Business of the House
Chris Bryant Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Sir George Young
I commend the work of Inspector Frank Donnelly, who has shown that, within the challenging financial settlement that police authorities have had to live with, it is possible to reduce crime by getting officers out of the station and on to the streets. I was delighted to hear of the reduction in crime in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and I hope the example of Frank Donnelly will be copied elsewhere.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The business that the Leader of the House announced was pretty threadbare, and although I agree with him that we do not necessarily want to be a legislation factory, I have a solution for him. There are 101 private Members’ Bills waiting for time and only two days when they could possibly be debated before Prorogation, when they all lapse. Some of them are on really important things such as adoption, firearms, daylight saving, metal theft, the registration of lobbyists—that would solve the problem there. Why does the Leader of the House therefore not give up some of the days he is using on footling business and allocate them to private Members’ Bills, which lots of Members on the Government Back Benches would love? [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]
Sir George Young
That is a very populist demand which I know finds a lot of support on the Back Benches. I gently remind the hon. Gentleman that there are two Houses of Parliament and legislation has to pass through both. There is no point in stacking up more and more Bills in this House if the other House has not got the time to process them. He will know that the Welfare Reform Bill, the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, the Health and Social Care Bill and the Scotland Bill are all awaiting consideration in another place, and they have to complete their passage through the House before the end of the Session. There is no merit at all in adding to the queue in the way the hon. Gentleman has suggested.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Bryant Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Hunt
I would love to, as I recognise that north Yorkshire has gone further faster than many parts of the country and the £18 million grant that it received has helped that. We have tried to make the European regional development fund rules simpler to enable local authorities to tap into them for their rural broadband programmes. I would certainly be happy to help my hon. Friend and every local authority speed up the process of getting these contracts signed.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
May I urge the Secretary of State to look very closely at his definition of rural? Many areas that look urban, such as former mining constituencies, actually feel very rural in relation to broadband because businesses still need fast broadband but, because of the contention rate, find it very difficult to get a decent service.
Mr Hunt
The hon. Gentleman is right. Let me reassure him that our commitment is to 90% coverage of superfast broadband for the whole country. We talk about rural broadband because that is where there are particular challenges, but we are not forgetting semi-rural areas. We want it to apply to the whole country and, indeed, we want our cities to go even further with a faster broadband offering, as announced by the Chancellor in the autumn statement.
Mr Heath
I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend. The Government will examine that recommendation in making their response to the Joint Committee, of which he was a distinguished Member. I hope to update the House shortly on our related work on the draft parliamentary privilege Bill.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I rather agree with the hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) about parliamentary privilege and Members’ correspondence. In the wider context, the concept of parliamentary privilege is in a bit of a mess. We are relying on rather antiquated concepts at the moment. In the light of what has happened this year, when I believe that many witnesses, in giving evidence to two Select Committee, have lied to Parliament, I suggest that we now need a criminal offence of parliamentary perjury for when people lie to Parliament.
Mr Heath
The courts have always recognised the right of each House of Parliament to regulate its own affairs. I accept that there are legitimate questions about the House’s enforcement powers and the punishments available to it. It is right to look afresh at whether the powers of each House are appropriate. That is part of the work that we are doing to bring forward a draft Bill on parliamentary privilege. If the hon. Gentleman is a little patient, he will see shortly that we are considering that matter.
Business of the House
Chris Bryant Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Sir George Young
The answer I give my hon. Friend may be the same as the one I have just given to the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman). There was an opportunity to raise the issue in the House of Commons yesterday, in Westminster Hall. We have arranged fairly regular debates on north Africa, the middle east and Afghanistan. I hope that there will be other opportunities in the new year to have similar debates, which will provide my hon. Friend with a platform to raise the legitimate concerns that he has just brought to the attention of the House.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
May we debate the Russian winter? I am not referring to the weather; I am referring to last week’s elections, which were profoundly corrupt. All who went to witness the elections say that there was massive vote-rigging. In Chechnya, for instance, 95% of the vote came in for Mr Putin’s party, despite the fact that everybody noticed massive vote-rigging. May I also suggest gently to the right hon. Gentleman that he take this matter up with his colleagues? There are Members of this House who sit on the Council of Europe in the same grouping as members of Mr Putin’s party, and there is no reason why we should hide from the fact that there has been corruption in Russia. We need to ensure proper democracy.
Sir George Young
The hon. Gentleman will have seen the protests in Russia over the weekend about the conduct of the election. I am not sure whether this gives him any satisfaction, but I understand that President Putin has ordered a review of how the elections were conducted, although one should perhaps not set too much store by that. I shall draw the Foreign Secretary’s attention to the concern—I suspect shared by those on both sides of the House—about the conduct of the elections and, again, see whether appropriate representations might be made to the Russian ambassador.
Ministerial Statements
Chris Bryant Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I warmly commend the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) not only on the motion, but on the work that he has done on this issue since he was first elected. There are many others who count among the saints on these issues; there are also many who count among the non-saints. Contrary to what was said by the hon. Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley), who is sitting next to him, the truth of the matter is that, in practice, many Ministers, and in particular their special advisers and those organising “the grid” at No. 10 Downing street, spend a great deal of time deciding when it is best to announce something. If it is unremittingly good news, they do it in Parliament; if it is unremittingly bad news, they try to hide it in a written ministerial statement to Parliament; and if it is a bit streaky—a bit of good, a bit of bad—they will do it outside Parliament, before the House has sat, so that the difficult bits are forgotten and they can get away with the good briefing that they have organised.
Chris Bryant
I had thought that the hon. Gentleman would say that, but I must confess that when I was a Minister, I was never in charge of anything that was interesting enough for anyone to make any announcements about it. I suspect that even if I had wanted to make an announcement, I should have been in difficulty.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
The hon. Gentleman was Minister for Europe.
Chris Bryant
That is true, and the Europe directorate of the Foreign Office is punctilious in ensuring that announcements are made to the European Scrutiny Committee first. Indeed, many matters go to the Committee with several months of warning before they become public anywhere else in Europe, and I think that is right. However, when I was Deputy Leader of the House I tried my level best, as did many others in Government, to make sure that we adopted such a process.
Chris Bryant
I hope that the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) agrees with that.
Dr Lewis
I certainly do. I should have thought that most people would feel that the later any news about Europe was released, the better. However, what I want to ask the hon. Gentleman is this: what does he think that the newspapers offer Ministers as a reward for letting them have the news early?
Chris Bryant
Oh, Lord! I think that I have spoken enough about newspapers in the last year not to opine on that now, but obviously the aim is to manage the news in such a way as to ensure that there is as little scrutiny as possible. However, I can say on the basis of my limited experience as a Minister that on the few occasions when we did make statements to the House, the quality of questioning in the Chamber—which was sometimes haphazard, but was often extremely to the point—improved the quality of decisions and the way in which they were eventually transacted, and I therefore do not believe that Governments have any reason to run away from this proposal.
I think that the position has worsened in recent years with the advent of 24-hour news. There is an insatiable beast that needs to be fed all the time, and extra diligence is required on the part of Ministers and Government to ensure that they do not succumb to it.
The hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) asked what was meant by the House being in session, but the truth is that nearly every decision made by Government is not time-sensitive. Most decisions can be made at any time, and it is therefore always possible for Ministers to wait until Parliament is in session. When I was Deputy Leader of the House, one of the things that I tried hard to curtail was the number of written ministerial statements made on the last day before a parliamentary recess, because a large number of such statements makes it virtually impossible for you, Mr Speaker, to intervene by allowing an urgent question, or for the House to allow any proper scrutiny before Parliament sits again.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Might not one reason for the apparent increase in the number of Ministers who breach the code in recent years be the fact that Ministers see that there is no real sanction?
Chris Bryant
On the whole, if there is impunity, people tend to continue the criminality.
Harriett Baldwin
Is not another problem the fact that our sittings start so late on Mondays and Tuesdays? Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we should review our sitting times?
Chris Bryant
I was so desirous of a moment when I could agree 100% with the hon. Lady, and now she has produced that moment. Yes, I do agree with her: I think that is an essential part of what we need to do. I noted that our sitting last Tuesday, the day of the autumn statement, began in the morning rather than the afternoon. I suspect that that was largely so that the media could be given more time in which to prepare material for the 6 pm and 10 pm news broadcasts.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman clearly supports the motion. May I raise a slightly tricky issue? The Speaker has a role in what happens in the House. Are we in danger of putting him in charge of what people say outside the House unnecessarily, and does that pose the risk of his being not tempted to become, but drawn by his job into becoming, more of a player and less of a referee?
Chris Bryant
I think that the motion raises a bigger issue relating to you, Mr Speaker, but I shall deal with that later if I may.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman said that announcements were not time-sensitive, but they may be time-appropriate; in fact they may be regionally appropriate. I am thinking of local government announcements. It would be much more appropriate to make those at a certain time, and outside the House.
Chris Bryant
I think that those occasions are very rare. On very rare occasions, something is market-sensitive, for example, in which case there is an argument for Treasury Ministers to be able to exercise that judgment, but it is a rare occurrence. Labour Members are always mindful of Hugh Dalton, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, managing, before the Evening Standard came out, to leak a couple of elements of the Budget, although not deliberately—I think it was accidental. He ended up losing his job as Chancellor of the Exchequer because of that. Therefore, I do not want to create a rule for Ministers whereby, when they think that an announcement is time-appropriate, they can use whatever device they want.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
I was reflecting on the hon. Gentleman’s exchange with my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) about whether, if the House sat earlier on a Monday and Tuesday, that would reduce the incidence of Ministers leaking information. Does he believe that, when the House sat earlier for the autumn statement last week, that meant that the statement was entirely unknown before the Chancellor stood up?
Chris Bryant
The only response to that is, “Touché.” By definition, the hon. Gentleman is saying, and I wholeheartedly agree, that large parts of that autumn statement were pre-leaked over the weekend. Although I have my criticisms of what went on when we were in power, may I point out to hon. Members that the last Queen’s Speech was leaked? I do not think that that has ever happened before. Although you, Mr Speaker, investigated what happened—you can investigate what happens here—the Prime Minister, as far as I am aware, made no investigation into how that happened. That is a gross discourtesy to the House. In addition, figures from last year’s Budget were leaked. There is a danger that people have learned the lessons of our Government in the wrong way and are now exercising their powers incorrectly.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
In this particular respect, I think that the hon. Gentleman is doing a disservice to the Government of whom he was a member. They decided, under a previous Prime Minister, to make it known what the Government’s main legislative intentions were much earlier than is traditional with the Queen's speech, which was a welcome change.
Chris Bryant
Indeed we had a draft legislative programme, which we brought forward six months before the Queen’s speech, but that was presented to Parliament. It was not issued in a press release to the regional media or briefed to Andrew Marr. That is the process that we should adopt.
I want to raise one concern in relation to the motion. It says that, where a Member feels that the code has been broken—the ministerial code, which is written into a motion of the House as well; it is not just the Prime Minister’s ministerial code—the Member should report that to the Speaker, who would make a judgment and could then refer the matter to the Committee on Standards and Privileges. That is not the process that we have for other standards and privileges issues, or matters of privilege. At the moment, we write to you, Mr Speaker, and you decide whether we can have a debate on the matter. At the end of that, either it is decided to refer the matter without a Division, or there is a Division, so it becomes the decision of the House to refer the matter to the Committee on Standards and Privileges; it is not your decision, Mr Speaker. There is a double anxiety here. The proposed process would bring you into deciding whether a Minister should be referred. That process of referral would probably mean that the Minister had to lose his job at that point, such would be the clamour among the press and so on. Equally, if you were to bring the matter to the House, the almost inevitable conclusion, given that Ministers by definition always enjoy a majority in the House, is that the matter would never be referred to the Committee on Standards and Privileges.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that protocols introduced for the best possible motives can be taken over and run as political vehicles for the worst possible motives? Not only might Mr Speaker be dragged into a political argument but, heaven forfend, he might be deluged with requests to investigate breaches, which would become just another part of parliamentary graffiti.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman has reiterated my point.
I do not want impunity for Ministers, as that would enable the current situation to continue for ever and a day, and get worse. Scrutiny improves ministerial decisions and government so we must put an end to the current process of impunity. However, I do not want to bring Mr Speaker into the decision-making process. That is why I support the motion.
The motion will not in itself make the required change, however. The Government would have to introduce a motion to change standing orders to bring that change into effect. I hope that in doing so we would arrive at a policy that rendered Government accountable to Parliament and unable to exercise the impunity they have at present without bringing you, Mr Speaker, directly into play.
Mr Knight
I see that the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) is sitting in the far corner of the Chamber. On Thursday he told me he did not think he could be present for the debate. Perhaps that was why I did not notice him, but I am delighted that he is in his place for this important debate.
As has been said, the Procedure Committee was asked to undertake an inquiry by the House, which unanimously agreed to a motion inviting the Committee to develop a protocol for the release of information by Ministers. This was the first debate scheduled by the Backbench Business Committee last year.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) has pointed out, the current position is that the ministerial code sets out the “general principle” governing the release of information by Ministers. It states:
“When Parliament is in session”—
as I said in an intervention, that is widely taken to mean when Parliament is not in recess—
“the most important announcements of Government policy should be made in the first instance in Parliament.”
The Procedure Committee published its report earlier this year. It set out three principles underpinning its recommendations: that statements were valued by Back Benchers and that Ministers should be encouraged to make them; that important Government announcements should, indeed, be made to Parliament before they are made elsewhere; and that it is a grave discourtesy to Parliament for information to be released before a statement is made.
The Procedure Committee decided without division that it was neither practical nor desirable to produce a detailed protocol, and recommended that the House agree the following resolution:
“That this House expects Ministers to make all important announcements relating to government policy to Parliament before they are made elsewhere on all occasions when Parliament is sitting, and expects information which forms all or part of such announcements not to be released to the press before such a statement is made to Parliament.”
The Government responded, agreeing with the Committee that a detailed protocol would not be a good idea, but rejecting the solution proposed by the Committee and instead favouring the status quo.
On enforcement, the Procedure Committee recommended that complaints should be made to the Speaker in the first instance, and that the Speaker should have the power to dismiss trivial complaints and complaints made without basis. The Speaker could rule in cases where a minor breach had occurred. One might envisage a case where the Speaker receives a complaint and deems it to be a minor breach, and decides to allow an urgent question in the light of that complaint. The Procedure Committee did not envisage the Speaker rapping knuckles in all circumstances. There may well be cases where the granting of an urgent question is deemed sufficient. We also took the view that more serious cases should be referred by the Speaker to the Standards and Privileges Committee.
In their response, the Government did not even acknowledge our recommendations relating to the role of the Speaker, but they rejected our recommendation that complaints be referred to the Standards and Privileges Committee and maintained that the current range of sanctions was “adequate”. In our earlier debate, a number of Members, in particular the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), who is not in his place, discussed what sort of sanctions should be available, over and above what happens now. The Procedure Committee concluded that a recommendation from a Committee of the House that a Minister do come to this House and apologise was a sufficiently serious sanction, and that no new sanctions were required. The Government’s response to that was that our Committee’s recommendations were disproportionately severe, which I find a little odd.
I have looked at the Government’s response in detail, and in my view it is highly unsatisfactory. As I have said, the Government agree with the Procedure Committee that it would not be “practical or desirable” to have a “detailed protocol” trying to cover all eventualities, but they said that they did not support the Committee’s approach that the House should agree a motion in terms very similar to the current position as outlined in the ministerial code. The Government stated:
“It is not clear…what purpose would be served”
by such a motion, in which the current position is simply restated.
The Government had clearly failed to recognise the significance, although it was explained clearly in our report, which was that the House would be taking control of the protocol away from the Government. We are not envisaging setting up double jeopardy; we are saying that it should be the House that should decide—via the process of a complaint going to the Speaker and then, if necessary, to a Committee—whether the protocol had been breached, and not an obviously partial and forgiving Prime Minister, who is currently the arbiter. In saying that, I make no criticism of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, because the natural instinct of any Prime Minister will be to want to defend his or her Ministers—after all, the Prime Minister of the day appoints all Ministers in the first place.
Chris Bryant
It would sometimes be somewhat hypocritical if a Prime Minister were to complain about a Minister briefing, because often it is Downing street that briefs the policy change, rather than the Minister, doing so with the full knowledge and understanding of the whole ministerial team.
Mr Knight
That is a very good intervention and the hon. Gentleman underlines my point.
The Government response went on to suggest that an increase in the number of statements made and urgent questions granted means that
“there is no case for the protocol that the Committee proposes.”
I am not clear what the logic is in that response.
On enforcing the protocol, the Government repeated the assertion made in the oral and written evidence that the Procedure Committee received that the House already has a sufficient range of options to deal with cases in which statements are made outside Parliament first. The Government’s response went on to suggest that the involvement of the Standards and Privileges Committee would risk dragging that Committee into party political disputes, which they say would undermine
“the integrity of its role.”
That response does not acknowledge your role, Mr Speaker, as envisaged by the Procedure Committee, in acting as a “gatekeeper” against frivolous complaints. Under the system that we proposed, any complaint that was a mere cover for a party political row or dispute would be dealt with by you and, in my view, would never reach the Standards and Privileges Committee, which would be asked to determine only serious or complex breaches of the rules
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
I am not the only member of the Standards and Privileges Committee present, but I am probably the only one who is going to speak—and I note a nod from the Chairman, the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron), sitting on the Opposition Benches. I am not going to speak for the Committee, however, because quite simply it has not looked at the proposal at all, or responded to it, but it should, if we proceed any further with the suggestion—or with a report, because after this discussion it might be more appropriate for the Procedure Committee to take the matter back, look at it again and decide whether to change its approach or to submit the issue to the Standards and Privileges Committee.
As a former Minister, I remember the requirements of the ministerial code hanging over me like a heavy weight if I thought I was ever going to step out of line, and also—taking the advice of my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms), who is no longer in his place—decisions on whether it was appropriate. Many such statements are a matter of judgment, and one has to recognise that there are a vast number of statements.
Many statements relate to timing, to regions or, from my experience, to local authorities, and, if a local authority is awaiting a statement, it is appropriate to make it in that area. The thought of what would happen to the House if we were gummed up with every single statement coming out of the Department for Communities and Local Government alone is beyond the imagination.
There are leaks, but one only has to consider a Minister being stuck with a journalist, particularly one from TV or radio, who has come forward with either a leak or an educated—or an uneducated—guess and a question to which the Minister needs to respond to see how someone with a political motivation might take it as a statement that should have been made in the House, even though it might in fact be made in the House later.
It is quite inappropriate not to recognise those difficulties, but, if we follow the Procedure Committee’s suggestion, we will be hitting with a heavy sledgehammer what is generally—albeit with exceptions—a very small nut. My own experience, which is from some time back, was that there was little or no leaking. I do not remember any, but perhaps my memory is slipping.
If such a complaint were sent, through the normal procedures, to the Standards and Privileges Committee, it would first go to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, who is an official of the House. He would consider whether it was appropriate to investigate, but many such complaints would verge on the political, because the decision on the appropriateness of a statement made outside the House, whether substantial or not, is subjective and made by a Minister, with a measure of political judgment, be that with a small or large “p”. So, in effect, the motion asks for an officer of the House, the commissioner, to make a decision on a political issue, which I think would be absolutely inappropriate, as I believe and suspect the commissioner, from my discussions with him on other things, would, too.
Essentially, the Committee looks into complaints that Members have brought the House into disrepute. Decisions, including the Committee’s, are non-political, and the commissioner’s report is non-political. Most complaints fall by the wayside, because many sent to the commissioner—on the way to the Standards and Privileges Committee, if they ever get there—are political, are made by the public and are, quite often, from individuals who have been defeated in an election in a constituency. It is a well known technique, but fortunately it does not progress too far, because many such complaints are political, as many would be on the issue before us.
Ministers have to make a decision on a statement, but, with such rules hanging over a Minister, many statements would not be made outside the House when they should be; they would end up in the Chamber and, as I have already said, clog up the business. [Interruption.] There was an interjection, and, if the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) would like to stand up and interject, I might be able to respond, because I am hard of hearing and did not catch it.
Chris Bryant
That argument takes us to the point where we might as well do away with parliamentary government and just have government.
Sir Paul Beresford
The hon. Gentleman knows that I, of all people, would not follow that tendency of the previous Government. I absolutely disagree with him, and today’s examples, whether from this Government, the previous Government or the one before, have been of substantial leakages on substantial statements. The majority are not substantial, and we will clog up the business if we bring through all the minor statements, especially the regional or local ones.
We must also remember that we are, in effect, asking the Speaker, who must be non-political, to make a judgment on what will often be a political complaint. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) was correct to say that it would be inappropriate for it to be referred to the Speaker.
This debate will be helpful for the Standards and Privileges Committee if the matter is brought before it. However, the debate is being held too soon, because the matter will need to go before the Committee if the Procedure Committee decides, in the light of what is said, to go ahead with this technique. The Standards and Privileges Committee will have the opportunity to look at the whole issue again—I hope that it does—to think again, and possibly to look for another procedure to move forward with in the light of the comments that are made today.
Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)
On reading the motion, my initial instinct was to support it, as it seemed intrinsically to be a good idea. However, it has some weaknesses and there are practical issues that we have to consider.
I do not believe that any Minister would ever dream of acting in a dishonourable way by leaking information prior to coming to this House. However, these things can occasionally happen, perhaps through a casual conversation that has been picked up by a journalist and reported at a later stage. More fundamentally, there is the greater issue of the definition of what is important. In my constituency, something that is important to someone in Halfpenny Green, for example, may not be as important to someone in Codsall, Bobbington, Kinver, Featherstone, or many other places. I could come up with a large number of places where it is not as important as it might be in Halfpenny Green. What is the definition of “importance”?
Chris Bryant
I think that the hon. Gentleman used a great deal of irony at the beginning of his speech. I have always thought it would be good if Hansard could put comments in italics if they are made ironically. I am sure that he would agree that the Queen’s Speech and the Budget are equally of interest to his constituents in each of the different villages that he mentioned, as in those in my constituency. It is not all that difficult to spot what counts as an important issue.
Gavin Williamson
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. Yes, there are issues of great importance, such as the Queen’s Speech, Budget statements or the autumn statement. It would be nice if no details ever got out into the media before they got to this House, but the danger is that this motion could sweep up much more.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
This debate is the continuation of a debate that has gone on for centuries in another form. In the 18th century, the line was that the influence of the Crown had increased, was increasing and ought to be diminished. It is the perpetual, almost the eternal, job of this House to try to keep the Executive, Her Majesty’s Government, under check.
There is a wonderful picture in this House of the Commons trying to persuade Elizabeth I to marry. Elizabeth I said clearly, “It is not your business to talk about it.” Governments always wish to do that. They wish to maintain information for themselves, to use at their convenience. As a former Lord High Chancellor said, “Knowledge is power”. Governments preserve knowledge carefully. That is not an unreasonable thing for the Government to do from their point of view. However, the ministerial code, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), says otherwise. It is a splendid document, because its foreword shows the ambition of Her Majesty’s Government and the Prime Minister to restore people’s trust in politics:
“It is our duty to restore their trust. It is not enough simply to make a difference. We must be different.”
I discovered, thanks to listening to “Yesterday in Parliament”, that the previous Government leaked the whole time. Or perhaps, to go back to “Yes Minister”, the approach was “I brief, you leak, he breaks the Official Secrets Act”. There has been a change, and this Government have got rather better at putting Parliament first, coming to the Chamber and telling us what is going on rather than gratuitously leaking every little titbit of information that is available. They have therefore done something to move towards the ministerial code.
However, the ministerial code is a most unsatisfactory document. Although it runs, I think, to some 30 pages, the truth is that Ministers abide by the code as long as they maintain the confidence of the Prime Minister and, as shown by newspapers and other media outlets, of the British people. Those 30 pages are quite a lot of waffle around that main theme, whereas a resolution of the House is something substantial, solid and dignified. It seems to me that things that go on in this House ought to be regulated by the House of Commons, not by the ministerial code.
It is worth bearing in mind that one Deputy Prime Minister could punch an elector on the nose and still not be deemed to have broken the ministerial code in any way. I know that it was secret at that point whereas it is now a public document, but it seems to me that it is flexible in its interpretation. The fundamental point, as I said, is that Ministers must maintain the confidence of the Crown and of Her Majesty, as advised by her Prime Minister. Indeed, the code states that the Prime Minister is foremost within its application and is the judge and jury of it.
That brings us back to the motion, to how we should deal with statements that are leaked and to why statements should not be leaked. That is the rather important question that we have perhaps neglected slightly. With some honourable exceptions, everyone broadly feels that statements ought to be made to the House first, but why? Why does it matter that we hear things before the News of the World, as was, or Sky News or the BBC? The reason is that control of the news agenda gives the Government an extra advantage over the Opposition, over their critics and over those who wish to hold them to account, which they would not be able to afford themselves. That advantage is paid for by public money.
The Government are indivisible but have two parts and two hats. They are party political on the one hand, yet they are the impartial Administration of the nation’s affairs on the other. The Labour party has perhaps two dozen press officers sitting in its current headquarters, but the Government can have two dozen in a single Ministry, able to brief and guide the press. The same is true when the situation is the other way around—the Conservatives have a small number, and the Government still have a massive advantage in controlling the news agenda. They use taxpayers’ money to do that, rather than money given to them through free donations, and they use that power to guide the views of the nation.
Nobody pretends that propaganda is not powerful. We all know it is, otherwise Unilever would not be, as I believe it is, the second largest spender on advertising in the country. I believe the Government are still the largest. Propaganda underlies how all of this works, and it is why the Government are so determined to maintain control of their ability to leak statements when they feel it is right to do so. They feel that if they use that power, they can ensure their electoral popularity and their re-election, at the expense of the British taxpayer. That is when the other, non-political side of the Government has to say, “This is improper. This is wrong. It is all right while we are in office, but we will not be in office for ever. The other side will come in, and they will be more ruthless than we are. They will use this propaganda advantage to ensure their continuation in power.”
The check on that is, and has been for centuries, the House of Commons nit-picking, banging away at the Government and saying, “This isn’t right. We are holding you to account on this. Our electors want to know about this”. It is not about us, or the fact that we are here representing North East Somerset or other, lesser parts of the country. Actually, I cannot say that with my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) here, because I get into trouble if I am not very polite about Yorkshire on all occasions. We are representing our constituents, who wish us to hold the Government to account. Once we are elected, our constituents are not necessarily our political friends and supporters, but we represent every one of them and all their concerns.
I sympathise with the Government. I say that not because I am a loyal hack—I do not think I am the loyalest of loyal hacks—but because I absolutely understand the predicament in which they find themselves.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman referred to the non-political side of things, which I suppose in part means the civil service. One problem is that when we make an accusation—it could be an important one, such as, for instance, that the Government have issued false immigration statistics deliberately four days prior to the real statistics coming out—we write to Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, and he writes a beautiful episode of “Yes, Minister” back. The Cabinet Secretary will never find against a Minister. Without the motion, there is no proper arbiter.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is a model in opposition of how people ought to approach this matter. As I understand it, he was a model in government, although not as invariably successful as a model ought to be.
The hon. Gentleman raises the issue of the indivisibility of the Government, who are both political and impartial. In a sense, it is much easier to be a judge or to be the Speaker, because people in those positions are always impartial. The Government are always seeking re-election, but at the same time, they must make decisions in the interest of the nation impartially and fairly—one hears Ministers talk about being in a quasi-judicial position in certain circumstances. Parliament seeks to divide those indivisible roles and to say, “That bit is political. Therefore we are holding you to account for political reasons, not necessarily because we disagree on the benefit to the nation.”
The Procedure Committee debated with a great deal of amusement whether impeachment could be reintroduced. I would love to see the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) introduce articles of impeachment against a Minister whom he thought had misbehaved. If that did not work, perhaps he could go further and attaint a Minister, which would be the final sanction.
However, the Committee decided, cautiously and prudently —to some extent this answers the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms)—that, as the conclusion of part 1 of the report states,
“We do not believe that it is practical or desirable to produce a detailed protocol that would cover all possible situations”.
That is clearly right, because there will be circumstances in which Ministers must answer questions urgently—perhaps they would be pressed to do so or the financial markets demand it. However, there will also be occasions on which the Minister knows perfectly well that he has a jolly good, fat, juicy news story that he would like to put out to his chums and he does so. That is what we ought to be trying to stop.
I have great confidence in this Government when I think of what they have done so far to restore the standing of Parliament. We can see how much better debates are attended than they were under the previous Government.
Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
I have spent only a year and a half of my 46 years inside this place. I have observed that there is no time when the House of Commons makes itself more ridiculous than when it is suffused with self-serving piety. I accept that there is no one here with a greater claim to true piety than the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), and he has made, as he always does, some brave and bold arguments. However, it was with some relief that I saw my hon. Friends the Members for Poole (Mr Syms) and for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) breaking through that self-serving piety with a little common sense.
Chris Bryant
I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is accusing me of self-serving piety. For the avoidance of doubt, let me say that I have no piety about me.
Nick Boles
I was accusing the House of being suffused with self-serving piety and giving the hon. Gentleman a bye on the basis that his past suggests that true piety is one of his qualities.
Let me start with where I am in agreement with other Members, including my wonderful hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). Holding Government to account is one of Parliament’s primary functions, but it is not its only function. Parliament is also there to supply and support a Government.
If Parliament’s primary function is to hold Government to account, no Government in recent times have done more to strengthen the power of Parliament to do such a job. It was this Government who introduced elections by Back Benchers of Chairmen and of members of Select Committees. Previous Governments, including the one of which the hon. Member for Rhondda was a member, appointed as Chairmen people who unfortunately needed to be eased out of their ministerial berths, where they had not been a success, and to be bought off for the rest of the term of that Government. This Government have turned their back on that naked attempt to suborn Parliament and have empowered Select Committees through the introduction of direct elections by Back Benchers.
Sir George Young
None is the answer; urgent questions are in addition to the statements to which I have just referred.
I do not believe that the motion either sets realistic standards or proposes an appropriate path for what might follow from a departure from the standards. I say in passing that it also threatens to undermine the basis that all Ministers are equal under the ministerial code, because the motion applies only to Commons Ministers.
Chris Bryant
The Leader of the House is being slightly unfair. Often what happens—indeed, it happened today—is that a Member applies for an urgent question and the Minister, by some miracle, immediately decides that it would be a good idea to ask to make a statement. In those circumstances, would it not be a good idea if the Minister just started his statement with an apology?
Sir George Young
However one looks at the statistics, there has been a marked increase in the willingness of this Government to come to the House to make statements; the figures speak for themselves.
I turn to the question on which we disagree: whether or not the standards set out in the motion are the right ones. The Cabinet manual is clear that
“When Parliament is in session the most important announcements of government policy should, in the first instance, be made to Parliament”.
The words in the Cabinet manual were used in terms in the resolution of this House on 20 July, which again referred to “the most important announcements”. However, the motion before us today broadens the requirement massively, and in an open-ended manner, to “all important announcements”. At a stroke, the motion seeks to sweep away the intention of the Cabinet manual to draw a distinction between those matters that are properly for Parliament first and those matters that can be announced in other ways. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) said, almost all announcements made by the Government are important to someone. I commend the way in which he managed to get into his speech the names of a number of large villages in his constituency, and I am sure that the people in all those were delighted to hear of his commitment to them. If the House were to agree to this motion, it would replace a text that acknowledges the need for a sensible judgment about relative importance with a text that invites consideration of importance wholly in isolation.
The motion seeks to lay down a blanket requirement for statements to be made to the House first “on all occasions”, without any exceptions or qualifications. Let us consider a recent example. Does the House seriously imagine that the Government’s policy on the advice to be given to British nationals on travel to Iran should not have been announced before the House sat? Equally, the motion contains no recognition that certain market-sensitive announcements must be made when financial markets are closed. For example, a whole series of announcements by the previous Administration about Government support for the banks were made at 7 am. As the then official Opposition, we understood why Parliament could not be told first. If this motion is passed, any Minister making a similar announcement would face an inherent conflict between their obligations in relation to the financial markets and their obligations to this House.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Bryant Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
Next year also provides an opportunity for a grand national festival and celebration because of the Queen’s diamond jubilee. May I tell my hon. Friend that in Banbury and Bicester we are already planning for that event, and in Banbury we intend to hold the largest street party in the country?
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
And doubtless next year you will blame the jubilee for the collapse in the economy.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
In 2007, News International’s lawyers, as we now know but have recently learned, wrote to senior management at the News of the World, including James Murdoch, to make it explicit that the “sole rogue reporter” line was completely untrue. Does the Secretary of State really believe, with BSkyB’s annual general meeting coming up on 29 November, that James Murdoch is a fit and proper person to chair the company any longer?
Mr Hunt
The hon. Gentleman has campaigned extensively on this. The most important thing is that the truth comes out. James Murdoch is speaking to the Select Committee, Lord Justice Leveson is conducting an inquiry and there are extensive police inquiries. It would be inappropriate for me to make specific comments on who should do what job before the inquiries are completed, but this Government launched the process to resolve this and are doing everything possible to ensure that we end up in the right place.
Business of the House
Chris Bryant Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Sir George Young
We are committed to an agenda of deregulation. For example, there is the one-in, one-out rule; there is a deregulation unit working at the moment to see what further deregulation can be introduced; and we are working on the agenda of the report by Lord Young, introduced a year ago. I see no reason why we should not continue with that agenda and still remain full members of the European Union.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
We should not draw up the timetable for our business according to the convenience of Ministers; it should be about the convenience of this House. The Leader of the House has already committed in the coalition agreement to hand over the whole of our business to the Backbench Business Committee by the third year of this Parliament, which I reckon means—[Interruption.] Yes, it says “by” the third year; it does not say “in” the third year. I reckon that means that he has only 19 more sessions of business questions, so when will he bring forward the legislation or Standing Orders to ensure that we do hand over the whole of our business to the Backbench Business Committee?
Sir George Young
Unusually, the hon. Gentleman is wholly misinformed about the commitment in the coalition agreement. There is no commitment to hand over the whole of our business to the Backbench Business Committee.
Sir George Young
There is not. There is a commitment to establish a House business committee alongside the Backbench Business Committee. We are committed to doing that, and we remain committed to doing it in the third year of the Parliament.
Cabinet Secretary Report (Government Response)
Chris Bryant Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Sir George Young
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but in the last Parliament a number of Ministers from his party had to resign. We never made any suggestion that because one Minister had broken the code, all Ministers had broken the code, and it is important that similar accusations should not be made in this Parliament.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The trouble with the idea of trying to move on is that we are seeing a pretty shabby pattern in which the Prime Minister is given evidence, refuses to look at it but holds on for dear life to as many of his friends as he can. It happened with Coulson and it has happened again now. Now there is evidence about the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) and his apparent adviser, Miriam Maes. Will there be an investigation into that, too?
Sir George Young
On the first point, to say that the Prime Minister refused to look at the evidence is simply absurd as he looked at it, published it and has acted on it. As for the issues concerning the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the matter has been resolved. The person concerned is an adviser to the Department and not to a Minister.
Business of the House
Chris Bryant Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Sir George Young
It is suggested that my hon. Friend table an early-day motion to abolish early-day motions. He is not alone in believing that the costs of the current arrangements outweigh the benefits, but on the other hand many people place some value on early-day motions. Any debate on early-day motions should take place in Backbench Business Committee time and be informed by the views of the Procedure Committee; its Chairman was in his place a few moments ago, and I shall draw those remarks to his attention.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
There are only three more days allocated for private Members’ Bills before the end of this Session, but there are 96 such Bills now tabled for consideration on those days. Some of them are completely and utterly bonkers, because, frankly, they come from Members whose grasp of reality is somewhat strained anyway—[Interruption.] Mine is splendid, obviously. As only one more of those Bills is likely to become law in this Session, does that not show that the system for examining private Members’ Bills is now completely bust? We need to reform it. Before the Leader of the House says that that is up to the Chair of the Procedure Committee, could he please show some leadership on this matter in his remaining weeks as Leader of the House, as he will have to hand all the business over to the Backbench Business Committee by the start of the third Session?
Sir George Young
I was hoping that I had a little bit more than a week left in this post. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the Procedure Committee is looking at private Members’ Bills, the way in which they are treated, and whether it makes sense to deal with them on Fridays. We have allocated more Fridays to private Members’ Bills to reflect the length of this Session. Despite the hon. Gentleman’s rather dismissive remarks about the Procedure Committee, I think this is something that it is worth its while investigating.
Kris Hopkins (Keighley) (Con)
The Leader of the House will be aware that many of us have struggled to enjoy the rugby down under in recent weeks—
Procedure Committee Reports
Chris Bryant Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Gray
I cannot understand how my right hon. Friend has interpreted my amendment to mean that there should be no searching for information. Of course, there should be. The point of the amendment is that the devices could be used for any purpose connected to the debate, but for no other purposes. Of course, under the wording of my amendment as I understand it, they could be used to search for information.
Mr Knight
My hon. Friend is now telling the House what he wished his amendment would do rather than what it does. I could not recommend anyone to vote for such an amendment. He drafted it, and it takes out all references to the use of electronic devices in Committee. In my view, Members should have certainty in what they can and cannot do in Committee. Imagine a Member attending a Committee with their notes on an electronic device and the Chairman saying, “Well, in my Committee we don’t use these devices.” That Member would be left high and dry.
Chris Bryant
If we were to presume, in the way the right hon. Gentleman does, that Chamber practice was consistent with Committee practice, the rule allowing hon. Gentlemen to remove their jackets in Committee, which does not apply in the Chamber, would presumably lapse.
Mr Knight
If I may, I will come back to that point in a moment. I want to deal completely with Select Committee amendments first, but I will return to the hon. Lady’s point and, if she is not satisfied, I invite her to intervene on me again.
The Procedure Committee was invited by the Liaison Committee to look at the possibility of a tabling system that would enable Select Committees to table their own amendments. The current practice is that amendments agreed by a Select Committee may be tabled only in the names of individual Members, which makes it difficult to distinguish Committee amendments from those tabled by the same members of the Committee acting as individuals. After consulting interested parties, the Procedure Committee published a report recommending that the practice be changed to allow Select Committees to table amendments to Bills and motions in the name of the Chair, with a tag line indicating the name of the appropriate Select Committee. The advantage of that practice would be that it would offer clarity to the House and to individual Members, and enable anyone reading an amendment paper to see that an amendment had originated in a Select Committee. It was also felt that it would contribute to the effectiveness of Select Committees.
We recognised, however, that there could be disadvantages, as individual members of a Select Committee might disagree with a proposed amendment, either at the time of its adoption by the Committee or afterwards. To counter that, the Procedure Committee recommended that stringent safeguards be built into the process whereby Committees agreed amendments that carried the special status of Select Committee amendments. We suggested that such amendments would have to be formally agreed, without Division, by a quorate meeting of the Committee. That is a more rigorous requirement than that for Select Committee reports, which can be agreed by a simple majority.
The Committee rejected the idea that Select Committee amendments should be guaranteed debate, because of the constraints of programming, but we supported the adoption of a convention that the Chair should grant a Division when one is sought. Unfortunately, as the Chairman of the Liaison Committee has said, the Government have indicated that they oppose this innovation, and I understand that they continue to oppose such a modest, sensible move today. Indeed, I have seen the Patronage Secretary buzzing round the House, rather like a wasp, discussing this matter. I therefore suspect that there could be a Government payroll Whip on this Liaison Committee suggestion.
The Government object to the proposal because they feel that it would be wrong for an amendment to be marked as having the support of a Select Committee if some of the Committee’s members might be in disagreement. We have tried to address that difficulty by recommending stringent conditions that would have to be met before a Select Committee amendment could be tabled as such. They include the condition that notice must be given before the Committee could agree the amendment. The Government say, however, that it would still be possible under the new arrangement for any two members of an 11-member Committee to approve an amendment on behalf of the whole Committee, as the quorum is only three and the Chair has a casting vote. That is technically correct, but I would suggest that the requirement for notice would make it most unlikely—or, in practice, impossible—that that could happen against the wishes of a majority of active members of a Committee.
Chris Bryant
With due respect, I do not think that either the right hon. Gentleman or the Government are correct in what they say. In this House, unlike the House of Lords, the Chair of a Committee has a vote only when there is an equality of voices.
Mr Knight
The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. That makes my argument even stronger and the Government’s case even weaker, and I am grateful for his intervention.
Our proposal is merely intended to enhance the visibility of Select Committee issues, without in any way diminishing the position of individual members in voting for or against amendments on the Floor. This matter was not initially on our agenda, but the Liaison Committee asked us to look at it. We have done so, and this is our conclusion. I therefore hope that, even at this late hour, the Government will reflect on their opposition to it, which I feel is misplaced. We have given our view, and whether the proposal now proceeds further is a matter for the whole House.
I see the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) in her place. She was one of the Members who supported the idea of explanatory statements, which is the subject of one of the other motions on the Order Paper today. The House has conducted a series of experiments with explanatory statements, and the Procedure Committee has assessed them. We decided that the overall effect was inconclusive, but it was put to us that carrying out a further experiment in a new Parliament—namely, this one—could be worth while, and that it would also be worth pursuing the experiment during the Report stage of a Bill. That is what we have decided to recommend to the House, and we are pleased to note that, in a debate Westminster Hall on 3 February this year, which the hon. Lady attended, there was complete consensus that it would benefit not only Members but those outside the House to have an accompanying explanation of what an amendment or new clause was designed to do.
I am rather more hopeful about this proposal, because the Deputy Leader of the House attended that debate and—it was a rare situation indeed—offered Government support for the measure. He said:
“Regarding explanations for amendments, we had the experiment in Committee and I am certainly happy, as far as the Government are concerned, for that experiment to proceed. Perhaps we ought to look at having such explanations on Report, too.”—[Official Report, 3 February 2011; Vol. 522, c. 384WH.]
I wholeheartedly agree with him, and I am glad that, on this issue, we are as one. I hope that he will confirm today that he now thinks it appropriate for us to trial the explanatory notes again in this Session and the next one. It would then be a matter for the House to decide in due course whether the facility was to be made permanent.
On the question of having a three-month trial quota for questions tabled electronically, the concern arose from evidence—mainly informal—from the Table Office. It found, when questioning the intended scope of some questions tabled electronically in Members’ names, that some Members appeared to know nothing about the questions and registered surprise that they had been tabled in their name. The Procedure Committee took the view that, in some cases, research assistants might be using the electronic procedure to table questions without the express authority of those for whom they work.
Questions are a proceeding in Parliament and should not be submitted without the express and explicit authority of a Member of Parliament. As the electronic submission method could be used without the Member’s knowledge, we decided, in this area only, to limit the number of questions to five in a three-month period to see what the effect would be. We are not recommending any restriction on the number of questions that a Member may take into the Table Office personally. This is a modest recommendation, and we hope that it will lead to Members being fully aware that a question is being submitted in their name.
Caroline Lucas
I completely agree. The hon. Lady’s comments underline the fact that the proposal is not as complicated as rocket science; rather, it is an extension of the common-sense measures that are already in place.
Chris Bryant
I must have been reading different explanatory notes than the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) as I have never known them to explain anything. I fear that explanatory notes on amendments would be even worse, and I note that the report states:
“An explanatory statement is not required where the amendment is self-explanatory”.
Caroline Lucas
The hon. Gentleman can try to make fun of this proposal if he wants, but in the European Parliament it is mandatory to have an explanatory statement and it is incredibly useful. If it is condensed down to about 50 or 100 words and explains what a measure is intended to achieve, an awful lot more people will have an awful lot more sense of what is going on. If the hon. Gentleman wants to stand up and say he thinks it is absolutely fine that so many Members do not know what they are voting for, that is up to him, but I am not happy about that.
Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)
I understand that this proposal does not require the Government or anyone tabling an amendment to provide an explanation, but merely allows them to do so.
Zac Goldsmith
So it requires the Government to— I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention on my intervention.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
I am grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to speak and to Mr Speaker for selecting the amendment that stands in my name and those of a goodly number of right hon. and hon. Members from across the Chamber. I thank you for allowing a goodly amount of time for this important and useful debate. I do not intend to take up much of the House’s time, because a number of useful speeches have addressed most of the important arguments on both sides of the debate.
I very much agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), who started the debate by saying that this is a matter of taste, discretion and delicacy. There are not passionate arguments on either side. One side is not definitely right and the other side definitely wrong. It is a matter of how we handle such machines, what we use them for, what their purpose is and how we ensure that debate in the Chamber is as good as possible.
In fact, as is often the case when we discuss matters that affect ourselves, today’s debate on the issue has been among those of the highest quality that I have heard recently. My right hon. Friend’s Committee was split on the report; four of us have signed the amendment disagreeing with it. We go from his stance, which is that virtually any electronic device can be used for virtually any purpose either in the Chamber or in Committee, through to that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst), a former Deputy Speaker—he is by no means a dinosaur in this matter—whose broad view is that such devices should not be used for any purpose whatsoever.
I received a letter from a very senior Member with which I would not necessarily agree. He said that he felt that the rules applying in the House should be precisely the same as those applying at the opera—we should not use such devices at all—and there is some sense in that, although I do not necessarily agree with it.
Mr Gray
I shall not give the House a song; I fear that my voice does not rise to that.
I would not necessarily agree with the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), who focused on the use of electronic devices for Twitter. It is right that I suggested in the e-mail that I sent to all hon. Members that we should probably not use Twitter and blogging, although I will suggest how we might be able to use them. I am not necessarily totally opposed to the notion of twittering.
The main thrust of my amendment, and of my thoughts on the subject—and the thoughts of a great many hon. Members who have spoken to me—is that if we allow unfettered use of electronic devices, three things will happen. The first is that the quality of debate will decline. Let me give an example. Recently, I chaired a Public Bill Committee. Glancing round the room, I saw that some two thirds of the people on the Committee were using electronic devices for one purpose or another. That included the shadow Minister, the Minister, both Whips, and six or eight Back Benchers, one of whom, rather magically, was using two electronic devices simultaneously; how on earth he managed to do that I have simply no idea. It seemed to me that the fine technical point being made about the Pensions Bill—for that was the Bill—was not necessarily being considered carefully by the two thirds of the Committee who were using those machines at that time. Had I challenged members of the Committee to lay out precisely what the person speaking had just said, a very large percentage of them would have looked at me blankly, and would not have had the faintest idea what was going on.
I totally accept the point made by my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), that we can all multi-task. Of course we can; there is no question about that. MPs do it all the time. However, I simply do not believe that the finer points of argument in a debate will necessarily be picked up if one is focusing one’s mind on something else. The purpose of debate is not just for our own voices to be heard, or to get something on the record; we could do that by handing the speech in, as they do in the United States of America. The purpose of debate is to listen carefully to what the other person is saying, to pick up the other person on fine illogicalities in their speech, to make delicate points, and hopefully to come to some kind of useful conclusion. If a person is focusing on emptying their inbox, surfing the net, tweeting or who knows what else—famously, recently a member of the Italian Parliament was spotted surfing an escort site—while theoretically listening carefully to a debate, they are not taking part in it in the way that they should.
Mr Gray
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, I was a professional lobbyist for a number of years and so have no difficulty with that whatever. It is of course right that all sorts of interest groups around the world, from journalists to lobby groups, should be able to make their views known to us, but I am not certain about the propriety of a lobby group, the Whips or anyone else getting in touch with us during the course of a debate or a Select Committee evidence session to say, “Here’s an interesting point you ought to raise.” Would it really be right for outside interest groups to get in touch with us via electronic devices during Select Committee cross-examinations, for example of the Murdochs, and say, “Here’s something you ought to say”? I think that that would be an unreasonable intervention in our internal debates by outside influences.
Chris Bryant
Well, I was not a member of that Committee, but that is just one minor factual inaccuracy of several that we are passing by. The point I was going to make is that one of the oldest rights of members of the public and constituents is the right to come to the Lobby and demand that we come out of a debate to listen to their point of view, so I do not see the difference.
Mr Gray
The difference is extremely simple. Someone outside communicating via an electronic device during a debate is not equivalent to a member of the public coming to Central Lobby, filling in a green form and asking to speak to us; it is equivalent to a member of the public coming into the Chamber and saying, “Would the hon. Gentleman please ask this question?”, which I do not believe is right. We should be debating among ourselves and not excessively involving people outside.
Most people agree that excessive use of electronic devices is not a good thing. Two or three objections have been raised with me. The first relates to the fact that we must all sit here for six or seven hours before finally being called to speak. That could be corrected in two ways: first, Members could take a greater interest in the debate; and secondly, we could perhaps move to the system enjoyed at the other end of the Palace, where peers have some indication of when they will speak. You, Mr Deputy Speaker, and your colleagues tend to indicate when Members will be called to speak, but the notion that we should sit here clearing our inboxes or writing articles on electronic devices for local newspapers because we are a little bored and cannot be bothered to listen to a debate seems a thin argument.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Much of the debate on the use of hand-held devices—I note, Mr Deputy Speaker, that you called them “held-hand devices” when introducing the debate, but I am not sure what such a device might look like—reminds me of the Russian Orthodox Church, which in November 1917, while the revolution was gathering around it, spent its time debating whether to wear black or purple vestments for funerals. The honest truth is that the horse has bolted.
We can see them all round the Chamber: @ZacGoldsmith, @CarolineLucas, @lucianaberger, @SteveBakerMP and, of course, the brilliantly named @claire4devizes. All tweet regularly—[Interruption.] There is also @stellacreasy and many other Members.
Steve Baker
Even though I was named in January as the most influential MP on Twitter—ahead, even, of the hon. Gentleman—I am most concerned that we should get on to the next business before I am flayed alive by my constituents.
Chris Bryant
I understand, because the hon. Gentleman is the Member for Wycombe, and I know how such issues affect people there, but if he had not intervened, we would get on to the next business faster.
I want to correct a couple of points made by the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray). He seemed to think that I was on the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport. I should point out that I am not @tom_watson. There are a few differences between us, although we are often seen together.
I should also say that although he has been much misquoted, John Bright, the Liberal Member of Parliament, did not say that we—the House of Commons—were the mother of Parliaments; he said that England is the mother of Parliaments. That is because he believed—this is an important point—that we had to be transformed as history is transformed. I would say that Parliament has always been bad at opening itself up to the public. Indeed, in 1376 we first decided that we would take an oath of secrecy to ensure that nobody outside this place knew what was going on here. It took many centuries to get rid of that oath of secrecy, which was why John Wilkes ended up being expelled from the House of Commons on four occasions and had to be re-elected before eventually being allowed to publish what went on this House.
It is not a question of being dinosaurs or anything else; it is about opening Parliament up to the wider world around us, so that people can understand everything that goes on here. It is not for our convenience, but for our constituents’ convenience. The world has changed. When I was first elected in 2001, the vast majority of my constituents got in touch with me by coming to a constituency surgery. Now the vast majority get in touch by Facebook, Twitter, e-mail and, sometimes, text messages. We should make that more possible for our constituents, not more difficult.
Incidentally, I wholeheartedly agree with @KevinBrennanMP, who said earlier that proper wi-fi should be available in the Chamber so that people can engage properly. I disagree with the hon. Member for North Wiltshire that only urgent messages should be dealt with. Who on earth will decide what an urgent message is? It is my constituents who should decide what an urgent message is.
Chris Bryant
If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I will not give way, because others want to get on to the next debate.
I have this picture in my mind of the Speaker going over to an hon. Member and demanding to see their last tweet or this place setting up “Oftwit” to ensure that Members are behaving properly. The hon. Member for North Wiltshire has only to listen toour constituents to find out what they are moreinterested in.
Members have said how inappropriate it would be if facts were brought to bear in debate, but that is what the officials Box is there for. [Interruption.] I see them smiling. Perhaps we should abolish the officials Box, so that Ministers have to rely on their own wit and intelligence. Would it not also be good if “Erskine May” was available online so that people could refer to it in the Chamber instead of having to buy a copy for several hundred pounds?
I want to respond to a couple of points that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) made. She is absolutely sincere in wanting to make our business more intelligible to people. However, I would like to know how explanatory notes to amendments would stand legally if an amendment were carried. There is a danger in proceeding down that route. In addition, I would have thought that the whole point of a debate on an amendment was to decide what it meant and what it did; just accepting at face value what the hon. Member who tabled it had said would not assist.
Chris Bryant
I shall not give way, because I want to be circumspect.
Finally, I look forward to the day when we have on Twitter @RogerGaleMP—and, for that matter, @15thcenturyMP, or perhaps he would be called @JacobReesMoggMP. I should also point out to the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), who is not in his place, that one of his constituents has begged me on Twitter this afternoon to ask him to reinstate his Twitter account so that his constituents can get in touch with him better.
Business of the House
Chris Bryant Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Sir George Young
Yet again the right hon. Gentleman has made no substantive criticism of the business the Government have laid before the House for the next two weeks. He will have noted that we have allocated two days for the Report stage of a Bill, which was virtually unheard of in the Government of whom he was a member.
On statistics, may I say to the right hon. Gentleman that he should look carefully at the dates to which the statistics that he read out apply. He might well find that the Prime Minister’s statistics were perfectly accurate, and that the ones that he used were also accurate. The period over which one takes statistics is crucial, and ‘twas ever thus.
On the Boundary Commission, it is indefensible that a constituency such as Arfon currently has some 40,000 voters, whereas East Ham has more than 90,000. That is the position that the boundaries Bill, which is now on the statute book, was set to address. We are also reducing the numbers of Members of Parliament. This House is the largest directly elected Chamber in the whole of Europe, and we believe that Members can perfectly adequately represent 77,000 people, and many already do. I am sorry if the right hon. Gentleman has been inconvenienced by the proposals. I understand that there might be an interesting discussion between him and the shadow Chancellor, and my sympathies are entirely with him. He knows better than anybody that the place to make such representations about boundaries is not in the House, but to the Boundary Commission.
Sir George Young
This is my fifth boundary review. I have been expanded, reduced and abolished. These reforms have no surprises.
The right hon. Gentleman raised a serious issue about the fees that are payable on the registration of a death. The issue may arise from the coroners legislation, and I will ask the Lord Chancellor to write to him with a response.
The right hon. Gentleman ended with a reference to Mr Hilton. Last week, the right hon. Gentleman bombarded me with seven requests for debates, and I assumed that the Opposition would choose at least one of them for the Opposition day on Tuesday, but not one of the subjects that he felt were so important last Thursday appeared on the agenda. I think we have rumbled him. For him, these sessions are just as much opportunities to display his great sense of humour as to make serious bids for debates.
Sir George Young
Indeed, for four years. He therefore has some insight into the planning process. I indicated earlier that I would welcome a broader debate on planning policy so that the myths can be laid to rest.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House set aside time every week for “PMT”? As I understand it, his defence of the Prime Minister is that when the Prime Minister says something, for us to understand the statistic we just need to know the timeline he is applying to it. If the Prime Minister had a “Prime Minister’s Timeline” session every week, we would be able to understand that when he says, “Growth in the UK is bigger than in the United States of America”, he means that that was so under a Labour Government.