Recall of MPs Bill
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Gyimah
I think the answer is that a threshold could be on any date.
My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park said that the threshold, cost controls and endless harassment were technical issues that we could deal with quite easily. As we learned in Committee, however, such issues are germane to his recall proposal, and therefore to his argument.
Several Members made the point that not only was the threshold of 5% for the initial stage of recall too low, but it could be requested again and again, meaning that a Member could face several notices of recall during a Parliament. While those notices of recall may not be successful in themselves, as the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) pointed out, the sheer fact that a Member could face recall on any issue at any time again and again could serve to stop them performing their duties—apart from the fact that dealing with a recall could be a complete nuisance.
The hon. Gentleman also touched on cost controls, and something my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park did not explore in great detail is the point that before the notice of petition is given under his scheme of recall, a lot of money could be spent that is not recorded anywhere at all, in order to destabilise an MP and make it difficult for them to fight the recall when it happens. The hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long) noted that compared with the main parties, minor parties do not have the funds to fight even one recall petition, and the same applies to Independent MPs. Cost control is not a simple, technical issue, but is central to the argument for full recall and something that I do not believe has been addressed today.
My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park spoke of MPs in the context of their role as legislators. MPs are not just legislators; some are members of the Executive. How will the Minister for planning, the Minister for fracking, the Minister for benefit reform or the Minister for austerity deal with a situation in which recall can be initiated against them on a 5% threshold? In other words, it would be almost impossible for certain MPs—[Interruption.]
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The Minister will be heard.
Mr Gyimah
It would be very difficult for certain Members, especially those with relatively small majorities, either to serve in the Executive or to take the unpopular decisions that Governments must take. As my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) said, to govern is to choose.
The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) came up with an interesting mechanism to deal with wrongdoing and giving the public a say. As my right hon. Friend the Minister said, we will consider that interesting idea on Report.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) demonstrated why is he is such a valued Member of the House. He expounded on why our history is important, but why we cannot dismiss what the House stands for, and the privilege of an MP to speak and take unpopular positions. At the same time, we must deal with the needs of our electorates and respond to their concern about wrongdoing.
My right hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley) made an empathetic speech about Members who have very small majorities. He was very honest in saying that, with the size of his majority, he could afford to take some unpopular positions without worrying about going back to his constituency one weekend to find a notice of a petition against him on a 5% threshold, and that his constituents had begun proceedings to get rid of him.
My hon. Friend the Member for Reigate made the passionate case that the House of Commons suffers from a collapse of institutional self-confidence—it was the kind of case that Sir Humphrey might describe as “very brave”. He said that MPs must make the case for the status quo without responding to the public’s desire for a mechanism to bring MPs to account when there is serious wrongdoing, which the Government and all the main parties recognise.
Mr Gyimah
The leaflets that are put out at the general election are not paid for from the public purse, nor are they distributed by the local authority. In this context, the leaflet would be drafted by a member of the public, paid for by the taxpayer and distributed by the local authority, which could be seen to endorse those views. That could damage someone’s reputation.
Amendments 42, 43, 44, new clause 6 and new clause 7 deal with the cross-party amendment and focus recall on misconduct. As I said, we will consider that in detail. Amendment (a) to new clause 2, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Mr Paice), focuses recall on causes not conduct. As tabled, it would not stop people campaigning for recall and would not act as a safeguard to Members’ free expression. We therefore urge him to withdraw his amendment.
Amendments 34, 6, 7, 10, 35, 12 to 18, 20, 21, 36, 37, 8 and 9 are consequential amendments on the recall process and so are not worth touching on in detail now. Amendments 39 and 40 deal with retrospectivity. The House tends not to favour retrospectivity. In general, the courts impose punishment for offences that are current, so I urge the withdrawal of those two amendments.
Amendment 46 covers historic offences which, although committed at the time of the MP’s election, are not known to the electorate at the time. This makes an important point on the electorate’s ability to judge a Member’s misconduct and we will return to the amendment on Report. Amendment 47 deals with criminal abuse of the expenses system, which would lead to judgment before constituents as well as the court. There is a technical deficiency in the way the amendment is currently drafted, but we will reflect on this matter and return to it on Report. [Interruption.]
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The Committee should be listening to the Minister. If Members wish to chat they can go elsewhere.
Cost of Living: Energy and Housing
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. It may help the House if I clarify a fact before I call the next speaker. The issue of the gender of Members of Parliament who have proposed the Loyal Address was mentioned yesterday by the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt)—in an excellent speech—and the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), and this afternoon by the hon. Members for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) and for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod). It is a fact that until yesterday only one woman, namely Lady Tweedsmuir, had proposed the Loyal Address, but Oona King and others have seconded it. I thought that if I enlightened the House, it might help to keep the facts straight.
Civil Service Reform
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. I appreciate that Mr Deputy Speaker advised the House that if everybody takes approximately 10 minutes for their speeches, then everyone who has indicated that they wish to speak will have an opportunity to do so. The arithmetic has changed a little since he made that pronouncement. If everybody who has indicated that they wish to speak takes approximately seven minutes, all their colleagues will have an opportunity to speak.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. I have tried the polite and honourable approach, but it has not worked, so I have to impose a formal time limit of five minutes.
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The House will be aware that this is a time-limited debate and there is not very much time left. I therefore have to reduce the time limit for Back-Bench speeches to seven minutes.
Deregulation Bill
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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John Mann
The hon. Gentleman will therefore know that he has a legal duty, if he is taking people with him, to carry out a risk assessment, and the removal of precisely that legal duty is the danger of clause 1. That is the danger of ill-thought-through legislation—[Interruption.] Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall pause to ensure that Government Members are listening.
I can give another example of good regulation that was absent for a century but which the Government dare not include in the Bill. I am talking about safety at football stadiums. For 100 years, there was disaster after disaster—two at Ibrox; one at Bolton, Birmingham, Bradford and Hillsborough—but no effective regulation. It was a case of, “Make it up as you go along.” In 1968, a stand burned down at the stadium of the Minister without Portfolio’s local team, Nottingham Forest, but no safety regulation was brought in for football or sports stadiums. Had it been introduced, it would undoubtedly have covered wooden stands. A repeat incident took place in 1985 in a virtually identical stand, which shows the danger of not having effective regulation.
There is another contradiction with this Government. We have heard several times about the one in, two out principle, but the precise definition of “one in” is regulation under statutory instrument. The Department for Communities and Local Government has handed to local authorities regulation in disguise. Over the past year, the Government have put a range of regulatory barriers in the way of self-builders, but they have not classified it as new regulation. They have introduced the barrier of pre-planning consultation fees and extra charges on developers and new builders, and they have introduced the community infrastructure levy and applied it to self-builds, which is another form of regulation. Being a Nottinghamshire MP, the Minister will know that in Nottinghamshire self-building has come to a complete stop. The first local authority to apply the levy was Newark and Sherwood, since when there have been no self-builds. Builders are not building one or two-plot developments because of the burdens on industry.
The Government have gone further, however, and brought in the affordable housing levy for single dwellings, meaning that in Newark a builder or a couple wishing to build their own home have to face those barriers and pay up to £50,000 in new taxes. That is not counted as regulation, but I say it is regulation and a burden on business. In Nottinghamshire, the policy is decimating small family building companies that rely on this kind of work, which is why there are virtually no one, two or three-dwelling property starts in Nottinghamshire. Newark and Sherwood led the way, and others have followed, using new regulation—new burdens on small builders and aspiring home owners—brought in over the past 12 months.
I trust that the Minister will confirm that there will be a change and that these burdens—[Laughter.] The Minister for Government Policy laughs, but it is no laughing matter for the couple in Tuxford who are told they have to pay £64,000 in taxes before they can even start building their own property under policies introduced by this Government. I want confirmation in this debate that that burden on business will be classified as regulation. In terms of one in, two out, they can be classified as part of the in; at the moment, they are not. This is fundamental to the Government’s approach of shifting the burden on to the courts—we will see more cases going to court—and insurers under the pretext that this is all the fault of Labour regulation.
I will end on this—[Interruption.] I have never been in a debate like this, Madam Deputy Speaker, with such rudeness—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Gentleman has indicated that he is about to draw his remarks to a close after more than half an hour of a passionate and perfectly in order speech. Hon. Members should not dissuade him from so doing.
John Mann
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Had they been required, I could have given a range of other examples to demonstrate my point.
I come at this from the perspective of someone who has run a small business and who can say unequivocally that good, effective regulation is pro-business, that removing good regulation is anti-business, and that removing regulation will shift the burden to the courts and insurers, and will destroy small and medium-sized enterprises. In their ignorance of the small business sector, that is what the Government are doing.
The Government are slaves to the saying, “Red tape is bad.” Of course, red tape is bad. The Bill gets rid of much bad Tory legislation—nearly 80% of the Bill removes Tory legislation—that was contested at the time and should never have come in. Labour Members accept, I am sure, their apologies and their recompense to society shown through their being prepared to get rid of it, but alongside those measures they have thrown in a few gems introduced by Labour that protect workers and employers, and fundamentally protect the self-employed and small businesses.
I look forward to hearing from the Minister how much European legislation can be identified. It is nonsense to suggest that the Government are anti-regulation, given that, as I have demonstrated with DCLG, they are powering in taxation and burdens on small businesses in my area and elsewhere through the back door. Their disingenuous approach needs to be exposed. Nevertheless, I welcome the fact that a raft of bad Tory legislation will be confined to the dustbin, if the Bill—in a greatly amended and improved form, I hope—reaches the statute book.
I will finish with a comment about the amendment from the Greens. Perhaps a coalition is forming—a plan for the future—although there are not very many Greens now, and there will be fewer after the next election. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), speaking for the Green party, cited the Green Building Council, but what does that do? Of course it is the glaziers promoting a specific type of window that is enforced on all house builders. There is legislation that means that for those who, like me, live in a listed building, every single window that is repaired, however minor, should by law go for individual planning consent, at great expense to the householder, but also at cost to the developer. I notice that none of that kind of thing is dealt with by this Bill. There is a lot of talk, but when it comes to the vested interest of the Green Building Council and the regulation introduced to give a competitive advantage to certain sections of industry, there is not a single word in this Bill. For those who want to see some of the red tape removed, there will be an opportunity for Members on both sides to propose amendments to the Bill to ensure that such burdens on business, which should not be there, are removed.
Oral Answers to Questions
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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David Mundell
Spending on state pensions and public sector pensions is driven by demographics and is set to rise. The UK Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions absorb the risk of growth in demand and there would be more volatility in spending in an independent Scotland. Those are not my words, but the words of John Swinney. It is a pity that he said them in private, not in public.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
10. Does the Minister agree that the ability of the Scottish economy to support the pensions that the people of Scotland depend on will be greater and better if Scotland remains part of the United Kingdom?
David Mundell
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, not least because the Scottish Government and the Scottish National party have set out no coherent plans for a sustainable pensions system in an independent Scotland.
Tributes to Baroness Thatcher
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
Margaret Thatcher changed the world for women—for women across the world, for women in Britain and for women in politics and in Parliament. I cannot stand by and watch commentators say that Margaret Thatcher did nothing for women when I know, as many of my hon. Friends in the House and those around the country know, just how much of a difference her very being has made to women.
In the first place, Margaret Thatcher’s great belief in freedom and the individual and the fact that her Governments brought freedom and choice to people who had never had it before made a huge difference to millions of women throughout Britain during her years as Prime Minister. We have heard different examples today of what happened to people’s individual lives in the 1980s, but overall there is no doubt whatsoever that bringing freedom, choice and opportunity—those were her watchwords—to young women of the 1980s transformed them into the women of the ’90s and of this century who are willing to take on the world.
As for women in politics and Parliament, Margaret Thatcher gave us encouragement and advice. I am fed up with hearing the media channels say that she did not want women around and that there was only one woman in her Cabinet while she was Prime Minister. That was not her fault: there were not enough women on these Benches with the experience and seniority to go into her Cabinet. She encouraged women, so that by the end of her premiership and when John Major became Prime Minister, there were plenty of women to go into the Cabinet. They would not have been there had they not had the encouragement and backing of Margaret Thatcher when she was Prime Minister.
Those of us on the Conservative Benches also know what she has done in later years. Just over a year ago, when she had supposedly withdrawn from public life but while, as many of us know, she was still extremely active in supporting what we were doing, she came to not one but two or three events that I can think of. Those events involved not just raising money to help women enter Parliament, but her very presence in a room of aspiring people. After a mere handshake from Margaret Thatcher, a young woman would leave an event saying, “I can do this”, whereas previously she had thought that she could not. Such was the power and personality of this great lady.
I can forgive female colleagues on the Opposition Benches for thinking that Margaret Thatcher did not encourage women because, of course, it goes without saying that she preferred to see Conservatives elected rather than Labour, or Liberal, female Members of Parliament. In her encouragement and advice, however, on a personal level she was much more like a mother than a Prime Minister. She would hold one’s hand and say, “Well my dear, what are you doing about this? What is going to happen about that?” She gave people true encouragement and confidence. Actually, I am wrong to stand here and say that she did that for women—she did it for everyone who had the slightest bit of Conservative blood in their body. She would make the very best of that and help them to realise just how much they could achieve. I do not mean just in politics; she did that for people throughout the country.
People thought that they did not have aspiration and opportunity because before Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister they did not have opportunities and were told that they should not, and could not, aspire. She gave everybody the confidence to make the very best of themselves—she certainly did that for my generation of women in the Conservative party, and she gave me personal advice that I have always valued and tried to live up to, not necessarily with the greatest results for which she might have hoped. She understood the difficulty that women experience in public life because they are trying to balance their duties to their families, their constituency and Parliament and their general duties. She understood that and made allowances for it. Again, the way she dealt with such matters was to give encouragement. It never occurred to her, of course, that women might need special pleading. Of course she did not want women-only shortlists; it simply never occurred to her that her female status was any hindrance at all, and indeed, that is because it was not.
The other great thing about Margaret Thatcher that no one has mentioned is that in everything she did in public life, and the many hours spent at the Dispatch Box, in Downing street and representing our country around the world, she was always, on every occasion, immaculate and elegant. Here was a lady who was tougher than any man, but she never lost her femininity.
Mr Speaker
Order. I do not know why Members think the hon. Lady has finished. She has finished that paragraph.
Oral Answers to Questions
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
The Minister has just referred to what happened three years ago. Has she had an opportunity to assess why small businesses were winning such a small share of Government procurement contracts when the Government came to power?
Miss Smith
We are absolutely serious about opening up Government business to SMEs, and it is a shame that the previous Administration appeared not to be. We have made progress: we have posted information about the opportunities, as I said in response to the previous question; we have removed bureaucratic pre-qualification processes; we have given SMEs a voice at the top table; and we have made Government more accountable through the mystery shopper service. My hon. Friend knows that it is a shame that the previous Government did not do any of those things.
Succession to the Crown Bill (Allocation of Time)
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
I very much welcome the Bill, and the time that we have to debate it in the House today. Indeed, I do not just welcome it: I, and others like me, have been calling for such a Bill for many years on the ground that we should not have to do this as a matter of urgency, as it is now. I do not blame the Government, who have taken action—indeed, I break with personal tradition and compliment the Deputy Prime Minister on the action that he took in negotiating with our Commonwealth partners to reach this legislative stage—but previous Governments should have taken action on this long ago.
Given the current situation, I appreciate that there is some urgency, but I wish to ask a genuine question of the Minister. It is difficult to understand, as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) so eloquently argued, why that urgency means that we have to take more than one stage of the Bill in one day. There is some urgency, but we are not so close to the end of the parliamentary Session or, indeed, to the imminent birth of the new member of the royal family that we could not have more than one day to debate the Bill. I raise the issue because, in general, I have a constant concern that constitutional Bills should be treated properly on the Floor of the House, which means having not just sufficient time, but more time than is allocated to ordinary Bills.
Succession to the Crown Bill
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I want to be clear that there is absolutely no prospect of our entering into discussions with the Vatican in order to bring this Bill into effect.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
Is it not reasonable to assume, as my right hon. Friend and his colleagues in Government appear to have assumed in the way in which they have drafted the Bill, that on attaining adulthood, an heir to the throne, regardless of the religious affiliation of his or her mother or father, could put his or her duty as the future monarch of our country ahead of any religious faith and decide for him or herself to take a position that would be constitutionally acceptable and protect the monarchy?
The Deputy Prime Minister
That is a practical and perfectly reasonable assumption to make. I would highlight the fact, however, that under the current provisions, even if we did not proceed with the Bill, an heir to the throne could marry someone of the Hindu faith and yet decide, not least because they would be acutely aware of their place and duty in the line of succession to the throne, that their children, if they had any, were to be brought up in the Anglican faith. That assumption acts as a bedrock underneath the status quo. We are only extrapolating that by adding the Catholic faith to all the other faiths that can be involved in a marriage to heirs to the throne.
Wayne David
That is an interesting hypothetical question, and I would certainly welcome the Minister’s response, as it is the Government who have put forward the figure of six.
Mrs Laing
Is it not the case that if somebody is in close proximity to the throne but wishes to contract a marriage with a member of the Catholic faith, or in future wishes to contract a marriage of which the monarch would not approve, they have every freedom to renounce their entitlement to the throne and remove themselves from the list of the six people in question?