Restoration and Renewal
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I am afraid we have to have a time limit now of six minutes in the hope that more people will get a chance, in the short time that is left, to contribute to the debate.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I am sorry but we have to reduce the time limit to three minutes, which I appreciate is a bit of a shock for the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson), but I am sure that he will manage.
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees- Mogg)
I obviously cannot respond to every point made, but if any have been made that require a response, I will write to right hon. and hon. Members. I also encourage those Members who did not get called to speak to send their speeches to the challenge panel of the review board so that their views can be on the record. That is very important. If any Members have left the Chamber already, I will make sure they are notified of that suggestion. I will also send a copy of today’s Hansard to the challenge panel so that they have the views of all right hon. and hon. Members.
This has been an excellent debate. We have listened to a lot of new and developed thinking, including some fresh thinking from Members who entered in 2019, which is extraordinarily helpful. Two things are clear. One is how proud we are of this extraordinary building. We have heard Churchill quoted about how we make our buildings and then they make us. That comment is so right. How proud we are of this magnificent building, which symbolises the democracy we cherish and the pride we take in it.
The other thing that we realise is that in a time of economic difficulty we cannot spend vast amounts of money without ensuring that there is value for money. Everything that is done must be done with value for money in mind. If we have to take a little bit of inconvenience, so be it.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered Restoration and Renewal.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
In order to allow the safe exit of hon. Members participating in this item of business and the safe arrival of those participating in the next, which is the statement, I am suspending the House for three minutes.
Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
We now come to motion 6 on matters raised on motions consequent on the ICGS—not moved.
House Business during the Pandemic
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Before I call the Leader of the House, I should warn Members who are planning to speak, lest they might have prepared long orations, that this debate will last for only two hours in total and therefore there will be a time limit on Back-Bench speeches of five minutes, which may well reduce later in the day.
Mr Rees-Mogg
That is very gracious, but customarily, if Members sit on the Benches chuntering, they might give the impression that they wish to contribute more formally, so that our friends in Hansard may hear their wise words. May I suggest that the hon. Gentleman think through his intervention, and I shall be delighted, nay, honoured to hear from him later. [Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Rhondda also wish me to give way?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. Just because the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown was doing something wrong does not mean that that the hon. Member for Rhondda has to copy him.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Thank heavens, Madam Deputy Speaker, that we have you as Chairman of Ways and Means, to keep us in order in all our ways and many of our means.
The Zoom Parliament allowed some scrutiny to take place, and I was an enthusiastic advocate of having it. On 21 April, the choice was a Zoom Parliament, or no Parliament. Not only did we see Ministers coming to the Dispatch Box, but we were able to examine people’s homes and their bookcases. However, we also recognised its inadequacy. Hybridity was not sufficient.
Proceedings during the Pandemic
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Mr Speaker has selected amendment (b) in the name of Karen Bradley and others. I will call Karen Bradley to move her amendment at the end of the debate. Once the House has come to a decision on amendment (b), I will then call Karen Bradley to move either amendment (c) if amendment (b) was agreed to, or amendment (d) if amendment (b) was disagreed to.
Mr Speaker explained in his letter to all colleagues, which went out yesterday, the basis of his decision on the method by which any Division on this motion and the selected amendments will be carried out. He also referred to the guidance that is available for Members on those arrangements for Divisions. It would be helpful if all hon. Members would please read that guidance.
There will be a further short statement before a Division is called, but let me just say that it would greatly assist with arrangements if Whips or other hon. Members gave advance notice of an intention to contest a decision, if the names of Tellers were provided in advance, and if Tellers were present in the Chamber to take their positions and start counting immediately.
I should warn hon. Members who wish to take part in this debate that there will be strict time limits applied because it is a short debate. For Back Benchers, the time limit will be four minutes. I cannot, of course, impose a time limit on hon. Members speaking from the Front Bench, but I hope that they will, out of their usual due deference and consideration for other Members, keep their remarks to a minimum.
Chris Elmore
I am extremely grateful to the Leader of the House for giving way. Yesterday, in the public proceedings of the Procedure Committee, the question was asked directly of the Clerk, and the Clerk confirmed that Members are bound by the law outside of the particular Act to which the Leader of the House is referring. If, for example, a county, a part of the United Kingdom, or a nation was put into lockdown, the Member of Parliament would have to abide by that law, unless they were specifically exempt within that law—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. We might have gone back to having interventions, but that does not mean that we can have long interventions.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The ancient right to attend Parliament goes back to 1340, and, as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) pointed out, this is something that has been used against the Crown in the past. It is a most important and long-standing right. There must always be an exemption for Members to attend Parliament. What I was going on to elaborate is that I will be bringing forward, as I promised on 20 May, a motion tomorrow to allow Members who, on medical grounds, are unable to attend to continue to appear for scrutiny—questions, urgent questions and statements—remotely. That will be brought forward tomorrow, as I promised on 20 May when we discussed these matters in response to an urgent question.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. Before the hon. Gentleman makes another intervention, I should say that most people will not get to speak if there are lots of interventions. I will, however, allow him to make this one.
Peter Kyle
I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker, and this will be the last time. When the right hon. Gentleman introduced the motion that delivered the virtual Parliament—the hybrid Parliament—did he know then how long the coronavirus crisis would last?
Chris Bryant
The Leader of the House has a very high Stuart understanding of what Parliament is here to do, which is, it seems to me, to do the Government’s bidding and legislate in the way that they want. But even the Stuarts, when King Charles II returned, in the Cavalier Parliament—of which the Leader of the House would have no doubt been a proud Member—insisted in the Treason and Seditious Practices Act that no MP should ever be denied
“their just ancient freedom and privilege in debating any matters or business which shall be propounded or debated”.
Even the Stuarts thought that there should not be anything put in our way in terms of participating. Why will he not just allow us to have remote voting until the summer recess?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. Just before the Lord President answers the intervention, I am also concerned about the rights of as many Members as possible to participate this afternoon. Several Members have intervened more than once. Let us have a bit of restraint.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Sometimes the hon. Member for Rhondda makes the point for me more eloquently than I could have made it myself: there is an absolute right of Members to attend Parliament. It is a most antique right. It predates the Stuarts and, as I keep on saying, it goes back to 1340. Members may attend if they wish to.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. I thank the hon. Gentleman, but I do not need his point of order. I have been trying to move the debate forward, but Members are so excited at being back here and being allowed to intervene that they are doing it far too often. No more interventions.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The interventions prove my point: we need interventions to make Parliament work properly. We need proper debate. We need to be back. We need to have a proper, full-blooded democracy, and that is what we are getting.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I call the shadow Leader of the House, Valerie Vaz. I trust that Members will not unnecessarily make interventions upon the right hon. Lady, because I am hoping she will not take more than five or six minutes. Otherwise, we simply will run out of time.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
I thank the Leader of the House for moving the motion. I note that the amendments in my name and those of other Members were not selected, so I speak in support of the amendments in the name of the Chair of the Procedure Committee and the other Select Committee Chairs. I thank them for their deliberations and their timely reports, which have helped to inform the debate.
I do not know whether the Leader of the House is living in another universe, but the pandemic is still going on, and it is still very serious. The Government chose not to renew the temporary orders on 21 May. Those orders enabled every Member, wherever they are and whatever their responsibilities, to take part on an equal basis in all the proceedings of the House—and it worked.
I know that the Leader of the House likes to say that we need to get back to work here, but I want to pay tribute to all my colleagues on both sides of the House who have worked incredibly hard and to their staff, who have ensured that we can deal with double the casework on behalf of our constituents. We are at work, so will he please stop peddling the myth that we only work when we are physically here? Please stop it.
Where is the evidence? The Leader of the House said in the House on 20 May in response to the urgent question that there was a risk assessment, yet his article for PoliticsHome said that it was “being” done. Which is it? Has he inadvertently misled the House? If so, will he publish it for everyone to see?
The Leader of the House will know that BAME staff are found in lower-paid and operational roles, where they cannot work from home. They are most at risk. Half the catering staff who have returned today are from the BAME community. Where is the risk assessment for them? He will know that the report on covid and BAME people has now been published, and we are twice as much at risk of dying from this disease. Science advisers are adamant: we are not over the virus. This is a dangerous moment.
The Leader of the House talks about scrutiny, but Mr Speaker has always made it clear that Ministers and shadow Ministers are here in the Chamber. Hon. Members have done a fantastic job of holding Ministers to account, whether here in the Chamber or up there on the screens, so it is not about seeing the whites of Ministers’ eyes—we cannot do that from the Back Benches anyway—it is about the responses we get from them. Will he please look at whether Ministers can reply to the written questions to which hon. Members say they have not received responses?
Let us turn to voting. House staff made a great effort to ensure a secure system for voting, and it worked: we had 15 minutes, we were told when to vote, we were told when we had already voted. I do not know whether the Leader of the House has done an assessment of how long it will take for us to queue all the way back to Westminster Hall, but I wonder if that is a good use of Members’ time, whether it is 650, 400 or 300 of us. It is easy for the Front Benchers—we go first—but what about the rest of our colleagues? There has been some talk about the possibility of hybrid voting. I hope we can do that.
There is a fundamental flaw in the Leader of the House’s argument. Can he guarantee that Members and House staff will be safe? Parliament may be covid-19 secure, but there is movement, and the rate of infection is different in different parts of the country. We are all moving around; we could be silent spreaders. His proposal is also discriminatory. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has said so. If someone is able-bodied, they must come in—they have to ignore Government advice about shielding and the R factor and come in—and if, for whatever reason, someone is following the Government guidelines and cannot be here, they effectively lose their vote. A Member who pairs is not recorded as having voted. Members on maternity leave have faced torrents of abuse for not having voted, which is why we moved to proxy voting, and that is happening now. One of the Leader of the House’s own colleagues, the hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie), is facing exactly the same thing—we congratulate her on the birth of her baby. Members are being put in an invidious position, having been told by the Government they are at risk, and now being told by the Leader of the House that they must come in or lose their vote.
In conclusion, the Government have not lifted all the restrictions and the pandemic is still here. It is not right, just or fair to all Members. Members rightly demand parity. This is staggeringly arrogant from the Leader of the House. It is the same as when he said he thought the first Prorogation was lawful. He wants to demand and instruct; right hon. and hon. Members want to co-operate, discuss and agree a way forward that treats us all the same and is fair to everyone. Scientific advisers say this is a dangerous moment. The Leader of the House has shown that he just does not care.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I have to impose a time limit now of five minutes, but that will be reduced. I call the mover of the amendment and Chair of the Procedure Committee, Karen Bradley.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Before I call Mr Blackford, I should warn hon. Members that the time limit after Mr Blackford will be three minutes. I call Ian Blackford.
Ian Blackford
No, I will not. You have lost your right to do that.
The proposal for voting is ludicrous and a waste of our time. I am sure our constituents would wish us to use our time more effectively. The House of Lords will soon have a remote voting system in place where Members can vote via smartphone or tablet. For what reason is that the case for one Chamber but not the other?
We know that asymptomatic carriers of covid-19 are the silent spreaders in the pandemic, and that the virus can spread on contact and lasts for hours, if not days, on hard surfaces. What efforts have been made to ensure that these Benches are cleaned between sittings? That is an important matter, because we know from evidence from Singapore that there was significant—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. I can answer the right hon. Gentleman. Mr Speaker has taken care of that.
Ian Blackford
Well—[Interruption.] I can hear Members saying “Move on.” Really? I have to say that I find the attitude of some Members on the Government Benches quite deplorable. What I was going on to talk about was the situation in Singapore, where there is public evidence of people going into churches the day after other people—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. I implore the right hon. Gentleman to talk about this Chamber, because we have little time left. There is plenty of other time for Singapore. Will he please conclude his remarks quite soon?
Ian Blackford
I am afraid I am going to take my time to ensure that I am putting the case of Members of the Scottish National party. The reason I mention Singapore is because people were going into church and getting covid-19 from people who had been there in the days before. These are serious matters and they deserve to be properly aired.
The UK Parliament’s Select Committee on Procedure has called for remote voting and participation to remain an option for as long as the pandemic continues, and that should be the position we adopt. The Committee has outlined significant deficiencies in the plans and concluded that virtual participation should be allowed to continue while coronavirus restrictions are in place to allow MPs who are not able to come to Westminster, because of the continuing restrictions caused by the pandemic, to contribute to debates and represent their constituents.
The Government’s decision to ignore the cross-party consensus to retain hybrid proceedings and to plough ahead with plans to force hundreds of MPs to physically return to Parliament was widely criticised. The Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents security, catering and support staff in Parliament, said that the part-virtual system had worked well. General secretary Mark Serwotka said that it was
“strange why the government is in a rush to change course when a second covid spike is such a strong possibility”.
The Electoral Reform Society branded moves for MPs to vote in Parliament “beyond a farce”. The Leader of the House argued that democracy would once again flourish, having been curtailed under the hybrid system. That is simply wrong. [Interruption.] I am getting a bit fed up with remarks from Conservative Members about this being “self-indulgent”. I will tell them what is self-indulgent: MPs being dragged here when we know that the hybrid system works, and MPs being disenfranchised by the Government. That is self-indulgent.
While MPs are shielding and unable to travel to Parliament, we are experiencing a democratic deficit imposed by the UK Government. It is wholly wrong that we are in this position. I hope that we can achieve a resolution that will see us return to a hybrid Parliament that allows all our colleagues to participate in questions, statements, debates and voting from the security of their homes. We should be in a position whereby we can do our jobs and protect everyone else by staying at home and doing the right thing.
Liaison (Membership)
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
We now come to the motion on the membership of the Liaison Committee. Mr Speaker has selected amendment (a) in the name of the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman). The provisional determination is that a remote Division will take place on the amendment if it is moved. The provisional determination is that a remote Division will not take place on the main motion, as amended or not, as the case may be. I call the Leader of the House, Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg, to move the motion, and I ask that he speak for no more than four minutes.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. The right hon. Gentleman will not interrupt.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I turn to the amendment in the name of the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and others. It seeks to limit the eligibility of those who can chair the Committee to existing Select Committee Chairs. The Government have chosen to put forward a distinguished Member to chair the Liaison Committee. It is for the House to decide—extending the degree of democracy—whether it agrees the Government’s motion and thereby approves my hon. Friend’s appointment. In this way, the motion is the most democratic way of providing a mandate for the Chairman of the Liaison Committee.
It is worth noting that it has not always been the case that the Committee has elected its own Chairman from among the ranks of Select Committee Chairs. In fact, as recently as 2010, when the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham was Leader of the House, a Member who was not a pre-existing Select Committee Chairman was the Liaison Committee Chairman, in accordance with an earlier, similar motion agreed by the House.
The Government respect the work of the Select Committees of this House and their independence in holding the Government to account. Today’s motion will allow the Liaison Committee to begin its work. As is right, the House can now decide whether the motion is agreeable, including whether the chairmanship be taken up by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex. I hope we can achieve a resolution today and allow the Liaison Committee to begin its important work in scrutinising the Government and supporting other Committees in this House. I commend this motion to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Thank you. We have a very short time left for this debate, so I must ask that every speaker now takes no more than three minutes. I call Valerie Vaz, who is asked to speak for no more than three minutes.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP) [V]
I also wish to support the amendment. It is a fundamental tenet of democratic systems that the legislature should be separate from the Executive. Our role as an elected Chamber should be to make laws and scrutinise how the Government implement them. Our ability to do that depends upon having people who will speak out with independent mind and be prepared to criticise the Government, even when they might be in the same party.
Our Select Committee system is not perfect, but time and again, Committee reports have held the Government to account and even led to a change in policy. To their credit, these reports have often been fronted by Chairs who belong to the same party as the Government. This process is built upon Committees and their Chairs being appointed by Parliament—by elected Members— rather than by the Government. Put bluntly, if someone owes their position to an appointment by the Government of the day, they will be unlikely to be as forthright in their criticism of that Government. Few people bite the hand that feeds them.
The Leader of the House’s proposal will fundamentally change the relationship between Parliament and Government. This has nothing to do with the individual concerned, but everything to do with how he is appointed. If this goes through and the Committee is led by a Government placement, it effectively means that they will be marking their own homework.
Many Parliaments have an Executive—in mainland Europe, it is commonly called a bureau—that can act when Parliament is in recess or otherwise unable to meet. We do not, and I wonder whether our experience of the current emergency should lead us to conclude that we might have been better prepared if we had. Some will feel that the Liaison Committee might fulfil that role, but if anyone hopes that the Committee might act as some sort of interlocutor between Parliament and Government, this proposal will fatally compromise that ambition. A body led by a Government appointee who relies upon not distressing the Government in order to keep that job cannot and will not speak up for a critical or inquisitive Parliament.
Earlier today, we considered the Government’s proposals to abandon any facility for Members to take part in parliamentary proceedings remotely during the current health emergency. Agreeing to that was a mistake that we will come to regret. Preventing MPs from working from home will reduce, not enhance, their ability to scrutinise the Government. It will effectively disbar and discriminate against those who are sick or vulnerable, and it will force others to choose between representing their constituents or putting their health and the health of others at risk.
There is a pattern emerging here. It shows a Government trying to mute criticism by procedural means, a Government running scared of accountability, and it is not a good look. This proposal should be rejected and the Liaison Committee should be allowed to get to work and elect a Chair from among its members, all of whom have been elected by and are accountable to this Chamber. To do otherwise—
Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab) [V]
I beg to move amendment (a), leave out paragraph (3) and insert—
“(3) The chair of the Liaison Committee shall be a current chair of a Select Committee.”.
This amendment stands in my name and the names of many other Members of this House.
It would have been best if today we could have been agreeing to set up the Liaison Committee to take scrutiny into the heart of Government. As the Government make thousands of decisions that are literally a matter of life and death, the challenge and transparency afforded by scrutiny is important as never before. Better scrutiny means better decisions, and we all need the Government to be the best they can be right now. But instead of agreeing, we have the Government undermining the Liaison Committee at the very time they are setting it up, by imposing the Chair.
It should not be for the Government to decide the terms by which they are accountable; that should be for Parliament. Why are the Government doing this? A confident Government would have nothing to fear from robust, independent scrutiny. This move will weaken Parliament, but, even more, it is a sign of weakness from the Government. When Labour was in government and I was Leader of the House, we brought in secret ballots for Select Committee Chairs precisely in order to liberate them from control by the Whips and the dead hand of patronage. This Government imposition turns the clock back to the bad old days.
The Leader of the House is supposed to be the Leader of the House as a whole, but he can spare us the pretence that this is somehow the will of the House—that this is somehow extending democracy. There is only one name to vote for today, chosen by the Government, and there is no secret ballot. For the first time, we could end up having a Chair of the Liaison Committee who has the support of only one party in the House—the governing party. Although it is House business, Government Whips have been at work to such an extent that many on their own Back Benchers do not even realise that it is actually a free vote. I hope that Members will vote for my amendment. If the Government succeed in defeating it, it will be a bad day for the House for sure, but it will be a shameful day for the Government.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
The right hon. and learned Lady has moved her amendment, so the question is that the amendment be made, and because of the shortage of time, I have to ask the Leader of the House to conclude the debate.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Within this House, one always knows that it is a weak argument when it is overstated, and I have to say that I have never heard a more overstated argument than that which we have received from the Opposition Benches.
The idea that my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) is not one of most independent-minded Members of this House is patently absurd. He has stood up for this House, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) has pointed out, throughout his parliamentary career. One of the threads running through the career of my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex is that he has stood up for the interests of the House of Commons, be that in ensuring that the sovereignty of the House of Commons and of Parliament generally is maintained, or ensuring that the House of Commons was not overwhelmed by a shift of power to the House of Lords. He has held Ministers to account, and I am glad that the Chief Whip has come into the Chamber because my hon. Friend has been the bane of the life of Chief Whips since he was elected in 1992. It is therefore well known that he will be independent minded.
I also think it is peculiar to suggest that a vote of the whole House is less democratic than a vote of the clique within the House. That obviously cannot be true. Allowing the whole House to vote is the most democratic form we have. In this House, we boldly express our opinion publicly so that our voters know precisely what we think. We do not need to hide away in the shadows. We are happy to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex is the right person for this job and that is why he has support.
I would say to the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) that constitutionally he does not fully appreciate how the system works. The Executive and the legislature have a symbiotic relationship. The Executive is drawn from the legislature. We are not like the United States, where there is no interconnection. Therefore, we always have in this House, and always have done going back into the mists of time, a relationship between the Executive and legislature, but that does not mean that the votes of the legislature are not democratic votes. They clearly and self-evidently are.
Moving on to the amendment and why I oppose it on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government, it is very straightforward. We are widening democracy, widening scrutiny and allowing the whole House to come to a decision on who should chair the Liaison Committee. We are taking away that decision, admittedly, from a smaller group to give it to a larger group, which is the proper thing to be doing.
Nobody, not one person who has spoken today, has suggested that my hon. Friend is anything other than impartial—[Interruption.] I hear various chunterings from the Opposition Benches. The principle of the House deciding is the most ancient principle of the House of Commons. That is the right way for us to do it. We decide by our vote. That is the art of democracy and this is the right procedure to be using to ensure that happens. [Interruption.] Oh, we have a chunter, “There’s only one candidate.” Did anybody else decide to amend the motion to suggest another candidate? Perhaps Opposition Members do not know how the procedures of Parliament work. May I give them a little bit of advice? If they are ever in any doubt as to how the procedures of the House work, there are many able, hard-working and thoughtful Clerks who will give them advice and they can work out how to put down amendments, but no other name came forward. Nobody else had any confidence in any other Member to do this job, which I know will be done extraordinarily well by my hon. Friend.
I happen to know that actually the Government have appointed someone who will be so independent-minded that if anyone thinks that he will be an easy ride, that person is mistaken. I commend the motion unamended to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I must now conclude the debate and put the question in accordance with the Order of today. Before I put the question, I confirm that Mr Speaker’s final determination is that the question on the amendment should be decided by remote Division. There is therefore no need for me to collect the voices, or for Members present in the Chamber to shout aye or no. The question is that the amendment be made. The question falls to be decided by a remote Division and the Clerk will know initiate the Division on MemberHub.
Madam Deputy Speaker
The remote voting period has now finished. I will announce the result of the Division shortly. I will suspend the House for five minutes until the result can be announced.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I can now announce the result of the remote Division.
Question, That the amendment be made.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Before I put the question on the motion on Liaison Committee membership, as on the Order Paper, I remind Members that Mr Speaker’s provisional determination was that the question will not be decided by a remote Division. That is also the final determination.
Main Question put and agreed to.
Parliamentary Works Sponsor Body
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I welcome this motion. I served, under Dame Caroline Spelman, on the Joint Committee that recommended that we proceed in this way. I have done a considerable amount of work on the subject over the years because, as the Leader of the House said, our primary concern should be the saving of public money.
I would like to have served on the sponsor body, but it was not to be. I wish those who have been appointed every success, because they have a very important task. Given the crisis that we are facing, we have to think again, and I am sure that when those on the sponsor body address the subject, their No. 1 concern will be to save public money, ensure the safety of Members and preserve this historic building.
Even before the public health crisis that we are facing, there were difficult decisions to be made about public spending, increases in taxation and trying to divert resources from London to the north of England in particular. Even before this crisis, which will probably necessitate the largest expansion of the state since the second world war, I think that people would have started to look askance at our spending billions of pounds on ourselves when there might well be a cheaper alternative. When the sponsor body has its first meeting, it might consider that this is the moment to review the whole project and look at whether we can do it significantly more cheaply than the present option.
When the House voted, quite narrowly, for a full decant, we were in a very different world. Of course, the original Select Committee on which my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) served accepted a full decant on the basis that it would be possible to create a temporary Chamber in the courtyard of Richmond House. The Committee was actually given the wrong measurements; the incompetence of this is beyond belief. It was then announced that because it was no longer possible to create such a Chamber, which the authorities claimed would have to be exactly the same size as the existing one, with the same size Division Lobbies—the whole works—it was now proposed to demolish all of Richmond House, at a cost of many hundreds of millions of pounds.
I have been working with SAVE, the architectural heritage body. We have come up with well-costed proposals, designed by architects, to create much more cheaply, if it was deemed necessary to have one, a temporary Chamber in the courtyard of Richmond House that was exactly the same size—[Interruption.] It would be exactly the same size as this Chamber. There is absolutely no need to demolish Richmond House, which is an award-winning listed building.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s passion about this subject, but this is a very narrow motion about the membership of the Committee, not about the exact dimensions of any proposed future Chamber. I must hold the right hon. Gentleman to the particular matter before us. He can address the general issue, but talking about exact dimensions is going a bit far.
Sir Edward Leigh
I will certainly not dwell on the exact dimensions. I was making the simple, general point that there might cheaper options than the proposal to demolish Richmond House and build a permanent replica Chamber.
The other point that the new sponsor body has to consider is what will happen when the House of Lords is moved to QEII. It would be possible to place the Lords quite cheaply and simply in that building at a relatively small cost. There is already a large conference chamber there, which holds up to 700 people—big enough even for the House of Lords. Their lordships may have to forgo their planned rooftop terrace dining room, which would cost £200 million, but, given the present crisis facing the nation, I am sure that they will be prepared to do that.
Even more cheaply—speaking in very general terms, Madam Deputy Speaker, to comply with your ruling—it may not even be necessary to have a temporary Chamber erected in the courtyard of Richmond House. Having commissioned architects to work on this subject, I can say that it would be perfectly possible for this Chamber to move temporarily to the House of Lords Chamber, as we did in the second world war, with a line of route through Westminster Hall and Saint Stephen’s Chapel.
To sum up, there are many cheaper alternatives that must and should be explored by the sponsor body, as our primary concern is to save public money, carry out these works as expeditiously as possible and not waste time, perhaps until 2027, waiting for a replica Chamber to be built. We should get on with the work now and preserve this historic building.
Sir Desmond Swayne
This Chamber has survived many health emergencies, and I do not believe that we should design into the future the prospect of continuing viruses. Let us conquer the virus, rather than change procedures that have endured almost forever. I assure him that change is always for the worst.
