backlogs. So yes, it is necessary to hire more nurses and doctors, and there about 10,000 more nurses now and about 6,000 more doctors—

[Chris Bryant]

Pathologists and radiologists.

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is totally right in what he says about radiologists and pathologists, but may I respectfully say to him that that must be done by means of the big powerful package that we put forward last week to raise the funding necessary? I believe his party should have supported that and it is incredible that it did not.

Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Committee stage & 3rd reading
Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

But it is not actually five years; it is five years and a bit, is it not? As the Septennial Act 1716 did, it goes from the date of the first sitting of the new Parliament. It means that, if we stick with this, we will have the longest period from election to election of any democracy in the world. Would it not be better for the period from election to election to be at most five years?

[Chloe Smith]

The hon. Gentleman pre-empts my remarks in respect of his amendment, which I will endeavour to come to after I have worked through all the clauses.

The scheme that we are proposing is the right one and I will come in a moment to why I think that that is the case when compared with other technical methods of achieving a five-year term that the hon. Gentleman is thinking of. This clause provides for a maximum parliamentary term of five years from the date that Parliament first met, so we measure five years from the date of first meeting to the Dissolution of Parliament, and that is the Government’s proposition. We think that that provides the right balance of stability, flexibility and accountability that is entailed in returning to the arrangements that allow for a general election earlier than that. On that basis, I recommend that clause 4 stand part of the Bill.

I shall speak very briefly to clause 5. It introduces the schedule to the Bill, which makes provision for the consequential amendments that are needed to ensure that other legislation operates effectively once the 2011 Act has been repealed and we return to the status quo ante. The consequential amendments primarily reverse or alter legislative amendments made by the 2011 Act. They remove references to the Act in legislation and ensure that, after the repeal of the 2011 Act, other legislation that links to it still works. For example, in repealing the 2011 Act, they reflect the fact that there will no longer be fixed-term Parliaments, so the concept of an early general election would no longer exist in law.

Clause 5 also provides that the repeal of the 2011 Act by clause 1 does not affect the amendments and repeals made by the schedule to that Act. This ensures that essential provisions are not lost. It allows us to modify changes made by the 2011 Act and ensure the smooth running of elections by retaining sensible improvements made by that Act or subsequent to that Act. I know that those are some topics that we will come back to a little later as we progress through our debate this evening.

The schedule also makes a small number of minor changes to ensure the smooth running of elections. In short, this clause is necessary to ensure that electoral law and other related parts of the statute book continue to function smoothly. As such, I recommend that clause 5 stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6 is the one that we all know and love that deals with extent, early commencement and short title. It confirms that the territorial extent of the Bill is the United Kingdom, except for a very small number of amendments in the schedule where the extent is more limited. The clause ensures that the Bill has an early commencement, meaning that it comes into force on the day on which it receives Royal Assent, and it provides that the short title of the Bill will be the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2021.

That gives me an opportunity to explain that the Government have agreed with the recommendation of the Joint Committee that a Bill of constitutional significance that seeks to put in place arrangements that deliver legal, constitutional and political certainty around the process of dissolving one Parliament and calling another should be titled accordingly. The short title now reflects the purpose of the Bill and will help to ensure that it is clearly understood and that successive Parliaments are able to discern the intended effect of the legislation. I therefore propose that this clause stand part of the Bill. Mr Evans, would you like me also to make a remark about the schedule and then turn to the amendments?

--- Later in debate ---

We have already referred to amendment 2 and the discussion that we should indeed have about how we set the clock on the parliamentary term. As I understand it, the amendment, again tabled by the hon. Member for Rhondda, would mean that the clock on the parliamentary term would start from the date of the general election. By contrast, under the Bill, Parliament would dissolve automatically five years after it had first met. Those are the two rival designs that we might debate this evening. In practice, what we are putting forward in the Bill represents a return to the tried and tested arrangements. It is also the clearest and simplest way of calculating the parliamentary term—from the point at which Parliament is actually sitting. Under the amendment, the clock would instead begin while Parliament was still dissolved.

[Chris Bryant]

All right then, if it is the simplest way of doing it, what is the last date that the next general election can be held if all this is carried as the Minister says?

[Chloe Smith]

With respect, that is not the right quiz question—the right quiz question is whether, under the hon. Gentleman’s amendment, the period would be five years plus 25 days. That would, I believe, arise from his amendment, because he is not counting the length of the election campaign, whereas our provision is five years from first sitting to last sitting, so we are trying to measure the life of a Parliament. I am not trying to engage in maths problems; I simply think that this is the most sensible way to measure it, and I hope hon. Members might agree. [Interruption.] I am really not going to engage in maths questions beyond that. We need a clear and easily understood scheme. I think we are all agreed that it ought to be five years, and we are dealing with how to achieve that. The Government’s proposition is that it should be, as I say, from five years after Parliament has first met. That is important.

Let me turn to the pair of amendments that relate to the shortening of the election timetable: new clause 1 in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and amendment 3 in the name of the hon. Member for Rhondda. I am absolutely sure that there will be some very strong arguments put in this area. To try to help the Committee, I will set out why we have our current timetable and then seek to address what I would anticipate to be some of the core arguments that right hon. and hon. Members will raise.

The current timetable was introduced in 2013 through the Electoral Administration Act 2006, which absorbed fundamental shifts brought about through having postal votes on demand and individual electoral registration. As I have explained, the Bill seeks to return us to the status quo ante while retaining sensible changes that have been made since 2011 to enable the smooth running of elections, which are, in my view, of benefit to voters. The current timetable is one of those changes. It provides a balance between allowing sufficient time to run the polls effectively and for the public to be well informed, while not preventing Parliament from avoiding sitting for any longer than is necessary, which is a very important consideration.

On the requirements for running polls effectively, the 25 days working days are necessary to deliver elections, which are now often more complex than at any other point in our history, for reasons, as I mentioned, to do with postal voting on demand, but also online individual electoral registration. That was a fundamental constitutional change that enabled increasingly higher numbers of last-minute applications. To illustrate that, at the most recent general election almost 660,000 applications were made on the last day possible. Before 2000, as I said, there was no postal voting on demand, and it has since grown in numbers to represent nearly 20% of registered electors. Both things increased the complexity and demands of an election timetable.

The amendments refer to weekends and bank holidays in the election period. Local authority electoral services teams who do this work are already often working weekends and overtime to make elections work successfully. I also note that elections do not just rely on local authorities and their staff; there is a significant commercial element to their delivery through many suppliers, including, but not limited to, the software for maintaining the registers, and the printing and postage of paperwork such as the poll cards, ballot papers and postal votes. There is very little room for error on all that. Creating and maintaining the capacity to deliver it can be extremely challenging, especially at short notice. Weekends and bank holidays are not necessarily in our gift.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I will not debate the points of politics with the hon. Lady. On her comments about using Parliament for Dissolution, we have had all of that. There are probably few Members of the public watching us in the Chamber tonight, but they certainly watched what happened in 2019. Surely when we have a Chamber in stalemate, the Government should be able to resign. She will recall how her then leader stood on Parliament Square to say that the Government should resign but then came in here and stopped them from resigning, which was incredible. Surely when Parliament is deadlocked, as it was then, the Government should be able to resign and that should just happen, not be stopped by Parliament.

[Chris Bryant]

They should do it today.

[Cat Smith]

I agree with the heckling from my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda. I think the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) is quite wrong and that the public are watching the debate with deep fascination. He underestimates the passion for constitutional legislation in this place. The point is that the new clause would remove the possibility of the courts being involved, and I think there is consensus across the Committee that that would be desirable. It strikes me that new clause 2 would be the most straightforward and easy way to do that. Of course, we know fine well that if the Government of the day can carry the House—in most cases, they can—there would be no issue in having a Dissolution. It would also avoid dragging the monarch into politics and remove the governing party’s electoral advantage. The new clause therefore strengthens the Bill, so I support it.

I turn to amendments 1 to 3 and new clause 1 on the length of an election campaign. It is impossible to look at the Bill without considering how it would move us to a position in which pretty much all elections will be unscheduled. I say “unscheduled” rather than “snap” because I recognise that an election period is very long; it certainly does not feel very snappy for candidates, voters or anyone campaigning. Unscheduled elections cause a problem for our electoral administrators. From having spoken to many of them and heard representations from the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators, it is clear that many close misses happen on the timetable, and a reduction of the timetable alongside the Bill, which could lead to more unscheduled elections, risks the public’s confidence in our democratic elections. For that reason, although it would be desirable to have shorter elections, I cannot support those amendments.

The Bill is not in a vacuum—we also have the Elections Bill and the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill before the House—and taken together, it is clearly part of a political power grab with a movement of power away from Parliament. It is a movement away from 650 Members to the hands of one man or woman who is Prime Minister, who will decide when the starting gun will be fired on an election. The Bill is, frankly, an overreaction to and misunderstanding of the causes of the gridlock in the 2019 Parliament. The principle of fixed terms is not wrong, although the Fixed-term Parliaments Act was clearly flawed. Prorogation should be in the hands of Parliament, not the Executive.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Mrs Miller]

If I could finish this point, I will then allow the hon. Member to intervene.

Another of the pieces of legislation deployed under the coalition Government was the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013, section 14 of which extends the timetable of a general election from 17 to 25 working days. That neatly carves out bank holidays, weekends, high days and holidays, and anything else that might get in the way, when in fact all of us sitting here know that once the starting gun is fired, everybody—just everybody—is working their socks off in electoral offices up and down the country to make sure that we deliver the election on time. The provision is just not truthful, and it needs to be a better reflection of what goes on.

[Chris Bryant]

I think, therefore, that if the Bill goes through as the Government intend and we do not have the right hon. Member’s new clause or any other amendment, the last date that the next general election can be held is 23 January 2025. Is that her understanding?

[Mrs Miller]

Oh, the hon. Gentleman is getting me into the maths quiz with which he tried to tempt the Minister. I will leave the Government to decide that, because it is more in the Minister’s bailiwick than mine.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Geoffrey Cox]

It is stand part that I am addressing, Mr Evans.

This Bill should warmly commend itself to those on both sides of the Committee. My only caution—my only plea—is: let this not be the last word we say upon the British constitution.

[Chris Bryant]

It is a delight to follow that Third Reading speech.

I have enjoyed today, not least because it is such a delight to be vindicated. I feel as if I have been saying the same things for 20 years. Some of what the Minister said today, if we put the word “not” in, was what she said 10 years ago, which is kind of entertaining but rather irritating.

I am not going to speak at length, but we have to go back to fundamental principles when we are talking about the constitution. I like Parliament sitting. It is good for Governments to face the scrutiny of the Commons elected. Long interruptions are a bad thing. We take a long time to get a Parliament going after a general election, and now, with a long general election, as the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) referred to, it can be several months that parliamentary scrutiny is effectively out of action, before Select Committees are fully set up and all the rest of it.

The Executive and the Parliament need to be in balance with one other. There is a real danger that we are moving in the direction of what I call an over-mighty Executive. The Leader of the House in particular has what I call a high theological understanding of government—the Government are always right, by definition. In our system, the Government have considerable power. That is why some have called it an elected dictatorship.

The constitution should always stand the test of time and the test of bad actors. We always presume we will have a good monarch. We have had bad monarchs in the past. We presume we will always have an honourable and good Prime Minister. We might have a bad Prime Minister, who might choose to—[Interruption.] I am being ironic here. We might have a Prime Minister who deliberately chose to subvert the constitution and use it to subvert democracy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Aaron Bell]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)—the right hon. Member, I should say.

[Chris Bryant]

Just hon.

[Aaron Bell]

Not yet. I am sure it will come in time.

I will not repeat my Second Reading speech—this is the Committee stage—but I still welcome the Bill for all the reasons I gave on that day. I welcome the Government’s continued engagement with all of us who have an interest in it, in particular members of the Joint Committee on which I served with the hon. Member for Rhondda and many other Members, with whom I made friends and now sign amendments with. Perhaps the Whips will regret putting me on that Committee in the fullness of time.

I will turn to new clause 1, in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), in a little while, but first I want to discuss the overall principles relating to Dissolution. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) said on Second Reading that the right place for a proper discussion of the principles was in Committee, so I think it is probably right, with your indulgence, Ms Winterton, that we have a little discussion about them. Perhaps the Minister can reflect on them in her closing remarks, too.

We heard about Tommy Lascelles and his principles from 1950. Younger viewers will remember him from “The Crown”, played by Pip Torrens, as the private secretary to Her Majesty, but at the time he was the private secretary to His Majesty. He was talking about the principles in another closely contested election period—1950 and 1951. Those principles are relevant today, but the second one about the national economy was widely considered to have fallen into abeyance. There are other principles that we should perhaps consider. It was the opinion of the Joint Committee that the Dissolution principles document issued by the Government did not go quite far enough and did not cover other aspects of Dissolution—the calling of the new Parliament and so on. I therefore ask the Minister to comment a little on the 20 principles in our report: on the overall paramount confidence in our system, what it means to lose the confidence of the House and how to determine that, and what the Prime Minister ought to be doing in certain circumstances, whether to offer the resignation of the Government or to request a Dissolution from the monarch, and when it would be more appropriate for the Prime Minister to resign. We said that it would be more appropriate if there had recently been a general election, if there was a new Prime Minister from that Member’s party, or if it appeared that another person might command the confidence of the House—that was, of course, the third of Lascelles’s principles. The work of the Committee in putting together a more complete list of principles around confidence ought to be reflected in the debate and I ask the Minister to reflect on that in her closing remarks.

Turning briefly to new clause 1, since I am a signatory to it with my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke, I am grateful for the comments the Minister made from the Dispatch Box. I am also grateful for her engagement with those of us who signed new clause 1. I welcome the additional research we ought to see. As I said in my intervention on her earlier, the purpose of an election is not simply to have the most perfectly admirable election in the world, but to resolve things. The longer we take, the more people we can register and persuade to vote, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson) said, eventually they might get bored and not vote. The point of an election is to resolve things. We want to make sure people vote—once and once only, as I said in my speech on the Elections Bill the other day—but the key purpose of an election is to let the country move on from a moment of tension, contest and electoral joust between opposing candidates in our constituencies. I do not think it serves anybody for that to go on a day longer than is truly necessary. That is why I was happy to put my name to new clause 1.

I listened to the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators. I understand that there are complications with going back to the status quo ante of 17 days as things stand, but I reflect on what my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) said. Rather than saying it cannot be done with the rules as they are, we should look at which rules we could change to get back to the status quo ante. The Bill takes us back to the status quo ante in so many ways and I welcome that, but the real key is to get everything back to how it was before. I remember, as a teenager, watching elections that were short, sharp and got the job done. It did not work for us in 1997 when I was a teenager, but it got the job done and let the country move on. That is what we should have with our elections. They should not be dragged out for months. For the reasons I have given and for the candidates too, we should look at ways to make them shorter, notwithstanding the arguments that have been made by the administrators.

Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill (Instruction)

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill, That the Committee have leave to make provision relating to the prorogation of Parliament.

Normally an instruction motion of this kind is tabled by the Government themselves when they decide that a Bill they have introduced does not quite stretch far enough to allow it to include some things that they would like to debate. The reason I tabled it—I hope the Government think it is always good to debate all these matters and would therefore want the motion to be carried, which would enable us to debate the matter of Prorogation in Committee—is that the 2019 Prorogation was perhaps the biggest constitutional crisis we have had in the past 20 to 25 years. I see the former Attorney General, the right hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Sir Geoffrey Cox), is in his place. I think he as scars on his back from that period. [Interruption.] No, he never has scars on his back. Maybe they are on his front instead. The point is simple: the nation felt at odds with itself in part because of a phenomenal constitutional row between the courts and Parliament about the nature of Prorogation.

To remind the House what happened, on 28 August 2019, the Prime Minister secured a prorogation proclamation from the Queen proroguing Parliament from 9 September to 14 October, a longer Prorogation than there had been for more than 150 years. Normally they last for just six days; this would have been for 34 days. The subsequent (R) Miller v. The Prime Minister and Cherry v. Advocate General for Scotland case ended up in the Supreme Court, which decided unanimously on 24 September that the Prorogation was justiciable and unlawful.

When Parliament returned, never having been prorogued, the Prorogation ceremony was expunged from the Journal of the House of Commons. I think that was the first time the Journal had been altered since 1621, when the King was so angry with the House for having debated the matter of his son’s potential marriage that he ordered the Clerk of the House to bring the Journal to him and tore out the offending page. So I think that 1621 and 2019 are the two times that the Journal has been disturbed in that way. Business continued as if the ceremony had never happened.

The Prime Minister—this is important to my argument—then argued to the court in 2019 that Prorogation was analogous to Dissolution. At the time, of course, Dissolution was not a prerogative power because of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. None the less, the Prime Minister argued in court that the courts should not interfere in the matter because Prorogation was a prerogative power and should not therefore be justiciable. I think it is bizarre if the Government now want to say that they do not think that Prorogation is analogous to Dissolution and that it should not be debated today.

Incidentally, we also learned from the papers that the Prime Minister gave to the Court—I think under some duress—back in 2019 that he considered the September sittings of Parliament merely to be a

“a rigmarole…to show…MPs are earning their crust”.

So at least all the hon. Members who are here today are earning their crust, by the Prime Minister’s definition.

The Court found, first, that the issue of the Prorogation itself was justiciable because it is not a proceeding in Parliament. The Prime Minister and the Government had tried to argue that it was a proceeding in Parliament and, consequently, under article 9 of the Bill of Rights and the equivalent legislation in the Scottish Parliament, it could not be considered by a court. However, the Supreme Court decided, in paragraph 68:

“The prorogation itself takes place in the House of Lords and in the presence of Members of both Houses. But it cannot sensibly be described as a ‘proceeding in Parliament’. It is not a decision of either House of Parliament. Quite the contrary: it is something which is imposed upon them from outside. It is not something upon which the Members of Parliament can speak or vote.”

This, to me, is the absolutely key point: it is not something upon which Members of either House can speak or vote. That is why I have tabled an amendment that can only be considered during the Committee stage of the Bill if this motion is agreed, which would allow a vote in the House of Commons before Prorogation could proceed. Why that is important is that, quite rightly, lots of Members have wanted to say that the courts should not be interfering in politics. The best way of making sure that they cannot interfere in Prorogation is to introduce—[Interruption.] I can see that the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) is being very pregnant; I will take his intervention in a moment. The best way to make sure that no court could consider the matter of Prorogation is to make it a proceeding in Parliament, and the best way to make it a proceeding in Parliament is to allow a vote. The only way we can allow a vote is if we allow this motion to go through, and then we can debate it in the Bill Committee.

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is extremely kind in giving way, although perhaps not quite accurate in describing my condition. On the question of Prorogation, would he mind turning his thoughts briefly to whether that was contained or referenced in the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 and how that Act relates to this Bill?

[Chris Bryant]

I am not sure that that is entirely relevant. Every time we introduce new legislation we choose to start, as it were, from scratch. It is true that this Bill repeals the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. I think the hon. Gentleman voted for that Act.

[Mr Wragg]

indicated dissent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

No, he did not—[Interruption.] He was still at school? I think that is a bit unfair on the hon. Gentleman. The point is that this was a major constitutional battle in 2019 and it would be odd of us not to consider it at all when we are dealing with these matters, which the Prime Minister himself declared were analogous.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman will know that many Government Members had serious concerns about Prorogation at the time of which he speaks, but does he not accept that we are now back in what we could describe as more normal times? That procedure, Prorogation, had never given this House any problems before and is unlikely ever to do so again.

[Chris Bryant]

Well now, for a start, I am not very keen on the concept of “normal” at all. I have tried to avoid that as much as I can in my 59 years. More importantly, I am not sure that we are living in normal times.

Are there ever normal times in political debate? Surely that is the whole point of constitutional settlements. We do them oddly in this country, because we do not have a written constitution, as the hon. Gentleman knows; we have bits and pieces of the constitution written in lots of different statutes. The danger of proceeding by statute law is that the constitution becomes a constant plaything of the Government of the day. I would always want our constitutional settlement to last at least a generation, if not several, but my anxiety is that we are fiddling with just one part of the equation, not all of it.

Some have argued, as the Government did before the Supreme Court, that a prerogative power is by definition limitless. That flies in the face of history. Successive cases across the centuries, starting in 1611, have proved that every prerogative power has to have a limit. Otherwise, Parliament would never sit; the Government could, in theory, say, “Right—we are going to use our prerogative power of Prorogation just to make Parliament never sit.” That was one of the key things that the Supreme Court found.

My anxiety is that if the Supreme Court has already determined, and it is settled law, that Prorogation is a justiciable matter, it will be justiciable again unless we introduce statute law to change it.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent and very interesting speech. One of the crucial issues is that we normally know that Prorogation is coming—it is generally known around here when it is likely to happen—but in his example it happened at the dead of night and it was very difficult to get information about it. He will know that, on a rumour, I phoned Buckingham Palace that very night to try to establish whether the Privy Council would be meeting the next day, as I had been told, in Scotland with Her Majesty. I discovered that the Leader of the House and others were quite likely to be on their way up to Balmoral; cameras were then sent to catch them at airports in the act of entering Scotland. It was done in a completely innovative way, and a future Government might decide to conduct themselves in exactly the same way.

[Chris Bryant]

The point is that other people might choose to bring other cases to the courts on the matter, unless Parliament chooses to discuss it and legislate on it. I would have thought it entirely in the Government’s interest to allow the debate later today and to come to a resolution on the matter.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman is correct that if new clause 3—his amendment to allow a vote on Prorogation—were agreed to, it would render Prorogation non-justiciable in future, and that that is the intention. However, may I ask a more prosaic question? If the motion that he is now moving to allow debate on the amendment is passed, will it not render the programme for the rest of the day null and void, as we will have something brand new and rather substantial to consider?

[Chris Bryant]

No, I do not think that that is right, but if the House decided not to consider the matter, the courts could in future legitimately decide that Parliament had decided that Prorogation is justiciable. That is the problem for the Government.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

rose—

[Joanna Cherry]

One of the most notable things after the outcome of the case was that the Prime Minister did not express any remorse for having unlawfully prorogued Parliament, so I would not be so confident that he would not try it again. What initially worried me slightly about the hon. Gentleman’s new clause was that the current Prime Minister, with his huge majority, could seek to prorogue Parliament for a dubious purpose. However, I note that the hon. Gentleman has put in a requirement that it cannot be for more than 10 days. Of course, what was so objectionable about the last Prorogation was that it was so lengthy and came at a time when Parliament had very important matters to debate, so I presume that the hon. Gentleman put that in to guard against the possibility of the current Prime Minister using the rather large majority that he has, at least in England, to force through another dubious Prorogation.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. and learned Lady—who was, of course, the Cherry on the top of the icing in this case; it must have been one of her bigger successes in terms of parliamentary democracy—has read my mind better than I know it myself.

All that we have to bear in mind is what the Supreme Court said in its judgment on what the limit on the power to prorogue would be:

“A decision to prorogue Parliament (or to advise the monarch to prorogue Parliament) will be unlawful if the prorogation has the effect of frustrating or preventing, without reasonable justification, the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions as a legislature and as the body responsible for the supervision of the executive. In such a situation the court will intervene if the effect is sufficiently serious to justify such an exceptional course.”

So everyone who votes against my motion, or against my new clause later if we are able to reach it, will be saying, basically, “Yes, courts, carry on. That is exactly what you should do. You should consider these matters. You should decide at every Prorogation whether the Government are acting lawfully or not.”

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman. Does he share my concern at the fact that the Government Benches are filling up so rapidly, which suggests that many Members may be intending to vote against the motion? Perhaps if he takes a few more interventions it will give Members who want to vote in favour of his motion, so that we can actually have this debate, a bit more time in which to do so. It would be very ironic if the Government started quashing debate at this stage, not even allowing a debate to happen.

[Chris Bryant]

I have to say that in my 20 years in this House, I have quite often known Governments to quash debate. [Interruption.] The Government Deputy Chief Whip is pointing at me in a rather vulgar and insinuating way—and I can see through that mask! However, there is a serious point here. I am not going to go on for much longer, Madam Deputy Speaker, you will be glad to know—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] You see, Madam Deputy Speaker: I know how to unite the Chamber.

Why does Prorogation matter? Although people—not hon. Members, but many others—often confuse it with a recess or an Adjournment, they are completely and utterly different. Prorogation suspends all business. It means that the Government are allowed to put again a question on a motion that has already been decided during that Session, and secure a different outcome if that is what they are trying to do. We know that that was one of the reasons why the 2019 Prorogation happened.

Prorogation suspends all questions. Any written questions that have not yet been answered have to be tabled again. Normally, for four weeks beforehand Ministers do not bother to reply, because they know that Members will have to submit the questions all over again.

Prorogation means that no Select Committee or other Committee of the House can meet or take evidence. That, incidentally, must surely be something we should be able to change. It means that the Parliament Act can be engaged. Of course that is what the Labour Government did in the 1945 to 1950 Parliament—to get through legislation under the 1911 Act. Unlike a recess, which is voted on, Prorogation is not voted on, but the Government still have all the power over it, because just as with a recess, only a Government Minister can table a motion or, indeed, table an amendment. No other Member is allowed to table an amendment to a Government motion for a recess.

So many different elements of the way we do our business which guarantee Back Benchers and Opposition Members an opportunity to engage in and initiate legislative processes are entirely reliant on Standing Orders. When the Government decide to suspend a Session, that starts the clock all over again, but it means that they are entirely in control of how many private Members’ days, Backbench days or Opposition days are provided. We know from our experience last week that the Government can suddenly pull an Opposition day because they do not want a vote on, for instance, universal credit and the cut of £20.

[Joanna Cherry]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

Well, I will, but I am getting towards the end.

[Joanna Cherry]

I thought that the hon. Gentleman was getting towards the end, so I wanted to ask him to clarify something. Did I understand him correctly to say that if those on the Government Benches vote against his having the opportunity to put forward the new clause, they will be voting in favour of continued judicial scrutiny of Prorogations? Does that not rather go against the normal pattern on the Conservative Benches, which is to vote against judicial scrutiny in this Parliament? I doff my cap to the hon. Gentleman for being so smart!

[Chris Bryant]

I would not bother with that.

The hon. and learned Lady is absolutely right. This is the irony—or the hypocrisy—of the Government’s position. [Interruption.] I said “of the Government’s position”; I am being very careful.

I find it incomprehensible that the Government would not want to proceed in the direction of my new clause. It is the simplest way of making sure that Prorogation is a proceeding in Parliament, and there would be no need for the ouster clause in the Bill, which many people have suggested to us is unlikely to work and is a nugatory piece of legislation.

We should also bear in mind that the Commonwealth has shown us plenty of examples of Prorogation being fiercely contested. In Australia in 1975, the Governor-General, John Kerr, removed the Labor Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, and then prorogued Parliament before the House of Representatives, which was controlled by the Labor party, could pass a motion of no confidence in Malcolm Fraser. That was a deliberate use of the Prorogation process to prevent proper scrutiny. In Canada in 2008, the Conservative Prime Minister of a minority Government, Stephen Harper, ordered a Prorogation to avoid a no confidence motion in himself—yet another example of the use of a process which I think is a means of trying to prevent proper parliamentary scrutiny.

One of the ironies of the situation that we have in the British constitution is that if the Bill goes forward as the Government plan and without the measure relating to Prorogation, there will be no real requirement that Parliament should ever sit. The Meeting of Parliament Act 1694 says that we should have Parliaments every three years; that is all that we would be relying on as a legislative means. It is true that the Bill of Rights requires taxation to be subject to Parliament’s sitting, and also requires that a standing Army must be endorsed every five years. However, the Supreme Court made the very good point that these practical considerations are scant reassurance, because Parliament could just sit very briefly to deal with those matters.

In short, Madam Deputy Speaker—or “in long”, actually—my point is simple: the best way to ensure that Prorogation is not abused by the Executive, and to ensure that the courts do not interfere in political processes that should remain within the political sphere, is to ensure that there is a vote in Parliament before Prorogation. The only way we can have that vote in Parliament before Prorogation is to debate it later today, and the only way we can do that is to vote in favour of my motion of instruction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chloe Smith]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

So will the Minister give way to me instead?

[Chloe Smith]

indicated assent.

[Chris Bryant]

Thank you. The question then is: if not now, when? That has still not been answered. If we are not to debate the matter today, I presume that the Government still believe that Prorogation should not be justiciable, so when are we going to discuss legislative measures to deal with Prorogation?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

I am sorry not for the tone but for the content of what the Minister said, not least because she is the only person who can grant additional time for debate. I cannot do it. I note that she has not provided any—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I am going to pause the hon. Gentleman for a moment. Once again, because of the screen that is in the way, I could not see the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) on the Opposition Front Bench. If she wishes to comment on these matters, it is better that she does so before the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) concludes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

Now for the second part. The Minister is also wrong to suggest that somebody else should be devising time for us to debate, on a legislative measure, the issue of Prorogation. In all honesty, the only people who can do that are Government Ministers. It would be entirely inappropriate for such legislation to come from the Back Benches or in a private Member’s Bill.

It is important that we discuss these matters. We not only had a constitutional crisis in 2019; we had one in 2010, too, which led to the coalition Government. We had not had a coalition Government for a long time, and the truth is that in politics everything that everybody thinks can never happen nearly always does end up happening in some shape or form. That is what constitutions should be ready for. The Minister says she could not imagine a Government would ever do a whole series of different things, including allowing a lengthy Prorogation. Well, there was one. It was in 2019 and it was led by the present Prime Minister, who wanted to prorogue Parliament for 34 days for illegal parliamentary reasons. That is why we got into that pickle in 2019.

Question put.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Can I just say that there is some disappointment that we did not get through the list? I appeal to the party leaders to see whether we can speed up so that we can hear from those Members who might otherwise miss out.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

No. Points of order do not come now, they normally come after the urgent question. You know that better than anybody. You are the expert. You are Mr Protocol. You know better than me.

Afghanistan

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. I had the opportunity to thank the troops the other day, but I want to thank everybody who has been involved: Border Force officials and everybody in the councils who has been on the frontline dealing with this crisis. They have done it with exceptional humanity and compassion.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I have sent 143 cases of Afghans who are connected to my constituency to the Foreign Secretary, the Defence Secretary and the Home Secretary—all three of them, because there are three different channels. May I urge the Prime Minister to reflect on the idea, suggested by countless colleagues on the Opposition Benches, that there should be a single triage point, a single person who deals with all these cases? Since I sent in those names, one has been shot, one has been raped and one has been tortured. People are desperate to try to get the best result for these people. I am sure that Ministers want to help, but at the moment it feels as if the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.

[The Prime Minister]

I am sure that the whole House sympathises very much with what has happened to those individuals in Afghanistan that the hon. Gentleman describes. We are doing our level best to help people as fast as we can. I want the Government to focus on helping people with a single point of contact. That is why the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) is the person in question.

Afghanistan

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That is why it is so important that we maintain a presence at Kabul airport and that is why we have been getting the message out that we want people to come through. As I said earlier, it is important for everybody to understand that in the days that we have ahead of us, which may be short, at the moment this is an environment in which the Taliban are permitting this evacuation to take place. These are interpreters, they are locally engaged staff and others who have risked their lives supporting our military efforts and seeking to secure new freedoms for their country. We are proud to bring these brave Afghans to our shores and we continue to appeal for more to come forward.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary announced this morning that the UK will take 20,000 refugees from Afghanistan but that only 5,000 will be able to come this year. What are the 15,000 meant to do? Hang around and wait to be executed?

[The Prime Minister]

That is the 5,000 on whom—we are spending £200 million to bring a further 5,000 on top; I think it will be 10,000 altogether that we bring in under the ARAP and other programmes. We will increase that number over the coming years to 20,000, as I said, but the bulk of the effort of this country will be directed and should be directed at supporting people in Afghanistan and in the region to prevent a worse humanitarian crisis. I tell the House that in that conviction I am supported very strongly both by President Macron of France and Chancellor Merkel of Germany.

We are also doing everything possible to accelerate the visas for the—[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

If I am honest, I feel ashamed today—more ashamed than I can remember in any foreign policy debate in my 20 years in this House. We have seen the most sudden and catastrophic collapse of a foreign and military policy objective of this United Kingdom since Suez, and arguably further back than that. We have managed to humiliate ourselves. We have shamed our politics and our way of doing business. We have trailed the British flag and, frankly, our own honour in the dirt and the mud. Global Britain has been exposed as a meaningless slogan—a boast without a strategy behind it.

I am ashamed, too, by how we have treated many of our armed forces over these 20 years. It is shocking to me that there are still soldiers who were diagnosed with PTSD when they actually had a brain injury due to an explosion. We are one of the few countries that still does not test any of our armed forces automatically after an explosion for a brain injury, and that may be one of the reasons why many of them later suffer from dementia and depression.

I am ashamed that we never said to the United States of America last year or this year, “Hang on. Stop, think, wait, and put in place a proper plan before you go ahead with this.” I am ashamed that our silence basically endorsed Trump’s plan last year and that our silence now, apart from one notable exception in the form of the Secretary of State for Defence, has effectively enabled Biden to get away with some of the most shameful comments ever from an American President. We should never be just a sidekick to the United States of America in our foreign policy or military policy.

I am fearful, of course, for the women and children, but also, particularly out of a personal interest, for the gay men in Afghanistan. It has not exactly been a walk in the park for them over the past 20 years, but now they know that they will be exterminated. Sharia judges are already saying what they will do. There are two ways of dealing with a homosexual man in Afghanistan: one is stoning, and the other is putting them behind a wall that is then toppled on top of them and kills them.

I am fearful for the children who will grow up in violence or in a refugee camp, fearful for all the thousands who will do whatever they possibly can to get to a place of safety, and fearful that we will not have a proper programme in place in this country to greet people and that some of them will end up going to jail because we are introducing laws that will make things even more difficult for them. To be honest, I am angry with the Government. I am angry in particular with the Prime Minister. I just do not think that he has paid enough attention to this issue. I do not think that he was courageous enough in what he said to the American President either last year or this year, and he should be ashamed of himself.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Dominic Raab]

May I make a little progress and then I will come back to the hon. Gentleman?

I thought that the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis)—I do not know whether he is back in the Chamber—spoke particularly powerfully about the need for a concerted international response. The right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) gave voice to a veteran in her constituency, Jack Cummings, and spoke about the sacrifices that were made by so many on the battlefield.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) also made a very powerful speech in which he made the point that how we leave is as important, if not more important, than the question of withdrawal itself. I can tell him, because he asked a specific question, that we tested the approach very rigorously with our US allies when they consulted us. The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) also gave witness to the many terrified Afghans who now face the threat and risk that come with Taliban control.

[Chris Bryant]

Lots of my constituents have got in touch today to say that the thing that they are most anxious about—many Members reflected this during the debate—is those people who are terrified in Afghanistan today and want to get out. We want to help many of them to get out of Afghanistan but, for some reason, we are saying that we will take 20,000 over several years, but only 5,000 this year. If the Government could simply say that whoever manages to get here this year, we will take this year, that would be a significant advance.

[Dominic Raab]

I will come on to address that matter, but I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman makes.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) gave a courageous speech.

Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 6th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Michael Gove)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

It is a real pleasure to move the Second Reading of this Bill. The Bill contains provisions to ensure that we supersede the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 with appropriate, democratic and timely reform in order to ensure that we restore to this place and to the people an opportunity to ensure that the Government that govern in their name can command the confidence of this House and the confidence of the public.

The legislation that we are bringing forward will I hope command support across this House, because it was a manifesto promise in both the Conservative and Labour party manifestos. Both Front-Bench teams are committed to the legislation, and it follows on from an excellent report by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), and from recommendations made by the Constitution Committee in the other place. It has also received extensive scrutiny and support from a Joint Committee of the Commons and Lords. With both Front-Bench teams and three important Committees all in favour of this legislation, we can see already that the arguments that have been lined up for it are powerful and command wide support. I sincerely hope that nothing I say this afternoon undermines that consensus.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Sit down now!

[Michael Gove]

That is very good advice from the hon. Gentleman. He, like me, believes that brevity is the soul of wit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

Regarding the coalition years, I think that others are better placed—given that I served in the Government for five years—to decide which was the worst piece of legislation that was passed. The one thing I will say for the Fixed-term Parliaments Act is that it was very much a child of its time. It did achieve one purpose. It was introduced at the request of our Liberal Democrat coalition partners in order to ensure that, for the five years of that Parliament, neither party could collapse the Government in a way that might secure for either the junior or the senior coalition partner perceived political advantage. It did serve that purpose for those five years. Notwithstanding the points made by my hon. Friend, there was a significant range of achievements that the coalition Government can take pride in; nevertheless, the Act was specifically a child of its time. While it worked in that narrow sense, in cementing the coalition and ensuring it could achieve the policy gains that I believe were gained during those five years, its utility beyond those years in tougher circumstances has been tested to destruction.

[Chris Bryant]

I will let the Minister in on a secret: not all of us supported everything that was in the Labour manifesto at the last general election.

Is there not a worrying issue here, which is precisely what the right hon. Gentleman refers to as “the child of its time”? If the Government can always reconstitute the constitution every time they can pass a law, we have a problem here, because the Government are most likely always to do so in their own interests.

[Michael Gove]

I take very seriously the points that the hon. Gentleman makes, because there are few deeper scholars of our constitution or parliamentary history than him, but I would say two things. First, sometimes there are constitutional experiments or innovations, and it is understandable that they will have partisans who can see benefits from them; but then we can see in real time and in real circumstances whether those constitutional innovations are right and work, or whether it is appropriate for us to go back to the situation that prevailed before, which has actually proven over time, in a variety of circumstances, to be both more robust and more effective.

The second point is that of course there is always a temptation for Governments or any Administration in power to seek to look to the rules and to derive advantage perhaps from changing them, but the critical thing here is that, ultimately, the decision on whether an election has been called and Parliament has been dissolved appropriately rests with the people. We can look at historical examples; for example, in the 1970s Edward Heath decided to go to the country to ask the question, “Who governs?”. He believed that, in choosing the timing of the election, he was doing so to his party’s advantage, but when he asked, “Who governs?”, the country replied, “Well, not you, mate.” On that occasion, it was the case that a miscalculation on the part of the Prime Minister resulted in the electorate deciding that Edward Heath’s Administration should end and that Harold Wilson’s should take over.

[Chris Bryant]

In which case, one could conceive of a situation in which the Government were aware of something coming up that the public were not aware of—a report or a major security breach that had not yet been made public, for example. Or, for instance, the Government might choose to hold a general election before boundary changes because they thought that it might be to their advantage. Would it not make far more sense for the House simply to be able to vote at that moment?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

Historically, many different things have counted as motions of no confidence—for instance, losing a vote on an amendment to the Loyal Address following the Queen’s Speech or on an amendment to the Finance Bill, or refusing to grant supply for a military intervention or to allow a military intervention. Does the Minister think that all those things would still count as a motion of no confidence?

[Michael Gove]

The formal motion of no confidence that is traditionally requested by the Opposition and has to be granted within a day is a classic example, but on the question of military intervention, I personally believe—again, it is for the House to take a view—that that is a proper exercise of the prerogative power in certain circumstances. That is perhaps for debate in other forums, but it would not count in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggests.

[Michael Gove]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. If any Prime Minister felt that the House’s decision not to grant supply, the House’s decision to censure an individual Minister or the House’s decision not to authorise support for military action was a matter of confidence, that might mean that it would be appropriate to request a Dissolution at that point.

[Chris Bryant]

Will the Minister give way?

[Michael Gove]

Not for a little bit, because I want to run briefly through the clauses in the Bill.

There are six clauses and one schedule. The first clause repeals the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. The second clause revives the prerogative power and allows the Prime Minister to request a Dissolution from the monarch. The third clause is specifically to ensure that that decision cannot be reviewed in the courts. It is what might be called an ouster clause. It is there explicitly to say that proceedings in this House relating to the exercise of the prerogative power should not be justiciable.

It is very important, following on from the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), that the House understands, appreciates and supports the Bill on that basis. It has been constitutional practice since 1688 and the Bill of Rights that it should not be the case that these matters are reviewed in the courts. Let me say that judicial review is an important part of keeping Governments honest, but there needs to be an absolute limit on what is considered justiciable and it should not be the case that the courts can prevent the request for a Dissolution on the part of a Prime Minister. If that decision is mistaken, then it is for the people to decide in a general election what is appropriate. I was very pleased that the Joint Committee confirmed in its report that it would be appropriate for Parliament to affirm that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

Exactly so, and it is absolutely important, as my right hon. Friend points out, that we stick to the principle that, immediately upon receipt of a request from the Opposition for a vote of no confidence, such a debate is granted and that the Prime Minister of the day would make their case. Following the defeat of an earlier attempt by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) to secure support for her withdrawal Bill, a motion of no confidence was tabled by the then leader of the Labour party. That motion of no confidence was defeated and that allowed the Prime Minister to consider other ways of fulfilling that mandate.

[Chris Bryant]

I do not want to test everybody’s patience, but the one time when that course is not available to the Opposition is immediately after a general election, before Parliament has got on to actually meeting; and it is the Government, and only the Government, who decide when the House meets and what it debates. I note that we still have no formal process in our system of knowing when, after a general election, the House will meet to transact substantive business, other than to elect a Speaker and have the swearing-in.

[Michael Gove]

That is an important point, but it is also important to recognise that no newly elected Government can effectively govern without Parliament. It would be impossible without a vote of supply and without a Queen’s Speech to ensure that the basis on which they were elected, and the effective governance of the country, could continue. It is important that we recognise that that is the principle that prevailed beforehand, and it is the principle that we should adopt now.

I shall conclude, because many hon. Members wish to speak. I return to the point that I made at the start. Those who brought forward the Fixed-term Parliaments Act were motivated, I think, by two entirely reasonable motivations. The first was to ensure that the coalition Government—the first coalition that we had had since 1922—was able to proceed and govern in an effective way; of course it was against the backdrop of economic crisis. As a member of that coalition, I do not resile for a moment from the many decisions that were taken during that five years, and I take the opportunity to thank the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and others who served in that coalition for putting the national interest first at that time.

The second thing that the Fixed-term Parliaments Act was designed to do was to ensure that our constitutional arrangements became more predictable. Although the FTPA succeeded in the unique circumstances of the coalition years, it emphatically has not made our constitutional arrangements more predictable, as what happened in 2017, and indeed between 2017 and 2019, reinforced. Indeed, the circumstances of the 2017 to 2019 Parliament reinforced in the public mind—and certainly that was reflected in the general election result of 2019—the need to move to a more flexible, more responsive, more agile, more familiar and more tried and tested set of constitutional arrangements. It is for that reason that I commend the Bill to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Cat Smith]

Of course, in most circumstances an Opposition will want to have an election. If the right hon. Gentleman is referring to the 2019 situation, that was not about not wanting to have an election; it was about not wanting a situation in which the Government could take the country out of the European Union with no deal. That was the sticking point, and that was the issue with the date. In most situations, an Opposition would always want an election. Indeed, I can say quite confidently that I would do a darn sight better job than the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), but he knows that.

[Chris Bryant]

Might there not be a point where the Opposition just wanted to form a Government, because the Government had lost the confidence of the House but the Prime Minister would want to have a general election, because the numbers in the House might allow two different kinds of Government?

[Cat Smith]

I find it difficult to disagree with my hon. Friend. Indeed, the points that he has made, not just in that intervention but in earlier interventions on the Minister, have raised some important questions that I hope the House will consider. I am grateful that the Bill will be considered in Committee of the whole House and that we will have the advantage of my hon. Friend’s insights at that stage, as well as his contribution in the Joint Committee.

There is no way that this legislation would be before us this afternoon if it did not provide an electoral advantage. When Governments decide when elections happen, there is absolutely no doubt that it can be played to their advantage. As has already been made clear, the Government can call an election before bad news is about to be delivered, or if they feel that their Opposition are in disarray. Professor Petra Schleiter from Oxford University did a comparative study of 27 western and European democracies and found that when governing parties had the power to control when elections happened, they gained, on average, a 5% electoral advantage. Those of us who live and breathe politics will understand that that is the difference between forming a Government and falling out of government. That is why I would argue that it is anti-democratic to allows all the power to lie in the hands of one individual.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister for the Constitution and Devolution, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) back to her rightful place on the Treasury Bench. May I say how appreciative I have been of her attendance at the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which I chair, over recent months to discuss this subject and others?

I thank my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster for his mention of our report on the Bill, although it perhaps had a slight difference of emphasis to that which came from the Joint Committee. As he is in the Gallery today, I pay full tribute to Lord McLoughlin from the other place for so ably chairing that distinguished Joint Committee.

There are many minds in the House greater than mine that have given this subject a lot of thought—[Hon. Members: “Oh!”] On this subject, there certainly are, if I can be self-deprecating. As Bagehot would have it, we are discussing, and indeed legislating on, the at once solemn but also practical interaction between the “dignified” and the “efficient”—that is to say, the transaction between the monarch and the Prime Minister. On that note, I was pleased to see that the draft Dissolution principles were changed on the advice of the Joint Committee, such that the Prime Minister now shall not advise the monarch of the need to dissolve Parliament but rather make a “request” so to do.

How have we reached this point? I suggest that the disputatious nature of politics in recent years is too easily given as a reason. I contend that part of the real reason is the lesson of not tinkering with the constitution to suit immediate circumstances, which brings me to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. Was it a high political ideal, as advanced by some, or a case of political expediency? I humbly suggest that it was the latter. It was of course necessary for a smaller coalition partner to have the assurance that it was not going to be cast off part way through a term, when it might have been to the larger party’s advantage to seek an election.

In all this, motivation is key, so it is perhaps helpful to consider briefly the Dissolution principles, which have been mentioned already as the Lascelles principles. In May 1950, Lascelles, the King’s private secretary—Senex being his pseudonym—wrote to The Times to suggest that “no wise Sovereign” would refuse a Dissolution except in three instances. We have heard them already, but the first was if the existing Parliament was still viable. The second was if a general election

“would be detrimental to the national economy”.

The third, and perhaps the most interesting and still relevant, was if the sovereign could find

“another Prime Minister who could carry on his Government, for a reasonable period, with a working majority in the House of Commons.”

Do they all stand today? As I have said, I think the latter one certainly does.

Most people’s knowledge of Tommy Lascelles, I am afraid, comes from “The Crown”. That is how we learn history these days, and of course it is a flawless representation of the truth. People know him from that, rather than from his letter to The Times some 70-odd years ago. Here I seek to make a tangential link to the world of drama, for all are players in our unwritten constitution. Each has a role set for them, even if it is unscripted. The actors must conform to the expectations, if we are to avoid the play that goes wrong, or indeed the Parliament that goes wrong.

In recent history, I am afraid that at times some have gone off the unscripted script, if such a thing were possible, because politics is a numbers game, and the reason we had such a quagmire in the last Parliament was that the numbers did not quite add up. That going off the script was not surprising, given the testing circumstances of the 2017 Parliament, but it is also a reflection, if I can be charitable, of the constitutional short-sightedness or, if not, vandalism done by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. Add to that the novel action of the Prorogation that never was, if I can put it that way, combined with the actions of the former Speaker of this House. In short, everybody went off script. Fortunately, the ultimate safety valve of our constitution—a general election—worked.

[Chris Bryant]

In your view.

[Mr Wragg]

Of course, this is all my view. The House will have a chance to listen to the utterances of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) later on, and we look forward to that immensely. He will teach us a thing or two.

I support the Bill, but I fear that clause 3, the so-called ouster clause, may be superfluous. Its inclusion could be seen by those of a cynical bent as being a hangover from the intervention of the Supreme Court in 2019. We should hold more surely to the Bill of Rights of 1689. After all, the Queen in Parliament is not justiciable—at least that is my understanding.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

May I first say what an utter delight it is to see the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) in her place? Cancer is a bugger, and quite a lot of us have been through it. At the rate we are going, we will have a very large cancer survivors unit here in Parliament, and we shall overcome.

I know the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) is not present, but there is nothing more miserable than parts of one’s private life going through the public domain. I wish him and Sarah well.

The hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) has come back. I was going to criticise him because he had just departed, having said that he was looking forward to hearing what I was going to say, but now he has returned.

I am afraid that I dislike the Bill from beginning to end. I know it was in our manifesto that we would repeal the 2011 Act, but there were lots of things in our last manifesto with which I did not fully agree, so merely saying that it was in our manifesto does not cut the mustard. Our 2010 manifesto said that we wanted to move towards a fixed-term Parliament and to hand over significant elements of the prerogative to Parliament. Indeed, I note that the Conservatives’ manifesto in 2010 said that they wanted to make

“the use of the Royal Prerogative subject to greater democratic control”.

I supported bits of the 2011 Act when I was the shadow Minister dealing with it at the time, in 2010. There were bits of the Act that we criticised but, broadly speaking, we supported it. What I object to in this Bill is that it significantly increases the Government’s power over Parliament. Indeed, when the Fixed-term Parliaments Act was introduced, it was a major transfer of power away from the Executive, and a major strengthening of Parliament’s authority over its own lifetime. By definition, this Bill is exactly the opposite of that. The Bill assumes that all the players in the so-called golden triangle—why on earth do we resort to such outdated concepts?—will be good guys. I use the word “guys” advisedly, because quite often they are guys, but of course there is a danger that the Bill also brings the palace and the monarch directly into party politics.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman is making a strong case that it should not be a question of the Government against Parliament, but does he not agree that it should not be a question of Parliament against the people? That is the situation that we were nearly stuck in, because the Government, by wanting to be dissolved and have an election, wanted the people to have the final say about Brexit, but Parliament did not want the people to have the final say about Brexit. So the hon. Gentleman needs to be very careful, because there is a lot to be said for the Government not overruling Parliament, but there is not much to be said for Parliament not overruling Government when the Government are trying to give the final decision to the people.

[Chris Bryant]

Well, my point is simply that we need to have a level playing field in any general election. The Bill deliberately gives the Government the upper hand. It places them on the hill surrounding the territory. It means that they determine the territory on which a general election will be contested. They determine many other aspects, such as who is able to vote, who is able to register to vote, how the boundaries are constituted and so on. I start to ask myself: how much power do the Government want to have?

[Dr Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman is extremely kind in giving way a second time. I do not think he answered my point, which is that the key thing about Dissolution is that we are giving power to the people to have the final say.

On the hon. Gentleman’s other point, he says that the Government are able to choose a time that is to their advantage. The alternative is surely that when we have a fixed date when the election has to be held, the Government will still try to manipulate the situation so that it will coincide to their advantage at that date. We cannot really escape the question of manipulation entirely.

[Chris Bryant]

If there is a fixed date for a general election, there are fewer options for the Government to manipulate the situation. That is a publicly known fact to everybody, so there is a level playing field. Indeed, over the last 20 years or so we have had a set of rules in this country that mean that in the six months before a general election, the Opposition are allowed special access to the civil service. If the Opposition do not even know when the general election will be, they never have that opportunity.

Time and again, the Government get to set the rules, and there is a significant party political advantage to being able to set the date of a general election. That is why Governments never wanted to change that. They did it in 2010 for 2015 only, because they wanted to solve a specific problem. My biggest anxiety is that, while we all love the fluidity of our constitution, the downside is that it becomes the plaything of the Government of the day who want to jig and rejig bits and pieces to benefit themselves and keep themselves in power.

One instance of the kind of behaviour a Government today might conceivably think of is to hold a general election immediately after the new boundaries come in, or immediately before the boundaries come in, for their own party political advantage because that is how they will have assessed that. Alternatively, they could decide that we will not have a full judicial review producing a report on the lessons learned from the covid pandemic until after the date of the next general election. The right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) is absolutely right that it could be after 2025—they could decide that it will not produce its result until 2027. My point is that even if a report is about to be produced, they could decide to have a general election.

The Minister herself gave evidence to our Joint Committee on the Fixed-term Parliaments Act saying that the public would punish nefarious activity of that kind. I am not convinced by that, because in a general election the public are making a whole series of decisions, and the simple matter of whether the general election should have been called is probably round about number No. 535 on the list of issues that are of concern to them. My simple point is that this is about having a level playing field. We insist on that for other countries and democracies. It is a fundamental principle of what constitutes a fair democracy.

I will deal with some specifics, if I may. First, five years is far too long for a Parliament. Over the past 200 years, they have tended to run for about four years, including when we had a seven-year term for Parliaments. It would make far more sense for us to have a four-year term—that would be more in keeping with the rest of the country. If the Bill passes Second Reading, I will table an amendment to curtail it to four years. We do not even say that it is five years at the moment—it is five years plus with the additional bits. The five years is not from the start of one Parliament to the start of the next Parliament; it is from the date of the Parliament’s first sitting until the general election.

The Government get to decide the date not only of a Parliament’s first sitting but of its first sitting to transact substantial and substantive business, which traditionally starts with the First Reading of the Outlawries Bill, followed by the Queen’s Speech. Even after the Queen’s Speech, it is for the Government to decide when we actually get into proper business and, during that period, whether there might or might not be a motion of no confidence. That means that after a general election, such as when Baldwin lost the general election, there had to be a motion of no confidence in the new Parliament, but that depended on the Government bringing Parliament to sit. We are almost unique in the world by not having any provisions in statute or our Standing Orders guaranteeing that the House will be able to transact business within a certain number of days, let alone set up Committees and all the rest.

I am very worried about snap elections, because often they mean that parties are not able to provide a duty of care towards potential candidates. I will mention only one, Jared O’Mara. If we had had a more sensible run- up to a general election, we would have served him better, because we would have gone through a proper process of selecting candidates. I could look at other instances across the last few years. As Chair of the Committee on Standards I am painfully aware that sometimes people become candidates without being prepared, briefed and given the support they need to enter into what can be a very difficult and painful place.

We have already seen that the Government have phenomenal powers over prorogation, and I simply do not understand why the House of Commons cannot have a vote beforehand. We would nearly always grant it, but if there were any jiggery-pokery, we might not. Government Members might say, “You are only doing that for a party political reason.” We could point to the Labour Government in the 1940s, who brought forward a special prorogation so that three Sessions of Parliament ran during one year, to meet the requirements of the Parliament Act 1911. Why does prorogation remain a simple act of the Executive? I think it is a mistake. Indeed, it would assist the Government simply to say that every time there is going to be a prorogation, just as there is before a recess, there will be a vote in the House of Commons.

I completely agree with the hon. Member for Hazel Grove, although when he is being sarcastic and ironic it is sometimes slightly difficult to determine which side of his own argument he is on. I think he was suggesting that the ouster clause may be a bit of an own goal. It sounds a bit like, “the lady doth protest too much”. It is as if we do not have confidence in the Bill of Rights.

[Mr Wragg]

I was being enigmatic.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is the Mona Lisa in so many ways. I do not know what to make of that. My point is that the Government are protesting too much. I think that is counterproductive and will lead to the exact opposite of what they are trying to achieve. They virtually invite the courts to have a pop at them, which is a mistake. We should rely on the fact that proceedings in Parliament shall not be impeached or questioned in a court of law or any other place, under the articles from the Bill of Rights.

I am concerned about what constitutes a confidence motion. It should be perfectly possible to bring down a Government by virtue of refusing to allow them either money, or the basic thrust of their programme through the Queen’s Speech, or a major item of foreign policy, such as sending troops into war. In 1784 that was one of the first reasons a Government were brought down by a motion in the House. If I am honest, I was perplexed when David Cameron and William Hague—now Lord Hague—did not resign or even seem to think worthy of comment the fact that they lost a vote on sending British troops to war. In any other generation of our political history, that would have meant the Government would have fallen. This is an important principle: on big national issues, whether something is a matter of confidence should not simply be a matter for the Government. We all know that money, major policies, and issues of war and peace are fundamentally matters of confidence.

[Mr Carmichael]

I hesitate to intervene, but the record should show that the particular motion to which the hon. Gentleman refers from 2013 was not one that committed the country to deploying troops. In fact, in specifically guaranteed that before that happened, the matter would come back before the House.

[Chris Bryant]

I think I am right in saying that the original motion tabled by the Government did commit, but the version carried by the House, which was an Opposition amendment, said that the matter would be brought back to the House.

[Mr Carmichael]

indicated dissent.

[Chris Bryant]

Well, the record will have to be found, won’t it. I completely agree with the comments made by the right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) about the election period being far too long. I have some sympathy with the fact that many people now vote by post, and there are issues for electoral registration officers and all the rest. Honestly, however, it cannot be beyond the wit of woman and man in this country to bring a general election in a shorter period than we currently do.

My bigger point—I will bring my remarks to a close after this—is that the Government already have phenomenal power in this country. In our system, the amount of power that Government have in Westminster is most extraordinary. They determine every single element of the timetable and, indeed, they do more so now than they did in the time of the second world war. If we think of one of the big confidence debates, in 1939, there was the debate on the summer recess, because people who were opposed to appeasement were terrified that Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister was going to use the recess to do a deal over Poland with Hitler. There was a chance in those days for another Member to table an amendment to the date of the recess. The rules now specify that we cannot even table an amendment to the date of the recess that has been tabled by a Government Minister.

The same is true of nearly every element of our expenditure. We cannot table a motion from the Opposition. Only a Government Minister can table a motion changing a tax, increasing a tax, laying a duty or a tax on the people, or increasing expenditure. We barely do a process of expenditure in our system at all. We do not really have a Budget, not in the sense that any other country would understand that they have a Budget. We have a statement by the Chancellor every year. The power that Government hold in this country is absolutely phenomenal and I do not think that simply to allow a few things such as a vote on Prorogation and a vote on Dissolution is too much to ask.

[Jonathan Edwards]

As a Welsh MP, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would agree that one benefit of a fixed-term Parliament for this place is that there cannot be a clash with Welsh elections. Although the Bill says that there cannot be an election for the Senedd and a general election at the same time, the Library note states:

“Regulations can be made to hold”

an “extraordinary general” election. The question for us, if the Bill passes tonight, is: what are those extraordinary circumstances and how will UK Ministers co-ordinate with Welsh Ministers and the Welsh Parliament?

[Chris Bryant]

My personal view for some time has been that it is probably for the convenience of the people to have a more or less fixed time of the year when we have elections. The beginning of May seems to work for local elections and I do not see why it would not work for most other elections. I am not personally opposed to having several elections on the same day either. I know others are, but I think that that would be for the greater convenience of most people in the country.

My biggest fear is that the present Government have a very high theology of strong government. It feels to me akin to the Stuarts’ divine right of kings, which is not to say that they feel that they have a divine right to rule, but that they think that the Government have the divine right to rule. What makes me think this is the number of times that the Leader of the House—we had it again today from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster—referred to the “addled Parliament” of 1614. It was the king who called it the “addled Parliament” in 1614 because the king did not get his way. There are many ways of interpreting what happened in the last Parliament, but the Government did not get their way—we know that. I think that when the Government feel that the constitution has to change because the Government have not managed to get their way through Parliament, that is a worrying moment.

The truth is that the whole of this system depends—I mean the word “depends” deliberately—on a very, very thin thread of confidence in the Government. I think a better way of understanding politics is that Governments govern by consent, and that consent is not just earned at a general election. It is constantly earned and has to be constantly earned in this arena—in here. I worry that the Government do not feel that way. I personally do not trust any Government who abrogate more powers to themselves. It is even worse when a Government then claim to do so in the name of democracy, as we heard in the very first sentence of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster’s contribution earlier. Such abrogation nearly always rapidly descends into the arrogance of office. I think that there is a particular irony in the fact that the people who shouted “Take back control” again and again now ratchet up their own control over the British constitution.

Power is always best spread thin. Even a Cabinet Minister is only dressed in a little brief authority. Our constitution must never be a plaything of the Government of the day.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

It is a real privilege to follow the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). I want to expand on his closing remarks, because I think we need to strip back to why we are doing this, and I will start by talking about faith in democracy.

The reality is that in the last six months of 2019, and certainly in the autumn of 2019, the public did not have faith in this place. That is a simple fact—we had only to look at our inboxes and at the comments being made. We were not doing anything, we were not getting anywhere and we had a Speaker who, quite frankly, acted disgracefully on many an occasion, going way beyond the remit within which he should have operated. All that that did, from the public’s point of view, was make them say, “You are pointless. We have given you an instruction in a referendum and in a general election, but two years after the 2017 general election, you have still achieved nothing.”

The reason we did not achieve anything was that we were gridlocked. The hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) made a comment today that was used so many times in that period: she said that people were looking for us to come to this place and solve the issues. I heard that phrase used throughout the argument, but what it actually meant was “People are looking for you to agree with me, to do what I say and to ignore what you want to say.” It was a 50-50 Parliament, really: it kept hitting gridlock and we did not get anywhere.

As I said in my intervention on the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith), for whom I have a great deal of respect—I am looking forward to debates with her in Committee—the games that were played at the time did no favours to this place. The fact that 24 hours before we finally dissolved the last Parliament we had failed to dissolve it under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, but then a one-line Bill got the two-thirds majority and got the Government to choose the date of the election, added to the sense of “What are you all playing at?”

[Chris Bryant]

I am sorry to do this, but I just want to push back against the words “game playing”. There were very passionately held views on both sides of the argument on every single constitutional matter that was going on. I do not think that anybody was playing a game. Everybody was in deadly earnest—we just disagreed.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I accept the hon. Gentleman’s intervention about the choice of language, and I will change it. His observation is well made and he makes it earnestly.

What I will therefore say is that what happened almost showed that we should have dissolved the last Parliament much earlier. It was going nowhere. We created a situation in which passions were high about the constitutional issues, but we just never made any progress—yet for all the calls from people outside saying “Resign!”, we could not. The ultimate act of resignation is for a Government to call a general election: they do not know whether they will be re-appointed. The Government literally could not resign.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Parliament failed, and it failed day in and day out, week in and week out. It does not matter, to go back over these arguments, whether people should have shifted to my position or gone to another position. The now Leader of the Opposition spent hours and hours in No. 10 Downing Street, and every time we thought a deal had been made, he scuppered it and moved the goalposts.

Parliament did not work. It is all very well to say that we should have taken particular positions, but the history books show that it failed at every attempt. The way out of that situation is to go back to the people and to lay it on the table. That happened far too late, and in this place we undermined several attempts along the way.

I honestly believe that we have to be very careful at the moment. It is getting better now, but we have been through a period in which the value of the democratic processes in many democracies has been questioned. We have just seen a narcissistic, arrogant now ex-President of the United States with, quite frankly, low political intellectual ability, undermine the entire system to the point he literally caused five people to die because he did not accept the result of an election. He used social media and all the other things to stir it up by saying, “I won this election.” He clearly did not, but most polling shows that a whole swathe of voters in America think that he did, which again undermines democracy.

We still have some way to go to make sure we have the ability to dissolve a failing Parliament and go back to the people. It comes back to the point, which I have used in many a speech, of trusting the people. There have been comments today about how a Government could perhaps abuse a Bill, how we might not recall Parliament, how we could choose the date of the election or how we could delay and do all these things. I promise that the public would give us a right kicking if we did that.

One of the reasons the 2017 general election was, frankly, a disaster for my party was that we were looking to cash in. The people thought, “You are just trying to take advantage of the situation. You don’t actually need to have this election,” and we were punished for it. The public are not stupid; they recognise what goes on, and they have their own concerns. Ultimately, they give their verdict on us at the ballot box. Leading up to the December 2019 general election, the public thought that things had to change. It was noticeable that, whether people were remainers or leavers, they just wanted the situation resolved, which is why the result was the way it was.

I do not think what went on over the Prorogation helped the situation in any shape or form. Lord Roskill, in Council of Civil Service Unions v. Minister for the Civil Service 1985, stated that in his view prerogative powers were not susceptible to judicial review, yet that is pretty much exactly what happened, and it was applied retrospectively. There is precedent for longer Prorogations.

Again, it all added to the view—I do not want to use the word “establishment”, and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) might once again advise me on better language—that the establishment was against the view of the people and was trying to thwart clear instructions that had been given. And we remained powerless in this place to do anything about it, which was the fundamental problem.

I have been in this place long enough to know that, going into Committee, it is unwise to take a fixed position on Second Reading. I am over the moon to see my hon. Friend the Minister back in the House today. She looks in fine health and it is a source of great joy to us all to see her back in her place. I know she will be listening to all the contributions being made, including from the hon. Member for Rhondda. I remember being a new MP, and he and I sparring over the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill and the issue of four years or five years.

[Chris Bryant]

You voted for it.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right: I did indeed vote for that Bill. I think what has been slightly overlooked in these arguments is that the question of stability at a time when the markets were in disarray over what happened was very important. We had not had to deal with those parliamentary maths, I believe, for nigh on 70 years and something had to take place to calm the markets. So that is why I think it is was worth it at the time. It is worth listening to the hon. Gentleman’s views on years. I still think five years is acceptable and he thinks four years. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) outlined, we really do need to shorten these elections.

Overall, the Bill is an important healing mechanism and stepping stone to starting to restore faith. If a Parliament in future ends up again in the situation we ended up in, where views were deeply entrenched and would not budge on either side of the argument, then surely, we must easily be able to dissolve that Parliament and go back to the people. We must always trust the people.