Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Debate between David Heath and Frank Dobson

Monday 25th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

Yes. The canvass that would have been carried out in 2013, which we have moved to early 2014, will be done in the traditional way. The hon. Lady knows that we are taking advice from the various political parties and others about the exact date that will be most effective. That will be a full household canvass and during 2014, after the European elections, we will move on to the other components of the proposals so that we have the use of all available material and can, as I have repeatedly said, make the register as complete and accurate as possible.

[Frank Dobson]

rose—

[Mr Heath]

I thought that the right hon. Gentleman made a late but very compelling argument for the equalisation of parliamentary constituencies, and I am grateful to him for that. I invite his participation.

[Frank Dobson]

I seem to attract snotty remarks from those on the Government Front Bench. All I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that I have been snotted at by better men than him.

If the Government are so confident that the new methods of putting all this together, which they described in their evidence to the House of Lords as providing a more efficient means of obtaining information rather than a more effective one, and believe that the system will result in registers exceeding the numbers presently arrived at by the household canvass, will they guarantee not to proceed until they have the registers up to the level that the previous household canvass produced?

[Mr Heath]

I repeat again to the right hon. Gentleman that we are not getting rid of the household canvass and it is very difficult to answer his question, which is based on the premise that we are removing it, when we are not doing so. Incidentally, were the circumstances to occur in which this part of the Bill was used to remove the duty for an annual canvass—as I have said, that would happen only if we, the Electoral Commission and both Houses of Parliament were satisfied that other mechanisms were in place that would be as effective or more effective than the annual canvass—the situation would continue to be monitored. If, despite the advice of the Electoral Commission and the best intentions of Ministers and this House, it unexpectedly proved that the proportion of the population that registered was substantially reduced, there is provision within the Bill to reinstate the canvass. Unfortunately, amendment 23, tabled by the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge, would remove that power. The right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) asked a specific question and I can give him an absolute assurance that the power to reinstate the canvass is in the Bill, should it be needed.

[Frank Dobson]

rose—

[Mr Heath]

I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman, of course, and I hope that I do so charmingly.

[Frank Dobson]

The hon. Gentleman has said that there is a power to reinstate the canvass, but is there an obligation to reinstate it if the new system is not working?

[Mr Heath]

I do not think that Parliament is normally required to do anything, and this will be a power for Parliament, not for Ministers. We would be treading a strange constitutional path if this Parliament were to require any future Parliament to make any enactment. The power is there to reinstate the canvass without the need for further primary legislation in order to enable the then Government, whoever they are, to react promptly and effectively if necessary. I honestly do not believe that will apply because there are no circumstances in which the annual canvass would be removed without its being absolutely clear, from all the information to hand, that it would not have a detrimental effect on the completeness and the effectiveness of the register.

Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation Bid for BSkyB

Debate between David Heath and Frank Dobson

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for saying that. It is absolutely essential that we look at not only the actions but the inactions of very many people during the progress of this scandal. It is extraordinary that so little was done for so long.

[Frank Dobson]

rose—

[Mr Heath]

This is the last intervention that I will take.

[Frank Dobson]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the rot set in when, against the advice of the late Michael Foot, Mrs Thatcher set the precedent of refusing to refer the purchase of The Times and The Sunday Times to the then Monopolies and Mergers Commission on the grounds that 40% ownership of newspapers was too much in one pair of hands?

[Mr Heath]

We have had abundant evidence since then of what has or has not been done in relationships with the media.

The best contributions to the debate have been the most sober and non-partisan, and I am grateful to colleagues who entered into the debate in that context. I am grateful to the Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), whose Committee has done such a lot of good work. I am grateful, as I have indicated, to the hon. Member for Rhondda for what he has said not just today but on previous occasions. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr Foster), to the hon. Members for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), for Bracknell (Dr Lee) and for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), and to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) for his very brief contribution. They talked not only about the criminal behaviour that has been uncovered over recent days and weeks, but about the concentration of power and ownership and the effect that that has on the media in this country, and about the adequacy of the Press Complaints Commission, which we clearly need to look at. The hon. Member for Bracknell warned that new media and technologies will bring new challenges that we have to address.

There were contributions from members of the previous Government. I think that most of what the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) said had more to do with the competition authorities and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport than with the contents of this debate, but he took this opportunity to raise those issues. There was a long contribution from the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). May I say that it is genuinely a pleasure to have him contributing to our debates in this House, and he should do so more often? Everybody understands his personal issues concerning the completely inappropriate release of information about his family, and everybody has sympathy for him over that. Everybody will take careful notice of the serious evidence that he produced to the House, which I hope will be properly considered by the inquiry. I hope that he will give full evidence to the inquiry, as he indicated he would in his contribution, as I hope will other members of the previous Government who have a story to tell. I would criticise him because there was a self-exculpatory tone in much of what he said, and I think that that may have grated on some. Nevertheless, it was an important contribution.

The hon. Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis) did not quite rise to the occasion. He wanted to take a partisan view, in considerable contrast to the leader of his party. He wanted to resile from the body of law that the Government of whom he was a member put in place. He wanted to say that issues that cannot be clearly linked in law should be linked in law. I remind him of what he said on 10 June, because it is relevant to his contribution:

“The serious admissions of culpability by News International aren’t relevant to the News Corp-BSkyB media plurality issue”.

Now he is saying that those admissions are intrinsic to it. He cannot have it both ways.

What we have seen is a systemic failure across the institutions of public life to get to grips with a cancer of wrongdoing. There were abundant signs over the years: admissions of criminal behaviour, Select Committee reports that went unheeded, and clear examples of big media organisations wielding too much power, political and commercial. I hope that the inquiries that are being put in place today will deal with that issue. I hope that that chapter is drawing to a close. I believe that we have a unique window of opportunity to get it right. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) says that we have barely started yet. He is absolutely right. We have barely started getting to grips with this cancer of wrongdoing, but we will get to grips with it. We now have an inquiry that will set us on the right path and a Government determined to act. That is as it should be. I am grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to contribute to this debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House believes that it is in the public interest for Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation to withdraw their bid for BSkyB.