Registration of Members’ Financial Interests

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I commend the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) for bringing an important matter to the attention of the House. I am sure that many will want to pursue the issues that he raised in many different places, not least the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes). I want to correct the hon. Gentleman on just one word that he used. He referred inadvertently to the all-party parliamentary group “for” Islamophobia, but I think it is the all-party group “on” Islamophobia. Sometimes even prepositions are important.

I confess that motion 2 is on the Order Paper perhaps because several right hon. and hon. Members think that I got the matter wrong when I was a Minister. I see the Leader of the House winking at me now, possibly because he agrees that I got it wrong. I commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) for his stewardship of the Standards and Privileges Committee. The hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) said earlier how important it is that my right hon. Friend is not only a long-standing Member of the House but a long-standing member of that Committee, and that that is an important element in his work. For that matter, he was also the Chair of another Select Committee.

The answer that we have come up with in the motion is, I believe, the wrong answer. I do not intend to press it to a Division, but I believe that we have the wrong answer, and I shall explain why. There is no great problem with the rules as they are currently drafted. The Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of the House disagree with me, as they did when I was a Minister, but I believe that they have presented the nature of the problem wrongly.

The Deputy Leader of the House was absolutely right about the entry of the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson). There was no need for her to record the receipt of Girlguiding centenary merchandise, flower festival flowers and all the rest of it. Nor was it necessary for the Leader of the House himself to record that he was presented with a bottle of 2008 Beaujolais Villages valued at approximately £10—incidentally, it can be bought in most places in Rhondda for about £6.50—after he spoke at Bishop Wordsworth’s Church of England grammar school for boys for 45 minutes. If that was honestly the advice that hon. Members were given by the registrar, I think it was inappropriate advice.

A distinction should be made to identify clearly those cases in which a reasonable person would think that somebody was being given remuneration for providing a service, and in none of those cases would it seem to a reasonable person that somebody was being remunerated. I would use this rule: if I had not been given that bottle of wine, pen or whatever, would I still have made the speech? Would I still have opened the Girlguiding centre or whatever? The honest truth is yes, I would. It would not have made the blindest difference to me. That is the rule that a reasonable person would follow. I know the registrar, I have always followed her advice and I respect her enormously, but she might have used a legalistic understanding of the rules that would not in all honesty be followed by any of our constituents.

Let us imagine for the moment that the registrar is right and that all those cases should have been registered. Has it done any great harm that they have been registered? I do not believe it has done any harm to anybody. There is a greater sense of transparency, and I do not think that that is a problem. However, let us say for argument’s sake that we should not make a distinction between gifts and remuneration. There is an argument for that. It could be argued that any gift we receive for doing something—after speaking at a meal, for example—whether to the value of £400, £500 or whatever should be considered in exactly the same way. However, that is not the proposition before us this evening. The proposition is that a gift should be registered if it has a value in excess of 1% of salary, and that remuneration should be registered if it has a value in excess of one tenth of 1%. [Interruption.] I think that the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee is disagreeing with me. If he wants to intervene, I am happy to give way—but he does not. I can see an argument for not making a distinction at all and for having exactly the same level for gifts and remuneration. However, I cannot see an argument for introducing a new concept at £65.

[Simon Hughes]

The hon. Gentleman might have just answered my point. To people reading and listening, talking in money terms is as relevant as percentages and tenths of percentages. Out there, people just want to know how much money we are getting or what the monetary value is.

[Chris Bryant]

That is another good point. To be honest, I think it makes more sense to have a fixed amount. The old rule used to be £125 for registration. At the moment, the limit is zero, but if the motion is passed tonight, it will move to something in the region of £65 or £66. I would prefer the number to be fixed, so that it is perfectly intelligible to every member of the public.

We all use a layer of common sense. I am chair of the all-party group on Russia. As hon. Members might know, I have adopted a very hawkish attitude towards the Russian Federation. I believe that there are many abuses in Russia and, as chair of the all-party group, I have tried to advance that argument. Now, I must confess that I was given a bottle of vodka by the Russian embassy at Christmas. I did not believe it to be a remuneration for the questions I had asked or the tenor of the debate I had conducted in the House, so I did not even bother to ask the registrar whether I should have registered that bottle of vodka. I have always been a bit suspicious about some gifts so, as it happens, I have not even opened that bottle of vodka, which is still sitting precisely where I put it when it arrived. I suspect that I will probably not get any more bottles of vodka from the Russian embassy.

If one pursued the Deputy Leader of the House’s logic, one could argue that if a Member is invited to dinner by an embassy and, somehow or other, they speak at that dinner—whether or not they are actually the speaker at the dinner—that is remuneration. However, I just do not think that that meets the common-sense test. I honestly believe that the proposition before us this evening is the wrong proposition. I can see an argument for perfect equality between gifts and remuneration, but I cannot see the argument for what is before us this evening.

Finally, on all-party groups, I agree with the hon. Member for Harlow in that when I became the chair of the all-party group on Russia, a large number of people suddenly started ringing me offering to work in the secretariat. I am sure that some did so with perfectly good intentions; I am also sure that some did so with not-so-pure intentions, because they wanted to grind an axe in relation to Britain’s attitude towards Russia. The more that all-party groups can assert some genuine independence, the better. That is why the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that it is important to look at the process for providing an all-party group with a secretariat.

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[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) and others. I am not certain that security vetting solves all problems. The number of people who have been assassinated by their own bodyguards suggests that there might be a weakness in that.

[Chris Bryant]

It is worth bearing it in mind that the person working as the secretary for the all-party parliamentary group on Russia, prior to my becoming the chairman, is supposedly being thrown out of the country by the Government, yet managed to get a security pass here.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

I recall that about 25 years ago, the London representative of the Palestine Liberation Organisation was assassinated for being too moderate. Many people who take part in public affairs are at risk, which is one of the risks that an open society faces in peacetime just as it does at times of war.

Let me say to the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) that, although I do not intend to try to divide the House on the first motion, I think it would be better to specify 0.2% or 0.3% of the parliamentary salary. A long time ago, when I was a Minister, I visited a country in south-east Asia and was presented with a tin bowl. I saw the same bowl in a shop priced at the equivalent of £130 in local currency, so I gave it to my private secretary. At the airport on my way home, I saw it again priced at £65, so I asked for it back. [Laughter.]

There will be boundary problems of that kind whatever limit is set, but my general view is that a limit of £130 or £180 would be better, and that it would be even better to make the limit the same as that applying to gifts presented to Ministers. As for the question of Members’ including on their websites gifts whose value was below the minimum, the registrar could advise us if we tried to include details that were not required according to the interpretation of the rules.

In view of your ruling, Mr Deputy Speaker, I shall not add to what has already been said about the motion on all-party groups. If it is possible for me to attend the meeting of the all-party group that has been mentioned, I will happily do so.

Let me, in passing, pay tribute to some people in my constituency. When I was involved with students from the Three Faiths Forum, I was delighted that the senior Jewish woman in my constituency was willing to meet us, as were representatives of the local Islamic society and mosque, the Salvation Army and the Worthing Churches Homeless Projects. It was immensely valuable that people were able to share that experience, and learn along with members of other faiths and people with different views. I also pay tribute to members of my local mosque, who have been pleased to attend the holocaust memorial event in Worthing. I hope that its organisers will at some stage focus on the massacre at Srebrenica. It should be borne in mind that the most recent modern massacre in Europe was a massacre of Muslims, both secular and otherwise, by people claiming membership of other religions.

I have no strong views on the issue of all-party groups, but there seems to have been a bit of “creep”. Paragraph 13(b) on page 5 of the “All-Party Groups” report by the Committee on Standards and Privileges, the eighth report of Session 2008-09, HC 920, states that in future such groups should have to

“register any commercial company with a direct interest in the work of the APG which contributes materially (say more than £5,000 or 5%, whichever is the lower) to meeting the central costs of the charity.”

According to the motion,

“The charity or not-for-profit organisation must agree to make available on request a list citing any commercial company which has donated either as a single sum or cumulatively more than £5,000”.

Perhaps the Minister who replies to the debate will tell us whether the movement from the requirement for a “direct interest” to no qualification was deliberate, and, if it was not, whether it could be considered when the resolutions are before the House.

Let us suppose that, for instance, the Army Benevolent Fund were to provide the secretariat for an issue-based all-party group. I am not saying that it should do so. Given that it has raised millions of pounds for our armed forces, I think that it would be going too far to have to list every commercial company that has given it money for that purpose, whether by gift aid or otherwise. At one stage I was chairman of the Church of England children’s society. A fair amount of money was donated to us by commercial companies for events and other purposes. I think that we might be putting a burden on some charities and not-for-profit causes if the resolution followed the motion—which will obviously be accepted—rather than the committee’s report.

Let me return briefly to the issue of earnings as opposed to gifts. For a number of years I have tried to avoid having any outside earnings. I failed in the current year, because I wrote an obituary for a friend and, rather to my surprise, received a cheque from the newspaper that kindly published it. I have given the money away, but it clearly constituted earnings, and I think that I am obliged to declare it. I believe that the sum was £300. A long time ago, between 1979 and 1984, I was personnel director of a fairly major commodities trading company. I should have been very prepared to declare the salary that I received for that.

On another occasion, I was an adviser to the International Fund for Animal Welfare. I gave it advice that it did not take and did not want, but its founder asked whether I would do more work for it, which I did, although it did not take any notice of what I said. That relationship came to an end in time.

What is clearly employment or something done for the purposes of an organisation for which one is paid should be declared, and what one is doing outside ought to be. However, I have a warning. Let us suppose that Peter Thurnham, who was a colleague at one stage in this House and who bought two machine tools when he was unemployed and set up an engineering business, entered the House of Commons when the business was on its feet. How would he calculate the time that he was putting into the business? That seems to be a very difficult thing to do. When James Callaghan was a farmer after being Prime Minister, how much time did he put into it? When Michael Foot was writing his biography of the founder of the health service, how much time did he put into it? If I, for example, had to put in the number of hours that I spent on the obituary, I would have to guess. It is obvious that we have to be prepared to put down rough and ready figures, which will not be easy.

The key point is to back a system where people will feel embarrassed if they know that they are doing something wrong, rather than having an enormous box-ticking exercise. I hope that when we ask the Committee on Standards and Privileges to review the matter and it conducts a consultation, more people will agree that 0.1% is too low and could be at least doubled or trebled without disadvantage to the House or to the interests of the public.

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[Mr Barron]

I will make sure that the hon. Gentleman gets that information.

The Committee also said:

“The trivial nature of some of these payments and the disproportionate effort involved in recording and then registering them has called into question the utility of the rule. The February 2010 edition of the Register contained over 100 more pages than the June 2008 edition.”

The figures were 264 pages as opposed to 157. If what we have heard is correct, it is clear that the many hon. Members who have not registered bouquets of flowers, pots of honey and so on could eventually find that they are outwith the register. Given those circumstances, we need to address this area.

[Chris Bryant]

The main change was that previously we had to register remuneration in our capacity as a Member of Parliament and we did not have to register things all the way down. We have introduced much greater transparency, which has meant that we now know about earnings of hon. Members that have nothing to do with their membership of the House.

[Mr Barron]

I accept that, although I believe that my hon. Friend said that he saw no real difference between gifts and remuneration. It seems to me that if I make a speech to a company and am given a £500 gift, it is more likely that that is remuneration, it is declarable and should be declared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. As I said in my opening speech, this is a grey area and we are trying to make things as clear as we can. Both these motions will help the House and I hope that the House will support them.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That—

(1) this House agrees with the recommendations in the Tenth Report of the Committee on Standards and Privileges, on Registration of income from employment (HC 749);

and

(2) accordingly the resolution of the House of 30 April 2009 relating to the Registration of Members’ Financial Interests be amended, by leaving out paragraph (2) and inserting:—

“(2) That such a payment shall be registered

(a) where its value exceeds one tenth of 1 per cent. of the current Parliamentary salary; or

(b) where the total value of payments from the same person, organisation or company in a calendar year exceeds 1 per cent. of the current Parliamentary salary.”

All-party groups

Resolved,

That—

(1) this House agrees with the recommendations in the Eighth Report of the Committee on Standards and Privileges of Session 2008-09, on All-Party Groups (HC 920); and

(2) accordingly the resolution of the House of 17 December 1985, as amended on 10 March 1989 and 29 July 1998, be further amended by leaving out paragraph 3 and inserting:—

“3. Groups whose membership:

• is open to all Members of the House of Commons and House of Lords, and

• includes at least 20 Members (each of whom must be a Member of the House of Commons or House of Lords), comprising: at least 10 Members who are from the same political party as the Government, and at least 10 who are not from the Government’s party (of whom at least six must be from the main opposition party), and

• includes at least one officer who is a Member of the House of Commons be required to register the following information on the Register of All-Party Groups:

(a) The full title of the group. If persons other than Members of the Commons or Lords are allowed full membership (i.e. voting rights) the term ‘Associate Parliamentary Group’ must be included in the group’s title. If such persons are not allowed full membership the term ‘All-Party Parliamentary Group’ must be included instead. The rest of the group’s title should simply reflect the group’s subject so that the latter is obvious from its title alone.

(b) A brief summary of the group’s main purpose.

(c) The names of the group’s officers. At least one officer must be an MP; each of the other officers must be a Member of the House of Commons or House of Lords.

(d) The names of exactly 20 qualifying Members (each of whom must be a Member of the House of Commons or Lords), comprising: 10 Members who are from the same political party as the Government, and 10 who are not from the Government’s party (of which at least six must be from the main opposition party).

(e) The contact details of the group’s registered contact, who must be both an officer of the group and a Member of the House of Commons, and is the person ultimately responsible for the group’s compliance with the rules of the House.

(f) Any relevant gainful occupation of staff to the group who hold a parliamentary pass (relevant gainful occupation means any occupation that is advantaged by the privileged access afforded by the pass).

(g) The source and extent of any financial benefit (e.g. donations) and the source and nature of any non-financial material benefit (e.g. provision of goods or services) received by the group from a single source outside Parliament, if the value of the benefit equals or exceeds the financial threshold for registration (currently £1,500) in a calendar year. Once the group has made that initial registration, any further donation received from the same source in the same calendar year should be registered if its value exceeds £500.

(h) The website address of any organisation registered as the group’s secretariat.

(i) If a consultancy is registered as the group’s secretariat, the names and website of the consultancy plus the name of any client of theirs who is specifically paying the consultancy to act as the secretariat must also be registered. The consultancy must either publish on its website its full client list or agree to provide such a list on request, otherwise it is not allowed to act as the group’s secretariat.

(ii) If a charity or not-for-profit organisation is registered as the group’s secretariat, the former’s name and website must also be registered. The charity or not-for-profit organisation must agree to make available on request a list citing any commercial company which has donated either as a single sum or cumulatively more than £5,000 in the course of the 12 months prior to the month in which the request is made, otherwise it is not allowed to act as the group’s secretariat.

(i) The address of the group’s website, if it has its own website.

(j) The date of the group’s inaugural election of officers and of any Annual General Meeting held thereafter.

(k) Affiliation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union and Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, if the group is affiliated to either or both.”—(Mr Barron.)

Business of the House

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend is right—there are 75,000 more apprenticeships and we have protected the science budget. This is, indeed, laying the foundations for future growth.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House did not make any reference to Bills coming back from the House of Lords in his statement. I presume that is because he knows that Report in the House of Lords can take up to eight or nine days and that Third Reading cannot be on the same day as Report, so there is currently no prospect of the Government getting their Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill in time for a referendum on the alternative vote on 5 May unless they make consensual concessions. Will he urge his colleagues to do that?

I think it was a slip of the tongue when he said earlier that the cut in the number of MPs would apply during this Parliament. I know the Government have been threatening guillotines in the House of Lords, but culls in the House of Commons might be a step too far.

Parliamentary Reform

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I support the hon. Lady. Such a reform would also help with the House’s family-friendly policies. I make no complaint about that. I have not seen my seven-year-old son since Sunday night, and I will not see him until I get back at 9 o’clock tonight. I do not always want to stay on Fridays, not only because of constituency duties but because it is the only day of the week when I can take my son to school. My constituency is 225 miles away. The opportunity for a deferred vote on a private Member’s Bill on a mid-week day or consideration on another day would be ideal for both purposes.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady has unanimous support.

[Caroline Lucas]

I shall proceed while I am on a roll. Another issue, albeit small, is the adoption of more accessible language, which would increase the transparency of this place and give some indication that we want people to understand what we are doing. All too often it looks as though we are deliberately mystifying what we do here to create the illusion that it is even more special than it is. There is a strong case for a systematic overhaul of the language to make it more self-explanatory. If the language of the Commons was made easier to understand, more people, especially younger people, would be more attracted to politics. MPs should be able to use each other’s names. We should drop phrases that, to the public, look at best like arcane jargon but at worst make Parliament seem inaccessible, distant and remote. Why should MPs not refer to each other in debate as Mrs Smith or John Jones? That would make proceedings more intelligible without reducing the necessary formality and without changing the practice of speaking through the Chair. A methodical overhaul of the language of the procedures and offices of the House based on the principle that it should be self-explanatory and easily understandable for the public should not be beyond something on which we can all agree.

In conclusion, we will all have many ideas about how we can improve the way in which this House works. The early-day motion to which this debate has been tagged is suggesting not specific changes but the idea that there should be some mechanism whereby a range of different ideas can be discussed and taken forward. I recognise that the Procedure Committee is doing excellent work, but it is already stressed in terms of its capacity to take on some of the very big issues that it is dealing with, such as sitting hours.

I hope that I have demonstrated not just my own wish list but also that other Members have ideas that need to be considered. I am passionate about the subject; Parliament has to become more effective so that it can better serve the nation. It cannot continue to be seen to waste taxpayers’ money and MPs’ time on antique processes that are not fit for purpose. Even where there is disagreement on the details, I hope that hon. Members will accept that my underlying concern is that much more can be done so that MPs are more efficient and more easily understood. Given that, we have a duty to be more effective about the way in which we work.

During the past couple of years, the public have heard a lot of warm words about a new politics. In the wake of the expenses scandal, hon. Members will recall the words of the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) before he became Prime Minister. He said that

“this political crisis shows that big change is required. We do need a new politics in this country. We do need sweeping reform.”

Last year, the Deputy Prime Minister told the House:

“Every Member of this House was elected knowing that this Parliament must be unlike any other—that we have a unique duty to restore the trust in our political system that has been tested to its limits in recent times.”—[Official Report, 5 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 23.]

In 2009, we heard similar things from senior Labour figures. The right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), now Leader of the Opposition, said:

“Out of a set of terrible issues, this is a moment for big reform and government must take advantage of it. We need a more pluralistic political system where power is shared in different ways.”

The former shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), was right when he said with characteristic colour:

“The current public mood of anger and disquiet... demands a response. We need to overhaul the engine, not just clean the upholstery.”

I hope that my points this afternoon are not simply seen as “cleaning the upholstery.” The upholstery needs cleaning; we can make the way in which we work more efficient, but there are other more fundamental issues about how we hold the power of the Executive to account. I know that several other hon. Members will raise those issues as well, and I look forward to the debate.

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[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

I am going to be slightly meaner in my disposition towards interventions; otherwise I shall never get through my argument. The hon. Lady’s point is absolutely relevant to something that I will say later in response to the proposals by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion.

The House has renewed itself, and the fact that we are in this Chamber is one symbol of that. The fact that we are here at the behest of a Backbench Business Committee is further testament to the fact that we are capable of doing things differently. At first, this Chamber was greeted with suspicion, but it is now readily embraced and is ripe for further exploitation—a point that is also made in the Hansard Society paper. Why not use this Chamber for uncontentious Second Reading debates? Why not repeat the experiment with cross-cutting question sessions, which was cast aside too lightly? Why not table questions to the person representing the House of Commons Commission or the Church Commissioners in this Chamber, rather than in the main Chamber? We might also bring into the sequence the Chair of the Finance and Services Committee or the Chair of the Administration Committee—I mention the last of those modestly. The fact is that such things should be open to more questioning by hon. Members.

[Chris Bryant]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

I want to press on, because many hon. Members want to speak.

A lot of change has taken place in my time. Radio and TV have come in, and broadcasters have progressively achieved more flexible access. All-night sittings have almost been expunged, and sittings beyond 10 pm are now rare. The programming of legislation is now the norm. Departmental Select Committees were only set up in 1981. Notice for questions is now shorter, and topical questions have been introduced. Deferred Divisions have been set up. New technology is being cautiously embraced. Time limits have been introduced on speeches, and we could go further with that in Committee, on Report and during discussion of private Members’ Bills. The Backbench Business Committee has been established. Elections are now rife, giving more power to Back Benchers. The Standing Orders are continually being changed—the ink is hardly dry on the paper, such has been the pace of reform.

The Hansard Society paper has a great many good ideas in it, particularly regarding the legislative process. I do not want to go into that in detail, but I commend the paper as a subject for further discussion. Let me be up-front, however, about where I caution against change. This Parliament is a debating chamber—that is what distinguishes it from many other Parliaments—and our performance is of high quality. We should keep away from the idea of written speeches, which kill debate.

I would keep the indirect form of address. Having watched the Parliament and, worse, the state Parliaments in action in Australia, I have seen abuse to which the direct form of address gives rise, which is shocking. Our system acts as a filter, ensuring that debates are conducted in a civilised manner. The fact is that we also forget the names of colleagues across the Floor half the time, so referring to them as “the hon. Member” is a good cover.

The House should not press for the list of speakers in a debate to be published. Having spent 13 years handling such situations, I know that hon. Members are not entirely reliable in their relationships with the Chair. The Chair tries to make up for that by being considerate and juggling lists to enable hon. Members to go off and do things that suddenly arise. Under the list proposal, however, the hon. Member who did not turn up— unfortunately that happens quite a lot—would then find that the local press were on to them to ask why they had not been present for a debate. The proposal is not, therefore, quite the obvious solution it might be thought to be. Furthermore, someone who thinks that they know when they will speak in a debate might absent themselves for rather more of the time, so I am not sure that the proposal is entirely forward-looking.

I am very suspicious about electronic voting at a single time of day. There is the question of amendments being contingent one on another. If we want a process that increasingly divorces debate from decision, that is the way to go, but there are times when we have to dispose of one amendment before we can logically go on to the next, and that has not been sufficiently thought through.

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[Chris Bryant]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend would consider an idea that was suggested earlier, which is having Second Reading debates of private Members’ Bills in Westminster Hall with the vote subsequently, at a fixed time, as a deferred Division in the main Chamber.

[Natascha Engel]

Absolutely. To widen that point, I want to see Westminster Hall being used as a more experimental Chamber. As the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden said, some of the experiments that were conducted in the past worked and some did not. That is what experiments are all about, to see whether or not they work, and unless we actually have a go at them we will not find out. Westminster Hall seems to be exactly the type of forum where we can conduct those experiments. I would have ministerial statements and any number of things taking place in Westminster Hall that currently we may or may not do in the main Chamber.

I want to make a very broad point before I make my one suggestion for parliamentary reform. That broad point is about being very clear what we as parliamentarians do and to make that our starting point for reform. I was with the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion when we were giving evidence to the Procedure Committee on reforming sitting hours, in a pre-inquiry seminar, and one of the points that emerged is that every MP is different. There are different parties, but MPs are also different as individuals. They have different lives, different backgrounds and different experiences that they bring to Parliament. No one way of doing things will suit everybody, but we have come quite far from there being a clear idea of what we do in Parliament. The increasing focus that we have given our constituency work, which is something that has been happening over a long period, not only undermines the work that used to be done by local councillors and local authorities—work that they should be doing—but there has been a direct correlation between the amount of time that we spend doing very local constituency casework and the amount of time that we do not spend scrutinising legislation in Parliament and holding the Executive to account. I wonder whether the Hansard Society would like to carry out some proper research into that issue. It is a very important case that we need to make.

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[Simon Hart]

On the basis that the First Minister was sitting at the front and everybody was behind him, I suppose that there was a connection with that word. However, I felt that this week’s Prime Minister’s questions was a bit like going to the Oval to watch the cricket, only to find that it had been rained off and having to sit under an umbrella waiting for something to happen.

[Chris Bryant]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Simon Hart]

I would be delighted to give way, as always.

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[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Benton. I will take careful note of what you have said and restrict my comments by not repeating many of the points that other Members have raised. However, it would be remiss of me not to start by congratulating the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing the debate.

I repeat the fact that I am a member of the Procedure Committee, and I have listened carefully all afternoon to the points everyone has made, and will continue to do so for the rest of the debate. I do so with an open mind. It is important that matters of parliamentary reform be considered from the basis of how we can best do our job most effectively. What is the best way that we can conduct our affairs for the benefit of our constituents?

One major problem is not so much the quantity of legislation that Parliament produces, but its quality. I am obliged to the Hansard Society for drawing my attention to the increasing volume of legislation that has been passed by Parliament over the years:

“In 1950 Parliament passed 3,690 pages of legislation. By 1970 this had grown to 5,990 pages and by 1990 to 8,940. But just over 15 years later the number of pages had almost doubled to 16,031.”

Looking just at criminal offences, it states:

“All criminal offences passed between 1351 & 1988”—

a period of 637 years—

“are contained in one volume of Halsbury’s Statutes of Criminal Law encompassing 1,382 pages of law. The offences for the 19 years between 1989 and 2008 are contained in three volumes encompassing 3,746 pages!”

There is plenty of evidence that whatever else Parliament may be criticised for, it certainly cannot be criticised for lack of productivity. Whether we are producing legislation of high quality is another matter. One idea, if I could throw my six penn’orth into the reform idea pot, is for more pre-legislative scrutiny and the improvement of the legislative process. That would have a virtuous effect. The biggest problem, which I think sums up the whole debate, is how best to use our time. To solve the problem of defective legislation would in itself be an enormous boon, because we would then spend less time sorting out the problems created by poor, inadequate and inefficient legislation. I hope that is one area that we will be able to look at in the course of proceedings.

Finally, I caution Members that before we go down any road of reform we look at the procedures that are already available to us and ensure that we are already using them to full capacity. For example, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), who I congratulate on her tremendous work as the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, made mention of the work of Committees. I entirely agree that Committees are a useful tool for the House, but I wonder whether we are using them as effectively as we could. As evidence, I would cite the one power that all Committees have, except a very few dealing with private Bills, which is the power, almost never used, to take evidence on oath under the Parliamentary Witnesses Oaths Act 1871. It is a rare power, but it already exists and may be something that we could use.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is right. In fact, I would make it standard for all Committees to take evidence on oath. It is extraordinary that often Committees want somebody to give evidence but never go through the process of forcing them to attend, which is still technically possible. For example, Rupert Murdoch is one of the most significant players in British media and in British society, yet he has never appeared before a Select Committee of this House, nor has any member of the Murdoch family. That is extraordinary.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing this important debate on parliamentary reform. The subject cries out for discussion and debate. She focused largely on the admittedly archaic procedures of this place, but I want to concentrate on power and accountability. I shall try to be brief.

At the nadir of the expenses scandal, it was finally agreed by all three political parties that the rock-bottom reputation of Parliament could best be salvaged by a new, forceful, democratic role for Parliament and an effective scrutinising and decision-making Chamber for the nation’s business. The Wright Committee—the Committee on Reform of the House of Commons—was set up. It was given little time but it reached its conclusions in rapid order and produced an excellent, well-argued report which ushered in two important changes, as we all know.

The first was the Backbench Business Committee, which has been successful under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel). It wrested some limited control of the parliamentary agenda from the Executive, which had monopolised it for decades, although—I say this in the presence of the Leader of the House, whom we are glad to see here—we look to the conclusion of that process by the setting up of a House business committee at an early stage. The other important change was to secure the election, as opposed to the selection by Whips, of the Chairs of Select Committees who, as we all know, are by far the most effective mechanism for holding Ministers to account. Both innovations have worked extremely well.

However, valuable as those reforms are, they scarcely begin to redress the balance of power that has subordinated Parliament over the past several decades. Its power has drained away through the increasing concentration of power in No. 10. It continually seeps away to Brussels as the European Union mandate spreads ever wider, and the judiciary increasingly encroaches on the parliamentary prerogative, presumably prompted by the judges’ view that if Parliament cannot hold the Executive to account, they will.

A parliamentary revival needs to be tackled at several levels. At one level, we drastically have to overhaul our existing procedures. I want to give a few examples. Bills in Committee—the stage at which they should be seriously scrutinised—can often emerge after dozens if not hundreds of hours of scrutiny with minimal changes. I have even known them to emerge with no change. Why? Because a Whip-chosen majority of the governing party can simply block amendments. We should look at the Scottish system in which Bills no longer go to a Standing Committee but to the appropriate Select Committee, which has a track record of expertise. Of course, that would require considerable strengthening of Select Committees in terms of resources, the number of Sub-Committees and also time, but it would be a serious and much better alternative.

Report is the one stage at which Members of this House can make important changes to Bills through votes of the whole House. One abuse is that the Government can all too easily prevent later amendments. Of course, amendments are often not wanted by Governments—that is hardly surprising—and they can ensure that they are not even reached by talking out earlier amendments. One recent example of that, of course, is the European Union Bill, but there are many others.

Another problem, which has been mentioned, is not the fault of either the Whips or the Government but of Members. How many Members vote at the suggestion of their Whips as they approach the lobby without actually knowing what they are voting on? It is a serious abuse, and one of the reasons it is problematic is that most people cannot understand what the amendment is actually about. I have had that experience many times when looking at the amendment paper. A proposal, which I believe has the support of the Government, is that there should be a short explanation—two or three lines, for example—of the purpose and nature of every amendment on Report so that people can more easily make a judgment.

[Chris Bryant]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Meacher]

I realise that many people wish to speak, but I shall give way very briefly.

[Chris Bryant]

When a knife or a guillotine come in, the Government Whips are happy for amendments to be talked out because they know that the rules of the House specify that the Government amendment will still be taken. If we were to abolish that rule, some of their power over time would disappear.

[Mr Meacher]

That is a fair point, and I entirely agree. I do not have time to suggest ways of dealing with all the problems, which are extensive. This House is meant to be a serious, scrutinising body, but it simply is not so at present.

The third issue that I wish to raise briefly is about the public, who are involved in this—their lives are controlled by the Bills that we put through. There should be a pre-legislative stage for Bills at which outside experts can be brought in to give detailed evidence, and where members of the public and, indeed—I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey)—Members of Parliament have an opportunity to make representations.

That is all about existing procedures. I want to say something very quickly about a further range of reforms whereby Parliament could and should assert its authority as the elected voice of the people. On matters of overriding national importance—the obvious example of the past decade was the Iraq war; it took 15 months before this House even had a debate on it—Parliament should have the right to set up its own commissions of inquiry and not simply depend on the Executive or No. 10 to do so, because, of course, it is usually their actions that are the subject of the investigation. That is not a particularly novel suggestion or innovative proposal—it is exactly what our Victorian predecessors did quite regularly.

Secondly, when committees of inquiry are set up by the Prime Minister, which will probably remain the normal practice, the House should be empowered to scrutinise the terms of reference and approve the appointment of the chair and members of those bodies, because the choice of personnel and the terms of reference can significantly skew the final report in a particular direction. Many of us know that all too well.

Thirdly, on patronage, Select Committees should routinely carry out confirmation hearings. Again, there is nothing original about that—that is exactly what happens and has happened for years in the United States Congress. That should be done, obviously, for persons who are appointed to leading quango posts but also, perhaps, for some ministerial appointments. People from outside who have never been elected to Parliament are brought in by Prime Ministers and suddenly appointed to important posts. Parliament has a right to call them for examination, and to vote to approve their appointment at the end.

Fourthly, there are often obscure and complex legal issues in many of these matters. Parliament should be served by its own legal counsel if it is to be an effective check on Executive power.

I will make three further quick points. One is the control of expenditure, since the annual Government expenditure of £650 billion is a key exercise of power. Parliament should establish a framework for the contemporaneous monitoring and cross-examination of major expenditure programmes—not just the ex post facto examination by the Public Accounts Committee, though that is valuable and I would want to keep it. It should be aided by a cadre of expert external advisers. Whether that is done through Select Committees—which might be the best way—or through a new specialist estimates Committee, is for discussion. The allocation of huge quantities of public money and the whole question of value for money are of legitimate interest to Parliament, at the time that the decisions are still in the making.

Secondly, professional lobbyists are a very serious issue. They have now hugely increased their influence over the political process. Parliament should require that a public register is kept, including the scope of their activities, their source of funding and their meeting with Ministers. If there is to be the transparency that democracy demands, that murky area needs to be cleaned up.

Thirdly, several hon. Members mentioned petitions. I agree that where a very high—and the bar should be high—threshold number of electors have signed a petition, there is a case for saying that it should be debated and voted on in the House. We need a new constitutional settlement if we are to get off our knees and be an effective check on Executive power. Many of those proposals, as well as others, need to be looked at seriously.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joseph Johnson]

That is as may be, but institutionalised prayer and congregational worship have fallen out of practice in this country over the past century, as people may notice from the attendance at their local church. I am not against going to church, which is something that people should feel free to do, but it is something that MPs should be encouraged to do in their own time. There are plenty of places of worship in the Palace of Westminster for them to go to if they want to be put in a God-fearing state of mind at the start of play. I can recommend the chapel of St Mary Undercroft. It has some fine—

[Chris Bryant]

It is hideous.

[Joseph Johnson]

It has some fine depictions of the fates of those who are not sufficiently respectful of others in their daily activities. There are plenty of ways for MPs to put themselves in the right frame of mind—a selfless frame of mind—at the start of play. Institutionalised worship in the main Chamber is not a good use of everyone’s time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bone]

The right hon. Gentleman has made an interesting point. On transparency—he was discussing votes—does he share my desire that, in order for people to see what is really going on in Parliament, if voting is organised by the business manager, in other words it is whipped, it should be displayed in public and recorded in Hansard? If the party is whipping people to vote in a particular way, those outside should be able to see it.

[Chris Bryant]

They could tweet it.

[Hilary Benn]

From a sedentary position, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) suggests how it could be done.

I am not convinced that that is the most urgent of the reforms that is needed. The truth is that there is a tension here. On the one hand, we are members of parties; some are on their own and others have more around them, but that is part of the reason why we are elected to this place. We may or may not have great qualities as individuals, but we are elected because of what we represent, but that bringing together enables Parliament to do business. The other part of the tension is how that impinges on Members exercising their independent judgment, a point that I shall return to in a moment.

I welcome the Procedure Committee’s report on ministerial statements, and its inquiry into sitting hours. I sense that we have a moment for further reform. Today’s debate demonstrates that, not least because there are long-standing Members here today who have expressed an interest and shared their views with us, and there are many new Members here—a large number of new Members. That is why the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion has done us such a great service. One thing that struck me today, which is not always the case in all debates, was that as the hon. Lady spoke—indeed, as all hon. Members spoke—every one of us was listening intently to what was being said, which is how it should be. That is a characteristic of Westminster Hall, and sometimes—and sometimes not—it is a characteristic of the main Chamber, which tells us something about the importance of our discussion.

Turning to the specific proposals, I agree that we should consider ways to provide greater certainty about when votes are taking place, and I am all for considering ways to speed up the process. However, the chance for Members to come together collectively is important, and it is the reason for the proposed change. On sitting hours, I am in favour of returning to 11.30 am to 7 pm on Tuesdays, and I am in favour of moving private Members’ Bills to Tuesday or Wednesday evenings. It is wrong that Members should have to make a choice on a Friday between their constituency responsibilities—many choose to exercise them, myself included—and considering legislation. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock), I agree that Bills should be disposed of by a vote and not by trying to talk them out.

[Hilary Benn]

I agree completely. The neatness to the solution of having private Members’ Bills on Tuesday or Wednesday evenings is this. One of the arguments against the old hours was that, “Well, the place is dead in the evenings,” but there would be plenty to discuss for those who wish to stay and take part. That would acknowledge the fact that we have responsibilities to our constituencies, which we all understand, and would not put us in a bind.

As for amendments and explanations, I am absolutely in favour of the recommendation. We had an experiment, but not everyone did so. A simple way to ensure that everybody does it is to say that those who want to table an amendment must offer an explanation or it will not be considered.

Turning to the broader questions, many hon. Members have mentioned balancing competing pressures on time, and we happen to be sitting in one of the solutions. The Adjournment debates that take place in Westminster Hall are hugely important for Back Benchers who want to raise issues and get an answer from Ministers. A number of ideas relating to that have been suggested by the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) and others. The Procedure Committee has recommended that we use this place to question Ministers on written ministerial statements, which is a most sensible suggestion that I hope the House will adopt. The other question is who should control the time, as we seek to expand it to deal with the competing demands.

The second matter is the fundamental one of the balance of power between the legislature and the Executive.

[Chris Bryant]

By convention, constitutional Bills are dealt with entirely on the Floor of the House. In practice, the process of going through them line by line means that we end up with fewer hours of debate. I wonder whether there is a means of having those debates in Westminster Hall, so as to allow a longer debate, more in the style of a normal sitting on the Committee corridor, but with the votes still being held in the main Chamber.

[Hilary Benn]

That would be one way of addressing some of the pressures that we have been discussing. I shall return in a moment to how we could take it all forward.

I was a local councillor for 20 years and, picking up on a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher), when I was first elected to the House, I was astonished at the lack of scrutiny of expenditure, because councillors went through every year’s budget line by line. We have a lot of means by which to hold the Executive to account, if we choose to exercise them, and we can discuss ways to acquire more means. My right hon. Friend has made a number of suggestions on that point.

The third question is how Parliament is seen and covered by the media. I regret the fact that there is more commentary and sketch writing about what is said in Parliament than there is reporting of what parliamentarians say. It is a bit like “Match of the Day” having about five minutes of football and 55 minutes of analysis. We have to get the balance right, but it is up to us.

We should think back to the tuition fees debate, when a wide range of views was expressed. That day, the eyes of the nation were on Parliament. My son told me that he went to the bar at university and saw something that he had never seen before—students watching the Parliament channel on television. On that day, people were looking to us, because we were debating something important. When the bankers appeared before the Treasury Committee—those folk had contributed somewhat to the economic difficulties that we face—people were interested in the process.

The fourth question is how we legislate. I agree with the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) and others about the benefit of pre-legislative scrutiny. With the benefit of some ministerial experience, I can say that Governments of all colours do not draft perfect legislation. The notion that the Government should unveil legislation in the House and then repel all boarders, wherever they come from, is nonsense. The act of scrutinising legislation, both pre-legislative and in Committee, means that we end up with better legislation, which is what we want. That process tests the legislation, and things that have not been thought of are exposed. I agree with those who say that we should have the chance to vote on proposals, and not see them slip off the edge of the Order Paper. The Government should have the courage of the argument and respect the vote.

Turning to how representative we are, we have not touched on House of Lords reform, because that would have taken all of our time, but I am wholly in favour of the second Chamber being 100% elected. It should be part of the system of checks and balances while recognising that the first elected Chamber should ultimately have its way.

Where do we go now? We need a process to take forward the ferment of ideas that we have heard this afternoon, and we must not lose the moment—for reasons that many Members have mentioned. The Procedure Committee, which is ably chaired by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight)—I am sorry that he is not well and we have sent our best wishes to him—is the furnace from which the ideas should come. The ideas should be presented to us; we can debate them and then have a chance to vote on them. Completely different views have been expressed this afternoon, which is great. In the end, though, we have to have a mechanism for deciding whether or not we are going to do something. Voting is a wonderful way in which we can try to reconcile the apparently irreconcilable.

Finally, why does this all matter? My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) expressed it on behalf of us all when she said that people look to this Parliament to be the forum for national debate. They want to see that their voices are heard. They want to see us solving their problems and they want their hopes and aspirations realised by what we do. In the words of the prayer, we seek

“to improve the condition of all mankind”—

I would change that to humankind—and it is good to reflect on that when we start the day. The truth is that our democracy is our best and only hope of doing those things; it is our Parliament, so let us make it work for the people whom we have the privilege of representing.

Business of the House

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I understand the concern expressed by my hon. Friend, but the Government remain committed to their carbon reduction targets. In the near future, we will be debating the Energy Bill, which contains a number of measures designed to reduce the cost of energy, which my hon. Friend is rightly worried about, and he might have an opportunity during the passage of that Bill to develop his arguments.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House make provision on Monday for plenty of time for personal statements by hon. Members? There is a rumour that some Liberal Democrats are planning to abstain this afternoon by voting in both Lobbies. “Erskine May” says:

“The Speaker has deprecated as ‘unparliamentary’ the practice of voting in both lobbies as a demonstration of a ‘third’ position.”

It also states that Members who had done so mistakenly would be allowed, on the following day, to explain in a personal statement which Lobby they had intended to be in.

[Sir George Young]

I do not think that that is a matter for the Leader of the House.

Business of the House (Thursday)

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir George Young)]

I beg to move,

That, at the sitting on Thursday 9 December, the Speaker shall put the Questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on the Motion in the name of Secretary Vince Cable relating to Higher Education Higher Amount and, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 16 (Proceedings under an Act or on European Union documents), on the Motion in the name of Secretary Vince Cable on the draft Higher Education (Basic Amount) (England) Regulations not later than five hours after the commencement of proceedings on the first motion, or at 5.30 pm, whichever is the earlier; such Questions shall include the Questions on any Amendments selected by the Speaker which may then be moved; proceedings may continue after the moment of interruption; and Standing Order No. 41A (Deferred divisions) shall not apply.

The motion is sharply focused on the timing of tomorrow’s debate. It allows for the motions in the name of the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills relating to higher education to be debated together and for the Questions to be put after five hours or at 5.30 pm, whichever is earlier.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir George Young]

No, not at this stage. I will give way in a moment.

I expect to answer the business question tomorrow, but the Government have no plans for any other oral statements. We therefore expect the House to have a full day to debate and vote on the issues.

[Chris Bryant]

I tried to intervene at the precise moment when the Leader of the House referred to the precise words that I have trouble with: “whichever is the earlier”. Why could it not be, “whichever is the later”?

[Sir George Young]

If the hon. Gentleman had wanted, he could have tabled an amendment to the motion and we could have debated it. No such amendment was tabled by any Opposition Member and I therefore assume that they are entirely content to stop at 5.30 pm.

Points of Order

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

There is now a dispute as to the facts but that cannot be the subject of extended points of order. I strongly suggest that the complaining Member and the responsible Minister or the Deputy Leader of the House should get together and try to sort this matter outside the Chamber.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. [Interruption.] I hope that the Home Secretary will stay a moment longer before she leaves the Chamber. I realise that this is not for you, Mr Speaker, but I am sure that you will have read, over the weekend, the substantial coverage of the action that the Home Secretary has taken in relation to a researcher working for a Member of the House. I am sure that you would not want to comment on that because it is still sub judice—I understand that that person is appealing the decision—but it would clearly be a very important matter if an agent working for a foreign power were to be employed in the House. I hope that you can assure the House that the Home Secretary will seek to make an oral statement to the House when that process is finished and that you, as always, are keeping all the security measures in the House, including the vetting of potential researchers, under review.

[Mr Speaker]

Well, I think that someone once said of the hon. Gentleman that his mind climbs mountains without any molehills. He is always thinking ahead of himself and I am not surprised, as he has a great elasticity of mind, but he is seeking to draw me into matters beyond where we have reached and he is absolutely right in his initial supposition that we do not discuss security matters on the Floor of the House. He has registered his concern that the Home Secretary should be ready to make a statement if the eventuality he fears could happen, but should not, actually happens. I have a strong feeling that her office reads Hansard. I think that will probably do for today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for his important question. We greatly value the role of local radio, and we are also very committed to the transition to a digital future. We want to ensure that the timing is such that it does not force people to jettison their analogue radios in huge quantities. Our discussions are progressing rapidly. Last week I had a discussion with the managing director of one of the largest commercial radio groups, and we hope that our discussions will progress further in the next month.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

There is a great deal of anger in Wales about the way in which the Minister and his Department have treated our local media. ITV Wales will probably not be able to sustain its public service requirements, and S4C has been treated appallingly. There has been no consultation with the people of Wales. There will be a single monopolistic presence in broadcasting in Wales, and the Minister is doing a great disservice to the people of Wales by the way in which he is advancing his cause.

[Mr Hunt]

The mess in local broadcasting in Wales was not created by this Government. It was the hon. Gentleman’s party under which audiences for S4C halved over the last decade, and which did absolutely nothing about it. We have sought to find a secure future for S4C that will maintain its independent identity but will also give it the support of our largest broadcaster. We have actually done something about the problem; the hon. Gentleman’s party did nothing about it whatsoever.

Points of Order

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am sure that you are aware that on 19 March 1997, the House passed a resolution that included various provisions, one of which is that it is of paramount importance that Ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, and another that Ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament and refuse to provide information only when disclosure is not in the public interest.

Yesterday evening for some hours, we debated whether the next general election should be held in 2015 or 2014. Of material relevance to that debate were the Government’s intentions in relation to the combining of polls in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland with the general election in 2015. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), sat in the Chamber throughout the debate but said nothing until the very last moment at 9.30 pm, when he revealed that he intended to write to the devolved Administrations—I understand that that has already happened—to ask whether they would like a new power.

That materially affected every single aspect of yesterday afternoon’s debate. I believe not only that it was a gross discourtesy to the House for the Minister to have operated in that fashion, but that it offends directly the resolution of the House of 19 March 1997. He said that he will write to the devolved Administrations, and therefore relied on that for part of his argument. Will you, Mr Speaker, ensure that he makes all such letters available in the Library of the House? I realise that it is not within your power to tell him that we cannot have Report stage of the Bill until such time as amendments on elections can be tabled in the elected House—before they can be made in House of Lords—but can you look into whether there has been a breach of that resolution?

[Mr Speaker]

What I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that ordinarily—as he would expect—the precise contents of the resolution of 19 March 1997 are firmly imprinted on my mind almost as firmly as they are on his. Nevertheless, I am happy to refresh my memory on that matter.

On the face of it, however, I have a slight suspicion that the hon. Gentleman, who is a very assiduous parliamentarian, is continuing the debate. I am not saying that there is not something upon which I need rule, but that I am not clear whether there is. Ministers can speak when they wish in relation to those matters, including when winding up debates. I sense that the hon. Gentleman is extremely dissatisfied with ministerial silence when he expected a ministerial response. That may be a matter of a point of frustration, and there might even now and again be discourtesy, but it is not apparent to me as yet that there has been a breach of order.

I know how persistent a terrier the hon. Gentleman is, and I will look into the matter and revert to him, but I do not think that he needs to make another long point of order just yet.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment No 9, in page 9, leave out lines 13 to 20 and insert—

1A (1) No constituency shall have an electorate more than 5 per cent. above or below the electoral quota for that part of the United Kingdom unless the Boundary Commission concerned believes there to be overriding reasons under the terms of these rules why it should.

(2) No constituency shall have an electorate more than 10 per cent. above or below the electoral quota for that part of the United Kingdom.

(3) In this Schedule “the electoral quota for that part of the United Kingdom” means—

where U is the electorate of that part of the United Kingdom minus the electorate of the areas mentioned in rule 5A and Y is the number of constituencies in that part minus the number of constituencies allocated within that part as a result of the operation of rule 5A.’.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 185, page 9, leave out lines 14 and 15 and insert—

(a) no more than 5% above or below the United Kingdom electoral quota unless the Boundary Commission concerned believes there to be exceptional geographic circumstances, and

(b) no more than 15% above or below the United Kingdom electoral quota.’.

Amendment 200, page 9, line 14, leave out ‘United Kingdom electoral quota’ and insert ‘electoral quota for the part of the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland) in which the constituency is located’.

Amendment 2, page 9, line 16, after ‘6(2)’, insert ‘, 6A(2)’.

Amendment 201, page 9, line 16, leave out ‘, 6(2) and 7’ and insert ‘and 6(2)’.

Amendment 202, page 9, leave out lines 17 to 20 and insert—

‘(3) In this rule “electoral quota” means—

where U is the electorate of the part of the United Kingdom in which the constituency is located, reduced in the case of Scotland by the electorate of the constituencies mentioned in rule 6, and C is the number of constituencies allocated to that part under rule 8.’.

Amendment 182, page 9, leave out lines 18 to 20 and insert—

where U is the electorate of the United Kingdom minus the electorate of the Council areas mentioned in rule 6 and C is the number of constituencies allocated to these Council areas.’.

Amendment 184, page 9, line 20, at end insert

‘and accordingly the electorate of each part of the United Kingdom shall be treated for the purposes of this rule as reduced by the electorate of those constituencies.’.

Amendment 10, page 9, leave out lines 27 to 34.

Amendment 186, page 9, line 30, leave out from ‘if’ to end of line 34 and insert

‘the Boundary Commission is concerned that unusual geographical considerations, including in particular the size, shape and accessibility of a proposed constituency, would require an unreasonable amount of time to travel round the various communities within it.’.

Amendment 188, page 10, line 2, leave out ‘A Boundary Commission’ and insert

‘The Boundary Commissions for England, Scotland and Wales.’.

Amendment 11, page 10, line 10, at end insert—

‘(1A) A Boundary Commission shall ensure that—

(a) in England, no district or borough ward shall be included in more than one constituency;

(b) in Northern Ireland, no local authority ward shall be included in more than one constituency;

(c) in Wales, no unitary authority ward shall be included in more than one constituency;

(d) in Scotland, regard shall be had to local authority ward boundaries.

(1B) The Boundary Commission for England shall where practicable have regard to the boundaries of counties and London boroughs; and in any case no constituency shall include the whole or part of more than two counties or London boroughs.

(1C) The Boundary Commission for Wales shall where practicable have regard to the boundaries of unitary authorities; and in any case no constituency shall include the whole or part of more than two unitary authorities.’.

Amendment 193, page 10, line 10, at end insert—

‘(1A) The Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland may take into account to such extent as they think fit—

(a) special geographical considerations;

(b) considerations arising from the co-terminosity of parliamentary constituencies and multi-member constituencies for the Northern Ireland Assembly under the Northern Ireland Act 1998;

(c) local government boundaries as they exist on the most recent day of an election for any district council, other than an election to fill a vacancy;

(d) any local ties that would be broken by changes in constituencies;

(e) the inconveniences attendant upon such changes.’.

Amendment 196, page 10, line 10, at end insert—

‘(1A) A Boundary Commission shall have power to specify, in certain specified circumstances set out in subsection (1C) below, that constituencies in areas determined by the Boundary Commission shall be—

(a) wholly within a principal local authority or authorities; or

(b) wholly within well-established historic or geographical boundaries.

(1B) The impact of any decision taken in respect of areas defined under subsection (1A) must not create constituencies within the remainder of the region or nation in which such areas fall which fail to meet the rules in this Schedule.

(1C) The coterminosity of parliamentary constituencies with boundaries as defined in subsection (1A) may be specified when the following support such a proposition—

(a) the principal local authority or authorities within the area proposed;

(b) all sitting Members of Parliament representing constituencies wholly or partially within that area; and

(c) at least two-thirds of all civil parish, community and town councils or parish meetings within that area who make a representation;

and where the Boundary Commission is satisfied, from its own soundings amongst the electorate and the business and voluntary sectors, that such a proposal is widely supported.’.

Amendment 207, page 10, line 16, at end insert—

‘(2A) The Boundary Commission for England shall take into account counties as listed in Schedule 1 to the 1997 Lieutenancies Act in so far as is possible in accordance with rule 2 above.’.

Amendment 12, page 10, line 17, leave out sub-paragraph (3).

Amendment 13, page 10, leave out lines 18 to 24 and insert—

‘Specified areas

5A (1) The following shall be allocated whole numbers of constituencies by whichever Boundary Commission is responsible for them:

(a) Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands council areas;

(b) Comhairle nan Eilean Siar council area;

(c) The Isle of Anglesey county area;

(d) The Isle of Wight county area;

(e) The County of Cornwall and Isles of Scilly council areas.’.

Amendment 183, page 10, leave out lines 18 to 25 and insert—

‘Whole numbers of constituencies

6 (1) The following shall be allocated whole numbers of constituencies by whichever Boundary Commission is responsible for them—

(a) Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands council areas;

(b) Comhairle nan Eilean Siar council area;

(c) the Cyngor Sir Ynys Môn Isle of Anglesey county area;

(d) the Isle of Wight county area;

(e) the County of Cornwall and Isles of Scilly council areas;

(f) the Highland Council area;

(g) the Argyll and Bute Council area.

(2) The number of constituencies to be allocated to each area shall be determined by dividing the electorate of the area or areas concerned by the United Kingdom Electoral Average and rounding to the nearest whole number, unless this would mean that rule 4(1) could not be satisfied, in which case the area concerned will be allocated the smallest number of constituencies required in order to satisfy that rule. Each area must be allocated at least one whole constituency.

(3) In this rule “United Kingdom Electoral Average” means (where E is the electorate of the United Kingdom)—

[Chris Bryant]

The Government’s rhetoric suggests that all parliamentary seats should have exactly the same size of electorate, but that is not what the Bill says. It allows for a variation of up to 5% either way from the national average and creates three special exemptions for Scottish seats, one of which is held by the Scottish National party and the other two of which are held by the Liberals. We are not opposed to those exemptions, although they look dubious in the context of the Bill’s wider attempt to strive for mathematical purity.

Our argument is that although the majority of seats should indeed be within 5% each way, there are more instances than are allowed for in the Bill where the Boundary Commission should be allowed to exercise a degree of discretion, because this country is made up not just of statistics on a map but of living communities with distinct historical, cultural and political identities that need their discrete representation in the House. A system that delivers mathematical perfection may be aseptically clean, and please the tidy utilitarian and the centralist, but it will in countless cases leave voters on the wrong side of a river, a mountain, a county or ward boundary, or cultural divide and, thereby, fail the fundamental tests that we should be setting.

Will those boundaries be readily comprehensible to ordinary voters? Will they match the political and cultural aspirations of the discrete communities of the UK? Will they render Members more or less accessible? Frankly, will they look like common-sense boundaries or seem like crazed contortions devised by a centralised desiccated calculating machine? The Government are not just insisting on their mathematical equation, of course; they are also subordinating any other considerations of whatever kind, such as local authority boundaries, to that calculation. Taken together, those measures will lead to ludicrous anomalies.

Let us consider how some instances would have applied at the last election. Wyre Forest is, quite sensibly, coterminous with its district council, but it would have had 2,131 too many electors for the 5% rule. Likewise, Shrewsbury and Atcham is coterminous with the former district of that name and unchanged after a number of reviews, but it would have had 1,552 too many electors. Bath and North East Somerset council includes two constituencies, Bath and North East Somerset, but it would have had to find 1,886 electors from a neighbouring authority. Even Forest of Dean, comprising the Forest of Dean district council and one ward from Tewkesbury district council, a seat that was completely unchanged at the last review, would have been 383 voters short. That is why we want to change the Bill.

In many cases, it would be impossible to respect county boundaries. At the last election, Cumbria would have had to find 14,296 electors from neighbouring counties in order to make up its six seats. Northumberland would have had to find 22,529 electors for four seats. Warwickshire’s six seats—Kenilworth and Southam, North Warwickshire, Nuneaton, Rugby, Stratford on Avon,and Warwick and Leamington—would have needed to find 7,991 electors.

[Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

How many electors would Wales have had to find to make up its full quota of 40 seats, which the hon. Gentleman would like to maintain?

[Chris Bryant]

A very large number, but I am not arguing against greater parity, as I hope I have made clear on several occasions during the Bill’s proceedings. However, I am also not in favour of one area of the country having its representation in this House cut by 25%—four times more than any other part of the United Kingdom. That seems to be a swingeing cut, and it will do no good for representation in this House.

The six seats in Oxfordshire would, on average, have been 1,907 electors over the threshold, so approximately 11,000 Oxfordshire electors would have needed to be shed so that they were in a constituency that was shared with a neighbouring county. Indeed, part of the Prime Minister’s own constituency, including the Saxon village of Burford, might have had to be shifted to Gloucestershire. Even Burford priory, the house of civil war Speaker Lenthall, would have had to be summarily moved from Oxfordshire to Gloucestershire.

In Hampshire, because the rules will not allow Isle of Wight to remain a single seat, the county would have been required to provide 40,000 electors from one or perhaps two of its existing seats. Most significantly, the historic county of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly would have had to find 13,138 electors, or an average of 2,190 per constituency, from Devon to make up the number for six seats. I believe that to be wrong. King Athelstan determined as early as 936 that the east bank of the River Tamar should be the border of Cornwall, and, although it may be true, in the words of the Prime Minister, that the Tamar is not the Amazon, it certainly is the Rubicon—a river not worth crossing.

The same is true of metropolitan areas. Warrington would have had 119 too many electors for two seats—an average of 59 per seat. The five seats in Birmingham, each comprising four wards and with electorates of between 73,731 and 75,563, would have been slightly too large and would have had to shed voters elsewhere. In London, Wandsworth would have had 3,427 electors too few for its three seats, Sutton would have had 1,119 too few electors for its two seats, Barnet would have had 371 too many electors for its three seats, and Enfield would have had 219 too few electors for its three seats.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is talking about the number of seats within a larger boundary area. I am based in Berkshire, and Slough is very different from the rest of the county. We are one of Berkshire’s unitary authorities. If the number were calculated on the basis of the whole of Berkshire, there would be a serious risk that the community of Slough—which is nothing like the community of Windsor and Maidenhead; that is felt by both communities—would be muddled up. I am worried that in his very powerful peroration he is not sufficiently focusing on the cultural differences between different areas in the same county boundary.

[Chris Bryant]

I have not got to my peroration yet—this is just the beginning—but I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her comments. She is absolutely right. My whole argument is that some of the historical boundaries also represent historical cultural identities. We cannot just draw the lines on the map according to the numbers as if people were just statistics: we have to draw them in recognition of the communities and bonds that tie people together.

[Mr Mark Field]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I will, but I do not want to take up too much time.

[Mr Field]

Does the shadow Minister recognise that this is the self-same argument that was made, probably in this House, some 170 years ago, in the run-up to the Great Reform Act of 1832, to justify the idea of the cultural importance of maintaining all the seats in Cornwall and Suffolk that had existed since time immemorial? It is a nonsensical argument, and we now have to look towards equality. I disagree with him in that I would like to see the three Scottish seats also taken out of this consideration to ensure that we have the proper equalisation of all 650 seats that should exist in the next Parliament.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman should not try to misrepresent my argument. I am not arguing in the slightest for tiny seats. I am not even arguing that the people of Rhondda alone have the right to elect in perpetuity, even though they have only 50,000 voters. There should be much greater parity, but we need to be able to balance the needs of parity with the needs of local communities and constituencies of interest that exist around the country. There was no constituency of interest in Old Sarum in 1831 and 1832—the only interest was that of Tory Back Benchers who wanted to ensure that they were still able to dole the seat out to one of their family members. So it is an argument not against Labour but against the Conservatives.

Sheffield will almost certainly be entitled to five constituencies, but with 20 wards it would end up with three constituencies of six wards, which would be too big, and two constituencies of five wards, which would be too small. We would therefore have to split wards in Sheffield or cross the boundaries with Barnsley and Rotherham, which would be tough, as wards in Rotherham are about the same size as those in Sheffield and there are a large number of hills in the way. In the words of Professor Ron Johnston,

“They are going to have to split wards, I have no doubt about this.”

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

Under these proposals, it is perfectly possible that one of the wards in my constituency, East Ecclesfield, could end up being split into three parts, with one part going into the seat of Wentworth and Dearne, one part into Brightside, and one part into my seat.

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The wards in some metropolitan areas comprise 15,000 or 20,000 voters. Consequently, if the Government push ahead with their proposed 5% leniency either way rather than the 10% that we are advocating, they will have to split wards. Contrary to what the Deputy Leader of the House said last week, and what the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) has said, there is not a single ward in England that is split between constituencies—not one. [Interruption.] The latter is chuntering very quietly, but now he is looking at his phone, so I presume he has given up on that point. He can pipe down.

The end result is that it will become impossible for wards to be used as building blocks, as they currently are without exception in England despite the fact that it is not a requirement of the rules. Voters will have to become psephological experts to know who represents them at each level of government—their councillor, their Member of Parliament and their representatives at other tiers in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. Historical communities and towns will be split for negligible benefit, and because of the knock-on effects there will have to be a radical redrawing of virtually every seat in the land.

[Mr Mark Field]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman a third time, if he does not mind. We have very little time for this debate.

My final point is very important. The proposed reduction in the number of Members of Parliament will have the effect of increasing the electoral quota in all four countries, even England, where it will go up from 71,537 to roughly 75,800. Just 204 current constituencies have electorates within 5% of that number. The knock-on effects, however, mean that it is likely that barely a handful of seats will remain untouched. That was confirmed by the heads of the boundary commissions, who told the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform that the change would result in a complete redrawing of constituency boundaries.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that because of the totalising nature of the reforms, Professor Johnston said in his evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee that this was exactly the wrong point at which to abolish public inquiries?

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend, who is on the Committee, makes a very valuable point. It was made very clear to the Committee, even in the short time that was allowed it to produce its report, that it would be ludicrous to get rid of public inquiries at this time, when so many changes would be coming up.

The complete redrawing of virtually every seat in the land will mean not just reselections but new selections for candidates around the country. More than one Conservative MP has already told me that the Conservative Whips have made it absolutely clear to them that if they do not toe the line, the party leadership will make it impossible for them to be selected under the new boundaries. What price accountability then? What price new politics, eh?

That is why our amendment 9 would provide that the vast majority of constituencies would indeed fall within the 5% rule, but that the boundary commissions should be allowed a wider degree of latitude where they believe there to be an overriding concern, up to a fixed limit of 10%. That 10% is actually the difference between the constituency of the Parliamentary Secretary and that of the Deputy Leader of the House.

Our amendment 13 would make explicit provision for a whole number of seats for Cornwall and the Scilly Isles, for Anglesey and for the Isle of Wight. Amendment 11 would determine that wards could not be split between constituencies, and amendment 12 would mean that factors such as local boundaries could be considered without subordination to the 5% rule, but not going further than the 10% rule.

This country is not a Rubik’s cube devised by a mathematician, it is a complex jumble of communities. Some live in inconvenient numbers in inconvenient places that cannot be readily and symmetrically delineated in equal numbers. I am not defending the right of the Rhondda or anywhere else to its own seat in perpetuity. We need greater parity, and that will mean the amalgamation of seats in many areas, but let us not create so crude a system that 383 voters have to be found for the Forest of Dean or 59 expelled from Warrington. Let us not create such a centralised system that the idiosyncrasies of the towns, villages, islands and cities of this land cannot find their voice in this House.

[Mr Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (LD)]

I say in a genial way what a pleasure it is to follow the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)—it is a pleasure because, by definition, if I am following him, he must have stopped speaking for once. He has been difficult to avoid over the past two or three weeks in debates on the Bill, and, it seems, everywhere else. I got home on Thursday and there he was in Glasgow on “Question Time”.

Having said that, we have great sympathy with many of the principles that the hon. Gentleman enunciated. I wish to confine my remarks to amendments 182 to 184, which go together. We will seek to press amendment 183 to a vote if the opportunity arises in due course. The amendments are in my name and those of hon. Friends, all of whom are present.

I wish to speak to the amendments to add to the comment that I made when the Deputy Prime Minister made the initial statement about this whole business. I feel that it is incumbent upon me to say a word or two, as my constituency has been put up in lights as some kind of benchmark, albeit that the lighting has been somewhat distorted and much misunderstood. I wish to clarify the matter and refer to the implications that flow from it.

Over the past 27 years, my constituency has been geographically the largest in the United Kingdom. It was the largest when it was formed in 1983, and some 10 years later, at the time of the boundary changes for the 1992 election, it remained the largest and became larger. At the last general election, it remained the largest and became larger yet again. I have looked back at one representation made to the Boundary Commission about that trend and about the sheer size of what became the Ross, Skye and Lochaber constituency, and indeed I made the same point myself at the hearings on the boundary change. Although I did not oppose the proposals to increase the size of the constituency—one never wants to oppose the inclusion of communities where one might find oneself having to go to seek support—I felt that the increase was impractical and would create unique challenges, as I diplomatically put it, for whoever represented the seat.

I shall be quite honest with the House: having represented three such vast constituencies over the course of nearly 30 years now, I can say that the current one is by far the most impractical. It has to be said that the other two were gigantic and posed particular problems, but there comes a point at which geographical impracticality sets in and nobody can do the job of local parliamentary representation effectively. I would say that point has now been reached. It is no exaggeration to say that I can drive for five solid hours within the boundaries of the constituency, simply between point A and point B, to carry out one engagement, and then have to drive five hours back. That is just insane.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Thurso]

The hon. Gentleman begins to make the precise point that I wish to develop, which is that this Bill already accepts the principle that there are geographical areas or communities that are either too disparate or too distinct simply to be left. There is nothing against that principle in the Bill. One could have argued—historically, it would have been easy to do so—for the old Norse principality of Orkney, which included Caithness. We could have gone back to Caithness, Orkney and Shetland. The Government have recognised that certain geographical difficulties make it important to have regard to them when building constituencies.

[Chris Bryant]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Thurso]

If the hon. Gentleman will let me first develop my argument, I will happily give way.

We have heard today from both sides of the House a variety of examples of why the two principles have worked in tension against each other for the benefit of the country. My broad argument is about removing that, suggesting an arithmetical figure, and making two exceptions. The exception of size is almost irrelevant, because it would change the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber and mine, and Inverness would probably disappear. In the tension between those two principles, which have been dealt with by the Boundary Commission and through inquiry, we have broadly arrived at a workable set of solutions. Therefore, like the amendment, I urge that we take a similar approach while respecting all the Government’s principles.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is making a splendid case. Some of us believe that his constituency should be called Thurso. He wants us to support his amendment, which we are happy to do, but I hope he recognises that it might be better not to make allowances just for named constituencies, but to allow greater flexibility throughout the country so that wards and communities do not have to be split. He would then have to vote for our amendment.

[John Thurso]

I am receptive to the hon. Gentleman’s argument. However, if he knew my constituency, he would know that saying it might like to be called Thurso is probably the worst insult that could be delivered to the Royal Borough of Wick and to Wickans. May I put it on record that I am entirely content with Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross—or however much of Ross I may end up with?

There is a clear need for the Bill to be amended and if, given the lack of time, we cannot achieve that, I sincerely hope that the other place will take a long, strong and hard look at it. This is the sort of constitutional change that simply must not be allowed to slip through on the back of an electoral pact.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Turner]

I understand that perfectly.

As well as the two Scottish island constituencies, there are other arbitrary exceptions to the principle of fair votes. However, it is not all about fairness or unfairness. It is about allowing people to be consulted and to have the representation that they want, even if that means keeping a larger constituency. That is why the decision should be made by the independent Boundary Commission, rather than according to the diktat of the Deputy Prime Minister.

My constituency is the largest in the United Kingdom, with 110,000 voters. I am happy to continue to be judged by those people when it comes to whether I represent them effectively. The Deputy Prime Minister paid me the compliment of saying that I was well known as an “outstanding constituency MP”. If that is the case, why is he determined to fix something that is not broken, particularly when his reforms are unwanted by the people who are affected by them?

I must end my speech, because we are running out of time. Let me finally say that it is a terrible thing to have one’s constituency divided. I recognise that that will happen in some cases, but what I do not like is the idea of the constituency being divided and part of it sent to the mainland.

[Chris Bryant]

So far this evening, the Government have gained no supporters for their argument. I think that there is a good reason for that. The arguments presented by Members on both sides of the House—including the persuasive argument of the former leader of the Liberal Democrat party, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy)—can be summed up very simply as “This House does not believe in the Government’s construction of a mathematical exercise in order to create constituencies”. Everyone who has articulated an argument this evening has expressed the belief that, in the case of Cornwall, Scotland, the south Wales valleys or the whole of Wales, we need to ensure that minority voices are heard loud and clear in the House.

[Kevin Brennan]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I will not, if my hon. Friend does not mind. I know that the Minister needs to be able to reply.

[Kevin Brennan]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. When you called the Front-Bench spokesmen, at least a dozen Labour Members were still waiting to speak. It is clear that not enough time has been allowed for the debate. Can anything be done to enable those Members to put their points on the record?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

That is not a point of order. The point about the amount of time allowed for the debate has been taken on board, but that is a decision for the Government rather than the Chair.

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) knows perfectly well that I entirely agree with him. I note that at least 12 Labour Members have not yet been able to speak, and that is why I will speak very briefly now.

Let me just say this to the Government. The danger is that in their desire to create mathematically perfect constituencies and to allow only 5% of leeway to the boundary commissions, and in creating the exemptions for three seats in Scotland, they will undermine the three Scottish constituencies and make them seem like rotten boroughs. The Government will make the whole country look like a mathematical exercise, and not like anything that recognises the facts of life.

When miners went down the mines in the Rhondda in the 19th and 20th centuries, they had a number stamped on their miners’ lamps. The people of this country do not want to be just numbers on a miner’s lamp. The people of this country want to be recognised for the constituencies and the communities that are represented in it, and it is their voices that should be heard in the House rather than just the statistics with which the Minister agrees.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. You said in response to the point of order of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) that a point about who gets to speak is not a point of order for the Chair. A point about which amendments are selected is, however, a point of order for the Chair. My amendment to this part of the Bill deals with the same kind of special privilege that other Members have addressed in their amendments, but it was not selected. I appreciate that the Chair has a difficult task. However, my point of order is: if this Bill had been taken in full Committee, would not my amendment have been allowed and debated?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. The Select Committee has done a very good job in raising some important issues.

Amendment 205 would add a stage to the consultation process that the boundary commissions are required to carry out for the purposes of the review. Prior to making recommendations, the commissions would be required to publish online their proposed approach to the application of the rules and factors. A consultation period of eight weeks would follow, and the commissions would be required to take the results into account. We have set a deadline of October 2013 for the commissions to report to allow parties, administrators and electors to adjust to the new boundaries prior to the general election in 2015.

An increase in consultation time of eight weeks could delay the reports, making it harder to prepare for the next general election. In effect, the time added to the process by the amendment would be much greater, as the commissions would have to publicise their proposed approach and assess the representations received before taking the many and complex individual decisions required to put together their recommendations. The Government believe that the right place to debate the approach that the boundary commissions must take is in Parliament. The importance of that is highlighted by the fact that the Bill had its Committee stage on the Floor of the House. The boundary commissions will carry out the review according to Parliament’s wishes, as has always been the case.

In any event, I do not consider that the commissions’ general approach, divorced from the resulting recommendation for particular constituencies, is a subject on which wide consultation is appropriate. It is the effect of the recommendations on a person’s local constituency or local area on which it is important for them to have a say, and the Bill increases the period for them to do so. Consultation on a general approach is likely to lead to many responses that are based not on genuine concern about the approach but on guesswork as to what the effect of that approach might be in a local area. But until the commission has taken all the many individual decisions necessary to formulate its recommendations, it will be impossible to predict the effect on a particular area.

I hope that it will reassure hon. Members that during the previous review the Boundary Commission for England produced a booklet prior to the publication of recommendations which gave information about the review. There was also extensive use of the commissions’ websites to inform interested parties about all aspects of the review.

Amendment 206 proposes a new set of publicity and consultation rules under clause 10. I hope to reassure hon. Members who tabled the amendment that it is not necessary as it reflects the practice that the boundary commissions are likely to follow in any event. The boundary commissions made extensive use of the internet in publicising the last general review and, although it is for them to decide, I am confident they will do likewise this time. The information that they published at the time of their recommendations included the electorate figures mentioned in the amendment.

I believe that it is important to allow the boundary commissions discretion to present their recommendations and relevant accompanying information as they think best, taking into account the particular circumstances with which they are dealing and the changing way in which people obtain information and communicate. On that basis, while I do not disagree with the principle underlying the amendment, I do not agree that it is desirable for the Bill to particularise the commissions’ practice in legislation to the extent that the amendment proposes.

The amendment would also expressly allow representations to be made by people within or outside the affected constituency. That is presently the case, and the Bill does not change that. New section 5(1)(b) of the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 follows the existing section 5(2) in that respect. The boundary commissions are likely to publish recommendations for a number of constituencies together as a scheme, and the proposals for one constituency will undoubtedly affect those for others. It is important that interested parties both from within a proposed constituency and from neighbouring constituencies may make representations to the commissions for alternative schemes that work within the rules, and the Bill does not prevent that from happening. While I understand the concerns of the hon. Member for Epping Forest, it is not necessary for the wording that appears in the amendment to be in the Bill. On that basis, I hope that she will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

I now turn to more general points about local inquiries. It was interesting to listen to the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) outline the Opposition’s case. I am glad that in this evening’s debate, we have not heard local inquiries described as appeals, because of course they are not. They are part of the process of information gathering, listening to the views of local people and weighing them up as part of the due process.

The process suggested in the Bill maintains that principle. Indeed, it actually extends it. It is vital that the boundary commissions fully consult all interested parties on proposals for changes to constituency boundaries. We all accept that. Local people in particular must be able to have their say. However, the Government believe that it would be a mistake to imagine that local inquiries achieve that objective, and there is independent support for that view. The Bill abolishes them for three major reasons. First, we simply must speed up reviews.

[Chris Bryant]

Why?

[Mr Heath]

I am telling the hon. Gentleman why, if he will just listen.

The boundaries in force in England for the first time at the general election in May were based on electoral register data that were 10 years out of date. I do not think that is acceptable, and nor should Opposition Members.

Business of the House

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend has raised an issue that is important to the House as a whole. In the 1997 Parliament, when I was shadow Leader of the House, occupying the position now occupied by the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), I put my name to timetable motions when we, as an Opposition, were satisfied they provided a sensible way of dealing with a Bill. That got rid of some of the problems identified by my hon. Friend. I hope that, given a new and, I am sure, reforming shadow Leader of the House, we can have sensible discussions about whether we can achieve consensus in relation to at least some Bills, so that we can make the best possible use of the time that is available for the House to deal with important Bills.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House is a tall man, but we should all look up to him even more if he were not to resort to sharp practice to get the Bill through next week. As was pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), the Government have tabled 28 pages of amendments for debate on Monday, not a single one of which was called for during earlier debates on the Bill or by any Back Bencher. Many of those amendments refer directly to the Scottish Parliament (Elections etc.) Order 2010, which will not have been debated by Monday. Does that not constitute gross presumption of what the House may choose to do in the future, and does it not put the cart before the horse?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman said that I was a tall man; I say to the hon. Gentleman that he is, at times, a verbose man.

We have provided five days for the Committee stage of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, and two days for Report. I consider that to be a generous provision, and much of that time so far has been spent by the hon. Gentleman speaking at length from the Dispatch Box. [Interruption.] Moreover, some of the time was not used last week when the House rose early. The House has been given adequate notice of the issues on the Order Paper, and we shall have ample time next Monday and Tuesday to deal with the amendments that have been tabled. [Interruption.]