All 84 Debates between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Wed 20th Jun 2018
Wed 13th Dec 2017
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill
Commons Chamber

Committee: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Fri 20th Oct 2017
Thu 27th Oct 2016
Mon 10th Nov 2014

Privilege: Conduct of Right Hon. Boris Johnson

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Monday 19th June 2023

(9 months, 1 week ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Sir Chris Bryant
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I am going to ferociously agree with the hon. Gentleman. I said earlier that Mr Johnson knowingly lied to Parliament and that is what the Committee has concluded. There was a point at which people thought they would only consider “recklessly” but they found that he knowingly, with knowledge aforethought, misled Parliament and was deliberately duplicitous. I think the hon. Gentleman’s point is destroyed—

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg
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I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash). The hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) is absolutely right—we must maintain exclusive cognisance—but that does not mean we should not follow a proper process and a fair process, or admit that this is ostensibly political.

Chris Bryant Portrait Sir Chris Bryant
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The word “political” can cover a multitude of sins, can’t it? We are talking about the politics of the nation. I would argue that trying to defend the constitutional principle that Ministers always tell the truth to Parliament and that, if they have inadvertently misled the House, they correct the record as soon as they possibly can, is an important part of ensuring our political health in this nation, but I do not think that the process was unfair. Most of our constituents, if they go to a tribunal nowadays, have no representation paid for by the taxpayer. Mr Johnson had, I think, more than £250,000-worth of representation provided by the taxpayer.

The membership of the Committee was agreed by the whole House when—I think I might be right in saying this—the right hon. Gentleman was Leader of the House.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg
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indicated dissent.

Chris Bryant Portrait Sir Chris Bryant
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I am wrong; I apologise. However, it is certainly the case that the whole House agreed that membership, fully knowing everything that had been said up until that moment. Three members of the Committee had sat on a previous case in relation to Mr Johnson that came to the Standards Committee. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards had found against Mr Johnson, but we, the Committee, found in his favour. I therefore do not think that this was in any sense a biased Committee. Let me also say that anyone who thinks that Speaker’s Counsel, or, for that matter, Sir Ernest Ryder, who ran the whole of the tribunals service in England and Wales, would not stand up for a fair hearing and due process is misleading themselves, and doing so almost recklessly.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg
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I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, and I refer him further to paragraph 182, on the line to take. Mr Johnson, as Prime Minister, was advised before Prime Minister’s questions to say that the rules had been followed at all times, and the report goes into great detail as to the authority for that advice—who had told him, whether they were senior enough and whether it was right—but it does not ask whether other Ministers were given the same briefing. Was this the cross-Government line to take, approved, as far as I could be aware, by all officials? Well, I can tell the House that, prior to business questions for the weeks when this was at the forefront of public interest, I was given the briefing that the rules had been followed at all times, with “at all times” emphasised. The only reason I did not say this to the House is because the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), the shadow Leader of the House, never had the wit to ask me the right question. If she had, the cross-Government line to take was absolutely clear, yet this report concludes that the Prime Minister, as he then was, was not advised by senior enough people—that they were involved in the press office. The idea that Ministers are not advised by people who work in communications shows quite how long the Opposition have been out of government.

Based on this tendentious reading of the facts, we come to the 90-day sanction. It is a vindictive sanction, it seems to me, that the Committee cannot implement because Mr Johnson has left Parliament, so the Committee goes from the vindictive to the ridiculous by not allowing him a parliamentary pass. Of all the trivial sanctions that could be imposed, that seems to be the most miserable. But the Committee emphasises in paragraph 229 that this sanction has been made more savage, more brutal and more vindictive because Mr Johnson impugned the Committee and undermined the democratic process.

On what basis? Is it thought that this House, when it comes to a conclusion, must be obeyed? Is it the case that we must not criticise the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 because it was passed by this great and noble House, or are we, in fact, allowed to criticise, as a fundamental of free speech, that which happens to us, that which is reported about us and that which is said of us? When a person is in court, they are allowed to say that the court has made a mistake. The protections of the junior courts, in which juries sit, are rightly very strict, but we can still say that the court has got it wrong. Indeed, we are allowed to say a court has got it so wrong that we may go to appeal. We do not have to kowtow but, for some reason, the Privileges Committee thinks it is in communist China and that we must kowtow. The report goes on to say that Mr Johnson was

“complicit in the campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation of the Committee”

without a single, solitary shred of evidence. It is pure assertion.

This leads me on to the issue of partiality. I was most intrigued by the response of the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) to my intervention. She said that she had told the Government, that it had all been approved and that it was fine and dandy. I refer her to paragraph 12 of her own report:

“Our guiding principles included being transparent.”

We suddenly discover, in this transparent approach, that there was a secret agreement that her involvement was all right. Well, I was in the Government at the time, and I never heard that this had happened, so it seems to me that it is important to examine the position in which the right hon. and learned Lady found herself. I note that the Committee does not do this in annex 1, which purports to answer appendix 3. I am sure the House is listening and following very carefully, but appendix 3 is the letter of Mr Johnson in response to the draft report. Fascinatingly, although paragraph 6 of appendix 3, on page 100, questions the impartiality of the Committee, annex 1 ignores that. Annex 1 answers lots of other points, but it rushes over this point, perhaps because the Committee thought it was on relatively thin ice.

Chris Bryant Portrait Sir Chris Bryant
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The right hon. Gentleman called for me to recuse myself from the Committee. Did he ever ask my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) to recuse herself from the Committee before Boris Johnson started demanding it?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg
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I said it very publicly, and it is a matter of record that I said it. I assumed people were aware, and people clearly are aware of what is said publicly. I will come to paragraph 14 in due course.

Chris Bryant Portrait Sir Chris Bryant
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Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg
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No, I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman, which seems to me to be sufficient.

Paragraph 9 of the report says:

“we leave our party interests at the door of the committee room”.

That is all very good, and it is to be encouraged, but it does not meet the Hoffmann test, which is important because the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords, like the Privileges Committee, was a Committee of Parliament following a judicial or, in this case, quasi-judicial process. I quote from its judgment:

“The contention is that there was a real danger or reasonable apprehension or suspicion that Lord Hoffmann might have been biased, that is to say, it is alleged that there is an appearance of bias not actual bias.

The fundamental principle is that a man may not be a judge in his own cause. This principle, as developed by the courts, has two very similar but not identical implications. First it may be applied literally: if a judge is in fact a party to the litigation or has a financial or proprietary interest in its outcome then he is indeed sitting as a judge in his own cause. In that case, the mere fact that he is a party to the action or has a financial or proprietary interest in its outcome is sufficient to cause his automatic disqualification. The second application of the principle is where a judge is not a party to the suit and does not have a financial interest in its outcome, but in some other way his conduct or behaviour may give rise to a suspicion that he is not impartial”.

That is the fundamental point, and it led to the Judicial Committee—for, I believe, the only time in its history—overturning a decision it had made. It is reasonable suspicion.

The judgment of Lord Nolan runs to only four lines. I will read out only two of them:

“I would only add that in any case where the impartiality of a judge is in question the appearance of the matter is just as important as the reality.”

This seems to be fundamental: the Judicial Committee followed a proper process, which the Privileges Committee did not.

I have slightly exceeded the time limit, but I will finish relatively swiftly. Fortunately, the previous two speakers were brief, which is encouraging.

Energy Prices: Support for Business

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 22nd September 2022

(1 year, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I am very happy to consider representations to the review from my hon. Friend and others regarding specific industries.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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The trouble with announcing a measure that only lasts six months is that local authorities are, quite responsibly, putting together their budgets for next year now. My local authority has said to me that, because it runs swimming pools, leisure centres, care homes, schools and so on, not renewing this for next year would be the single biggest blow to its finances in 50 years and it would have to start laying people off pretty sharp. Will the Secretary of State make sure that local authorities are given plenty of advance notice of how their budgets can be protected for the next financial year?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I have laid out when the review will be and that we will give as much notice as we can prior to 1 April.

Achieving Economic Growth

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Wednesday 18th May 2022

(1 year, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait The Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
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It is a pleasure to close this debate on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government. I thank right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House who have contributed; they made many important points, quite rightly holding the Government to account in the best traditions of this House, which made for an excellent debate to follow Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech. That speech set out the Government’s plans to grow our economy, ease the cost of living and drive our levelling-up agenda.

My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury set out earlier today the ambitious plans for accelerating economic growth in this country. I echo his comments that there are reasons to be optimistic. Last year the United Kingdom was the fastest-growing economy in the G7. Employment has fallen back to 3.7%, below pre-pandemic levels, the lowest in nearly 50 years—since, I think, before you were even born, Mr Deputy Speaker, assuming that you were not born in 1974. However, as in 1974, inflation is once more on the prowl. It is a global issue, because of wars and rumours of wars, as well as, of course, the covid pandemic. Energy prices have risen globally. Other supply chains are disrupted, and China’s biggest cities are in lockdown. Container shipping is in the wrong place in parts of the world. The monetary policy prescripts that were necessary to deal with the global financial crisis and the pandemic risk of economic inactivity have also taken their toll. All that presents challenges not just to the Government in this country, but to Governments across the world. Fortunately, this Government—Her Majesty’s Government—have plans to deal with them.

The areas under my direct responsibility are some crucial, essential, fundamental supply-side reforms in the Brexit freedoms Bill and the Procurement Bill. Those two Bills, along with a host of others in the Queen's Speech covering data reform, gene editing, future transport technology, financial services reform and more, provide exactly the sort of meaningful policy—supply-side reforms that Opposition Members always oppose because their answer is always more regulation and more interference— which will truly open up the bottlenecks in our economy and give the British people the plenty and prosperity that they deserve. Once again, it is Conservatives who are willing to make proper, long-term, well-thought-through policy decisions to the benefit of the British people.

Before I talk about the Bills in more detail, I want to refer to some of the comments that have been made during today’s excellent debate—and what a pleasure to start with the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves). Her speech was a beautifully crafted and elegant audition for the leadership of the Labour party, but she has set out her stall, and having always been thought of as being quite moderate—she was, I believe, an economist for the Bank of England at one point—she is now red in tooth and claw. The prescripts of socialism came spewing forth: higher tax, higher regulation, more spending. The fuel for the inflationary fire was piled up as if she were looking for a veritable bonfire.

The hon. Member for Leeds West was only to be outdone by the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome), who, if the other hon. Lady was Solomon, was Rehoboam. If it was whips from the shadow Chancellor, it was scorpions from the hon. Member for Nottingham East. The scorpions of socialism have lashed this country before, and we will not be stung by their like again. But I must now move on to the very distinguished hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss).

There is a phrase that comes to mind, because the hon. Lady was looking around for something with which to attack this Government, an extraordinary thing for her to do. She found that one item, which was of course the obsession of the Scottish National party, who want to be free from the United Kingdom only to be in thrall to the yoke of Brussels. She found a few pounds that used to come from Brussels but do not come from the United Kingdom, but she forgot the £41 billion that will go from the UK taxpayer to Scotland each year for the next three years; the £170 million from the levelling-up fund for eight Scottish projects; the £52 million to support the establishment of two green freeports; the £42 million for Scottish fisheries and the £1.9 billion for farmers and land managers; and the £1.5 billion for 12 city growth deals. The hon. Lady sat there elegantly straining at a gnat, when camel after camel had been greedily swallowed by the Scottish Government previously.

Let me turn to the inspired and helpful interventions from this side of the House. I am not saying that there is a monopoly of wisdom on this side of the House, although it does sometimes look that way. We started with my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green), who pointed out that productivity had been a challenge for this economy for some time. He is absolutely right, and that is why supply-side reforms are so important.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) mentioned shale gas. I recall an occasion when a much more distinguished speaker at this Dispatch Box decided that the argument coming from the Back Bench was so strong that he could not rise to answer it and remain within the confines of collective agreement. My more distinguished predecessor was, as it happens, Robert Peel, and the argument was over free trade. Although I was not entirely won over by my right hon. Friend’s argument, I am nonetheless glad that Her Majesty’s Government are reviewing the position on shale to ensure that we maximise safely the resources that lie under the feet of the people of this nation.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Several Members on this side and on the other side spoke today in favour of a windfall tax on windfall profits. As I understand it, the right hon. Gentleman is wholeheartedly opposed to this socialism, so if and when the Government introduce it, will he resign?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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Unfortunately, as so often, the hon. Gentleman has not been paying proper attention to the day’s debate. If he had, he might have heard an authority greater than I am answering half a dozen questions on that very issue from the Leader of the Opposition slightly earlier. The authority in Her Majesty’s Government is obviously the Prime Minister, of whom I am a humble servant.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) raised the issue of disruption in supply chains. This is a fundamental problem, and until supply chains are restored, inflation is likely to be difficult. The contributions have ranged widely. We heard from my hon. Friends the Members for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) and for Rugby (Mark Pawsey), as well as from my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Kate Griffiths), whom I was pleased to visit last week. We had the pleasure of going to the Elkes Biscuits factory. If you want a better biscuit, buy Elkes biscuits. They are absolutely delicious. I helped—I was not very good at helping, but I did help—and they sent me home with a packet of Bourbon creams, which have never been devoured faster than they were by my children. I thank my hon. Friend for having me on that visit.

We heard from my hon. Friends the Members for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) and for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), and from my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who insisted that we stick to the title of the debate, which is “Achieving economic growth”. He is almost always absolutely right, but on this occasion he was particularly absolutely right. We want to stick to the issue of economic growth. We also heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake).

I do not know whether to be delighted or somewhat miffed at my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson), because in one short speech she made a point that I have been trying to make for about 20 years and she made it more pithily and better than I have ever done. She used a cricketing metaphor, which is that the Government are the groundsmen, and the most they can do is to prepare the pitch for the bowlers and batsmen—the businesses across the country who provide the economic activity. We are not the players in the game; we are the groundsmen. As I say, that is a point that I have been trying to make for a long time, and I am going to steal my hon. Friend’s pithy aphorism shamelessly. I hope that I have her permission to do so.

We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher), and also from my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne), who said that growth was everything, agreeing with my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) might need to contact the Boundary Commission, because during his speech he decided to rename his constituency the “Silicon Valley of Europe”. For that to be officially approved, I think it would have to go through the proper processes, but it seems to me a jolly good idea that we should have the Silicon Valley of Europe in Milton Keynes, with robots going around showing how modern and technologically sophisticated they are.

I was also delighted by the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder). I visited his constituency recently, and he generously provided me with the most excellent cake. Hon. and right hon. Members will think that wherever I go I am provided with confections of the most delicious kind, but that is not compulsory, and I would happily go without the cake to visit Poundbury, which is the most amazing success of planning in providing the things that people want. It is beautiful and elegant, and it achieves a density that other places do not achieve.

I also listened to my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) with pleasure.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 3rd February 2022

(2 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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It is very straightforward: legislative reform orders, which went to the Regulatory Reform Committee, are going to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee instead, and it seemed more sensible to bring that together with the Select Committee that is in charge of the interests of business, is fighting for business and is economically involved, rather than having a separate and expensive Select Committee. It is a question of efficiency—a legislative reform of our own within this House to save the taxpayer money.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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Yesterday afternoon, I chaired a meeting here in Parliament with the Russian ambassador, which was interesting, to put it mildly, and obviously we talked about the crisis in Ukraine. Lots of us in the House want to help the Government to put in place proper sanctions, if necessary, in a timely fashion. Before the Foreign Secretary fell ill with covid—we wish her well—she announced to the House that a statutory instrument will soon come before us that is to be legal by next Thursday. It would be much better were the whole House able to show support for that SI in consideration on the Floor of the House, so that we could make clear our support for the Ukrainian people and our desire to make sure that jaw-jaw is more important than war-war.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support for Government policy in relation to Ukraine. Her Majesty’s Government have made it absolutely clear that should a further Russian incursion into Ukraine happen, allies must enact swift retributive responses, including unprecedented sanctions. It is obviously right that any statutory instruments that come to the House are considered fully and I note the hon. Gentleman’s request for a debate.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for her work to foster culture change in the House of Commons and in the setting up of the ICGS, which would not have happened in the form in which it has without her energy and drive. It has been enormously to the advantage of the House of Commons. I am glad that the Chairman of the Standards Committee, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), is present in the Chamber, because I am sure he will have heard what my right hon. Friend had to say. There will be a debate later and it is important that all views about how things can be done better and differently are sent into the Standards Committee so that it can produce its report. My right hon. Friend’s comments are extremely helpful and her experience makes them particularly valid—[Interruption.] I think the Chairman of the Standards Committee is indicating that he has taken them as a formal representation.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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indicated assent.

Committee on Standards: Members’ Code of Conduct Review

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 3rd February 2022

(2 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
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I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and the Committee on Standards for their assiduous work in conducting a review of the Members’ code of conduct. I am pleased to participate in today’s debate, and I agree with the shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), that it has been of very high quality, featuring many important contributions from across the House. I hope that it will be viewed as part of the evidence collected through the consultation process.

The hon. Member for Rhondda gave a good account of the complex issues that the Committee has had cause to consider in its review. The code of conduct for MPs rightly remains a matter for Parliament and, as we have said before, it is for the House of Commons to take forward any work on these issues on a cross-party basis. The Government will provide a response in due course on matters relating to the Executive and wider Government policy, but in the meantime I should like to make the following points.

The Government believe that, as public office holders, Members of Parliament have a duty to act in accordance with the seven principles of public life. These ethical principles form the foundation of the members’ code of conduct, and their value lies in the fact that they are applied consistently and commonly to all holders of public office, including Ministers. It is the fact that they are applied universally that gives these principles strength and meaning. I believe that we should maintain a consistent set of principles rather than tinkering with these commonly understood standards.

The Committee has also recommended that an additional principle of “respect” be added to the code of conduct. It is my view that adjustments of this kind, which would undermine the universality of the principles of public life, are undesirable. As drafted, the parliamentary behaviour code strikes the right balance between ensuring that all members of the parliamentary community and visitors to this place are treated with “dignity, courtesy and respect”, and ensuring that different views can be freely exchanged in debate, and Members can fulfil their constitutional duty of representing their constituents.

As for the scope of the code and the potential for consideration of public complaints about the use of social media by Members, the Government believe that in the course of debate, whether online or in person, the views of all participants can be freely expressed and treated with tolerance. It is important to distinguish between strongly felt political debate on the one hand, and unlawful acts of abuse, intimidation and violence that seek to suppress free speech on the other.

We therefore do not support further strictures in this regard within the code. Such changes would risk undermining the fundamental principles of our constitution, or unduly limit the ability of Members to express their views. However, I would note that there is also a role for political parties in this area. The Government response to the report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life on tackling intimidation in public life asserted that each political party should put in place its own individual, tailored code of conduct, which should set out the standards of behaviour expected of its members and representatives. All the political parties represented in the House of Commons now have their own codes of conduct.

The Standards Committee has also looked at the existing rules on the registration and declaration of interests to ensure that they are clear and up to date. The Government see merit in several of those proposals, but at this stage I simply observe that the rules regulating the interests of Members and Ministers are necessarily distinct. The separation of powers is a fundamental constitutional principle and it remains the Government’s view that benefits received by Ministers in their ministerial capacity should not form part of the Members’ register.

I will give an example. In the unlikely event that I were made Minister for Sport—it is unlikely because this speech has been cleared by Downing Street, which did not question the thought that it was—I would see it as a great privilege to go to a test match at Lord’s. I would also receive many other invitations, however, and I am afraid to say that it would be more of a duty to go to the FA cup final, even though many other Members may think that a great privilege. So what Ministers do may be duty rather than pleasure, whereas Members do not have to accept invitations in that sphere, or certainly not normally.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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I sort of understand the point that the Leader of the House is making, but why should the public not just know? Why should the public have to know about an ordinary MP going to the football or the cricket or whatever, and know the details of them receiving hospitality worth more than £300 within 28 days, but when it is a Minister, they do not have to know for months and months, and in some cases they never get to know the details at all?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The speed of registration is a very fair point, but it is a governmental rather than a parliamentary matter. In terms of the actual declaration, it could give a misleading impression that a Minister, particularly one in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, was attending a constant round of entertainments that were, in fact, entirely in the course of their public duties. That would be very different from a Member of Parliament who had no obligation and was purely attending, if at the same events, for his or her own pleasure.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 27th January 2022

(2 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The last Bill of attainder, as far as I am aware, was in 1798, although there was the Titles Deprivation Act 1917 to strip royal dukes of their titles when they were traitors. My hon. Friend is right to say that it requires legislation to take away a peerage, although I do slightly wonder what satisfaction it will give to the person to whom he refers to be called “My Lord” while he is serving time at Her Majesty’s expense. The disgrace he has felt means that his title has become, I hope, wormwood.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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I know the Leader of the House loves patronising Opposition MPs, but to be honest I have been patronised by much more illustrious people than him.

Can we have a debate, because the Leader of the House did not take this question seriously earlier, about the evacuation from Afghanistan? Many of us still have constituents and friends of constituents who are stuck in Afghanistan in very dangerous and frightening situations, and some of us are concerned that the process of deciding the priorities last summer was not as it should have been. In fact, it was so chaotic—perhaps for good reasons, but perhaps for bad reasons as well—that bad decisions were made.

If we had such a debate, we would also have the opportunity to clear up the fact that the Prime Minister has repeatedly said that he took absolutely no role in the decision to evacuate Pen Farthing and Nowzad, whereas the Prime Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary wrote a letter in which she made it clear that she was involved as his PPS. We now have in the Foreign Affairs Committee an email from one of Lord Goldsmith’s officials, so a member of the Foreign Office team, saying that the Prime Minister had authorised this. We need to get to the bottom of this. There may be a perfectly innocent explanation. But it may be guilty as charged.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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Under Operation Pitting, our armed forces and civil service worked around the clock to evacuate 15,000 people, including around 8,300 British nationals and 5,000 people through the Afghan relocations policy. This was an incredibly successful and pressurised operation, and our armed forces, once again, showed what amazing things they can do when called upon to do them. The hon. Gentleman is fussing about a few animals. I think that shows the level of seriousness that he characteristically brings to today’s debate.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 13th January 2022

(2 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but I wonder whether I may give an advert for Truespeed, which has come to Somerset and is doing terrific work in ensuring that my constituents are connected? Connecting Devon and Somerset has also been working very hard to improve the quality of broadband. However, it has to be said that when it comes to mobile telephony, there are still some parts of the south-west where the signal goes down and it does not seem to come back particularly quickly.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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I read the Government’s record on covid slightly differently from the Leader of the House. Yes, the Government did really well on vaccines and take-up, but we had the biggest economic collapse of any advanced economy in the world, and I think we probably still have the highest death rate per 100,000.

My big anxiety this year is the financial situation facing families in my constituency. Gas and electricity bills are likely to go up by 50% in April. The cost of petrol and diesel has already gone up by 25% this year, compared with last year. We have the national insurance increase and a 7.1% increase in basic inflation. The average family in my constituency—I have done the figures—will be £1,535 worse off every year, and for those on universal credit the figure is £2,575. Many families are just on the cusp of collapsing financially. They would need an 18% pay rise this year to meet that figure, and that simply is not going to happen. So what are the Government going to do? When will they come here and acknowledge that we really do have a crisis facing thousands of families?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

The hon. Gentleman is not right to say that we have the worst death rate of any major western country, because other European countries have worse rates.

In relation to the economic figures, we use a more up-to-date way of calculating GDP, so if people are still paid to work in a school but that school is not open, we do not count that towards our GDP, whereas most countries do. It is very important, when making these statements, to ensure that the comparators are correct.

Let me come to the hon. Gentleman’s question, because I think the whole House recognises the difficulties that our constituents may be facing during the course of the year. On his underlying point, most of our constituents live to their income level, and therefore big swings in costs have a powerful effect on people pretty much regardless of their income level. Those problems are recognised, so what are the Government doing? Well, there is £4.2 billion of taxpayer support to help with the cost of living. The national living wage will go up to £9.50 from April. Some 2 million families will get an extra £1,000 through our cut to the universal credit taper and increased work allowances. There will be seasonal cold weather payments of an extra £25 a week for up to 4 million people during colder periods. Fuel duty has been frozen for the 12th year running, saving car drivers £15 every time they fill up compared with pre-2010 plans. Local housing allowance has been increased in cash terms this year, worth an extra £600 on average to 1.5 million households. The energy cap remains in place. We have provided the £500 million household support fund so that local authorities can offer their residents help with food and utility bills, and there are winter fuel payments to over 11.4 million pensioners, worth up to £300. So there is very considerable support, but I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, because it is a worrying time for many people.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 6th January 2022

(2 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

The hon. Lady’s seasonal wishes for a happy new year did not seem to last very long, but may I perhaps be more good natured and wish people not only a happy new year but a happy feast of Epiphany, which is an important day in our Christmas celebrations?

The hon. Lady thinks that I might be converted to her way of thinking, but that is wishful thinking. As her questions went on and on, it became clear that she was referring to taxpayers’ money, which is a good Tory principle. We always call it taxpayers’ money because we recognise that there is no money from anywhere else. Also, she is becoming a Eurosceptic; she has become a staunch Brexiteer. The only reason our socialist friends can advocate cutting VAT on fuel is that we have left the European Union. If we were still in the megalithic state that she used to campaign for—and that I think her constituents almost entirely voted for—we would not be able to cut VAT on fuel. I am delighted that she welcomes these flexibilities that come from Brexit. Not only do we have happy fish, having left the European Union, but we have increasingly happy socialists who realise that taking back control is a very useful thing to do.

The hon. Lady then complains—she moans and berates me—about there being no development in respect of the Online Safety Bill, when I have just announced a debate. This may have passed her by, because she quite likes to work remotely sometimes, but the amazing thing about debates in this House is that they are responded to by a Government Minister, so when we have a debate next week on the draft Online Safety Bill, if she listens carefully and bates her breath, she will be able to hear the views of Her Majesty’s Government on that Bill. I am grateful to the Joint Committee for its important work.

We then come to crime. The Conservative party has always been the party of law and order. I am sure, Mr Speaker, that you do not want or need a history lesson, but it is worth bearing in mind that the Peelers—the Bobbies—were founded by a former Conservative Prime Minister in his distinguished period as Home Secretary. Sir Robert Peel was a Conservative.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
- Hansard - -

You chucked him out.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

Actually, he was chucked out by the Whigs, who voted against him on an Irish coercion Bill. The hon. Gentleman is forgetting his history for once; he normally likes to burnish his historical knowledge for the erudition of the House. We have recruited more than 11,000 police officers since 2019 and are more than halfway to meeting the promise of 20,000 more by 2023. We have done a great deal to tackle violent crime: from 2019 to 2022, in the 18 areas worst affected by serious violence we have spent more than £105 million of taxpayers’ money to develop 18 violence reduction units, and more than £136 million to support an enhanced police response.

If we really want to compare crime, let us look at two Mayors. The office of the Mayor of London—once a noble office held with distinction when it was graced by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—is now sadly traduced as we see the record number of teenagers stabbed over the past year because of the failures of the Mayor of London, who cannot run a proper police service. When we had a Conservative Mayor of London, homicide fell: we had safer streets in London when they were Conservative streets. Now, with the socialists in charge, not only can we not move about because the Mayor hates the motorist, but we cannot be safe because he cannot run a proper police force.

We then have the audacity: if you thought, Mr Speaker, that the Labour party now advocating Brexit so that we have the freedom to set our own tax rates showed a bit of gall, the hon. Lady talks about expenditure in the Ministry of Defence when there was a £35 billion—that is serious money—black hole when the Conservatives came into office because Labour could not get the procurement systems right. Procurement is now run by the Minister for Defence Procurement, my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin), who is one of the most distinguished Ministers in Her Majesty’s Government.

Yes, we need new year’s resolutions, and our new year’s resolution is to welcome those who have now become Eurosceptics and those who have now become Conservatives and to keep on with good Conservative measures that lead to better government and the protection of the British people.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

My reading material was not the NME nor The BMJ. If somebody asks me about The Spectator I may be able to give a more positive answer. My hon. Friend raises a very difficult issue. We are a free country, and it is important that we maintain essential liberties. Enforced medication has been extraordinarily rare, though there were examples of compulsory smallpox vaccination in the 19th century. The Government are absolutely of the view—this view is held much more broadly than simply by members of Her Majesty’s Government—that vaccination is our best defence against covid. Vaccination reduces the likelihood of infection and therefore helps to break chains of transmission, and is safe and effective. Any increase in immunity of workers from vaccination will reduce the risk of harm to patients and service users, as well as to our valuable health and social care workforce. Therefore, I am sorry to disappoint my hon. Friend, but Her Majesty’s Government do not agree that the regulations on the vaccination of health and care workers should be revoked.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
- Parliament Live - Hansard - -

Happy Epiphany, Mr Speaker, and I hope that the Leader of the House has many epiphanies. May we have a debate on drug and alcohol services in the country, partly so that we may celebrate the amazing work that is done by the clinicians in those services, often in difficult circumstances, partly so that we may encourage more people to take up that profession, because there is a massive shortage of clinicians across the whole country, and partly, perhaps more importantly—because I suspect every single one of us knows someone who might have been affected by such services—to celebrate those extraordinary people who might have had a problem with drug or alcohol but absolutely have managed to turn their lives around? Should we not celebrate them?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

In a spirit of good will on Epiphany, may I say how much I agree with the hon. Gentleman? I cannot promise a debate, but we should certainly celebrate people who either through their own actions recover from a dependency or help others to recover. I am a great believer that people should have a second chance, a third chance and a fourth chance, and that everything that can be done by parts of the state or voluntary bodies to help that is worth celebrating. I am glad to see that the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee is still in his place, and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has asked once and been successful so, if we are keeping to the biblical theme:

“Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find”.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 2nd December 2021

(2 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

Yeovil is on the Dorset border, so there are some people in Dorset for whom Yeovil would be extremely convenient. Yeovil is a town in Somerset, and therefore it is beautiful, glorious, and magnificent. I would have thought it would be a joy for anybody to go to Yeovil. But my hon. Friend makes a serious point, and after this statement I will of course take it up with the vaccines Minister. GPs are getting more involved and being paid £15 for every vaccine they are able to inject. That may be part of the process, but people need to be able to get to a vaccine centre that is reasonably close to them.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
- Parliament Live - Hansard - -

May we have a debate on what happens to British nationals when they are stuck overseas, for instance when there are changes to the rules on quarantine? There are 42 Welsh rugby players stuck in South Africa at the moment, including one of my constituents. They are in a double bind. Some of them have now had covid, so they might have to do 10 days’ quarantine in South Africa and then, on top of that, another 10 days’ quarantine in the UK. There is obviously a significant cost to that; more importantly, there is a cost to their mental health, too. Is there more we can do to help them to get home?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

If there are specific constituency cases, the hon. Gentleman should raise those in the normal manner. If he needs the assistance of my office in doing that, I am always willing to help hon. and right hon. Members. The issue could have been raised in the broad debate on introducing the regulations, which took place when we took away the half day from the SNP. So there was a chance to debate it, but certainly we would be very keen to help with individual constituency cases.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. Yes, of course, he is the wedding feast at Cana, and the fine wine has been saved for last. I now understand the reason he wrote to me about being missed. His point is an important one and I will take it up with the Secretary of State for Transport. We obviously want to have efficient transport across the whole of the United Kingdom, and we particularly need the hon. Gentleman to be able to come here because he does so assiduously and dutifully, and, I think, he wins the prize for finest heckler in the House.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

No! Division!

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Monday 29th November 2021

(2 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
- Parliament Live - Hansard - -

The thing is that during covid we have started to develop really bad habits. As I understand it, the measures have not yet been laid—they are not available for any of us to see and will not be available until later today. They will start to apply at 4 o’clock tomorrow morning and we will then legislate for that retrospectively tomorrow afternoon. This is not the right way to do legislation. Every single statutory instrument Committee in which I have been involved in recent months has been on retrospective legislation that has already come into force. This is not the way the House should progress, surely to God.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

I had hoped that the hon. Gentleman’s quite long question was going to go on slightly longer, because I understand that the regulations will be laid by 5 o’clock. Had he gone on for another three minutes they would by then have been laid—

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

The hon. Gentleman, who is currently getting a little bit grumpy, is ignoring the fact that these matters are genuinely urgent. Of course it is right that laws should not come in retrospectively in the normal course of events, but our statutes provide for statutory instruments to be brought in and debated subsequently for a very good purpose, which is that sometimes things need to be done with dispatch. The Opposition, who would have kept us in lockdown forever, should remember their dither and delay when they ask questions about the speed with which we introduce things.

Strengthening Standards in Public Life

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Wednesday 17th November 2021

(2 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are responsible and accountable to our voters. This is why the Chairman of the Standards Committee will be leading his distinguished Committee in looking into this and I hope will make recommendations to the House.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
- Hansard - -

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for giving way, and this is very naughty of me because I have only just walked in from the Liaison Committee; I am breaking all the standards of the House. The only point I want to make is that I think it would be very difficult for the commissioner to start investigating whether an MP was devoting enough of their time to their constituents. Of course, all our constituents want us to throw ourselves heart and soul into our work, and I think we all do. Many of us work many more hours than a normal working week—60, 70, 80 hours. But I am just very hesitant about going down this route of timesheets or something. She already gets thousands of requests every year saying that an MP has not replied to an email, he or she has voted the wrong way, or whatever. I just urge him, and I will urge my Committee very strongly, to think very carefully about this.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

May I thank the hon. Gentleman, the parliamentary leader of Plaid Cymru, the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts), and the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar for their good temper and sense in this debate and for trying to bring a genuinely cross-party approach?

As the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has pointed out, these issues are complex. They are not open to easy solutions; they need deliberation. How people lead their lives depends very much on them as individuals, and trying to work out how an MP fulfils his or her duties is not something that can easily be put down in a time and motion study. That is why we are hoping that his Committee will be able to consider it and then bring forward recommendations that, with support on a cross-party basis, may prove acceptable to the House as a whole.

If I may continue, we endorse the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s recommendation that MPs should be banned from accepting any paid work to provide services as a parliamentary strategist, adviser or consultant. It is, of course, the case that amending the code of conduct for MPs is a matter for Parliament, rather than for the Government—indeed, strictly speaking it is a matter for this House, the Commons, because of our exclusive cognisance of our own affairs. However, Her Majesty’s Government believe that those two recommendations form the basis of a viable approach that could command the confidence of both parliamentarians and the public, and would therefore like to see them adopted.

Coming to the final part of my remarks—this is the point at which normally, somebody says, “Hear, hear”—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!] Thank you. I know that some hon. Members like nothing more in debate than to start delving down the procedural rabbit holes of the merits or otherwise of Standing Orders and the like. I am not immune to that temptation myself, but I do not think it would be useful in this instance. It is an established convention—this is one problem with the Opposition motion—that the Government are able to transact their business in the House of Commons, and the House itself has long recognised that principle in Standing Order No. 14, which provides that Government business takes precedence.

To give this motion from the Standards Committee immediate precedence would be both impractical and unnecessary. Her Majesty’s Government support the amendment to

“bring forward recommendations to update the code of conduct for MPs by 31 January 2022”,

which sets a clear timeframe for progress on the issues discussed today. The Government therefore support a more practical amendment that acknowledges the concerns we have all been hearing in recent days, and positively proposes that the proportionate measures devised by the Committee on Standards in Public Life should be taken forward on a cross-party basis. That would include the work being done by this House’s Committee on Standards, in accordance with the timeframe suggested by Opposition Members. We have listened, and we have very much taken into account what they have proposed. It is important to note that on this matter, as on the other issues before us today relating to the code of conduct, the Government recognise that any changes are a matter for the House, and are looking ahead to the next steps being taken in a way that seeks consensus and respects the views of all sides of the House.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 4th November 2021

(2 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

May I just reiterate what I said at the beginning of these proceedings? While there is a very strong feeling on both sides of the House that there is a need for an appeals process, there is equally a strong feeling that this should not be based on a single case or applied retrospectively. I fear last night’s debate conflated the individual case with the general concern. This link needs to be broken. I hope that answers my hon. Friend’s question.

As regards the vexed question of whipping, as I understand it, all Whips are attendance Whips. My hon. Friend is well known for his independence of mind, and I am sure his constituents are aware of that, but to vandalise some Member’s property or office because of the way that Member voted seems to me to be potentially a breach of privilege, and it may be something that needs to be looked into with considerable care. As you warned us yesterday, Mr Speaker, we always need to discuss these things in a temperate and sensible manner.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
- Parliament Live - Hansard - -

The problem is, we are in a quagmire now. I fully support the comments that have just been made by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and I am sorry for everything that has happened to his office; I think that has happened to quite a lot of MPs over the last few years. I think the message for all of us is that we need to be very careful when we are talking about standards issues, as I have tried to be.

The Leader of the House is quite right that we should never be changing the rules at the last minute for a named individual. There is a potential solution to that, which is that the Standards Committee, on a cross-party basis, could produce another report next Tuesday, which the Government could then put to the House next week to deal with the case of the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson). I think the Committee would say exactly the same thing, but it would be a means of separating that case out from the issue of the whether we should change the system.

On changing the system, as the Leader of the House knows, because he has given evidence to our Committee, we are already reviewing that. There are decent points to be made about things that could be improved in the system. They are not easy things to resolve, but my Committee will do its best, on a cross-party basis and with independent members—a valuable addition to the process and an important part of establishing the trust of the public—to take that forward.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for confirming that there are concerns about the system. I think there is a general concern about the investigator and the adjudicator being the same person. It has been suggested to me on a number of occasions that that should be looked at. I am grateful for his suggestion that we should use moderate language, although it has to be remembered that he was the one comparing what happened yesterday to Russia when he was on the wireless this morning, so I hope he will use moderate language not only when he is in this House. As I say, it is important that this is looked at on a cross-party basis, because we need to have robust standards in which Members have confidence.

Committee on Standards

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Wednesday 3rd November 2021

(2 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I am sure that the Committee we are setting up will want to consider the appearance of witnesses and whether that ought to be a fundamental right of people accused of serious cases—

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
- Hansard - -

If it is all right, I just want to respond directly to the point that has just been made. [Interruption.]

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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

I just wanted to make a simple point, which is that we reviewed and read all the witness statements. Nobody asked to make an oral witness statement to us. It is perfectly normal in most workplaces in this country, as a retired High Court judge confirmed to me yesterday, for witness statements to be read and considered, and not necessarily for witnesses to be questioned or cross-examined. We did a perfectly normal, fair hearing for the right hon. Member for North Shropshire. We considered all the witness statements and we published them.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The point is that there was this facility to set up an investigatory panel, which was not used. It would have been able to see all the witnesses that my right hon. Friend wanted.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The right hon. Gentleman is a very distinguished and fair-minded Member of this House. It is fundamentally important that the whistleblowing exemption is an exemption and not a loophole that can be exploited for all purposes. Paid advocacy demeans the House and is not something that Members should be involved in. On the other hand, if people have come across a serious wrong in the course of something they have been paid for, I think most fair-minded Members would think it only right and proper that they should tell Ministers about it. There must be a clear dividing line, which I hope the Select Committee would be able to establish. That is at the heart of the disagreement between my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire and the Committee on Standards, and that matter needs to be clearer.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

rose—

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I think the hon. Gentleman is going to speak at the end, so it may be best if he does that.

Independent Expert Panel Recommendations for Sanctions and the Recall of MPs Act 2015

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Tuesday 19th October 2021

(2 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

We have not been advised of any problems with legal challenge. I still think legislation would be better. Legislation always—or nearly always—puts things completely beyond doubt, whereas Standing Orders changes do not always put things completely beyond doubt. However, it would then be a proceeding in Parliament and, as we all know, article IX of the Bill of Rights says that no proceeding in Parliament should be

“impeached or questioned in any Court”

of law or any other place.—[Interruption.] I have got it right, have I not? I think we would be able to rely on that very solidly, and that must appeal to the Leader of the House because it goes back to the 17th century. On the question of the independence of the IEP, we are very keen in the Standards Committee that we will do everything to maintain that independence, and it will not be questioned or impeached by us in any shape or form.

I note that the changes to the Standing Orders say that the Chair of the Committee can do something if the Committee has not managed

“to meet within 3 sitting days”.

I think this would happen quite often, because it is quite difficult to ensure that the Standards Committee is going to meet within three days, especially because the independent members come from some distance and we would not necessarily be able to gather them together, and we can be quorate only if we have three lay members and three members who are Members of the House.

I gently suggest to the Leader of the House that it might be nice, at some point, to have a Standing Order that says that all motions from the independent expert panel or from the Committee on Standards will be before the House within three sitting days as well, but I know what he is going to say. He will say that it is all very difficult, and that sometimes it is impossible to find time and sometimes it is possible to find time—

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

The Leader of the House takes my point.

On retrospectivity, I am afraid I am not going to vote for the amendment in the names of the Leader of the Opposition and shadow Leader of the House; I will be voting against it. The independent expert panel could have decided in the case we are referring to that the Member should be expelled from the House; I do not make a judgment as to whether that would be the right thing to do, but it could have done that. It knew perfectly well that these were the rules and that it was unable to allow the invoking of the Recall of MPs Act 2015. That is why it is unfair to introduce an element of retrospectivity.

It does, however, present a very difficult example for the House that somebody who has been found to have behaved so inappropriately that in any other set of circumstances it would have been invoking the Recall of MPs Act chooses to continue in the House. The Leader of the House himself has said that he thinks the hon. Member should resign, and that is my view as well. The situation is very difficult for constituents in that constituency and for other Members and staff around the House, and I wish it could be other than it is, but that does not mean we can surrender the fundamental principles we have always had.

My main point, however, is that I fully support the closing of the loophole, and I wish this had done before the IEP came to its decision on the case hon. Members have referred to. I only wish that attitudes across the House were changing more rapidly, and we still have a considerable job of work to do on that, but I am assured that many members of staff both of Members and of the House feel reassured by the independence of the IEP process, and I would encourage anybody who ever feels that they have been bullied or have been subject to sexual harassment in their line of work here to present themselves, because they will have a fair hearing from the system.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

With the leave of the House, I will respond to the debate. I thank all those who participated in it. I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), for her support for the main motion, and I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) not just for his support for the main motion but for the considerable contribution that he has made to ensuring culture change in the Palace of Westminster.

I am in considerable agreement with the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), the Chairman of the Standards Committee. He made the very important point that this is not a loophole, but it was a deliberate decision that was taken because of representations that were made to exclude recall when the independent expert panel was set up. As it happens, I also agree with him that that was a mistake. The arguments against allowing for recall were essentially weak and erroneous. I think that we agreed to them because we wanted to set the panel up in a spirit of consensus and compromise, and to ensure that all the participants were happy, with the knowledge that we could go further in the future.

I turn to the speech by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips). I agree with a great deal of what she says. I confess that my first reaction when I heard about this case was that the Member concerned should not remain a Member of this House, and I said that I thought he should resign. However, I listened very carefully to what the chairman of the IEP said and very carefully, actually, to the basic principle of justice that nobody has a punishment inflicted upon him that was not available at the time the offence was committed. That principle does not apply just to this House; it applies throughout our court and legal system, and it has, really, from the earliest times. I think that is an important principle of justice.

What the hon. Lady said in her impassioned plea is so right in so many ways. Actually, when the recall Bill came through, I was of the view that we could always trust our constituents under the widest possible circumstances of recall. I have never felt that we should shy away from what our constituents want. I was very much in support of what my noble Friend Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park was trying to do. However, Parliament decided otherwise. Parliament decided to introduce a recall Act subject to strict criteria, including going through a Committee of this House, and those criteria were deliberately not used to extend the Act to the independent expert panel.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Parliament Live - Hansard - -

Will the Leader of the House give way?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

I will not, actually, on this occasion; I want to complete my thought.

I think so many of us were so desperately depressed when, after all that this House had tried, after the efforts that we made to improve the standards of behaviour, to achieve culture change and to ensure that people working in this palace felt safe and secure and respected, somebody so recently elected, who went on the course about treating people properly—somebody who did all of that and got every message from the Whips, every message from the Government, every message from this House—had broken the rules within a few months. But that was the system that there was; that system provided for a penalty that was imposed; that penalty was imposed by an independent body, and that is justice. One may then change it for the future. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley knows how much I respect her—that is not the normal waffle of politics; I hold her genuinely in the highest regard, and I admire her campaigning spirit—but I am afraid that on this occasion, justice must trump anger.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

The Leader of the House knows that I will vote with him on this matter, but for me the biggest problem is that the Member concerned has shown absolutely no insight into his conduct. That was a point that the independent expert panel made, and it has been absolutely self-evident at every single moment since. That really does pose a problem for all of us. I know that many Members on his own side have said to him, “It would be better for you and for the House if you were to step down.” I very rarely say this, but as a former priest, I would say this to him as well. I think it would be in his own best interests, for him to be able to move on in his own life, if he were to step aside, and that is what I would prefer.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

I do not think that it is really for me to respond to what the hon. Gentleman has said, but it will be in Hansard tomorrow.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 9th September 2021

(2 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I have had the privilege of visiting my right hon. Friend’s constituency, whose fine produce is absolutely remarkable. I think that he introduced me to the largest pumpkin grower in England—by which I mean that he grows the most pumpkins, not the biggest pumpkins.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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He is not the fattest pumpkin grower either, no.

On 20 July, the Government announced a further package of measures to help industry to tackle the issues caused by the HGV driver shortage. Those measures include support for the recruitment and retention of drivers, such as proposals to streamline the process to obtain a licence, offering financial assistance for training, and backing industry-led initiatives to improve the working conditions for driving. I have also noticed reports that wages for HGV drivers are going up. This is, as so often, a market solution.

--- Later in debate ---
Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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This is an important matter, and it is quite wrong for developers to sell substandard homes. Developers must meet their responsibilities to resolve issues quickly and treat home buyers fairly when things go wrong. They must also meet planning conditions agreed with the local authority. The Building Safety Bill includes provision for the new homes ombudsman scheme to provide strong and effective redress for new build home buyers and to hold poor developers to account.

Furthermore, our future planning reforms will inject real competition and quality into our construction market, with new builders entering the market to challenge incumbents, and we hope that a wave of self-built houses and a focus on beauty and quality will follow. Members will have the opportunity to raise these issues as the legislation makes its way through the House.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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Is it not great to be back properly, with all of us here?

One of the saddest stories I heard this week was about Sarah Harding, the Girls Aloud singer who died of cancer—partly, her family said, because she chose not to go to the doctor early enough due to covid. The cancer was not detected soon enough.

My concern about getting over the massive backlog is that lots of people are already choosing to go private. Even people of very meagre means are spending £3,000 or £5,000 on new hips and knees, which seems massively unfair. Should we not be buying up all the capacity in the private sector, at cost, so that people are dealt with on the basis of need rather than their financial position?

Secondly, there is a real problem with staffing. We have a shortage of pathologists and histopathologists—the people who check whether something is a bad cancer—and a shortage of radiologists and radiographers. Can we have a debate on how we get staff numbers, not just more managers on £270,000, into the NHS as fast as possible?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I find myself in a great deal of agreement with the hon. Gentleman that it is so important that people go to their doctor if they have any suspicions. He has been an example of that and I know has recovered. It was to the great relief of the House that he had the sense to be checked out early. If there is any message one could ever give to anybody who listens to these sessions it would be to go to see their doctor if they have a concern, and I remind GPs that they are meant to be offering face-to-face appointments again. The money is being provided to deal with the backlog. I think I said earlier that it would deal with 9 million cases, but, yes, shortages of staff are an issue and it is of fundamental importance that the money goes to where it is needed in the NHS: supporting paying for the staff who will be carrying things out rather than paying very large bureaucratic salaries, which does not seem to be the best application of funds.

Parliamentary Works Sponsor Body

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Monday 28th June 2021

(2 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
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I beg to move,

That Marta Phillips, Dr Simon Thurley and Simon Wright be appointed as external members of the Parliamentary Works Sponsor Body under Part 1, Schedule 1 to the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Act 2019.

The House will be relieved that I do not intend to detain it long. The 90 minutes available for this debate may be more than is necessary, but it may help if I explain that I am bringing this motion forward on behalf of the Sponsor Body. Schedule 1 of the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Act 2019 states that the Sponsor Body must consist of between two and four external members, excluding the chairman. The current external board members were appointed on 1 July 2018, when the Sponsor Body was still in shadow form. Their appointments were confirmed by the House on 24 March 2020, as the body became a statutory organisation. Under the Act, a member must be appointed for a fixed term of not more than three years, although they can be reappointed. Their terms will therefore expire no later than 31 June 2021.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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I am not going to delay people for long either. I just wonder: we are doing all this appointing of people to the Sponsor Body, but are they ever going to mix a bucket of cement?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I think it unlikely that Marta Phillips, Dr Simon Thurley and Simon Wright will mix buckets of cement on the estate of the Palace of Westminster. I am glad to say that work is going on. I have reported already to the House that the fire safety work has taken place and been tested across the estate, and I think that eight miles of pipe have gone in. Preliminary works are under way to make the preparations: Derby Gate is almost completed, and there will be a move of MPs into Richmond House. Many things are happening that will allow the restoration and renewal to take place, so I hope that that gives some reassurance to the hon. Gentleman. It is important that we keep up the pace to get to the full restoration and renewal. As for the individual members of the Sponsor Body mixing cement, that may be something they did in the earlier stages of their careers, but I do not think they will be doing it tomorrow.

A recruitment process for external board members has been undertaken by the Sponsor Body in recent months, and the interview panel included the chairman of the Sponsor Board, a parliamentary member of the Sponsor Board and an independent panel member. Following the recruitment process, the Sponsor Body has reappointed three of the four current external board members. I am grateful to all the external members of the Sponsor Board for their work so far. Today’s motion will approve the reappointment of Marta Phillips, Dr Simon Thurley and Simon Wright, and I therefore commend this motion to the House.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 20th May 2021

(2 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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May I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his unopposed return? We can continue our Bill and Ben act of his asking for more time for the Backbench Business Committee and my telling people who ask for debates that they should ask him, rather than asking me. I am looking forward to continuing that, and I congratulate him most warmly. It is a sign of the House’s confidence in him that he was returned without opposition.

The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. Progress has been made, and I am sorry to hear that his constituency has not been reflective of the nation as a whole, where, since 2010, the number of children in absolute poverty has fallen by 100,000. This is because of a number of policies that have been and continue to be introduced: the national living wage, which is worth around an extra £4,000 a year; the doubling of the personal tax threshold, which is worth an extra £1,200 a year; and an extra £1.7 billion going into universal credit work allowances by 2023-24. A number of steps are being taken and continue to be taken. They have been successful in the past, and I am sure they will continue to be successful in the future.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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On 10 March 1987, Daniel Morgan, a private investigator, was brutally axed to death. So far, the family have never had justice because a series of police investigations have gone awry. There are many allegations about corrupt involvement of police officers and the News of the World under Rupert Murdoch.

The family were delighted when the former Home Secretary and then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), set up an independent panel to investigate all this in 2013. That has now completed its work, and the understanding, because it says so in the terms of reference laid out by the Home Office, was that the Home Secretary would only arrange publication to Parliament—not review it, not redact it, not interfere in any way at all, but publish it to Parliament. She is refusing to do so.

Will the Leader of the House please make sure that this is no longer delayed? Otherwise, it is an outrage to the family—a “kick in the teeth”, as they have said themselves. Can we have the report published on Monday? Can we have an oral statement from the Home Secretary herself, so that we can get to the bottom of this and, most importantly, give justice to the family of Daniel Morgan?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The issue that the hon. Gentleman raises is one of great importance and great concern, which is why the former Home Secretary set up this inquiry. The hon. Gentleman is unfortunately wrong, because the Home Secretary has not received the report from the commission. The Home Secretary will follow her statutory responsibilities—

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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No, that is wrong.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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This was checked with the Home Office this morning. I was told that the Home Secretary had not received the report, so I asked the obvious follow-up question: is it in the post room of the Home Office? It has not been received by the Home Office as of yet.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 13th May 2021

(2 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The question is obviously important, and my hon. Friend is right to raise it. General practice is open and has been throughout the pandemic, and people should be able to receive services in the way that is most suitable for them. The way in which people can get general practice services during covid-19 has changed; practices are offering more triage and remote consultations —video and online—to see as many patients as possible, while protecting staff and patients from the avoidable risk of infection. NHS England and NHS Improvement have issued guidance on the importance of continuing to offer face-to-face appointments, utilising remote triage and making use of online and telephone consultations where suitable.

General practice appointment levels are, I am glad to say, now close to pre-pandemic numbers. In February 2021, an estimated 23.5 million appointments—an average of 1.19 million per working day—were booked in general practice in England, of which 13 million were face-to-face, which is 55.3%. People who need face-to-face appointments ought to be able to get them.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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If we are congratulating people, could we congratulate Buffy Williams on winning her seat in the Senedd for the Rhondda last week? At the same time, could we also pay tribute to Leanne Wood? She was a Plaid Cymru Assembly and then Senedd Member for 18 years, which shows phenomenal dedication. We should pay tribute to those who are our opponents, not our enemies.

May I ask the Leader of the House whether he attended the Brit awards the other night, or watched them perhaps—or whether he knows what the Brit awards are? In particular, did he listen to Dua Lipa’s very important contribution about our health workers in this country? She said:

“It’s very good to clap for them, but we need to pay them.”

I say that because it is not just the people who have been doing the vaccinating and those who have kept us safe over the past 15 months, but the people who will have to get the NHS back into shape to deal with all the other conditions that could not be dealt with for the past year. We need to give them a boost in the arm—and that is money, isn’t it? Can we have a debate on it?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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May I join the hon. Gentleman in congratulating Buffy Williams on her victory in the Rhondda? He is most gracious in paying tribute to Leanne Wood; he is right to do so, because 18 years of public service is a long time and losing elections is never fun, even for our political opponents. It is worth recognising that.

Unfortunately, I did not pay much attention to the British awards.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Resign!

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I am not as trendy, fashionable or à la mode as the hon. Gentleman—if only we could all be such models of modernity as he is. To come to his fundamental point, nurses will receive a 1% pay rise and have received some additional funding as well, but we must recognise that the public finances are under great strain after the hundreds of billions—over £400 billion—that have been spent to protect the economy and deal with covid. There are constraints on what can be spent, but there is an independent review. The Government’s proposal has been made, and we will see what the review says.

House Standards System: Confidentiality and Sanctions

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Wednesday 21st April 2021

(2 years, 11 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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It is important, I think, that the commissioner will have the ability to speak to people informally and, potentially, to stop problems arising if they can be stopped with a word in season.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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indicated assent.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The Chair of the Committee is nodding. That indicates that that is part of this. In the formalisation of the sanctions that this report is dealing with, there is also, as I understand it, the introduction of a least and lowest sanction, which is the word in season to try to ensure that things do not go any further. I made comments earlier about issues relating to how people co-operate with any inquiry, and I reiterate that that is inevitably a secondary and subjective issue, but it ties in at a later stage if somebody has done something that they ought not to have done. I commend these motions to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House reaffirms its commitment to the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS) and to tackling bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct on the part of anyone who works for or with Parliament; reasserts the importance of confidentiality within the ICGS in order to protect the vulnerable and encourage victims to come forward; notes the concerns expressed by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, as set out in the Appendix to the Sixth Report of the Committee on Standards, Confidentiality in the House’s standards system (HC 474), about the operation of certain aspects of the confidentiality regime set up by the House in its decisions of 19 July 2018; agrees to the recommendations specified in paragraph 22 of the Committee’s Twelfth Report, Sanctions and confidentiality in the House’s standards system: revised proposals (HC 1340); and notes that nothing in these recommendations undermines the key ICGS principle of confidentiality;

Ordered,

That Standing Order No. 150 is amended as follows:

in paragraph 12, line 8, to leave out “statistical” before “information” and to add “and matters under investigation” after “received”.

SANCTIONS IN RESPECT OF THE CONDUCT OF MEMBERS

Resolved,

That this House notes the Seventh Report of the Committee on Standards, Sanctions in respect of the conduct of Members (HC 241) and the Committee’s Twelfth Report, Sanctions and confidentiality in the House’s standards system: revised proposals (HC 1340); endorses the Committee’s approach to creating a revised regime of sanctions for breaches of the Code of Conduct in relation both to Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS) cases and non-ICGS cases; notes that the two reports propose which sanctions will be available to be imposed by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, by the Independent Expert Panel (IEP) in ICGS cases, by the Committee on Standards in non-ICGS cases, and by the House itself, with tables showing ICGS and non-ICGS sanctions as an Annex to the Twelfth Report; notes that the Committee has set out aggravating and mitigating factors in non-ICGS cases that it will keep under review, and that the IEP has published a separate set of aggravating and mitigating factors that will apply in ICGS cases; notes that the new range of sanctions includes the withdrawal of facilities or services from Members, but that, where such a sanction would interfere with the core functions of a Member, the decision on imposing it will lie with the House; notes that the Committee is currently considering options for possible appeal procedures in non-ICGS cases and intends to report to the House separately on these; and approves the conclusions and recommendations of the Committee’s Seventh Report, as modified by its Twelfth Report;

Ordered,

That

(1) Standing Order No. 150 (Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards) is amended as follows:

after paragraph (4) insert –

“( ) The Commissioner shall have power to:

(a) instigate informal discussions with a Member to indicate concern about the Member’s reported attitude, behaviour or conduct; and

(b) require a Member to attend a formal meeting at which the Commissioner may indicate concern about or give words of advice on the Member’s reported attitude, behaviour or conduct.”;

(2) The Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament (HC (2017–19) 1882) is amended as follows:

in paragraph 21, at end add: “Failure to comply with a sanction imposed by the Committee or the House relating to withdrawal of services or facilities from a Member shall also be treated as a breach of the Code.”; and

(3) The Guide to the Rules relating to the Conduct of Members (HC (2017–19) 1882) is amended as follows:

(a) in Chapter 4, after paragraph 15 insert—

“( ) The Commissioner has the right to instigate informal discussions with a Member to indicate concern about the Member’s reported attitude, behaviour or conduct; and to require a Member to attend a formal meeting at which the Commissioner may indicate concern about or give words of advice on the Member’s reported attitude, behaviour or conduct.”

(b) in Chapter 4, paragraph 19, line 5, leave out from “may” to the end and add:

“impose the following sanctions on its own authority:

(a) an apology in writing, or on the floor of the House by means of a point of order or a personal statement;

(b) requiring a Member to attend training, or to repay money;

(c) withdrawal of services and facilities from a Member, and imposing other personal restrictions including on travel, where this will not affect the core functions of a Member[footnote to be inserted here: “The core functions of a Member are defined as (a) participation in the formal proceedings of the House or its committees, and (b) their ability to communicate with and make representations on behalf of their constituents. If the Committee is in any doubt as to whether a sanction would interfere with core functions, they are expected to seek the views of the House authorities where appropriate, and to err in their decision on the side of caution, i.e. to recommend that imposition of a sanction should be decided by the House itself if there is any reasonable doubt in the matter.”];

(d) for non-Members, subject to the approval of the Speaker, withdrawal of Parliamentary passes, either indefinitely or for a fixed period.

The Committee may recommend the following sanctions for decision by the House:

(e) withdrawal of services and facilities from a Member, and imposing other personal restrictions including on travel, where this will affect the core functions of a Member, and where the sanction reflects the nature of the offence[footnote to be inserted here: “See previous footnote.”];

(f) dismissal from a select committee;

(g) suspension from the service of the House for a specified period (during which time the Member receives no salary and must withdraw from the precincts of the House);

(h) withholding of a Member’s salary or allowances even if he or she has not been suspended;

(i) in the most serious cases, expulsion from the House.

While it is for the House itself to decide on the matters set out in the list above, its practice has been to accept the Committee’s recommendations on sanctions.”—(Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg.)

Sanctions in Respect of the Conduct of Members (ICGS Cases)

Resolved,

That this House approves the following arrangements for sanctions in cases of bullying, harassment or sexual misconduct by Members following an investigation under the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme:

(1) The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards shall have power to instigate informal discussions with a Member to indicate concern about the Member’s reported attitude, behaviour or conduct; to require a Member to attend a formal meeting at which the Commissioner may indicate concern about or give words of advice on the Member’s reported attitude, behaviour or conduct; and require an apology in writing, or on the floor of the House by means of a point of order or a personal statement;

(2) The Independent Expert Panel shall have power to impose the following sanctions on its own authority:

(a) requiring a Member to attend training or enter into a behaviour agreement;

(b) withdrawal of services and facilities from a Member, and imposing other personal restrictions including on travel, where this will not affect the core functions of a Member [footnote to be inserted here: “The core functions of a Member are defined as (a) participation in the formal proceedings of the House or its committees, and (b) their ability to communicate with and make representations on behalf of their constituents. If the Panel is in any doubt as to whether a sanction would interfere with core functions, they are expected to seek the views of the House authorities where appropriate, and to err in their decision on the side of caution, i.e. to recommend that imposition of a sanction should be decided by the House itself if there is any reasonable doubt in the matter.”];

(c) for non-Members, subject to the approval of the Speaker, withdrawal of Parliamentary passes, either indefinitely or for a fixed period.

The Panel may determine the following sanctions for decision by the House:

(d) withdrawal of services and facilities from a Member, and imposing other personal restrictions including on travel, where this will affect the core functions of a Member, and where the sanction reflects the nature of the offence [footnote to be inserted here: “See previous footnote.”];

(e) dismissal from a select committee;

(f) suspension from the service of the House for a specified period (during which time the Member receives no salary and must withdraw from the precincts of the House);

(g) withholding of a Member’s salary or allowances even if he or she has not been suspended;

(h) in the most serious cases, expulsion from the House. —(Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg.)

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 11th March 2021

(3 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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My hon. Friend has written to me on this matter, and he will be aware that there is a sitting Friday tomorrow for the remaining stages of eight private Members’ Bills to take place. As I said when sitting Fridays were suspended, I brought forward the motion reluctantly following representations made to me from across the House. I committed to ensuring that a motion was brought forward to bring back sitting Fridays at the earliest opportunity when it was possible and practical, which is why there will be a further motion for 19 March if tomorrow goes well and if it is a productive and useful session. That would allow for Second Readings.

I congratulate my hon. Friend, because he is using parliamentary procedures entirely properly. A ten-minute rule Bill does not normally become legislation in the Session in which it is introduced, but it begins a campaign that raises the heat on the Government to do things. I note that he is turning up the gas mark with his question to me today.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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I have always thought that the best way to deal with some of the historical problems that the Rhondda faces is getting the Senedd to work hand in hand with Parliament as a team. That is especially true because we have some major infrastructure projects that really need financial support. We have already talked about the tips that need sorting out, and there is the Rhondda Fach relief road, the Rhondda tunnel and a whole series of drains that have major problems because of the honeycombing underneath that results from the historical legacy of the mines.

Will the Leader of the House please make sure that there is a proper discussion of the levelling up fund so that this really is a case of Westminster and the Senedd working hand in hand? Will he make sure there is an opportunity for valleys MPs to sit down and discuss this properly with the Chancellor of the Exchequer? Then perhaps we can have a debate in the House.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise this issue. It is important that all parts of the United Kingdom are able to benefit from efforts to level up. One of the advantages of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 is that it has made it possible for Her Majesty’s Government to fund schemes across the United Kingdom rather than simply in England. He is right to call for further discussions to see how this can be done.

There are applications going in for the levelling-up fund now, and there are a further 49 deals to be awarded. It is about working together as one United Kingdom. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales is very keen to settle these issues, too, so I think that there may be considerable cross-party agreement among Welsh MPs in this House on the issues that the hon. Gentleman raises.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 11th February 2021

(3 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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My right hon. Friend, with her characteristic genius, has brought in her question at absolutely the right time, because my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is sitting on the Treasury Bench and will have heard her appeal for a proper memorial for what has happened over the last year. The Prime Minister said on 26 January that

“when we have come through this crisis, we will come together as a nation to remember everyone we lost”.

While the Government’s immediate focus is on protecting the lives and livelihoods of the nation, there is none the less the need to remember those who have lost their lives and to recognise those involved in the unprecedented response.

The Government have begun planning to ensure that an appropriate commemoration can take place in the United Kingdom and will set out details in due course, but I think it is at the stage where good ideas will be extremely welcome. This needs to be a community and national effort, so if people do have good ideas, they should bring them forward.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab) [V]
- Hansard - -

I do not know whether you, Mr Speaker, or the Leader of the House have seen the really moving interview that the Welsh rugby player Alix Popham and his wife Mel gave about the brain injuries that he has suffered from playing rugby—or for that matter, the story of my amazing constituent, Adam Harcombe, who suffered a brain injury when he was attacked in the street. I know that the Government are working on this, because I found out by very secret means—well, a text message from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster—that there has been a cross-departmental ministerial meeting to look at what more the Government can do about brain injury and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is now working on concussion in sport. Will the Leader of the House please ensure that when the Government have something to announce, we have a proper statement and a proper debate in the House of Commons? It is great that we are doing work on this now, but we must ensure that everybody gets the benefit of that.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The hon. Gentleman is right to address this issue, which is being taken very seriously by sporting bodies, who perhaps in the first instance have the best ability to look into these problems. But yes, of course, if there is a statement be made, I will do everything I can to ensure, as the ministerial code requires, that it is made to this House first.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 3rd December 2020

(3 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I think the whole House will want to congratulate Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s on this fantastic gesture. It is absolutely brilliant, and we should be grateful to our supermarkets, which have done so much to improve the standard of living of the British people in recent decades. They are real models of good, healthy capitalism, and they have done something very impressive in handing back the tax rebates that they have received, which they were not under any legal obligation to do. As regards a debate on where the money will go, I am sorry to say to my hon. Friend that as £280 billion has been spent on supporting our businesses during the pandemic, this just reduces the figure to about £279 billion, so I am afraid the money has already gone.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
- Hansard - -

Can we have a debate on inequality? I know the Leader of the House uses the word as though it is a kind of foul slur, but I am proud to be a socialist. I believe that we were all created equal. I do not believe that poverty is a mysterious dispensation that descends like manna from heaven. It has human causes and it must be susceptible to human remedies. If we are going to talk about inequality, would it not be good for us to recognise that we should not judge people according to the colour of their skin, their gender, their sexuality, what accent they speak with or, indeed, what school they went to? In that light, would it not be a good idea if girls as well as boys were allowed to go to Eton?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Everybody is equal before God, and if we are equal before God and every soul is valued by God equally, that must also be true between us all individually. That is, I think, a point of agreement between me as a Conservative and the hon. Gentleman as a proud socialist. He is entitled to be proud of being a socialist and I am entitled to think that “socialism” is a disagreeable word. I think that is part of freedom of speech. As regards girls going to Eton, much though I might like my own daughter to go there, I think it works very well as it is, thank you very much.

Participation in Debates

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Monday 16th November 2020

(3 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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That is the risk of sedentary interventions; one hears part of them, but not necessary all of them in their fullness. I point out to the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) that that is why “sedentary chuntering”, as the former Speaker used to call it, is invariably not wise.

I turn back to the substance of the points made by the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz). She did indeed write to me over the weekend. It was important that these issues were in the public domain and being considered and that the Government, as they said they would, were keeping them under review. As I also said, I was very moved by the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch). How could one not be? She is a remarkable person. It has to be said that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) has also made similar appeals of a very moving kind.

It is important to recognise that the Government do listen to what right hon. and hon. Members are saying. The Government recognise the strength of arguments put forward and that there is a special set of people with the most troubling conditions who, under the current rules, which came in Thursday a week past, are being advised not to go to work. That was not the case before then, so when my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham made her requests, the Government guidance was not of that kind; it had changed by the time my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford made her appeal. It is an appeal that many Members feel should be answered, and that is what we are trying to do.

The right hon. Member for Walsall South rightly calls for there to be equality among Members, and indeed there is. Every Member who is not extremely clinically vulnerable is in the same position as other key workers, which is that, as long as their workplace is covid-secure—that is a fundamental qualification—they are not expected to stay away from work. I reiterate the point that I made to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) that we should expect to behave and be treated in the same way as other key workers. That is fundamental. The nation is facing this virus together, and there is not a different situation for us as opposed to other key workers.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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They are not shirking.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I am not saying that anybody is shirking; I am simply saying that we are in the same position as other key workers, as I think is right and proper.

On the issue of people revealing their medical conditions, I have of course thought very carefully about that because I know that many people would not want to reveal what their medical condition is. The issue is that either we would have to have an entirely virtual Parliament with all Members Zooming in—otherwise one could say, “That person has something wrong and that person doesn’t,”—which we found from experience did not work, or we would have to have it for a very small group.

The very small group have a choice. They are free to contribute, with a very wide range of rights, in interrogative proceedings in a way that allows our business to be carried out properly. The limitation remains only in those areas of business that need debate and the flow of debate. Exemptions will be made for a limited number of people, who will have the choice whether to tell the House about their need to contribute virtually because they are severely clinically vulnerable.

If I may use you, Mr Speaker, as a case in point—I hope you will forgive me—you have brought your diabetes to the attention of people by being open about it, and some Members wish to do that. I absolutely understand that other Members do not wish to, and nobody will be forced to reveal a medical condition if they do not wish to do so.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I hope Hansard got a bit more of that than I did, but I think I got the fundamental point. We have made the right provisions to ensure that people can come to the House and can participate in our debates, and this is a further step on this road. Therefore, I fundamentally disagree with my right hon. Friend.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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I have always been a bit suspicious about the concept of normality; it has always seemed to me to be a moving feast. One of the great strengths of British history and the constitution is that tradition always adapts to reality. The Leader of the House will remember the 15th century. In 1439, when pestilence was abroad, the House of Commons and the House of Lords jointly petitioned the King to say, “Could we dispense with the business of kissing the King as a sign of our liege duty?”; and the King agreed. Is not the truth of the matter that in every generation, when there are classic moments like this one of national crisis, we have to abandon our hidebound traditions? We have to adapt to the moment, and surely to God it must be invidious to be asking individual people to declare whether they are clinically extremely vulnerable. As it happens, I have had six letters, I think, now to say that I am; my doctor says that I am not. I am quite happy to talk about it, but I do not think individual Members should have to declare that.

Why can we not just trust Members, and say that every single Member is treated equally in this House and has an equal right to debate until the end of this parliamentary Session, and then we can revise what we want to do in the future? Why on earth is it going to be right that if the Government table a motion next week—perhaps at the end of this week—the Government Chief Whip will have more than 200 votes in his pocket to be able to dispose of? Would it not make much more sense for us, at least on this issue, to have voting online so that everybody can cast their own vote?

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 12th November 2020

(3 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Absolutely, we are in favour of the triumph of good over evil, and we wish everyone a happy Diwali. I think that conservatism is very generally the triumph of good over evil. As regards Stonehenge, as I take the A303 to Somerset, the sooner it is a dual carriageway the better. I fully support the proposals to have a dual carriageway, though I would add that one of the great joys of going on the current A303 is that one gets a glimpse of Stonehenge. That is a benefit and is uplifting for people to see.

As regards statements by the Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend has been incredibly assiduous in updating the House, coming to the House, making statements, answering questions and leading debates. His appearances here have been exactly what we require, and he has met and exceeded the expectations of the House.

The right hon. Lady rightly congratulates the President-elect of the United States, as Her Majesty’s Government have. The Government look forward to working with—

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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Go on then, say it.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

What do you want me to say?

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Congratulate him!

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I have congratulated him. The Government congratulate him, and I am speaking as a Minister for the Government. It is very important, as the Prime Minister rightly said on Wednesday, that the British Prime Minister has a good relationship with the American President, and that is in the interests of the United Kingdom. It has to be said that one person who was particularly good at that was the former leader of the Labour party, Tony Blair, who was able to get on with different American Presidents of different ideological outlooks, and that I think is a model for British Prime Ministers.

I know that the Foreign Office has responded to the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) about Nazanin and the other people improperly held, and her campaign is an important campaign to ensure that they are kept at the forefront of people’s minds.

It is of course a deep, deep sadness, and a tragedy for the families, that 50,000 have died with covid, but it is too early to be making international comparisons, because the statistics are not calculated in all countries in the same way. But the Government have made enormous efforts to limit the effect and to ensure that the interests of safety are paramount. That is why we entered into the second period of lockdown and, indeed, had the first period of lockdown. It is why £200 billion of taxpayers’ money has been provided in support to the economy in these very difficult times. Yes, it is a deep sadness, but it is not, I think, a matter of party politics, one way or another. The Government have made every possible effort, strained every sinew.

The right hon. Lady mentions my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who of course himself gave a proxy to the Deputy Chief Whip and proved the efficacy of the system, because he was able to take his proxy away and vote the way he wanted to, having listened to the debate. This is a way that is working, it is effective and it has reduced the queues in the Division Lobbies, which I know is a great concern of the right hon. Lady. I do my best to accommodate her, but I feel sometimes that she models herself on the deaf adder, and charm I ever so nicely, still no notice is taken of the efforts I have made to meet with her approbation. In spite of having made every effort to help, still more is asked for, but I am afraid we need to be here in person. Government business has to be carried through. Important legislation has to be scrutinised. This is best done in person, as we found when we were hybrid earlier in the year, so there will not be a return to remote voting.

As regards the questions about the vaccine and the vaccine tsar, and the money spent on publicity, may I say from this Dispatch Box what a fabulous job Kate Bingham has done? She deserves credit, plaudits and praise—paeons of praise—for what she has done for free. She has been working for free. She has not been charging the British taxpayer. She has brought her energy and her enterprise to ensure that we are one of the best-placed countries to have supplies of the vaccine when it comes through.

Of course, we have to tell people what is going on. There are a few nutters around, Mr Speaker—I am sure you have never met them—who are anti-vaxxers. They go around spreading rumour and causing concern to people. We need to put out the true information to reassure people. That is a reasonable and a proper thing to do. The attacks on Kate Bingham are discreditable and unpleasant.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The Father of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), also alluded to this issue. It is a matter that the Government take extremely seriously, especially following the Grenfell tragedy. The Government are providing funding to get dangerous cladding off homes. We are proposing the most significant building safety reforms in almost 40 years, and are committed to ensuring that people are safe and feel safe in their homes. Some £1.6 billion of taxpayers’ money is being spent to speed up the removal of unsafe cladding, making homes safer as soon as is practicable. I thank my hon. Friend for raising this question and for the work that he is doing for his constituents to bring the issue to the attention of Ministers. I will certainly pass on the details that he has brought to the House to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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On disused coal tips, the Leader of the House knows well that a large part of the Tylorstown tip fell into the river at the beginning of the year, after Storm Dennis. I understand that the Coal Authority, a UK Government agency, has done some investigation of all the disused coal tips in the country. There are some 2,000 in Wales alone, but there is no full list of coal tips in every part of the country. Could we have a debate on this subject as a matter of urgency? I have a terrible fear that with further climate change problems, we will see more coal tip landslides. Of course, we want to make sure that people’s houses and livelihoods are safe, but if we do not even know the nature of the problem, we cannot work out how much money there is for it. I have written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer; could the Leader of the House encourage him to see me before the spending review is compete?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The hon. Gentleman raises an issue of which I am aware, not least because my constituency is a former mining area. There is a disused coal tip in the constituency that has become a feature of the landscape in the decades since mining stopped. The anniversary of Aberfan was not that long ago, so this important issue is at the forefront of people’s mind. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the UK-wide agency, and I will ensure that what he has said in the House is passed on to it, in the hope that a fuller answer can be obtained for him from it. I cannot promise to be the Chancellor’s diary secretary.

Committee on Standards

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Tuesday 10th November 2020

(3 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
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I beg to move,

That, in accordance with Standing Order No. 149A, Professor Michael Maguire CBE be appointed as lay member of the Committee on Standards for a period of six years, with immediate effect.

The motion today gives the House the opportunity to approve the appointment of Professor Michael Maguire CBE as a lay member of the Committee on Standards for a period of six years. Between 2012 and 2019, Professor Maguire was the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland. His previous role, from 2008 until 2012, was chief inspector of criminal justice for Northern Ireland. He will bring a wealth of experience to the Standards Committee.

The lay members of the Standards Committee play a vital role in providing an independent voice to the Committee’s decisions. When lay members were first proposed over a decade ago, the rationale given by the Committee on Standards in Public Life was that they would be

“a step towards enhancing public acceptance of the robustness and independence of the disciplinary process for Members of Parliament.”

The independent and impartial status of lay members is therefore critical to maintaining confidence in our process. If today’s motion is agreed, it will ensure that one of two lay member vacancies is filled with immediate effect. I ask the House to support Professor Maguire’s appointment.

Standing Order No. 149A requires that the House of Commons should decide on the appointment of lay members. It also stipulates that the decision should follow a debate of up to one hour. As I said in business questions on 22 October, it is only right that time is properly provided and that the House has the right to take a decision and debate a matter so that we should not assume that such a debate is simply a rubber-stamping exercise.

The House will have realised that only one of the two candidates put forward by the House of Commons Commission is named in the motion today. As I have previously said, this has no bearing on the character of the other candidate. Instead, it reflects the fact that there is disquiet in certain quarters, as well as wider concerns over the recruitment process, and in particular the criteria relating to impartiality that were applied.

That brings me to amendment (a) in the name of the shadow Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz). My intention had been to keep the timing of the motion to appoint Ms Carter under review pending continuing conversations. That motion has been tabled under remaining orders. However, the amendment seeks to bring forward the appointment now. It is a matter of regret that the right hon. Lady has expedited the decision on this matter. We have been striving to achieve a resolution through correspondence and conversations, which I had hoped would lead us to a more desirable outcome. It is regrettable that we now find ourselves debating this matter on the Floor of the House at an early stage.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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In the discussions I had yesterday, I was led to believe that the Government Chief Whip had indicated that the Government would be voting against that motion next week. That is the reason the amendment has been tabled tonight—for no other reason than because the Government were letting it be known that they were going to vote against.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

It was a leader of the hon. Gentleman’s own party who once said that a week is a long time in politics and an opportunity for considerable discussion to take place.

Let me be clear: across public appointments as a whole, political activity is not and should not be a bar to appointment. Membership of a political party is an important right under freedom of association. However, some public appointments will necessarily be independent, where individuals must ensure they are separate from party politics precisely because of their public functions. This is especially the case for quasi-judicial or disciplinary roles, as in this case. The Standards Committee is an especially sensitive parliamentary Committee, with significant powers to adjudicate on the conduct of Members of Parliament. Its lay members must be able to command absolute trust and confidence across the whole House.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I said quite clearly that she supported a faction. If someone supports one candidate in a leadership election, they are self-evidently supporting a faction. That is just normal use of English, which I am surprised the right hon. Gentleman questions, because he is quite hot on that normally. Any perception of partiality undermines the important role of lay members, who are there to provide a vital balance to the political membership of the Standards Committee. That is why we ask for lay members in the first place.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

I can honestly say that I do not think a single member of the Standards Committee, whether they are a lay member or an MP, thinks of themselves as a politician when they are engaged in the work of the Committee. It is a really important part of the way we try to do our business. There is no partisanship—party membership is completely irrelevant. The only reason why anybody knows about this particular person’s party membership is because the Leader of the House asked about it. I have no idea whether all the other lay members on the Committee have been members of a political party, or were recently. The specific point is that the criterion for appointment was explicitly that party membership was not a bar, provided a candidate had not held office or campaigned on behalf of the party. She has done neither. I am afraid that this is turning the Committee into a party political football.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I think that is completely wrong, and I also think that the hon. Gentleman is trying to put the cart before the horse. The House is not bound by the rules set for it by the selection process. It is entitled to challenge and question that process. That is the job of the House. We are not a rubber stamp, here merely to approve it.

I come to the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). She is a lady of considerable integrity, and I do not and would not question—and would not even think of questioning—that, but the process undertaken by the selection panel has inadvertently created the appearance of a political pas de deux, because the person who was selected by a Committee that had only one Labour politician on it was somebody who had joined the Labour party to vote for a candidate for the Labour party leadership. It is the recruitment process that is at fault here, so I make the observation that we must do better than we have done in this sorry affair and that any future recruitment process for lay members should not make the same mistakes. I reiterate that had somebody been a recent member of the Tory party joining to vote in the leadership election, my view in the Chamber would be exactly the same.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The process is quite clear and it ends with an hour’s debate in this Chamber. The hon. Lady did not tell the candidates that that was the process—that is a matter for her, not for me. That is a right of this House and we must use our rights in this House; that is what we are here for. There has been no change to the process.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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The process in Standing Order No. 149A says very clearly that the person who tables the motion does so

“on behalf of the…Commission”—

not on behalf of themselves or the Government, but on behalf of the Commission. I think that this is only just in order because, frankly, the Commission made a decision—it voted on it; it decided—and this should be a single motion coming from the Commission that should be here tonight. All the rest, I am afraid, is party political shenanigans.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The hon. Gentleman is wrong and, as so often, overstates himself. The Commission makes a recommendation to the House and the Commission motion has been brought forward—there is one on Standing Orders and there is one we are debating now. If the motion were not in order, it would not be on the Order Paper, and I assume the hon. Gentleman is not questioning the decision of Mr Speaker.

In conclusion, I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to the outgoing members of the Standards Committee, the lay members Ms Charmaine Burton and Sir Peter Rubin, for their contribution to the Committee on Standards and to the standards system in the House more widely. I urge Members to consider the points I have made carefully. The decision of this House is an important one and an essential part of the recruitment process.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I disagree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). If I were on the other side of this issue and it were a Conservative under question, as I said earlier, I would still think it was an unsuitable appointment.

The shadow Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), made points about the panel, the discussions within the Commission and the CV of the lady in question. I have always tried to make it clear that I do not wish to question the lady’s bona fides—it is merely the impartiality issue.

There is a fundamental point, which the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) raised in his speech: the reason we have lay members is that, for better or worse, the political members were not trusted to sit in judgment upon themselves and therefore needed non-political members. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden that being a member of a party is something that one should be proud of—it is civic activity. I also think it is perfectly reasonable for people to put their political beliefs behind them. The hon. Member for Rhondda was a member of the Conservative party at university; that does not remain the case, for better or worse. It is merely a question of whether the membership is immediate and close to the point at which the appointment is made.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

I understand that the Leader of the House is saying that he is not questioning the bona fides of Melanie Carter, but that he is questioning her impartiality. I hope he is not. She is a tribunal judge. She shows her impartiality every day of the week. He is simply saying that, under his new rule, which he has invented, because she has been a party member, she cannot be a lay member of the Committee. Is that right?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I am questioning her impartiality between various factions within the Labour party, because she joined the Labour Party to support one particular faction. The right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) slightly gave the game away, because I think he thinks that it was his faction that she supports. I do not know that and I am not stating that for certain, but he seemed to imply that in his joy at welcoming the proposed appointment.

The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) asked what the Commission knew. The draft person specification that was approved by the Commission in February made no reference to the issue of whether or not it was suitable for a prospective candidate to be a member of a political party. If that information made its way into the more detailed recruitment pack to candidates, that was not with the authority of the Commission.

We come to the failures of the recruitment process. It would have been absolutely reasonable and wise and sensible for the recruitment process to say that somebody who had been immediately involved in politics—not 20 years ago or not five years ago—could not be certain of being impartial and would not give the impression of impartiality to Members of the House. The hon. Member for Rhondda says that, absolutely, prejudices should be put to one side, but as I said, if people had confidence in that being so easy, we would not have lay members in the first place. The reason we introduced lay members is that we thought people could not put their prejudices aside. From a panel on which, as the hon. Lady the Member for Stretford and Urmston told us, she was the only politician—a Labour politician—we get somebody who was a supporter of a particular candidate in a very recent election. That seems to me to leave the impression, the risk, the danger of partiality.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Monday 2nd November 2020

(3 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

As I have referred to the letter, I think that a copy must now be put in the Library, if it has not already, in accordance with the guidance offered by “Erskine May”. The letter is, I think, an answer to my hon. Friend’s earlier letter. If he wishes to write to me again, he will get a further reply.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab) [V]
- Hansard - -

Can I urge the Leader of the House to provide a specific debate on dementia, for two reasons? First, we saw in the last couple of days the revelation that Sir Bobby Charlton is, sadly, now suffering from dementia. That means that half the team that started in 1966 have now been diagnosed with dementia, and several have died with it. It is about time, therefore, that the football authorities in this country and overseas took the dangers of playing football and concussion seriously, because, otherwise, we will be letting down a whole generation of footballers who need proper support. Secondly, as I understand it, there is now a nine-month waiting list in the Court of Protection, which means that, this year, many families whose relatives have been diagnosed with dementia will simply not be able to go to court to sort out their loved ones’ financial and health arrangements—they are simply waiting months and months and months to be able to get things sorted. That adds phenomenally to families’ anxiety and depression, so can we please have a debate on dementia—not as part of covid, but just on dementia?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I am extremely sympathetic to what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and I think it is an issue that is of concern to the whole House. I was unaware of the issue that he raised with respect to the Court of Protection, and I shall take that up after this session with my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor. Government time is very pressed, as I said in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), and therefore it is difficult to provide all the time for all the debates that I would like to provide time for, but the cause that he mentions is one with such widespread support that it is very much one for the Backbench Business Committee.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 22nd October 2020

(3 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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I have “follow me, follow, down to the hollow” ringing through my head now.

May I ask, I am afraid, about the Select Committee on Standards? As the Leader of the House knows, the Standards Committee is meant to have a majority of lay members who are able to vote. We have a lot of very important businesses; we have already done 11 reports in this Parliament and we have a major review of the code of conduct going on. We need a full quota of lay members. I am really grateful to the Leader of the House for tabling the single motion, which is down on the remaining orders, that would allow for Melanie Carter and Michael Maguire to be added to the Committee. I know that Standing Orders say we have to have a one-hour debate. Can I do a deal with the Leader of the House? If I promise that I will not speak in that debate and he promises that he will just move the motion very quickly, we could have a very short debate, and maybe we could get that done very quickly so that the Standards Committee can get on with its job.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

When Standing Orders provide for a one-hour debate, it is only right that that time is properly provided, should Members wish to use it, but the hon. Gentleman will be aware that there are concerns over the way the recruitment process was carried out. There is disquiet in certain quarters with regard to that, and that is why the motion has not at this stage been brought forward, though it is under discussion.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Buxton is a wonderful spa town. I might slightly quibble about “best” seeing as my constituency is so close to Bath, and I might upset my neighbours if I were to—[Interruption.] Ah, it is a city. We can agree then, although Harrogate might be upset. I had better not say which is the best in the country, but Buxton is certainly a very beautiful spa town. I am delighted to hear about the reopening of the Buxton Crescent after the £70 million refurbishment. As I said earlier, high streets are essential to our towns and our sense of community, and it is really important to use the £3.6 billion towns fund well. My hon. Friend is such a fantastic champion for his own area, and this is important because we want people to visit our great and historic towns and cities and spend money there and keep the economies going and thriving.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am seriously worried about the Leader of the House’s answer about the Standards Committee, because we do need to be fully functioning. It is in the interests of the reputation of the House that we have all seven lay members appointed. It is nearly six months now since we went down to five lay members instead of seven. It is three months since the Commission, which you yourself chair, Mr Speaker, agreed the names that came forward through a process in which I was not involved at all. I note that the legislation says that the motion can be brought forward by any member of the Commission, but I wonder whether there is any means of you making sure that we are able to function fully as soon as possible.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 3rd September 2020

(3 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The right hon. Lady is absolutely right about that. The pleasure that all Members get from going to the Tea Room is due to the wonderful staff there, who work so hard and cheer us all up. They spread a degree of sweetness and light, which politicians sometimes try to do, but not always as successfully as those in the Tea Room.

On Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, I note what the right hon. Lady says about a letter to the Defence Secretary. I will take that up—and, indeed, Anoosheh Ashoori. Both of these issues are of considerable concern to Her Majesty’s Government. I do not have any particularly new information, but I am always willing to take up any points that the right hon. Lady raises at these sessions.

May I also associate myself with the words of the right hon. Lady about John Hume, who was indeed a great contributor to peace? May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace.

Now I want to come to the right hon. Lady’s political points—this question of No. 10 appointments. We are lucky that No. 10 Downing Street has such fine people working there—fine intellects, people doing their best for this country, people thinking things through, coming up with inspired ideas—and I do not think it would be possible to imagine a better functioning, more forward-looking Government than the one we currently have. [Interruption.] Of course the Opposition scoff, but dare I say it, that is in the title of being in the Opposition. It is, as Disraeli said, the job of the Opposition to oppose, even when they see this shining beacon of wisdom in front of them, as they get in No. 10.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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And a Conservative Government is an organised hypocrisy.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Not everything Disraeli said needs to be quoted. It is like the Bible—even the devil can quote scriptures from time to time.

Let me come to the individual points. The Prime Minister is very good at holding meetings with people and is very responsible about the meetings that he holds. He cannot inevitably, with all the good will in the world, possibly hold meetings with everybody who asks for them and I know that the right hon. Lady understands that.

As for the protection of renters, they have been protected but there is always a balance to be struck. There are stories now about people not being able to go back into their own homes because people are not paying rent and therefore they are keeping out the homeowners who are coming back from abroad, and all sorts of things. There is a balance in this, and the Government have, I think, struck the right balance in protecting people during this extraordinary crisis, but that cannot go on forever.

As regards the Town and Country Planning Act regulations, I am in discussion with the Secretary of State in regards to whether or not the prayer against them can have time found for a debate. I will report back to the House with an answer to that in due course. The right hon. Lady called for the shires to rise up. I am a county Member, not a borough Member—I believe that she is a borough Member—and I would not call upon the shires to rise up, and certainly not my shire county of Somerset. The last time we rose up was of great importance, because it was of course when Alfred the Great defeated the Danes. So when Somerset rises up, the nation is reformed, changed, improved, but we are a peaceable people in Somerset and therefore I think have no immediate plans to rise up.

The right hon. Lady then had a pop at my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary.

I think he has done an absolutely first-class job under difficult circumstances, and the truth is—

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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He has been downgraded!

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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No, he has been upgraded. He is an A* individual and an A* Secretary of State—not on estimated grades, but on the facts before us. We know he is an A* Secretary of State because he was able to react to a situation quickly and put it right. The real success of Governments is, when there is a problem, being able to put it right. That is what my right hon. Friend did and for which he deserves the most enormous credit. He regularly appears in this House, so there is no question of him failing to make appearances and answer questions—as, of course, is my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, who has been before this House and kept us up to date on numerous occasions over the last six months and will continue to do so, because the Government have the fullest respect for this House, as it should.

Of course I note the right hon. Lady’s point that the Department of Health and Social Care is not answering written questions in a timely way, and I will take that up, because that is part of my job as Leader of the House. I have, as the House will know, been very sympathetic to the Department of Health and Social Care particularly during this pandemic for some tardiness in response. I think, six months in, that sympathy is not as great as it previously was, and that is probably true for the House as a whole, so I will absolutely take up what she has asked me to do.

On the position of Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland remains a fundamental part of the United Kingdom and will have complete, uninhibited access to the GB market. That is a very important part of the withdrawal agreement.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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My right hon. Friend makes a compelling case for the varied and innovative economy in Buckinghamshire, supported by a well-led local authority. I am sure that many Members would be interested in taking part in a debate on economic recovery, although I think that these subjects could be included in the Opposition day debate next week. Local leadership will be crucial in the recovery from the coronavirus. We will set out our plans for devolution to local areas in the devolution and local recovery White Paper later this year. These plans will ensure that local economies have the investment needed to restart growth and the right regulatory environment to allow businesses to innovate freely and to really drive our recovery. Most of what my right hon. Friend is asking for is actually broadly in the pipeline.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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I suppose that, as the writer said, the world has always had two kinds of families—the haves and the have-nots—but under coronavirus this has become even more acute. Some of the poorest in the country have suffered most. Many families who had just started up self-employed businesses or were tradesfolk have suddenly found themselves going from a significant income to absolutely nothing coming in through the door whatsoever. Unfortunately, despite the Government’s attempts to try to help everybody, there are 3 million people in this country who feel very excluded from every single financial provision that there has been. I am sure that the Leader of the House will have had people knocking on his own door in his own constituency crying about losing their finances, losing their homes—losing everything. Can we not please say to those people that, yes, there is still hope that the Government are going to intervene? May we have a debate on that as soon as possible so that we can still put measures in place for those families who really have suffered the most?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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This crisis has been very difficult for very many people. The Government have taken enormous steps with the £35 billion in the furlough scheme and the £8.5 billion for nearly 3 million self-employed people. But of course, as a constituency MP, I recognise that people who founded businesses recently have found things very difficult. We need to get the economy to recover. We need to get people getting back to as normal as they possibly can. We want to encourage people to get back to work. We want to try to ensure that we achieve the V-shaped recovery, which is so important. The steps that the Government have taken have been to protect the structures of the economy so that when demand comes back, those structures are there to meet the demand that never really went away but was just shut down because of the crisis. That is what Government policy has been directed towards. We will need to ensure that we foster the economy and help it grow as we come back up that V, but I understand how difficult it is for individual families in particular circumstances.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The wisdom of the British people knows no bounds and therefore we should always welcome ideas from our constituents. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda is sniffy about his own constituents. I think the wisdom of the people of the United Kingdom knows no bounds. That is why we have achieved so much over the history of this nation. We have been innovative. We have been a nation that has led the world. We really are—

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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We haven’t got a vaccine.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Well, we are leading the world in developing one. Anyway, this is not meant to be a two-way chat between the hon. Member for Rhondda and me. As I said yesterday, I am extraordinarily keen that the House should get back to normal operations, and we have been back since the beginning of June. We did lead by example, but if we can get any good ideas from constituents, they would be extremely welcome. I do hope that it will not be too long before we allow constituents to come back in to listen to us, because we are an open democracy, not a hidden away democracy, and we want to see all the Galleries with people in them as soon as that is safe to do.

Restoration and Renewal

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 16th July 2020

(3 years, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I think that my hon. Friend may be alluding to the mention of York in the Prime Minister’s letter. I would remind my hon. Friend that between 1301 and 1325 Parliament met in York 11 times, but when Edward IV tried to get it to move to York, he was unsuccessful. It will end up being a matter for parliamentarians where this House sits, though strictly speaking the meeting of Parliament is called by the sovereign to her palace at Westminster. That, I think, is something that would be highly unlikely to change without the acceptance of parliamentarians. I hope that answers my hon. Friend’s question.

I want to conclude by quoting Caroline Shenton’s book about the construction of the Palace a century and a half ago. She raised the question of the difficulty faced by Barry and Pugin when she wrote:

“But who should be given the upper hand? The government… funded by the Treasury? Parliament as an institution made up of two legislatures occupying a single building… Or—most difficult of all—over a thousand MPs and Peers”—

this must be referring to peers rather than MPs, but never mind—

“fractious, opinionated…partisan, and…with as many individual views on how the work should progress as there were members? Deciding who was the real client at any particular moment would prove to be a mind-bending task for Barry over the next four and twenty years.”

I am a great admirer of much that was achieved by our Victorian forebears, but in this instance, this one instance, I believe the 21st century may—and I sense the shock around the Chamber—have the edge over the 19th century.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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You should write a book about the Victorians.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I did. It is still available, probably heavily discounted, in all second-hand bookshops. For once, we have truly, in that most tiresome of clichés, learned the lesson of history. We have our client, which is the Sponsor Body. Its strategic review is setting the scope for the programme, and then the Delivery Authority will draw up fully costed proposals for us to consider. At that point, we will arrive at the moment we have been steadily working towards for some years, when we will be able to decide how to do so in a way that offers the consistent political support the programme needs.

The last Parliament set us on the path of action over inaction, but it is this Parliament that will act, meeting our collective responsibility of protecting this building, the throne, the palace of our democracy.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 2nd July 2020

(3 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The right hon. Lady is always so difficult to follow because she so often ends with sad news. The news from my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) was the saddest. There is so little one could say that could possibly give any comfort, other than for him to know that he has many friends in this place, and our hearts bleed for him. It is the saddest, the hardest, the most unbearable news, and we wish him and his wife every condolence and sympathy that we can.

To move on to politics, let me start with the right hon. Lady’s tribute to Mark Sedwill. She is obviously right to pay tribute to him—he is an enormously distinguished public servant—and to the civil service generally. The team that supports the Leader of the House is something that—dare I say?—the shadow Leader of the House should be enormously jealous of; I have a feeling she may be. I am brilliantly supported by extremely hard-working people who do a fantastic job. I have no idea of what their political opinions are at all, but they back the Government in what the Government are trying to do. The Northcote-Trevelyan approach to the civil service is one that has served us well for a very long time, but it sometimes needs a degree of updating. Even I am not so wedded to the 19th century that I feel nothing can be improved.

The appointment of David Frost as National Security Adviser is an utterly brilliant appointment. He is an enormously qualified man and a very distinguished diplomat, and many people are beginning to say that he is the Henry Kissinger of our time. He is a great and distinguished public servant, who will serve enormously well.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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There is a lot of irony in that.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The hon. Gentleman is quite incapable of keeping quiet, even for a moment. His agitation and his degree of excitement may be slightly theatrical on this occasion.

On the ISC, as always, that will be set up in due course. It would be wrong to be “Russian” these things—[Laughter]—as I am sure the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) appreciates. [Interruption.] No, it was not, actually; it was quite deliberate.

On the Cumberlege review, I actually gave evidence to that review in relation to Primodos. This is an opportunity for me to pay the greatest tribute to the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), who has campaigned absolutely tirelessly. I first met the hon. Lady when we were both elected in 2010 and had offices opposite each other, and she took up this issue when nobody else was really interested. She has transformed people’s thinking about it, and I look forward with great interest to what Baroness Cumberlege has to say about Primodos. It is a very important issue.

Going back to some of the other questions, the right hon. Member for Walsall South is a kind and generous person, and her sympathy for Cabinet Ministers having to queue is much appreciated by my right hon. Friends, who have to take on these onerous things which are otherwise unknown across the country. Our constituents never have to queue for anything because life is so smooth and easy, but she appreciates that right hon. Ladies and Gentlemen having to queue is so burdensome and tough, and makes us realise that we are really earning our living as we stand in a queue. Remarkably, it takes almost exactly the same time to pass through the Division Lobbies as it does when we are using the Lobbies without social distancing. The speed with which we got through them earlier this week was pretty much the normal speed and therefore things are working: Government business is getting through and scrutiny is taking place. I am not as kindly or as soft-hearted as the right hon. Lady, and I think a Cabinet Minister queuing for a few minutes is no bad thing, and probably spiritually enlightening and uplifting.

The right hon. Lady referred to renters who have lost income. Emergency provisions were made: £1 billion has been made available to help people who are renting. The Government are very conscious of the need to protect people who are in the private rented sector.

The right hon. Lady also mentioned the Prime Minister not making a speech in the House, but making it outside the House. However, the Prime Minister came to the House just a week before and made a statement. We are having a statement on Wednesday next week from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Government have been assiduous in maintaining the ministerial code’s requirement to make major announcements to the House first, and this is part of the natural process of government.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this issue and for the tribute he paid to the Attorney General and the Solicitor General, who work extremely hard to ensure that just sentences are passed. I seem to remember—others may correct me—that the law that allowed that to happen was introduced when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, so it is another Conservative success. My hon. Friend is right to highlight it and raise it in the House: perhaps he should ask for an Adjournment debate to discuss specific cases where the punishment is fitting the crime.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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It is very clear now that if the easing of the lockdown is to be effective in tackling coronavirus, it will happen at different paces in the different nations of the United Kingdom but also in different parts within those nations. We see the situation in Leicester, and there may be others—who knows—and we know that some sectors will be affected for longer than others. The Leader of the House rightly said that where the state says a business cannot operate, the state should step in to provide financial assistance. I heard what he said to my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin), but I do not understand whether the statement from the Chancellor next Wednesday will be just a 10-minute statement with questions for perhaps an hour—in that case, I urge him to make it more like three hours—or one with a proper series of debates so that we can get into the nitty-gritty. By the way, can I still have my £2.5 million for the tip in Tylorstown?

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I never realised that our separatist friends would model themselves on an Ealing comedy. It seems to have become “Passport to Pimlico”. There are no internal borders in the United Kingdom; it is one country, I am glad to say. [Interruption.] There is a difference between borders, and districts and areas. That is self-evident. A border is something that one may stop people crossing. Even I am not suggesting that we make people from Gloucestershire present their passports before coming into Somerset.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Then why mention Pimlico?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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As the hon. Member for Rhondda will remember, in the film “Passport to Pimlico” Pimlico was thought to have belonged to the Duke of Burgundy or some such, and therefore had become an independent state within the United Kingdom. Our separatist friend wants to do the same by insisting on passports to Scotland, and Mrs Sturgeon wishes to build a wall. [Interruption.] Unfortunately Mrs Sturgeon’s policy is not fictional. Many of us wish that it were and that the separatists were a bit more fictional, but they are not. They are here and they bang on about it constantly, but we are still one country and Scotland benefits enormously from being part of the United Kingdom.

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The two great newt fanciers were Gussie Fink-Nottle and Ken Livingstone. They were always interested in newts, and I am sure that they are—

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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One of those is fictional.

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The hon. Gentleman is really alert this evening. He has pointed out that Gussie Fink-Nottle is fictional—

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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It is morning, not evening!

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 25th June 2020

(3 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question, leaving aside his jibe about Essex county cricket. I commend him for his stalwart representation of the people of Ipswich in this House. We know that fewer people are coming into the NHS when they need to. That is why the NHS has begun restoring services that were rightly suspended while we dealt with the initial impact of covid-19. It is working on the principle that the most urgent treatment should be brought back first, and this will be driven by local demands on the system. The matter in his constituency sounds like a worthy subject for an Adjournment debate to highlight it more broadly.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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I feel phenomenally fortunate that I completed my cancer treatment before lockdown started, and I am delighted to hear that the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) has been able to catch her breast cancer very early—I wish her a full recovery. Unfortunately, the situation across the country has not been great for potential cancer sufferers: I believe that 290,000 urgent referrals for suspected cancer were not sent out during this period; 1.2 million screening invites for bowel cancer, breast cancer and cervical cancer have not been sent out; chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery has often been cancelled or delayed for a long time; and lots of clinical trials have been put on hold. So may we have a specific debate on cancer and coronavirus? We really need to get back on track on this. Otherwise, there will be more excess deaths from cancer than from coronavirus.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 18th June 2020

(3 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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Again, this is a point of the greatest importance, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question about support for coastal communities. He is a true champion of his community—an idyllic part of the world—as much of the Chamber is for those in the coastal communities he refers to. The communities on our coastline are of huge importance to this country, and their tourist economies have been particularly hit by the economic downturn of the pandemic. This is a matter that can be taken up at the next Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs oral questions on 25 June, but once again, it can also be raised in the debate next week on the general economic effects of the crisis.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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We are a resilient community in the Rhondda, but I honestly do not think that we can take any more without significant help from outside. We had some of the worst flooding in the country earlier this year—hundreds of homes lost everything, many of them without any insurance at all—and last night, we had another bout of flooding, which has affected about 200 homes. I spoke to one woman last night who was in floods of tears because she had only just managed to get builders to sort her home out. She was about to move back in and now it is all ruined all over again. On top of that, we have a tip, half of which has fallen down into the river. Sixty thousand tonnes have to be moved and the whole thing has to be made safe, because we do not want another Aberfan. The council is completely strapped for cash. We know that we need £60 million to mend the culverts, to make sure that this does not happen all over again in three months’ time, in six months’ time or in a year. We need £2 million to move the 60,000 tonnes of earth. Please—I do not want a debate, if I am honest; I really just want the Leader of the House to make sure that we get the support we need in the Rhondda.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I think the whole House will have heard what the hon. Gentleman had to say and the emotion with which he said it, and the effect this must have on his constituents. It is hard to think of anything worse than that which his constituents suffered—just having got back to a house that was redecorated and restored and then having it flooded and destroyed again—and the worry that must remain in any community with a tip in it where people think back to Aberfan and know of the terrible disaster that that caused.

I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will speak to the leader of the hon. Gentleman’s local council today about the flooding overnight. There are significant Government funds available—£2.6 billion—but I am aware that when I speak from this Dispatch Box about large amounts of Government money when people are sitting at home worrying about whether a tip may collapse, that is not enough. I will take it up with Ministers, and I will ensure that the message he has brought to this House is known across Government.

House Business during the Pandemic

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Monday 8th June 2020

(3 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because that is a crucial point. Even with the social distancing requirements and a Chamber that is not as full as it would otherwise be, we have proper debates and ensure that the Government are properly held to account. That is unquestionably an advance on a virtual Parliament.

Legislation is how we translate the results of a general election into tangible change. In the Queen’s Speech, the Government unveiled 36 Bills—an ambitious agenda that aims to help the whole country level up. People across the United Kingdom will be affected by the laws we pass, so this House must play its part in working to ensure that these Bills are the best they can possibly be. While it is natural that Opposition Members may be less enthusiastic about the programme as a whole, because as Disraeli said, it is after all the job of the Opposition is to oppose, my point to them today—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is seeking to intervene, I will give way. It is always such a pleasure to hear from him.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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I think Disraeli also said that a Conservative Government were an “organised hypocrisy”, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman well knows. If he is so keen on making sure that stuff can proceed swiftly, would it not be better to have a swift means of voting? I do not understand his addiction to queuing—unless it is from his regular queuing in Lidl. A former Archbishop of Canterbury said of reading the Church Times:

“It’s a duty to read it, but a sin to enjoy it”.

Is it not the same with queuing?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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If we are batting back and forth Disraelian quotations, he also said:

“A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity”,

but I would hate to apply that to the hon. Gentleman. [Interruption.] My hon. Friends think I should, but I will not, because he is a distinguished parliamentarian-historian and Chairman of the Standards Committee. In answer to his point about queuing, we have to use the methods necessary to proceed with Government business, which is the point I am making today. It can only be done by meeting physically.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I am not sure that that point was worth waiting for. [Laughter.] I do not wish to be unkind—it is a matter for debate, perhaps on another occasion, as to whether it was worth waiting for or not. The motion last week that was tabled in my name allowed those who are shielding to vote by proxy, which meets the majority of the hon. Gentleman’s concerns.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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One of the problems with the two motions that the Leader of the House tabled last week is that they create two different categories of people who can self-certify. I hope he will return to that issue, because it is a matter of concern to those who are in one category, but feel that they are excluded from another. That bit surely needs tidying up.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, and I can assure him that it is under consideration. May I say that his second intervention was worth waiting for? I just want to continue—

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 4th June 2020

(3 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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May I start by responding to the important question that the right hon. Lady raises every week about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe? Of course, the Government continue to be in touch, and the consular officials are working. It is good news that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe is still on temporary release, but I have no further news to report. I continue to welcome the right hon. Lady’s regular mention of this distressing case, because it ensures that pressure is kept up. I will continue to pass on what she says to the Foreign Office, so that the governmental systems are ensuring that representation is properly made for a British citizen.

The right hon. Lady asks why we were queuing when our constituents were queuing. I think it is fairly obvious why we were queuing: we were queuing because we have our democratic duty to do. We have a legislative agenda to get through. We made commitments to the British people in December to get Bills through Parliament. The Domestic Abuse Bill is a very important one. The Northern Ireland legacy Bill is another important one. There is also the Fisheries Bill and the Fire Safety Bill—I could go on and on. We have really important legislation to get through that we committed to the British people to get through. How many of those Bills do the Opposition want to abandon? Probably all of them, because they are the Opposition, and of course it is their job to try to stop us getting our legislation through.

We should lead by example. Across the country, people are going back to work. The right hon. Lady mentioned schools. How can we look teachers in our constituencies in the eye when we are asking them to go back to work and saying that we are not willing to? We have to be back here delivering on the legislative programme, but also being held to account. It is fascinating that the Opposition seem so reluctant to hold the Government to account, but it is right that we should be held to account, and that is done effectively by being in this Chamber. It is important that while we are here, we follow the social distancing rules. Look around the Chamber and through the whole Palace: there are marks showing the distance people should keep. In Westminster Hall, it was made remarkably easy, because the size of the flagstones was large enough to meet the requirements. Certainly I was standing at a safe distance from people. Most Members were. Most Members were standing at a safe distance, and it was marked out for them to do so.

As regards people who cannot attend the House, they will be able to be facilitated. There was a motion we put down yesterday but, as it happens, it was blocked by a Labour Member. It would have facilitated remote appearances by people who on medical advice could not appear. As it happens, we took the definition of who could appear from an amendment tabled by the Opposition, and then the Opposition blocked it. Let us hope we have a bit more success later today, but we are obviously willing to discuss who should be in those categories to try to facilitate people who are unable to come.

The Government’s position is that those who need to go back to work should go back to work, and it is obvious that people in Parliament need to come back to work for the business of this House to work properly. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) chunters away inaudibly. I am sure if he tries to catch Mr Deputy Speaker’s eye, he may get a question in, which is the proper way of running this process. People can send in an application—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) always chunters away, but it is noticeable that it was his chuntering last night that stopped people who have to stay away from appearing remotely. I hope he is suitably ashamed of himself today, and it is noticeable that he says one thing and does another.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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The Leader of the House is accusing me of hypocrisy.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

No, I certainly have not accused the hon. Gentleman of hypocrisy; I would not dream of doing that.

Let me come to the issue of schools and a statement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. He does not need any encouragement to come to this House. He is hoping to make a statement early next week. It is obviously important that the House is updated, but it is also really important for our children’s futures that they are going back to school and that, as with us, is the process of normalisation that we are getting under way.

With regard to coronavirus and the BAME community, the Minister for Equalities, my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), is leading the work on that with Public Health England.

As regards written parliamentary questions, I am taking that up with Departments. We are looking at which Departments are issuing the most holding replies. I make a general point that I would continue to have sympathy with the Department of Health and Social Care, which has been exceptionally busy in leading the response to this crisis. Other Departments, I think, have more reason to be fully up to date with their written parliamentary questions.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I am not sure whether “the current connection” was a pun or not, but it was certainly a very good one—

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

A current pun.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

In case that was not heard by Hansard, it is worth recording for the record that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said it was a current pun. I think that is very good: at least it was not a Bath bun.

I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and I know that offshore wind farms play a significant role in his constituency. I assure him that the Government want to foster as successful an offshore wind industry as possible. Thanks to the Government’s intelligent approach to delivering offshore wind, I am pleased to say that we have managed to offer significant savings for the consumer while also increasing the supply of green energy. Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy officials are working together with organisations such as Ofgem and the National Grid electricity system operator to consider the appropriate framework for offshore transmission to support increased ambition for offshore wind. I recommend that my hon. Friend take this matter up at the next oral questions with BEIS on 16 June.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The cleaning staff were coming in anyway, and it is worth remembering that the cleaning staff were coming into this House when we were not. Frankly, the idea that others should work when we do not have to is one that I find unimpressive. Bill Committees were not established while we had a virtual Parliament. Second Reading of the Finance Bill is normally an unlimited debate, and that has been used by Opposition parties over the years to debate for many hours, sometimes with great distinction in what they had to say—

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Not normally.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Sometimes, and that allows proper scrutiny to take place. We did the Finance Bill in four hours, with an interruption after two hours. That is nothing like the proper level of scrutiny. Both from the Opposition’s point of view in holding the Government to account, and from the Government’s point of view in getting their important Bills through, the hybrid Parliament was not working.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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When I was a child I remember there being a song called “Long Haired Lover from Liverpool”. I have never aimed, in my whole career, to end up looking like the long-haired lover from Liverpool, but I fear I am heading in that direction. I have never had longer hair and I am beginning to wonder whether I ought to ask nanny if she can find a pudding bowl and put it on and see if something can be done as an emergency measure.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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Is she part of the household?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Of course nanny is part of the household. What a daft question. But I am pleased to tell my hon. Friend that the Government are working with industry representatives to develop safe ways for some industries, such as hairdressers, to reopen at the earliest point. I think many of us will feel there is a burden lifted from our shoulders when the hairdressers are reopened.

Proceedings during the Pandemic

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Tuesday 2nd June 2020

(3 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
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I beg to move,

That the resolution of the House of 21 April (Proceedings during the pandemic) be rescinded and the following orders be made and have effect until 7 July 2020:

(1) That the following order have effect in place of Standing Order No. 38 (Procedure on divisions):

(a) If the opinion of the Speaker or the chair as to the decision on a question is challenged, the Speaker or the chair shall declare that a division shall be held.

(b) Divisions shall be conducted under arrangements made by the Speaker provided that:

(i) Members may only participate physically within the Parliamentary estate; and

(ii) the arrangements adhere to the guidance issued by Public Health England.

(2) Standing Order No. 40 (Division unnecessarily claimed) shall not apply.

(3) In Standing Order No. 41A (Deferred divisions):

(a) At the end of paragraph (5)(a), insert “, provided that (i) Members may only participate physically within the Parliamentary estate; and (ii) the arrangements adhere to the guidance issued by Public Health England”.

(b) In paragraph (5)(b) delete “two and a half hours” and insert “at least two and a half hours”.

(c) In paragraph (5)(c) delete “after the expiry of the period mentioned in subparagraph (b) above”.

(4) The Speaker or chair may limit the number of Members present in the Chamber at any one time and Standing Orders Nos. 7 (Seats not to be taken before prayers) and 8 (Seats secured at prayers) shall not apply.

(5) Standing Orders Nos. 83J to 83X (Certification according to territorial application etc) shall not apply.

The rationale for returning to physical proceedings is a straightforward one. Parliament is the assembly of the nation. The public expect it to deliver on the mandate provided by last year’s general election, and they expect it to conduct the kind of effective scrutiny that puts Ministers under real pressure. Neither expectation can be fully realised while we are not sitting physically. That is why we are returning to work safely at the first opportunity in order fully to conduct the essential business not possible from our homes. This assessment is based on the facts. The stopgap of a hybrid Parliament was a necessary compromise during the peak of the virus, but, by not being here, the House has not worked effectively on behalf of constituents. Legislating is a key function of Parliament, yet there has been no ability for legislative Committees to meet since 23 March. This means that, for 10 weeks, there has been no detailed line-by-line consideration of Bills that will affect people’s lives. I remind Members that, in the week commencing Monday 11 May, we had no debates on secondary legislation, no Public Bill Committees, and no Delegated Legislation Committees. There was significantly less time for debate—just 216 minutes of debate on primary legislation compared with the example of 648 minutes in a normal sitting week—and far less flexibility to ensure proper scrutiny of the Government.

I should also like to remind Members that much of the business under the hybrid proceedings was deliberately arranged to be non-contentious. The time limits on scrutiny and substantive proceedings were also heavily restricted. This was to facilitate the smooth running of what was always a technically challenging arrangement. What was acceptable for a few short weeks would have proved unsustainable if we had allowed the hybrid proceedings to continue. This House plays an invaluable role in holding the Government to account and debating legislation, which can only properly be fulfilled when Members are here in person.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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Will the right hon. Gentleman allow?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I was just about to talk about Members intervening time and again, so it is the perfect time for me to give way to the hon. Gentleman.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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The Leader of the House will know, because he is an historian, that one of the ancient liberties of all Members of Parliament has been to attend. Such a liberty has been asserted even when the Crown has wanted to arrest people. The House has insisted that people should be allowed to attend, but at the moment, by law, there are many MPs who are banned from attending Parliament because they are shielding either themselves or others in their household. How can it possibly be right to exclude those people? How can it be a Conservative motion to exclude those MPs and thereby disenfranchise their communities?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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Nobody is banned from attending Parliament by law. The ancient right of MPs, which dates back to 1340, entitles Members to attend. However, I accept that, for some Members with particular health conditions, it is very difficult to attend—

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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They are not allowed to attend.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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No law exists that stops Members from attending Parliament.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The House authorities have made possible virtual participation in the Bill Committee’s proceedings, and it is up to individual witnesses whether they wish to take that up or not. That was always available under the ordinary systems used for some time by Select Committees. It applied to Public Bill Committees as well.

As I was saying, I do expect some teething problems with the voting system today, and it will be some time before our proceedings are fully restored, but in the meantime we must act to minimise the disruption.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Have you ever been to Alton Towers?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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Indeed I have—I took my sister Annunziata there many years ago. [Interruption.] Anyway, enough of my reminiscences. It is important that we protect, preserve and prioritise our parliamentary democracy. It has to continue, regardless of the disease that is afflicting the nation.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Wednesday 6th May 2020

(3 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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It is always my wish to facilitate my right hon. Friend, and I am glad to say that there will be Treasury questions on 18 May followed by Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions on 19 May, when these important issues may be raised, but I recognise and agree with him that the horticultural sector is a crucial one.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab) [V]
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The idea that workers will hear the Prime Minister on Sunday and change what they were going to do on Monday, and that businesses up and down the land will suddenly be able to respond from Sunday to Monday morning is utterly preposterous. The reason the Prime Minister is making the statement on Sunday is that he wants to avoid the House of Commons. You, Mr Speaker, are quite right to have already told him off on that basis. I am begging the Leader of the House to please make sure that we have more time to ask questions of Government Ministers. At the moment, we end the day early and we are not sitting on Thursdays. Ministers are not coming to the Chamber enough to answer questions, which we have in buckletloads in our constituencies. In my own patch yesterday, we had a horrific incident where one man was murdered and three others were stabbed. We want to talk about the issues that are happening in our constituencies. We need to challenge the Government on these issues and we cannot if the Prime Minister will not even come to the House.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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Well, the Prime Minister was in the House earlier on, but I accept what the hon. Gentleman is saying in that a virtual Parliament is not a substitute for the real Parliament. Apart from anything else, we are missing the constant chirruping from the hon. Gentleman.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Wednesday 29th April 2020

(3 years, 11 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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It is a great pleasure to hear from my hon. Friend, and not surreal for us as we see him in glorious technicolour addressing us. With regards to the lockdown, it is of course difficult for the elderly and for those of us with elderly parents, but we must follow the rules, because that is actually working. No doubt the sun will shine eventually and the restrictions will be lifted, but now is not the time to forecast when.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab) [V]
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I think that 1 May was also the feast day of St Panacea, which may be of interest to Donald Trump.

I want to ask about cancer, because 367,000 people a year in this country contract cancer and 165,000 die of it. When I last spoke to my oncologist, he said he was terrified of a tsunami of people, who have not contacted the doctor now because they are frightened of going to a hospital in case they contract coronavirus or because they just do not want to take up the NHS’s time, presenting with their cancer too late for doctors to help. Is not it important that we get out the message, whether through a debate or statement in the Commons, that if people are ill, the NHS is still there for them now and that delaying taking a dodgy mole or something in their bowel that is worrying them to the doctor is a big mistake?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I am glad to say that the health service is opening up for people to go back for continuation of treatments that were suspended and to have tests for potential new illnesses. That is important and was part of the whole strategy to ensure that the NHS could cope and that lives could be saved from other illnesses as well as the coronavirus.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Monday 23rd March 2020

(4 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I record my gratitude to the Opposition for deciding not to divide the House last week. We have become aware that politicians in this country can act in the interests of the nation and of us all by coming together to do this, and we have shown that with surprising speed. I reiterate the thanks given by my right hon Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to his shadow, the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), who has been particularly helpful in this difficult period.

The issue regarding the self-employed is of great importance and has been widely raised.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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I warmly condemn—warmly commend, I mean—the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care for recognising that, sometimes, Opposition Members want to be helpful with their criticisms. There are specific issues, such as the treatment of employees, of those in rented properties and, for that matter, of freelancers and sole traders, on which proper questions from Members on both sides of the House can get us to a better place.

My anxiety is that we are telling the nation that we should bend every sinew to deal solely with this issue, yet we are still doing all sorts of other things in the House that are not solely directed at coronavirus. May I suggest to the Government that we shred every other ongoing legislative process? We should only be debating issues that relate to the national crisis.

When will we have the necessary votes under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 to enforce the measures that were introduced last Friday in relation to pubs and clubs?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I will not make cheap shots about the hon. Gentleman’s default position when he is trying to be helpful.

The difficulty is that some of the business we carry on needs to be carried on. It is important that the Windrush compensation scheme is debated and dealt with tomorrow. The hon. Gentleman knows the procedures of this House better than almost anybody: he will be aware that we need to introduce the Finance Bill within a set period of the motions being introduced, so there is routine business that needs to be carried out. Other things are happening on which MPs will want to hold the Government to account so, although I understand his point, we cannot go quite so far as he suggests.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 19th March 2020

(4 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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One cannot always provide satisfaction, much though I have tried hard to do so, but Her Majesty’s Government are doing whatever they can to help constituents in these difficult times. The Foreign Secretary is working very hard on this and is working with the airlines on it. This is a process, and I am afraid that not everybody is going to be repatriated overnight, because it is not simply a question of doing that; rather, it is a question of getting in touch with people, ensuring that the facilities are available and then getting them home. However, the Government are working hard to try to help constituents.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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The Government undoubtedly need emergency legislation, but as I understand it the Bill is some 350 pages long, includes measures that, uniquely, would allow Ministers to switch on and off their powers without any reference to Parliament whatsoever, and is intended to last for two years. Some of these will be draconian measures restricting the liberty of the individual in this country. They may be completely necessary, but can I urge the Government to think about, first, making it possible for us to table amendments on Monday, before Second Reading, which is not the normal way, and, secondly, allowing these measures to last for 90 days before approval by Parliament and then to be renewed every 30 days thereafter?

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I would look more favourably on the switching on and off mechanism, which, although not previously used, is a means of limiting these powers rather than extending them. I do not think it has been done before, but it ensures that the powers will be activated only when necessary and, when unneeded, will be removed. I think that is a step in favour of maintaining as much liberty as possible. I recognise that it is a long Bill, and I pay tribute to a parliamentary counsel for their work, which has been really remarkable in the short space of time available. It is important that these measures are passed with consensus. The hon. Gentleman has made his point; I am sure it will be—

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Amendments?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I had not forgotten amendments. I believe there is a motion in my name to allow amendments to be tabled before Second Reading, but I cannot give the hon. Gentleman all the comfort he wants on the change of time limit.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 12th March 2020

(4 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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May I congratulate my hon. Friend on having a constituency in which so many people want to live because it is so beautiful? My right hon Friend the Secretary State for Housing, Communities and Local Government is going to make a statement later about reforming the planning system. I think my hon. Friend’s concerns would be suitably raised in an Adjournment debate on his constituency.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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I clearly was not happy with the Budget yesterday. Wales bore the brunt of Storm Dennis. Nearly half the people who were affected across the whole of the UK were in one local authority area, and there was not a single extra penny from the Government yesterday for the families, for the businesses or for the local authorities in Wales that are going to have to pick up the tab to the tune of many, many tens of millions of pounds. When it came to the business arrangements for coronavirus, perfectly sensible measures were being introduced in England, but there was not a single penny to make them available in Wales as well. Surely we are one United Kingdom and there should therefore be fair money for all the different parts of the United Kingdom.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I do not think the hon. Gentleman is ever happy, so there is no pleasing some people. However, I would point out that over £600 million extra is going to the Welsh Government’s budget—the biggest day- to-day funding settlement for the Welsh Government in a decade—and there will also be the concomitant Barnett consequentials from yesterday’s Budget statement. So it is simply not accurate to say that Wales is not receiving extra funding.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 5th March 2020

(4 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I am glad that there is such rejoicing at that suggestion.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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It was just one voice.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

But it was one that represented many.

The public will expect Parliament to sit, and to get on with its job. Parliament has proved itself to be very resilient over the years. There is no medical reason, on current advice, to think that shutting Parliament would be necessary or helpful. I will repeat that: there is no medical reason, on current advice, to think that shutting Parliament would be necessary or helpful.

Our approach will be guided by the best scientific evidence and medical advice, and we will take all necessary measures to deal with this outbreak. I can assure the House that I am engaging with the parliamentary authorities to emphasise how important it is that any decisions are taken in line with the advice of the chief medical officer. A cross-parliamentary group of senior managers is meeting daily to plan the response to covid-19 and ensure business continuity, with input from Her Majesty’s Government. The Commission will consider an update at its meeting with the House of Lords Commission on Monday. I can reassure the House that we are taking this very seriously, and that we will act on professional medical advice.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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To answer the second part of the question first, it is of course very sad that the SNP decided to talk out the motion establishing a Scottish Affairs Committee. It is surprising that a party that calls itself the national party of Scotland does not want to have a Committee looking into Scottish affairs. The Government will of course deliberate and consider when it is right to bring forward a motion on the subject, but it is ironic that those who wish for more Scottish debate are those who decided not to have a Scottish Affairs Committee. I know a little bit, dare I say, about the procedures of this House, and I know when somebody is trying to talk something out, and that is exactly what happened. One might think, if it were not disorderly to suggest it, that the SNP were filibustering—to stop themselves having the opportunity to discuss things. It was a filibuster with remarkably little point.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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You’re repeating yourself.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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We are not playing “Just a Minute”; I am trying to answer serious questions.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) is absolutely right about discussions of coronavirus. The Health and Social Care Secretary is committed to updating the House regularly. I think that is important and the best way of proceeding, because we are trying to proceed on the basis of medical, expert advice, and giving Members the opportunity to ask questions, so that advice can be given to a broader audience and more widely understood, is the right approach to take, though I hear his request for a debate. Obviously, if or when there is a need for emergency legislation, there will be a full debate on it.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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There was a debate in Government time on the issue of the persecution of Christians. We raise that issue regularly with foreign Governments in respect of the treatment of their nationals and the protection of women’s rights. The overseas aid budget is committed to doing that. These issues are well raised on the Floor of this House in order to remind the Government to raise them with the relevant Governments.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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May we have a debate about banking? As the Leader of the House will know, the best part of £50,000 has now been raised by people in the Rhondda for those who have suffered as a result of the recent flooding. That is an amazing amount of money and it would be good to get that money to people, but HSBC, which has the money sitting in the bank account, has said that we cannot possibly transfer it out until next Tuesday because we have to go to see a business manager in Cardiff, some 15 miles away. That seems preposterous. If ordinary businesses regularly have to go through this business of having to make an appointment, days ahead, to see a business manager so as to be able to transfer funds, this must surely be madness.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The hon. Gentleman has raised this point in the House. It is a fundamental principle of banking that the owners of the money should be able to move their money; that is the basis on which people make deposits, and banks that try to frustrate that are not operating properly. He has made his point about the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, and it is now on the record.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 6th February 2020

(4 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I think we see the benefits of the Union every day, not least in the contribution the hon. Gentleman makes to our debates—and indeed in the contribution of our friends on the SNP Benches. Despite the fact they do not really approve of this place, they make a wonderful contribution and keep our debates going extraordinarily well. The Union is at the heart of our nation. The Prime Minister has made himself Minister for the Union and I share my right hon. Friend’s desire to promote the Union at every possible occasion.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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The mineworkers’ pension scheme really needs review now. Since 1994, the Government have taken £4.4 billion out of the surplus—50% of it—and frankly, a much greater proportion should be going to the miners and their widows. There are miners’ widows in my constituency who are surviving on virtual pittances. It really is time for a proper review and the trustees fully support having one. Will the Government look at this as a matter of urgency and will the right hon. Gentleman personally introduce the debate?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

That is not within my purview—it is not my responsibility—but I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago to the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris). This is an important issue and I will take it up with the relevant Minister on both their behalves.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 30th January 2020

(4 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Yes, that is right. We all know when he is here: 12 o’clock on Wednesdays for half an hour, to 12.30 pm—you keep it running to time punctiliously, Mr Speaker. It means that anything that is going to No. 10 will have proper scrutiny weekly.

I am absolutely delighted that the right hon. Lady has been imbued with the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) over the decades about the importance of parliamentary sovereignty—dare I say that there is more joy in heaven over the one sinner who repenteth than the 99 who are not in need of repentance? I am glad that parliamentary sovereignty is now being taken seriously across the House, rather than being focused in that fantastic corner over there on the Government Back Benches, where I used to sit in happy times.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Or recline, indeed.

The right hon. Lady referred to talent. I am glad to say that this is a country full of talent and a Government led by very talented people, who are making great successes of the nation. She also mentioned the Erasmus programme. It is worth bearing in mind that the Erasmus programme includes countries such as Canada and Israel, and therefore is not an exclusively EU activity, so it is perfectly possible for us to be involved with Erasmus outside the European Union; statements will be made in due time.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Indeed. Restoration and renewal is a House responsibility rather than a Government one, and therefore it is only right that, with a new House of Commons, new Members should be able to express their views and to have a full understanding of what is happening with the project. It may well be that the Backbench Business Committee will consider a debate, but I have certainly heard the request for a debate in Government time.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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Wonga mis-sold millions- worth of debt to lots of very poor people up and down the country. It was forced to pay compensation to those people, but now, because the company has gone bust, the average amount of money that people are going to get is just 4.2% of that compensation. In other words, if they were meant to get £1,800, they are going to get £72. Surely that is unfair. Should not the Government set up a compensation scheme to meet the full figures now?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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With all these matters relating to Government expenditure, there is limited taxpayers’ money—the Government cannot pay for everything, and it will be a question of priorities as to whether this compensation is paid or whether money goes to other deserving and important causes. There is not unlimited money available.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 9th January 2020

(4 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

May I add to the right hon. Lady’s words about the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who will be very much missed from these sessions? It always amazed me how a man of such gentleness, courtesy and kindliness in private always managed to be so fiendishly angry in the Chamber. I look forward to seeing whether the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), who I know is also a model of kindliness, will be similarly angry when he gets up to speak in a moment, but I look forward to our exchanges.

The right hon. Lady asked 11 individual questions, and I will do my best to answer them all. The House will always be updated by the Government on really important issues. The Prime Minister, in the last Session of Parliament, averaged 36 minutes a day at the Dispatch Box during the time he was Prime Minister, so I think he has been ahead of almost any other previous Prime Minister in his assiduousness.

As regards the Christmas recess—absolutely. We want to ensure that there is reasonable notice for all recesses, which I think is of general help not just to Members but to the staff of the House for planning their lives. This is important for all of us, so we will try to give the longest notice we can, though I cannot yet give the length of the Session—

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Rhondda always wants to chip in. We might have thought that, after a little peace and quiet over Christmas, Rhondda would have calmed down, but no such luck. Because there is so much business to be brought forward, and that will depend on the progress of business. That is a completely normal approach.

As for sitting Fridays, we have only just had the ballot, but of course we will bring those forward, and the motion, as soon as is practicable. On the machinery of Government changes, I got a little bit worried by a memo that said, “MOG changes”. I am not necessarily so keen on such changes; I am rather used to being the Mogg that I am. However, I can absolutely assure the right hon. Lady that any changes that are made will lead to consultation with the Opposition about any changes to Committees. It is hoped that the motion in relation to the sharing out of the Committees will be put on the Order Paper by the end of business today. That is not an absolute promise, but I understand that good progress has been made on coming to an agreement.

I am indeed grateful to the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) for passing on a list of overhanging proposals from the Backbench Business Committee for debates. Whether there will be a lot of time for non-legislative business in the next few weeks, I am not absolutely certain, but it is useful to have that and to be aware of it.

The Budget date—giving people plenty of notice—is perfectly reasonable. I make announcements about the business for a week or possibly for two weeks; I do not intend to announce the business for March, so I think it would be unusual for me to be announcing that. I do hope that in this Session of Parliament my appearances at the Dispatch Box will be once a week to set out the business, rather than once or twice a day, which I think was beginning to pall on everybody in the House.

The IR35 review is extraordinarily important. It is a matter of concern to many of our constituents, and something that came up in the election on a number of occasions. It is important that it is done in such a way that people know what their tax affairs will be in April.

On the takeover of Cobham, the Government have to act within the legal parameters and the approach that we generally take to takeovers, and announcements must be made punctually. Sometimes when the House is in recess announcements still have to be made. Saying it was done just before Christmas is not a reasonable criticism, because business goes on.

May I share in the right hon. Lady’s condolences to Andrew Miller’s family? It is always sad when we lose a distinguished former Member of this House who has invariably been influential and important in the careers of existing Members.

There is indeed a statement coming on the Australian bushfires. I think all of us feel the deepest sympathy for the people of Australia, who for so many of us are kith and kin, and there is therefore always a particular concern with what is happening in Australia.

The Ukrainian plane crash is something that needs to be investigated thoroughly so that we find out what the cause was. Our concern is for the British citizens, but also for all the lives that were lost.

As always, I am so glad that once again the right hon. Lady reminds us about Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and of course all the other dual nationals who are held improperly, unlawfully by the Iranian regime. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary spoke to the Iranian Government on 6 January. The Government are doing everything that we can to secure her release and that of others, but the Government’s power, regrettably, is not unlimited in this area.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I have a certain sympathy because the great western line was also meant to be electrified, but then it was found to be too difficult to do around Bath, which is the station I use—

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Because you use it.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I am always getting heckled from Rhondda! Everyone else is so well behaved in this new Parliament. We have this new image and row upon row of people who sit there politely listening, other than the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant).

The hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) raises an important point. There will be oral questions to Department for Transport Ministers in due course, and I think that is the right time to raise the subject initially as it may not constitute a full debate on its own, but it will also be possible to raise the matter at various points in the debate on the Queen’s Speech.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I am glad to say that Midsomer Norton and Keynsham in North East Somerset are also benefiting from a deal. Previous town deals are benefiting many of us, up and down the country. I can answer my hon. Friend’s wish because I can give slightly more detail, which may save the House the time that would be taken by a full debate.

On 27 July, the Prime Minister announced that a £3.6 billion towns fund would support an initial 100 town deals. The Government have announced 100 places that will be invited to develop proposals for deals, including some that have been the birthplaces of industry, centres of commerce for centuries, or bastions of the maritime economy along our coastline. The Government will work with local people from the 100 communities to agree proposals to spend up to £25 million in each place. The Government are committed to decentralising funding and decisions away from Whitehall. We have invested in the growth of local economies, developing powers through green, ambitious city growth deals, devolving more than £9 billion of funding to local enterprise partnerships, and introducing eight metro Mayors in England. This is all part of a general programme, and I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) is pleased with the success of the Greater Grimsby deal.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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For a start, the name of my constituency is pronounced Rhon-tha, not Rhon-da. I hope the Leader of the House will practise in front of a mirror later today.

I am not an unreasonable man, so I am not asking when the next Prorogation of Parliament will be, but I am asking how long the Government intend to run the Session in the broadest sense. It would be perfectly legitimate to run it to next November and return to the old system of having State Opening in that month. May is a daft time to have a State Opening, because the Government are caught in purdah thanks to local elections, making it much more difficult to do it properly. Will the Leader of the House give us a clearer idea of the Government’s broad intention, not least because we would like to make sure that we get 20 Opposition days a year, and not just 20 a Session?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The hon. Member for—

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Rhon-tha.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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Patience! The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), when I was newly elected, very generously took me to the Smoking Room and gave me a couple of glasses of Scotland’s finest produce to help me to learn how to pronounce his constituency, whereas the hon. Member for Rhondda merely bellows at me across the Chamber. For that reason, I may try harder with Na h-Eileanan an Iar than I do with Rhondda.

Regarding the length of the Session, if the hon. Gentleman were to divide the number of Bills listed following the Queen’s Speech by the average number of Bills passed during the course of a year, he might get a rough idea of how long the Session is likely to last, other things being equal, but that is not a promise.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 24th October 2019

(4 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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My hon. Friend’s constitutional expertise is second to none in this House, and he sets out the constitutional norms completely correctly.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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indicated dissent.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I think that the hon. Gentleman wants my hon. Friend’s vote, so he ought not to shake his head like that.

My hon. Friend’s point about the Fixed-term Parliaments Act is absolutely spot on. We have had such a vote twice, and it is absolutely fascinating how many people say they would like an election, but disappear when they are offered the opportunity for one—they do not go for it. I am absolutely delighted that the shadow Chancellor has just taken his seat, because I have some quite helpful quotations from him on this matter.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 17th October 2019

(4 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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May I congratulate my hon. Friend on her zeal for Parliament? I think there is only one other person in this House who has such zeal, Mr Speaker, and that is probably you. We will need to use time very efficiently in order to legislate by 31 October. I think it is safe to say that I do not expect us to have to sit next Saturday and that we should be able to do things in an orderly way before then, but I will obviously keep the House updated.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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I make no argument against us sitting on Saturday, but it is inconvenient for many people who have families. Unfortunately, the nursery is not able to be open to ensure that childcare is provided for hon. Members. Would it not be incumbent upon the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to make financial provision so that the costs of childcare can at least be met for Members?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I recognise that it will be difficult for some right hon. and hon. Members with responsibilities. The matter can certainly be raised with IPSA to see whether it feels any special arrangements can be made. As a general principle, though, I would say that to sit on three Saturdays in 70 years is not an insuperable burden.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 3rd October 2019

(4 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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On the last point, yes, I am very happy to do that.

In response to the points raised about the Backbench Business Committee, yes, we will ensure that it is re-established quickly, and yes, it is extremely helpful and welcome that the Committee, before it dissolves, will propose a list of debates. May I thank the Committee, and particularly its Chairman, for the terrific work it does? It is invaluable to Back-Bench Members that they have this facility. It is also of immeasurable use to the Leader of the House, because I can often say, “This is a matter for the Backbench Business Committee,” which is something of a stock answer, as Members might have begun to notice. Without it, I might find this question time rather harder.

As regards changing to a longer period of appointment, the Backbench Business Committee has unique powers, which are unlike those of any other Select Committee, including allocating a significant amount of time in the Chamber. Although the Government are happy to think about this—the Procedure Committee might want to think about it too—I am not going to promise any rapid change.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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The Leader of the House mentioned IPSA, which is very tempting, but I am not going to go down that route, as I want to make him promise something. The United States has now had two traumatic brain injury Acts, which have made a dramatic difference for many millions of people in the USA, whereas we have never yet had one. Will he therefore include this in the Queen’s Speech? Some 1.4 million people in the UK have suffered from acquired brain injury. They often do not get the rehabilitation they need, and we could give them real quality of life if we took action across the whole of Government.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The hon. Gentleman, as always, makes an important and significant point. I cannot make promises as to what will be in the Queen’s Speech—it is not entirely within my remit as Leader of the House to dictate what Her Majesty will say—but his point is very important. On legislation, once there is a new Session there will again be 13 days for private Members’ Bills, and it may be that this matter has the level of consensus to make it very suitable for a private Member’s Bill.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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It is entirely a matter for you to decide which debates you chair and which debates you do not chair, Mr Speaker, although I would say that for the convenience of previous Speakers in past times, before there were deputies, there was a curtain—

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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That’s not true.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Is that not true? It is reported in good history books, but clearly not ones as good as those written by the hon. Gentleman.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 26th September 2019

(4 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The general point on private Members’ Bills is that, if we get to a new Session, there will be more Fridays, a new ballot and the opportunity for Members to bring forward their bills. That would be the best way to go about it.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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Would it not improve the atmosphere in all our debates in the House if we returned to an older tradition and took a self-denying ordinance refusing to clap?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Yes, yes and yes.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Wednesday 25th September 2019

(4 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The hon. Lady has left out a third definition of a coup: something hens live in.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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The trouble with the Leader of the House’s argument about the recess motion tomorrow is that there is already a provision on the Order Paper for Westminster Hall debates next Tuesday, and lots of people have already submitted for them. I have submitted for a debate on skin cancer because the number of men in particular in recent years who are presenting the skin cancer, particularly at later stages which can be fatal, has grown quite dramatically. Postal workers are still not provided with free sunscreen, and nor in many cases are police officers, so it would be good to be able to have that debate on Tuesday. I guarantee absolutely that if the Leader of the House were to allow us to sit on Monday and Tuesday and he brought forward the Domestic Abuse Bill on Monday, there would be no other contentious business to deal with.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I know that the hon. Gentleman has suffered personally from skin cancer and I reinforce what he is trying to do to ensure that more people know about it, so there is greater awareness and so that treatment can be faster and quicker. I therefore think it is a very suitable subject for debate, because Westminster Hall debates do have the effect of raising awareness, and I wish him extraordinarily well both in his personal health and in this campaign. However, he knows procedures of the House better than I do, and he is aware that Westminster Hall debates and Adjournment debates are organised, assuming the House is sitting, before recess motions are taken, and that they then get changed. Government business in Government time is not announced unless a recess motion has been either not taken or sorted out. So it is routine for Westminster Hall to have an announcement for next Tuesday, regardless of tomorrow’s motion.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 5th September 2019

(4 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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May I also point out that £34 billion more is to be provided for the national health service? I am sure that some of that will be used to improve cancer treatment services.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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The Government now think that they may need to invoke the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 after 31 October if we leave without a deal. That Act presumes that Parliament is sitting. Is it not therefore vital that we sit through 31 October, and will the Leader of the House ensure that the motion is published as soon as possible—before 2 o’clock—so that we can all decide what we are going to do on Monday?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

There is no question of the House not sitting around 31 October. No one has proposed that.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The date of the election flows from the date of Dissolution. [Interruption.] No, it is not: the election follows 25 working days from the date of Dissolution, so if we are dissolved on Monday—[Interruption.] But the process for that—[Interruption.] No, that is a mistake: it is not a minimum once the Dissolution day is set; it is 25 working days from Dissolution.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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It is the other way around.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

No, what the hon. Gentleman is confusing is when the day of Dissolution is set, and that is done by Royal Proclamation.

I can assure the House that the date will be set and the date will be stuck to. I think everybody in this House wants to see this issue settled; it is the one thing we have agreement about. The best way to settle it is through a general election—and a general election before 31 October.

European Union (Withdrawal)

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Tuesday 3rd September 2019

(4 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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My right hon. and learned Friend is very learned but his learning does not always lead him in the right direction. The Prorogation is completely routine. When I was first—and, indeed, last—at this Dispatch Box, Opposition Front Benchers were asking for the Session to be brought to an end. We were merely being our obliging selves in leading forth to a new Queen’s Speech in the general course of events.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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Will the Leader of the House give way?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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In due course, because we always like to hear from the hon. Gentleman, who informs and educates us when he speaks—

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Can I do it now?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

No. We are going to have to wait for this informing and educating. We are all bating our breath for it, but I like to keep people on tenterhooks for the time being, because I wish to talk about our old friend “Erskine May”, which sets out your role, Mr Speaker. The chief characteristics attached the office of Speaker in the House of Commons are authority and impartiality. It would be disorderly, wrong and not my intention to question your impartiality, Mr Speaker, but, as with the umpires at Edgbaston who saw eight of their decisions sent for review and overturned, accepting somebody’s impartiality is not the same as accepting their infallibility.

It is worth noting what a wise and scholarly Speaker once said—indeed, this wise and scholarly Speaker said as recently as last year that a debate held under Standing Order No. 24 could be held on a substantive and amendable motion only if the Standing Order is itself amended. In April 2018, in the light of two emergency debates on the UK’s decision to take military action in Syria, you yourself, Mr Speaker, said that

“it is perfectly open to the House to amend Standing Order No. 24, of which there is some uncertainty and often incomprehension. It could be amended to allow for the tabling of substantive motions in circumstances of emergency, which could also be amendable and on which the House could vote. If there are Members who are interested in that line of inquiry, they could usefully raise it with the Chair of the Procedure Committee”.—[Official Report, 19 April 2018; Vol. 639, c. 475.]

As far as I am aware, no change has been made to Standing Order No. 24, yet the decision has changed—varius et mutabilis semper dictor.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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The Leader of the House said earlier that Parliament is not being suspended, but in this case it is. He knows perfectly well that Select Committees will not be able to sit, and as according to the Bill of Rights, there will be absolutely no proceedings of Parliament while Parliament is prorogued. I want Parliament to prorogue, but I want it to prorogue only for four or five days so that we can do our job of scrutinising the Government through proceedings in Parliament. That is the point: we want a Queen’s Speech but we also want to be able to come back and do our job.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The hon. Gentleman knows the procedures of this House only too well. He knows that we are about to go, in some cases, to the seaside for party conferences—in the case of my party, to a major city centre. That is why we are taking four or five days of parliamentary time and simply going over the normal recess. That is not in any sense an abuse.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I am afraid that I disagree with the hon. Lady, and I must confess that I am astonished that she is not a right hon. Member. Something must have gone wrong with the Privy Council, of which I am now Lord President, for that not to be the case. [Interruption.] Oh, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) feels that he has also not been justly promoted; I am sorry.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

No, you’ve been unjustly promoted!

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 25th July 2019

(4 years, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I may be the fifth Leader of the House since the hon. Gentleman took up his post, but from what I hear it seems that his question is the same regardless, so it does not make any difference who the Leader of the House should be. I therefore fear that the answer is going to be much the same. I would point out that the House of Commons predates the House of Tudor: it started in 1265, and the House of Tudor obviously began with Henry VII—

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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That’s wrong as well. It was 1341.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

No, no. The hon. Gentleman is a very good parliamentary historian, but 1265 is when the burgesses came from the towns, as he knows perfectly well.

Anyway, on restoration and renewal, I had the privilege of serving on the restoration and renewal Joint Committee. It is extraordinarily important that the House of Commons is not only a beacon for democracy, as it was built to be in the 19th century, but a functioning, modern Parliament.

Finally, the hon. Gentleman will be reassured to know that he does not have to wait long: on Thursday 5 September we will be back here and we will have questions to the Department for Exiting the European Union. His wish is my command; it will be granted.

Business of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Wednesday 27th March 2019

(5 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
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I oppose this motion because I think that it is constitutionally ill thought through. Our country does not have a codified constitution, but it works on conventions, and those conventions are precious to those in government and to those not in government, for the tables may be turned at some point and the Labour party may find it has a minority Government and cannot keep the business of the House as it would expect.

Why do the Government need this primacy on the business of the House? As my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) says, it is absolutely right that the Standing Orders are the property of this House and are not challengeable outside this House, and our governmental system works through the Queen in Parliament. The Queen, in this sense, is represented by the Executive, and there is a separation between the Executive and the legislature that we all know about. That separation requires that the proposition of events comes from the Government and that the amendment, review and redress in relation to those events comes from this House.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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One of the conventions that has lasted for a very long time is that a parliamentary Session lasts for a year unless a general election intervenes and makes it more sensible for a Session to be 15 months, or something like that. In a parliamentary Session, as the hon. Gentleman knows, the Standing Orders provide that there should be so many days set aside as Opposition days. That has been completely broken in this Session, which has gone on for nearly two years. We have not had an Opposition day since November, the longest period in living memory.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I agree that it is important to observe the conventions, because the conventions protect the interests of everybody. If the hon. Gentleman is calling for a Prorogation so we may reset and have Opposition days, I would not be opposed to that. It may well be time for a Prorogation.

Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice)

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Tuesday 4th December 2018

(5 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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Your wisdom, Mr Speaker, in always making that point just before you call me is shared by the whole House, I am absolutely sure. So we are all united now and everybody can just agree with what I am about to say.

Although I sympathise with the arguments made by the Father of the House and for that matter with the points made by the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), I disagree with the conclusion to which they have come. I am delighted that the motion does not mention the Attorney General by name because I do not think this is a matter of the Attorney General being a dishonourable man at all. I am very fond of the Attorney General. I think he is a wonderful man. I think he is entirely honourable and, yesterday, he did his level best in the Chamber to provide what he thought he could, within the terms and the strictures given to him by the Government. However, I would say that we are today facing an extraordinary moment. I cannot in the history of Parliament find a moment when the Government have referred themselves to the Committee of Privileges. The best argument they have today, in response to the motion moved by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), is—“Instead of deciding already on the House’s behalf that the Government are in contempt, we will refer it to the Committee of Privileges.” Always in the past, that has been to decide, prima facie, that there is a case to answer. So the Government themselves accept at the very least that there is a case to answer about their being in contempt. I cannot think of another moment in our history when that was true.

In fact, as several Members have already said, the Attorney General himself in a sense confessed his own guilt to the charge of contempt yesterday. He said on the motion for the debate we had previously:

“We should have voted against it.”—[Official Report, 3 December 2018; Vol. 650, c. 579.]

Of course we should have done. It would have been good if the Government had made in the debate back then all the arguments they are making today and made yesterday afternoon. Some of us might have listened to the argument about national security then. It might have been an appropriate argument then, but it was not an appropriate argument yesterday and, for that matter, it is not an appropriate argument today.

The Attorney General repeated time and again yesterday that he knew he was not fulfilling the will of the House. That is what we are asked to decide today—whether the Government are fulfilling the will of the House. He himself said yesterday that he was not fulfilling the will of the House. In an extraordinary moment, he said:

“The House has at its disposal the means by which to enforce its will.”—[Official Report, 3 December 2018; Vol. 650, c. 574.]

That is what we are doing now. To all intents and purposes, the Attorney General yesterday asked us to do what we are doing this afternoon and I think he fully accepts that the House has to be able to have its way in the end.

I say to the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and the hon. Member for North East Somerset, the other thing that is extraordinary about the motion before us—the Opposition motion, supported by the other Opposition parties—is that there is no sanction involved in it. In fact, the only thing it requires to happen is that the will of the House is abided by. That is the only thing. It may be that we have to return to this if the Government choose to ignore it, but my suspicion and hope is that, if the Opposition motion is carried today, the Government will say, “Alright. Fair do’s. That’s twice we’ve been told now. We do actually have to abide by the decision of the House.”

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Could the hon. Gentleman help the House by explaining what the next step would be if the Government did not then publish the information and what procedural effect could be had or what motion could be brought forward to follow up on the motion before the House today?

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

I do not want to go back to 1340, as the hon. Gentleman did, and I am not going to. I prefer to cross my bridges one at a time. I am hopeful for all the good reasons that he himself adduced that, if the House for a second time decides to insist on its will, the Government will then comply. To be honest, if that were not to be the case, I hope other hon. Members who today are dubious about this procedure would want to stand in favour of more robust measures. The anxiety is of course that there is a time factor. We cannot let this roll on until after next Tuesday because then the Government would have completely defied the will of the House beyond the time necessary.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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When I was training to be a priest in the Church of England, my professor of systematic theology was called John Macquarrie. He would say that he was often asked by parishioners, “What is the meaning of God?”, but that actually the far more important question is, “What is the meaning of meaning?” To be honest, it feels as though that is what this afternoon’s debate and last week’s debate have been about: what is a meaningful vote?

The first point is that a meaningful vote is surely not one that is meaningless. We had a meaningless vote on Monday afternoon after the SO24 debate. It was meaningless because we were voting on whether this House had considered the matter of the Sewel convention, and even if every single Member of the House had voted against that, we would none the less have considered the matter. This is exactly what we do with statutory instruments as well: we vote on whether we have considered the matter. The Government’s motion will require the Government—not allow them but require them—to table a neutral motion.

I disagree with the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), who said that the vote in 1940 was on the Adjournment. It was not—it was on whether this House should adjourn for a successive number of days, and it was an amendable motion that would have had effect—

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman if he does not mind. [Interruption.] Oh, all right.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I said that the vote was on the Whitsun recess, so I think that I covered that point.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

But the hon. Gentleman managed to elide the fact that it was an amendable motion that had effect.

The point is that if the Government do what their motion says they should do—namely, table a neutral motion—the written ministerial statement gives the Speaker no power whatever to decide that it is not neutral. Indeed, if a Speaker were to decide that a neutral motion was suddenly, somehow or other, not neutral and could be amended, we should remove him from the Chair because he would not be abiding by the Standing Orders of this House. So let us make it absolutely clear: if it is a neutral motion, it will be a motion that has no meaning whatever.

Private Members’ Bills: Money Resolutions

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Monday 21st May 2018

(5 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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No; I disagree fundamentally with that point. That is why our Standing Orders are as they are. If we look at Standing Orders Nos. 48, 49 and 50, we can see that the requirement of public money is given only at the express request of the Crown, because regardless of whether it is a private Member’s Bill or a Government-initiated Bill, the principle is the same.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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I would argue that one problem with how we do our business is that we do not afford enough scrutiny of the way in which the Government seek expenditure. We are simply unable to fillet things out, which is why we have not voted against estimates for a very considerable period of time. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the simple proposition that, if the number of MPs is reduced, the number of Ministers should also be reduced?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is a great constitutional expert, but his point is completely irrelevant to this debate, which is on money resolutions relating to private Members’ Bills. He seeks to widen it to the virtues of the Bill that is being considered, but we need to focus on this basic constitutional principle, which is at the heart of how this place operates.

A Government elected on the basis of popular suffrage come to the House with their demands for expenditure. We as Parliament and the House of Commons hold that Government to account for the expenditure they wish to have. It has never been the role of the House to say that money should be spent if the Government do not wish to propose it.

Restoration and Renewal (Report of the Joint Committee)

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Wednesday 31st January 2018

(6 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
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I want to go back to this 16 and a half feet—16ft 5in to be precise. When we sat on the Committee, we looked at and studied the report from Deloitte, we took evidence from experts, we sat for hours and we came to a conclusion based on the possibility that an inexpensive temporary Chamber could be put in Richmond House. That was fundamental to what we concluded. It turns out that that was wrong—that actually the measurements were out and therefore it would not work. That seems to me to undermine all that we tried to do. If the people responsible could not even measure a courtyard, how could they possibly get the figures right on the overall proposals that were being made? I regret that the work that we did and the conclusions that we drew have been fatally undermined by the fact that the figures we were provided with on an essential basis for our conclusion were wrong.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I will not on this occasion because time is so limited. I do apologise. I always like to give way, but I think that I had better not on this occasion.

That troubles me. The other thing that troubled me throughout the Committee process was that we never looked at the figures on the basis of a discounted cash flow, and so the assumption that was made was that a pound spent in 40 years’ time had exactly the same value as a pound spent tomorrow. That is incorrect. A pound spent in 40 years’ time obviously has a lesser value. When we consulted the Comptroller and Auditor General about that, he said in evidence that that was not how Government projects were done: Government projects look at the economic return that one gets on the expenditure, and not on the discounted value of money that one may spend in future. However, this is not a project that reveals a return; it is not an investment in that sense, but a cost. Therefore we need to look at the discounted cost, at which point the remaining in becomes the cheapest option by a considerable margin. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) may shout no, but that is what the figures show when we apply a sensible discount rate.

The other thing that has concerned me throughout this process is that we are being too precious and we are assuming that we will not accept any modest inconvenience. The hon. Member for Rhondda said that costs go up because work has to be done at night. We have to accept that, in this process of saving this building and ensuring that we are here, there may be some modest inconvenience to Members of Parliament. Are we really so precious that there must never even be the slightest sound of a hammer bashing a nail into a piece of wood? Are our ears so sensitive that we cannot bear that strain upon them?

I, along with the hon. Member for Rhondda, was extremely keen that we should sit in Westminster Hall, because Westminster Hall is not part of the main restoration and renewal project; it is outside it. The argument that we got against Westminster Hall was the most negative naysaying approach that we could have had—that the roof put up by Richard II would fall upon our heads if we had a little bit of heating in there. The naysayers wanted to put us in a glass pod—a temperature-controlled pod to ensure that we were kept at the perfect temperature, boiled to the right level in Fahrenheit or centigrade, whichever you prefer. This is a building that has survived for 800 years, not a hot air heating system. Once they said it was a glass pod, the glass pod was then too heavy for the floor. Whatever way we look at it, they were naysayers. It seems to me that we could have sat there in our overcoats, as that would have solved the problem in the winter. And in the summer, some hon. Members more racy than I am might have felt it possible to take off their jackets. It seems to me that there is an easy, affordable solution whereby we maintain a Chamber in our historic residence. That is what we should do and that is what we should vote for.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Sir David—for you are indeed beknighted—it is good to take part in this debate immediately after the right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey). However, I am slightly saddened that he was so disparaging of all the Opposition Members who have signed his amendment. If we are just cast aside with such casual, reckless, gay abandon, we are never going to do that again, are we?

The British way in parliamentary matters has always been that we govern by consent, not by Government fiat, so Parliament should never be conceived of by a Government as an inconvenience that has to be avoided if possible. Parliament should be seen as an essential part of how we carry the whole nation with us. The Government should have more strength in Parliament than they do if they try to circumvent Parliament.

Getting the process right, as several hon. Members have already said, is absolutely essential. We are going to be deciding what many assume will be a long-term settlement for this country for generations to come. We cannot simply try to go ahead with a railroaded version of that settlement that only carries 52% of the country, or perhaps even less by then—who knows?—because we will in the end undermine the very institutions that people have been trying to say should be sovereign. I say to the Government that no amount of jiggery-pokery will sort things out. At the end of the day, parliamentary shenanigans will do far more harm to this country’s political institutions than we should countenance.

The Government already have phenomenal power and—I have used this figure before, but it is true—this is the first time in our history that more than half of Government Members are now either Ministers, trade envoys or Parliamentary Private Secretaries and are beholden unto the Government in some way or other. We have more Ministers than Italy, France and Germany put together, so the Government’s hold on Parliament in our system is already phenomenal, yet they have introduced clause 9, which is truly exceptional. I have tabled several amendments, which I will not address because I do not think there is any great point. The honest truth is that I would prefer to see the whole clause out of the Bill.

The moment I saw clause 9, I thought, “If there is a real reason for this, surely by now the Government would have argued why they have to have these powers.” Now the Government say a Bill will be introduced on the agreement and its implementation. If there really is a need for those powers, clause 9 should be in that Bill and not in this Bill at all.

I love all four of the Ministers sitting on the Government Front Bench to death, and obviously the safest thing to do today is for one of them to stand up—they could stand up one after another, as in “Spartacus”—and say, “We will not support this. We will not urge the Committee to consider taking on this clause as part of the Bill, because we know we do not really need it.”

People might ask, “If the Government do not really need clause 9, why does it matter if the clause is in the Bill at all?” The problem is that every single Government in the history of the world have always used every power they have to the umpteenth degree. It is a temptation, and we should take temptation out of the Government’s hands if they are not prepared to take it out of their own hands. Let us bear in mind that the Bill will allow the Government to change the Parliament Acts and the Representation of the People Acts. [Interruption.] The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice is standing up! Oh, he’s not.

Admittedly, changes to the Parliament Acts and the Representation of the People Acts by secondary legislation would have to be made via the affirmative process and there would be a vote in both Houses.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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I will give way to the 16th century, but I cannot imagine for an instant how the hon. Gentleman could support such a change.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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As I have said, I have my doubts about parts of clause 9, but it says that a Minister of the Crown may, “by regulations,” do things

“for the purposes of implementing the withdrawal agreement”.

It is hard to see how that could change the Representation of the People Acts. The hon. Gentleman slightly overstates his case.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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The hon. Gentleman entices me down the road of one of my amendments. Previous legislation allowing Governments such extensive powers, such as the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, has made it clear that, when tabling statutory instruments, Governments have to argue the case for why those statutory instruments are necessary. In this case, the Government have not even added that provision to the Bill, which is what makes me suspicious.

A doubting Thomas is a good man, but he should follow through on his doubts. I hope that means the hon. Gentleman will be joining us in the Lobby tonight, although I have a sneaking suspicion the smile that just crept across his face indicates that he has no intention of doing so.

There has been much talk about what is a meaningful vote. I read theology at university. My theology professor, John Macquarrie, was a wonderful man who had a rather strange half-American, half-Scottish accent. He was asked by a student, “What is the meaning of God?” And he answered, “You should not ask me, ‘What is the meaning of God?’ You should ask me, ‘What is the meaning of meaning?’” That is the kind of existential debate we are having today.

What does it mean to have a meaningful vote? First, I would say that the vote cannot simply be on a fait accompli. It is not meaningful to vote on something after it has already happened and it has already been decided. It cannot just be a vote on a treaty because, as I have already tried to explain, the provisions on treaties in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 state that the Government do not have to provide for a vote on treaties, because it is not an affirmative process. They merely state that, if the House says within 21 sitting days that the treaty should not be agreed, the Government have to have another go, if they want to. That is a problematic process for us.

In addition, a treaty is unamendable. One thing everybody has been arguing in this debate is that we need to be able to send the Government back to negotiate again if we think the deal is not good enough. This cannot be simply be on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. That is what Hobson, the 17th century stable owner said: “You can either take the horse closest to the door or you will not take a horse at all.” It is like Henry Ford’s saying:

“Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black.”

My fear is that the Prime Minister will want to be a stable owner trying to persuade everybody to take the horse closest to the door, and I do not believe that will be a meaningful vote.

Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 20th October 2017

(6 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Absolutely. It is worth saying that the reason I presented this Bill rather than any other is that I did a survey of my constituents and of the wider public, to which more than 40,000 people responded, giving them a choice of six different Bills, each of which I would have been very happy to present. Another Member is doing civil partnerships and somebody else is doing votes at 16 and so on, but this subject came top in my constituency and around the country. That means that we are also responding to the public, which is an important part of what we are sent here to do.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
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Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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What an utter delight!

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. At least the Rees bit of me is Welsh. I congratulate him on bringing forward this Bill, because he has managed to show that private Members’ Bills on a Friday morning may cover serious topics that have the widespread support not only of the House but the country. It is very important for Parliament that we do sensible and proper things today rather than just hear people making statements.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for saying that. Because we now have a two-year Session for this Parliament, private Members’ Bill Fridays have been stretched out considerably. If this Bill gets its Second Reading today, as we all hope, it could easily get through Committee in the next few weeks. There is no reason why the Government could not give it Government time on a Thursday afternoon, for instance, rather than having to wait until the end of April for its remaining stages. We could then send it off to the House of Lords and it could be on the statute book by Easter rather than having to wait the whole year.

Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Tuesday 1st November 2016

(7 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Well, I do not think the hon. Gentleman will be allowed to make a very long speech, as we do not have much more time. He is completely and utterly wrong. He has dragged himself into a hermeneutic circle and he will never get out of it.

When the amendment—which was carried by 530 votes to 13 to become section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013—was tabled, the then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) said:

“Today marks a turning point. We can move on from simply talking about Lord Justice Leveson’s report to start acting on it, with a new package...The package includes a new royal charter, as announced by the Prime Minister earlier; a new costs and damages package that seeks to maximise incentives for relevant publishers to be part of the new press self-regulator; and one short clause reinforcing the point that politicians cannot tamper with the new press royal charter, which is the subject of debate in the other place.”—[Official Report, 18 March 2013; Vol. 560, c. 698.]

Why was there an all-party deal? Because the Leveson inquiry exposed real failings both in the press and in the regulatory system. Many of us felt that we, the elected politicians of this country, had failed. Whether out of partisan ambition, deference, cowardice or a genuine determination to do everything in our power to protect the freedom of the press, we had nonetheless failed. We had developed relationships with the press and the media that were so cosy that the people no longer trusted us to make the best decisions on these issues in the national interest. We were on trial as much as the press itself. That is why we all agreed that we had to find a better way forward.

Above all, we knew there had to be a genuinely independent system of redress. I do not often agree with the hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), but he said that it could not just be

“an updated version of the Press Complaints Commission. God forbid that it is”—[Official Report, 18 March 2013; Vol. 560, c. 662.]

because that would be doomed to failure. But without the commencement of section 40, that is precisely what we have got. IPSO is the Press Complaints Commission in all but name. It is not independent in terms of its finances, the membership of its board or the decisions it makes. It is entirely compromised, as recent decisions have shown. The press marks its own homework and, surprise, surprise, it always gives itself gold stars. Five hundred and thirty Members wanted it to be independent of government and independent of the press, too.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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If the hon. Gentleman does not like IPSO, how can he think that IMPRESS is any better? It is approved by the state, and it is funded by one irritated celebrity.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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It is not my business to decide which of the two is better. The whole point is that we set up—through a royal charter that can be changed only by a two thirds majority here and a two thirds majority in the other place—a body that would take the decision at arm’s length from us. My anxiety about today’s decision by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Media and Sport is that she is bringing this matter right back into her inbox, which I think is wholly mistaken. The press would be best advised not to encourage that.

Since that day in 2013, Conservative Ministers have repeated their commitment to the package time and again: the right hon. Member for Basingstoke on 18 March 2013; David Cameron and Viscount Younger of Leckie on that same day; the right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) on 10 April 2013; the right hon. Member for Basingstoke again, six times, on 16 April 2013; the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) on 16 April 2013; the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), now the Attorney General, on 25 April 2013; Lord Gardiner of Kimble on 3 July 2013; the right hon. Member for Wantage—again—on 4 December 2013; David Cameron in The Spectator on Boxing day 2013—a nice little Christmas present; Lord Gardiner again on 2 April 2014; the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, now the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, on 20 January 2015; and indeed, the Government did so as late as 26 June 2015. All these people constantly reaffirmed that they were in favour of the commencement of section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013. No wonder, then, that some Members in this House are impatient; no wonder there are Members in the House of Lords who are impatient and want the Government to get on with it. That is precisely why the amendments were tabled.

Privileges

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 27th October 2016

(7 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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I, too, am grateful to the Privileges Committee for the diligent work it has done, and I hope that we will hear from its Chair very soon. I am grateful not only to the Committee Chair and its Members, but to the acting Chair, who had to take much of this through over the last few months.

I will not make any comment about the individuals, Mr Myler and Mr Crone, but I think that the Committee did its absolute best to make sure that there was due and fair process, and that the two men were able to put their own case. The very fact that of the three names originally put forward by the Select Committee, two names are before us today—the Committee found that Mr Les Hinton had not misled the House, or certainly that there was not enough evidence to say that—shows that there has been due process.

The right hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), whose most important role in the matter was as the former Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, is right to say that we should not underestimate admonishment. The Privileges Committee was right to say that that should be the only punishment. We should not be considering a fine or imprisonment, because I do not think that a political institution such as Parliament should be able to do that. That is one of our fundamental principles of habeas corpus. We should not underestimate admonishment, because it would be the House saying that these two men are liars; that they are not honourable; that they have deliberately misled Parliament; and that they are not reliable witnesses. Anybody who wanted to employ them would obviously want to bear that in mind.

If the same thing had happened in the United States of America, the Leader of the House is absolutely right to say that it would have gone to court rather than being dealt with by Congress. The penalties would have been considerably higher than some words in the Journal of the House of Commons. The last such instance in the United States of America led to somebody being fined $10,000 and imprisoned for six months.

I accept the points that have been made about not wanting to infringe the Bill of Rights, and not wanting the courts to be able to question or impeach proceedings in Parliament. At the same time, there is a real problem if people can, effectively, proceed with impunity. This is a much more serious case than any that we have had before the House for some considerable time, including the cases that have been referred to from 1947 and 1957. I do not think that either of those cases would come anywhere near the House today. Simply telling a journalist off for having published somebody’s telephone number and trying to get people to vote in a particular way—that was, to be honest, the House behaving a bit like a prima donna.

In the case that we are discussing, however, two men lied to Parliament. They chose to lie to Parliament. They made it impossible for the Select Committee to do its work properly, and other forms of justice were not available to those who were involved. I think it is much more serious than any other case since 1879, when two men said that they had bribed Members of Parliament to secure contracts for the building of bridges across the River Thames. Then, we did imprison; it was the last time that we imprisoned. The truth of the matter is that if the same thing happened today, the only thing that would be available to us, according to what we are deciding today, is admonishment. Frankly, I think that that is the kind of situation in which people should be going to prison.

The whole thing is made worse by the fact that the individuals concerned do not accept that they have done anything wrong. On the very day the report was published, they went on the record to say that they did not accept the Committee’s findings, they did not accept the way it had done its work and they did not accept Parliament’s remit. I tabled two amendments simply to say that we should not increase the penalty above that which was agreed by the Privileges Committee—it should still just be admonishment—but that it should be done at the Bar of the House.

I understand the argument that we should not do that. Lord Lisvane has his arguments, although he is too excitable on this matter for my liking, but I think the real problem was adumbrated by the Leader of the House. The reason we are not doing it is that we are frightened that we cannot summon someone to the Bar of the House because the Speaker’s warrant has no effect and the Serjeant at Arms has no power. The problem is that we cannot force somebody to appear as a witness before a Select Committee, which really means that we have become a paper tiger. We have become a lion with no teeth.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
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We should insist that we have certain powers, but my concern with bringing someone to the Bar of the House is that it is unduly theatrical and would make the House of Commons look foolish in the public arena, rather than making us look wise and providential.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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If somebody were brought to the Bar of the House, I would hope that they showed contrition. John Junor certainly did so in 1957, which meant that the House decided immediately thereafter that it would not pursue the line of admonishment but let the matter lie. Perhaps if the two men in question had been brought to the Bar of the House, they would have shown contrition and that is exactly what we would have decided as well.

It is the counsel of despair to say that we cannot use the powers of the House. We need to address the situation urgently, because the number of witnesses who have tried to avoid appearing before Select Committees has grown exponentially in recent years. That was true of the Maxwell brothers, and then there was nobody for about 10 or 15 years. James and Rupert Murdoch tried to refuse to attend, and Rebekah Brooks refused to attend for some time. All sorts of excuses were provided, but they did eventually attend. It is extraordinary that the Murdochs, having been in control of such a large part of this country’s media empire, did not appear for 20 years. Mike Ashley and Philip Green tried not to appear, and we had to stamp our feet to secure their attendance. That eventually happened, but there may come a time when, if we keep saying that we do not have the power to force people to come, they will decide not to, and then we really will have lost. If we cannot summon witnesses and require them to attend, what price our ability to hold the powerful to account?

This is not about those of us who are in this Chamber today. We as individuals come and we will be gone. We pass through here but very briefly and the waters will very soon cover us over, but the role of Parliament endures, because Ministers do not have the sole prerogative rights on the abuse of power. We have to be able to summon witnesses, to force them to attend, to pursue the truth, to hold the lies and half-truths of the great and the good up to the light. I think that people in this country are sick and tired of the extremely powerful and the extremely wealthy being able to lie, scam and brag that they have been able to do so with impunity.

Finally, Rupert Murdoch has tweeted:

“Maybe most Muslims peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible.”

That tweet in itself is an act of incitement and it is despicable, but if we were to apply his logic that all Muslims, including peaceful Muslims, are responsible for jihadism, we would conclude that it must surely be true that Rupert Murdoch is personally responsible for the lies that were told to this House by Mr Myler and Mr Crone.

Parliamentary Scrutiny of Leaving the EU

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Wednesday 12th October 2016

(7 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
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I want to return to the topic under debate, which is how this House will scrutinise the Brexit process. To do that, we need to go back to first principles. What is the power and authority of this House? What is the sovereignty of Parliament, and where does it come from? Here, I take a view that will be popular with the SNP. I believe that the sovereignty of Parliament is delegated by the British people. We do not have sovereignty in this House in a vacuum. It is not that God suddenly created the House of Commons and said it would be sovereign over the United Kingdom. Every five years, the British people delegate their sovereignty and rights to us, to implement as we see fit; we then present ourselves for re-election when that period is ended.

Within that, we have had a referendum. It is fascinating to hear from all sides, left, right and centre, that everyone has accepted the result and that the will of the British people must be obeyed, respected and followed—[Interruption.] That is the will of the people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which, I am glad to say, includes the good people and crofters of Na h-Eileanan an Iar. That needs to be put into practice.

We also know, because this is the legal advice that has gone unchallenged, that the only legal way of leaving the European Union is to exercise article 50. We therefore know that the vote on 23 June was a vote to exercise article 50. All that is under debate is the point at which that is done; the big decision has been taken by the British people.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

The hon. Gentleman and I are in rather similar positions. The Rhondda voted to leave, but I support remain; North East Somerset voted to remain, but he supports leave. Given what he has said about sovereignty, does he fully accept that all of us in this House are sent not as delegates but as representatives, and owe to our constituents our conscience as much as our vote?

Standing Orders (Public Business)

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 22nd October 2015

(8 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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I have read the House of Commons Library summary, but if the hon. Gentleman looks carefully, he will see that it does not lay out all the processes. It lays out only half the processes—[Interruption.] I note that the hon. Gentleman has picked something up from the Library and feels that on the back of that he can come in to the Chamber and be awfully clever—[Hon. Members: “Ooh!”] There we are; the debate is lively enough now, isn’t it, Madam Deputy Speaker?

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

The hon. Member for the 16th century is so tempting.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The hon. Gentleman’s point about two classes of MP is important and one that we should tread very carefully towards. I wonder whether this is not the same as MPs serving on a Committee, which is limited in number, meaning that not all MPs can be present, yet can still be overruled by the whole House through, in this instance, a suspension of Standing Orders rather than having a legislative method, which would make it much more complicated.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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This is good, because the hon. Gentleman agrees with me. He is absolutely right to do so, but I do not think he has followed it through to its logical conclusion. He is right. For centuries, when the House has sent a Bill into Committee, it has decided that certain Members should sit on that Committee for the line-by-line consideration of the Bill. That is absolutely the sensible thing to do. In the past, it was done by those who were most interested in the subject, and then it was decided that it would be done by party political balance. Now, there is a suggestion that if the Bills are exclusively English-only, there should be English-only membership. I have absolutely no problem with that; the hon. Gentleman and I are as one. He should therefore support our amendment this afternoon, as I agree with him.

My second problem is that these measures will politicise the Speaker—[Laughter.] [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] This is a Paddington bear stare—[Interruption.] All right, calm down—[Interruption.] You broke my leg; calm down.

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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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I will not, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind.

The Commons has not refused such a request for 104 years. And I am not going to take any nonsense from the Leader of the House about their lordships telling us what to do about Standing Orders. This is a major constitutional change. Devolution was brought in after a cross-party constitutional convention, a referendum, a draft Bill and a Bill. In this case, what do we get? The longest-ever amendment to Standing Orders—742 lines in all—driven through on a Government majority. That ain’t no way to treat Parliament. Nor will I take any lectures about the unelected Lords. I have always voted for reform. It is the right hon. Gentleman’s leader who has appointed nearly 10 times as many barons to the other House since he came to power in 2010 as there were sitting around Runnymede in 1215.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman. Much as I enjoy what he has to say, there are others who need to speak.

The honest truth is that this is not a conservative set of measures. It is quite a dangerous set of measures. It is a bureaucratic nightmare and hon. Members will regret it. As Lord Forsyth said last night in the House of Lords, it is like an Uber driver without a sat-nav. It is not a unionist set of measures, either. It is as if the Prime Minister had decided to fashion a new grievance for Scotland—God knows the Scots have never needed a new grievance—because he wanted to antagonise them.

Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Monday 24th November 2014

(9 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Yes, and it is remarkably poorly used, for the simple reason that it is regularly taken to appeal—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman wants to intervene again, I would be happy to give way to him, although I would probably be being generous with other people’s time rather than my own.

My argument is that these are imprecise terms. That is not a good way of legislating, not least because at the moment that a court decided that there had been misconduct such as that on which the hon. Gentleman wants it to decide and that none of the get-out clauses in new clause 3(5) applied, to all intents and purposes the court would have decided, in the public mind, that the Member of Parliament was guilty—end of story—and I cannot see how that would not affect whatever might happen in a subsequent recall.

I have one final problem with the drafting. I understand why the hon. Member for Cambridge has provided in subsection (7):

“Nothing in this section shall be construed as affecting any provision of the Bill of Rights 1689.”

That appears because several Members have pointed out that there is a problem: if the Bill of Rights says that no proceeding in Parliament should be “impeached or questioned” in any court of law or any other place, it would be a bit rum for a court expressly to be told that it can go forward on the basis of whether or not an MP has “misconducted” themselves in a proceeding in Parliament. The new clause expressly says that one of the criteria that can be considered is “conduct”, whether it be as a Member of Parliament or not—completely and utterly irrelevantly.

I believe that there is a fundamental contradiction in the new clause. Under it, the court could decide that how somebody had spoken in Parliament or engaged in a proceeding in Parliament could be considered as relevant to a misconduct hearing. That would limit free speech, which we should guard jealously in this House, and, essentially, undo the Bill of Rights. It is a contradictory provision. For all those reasons, I could not support new clause 3, tabled by the hon. Member for Cambridge.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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I am in a good deal of agreement with the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). I came into this debate, most unusually, undecided as to how I was going to vote. No guidance was provided from the Whips about how I ought to vote, which I view as a great advance. It is to the great credit of my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) that he is not trying to tell people how to vote. It shows a considerable wisdom to return to the traditional practice of having free votes on constitutional matters. I hope that this will be continued by other parties and in other Parliaments. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda says that I do anyway, and he is probably broadly right, but I think this should be encouraged across the House.

I was interested in new clauses 2 and 3. There is a need and desire to widen the ability for recall and to make it easier for constituents to remove Members of Parliament who they think have behaved improperly. The main thrust of the Bill is too narrow, which is a lost opportunity but not a fatal one because it can be developed in future Parliaments. Constitutional development often happens at a slow pace, which is not something I am against. I think we want constitutional reform to take place at a pace with which people are broadly comfortable and that carries the nation with it.

New clauses 2 and 3, however, fundamentally misfire. Instead of making this something that will be decided by the electorate, the provisions introduce a third party—the courts—to try to determine what the hon. Member for Rhondda rightly pointed out are fundamentally political issues. The restrictions to which he referred, particularly the third example where the misconduct case is “brought for party political” reasons, are a complete negation of what is being tried to be achieved. Any complaint must be brought for party political reasons, and any attempt to unseat a Member of Parliament is going to be carried out by somebody who has a party political affiliation of some kind, and it will be to the benefit of a political party to remove a Member of Parliament from another party. Even if the petition and process were started by some wonderfully high-minded figure, of which I am glad to say we have a very large number in North East Somerset, politicians would get involved in it because they would see the advantage, particularly if the Government had only a small majority, of removing a Member of Parliament or indeed of causing such inconvenience that would make it almost impossible for that Member of Parliament to continue in office.

Another issue involved is the legal costs. Are we to provide a fund to help Members of Parliament defend themselves in these circumstances, or do we find that the Member of Parliament could be bankrupted by the very process—to see whether he had committed misconduct in public office—and thus removed from Parliament anyway, even though the misconduct in public office could not, in the event, be proved?

We in this House have always sought to keep the courts out of our own proceedings. There seem to me to be two valid sets of people who can intervene in our proceedings: the general public who send us here, and who have an absolute right not to send us here but to send other people in our place; and our own systems, procedures and Committees, which are able to regulate internal goings-on in the House—a right that we declared long before we achieved it in the Bill of Rights.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comment, but I am still discussing new clauses 2 and 3. I have not yet moved on to his amendments, towards many of which I am very sympathetic. What concerns me about the new clauses is that they would allow the courts to rule on what was going on in the House. It is very important to prevent that from happening, both from our point of view and from the point of view of the courts. The courts are rightly reluctant to rule on what they believe to be fundamentally political decisions, and it seems to me that new clauses 2 and 3 would give them authority in regard to fundamentally political decisions, such as whether someone’s standard had been that of a decent Member of Parliament who had committed no offence.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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The hon. Gentleman may be interested to know that so reluctant are the courts—and rightly so—to judge on any proceedings in Parliament that when the court was considering whether Rebekah Brooks had ever paid a police officer for information, it was not allowed even to consider the fact that when asked on 11 March 2003, during a proceeding in Parliament, whether she had paid a police officer, she had said “Yes.”

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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I happen to think that that is absolutely right, both from our point of view and from the point of view of the courts. It is important that our proceedings allow people to be honest and to speak freely without incriminating themselves, and that must be a protection that we seek to maintain. I think that if we undermine it by bringing the courts into the details of the behaviour of Members of Parliament, we will fail. I would go in the opposite direction. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), I would go the whole way and leave it to the British electorate. I would place my trust in them, and let them get on with it. But the worst of all solutions—worse even than a Committee of chums somewhere upstairs deciding that we have all behaved beautifully—is to involve the court system.

I also cannot agree with the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), which is rare, because I often do agree with him. He has proposed a “pledge” in new clause 4. I do not like the pledge. I think that it reads as a sort of bureaucratic announcement that we are all going to do good things, in that awful “speak” that is so common in conferences, about how you should be a leader and grab hold of your management skills, and all that waffle.

I do not like that at all. It does not accord with my vision of myself as a Member of Parliament. I think that Members of Parliament are here at the service of their constituents, and that their constituents will judge whether they are doing their job properly, rather than someone’s saying that they have not shown leadership. What on earth does “showing leadership” mean? If you are the Prime Minister it is easy, but what is a Back-Bench MP meant to do? [Interruption.] The Prime Minister always shows wonderful, clear, decisive leadership. The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) is cackling from his Front Bench. Many people think it is a pity that he did not show leadership by trying to become leader of the Scottish socialists, which would have been very welcome.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Or even the Scottish Labour party.

Criminal Law

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Monday 10th November 2014

(9 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Affordable Homes Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Friday 5th September 2014

(9 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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The hon. Member for the 16th century wants to intervene.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and it is always a pleasure to listen to his speeches, but in his criticism of Margaret Thatcher is he saying that he regrets the fact that millions of people were able to buy their own houses and be property owners, which is surely a great thing that the Conservatives achieved?

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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The hon. Gentleman should listen more carefully to my speeches. I was always in favour of the right to buy scheme and enabling people to buy, and live in, their home—an Englishman’s home is his castle and all of that kind of stuff, and that applies equally to the Scots, Welsh and Irish—but local authorities were not allowed to replace that housing stock with social housing, and we set ourselves a long-term economic problem from which we have still to recover. If the hon. Gentleman wants to have another go and attack me by saying the Labour Government did not do enough when we were in power, he is absolutely right: we did not, and we acknowledge that, which is why one of our key commitments is to guarantee that by the end of a Labour Government in 2020—by that general election—we will be building 200,000 properties in the United Kingdom.

Justice and Home Affairs Opt-out

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Monday 7th April 2014

(9 years, 11 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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No, I am not. The hon. Lady complained that the Government and Members of the House of Lords advanced their argument on the European arrest warrant only because it was more convenient and practical. I am trying to suggest that convenience and practicality are three quarters of the point. In the end, it is in the interests of British people.

I shall take the American point as an example. When the new extradition treaty was agreed between the UK and the United States of America, despite the fact that the American Government—the President—had negotiated the treaty, it was a significant problem that the legislature had to put it in place. We moved much more quickly in this country to ratify the treaty than the Americans, and there was a period when the provisions were not perfectly equal between the two countries and when people such as the hon. Lady who argued that there was an imbalance were right. That is no longer the case, because both countries have implemented the measure.

My point to the hon. Lady is that long before we had the European arrest warrant, a Conservative Government under Mrs Thatcher were painfully aware of the problems of not having a proper extradition system across the whole European Union, where most British people do most of their travelling. That is why we had Ronnie Biggs and many others stuck on the costa del crime in Spain. Franco would not extradite anyone.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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I shall give way to the 16th century in a moment.

I wholly support the European arrest warrant on the same basis that Mrs Thatcher supported the European convention on extradition.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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I cannot give way to the hon. Lady because I have to give way to the 16th century.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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The hon. Gentleman is extremely kind. I was going to point out that Ronnie Biggs was in Brazil which, as far as I am aware, has not applied for membership of the European Union.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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I realised that there might be some clever soul in the Chamber. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, but there were plenty of other British fugitives from justice who only had to go abroad to evade justice in this country, and we needed a better system of extradition to be able to get British nationals back to the UK to face justice and, for that matter, to do something similar for nationals of other countries.

I would say to Members who regularly say that this is about protecting British people from poor judicial systems in other European countries that, in the main, we bring non-UK citizens back to the UK to make sure that there is justice for families who have lost a loved one or who face some form of injustice. I wholly disagree with the ideological position adopted by some Government Members, because it is pragmatic to have a single system that works across the whole of the EU. I also think that it is a triumph that, despite the fact that the Napoleonic code and English common law are completely different systems, we can work, broadly speaking, in a united way.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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I understand the point that the hon. Lady makes, but the problem for her argument is that that option is not available. For that matter, why would we want to say that members of the European Union, which includes two members of the Commonwealth, can all sit around a table and discuss the European arrest warrant, but we will only be able to sign up to it on a bilateral basis? That makes no sense and it is not a system that other members of the European Union will sign up to.

There is a further point, which is my concern about the process that the Government have adopted: we may get to December and not have any new agreed system in place. I know many members of the European Commission want a new system. Some countries in Europe are so profoundly irritated by the way the United Kingdom has been playing its hand over the past few years and are so concerned about the long-term direction of Conservative members of the Government in particular that they would quite like to punish Britain. I fear that we will not have the opt-ins in place by the time the opt-outs have come into force, and as the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) said, we may well have a substantial period when there is nothing in place. That could raise very significant legal issues about how we would subsequently resolve that, and it would also put us in the difficult and embarrassing position of having to say to our citizens, “We’re sorry. We are not able to extradite back to this country because we opted out and we have not managed to get the opt-in back in place.”

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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The treaty provides for transitional arrangements if an opt-in has not been agreed, so the fear that the hon. Gentleman proposes is not a real one.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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The provisions on opting back in are not very clear. The one thing that is clear is who has to pay, which is the United Kingdom. That is the one thing that is absolutely clear. We do not even get to decide how much—the costs are decided by the European Commission.

My anxiety is that the Commission could well say, and has effectively said in some of its public pronouncements thus far, “Well, it’s very interesting that you are interested in 35 opt-in measures, but those 35 are contingent upon at least 18 others”—some of which have been listed in the Home Affairs Committee report. The European Commission may at that point come back to us and say, “We’re sorry. It’s 53 or nothing.” Then we will face a difficult problem, especially as we enter a general election.

The main point that I want to make is about process. As I said, it is somewhat ironic that many Government Members have, for understandable reasons, argued the issues surrounding democratic accountability. The problem is that I do not know what the Government are going to allow us to vote on. The Secretary of State said that it would not be legislation, so we know that it is not going to be a Bill that goes through two Houses, and it is not going to be a statutory instrument either. I do not think it is going to be a treaty, unless she brings us a treaty that has already been signed, but that seems extraordinary to me. I therefore presume it will be some kind of motion.

We have already seen what the Government are trying to do in relation to the Queen’s Speech by not allowing the House to consider an amendment other than one tabled by the Leader of the Opposition. I presume that is largely because any other amendment that was tabled might relate to the European Union and a referendum. I am suspicious about what the Government are going to present to us and the timeliness of that.

There is probably broad agreement about the number of measures that we would like to opt back in to. It is probably slightly bigger than the Government’s list—about 45 or 50—but the House should take a view before the Government start their negotiations. The worst of all possible situations would be the Government coming forward with an unamendable motion which we simply voted on, almost like a statutory instrument. That would unite both ends—the people who would like to see more opt-ins and those who would like to see no opt-ins. In a sense, that is exactly what happened after the American war of independence, when the Earl of Shelburne lost the treaty negotiations on the preliminaries for the treaty with the Americans. My anxiety is that then the Government do not have a leg to stand on in their negotiations with the European Union.

I hope that the Government will make it clear that we will have a debate in the House before the summer recess in plenty of time for them to negotiate with the European Union. That would not tie their hands. They should make sure that the motion is amendable, so that if people want to vote on whether the European arrest warrant is in or out, they can do so, or on any of the other measures, perhaps packaged in some way—I do not mind. A clear list should come out of the House. How can we possibly preach to Europe about democratic accountability and the importance of what happens in this House if we have not done properly in this House what we should have done in the first place? I will vote for a longer list than the hon. Member for Bury North. I may vote for the same list as the Lord Chancellor—I am not sure—but certainly for a shorter list than the shadow Lord Chancellor. But in the end that should be a decision for the whole House. It should not be stage-managed and organised in backroom deals by the Whips so that the House cannot make a proper decision.

European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Monday 13th January 2014

(10 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
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It is a particular pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) because he has gone through so much of the rather painful detail of what this money goes towards. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on putting his case as he did. I could not quite decide whether he was modelling himself on Horatius at the bridge or the boy who stood on the burning deck, because I noticed that he was not supported not only by his Secretary of State but by any Secretary of State. He had the occasional support of the Lord Privy Seal, and I am glad that he now has the support of the Minister for Europe, but I think he should feel rather let down by Ministers who have not turned out in greater numbers to rally to this particularly disagreeable cause.

I will mention in passing the first part of the Bill, on archives and the value—or the vanity—of archives. When I was doing my A-levels, I was told that if ever we ran out of something to say when discussing 16th-century history, we should always refer to a report sent by the Venetian ambassador. That is because the archives in Venice were so great—so large and comprehensive—that nobody ever went through them all, and therefore if we attributed a view to the Venetian ambassador nobody could tell us that we were wrong. In the same way, if we were to visit the Escorial we would find that some of the documents of Philip II of Spain still have on them the sand used to blot the ink, because nobody has looked at them in the many hundreds of years that have passed. I have a feeling that the institute in Florence—this wonderful, glorious, illustrious European institute that is going to educate us so much about the virtues and kindness of the European Union—will find that the sand remains on these documents until scholars yet unborn finally get round to sweeping it off.

I want to deal most particularly with the idea of “Europe for Citizens”. Let me start by saying that I object to the idea that I am a citizen of Europe in the first place. I do not believe that it is, was or ever could be legitimate to foist a citizenship on people who have not asked for it or were not born into it. To say in about 1990, as the Maastricht treaty came through, that those of us who were proud to be subjects of Her Majesty were suddenly also citizens of some foreign multinational organisation seems to me an affront. Therefore, I deny— I repudiate—my citizenship of this body.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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What about the Catholic Church?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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The hon. Gentleman says from a sedentary position, “What about the Catholic Church?”

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

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Tuesday 3rd September 2013

(10 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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We are so fortunate to have a Prince of Wales who is able to train properly for the job he will have as our sovereign in due course, and to have access to Ministers. Of course, that should be confidential. Compared to some princes of Wales we have had in the past, how fortunate—how blessed—is this nation to have one who does his duty so diligently? I am glad that he does, and I think we can admire His Royal Highness for that—almost as much as we admire the Lord Privy Seal.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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I am slightly worried that the hon. Gentleman’s respect for the Lord Privy Seal is based on a fundamental misconception. I do not think he has read the Bill, because it does not say anything about regulating lobbying Parliament, only about lobbying Government. That is one of the Bill’s flaws.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Oh dear, the hon. Gentleman gets so over-excited on these occasions that he intervenes far too early. What I was going to come on to say is that the matter of what happens in Parliament is, rightly, not covered in the Bill. It is the duty of Parliament and the House of Commons itself to regulate its own affairs. If the Bill interfered in the procedures of this House I would oppose it. We have an absolute right, under the Bill of Rights, to freedom of speech in this House, and members of the public have the right of access to Members of Parliament. That absolute right must be defended. Members of the public must be free, whether individually or collectively, to express their views to Members of Parliament. If MPs fall foul of the high standards that are expected of them, then that is a matter for the Privileges Committee to deal with. We have powers not only to expel Members if necessary, but to imprison them, and they have no right of appeal to any court in the land.

That is how we should proceed in terms of Parliament. Government is another matter and that is why it is right that part 1 deals with the lobbying of Ministers of the Crown and of civil servants. That is a matter rightly confined to legislation.

2014 JHA Opt-out Decision

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Monday 15th July 2013

(10 years, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding me of the activities of my late noble kinsman, who did indeed bring an action on the Maastricht treaty, supported by the late kinsman of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), who was the backer of that great venture. It may be that we can fight on where our fathers once fought, with the continuing help of my hon. Friend, the seemingly immortal hon. Member for Stone.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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I have just been cogitating on the hon. Gentleman’s earlier reference to Horatius Cocles. If I remember correctly, Tacitus admits that Rome was surrendered despite the efforts of Mr Cocles.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I thought the hon. Gentleman was going to refer to the geese that saved Rome and divert us with a bit of cackling of geese, but it was not that in the end.

Let me return to the exciting detail of where we are restoring powers. The first example that I shall regale you with, Madam Deputy Speaker, is the Council act of 3 December 1998, laying down the staff regulations applicable to Europol employees. I think that staff regulations are very important and noble, but I hardly see that as a fine repatriation of powers. There are lots of other examples—I will not go through them all, because time is short and there are far too many.

However, there are eight decisions relating to classified information. If hon. Members are willing to return to the analysis by the Government, they will see that of those eight, all of which are being opted out of, the Government say:

“To our knowledge only small quantities of classified information are currently shared with third countries under these agreements. If the UK decided not to participate in the agreement, we would continue to be able to exchange UK classified data directly with any third country.”

Therefore, eight of the 98 powers that we are repatriating are so trivial that we have not used them and, crucially, the point has been made that we could do that by agreement with the third countries individually and get exactly the same benefits. Indeed, one of the classified information-sharing deals refers to Croatia before it was a member of the European Union, so that one falls automatically, even if it were useful. I am therefore agreeing, to my horror—and probably equally to her horror—with the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the shadow Home Secretary, who made the point about the triviality of some of these matters. They are really not very important.

The Schengen measures that we are pulling out of relate to the accession of member states to Schengen, which is hardly still relevant. Those measures include—oh, this is glorious—a council decision made on 18 September 2008 on the test of the second-generation Schengen information system, to which we are no longer committed. That is a serious repatriation of power!

I was thinking of the ancient types, making a comparison to Horatius on the bridge, but it is not Horatius; it is more like Sisyphus, perhaps in both senses of the man. The rock was pushed up to the top of the hill, and he tried to get it over the top, but straight it rolled back down again. To use a cricketing metaphor—which is appropriate in the middle of an Ashes test series—the degree of spin required to say that we are seeing the repatriation of power reminds me only of that famous ball bowled by Shane Warne, when he was first visiting England, when he removed Mike Gatting. It spun so much, so far that it went down in history as one of the great balls in cricket. Even Tich Freeman at his peak, when he got 305 wickets in a season, did not bowl so much spin as this Government are bowling. Even Jim Laker in 1956 was not spinning away so much when he got 19 wickets in Manchester against the Australians, for there is no real repatriation of powers.

Unfortunately, there are two sides of most ledgers. When we look at the powers that it is intended to opt back into, we see rather the reverse. To go into more of this tedious detail, which I know hon. Members find somewhat soporific, the first area—the biggest and most important—is the arrest warrant. We have heard from the Home Secretary about how the arrest warrant will be placed under strict controls. She even mentioned that there will be some limits on the joint recognition of offences, but that will not be decided by our courts or our Parliament. Instead, it will be decided by a foreign court, by foreign judges, and it will be subject to the agreement that has already been made in Brussels.

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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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It is always an enormous delight to follow the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). I always feel as if I step back in time a little and a Beaufort, Neville or Spencer is addressing the House and taking us back to the 15th century when things were simpler and a Welshman knew that he could not trust an Englishman and that was about as far as xenophobia went. The hon. Gentleman gave us a fascinating tour of spin, and it is only a shame that the Home Secretary was not in her place to hear his complete demolition of her speech earlier this afternoon.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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Given that the Home Secretary now is here, I should like to say that that was not what I was trying to do.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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The great thing about the hon. Gentleman is that he sometimes achieves that to which he does not even aspire—and on this occasion he did precisely that.

Let me start with what we all agree about. International criminals co-operate; they commit crimes in many different countries; they travel and they can commit crimes in one country from another country; and they try to get away with it. Crime does not stop at the channel, which is why co-operation on justice and home affairs across the European Union is a vital part of ensuring national security in the modern era. It is why I think Members of all parties have long supported the position of leadership that the British Government have taken in trying to improve these standards across the whole EU.

We also agree, I hope, that it makes sense to review that co-operation. That is precisely why Labour secured an opt-out—the one we are talking about using at the moment—in the first place. It is a Labour opt-out available to a coalition Government. I therefore suggest that the question before us now is really fairly simple. Is this motion right—the original Government motion, notwithstanding the intervention that the Justice Secretary was forced to make earlier when he suggested that he might accept an amendment that has not even been moved—is it necessary, and is it necessary now? Let me start with the “necessary now” question.

I suggest to hon. Members that we have heard no argument to say why the Government want this vote today. They signalled months ago that they were provisionally minded to opt out—fair enough—but their decision to seek to opt in to any measures, let alone the measures listed in the Command Paper, was announced less than a week ago. The Select Committees have been clamouring for more information for months, as has already been said by three of the Select Committee Chairs, begging for a list of potential opt-ins so that they could look at the matters in hand. They asked for explanatory memorandums and never received them. True, there were briefings to the media, particularly to The Daily Telegraph, but not to the Committees about how the Government saw each of these measures. The Government expected the House to endorse opting out and opting in, including the precise list of measures, without a single word of evidence from any outside body being taken by any Committee of this or the other House.

Royal Charter on Press Conduct

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Monday 18th March 2013

(11 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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I think I will leave that to one side, but I did object slightly to the front page of The Sun today, because its hyperbole did it no favours. It did not inform the debate and I think it was unwise.

My interest in this issue started before I was elected as an MP, when the two girls were murdered in Soham. A friend of mine, Tim Alban Jones, was the vicar of Soham and I remember clearly that every door in that village was knocked, not just once but many times, because members of the press—and, sometimes, television and radio crews—were desperate to find some new angle to the story in order to sell their newspapers. Frankly, that community was in complete and utter shock. The press was not doing anything illegal, but it was unethical and immoral and it bullied and hounded the local community, which was deeply distressing, particularly to the families who had lost loved ones.

It took the vicar to stand up for the community and say, “Listen folks: will you please just leave this community alone?” The Press Complaints Commission in that instance was completely and utterly useless. I think the Prime Minister once referred to the PCC as a busted flush and that is exactly what it has proved to be.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The BBC has a royal charter. Will the hon. Gentleman remind me of how well it has behaved in recent years, particularly in relation to Jimmy Savile? Is a royal charter an amazing thing that prevents abuses from ever taking place?

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

No, of course not. I think it was Thomas Hughes, who wrote “Tom Brown’s School Days”, who said that simply passing a law will not make everybody obey the law and that making theft illegal did not prevent everybody from being a thief.

I was in the High Court this morning to hear yet more revelations about how a phone belonging to a Member of this House was stolen from her car in 2010 and then, only late last year, its private details accessed by The Sun. Personally, I do not think that the editor of that newspaper should still be in his job. It is incredible that an organisation that had said that it was cleaning out the Augean stables was still, in September and October of last year—long after the Milly Dowler revelations came out—behaving in this extraordinary way.

Succession to the Crown Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Monday 28th January 2013

(11 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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That is not in the Bill. Indeed, the Government have said that it is entirely a matter for the Crown, in the double sense of the monarch and the monarch’s Ministers, who might have a role in advising the monarch.

Incidentally, I would not want to be a monarch apart from Elizabeth with a “II” in my title, but when James II was removed, Parliament decided, through the Bill of Rights and then the Act of Settlement, to hand over a joint monarchy to William and Mary rather than to anybody else. Then, when the Stuart line was going to end with Queen Anne, Parliament decided how the succession should proceed. Again, when Edward VIII tried to abdicate in 1936, the abdication could be allowed only because there was a statute of Parliament the next day.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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This is waistcoat-to-waistcoat business, isn’t it?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The hon. Gentleman missed out the succession of Mary Tudor, when the Act of Parliament —the Third Succession Act of Henry VIII—was followed rather than the instructions issued by Edward VI.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

That is absolutely right. It is interesting that we had gone through three Succession Acts, but again Parliament decided the process. Incidentally, exactly the same situation applied in Scotland. The calling of the first Scottish Parliament was prompted by a contested succession in Scotland on who the next monarch should be.

For the first time in our history, the monarch himself or herself will be allowed to decide whether somebody is barred from the succession by refusing to provide consent, without any reason given, at the moment that that person chooses to marry. We do not have a capricious monarch at the moment, but we have had plenty of capricious monarchs in the past, and I suspect that we will have a capricious monarch in future. At that point, we will rue the day that we passed the legislation in this form. I desperately hope that a good Bill is made better by their lordships. This is the kind of moment when one wants to vote both Aye and No, because it is a good Bill in principle but a bad Bill in its detail.

Succession to the Crown Bill (Allocation of Time)

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Tuesday 22nd January 2013

(11 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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We are discussing what may be the most important constitutional issue to which the House has ever turned its mind, namely, who shall be our sovereign. Who shall be eligible to receive perhaps the greatest office in the world? Who shall be the King or Queen of England?

When the Bill that became the Act of Settlement was debated, it spent six days in Committee. The allocation of time motion allows us two days in which to treat this Bill as if it were anti-terrorism legislation, which seems a particularly inopportune comparison given that it relates to matters that could not be further removed from that type of activity. As far as I am aware, the only constitutional Bill that has been treated to such a small amount of time—or, rather, an even smaller amount—is the Bill that became His Majesty’s Declaration of Abdication Act 1936, which, I believe, completed its passage in the House of Commons in under a minute; but that, too, is not a happy precedent.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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Is not the point that there really was rather an emergency on that occasion? The King had signified his abdication the previous day, and on 12 December the House had to enact, because there was no existing means of enabling the King to abdicate.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

For once I am in agreement with the hon. Gentleman. There was a genuine emergency then, but it is hard to see that there is a genuine emergency now. I am a great admirer of the Deputy Prime Minister and Lord President of the Council, because he has managed, in his role and in the coalition, to put into effect what Palmerston promised: that the Government would eventually run out of matters on which to legislate. It is not as if we have an enormously packed legislative programme waiting for this House to turn its mind to and to pass. We spend hours debating the taxation of lorries and other such matters, which get a full day allocated for Second Reading, whereas the succession to the Crown is to be dealt with in a truncated Second Reading debate, a brief Committee stage, and then one day for the remaining stages. That seems to me to be an insult to the nation, to our sovereign and, indeed, to Parliament.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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The answer is simple: the amendments being introduced by Her Majesty’s Government. There is no need to change the Act of Settlement and there is no need to make this provision for a Catholic to marry into the Crown, but once we start fiddling, we have to do it properly.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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I rather agree with the hon. Gentleman. Of course it may be that he is a true Tory and he is not happy that some of this legislation was Whig legislation. He referred to some specific words in the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement:

“is are or shall be reconciled to or shall hold Communion with the See or Church of Rome”.

If an Anglican marries a Catholic in a Catholic service in a Catholic church, it is difficult to argue that that person is not reconciled to or holding communion with the see or Church of Rome. That is precisely the kind of issue we need to tease out.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Once again, I am in agreement with the hon. Gentleman. That is why it is so important that we should have proper time for this debate and to debate the full ramifications of what the Government are trying to do. The argument that the measure has been agreed by Her Majesty’s other realms is not sufficient. It needs to have been thought through properly in one of her realms first, before we see whether the other realms will accept it. Yes, there might be a child—a happy event for Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge—and let us hope that that is the case, but there would be no harm in allowing the legislation to be dated from today, even if that birth were to take place. There is no urgency. The succession is apparently very secure: the heir apparent is a youngish man and so is his son.

Succession to the Crown Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Tuesday 22nd January 2013

(11 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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The hon. Gentleman makes that point extraordinarily well. This is the time, while we are legislating on the issue, to clarify the order of precedence among sisters. Otherwise, there is a risk that clause 1 will simply provide that the children of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge would be co-heirs to the Crown. The question whether Princess Margaret could have claimed the throne in 1952 is an interesting one. Surely the best time to settle this once and for all is while we are legislating on the matter. We should make it clear that, at least as far as succession to the Crown is concerned, female primogeniture has the same effect as male primogeniture, and that the co-heiress problem that exists in peerages will not apply.

I think it was Baron Grey of Codnor whose title was in abeyance from the late 15th century until the late 1980s. That is an example of how having co-heiresses in common can lead to an extensive abeyance. Why is that detail ignored in the Bill? It seems to me that the main reasons are the rush to pass the legislation and the failure properly to consider the ramifications of what is being done. That also applies to how dukedoms will pass. Will they pass as ordinary titles, or are they to be deemed to be within the Crown? If they are deemed to be within the Crown, why is that not in the Bill?

I have already discussed my concerns about clause 2 in relation to Catholics. It is unreasonable of an Act of Parliament to allow a Catholic to do one thing then deny that Catholic the ability to carry out the requirements of his faith. That is an illogical position to take, and it will bring out all the anti-Catholic terminology of the Act of Settlement and the Bill of Rights. Many Catholics can live comfortably with that terminology as part of our historical tradition, lost in the mists of time, but when it is brought firmly to our attention this week, it is a matter of the deepest concern. As other hon. Members have said, if a reform is to be made, it should be a thorough-going reform.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Is it not one of the ironies that clause 2 states that no one should be disqualified from succeeding to the throne through being married to a Catholic, yet clause 3 allows the monarch to exclude someone by refusing to consent to their marriage, potentially to a Roman Catholic?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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The hon. Gentleman is making a similar point to mine, which is that there has been a failure to consider the detail of the Bill. Trying to add two further clauses to the major provision that everyone was interested in has created confusion.

Succession to the Crown Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Tuesday 22nd January 2013

(11 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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That is really a question for the Minister. There is a real question about pulling at one thread in the jumper. Are we undermining other aspects of the present settlement, and will we therefore need a whole new settlement? That is what I think will need to happen in the next 10 to 15 years. Charles II changed his religion on his deathbed; he became a Catholic. If he had then lived, people might have wanted to exclude him from the throne, just as they went on to remove James II.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

I can see the hon. Member for North East Somerset stirring his loins.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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Does the hon. Gentleman recall that the mother of Charles II and James II was a Catholic? That was in many ways the start of the problem.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

The hon. Gentleman might say that that was the start of the problem, but I think it is fine to have a Catholic mother. I did not have one myself, but some of my best friends are Catholic mothers. I do not see this in quite the same light. The point is that the bringing up of children leads to the nub of the problem.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I am sorry that my earlier intervention seemed like a speech, Mr Bone, but these are technically complex issues and one sometimes gets a bit more long-winded than one had intended.

During the debate, a number of hon. Members have asked about the specific requirement. I know, because I tabled an amendment on the matter that was not selected, that the Act of Settlement states that

“whosoever shall hereafter come to the Possession of this Crown shall joyn in Communion with the Church of England as by Law established.”

So it does refer to the Church of England and not simply to the Protestant Church.

I also want to return to the point made by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) about the age of the child being a Catholic. I think that the earliest age is relevant, because the Act of Settlement goes on to say that

“the said Person or Persons so reconciled holding Communion professing or marrying as aforesaid were naturally dead.”

The succession would pass as though they had died. I know that Christianity is all about the resurrection, but I do not think that statute law is. If a child of a marriage were christened and brought up a Catholic, that child would be deemed “naturally dead” under the Act of Settlement in relation to succession to the Crown. That is why the clause is, I think, so complex, without any further amendment. My view is that it would be better to leave well alone. I am in entire agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth), who looks as if he wants to intervene.

Ministerial Statements

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Monday 5th December 2011

(12 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
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This debate is the continuation of a debate that has gone on for centuries in another form. In the 18th century, the line was that the influence of the Crown had increased, was increasing and ought to be diminished. It is the perpetual, almost the eternal, job of this House to try to keep the Executive, Her Majesty’s Government, under check.

There is a wonderful picture in this House of the Commons trying to persuade Elizabeth I to marry. Elizabeth I said clearly, “It is not your business to talk about it.” Governments always wish to do that. They wish to maintain information for themselves, to use at their convenience. As a former Lord High Chancellor said, “Knowledge is power”. Governments preserve knowledge carefully. That is not an unreasonable thing for the Government to do from their point of view. However, the ministerial code, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), says otherwise. It is a splendid document, because its foreword shows the ambition of Her Majesty’s Government and the Prime Minister to restore people’s trust in politics:

“It is our duty to restore their trust. It is not enough simply to make a difference. We must be different.”

I discovered, thanks to listening to “Yesterday in Parliament”, that the previous Government leaked the whole time. Or perhaps, to go back to “Yes Minister”, the approach was “I brief, you leak, he breaks the Official Secrets Act”. There has been a change, and this Government have got rather better at putting Parliament first, coming to the Chamber and telling us what is going on rather than gratuitously leaking every little titbit of information that is available. They have therefore done something to move towards the ministerial code.

However, the ministerial code is a most unsatisfactory document. Although it runs, I think, to some 30 pages, the truth is that Ministers abide by the code as long as they maintain the confidence of the Prime Minister and, as shown by newspapers and other media outlets, of the British people. Those 30 pages are quite a lot of waffle around that main theme, whereas a resolution of the House is something substantial, solid and dignified. It seems to me that things that go on in this House ought to be regulated by the House of Commons, not by the ministerial code.

It is worth bearing in mind that one Deputy Prime Minister could punch an elector on the nose and still not be deemed to have broken the ministerial code in any way. I know that it was secret at that point whereas it is now a public document, but it seems to me that it is flexible in its interpretation. The fundamental point, as I said, is that Ministers must maintain the confidence of the Crown and of Her Majesty, as advised by her Prime Minister. Indeed, the code states that the Prime Minister is foremost within its application and is the judge and jury of it.

That brings us back to the motion, to how we should deal with statements that are leaked and to why statements should not be leaked. That is the rather important question that we have perhaps neglected slightly. With some honourable exceptions, everyone broadly feels that statements ought to be made to the House first, but why? Why does it matter that we hear things before the News of the World, as was, or Sky News or the BBC? The reason is that control of the news agenda gives the Government an extra advantage over the Opposition, over their critics and over those who wish to hold them to account, which they would not be able to afford themselves. That advantage is paid for by public money.

The Government are indivisible but have two parts and two hats. They are party political on the one hand, yet they are the impartial Administration of the nation’s affairs on the other. The Labour party has perhaps two dozen press officers sitting in its current headquarters, but the Government can have two dozen in a single Ministry, able to brief and guide the press. The same is true when the situation is the other way around—the Conservatives have a small number, and the Government still have a massive advantage in controlling the news agenda. They use taxpayers’ money to do that, rather than money given to them through free donations, and they use that power to guide the views of the nation.

Nobody pretends that propaganda is not powerful. We all know it is, otherwise Unilever would not be, as I believe it is, the second largest spender on advertising in the country. I believe the Government are still the largest. Propaganda underlies how all of this works, and it is why the Government are so determined to maintain control of their ability to leak statements when they feel it is right to do so. They feel that if they use that power, they can ensure their electoral popularity and their re-election, at the expense of the British taxpayer. That is when the other, non-political side of the Government has to say, “This is improper. This is wrong. It is all right while we are in office, but we will not be in office for ever. The other side will come in, and they will be more ruthless than we are. They will use this propaganda advantage to ensure their continuation in power.”

The check on that is, and has been for centuries, the House of Commons nit-picking, banging away at the Government and saying, “This isn’t right. We are holding you to account on this. Our electors want to know about this”. It is not about us, or the fact that we are here representing North East Somerset or other, lesser parts of the country. Actually, I cannot say that with my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) here, because I get into trouble if I am not very polite about Yorkshire on all occasions. We are representing our constituents, who wish us to hold the Government to account. Once we are elected, our constituents are not necessarily our political friends and supporters, but we represent every one of them and all their concerns.

I sympathise with the Government. I say that not because I am a loyal hack—I do not think I am the loyalest of loyal hacks—but because I absolutely understand the predicament in which they find themselves.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

The hon. Gentleman referred to the non-political side of things, which I suppose in part means the civil service. One problem is that when we make an accusation—it could be an important one, such as, for instance, that the Government have issued false immigration statistics deliberately four days prior to the real statistics coming out—we write to Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, and he writes a beautiful episode of “Yes, Minister” back. The Cabinet Secretary will never find against a Minister. Without the motion, there is no proper arbiter.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is a model in opposition of how people ought to approach this matter. As I understand it, he was a model in government, although not as invariably successful as a model ought to be.

The hon. Gentleman raises the issue of the indivisibility of the Government, who are both political and impartial. In a sense, it is much easier to be a judge or to be the Speaker, because people in those positions are always impartial. The Government are always seeking re-election, but at the same time, they must make decisions in the interest of the nation impartially and fairly—one hears Ministers talk about being in a quasi-judicial position in certain circumstances. Parliament seeks to divide those indivisible roles and to say, “That bit is political. Therefore we are holding you to account for political reasons, not necessarily because we disagree on the benefit to the nation.”

The Procedure Committee debated with a great deal of amusement whether impeachment could be reintroduced. I would love to see the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) introduce articles of impeachment against a Minister whom he thought had misbehaved. If that did not work, perhaps he could go further and attaint a Minister, which would be the final sanction.

However, the Committee decided, cautiously and prudently —to some extent this answers the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms)—that, as the conclusion of part 1 of the report states,

“We do not believe that it is practical or desirable to produce a detailed protocol that would cover all possible situations”.

That is clearly right, because there will be circumstances in which Ministers must answer questions urgently—perhaps they would be pressed to do so or the financial markets demand it. However, there will also be occasions on which the Minister knows perfectly well that he has a jolly good, fat, juicy news story that he would like to put out to his chums and he does so. That is what we ought to be trying to stop.

I have great confidence in this Government when I think of what they have done so far to restore the standing of Parliament. We can see how much better debates are attended than they were under the previous Government.

UK Extradition Arrangements

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Monday 5th December 2011

(12 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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The Committee makes it clear in its report that the

“EAW is based on the principle of mutual recognition of judicial decisions and… mutual trust”

between the judicial authorities of EU states. That is a legitimate position for us to adopt, just as it was adopted in 1991 by the Conservative Government when they signed us up to the ECE—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is chuntering, but I cannot hear what he says. Unless he wants to chunter louder, I am at a loss—[Interruption.] He says he will chunter more quietly, for which I am very grateful.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

Of course I will give way to the hon. Gentleman—he will chunter from a standing position.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I will indeed. I cannot believe that the hon. Gentleman, wise and sensible as he is, thinks that justice across all European states is equal. It self-evidently is not: some systems are much less good than ours, and none is better.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

That kind of casual British superiority sometimes does not carry the day when it comes to making decisions about our legal systems—[Interruption.] It was a joke. I am sorry. I clearly missed that.

Equality and Diversity (Reform) Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Friday 21st October 2011

(12 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Well, no, not quite. Let us say, for the sake of argument, that the ambulance service, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned earlier, turned up at the household of a young Muslim woman who was in labour and having a difficult childbirth, and had absolutely no understanding of what was acceptable in a Muslim household. It would not be able to do its job properly. That is precisely why all public services need to be culturally sensitive not just to how Britain has always been but to how it is today.

When homosexuality was illegal—that era is fortunately long gone—and when David Maxwell Fyfe, as Home Secretary, ran a particularly nasty campaign of entrapment of gay men, some friends of mine, a couple who had lived together for many years, were burgled, but because they had only a one-bedroom flat, they were terrified of bringing the police round, because they knew that the police would investigate them for buggery rather than investigating the burglary.

I am afraid that there is a lack of understanding in far too many public services of how work could be improved by sensitivity to the ways other people live their lives—I would not say that there is deliberate prejudice, out-and-out racism, homophobia or sexism. In addition, many minority communities are simply forgotten by local authorities and the health service when they make their spending plans. That is one issue that needs to be addressed and one reason why the Bill is wrong.

Incidentally, there is significant cultural prejudice against the Catholic Church. I passionately disagree with the Pope on just about every issue, starting with transubstantiation. However, all too often prejudice against Catholics in society is quite marked and that is why it is not a good idea to ask people to give the name of their primary school when they are applying for public sector jobs. People will say, “Aha, this person went to the Cardinal Vaughan school! We’re not very keen on Catholics, so we won’t shortlist them.” It is illegal to do that, but it would be simpler and better if that element were taken out of the equation.

The hon. Member for Shipley said that he wanted a tolerant society. That phrase is very often used—I believe that an Archbishop of Canterbury started calls for a tolerant society in the 1960s. However, I dislike the concept of a tolerant society, because I think that a respectful society is far more important. “Tolerance” implies that although someone completely and utterly disapproves of someone who lives in a different style—

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

I will tolerate the hon. Gentleman in a moment. Unfortunately, “tolerance” smacks of reluctance.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman starts tolerance in the 1960s, because surely John Locke did that in his essay on tolerance. The theme has run through Whiggish behaviour, of which he is symbolic, ever since.

Lindsay Hoyle Portrait Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Order. I cannot see anything about tolerance in the Bill. I think we will stick with the Bill.

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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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I do apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is just that clause 2 is entitled “Definition of ‘affirmative or positive action’”. The Prime Minister is seeking to change the legislation at the meeting of Commonwealth Heads of Government next week and I worry that that could be seen by the hon. Member for Shipley as positive discrimination on the grounds of sex, listed in paragraph (b), and religion, in paragraph (g). I would hope that the hon. Gentleman was in favour of equality in the succession.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

How could I resist?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I wonder whether it might be right to look at the matter the other way round. Is this actually a rather dangerous Bill that would impliedly repeal positive discrimination in favour of Protestants in the order of succession—and, of course, of men as well? Has the hon. Gentleman considered that point?

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
- Hansard - -

I do worry about the prejudice in favour of Protestants, although the issue is even more complicated. It is not quite in preference of Protestants, but in favour of somebody who is able to take communion in the Church of England and subscribe to its articles of religion, a difficult thing even for most Anglican clergy, as well as be a member of the Church of Scotland. That is quite a tall ask.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that clause 2(1)(g) might be problematic for true equality. Incidentally, I would not often say this but I support the striving for equality in the House of Lords advanced at present by Baron Fellowes, who is worried that his wife will not be able to inherit her title, because women in this country are not allowed to inherit titles.

There is still a problem in this country. Only 22% of Members are women. In the Labour party, all-women shortlists have played a significant role in trying to bring about a more equal and representative House of Commons. When we move forward to an elected second Chamber, I hope that we will be able to use the same legislation.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

But she did become Queen. That is the point—that she was able to become queen because our constitution has always evolved gently and happily so that more and more people become included in it without necessarily being given a helping hand or a lift up. This is the key point to the Bill: we want to have equality of opportunity as an objective, but not equality of outcome. I think that is what has always divided the Conservative—the Tory—from the socialist: the socialist always wants equality of outcome. Socialists want to meddle and muddle; they want to socially engineer—or perhaps to engineer socially for the benefit of Hansard who do not like their infinitives to be split—and they want to make sure that they direct and control so that everybody should be made into a neat little machine. We have had this terrible socialist proposition recently that the elderly should sell their homes so that they can be put into properties that have fewer rooms. That is what it is all about; it is about controlling people, guiding their lives and taking away their freedoms.

When it comes to this Equality Act, to which my hon. Friend’s Bill would make splendid improvements, with some caveats that I may come to, it is desperately condescending to women. They do not want to be looked down upon as if they cannot cope. I am going to speak of the example of my younger sister Annunziata Rees-Mogg, who was the candidate for Somerton and Frome, where she fought a noble campaign. I discussed this with her and I said, “Actually, for the political advantage of the Conservative party,”—I am all in favour of the political advantage of the Conservative party—“perhaps we should have all-women shortlists.” It might not have helped me but it would have helped her and it might have answered a political problem for the party. She could not have been more strongly against it because she viewed it as condescending. She wanted to get the nomination for a seat on her own great merits—and very considerable her merits are, too. She did not want to be told she was a poor little thing: that is the sort of line an elder brother can use to a sister but it is not the sort of line that should be used by political parties or by the state. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) points out, from a sedentary position, that she lost. Well, she did because the Labour vote went down to 4%. Labour lost its deposit and that was to its horror when it discovered that the Lib Dems then supported us, so the aim to keep the beastly Tories out by voting Lib Dem failed miserably. Without that, she would have won by a landslide and I expect that next time around that will be the happy occurrence.

It is condescending to women to assume that they cannot cope without special measures and to people from what are genuinely minorities, because of course women are not a minority. Some of the time they are in the majority, although not at birth. There are more live births of boys than of girls, but women tend to live longer and therefore can easily be a majority of the population.

We have discussed Catholicism. The hon. Member for Rhondda said that he disagreed with the Holy Father on transubstantiation, but I cannot think why. It is clearly a very sensible and right doctrine. However, I do not think, as a Catholic, that I have any fear of discrimination, nor ever have had, although it did happen once to my father—my noble kinsman, as I ought to call him. He was going for a Conservative selection many years ago and was asked by one of the members of the committee if he would be able to go to the lord lieutenant’s funeral as he was a Catholic, at which point another member of the committee pointed out that actually the lord lieutenant was the Duke of Norfolk, so there would be absolutely no difficulty in my father’s attending his funeral. But he did not need special measures to help him. He had to get on and, if there was discrimination in those days, to overcome it, to strive and move forward—as, of course, Margaret Thatcher did and Nancy Astor too.

We have seen in the development and evolution of this House that it has become broader based. One might think that the days when it was simply knights of the shires, when the borough Members had not been let in, were glorious days when the knights of the shires could come in wearing spurs, as I believe we still can, to indicate that they represented a county.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Wrong!

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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I believe it is true, actually.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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It is not.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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I believe it is true.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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Mr Deputy Speaker, I was shocked at such a sedentary intervention. I have never known such things in this House before.

But things evolved and we let the borough Members in, and we now look upon them as equals.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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That probably takes the biscuit for lèse majesté—“We let the borough Members in”! I know that the hon. Gentleman has been here for a very long time in some shape or form, but to suggest that we have now become representative when he himself is the son of a peer seems a little odd.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his typically helpful intervention. Of course sons of peers should be represented, and they are a minority too. Perhaps as a son of a peer I should be given special help and intervention to help me to get through all the prejudice there is against sons of peers—not that I would ask for it or that I have ever noticed a particular prejudice against sons of peers. Mr Deputy Speaker, I hope that such prejudices never fall upon so distinguished a figure as yourself either.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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Well, I do not really like change as a general rule, and I would be very nervous about intervening in the line of succession to the throne. I think that the line of succession to the throne works very well and changing the Canadian constitution is a particularly difficult thing to do. With Her Majesty’s fantastically successful visit to Australia, we want everything to have a settled continuity of that succession. However, I think that the world has changed and that it may not be unreasonable to allow hereditary titles to pass through the female line, particularly if they are in danger of becoming extinct, because it would be a great sadness for titles to die out over succeeding generations with no new hereditary peerages being awarded. I must briefly declare an interest, because my mother-in-law would be able to resurrect a title if this law were to be changed.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Could she not just petition the Queen to allow her to hold it sui juris?

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I am not sure that that is—

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thursday 8th September 2011

(12 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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The hon. Gentleman is a fine, tall gentleman, so I give way to him.

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I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. While he is urging their lordships to stand firm, I wonder whether he might like to remind them that the Parliament Act does not apply so they can insist for as long as they like.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, although I am surprised he is only taking us back to 1911. He normally takes us back a little further. The Parliament Act cannot be used in relation to this legislation because the Bill would allow for the extension of Parliament beyond five years—possibly to five years and two months—and that Act expressly prevents the Speaker from forcing the Bill on their lordships. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: your lordships, stand firm.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Tuesday 15th February 2011

(13 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. That was why I was opposed to the versions of thresholds that were brought forward in Committee. There were two different versions. One was that it was necessary to get 25% of the electorate to vote yes, as well as more people voting yes than voting no. The other was a 40% threshold. If neither of those two conditions were reached, the result was to be an automatic no and we were to stick with first past the post.

That is not what this amendment’s threshold would do. This is a very different referendum, and consequently needs a very different style of threshold. All this threshold would do is say that Parliament ought to have a second thought. It would say that if we do not get up to 40%—if, for instance, the turnout in England is 15% or 20 %, whereas in Scotland and Wales it is closer to 43%, 44% or 45%—there ought to be a moment when Parliament thinks again about the implementing process in going forward.

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The hon. Gentleman is a distinguished constitutionalist, and I wonder whether he thinks that in the context of referendums being used more frequently, and for deciding on European matters and constitutional issues, it would be a good idea to settle on a threshold for all referendums, so that people knew where they stood.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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As the hon. Gentleman knows, I am very grateful to be called distinguished about anything, but I do not think he would carry the House on that point. I am not a fan of referendums generally at all, because I think the whole point of parliamentary democracy is that Members are elected to take decisions, provide leadership and represent the people in our constituencies. I think that is the best way of advancing policy. However, where there are referendums, I think it is better if they are advisory ones rather than implementing ones. That is the point I would make about the whole referendum issue before us.

I think this is a special referendum and I therefore think it needs a special threshold. That is precisely what Lord Rooker’s amendment provides for, which is why we will be supporting it tonight.

Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Friday 11th February 2011

(13 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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I would like to see the issue addressed in different ways—as it has been addressed in other countries. For example, the role of the second Chamber needs to be looked at. It has been embarrassing that the vast majority of people who have been appointed to the second Chamber in the past few years have been from London and the south-east of England. That is almost inevitable when we have an appointments system. I would prefer to move to an elected system, where we had more people representing the whole of the UK. It might be possible to devise a better answer to the West Lothian question through reform of the second Chamber on an elected basis.

However, as the hon. Lady has said, the whole business of parliamentary privilege comes into play. It has been a fundamental assumption from when the first commoners were allowed to attend parliamentary proceedings under Simon de Montfort in 1258 that grievances that they presented on behalf of the people should be able to be presented without any difference between one and the other Members.

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I thought that going back to the 13th century might stimulate the hon. Gentleman.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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The right of shires to send people for address of grievance pre-dates Simon de Montfort. It is the boroughs that came in at that point.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Simon de Montfort invited four knights from each of the shires and six from Yorkshire in 1258 to present in Parliament their grievances on behalf of others. We do not know that all the knights attended. Of the ones who did attend, we only know that because they presented expenses and had them paid, so this problem has been with us since Mauge Vavasour had his payments made in Michaelmas 1258. It was a significant moment. The burgesses obviously arrived after 1258, though earlier in the 13th century there were occasions when some burgesses from the Cinque ports were invited, and some from those cities where there were a large number of Jewish residents were brought to Parliament to debate specific issues.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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The knights of the shires came much earlier than that—they come from the reign of Richard I. That is attested thoroughly.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Well, not all 37 shires had representation, and they certainly did not have that as of right. I am perfectly happy to debate this at another time, but for now Mr Speaker has got that slightly fascinated but also slightly irritated face on.

It would be very dangerous to dismantle the fundamental principle of the equality of all Members of this House. That is why I think that, in the end, the direction of travel the hon. Member for West Worcestershire is moving in with this Bill is an unfortunate one.

--- Later in debate ---
Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, but I was rather hoping she would not, because there is a desperate tendency on Fridays towards motherhood-and-apple-pie Bills that say nothing very much about anything in particular. If her Bill is that type of Bill, what on earth are we doing discussing it? If it just says that the Minister, out of the kindness of his heart, will say a few words about where an Act applies, it is completely and utterly pointless, and the House should not discuss things that are pointless. We do that on Fridays, and Madam Deputy Speaker is amazingly patient in listening to some of these discussions.

My hon. Friend’s Bill has to be an important stepping-stone in answering the West Lothian question, or it is nothing. I give her credit for having the courage to begin to address that question, rather than just detaining us here when we could be doing work in our constituency on a Friday. I hope that she will not try to hide behind the minutiae of the Bill instead of looking at the bigger picture, because that bigger picture is crucial.

My hon. Friend is right to put pressure on the Government to come up with a solution that can be debated in Government time. In that respect, the Bill is really noble, because the Government do have to think about the issue. It is unfair on the British—the English; I apologise for using those two words synonymously, as I know the English do a great deal.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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And the French.

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The French very regularly confuse “anglais” with “britannique”.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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I thank the hon. Gentleman for that illuminating point. I always thought that the auld Alliance meant that they were rather keen on the Scots, but that may be a slight diversion.

What ought the Government to do and to think about as they approach a solution to the West Lothian question? They have to think about the practicalities. We have had learned discussion already today about how difficult it would be to have an English Parliament, because one would then have an English Government, and that would be simply too big. That is the problem that Balfour identified when first discussing Home Rule. He asked what we do about England, when we have Ireland, Scotland and Wales as nations. Do we chop England up, or simply have it swamping the whole new system that is being established? If there is an English Prime Minister and a UK Prime Minister, who does the President of the United States visit when he comes? He sees the English Prime Minister, because the UK Prime Minister would have peripheral powers. He might have a slightly better house, but that would be the extent of it. There is not an easy solution to the English Parliament issue.

There is then the question of English votes on English issues, but the more one discusses that superficially hugely attractive option, the more one discovers that it does not work, because there would be two tiers of MPs, and a Whitehall Government that could not get a major part of its legislation through and would therefore begin to fail. One would then begin to try to chop up the procedures, so that the Government could decide which MPs debated which bits of legislation, but that would not work either, for reasons that we have discussed. There was mention of the Welsh Grand Committee and how little that was able to succeed in doing; and when the Conservatives were last in government, they thought that a sop to devolution would be to have a Scottish Grand Committee. The fact is that the governing party has to be able to get its parliamentary business through. Whatever schemes it sets up will not work if that fundamental principle is not followed, and will be changed to the extent that they cannot be used.

So what do I suggest that the Government do? That is the nub of it. We will have an election at some point in which the Conservatives have a clear majority in England but are not the major part of the governing group. At that point, there will be squeals of anguish from the English electorate, and the Conservative party will use that all it can for political advantage. We will find that the Union comes under fundamental attack. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) that any attack on the Union is likely to come not from the Scottish nationalists but from English nationalists, fed up with the way that they are being treated.

I would like the Government to consider the proposal that we heard earlier about allowing the two Parliaments and the one Assembly to come together to some extent, but I accept that that is difficult: As a result of how they were set up, it would be problematic to change them at this stage, but it may be that something could be done along those lines. Alternatively, the thing will simply have to be done in the best form of British fudge—that is, Labour Members, when in government, will have to be enormously responsible and self-denying about what they do in England, and conventions will have to become very important in our constitutional settlement. If it becomes a convention, but is not formalised, that English representation will have a majority, or will at least accept a veto on extremely controversial measures, that may be a fudge that would work.

It is interesting and worth noting that on both big constitutional issues—reform of the House of Lords and the West Lothian question—after 100 years of the best brains trying to find a solution, no obvious solution has come up. With every solution that does come up, after one has thought about it for a week or two, one sees any number of holes in it. I therefore see absolutely no reason to oppose the Bill when we come to vote on it. There is nothing objectionable in it, and my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire has been very sensible to ensure that that is the case. It is good to push the Government, but I would not hold my breath—I do not think that I can breathe in for the next 100 years —waiting for a solution to this almost intractable problem. However, we have to recognise that, as my hon. Friend says, the English may get deeply fed up with the current situation, and when they do, that is when the Union will be most at risk. That is, I think, what most Government Members, and at least one Member on the Opposition side of the Chamber—the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley)—would be extremely keen to avoid.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Tuesday 18th January 2011

(13 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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Yes, although as the hon. Member for North East Somerset said at the very beginning of his speech, all this will become rather unnecessary once we have legislated for an elected, whether fully or substantially, second Chamber. At that point, elements of the Parliament Act, or even the whole Act, will almost certainly have to be reshaped.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg
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I absolutely understand the hon. Gentleman’s point that a Government elected on a manifesto for four years would not want to be obstructed by the House of Lords, and I doubt whether the Lords would obstruct them in those circumstances. Does he have any sympathy with the view that constitutional issues ought to have greater protection than ordinary Bills, particularly as judges have decided that there is a category of constitutional Acts? Should we decide that rather than the judiciary?

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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My general approach is that we should always seek to take decisions ourselves, rather than leave them to judges to take for us, because we are elected. However, the history of English common law and the way in which it has developed is such that judges have, by the precedents they have set, elaborated on that law. We have sometimes then decided to incorporate those interpretations into statute law, so there has been a constant relationship between the two. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) is muttering about Scottish law, but I am being very careful because I know much less about Scottish law than I do about English law, which also applies in Wales, so I am going to the edge of my knowledge and not a step further.

The hon. Member for North East Somerset is right that we will need, at some point, to put into statute law the relationship between this Chamber and an elected second Chamber, as we will want to establish that more firmly. Perhaps, as has happened in every other constitution that has been written in the world, special provision will be made for changing the constitution itself. In Germany, there has to be a vote of a certain majority in both Houses both before and after a general election. That was enforced by us in the writing of the German constitution after the second world war. In Spain, changes have been made to the constitution since the death of Franco, but the Spanish, too, can proceed only if there is a significant majority within the Cortes and the Senate. In short, my answer to the hon. Gentleman is yes.

In essence, my argument regarding new clause 3 is that it is not necessary and that it could be problematic for a new Government, because they might not be able to get their way even on a manifesto commitment that had been clearly laid down. The real danger concerns the extension of parliamentary terms—something that has always worried people in relation to the freedoms and rights of the British people, or rather the people of the United Kingdom. That is already protected in the Parliament Act, which will stand until we revise all these measures. Parliament has been extended in the past. That happened during the second world war when extensions were agreed on an annual basis. I am not sure whether that was voted on every year, but the hon. Member for North East Somerset might know.

Let me move to the new clause of the hon. Member for Stone. I note that the hon. Member for North East Somerset said that we have a choice between Scylla and Charybdis—he being Scylla and the hon. Member for Stone being Charybdis. My uncertain memory of Homer is that Odysseus chose to surrender a few sailors to Scylla rather than a whole ship to the whirlpool that was Charybdis, but I am in favour of Charybdis this afternoon.

European Union Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Tuesday 7th December 2010

(13 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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I do not think Margaret Thatcher had anything to do with the advance of freedom in Spain, Portugal or Greece. Mrs Thatcher achieved many things—in the Rhondda we are certainly aware of, and resent, many of them—but the hon. Gentleman cannot claim that the advance of freedom was because of her, except that she was pro-European; in that regard, she did do something in the interests of the whole of Europe.

My problem with the Bill is that it does not do what it says on the tin. It is not an effective referendum lock, which was the promise. Two or three hon. Members have already made the point, in questioning the Foreign Secretary, that the House has perfect freedom to amend these measures in future, so if a Minister wanted to advance legislation implementing some change in the relationship between the United Kingdom and the EU, and if they thought it would offend against the measures in this Bill, they would have only to add a clause saying that the measures in this Bill did not apply. Of course they would have to take that change through both Houses, so there is an element of a brake, but the Bill is in no sense a substantial referendum lock.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
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Is it not true of every piece of legislation that it can be repealed later? There is a political cost in repealing legislation that makes this a lock.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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It is true that every piece of legislation can be repealed or sidestepped, and there may be a political cost in doing so. In a few weeks’ time, when a number of extra peers have been added, the Government will have a majority not only in this House but, uniquely since the second world war, in the other House as well, so there will be a further slowing down. The Bill provides not a lock but a brake—that is all. It does not do what hon. Members want, which is to draw a line regarding all further innovations in the relationship between the UK and the EU.

The Bill will not deal with the real problem. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) and my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) are right that my views on the EU are those of a minority. I know that partly because my father sends me an e-mail every Sunday to remind me of that fact and also to remind me that he moved to Alderney primarily so that he does not have to abide by any EU laws. He also regurgitates vast quantities of things that I hear regularly from hon. Members. I think it is a great embarrassment to him that I was not only the Minister for Europe but the Labour Minister for Europe.

The problem in Europe with those whom others have referred to as the elite and with ordinary members of the public is that there are real difficulties in advancing the European cause because there is no single European demos or political opinion. The waves of views crash upon the electoral shores in different parts of the EU at different times and it is very rare for two meetings in a row of the General Affairs and External Relations Council to include the same set of Ministers. Consequently, it is a phenomenal triumph to achieve any European co-ordination.

Some of the EU’s founding principles—indeed, the economic ones—are very powerful, such as the right to freedom of movement and to work anywhere in the EU. In the UK, Labour brought in civil partnerships—I have benefited from those changes this year—and other EU countries have introduced other ways of recognising same-sex unions. Many of us believe there ought to be a system for recognising those unions in every other country in Europe; otherwise there will clearly be discrimination against people whose partnership cannot be recognised for the purposes of taxation, benefits and the right to freedom of movement around the EU. I do not want Europe to decide the law on marriage in any European country, but I do want it to be able to enforce the basic principle of freedom of movement, and that will require a shift so that civil partnerships in this country, or same-sex marriages in Spain, can be recognised in every other country. Otherwise, married same-sex Spanish couples who move to France will have to divorce and form a new civil partnership there. The seeds that have been sown in the underlying principles of the EU will not go away. The British people who live in Spain and demand that Europe should act on property rights in Spain are arguing for an extension of the EU’s powers although many of them are profoundly Eurosceptic.

I am not a fan of referendums, because I believe in representative democracy. I believe that we are elected to come here and that the sovereignty of Parliament is the important principle on which we should act.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Monday 18th October 2010

(13 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
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I am slightly puzzled as to why schools attached to religious establishments in Northern Ireland should be excluded, but not those in England and Wales. I can think of a number of Roman Catholic schools attached to monasteries that it might be wise to exclude in the amendments.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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I know personally only one public school in England and Wales that is attached to a monastery, which is Ampleforth. There is also Downside. I know of a considerable number of others, and many are attached to Anglican foundations in various ways, such as Charterhouse. The point I was making was specifically in relation to the Northern Ireland settlement. I now have two Northern Ireland colleagues present. I did not want to disturb the complex equilibrium that sometimes exists in relation to these matters in Northern Ireland.

In the case of Ampleforth, for example, which has a large number of pupils over the age of 18 and a large number of teachers who live on a very large campus, I see no reason why there should not be a polling station for Ampleforth itself. That might apply to a number of the larger public schools which, to all intents and purposes, would represent as large a polling district as some other polling districts. The amendment does not require any action to be taken against public schools. I hope they would see it as an enabling measure so that they might be able to encourage more of their students to vote.

I still hope the Minister will support the amendments.