Business of the House

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to the Deputy Leader of the House for explaining the rationale for these motions, He did so with a certain degree of nonchalance, suggesting that they are quite technical. I am quite keen—I know many hon. Members are eager to speak in the debate—to keep an open mind and I am absolutely ready to be persuaded, but I have a number of concerns about the motions, especially about the first one, which deals with carry-over. It is true that the proposed changes are a downstream consequence of the shift to a fixed-term Parliament, with Sessions divided equally and running from May to May. As ever with this Government, however, we are left wondering whether they have properly thought through the consequences.

There are good reasons for the sessional divisions of the parliamentary calendar from year to year. Let us not be under any illusions: today’s proposals would massively expand carry-over provisions for legislation, potentially ending the convention whereby Bills should normally be introduced, considered and completed within the year in which Her Majesty outlines the Government’s plans in the Queen’s Speech. Carrying over a Bill should happen in special and infrequent circumstances. The previous Government introduced carry-over procedures to accommodate complex and technical legislation, largely where there was a cross-party consensus on the need for reform or where the addition of pre-legislative scrutiny or wider-ranging provisions necessitated a longer time frame for the Bill’s passage. Carry-over has been an exception rather than a rule. The House needs to recognise that, if the proposals proceed, standard legislation such as Finance Bills will routinely span the historical firewall that is in place to protect sessional business spilling over from one year to the next. Back-Bench Members will notice that carry-over is not possible for Back Bench-initiated legislation.

Ways and Means legislation has a set of histories that go back a long time. The motion would take carry-over provisions into quite different and possibly uncharted terrain. Finance Bills are particularly important legislation: they provide, of course, the means by which the public are taxed, businesses are forced to part with their money and resources are taken from consumers and workers to pay for the collective public services such as the defence of our country. This country was at the forefront of democratic innovation through which sovereignty passed from the monarchs to the people represented in this House of Commons. We should therefore reflect seriously on the rationale for the protections and safeguards that have accrued over the centuries to defend the rights of those being taxed. It is, after all, only the House of Commons that considers money Bills. Because these changes to the law do not gain scrutiny in the other place, we should be sure that we proceed with extra care in this place.

The Crown attends Parliament at the beginning of each Session and makes a specific request of Members of the House of Commons that

“estimates for the public services will be laid before you”.

This is the beginning of an age-old process built around the sessionality of supply, guaranteeing time for consideration of votes on account and ensuring that there is no taxation without representation. It might well be that the Government do not consider this cycle of proposal, consideration and approval important enough to retain the sessional disciplines. If so, I would have thought that they would have the courtesy to ensure proper and adequate consideration of the impact of these changes.

I am not sure that enough thought has been given to the consequences. There are some serious constitutional issues at stake. What on earth is the point of going forward with a sessional divide from year to year if the Crown is free to bunch together legislation across the years? The powers of Back Benchers are also an important issue. What powers do ordinary Members have over the timetabling of business if Ministers are not under pressure to conclude their business at the end of a Session and can merely table a motion and slip a whole Finance Bill forward? The hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire (Oliver Heald), who I believe was shadow Leader of the House at the time, said that

“the lack of pressure could encourage even more sloppiness in the drafting, programming and timetabling of legislation.”—[Official Report, 26 October 2004; Vol. 425, c. 1325.]

This pressure is useful to Parliament, to the House of Commons and to Back Benchers—a pressure that can be used to force Governments to accede to amendments and to ensure that they go forward before the end of a Session is reached. Ministers are keen not to lose their Bills. We need to consider these issues carefully. I can, of course, see the logic of the Minister’s arguments; I am simply saying that I am not sure that we have given enough proper and deep consideration to some of the issues.

Sessional disciplines matter. The Treasury, as we know, has already provided some evidence of poor drafting and a number of deficiencies have been seen in its proposals. The new powers to elongate consideration of the Bill to suit the Treasury’s timetable rather than that of Parliament could well lead to a lackadaisical, slapdash approach to what should be an efficient focus on the clear conduct of business. Parliament should, after all, have a realistic and measured work load before it and a legislative programme designed to ensure that each Bill receives fair and equal scrutiny.

[Mr Knight]

If the hon. Gentleman is not happy with this way of proceeding, what does he suggest as an alternative? Is he suggesting that the Government should consider having a May or June Budget, which would have serious implications for the tax year?

[Chris Leslie]

This is indeed a conundrum. We are misaligning the calendar of the House of Commons with the fiscal year. We have managed to cope historically, but I do not have an answer. I would have liked deeper consideration of the proposals in a form that could be properly debated, rather than to find ourselves confronted with these motions on the Order Paper. I genuinely understand the Government’s problems. I do not wish to be obstructive, but I think it important to take some time to review what are, after all, arrangements that have been in place for many hundreds of years.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The shadow Minister is making a powerful speech. Is not one of the dangers—we hear it often—that the Government want to do something on the surface for very good reasons, but at the same time what happens strengthens the Executive and reduces the power of Parliament?

[Chris Leslie]

The hon. Gentleman has hit on an important point. If we have a too relaxed approach to the parliamentary calendar, we could see a repeat of the situation whereby this House of Commons is especially busy for a couple of months, but is then twiddling its thumbs for several months longer—perhaps when the Government are struggling to get their business through the other place.

The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) asked the right question: how should we proceed from here? I understand the arguments in favour of some of the proposed changes, but I wish that the Government had devoted more time and care to discussing the issues through the usual channels and allowing the problems that had been raised to be considered properly and thoughtfully.

It would be useful if the Minister answered some questions, because I remain to be persuaded. For instance, why should not consideration of a Finance Bill start a month or so later? I am not suggesting that that is necessarily the solution; I am merely speculating on what the consequences might be. We could still have a Budget in March, but proceedings on the Finance Bill proper could start immediately after the Queen’s Speech in May, at the beginning of the new Session. That might be preferable to a Committee stage taking place for a couple of weeks immediately after the March Budget, followed by an elongated break and then a return to the Committee stage about halfway through the clauses that had previously been under consideration. There is, of course, virtue in avoiding a disruptive period of down time in the middle of a Committee stage. I should like to know whether the Government and, indeed, the Procedure Committee have thought about that.

Will the Minister elaborate on the proposals in motion 2 on carry-over of Ways and Means legislation? He has not chosen simply to amend Standing Order No. 80A to remove the reference to Ways and Means. Instead, an attempt seems to have been made to copy and paste carry-over provisions in respect of other Bills into a new Standing Order relating specifically to Ways and Means and money Bills. As far as I can see, however, various elements have not been transposed: for example, Standing Order No. 80A(3), which provides for no more than one Bill to be subject to a carry-over motion, and (4), which prevents a carry-over motion to apply to a Bill carried over from a previous Session. There seems to be nothing technically in place to prevent a Finance Bill that has been carried over from one Session from being carried over again to another. I accept that such a development may be very unlikely, but I do not understand why it was not covered in the copy-and-paste exercise. It could be described as the Schleswig-Holstein question squared, and I should be grateful if the Minister could seek some inspiration in order to clarify the point.

I have heard the Minister argue about the move to the automatic Third Reading of Finance Bills on the same day as Report each year. He says that that it has been happening for 100 years—which, according to my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), may mean that it is too early to tell whether it is working. Even if it is normal practice, the Government have at least had the courtesy to table a motion seeking the House’s permission, rather than assuming that Third Reading shall always take place on the same day as Report. However, I feel that the practice may erode the purpose of Third Readings as a distinct stage in the passage of legislation. It may be entirely pragmatic, but although I am willing to be persuaded otherwise, I do not think that consequences of some of these changes have been properly thought through.

Can the Minister explain the rationale for the omission of the backstop date applying to the three days allotted to the consideration of estimates? I understand that he is changing the date from 5 August following line-of-sight discussions after the passage of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011—that makes sense—but why not simply shift the date forward to February or March rather than omitting it altogether?

The Minister also said that he proposed to put back the “roll-up” day for the modification of estimates by only five or six weeks—to, I believe, 18 March—which strikes me as a fairly arbitrary choice. He also touched on the fact that we would lose one of those modification days, as the number would be reduced from three to two. It is a small point, but, again, I wonder whether it should have been considered in more detail.

I have total respect for the Procedure Committee and its Chairman, who engaged in informal discussions with the Leader of the House about the proposals and did not object to them, but—with the greatest respect—I wish that the proposals had been subjected to more adequate scrutiny, and to some form of challenge or review. There have been no public hearings or discussions, and no report has been provided to enable parliamentarians to digest and consider the proposals.

I believe that the changes require serious consideration, because they could have profound and unintended constitutional consequences. I have not yet been convinced by the Minister that we need to rush them through before the Christmas recess, although I shall wait to hear what he has to say. He has, in a statesmanlike way, withdrawn motion 7, and I wonder whether it would be wise for him also to seek to withdraw the carry-over proposals. Perhaps he could ask the Procedure Committee to consider the issues relating to those proposals in more detail, because, as yet, I am not fully persuaded that it would be responsible to support them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

I of course have no idea what goes on in the usual channels, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees with me that it is far more important that a Select Committee of this House has had the opportunity to comment on proposals that affect the scrutiny of Government business by the House. Not only was the Procedure Committee consulted, but it agreed unanimously that the change would assist scrutiny by the House and would in no way diminish the opportunities for Members to have their say on Government business.

[Chris Leslie]

We have indeed heard that the Procedure Committee looked at the proposals, but it did so in private, informal session and there was no sharing of many of the proposals with other hon. Members until the business appeared on the Order Paper a few days ago, I think. Will the Deputy Leader of the House confirm the day on which it appeared? I saw it only recently and no one approached me to discuss it. To dismiss as nonsense the concern we have expressed about haste is a little overblown.

[Mr Heath]

I think the hon. Gentleman is making a valiant effort to bring some substance to his objections to the proposals, but he is not succeeding. At various times he accused me of being nonchalant. I hope that I am not nonchalant. Simply that something is technical does not imply nonchalance. Flying a jet liner is a technical business, but one should certainly not be nonchalant about doing so. As I said, we have thought through the consequences.

The hon. Gentleman said that we are massively increasing carry-over, but we are not. We are specifically and precisely dealing with the consequences for Finance Bills of the change to sessional periods. He said—at least, I think I heard him say—that having longer to scrutinise a Finance Bill made it more difficult to scrutinise it effectively. I am not sure that that is always the position of Her Majesty’s Opposition.

To deal specifically with his questions, the hon. Gentleman asked why should not the Finance Bill start in the new Session. The answer is: for the very obvious reason that if it did, the time available to the House to debate and scrutinise the Bill would be reduced. That cannot be right. He asked whether paragraphs (3) and (4) of Standing Order No. 80A apply to Finance Bills. Had he read the explanatory memorandum, he would have seen stated therein that those paragraphs will apply to Finance Bills.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether the provisions of paragraphs (12) to (14) of Standing Order No. 80A apply. Yes, the Standing Order will prevent a Finance Bill from being carried over more than once, as is stated in the explanatory memorandum. However, I have to say that if we had a Government whose Finance Bill was carried over between three Sessions, they would no longer be a Government, because they would not be a functioning Government. They would be a dead Government if they were unable to get their Finance Bill through in three Sessions of Parliament. I think we can safely assume that those circumstances will not apply.

On supply, the hon. Gentleman asked why the cut-off of 5 August under Standing Order No. 54 is being removed without being replaced. The timetable requirements for estimates procedures do continue and are set out in Standing Order No. 55. He asked why the first cut-off for supply is changing from a date in February to a date in March. That change does not affect the spring deadline. The February date was the cut-off for the winter supplementary estimates, which will no longer be published.

Despite the hon. Gentleman’s valiant efforts to try to find a cause on which he could unite his party against these very modest and sensible proposals, he has failed to establish any case for doing so. I commend the orders to the House and I hope that the House will be able to agree them without opposition.

Question put.

The House proceeded to a Division.