Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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John Hemming
Paragraph 717 of Richard Mawrey’s judgment states:
“The systems to deal with fraud are not working well. They are not working badly. The fact is that there are no systems to deal realistically with fraud and there never have been.”
In paragraph 714, which I did not read out earlier, Mawrey states:
“In this judgment I have set out at length what has clearly been shown to be the weakness of the current law relating to postal votes. As some parts of this judgment may be seen as critical of the Government, I wish to make it clear that the responsibility for the present unsatisfactory situation must be shared. All political parties welcomed and supported postal voting on demand. Until very recently, none has treated electoral fraud as representing a problem. Apart from the Electoral Commission, whose role I have described above, the only voices raised against the laxity of the system have been in the media, in particular The Times newspaper, and the tendency of politicians of all Parties has been to dismiss these warnings as scaremongering.”
So there we go: personation is still going on.
In South Yardley ward this year, for instance, we put in a little bit of effort after the election and uncovered personation, but one difficulty is that when people are asked, “Did you vote?” they all tend to say yes—whether they did or not. There is a record of people who voted in 2012 but not in 2011, and when they are asked, “Do you remember whether you voted in 2011 or 2012?” they tend to say, “We voted both times,” when in fact we know that they did not vote in 2011.
We did, however, find a small number of personated votes in South Yardley ward—not enough to affect the result, but the point is that we found some. There are difficulties in dealing with things retrospectively, however, and that brings us to the point about new clause 1, which is about facilitating change. Emotionally, I like what some democracies have, which is orange or purple dye on the finger.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Has the hon. Gentleman thought that his suggestion of installing a camera in every polling station might create a whole new raft of electoral fraud—namely, one party making a spurious complaint against a known supporter of another party in order to deter that party’s voters from voting later on or in another election?
John Hemming
First, I do not think that that is true; and, secondly, the new clause is not necessarily the best way to deal with the issue, because it is an important one that needs consideration in primary legislation. Experiments—pilot schemes—might be undertaken to see how the proposal worked in certain areas, but it is an important issue that in primary legislation would attract far more Members than are currently in the Chamber to look at it. So we cannot say now what the exact solution would be, but at the moment Richard Mawrey is still right: there is no system for controlling personation.
A voter does not need their polling card, so they can turn up and say, “My name is X, of this address, please give me a ballot paper,” and the officials are under a duty to do so. Interestingly, during the 2010 general election I had in Birmingham observers from Kenya and Bangladesh, and, after I took them round and showed them how it all worked, they were quite surprised at how easy it was to defraud the system.
To return to the point I was about to make before the previous intervention—that is no criticism of the intervention—I am emotionally attracted to the practice in some countries of putting purple dye on a finger.
John Hemming
I am sorry that the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) is not here to hear the answers to his points. First, he confused tellers and polling agents. Secondly, it is wrong to say that this is a one-community issue. It might be limited to certain areas of the country, but it is not an issue for just one community, and I resent his assertion otherwise. There is clear evidence that it goes wider than one community, and in Birmingham, as I said, it has gone on for 100 years, which shows that it is not confined to one community.
The issue is one of evidence. At the moment, if somebody’s vote is stolen through personation, there is no evidence of who did it and nothing for the police to investigate, hence there is a hole. I agree with the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) and disagree with the Deputy Leader of the House about cameras. They would not cause a problem, because simply identifying who picks up a ballot paper does not track which way they cast it. I agree with him, however, that it would be better to withdraw the new clause and for there to be a continuing discussion. It is important that we do not forget about this issue, because it does go on, and as it currently stands there is no system to pick it up. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 3
Representation of the People Act 1985 (Amendment)
‘(1) The Representation of the People Act 1985 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 1 (Extension of parliamentary franchise) omit subsections (3)(c) and (4)(a).
(3) In section 3 (Extension of franchise for European Parliamentary elections) omit subsections (3)(c) and (4)(a).’. —(Geoffrey Clifton-Brown.)
Currently, British citizens can qualify as overseas electors only if they have been resident in the United Kingdom within the previous 15 years. This also applies to Members of the House of Lords for European Parliamentary elections. This amendment would remove this qualifying period, so that British citizens could qualify as overseas electors even if they had ceased to be resident in the United Kingdom more than 15 years before.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Temporary Chair (Katy Clark)
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 5—Explicit right of British citizens to register to vote and to participate in elections—
‘(1) The Representation of the People Act 1983 is amended as follows—
(2) Insert “a British citizen,”
(a) in section 1 (parliamentary electors), in subsection (1)(c), after “either”,
(b) in section 2 (local government electors), in subsection (1)(C), after “is”,
(c) in section 4 (entitlement to be registered as parliamentary or local government elector), in subsection (1)(c), after “either”,
(d) in section 4, subsection (3)(c), after “is”, and
(e) in section 7B, subsection (3)(e), after “is”, in the first place it occurs.’.
British citizens are currently enfranchised in statute as Commonwealth citizens, not British citizens. This amendment is to introduce a statutory entitlement for British citizens to be enfranchised as British citizens.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
At present, under sections 1 and 3 of the Representation of the People Act 1989, as amended by section 141 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, British citizens can qualify as overseas voters only if they have been resident in the UK in the previous 15 years. The new clause would remove this qualifying period altogether, so that all British citizens could qualify as overseas voters, regardless of when they were last resident in the UK.
According to the Institute for Public Policy Research, 5.6 million British citizens currently live abroad. The shocking truth is that although, as of last December, about 4.4 million of them were of voting age, only 23,388 were registered for an overseas vote, according to the Office for National Statistics’ electoral statistics. Out of 4.4 million potential overseas voters, only 23,000-odd are actually registered! Half the problem is the difficulties of the registration process, which I brought before the House during the clause 1 stand part debate on 18 June, but the other half of the problem is the cut-off limit or qualifying period.
Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
A number of Members have major overseas firms based in their constituencies—I have Toyota, Rolls-Royce and Bombardier—and have constituents who go to work abroad for these firms for many years. It is outrageous that they might be working for firms based in our constituencies and not have a vote. What does my hon. Friend think about that?
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
My hon. Friend has read my mind. I shall happily address her issue a little later, but she makes an extremely good point.
The House and the British people should take no pride in the fact that so few citizens living abroad are registered to vote. At a time of decreasing voter turnout, the overseas vote represents a potentially large pool into which we could tap, if the House was minded to accept my new clause. This issue will not go away, and today is a timely opportunity to tackle it. Each year, more and more British citizens, for one reason or another, choose to move abroad, as my hon. Friend said. The ONS international passenger statistics show that an estimated 130,000 British citizens left the UK in the year to March 2011—up from 119,000 in the year to March 2010. In 2008, according to the IPPR, of those who moved abroad, 55% did so for work-related reasons, as my hon. Friend said, 25% for study and only 20% for retirement. With an ageing population and particularly with the increased opportunities to work and study abroad, people are bound to continue to leave the UK.
In most other countries, both developed and emerging, voting rights for parliamentary elections depend solely on nationality, not on an arbitrary time limit. For example, US nationals can vote in presidential, congressional and state elections, regardless of where they reside in the world. Similarly, Australian nationals can vote in the equivalent elections there, no matter where they live. However, the most startling example comes from our nearest neighbour. French citizens in the UK have just elected a new President and taken part in parliamentary elections for one of the 11 Members of Parliament whose job it is solely to represent French people abroad. They include the French MP for the newly created constituency of North Europe, who is in the French Assembly to represent French people living in the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia and the Baltic states.
The right of Spaniards abroad to vote is enshrined in article 68 of the Spanish constitution. Likewise, the Portuguese constitution states explicitly that the single Chamber, the Assembly of the Republic, is
“the representative assembly of all Portuguese citizens”.
As a result, all Portuguese citizens living abroad have the same right to vote in Assembly elections as fellow citizens living in their home country. The simple fact is that the citizens of the US, Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and all these other countries have better voting rights for their citizens abroad than we do for British citizens living abroad.
For a democracy as ancient as ours, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is a stain on our democratic principles that our citizens are placed at such a disadvantage when they have moved abroad compared with citizens from those other countries. Her Majesty’s Government is very happy to collect tax from most of the enormous number of people involved, but denies them the vote. British citizens who have lived abroad for more than 15 years are completely disfranchised from voting in the UK. There is certainly no lack of interest among British citizens who have lived abroad for more than 15 years. Whenever I have addressed branches of Conservatives Abroad, this has been a contentious and profound issue. I understand that the Labour party has a similar organisation and that the Liberal Democrats have recently established their own version, so I have no doubt that this issue will have been raised by other parties’ organisations as well.
The states in which these British citizens reside do not allow them to vote as residents, because voting rights are based on nationality and not residence, and they cannot vote in the UK on the basis of the current rule, for which there is no obvious rationale. I challenge the Deputy Leader of the House to state where there would be any disadvantage in abolishing the rule. The consequence of the rule is that many British citizens living abroad are in a state of electoral limbo, unable to participate in any election whatsoever. That seems to be a very unsatisfactory state of affairs.
It is not just me saying this, as a number of learned Lords agree. Lord McNally, the Liberal Democrat Minister of State for Justice, said:
“I do not think there is a rationale…for the figure of 15 years, five years or 20 years”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 March 2011; Vol. 725, c. 1133.]
The noble and learned Lord Lester of Herne Hill said on the same day:
“I am not aware of any rationale for how these periods have been chosen. They seem to be entirely arbitrary”—
the point I was making—
“and, I dare say, discriminatory in a way that violates Article 14 of the European convention read with Article 3 of the first protocol.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 March 2011; Vol. 725, c. 1024.]
A number of learned people clearly think that this rule is unfair.
Kelvin Hopkins
I am interested in what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and it sounds like a good case, but I wonder if he is going to touch on the practicalities of enabling people to vote, particularly in countries that are not in western Europe.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
This is all about one group of people who live overseas and last registered here less than 15 years ago, who currently have the absolute right to register as overseas voters, compared with another class of overseas voters living abroad for more than 15 years since they last registered here. One has the absolute right to register; the other lot do not. It seemed to me to be an arbitrary cut-off date; as the noble and learned Lords I cited said, that seems quite wrong.
Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
My hon. Friend mentioned a category of British citizens who could not vote at all. Membership of the European Union clearly gives them rights to vote in local government elections—in Spain, France or wherever. They have the right to do so here. Another point arises from the debate about whether 15, 20 years or whatever is the appropriate period of time. We have arrangements that deny people the vote and deny them membership of the House of Lords, for example, if they are not resident here or do not pay taxes here. There comes a point at which a tax equation is relevant, along with the duties and responsibilities of being a British citizen. That is different from where someone has lost connection in many ways over a long period with his nationality, responsibilities, duties and allegiance to the Crown.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
My hon. Friend raises two issues. The first is whether British citizens are entitled to vote in EU local elections and European elections, as is the case in most European countries. The fact of the matter is that British citizens living overseas for more than 15 years since they last registered are not able to register here in order to vote in our general elections. Secondly, he says that these people have lost allegiance to the UK. I think that that is a slur on many of them. I think many people living abroad have a huge interest in what goes on in this country. I suspect that most of the voters who are unable to register still pay their taxes, or at least some part of them, to the UK. It seems to me that if the UK is prepared to take their taxes, why should they be denied a vote? I just cannot see the case for that.
Sir Peter Bottomley
My hon. Friend has clearly explained this arbitrary cut-off of 15 years. That is understood. Does he agree that the electoral registration officer is obliged to register people who are entitled to vote here and, if so, who should have the responsibility to register those overseas who are entitled to vote, irrespective of whether they have lived abroad 15 years or more since they last registered here?
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is up to the electoral registration officer to consider the application on the basis of the individual involved and the facts of the case. He would no doubt be entitled to make further inquiries—the Minister will put me right if I am wrong—if there were any doubt or confusion about whether the person had been registered here within the 15-year period, outside it or indeed about whether the person was entitled to vote at all.
Sir Peter Bottomley
I understand that, but I was asking a slightly different question. Should someone have the responsibility for trying to recruit these people to register in the same way that domestically resident people like myself are if they are entitled to vote?
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
That is a very fair point. I think that Her Majesty’s Government should have an interest in their citizens abroad. Just as it makes publicity available for British citizens to register on British electoral rolls, it should do the same thing for British citizens abroad. That would not be difficult in the age of the internet.
Fundamentally abolishing this arbitrary and unjust time limit is mainly about giving those people who have spent their lives abroad, often working, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) said, for British companies, for international organisations and for UK Government Departments and agencies, and who are actively pursuing and often promoting British interests, the right to have their say in the future government of this country. Universal suffrage is in the universal declaration of human rights, to which this country is a signatory. This arbitrary cut-off time limit is totally contrary to that principle and the declaration. This is an opportunity for my hon. Friend the Minister to rectify this wrong. If he will not accede to my suggestion today, I request that he take this matter away and carefully consult on it, as I am absolutely certain that the other place will be interested in it.
Mr Streeter
I shall speak briefly in support of my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) in endorsing new clause 3. I believe that our electoral rules for overseas citizens were fashioned in a bygone age. I realise that the 15-year rule is relatively recent—
Mr Heath
I am grateful to the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) for introducing this new clause. We had a taster of the argument it raises earlier in our proceedings, when he got some answers from the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who is constitutional affairs Minister, but I shall attempt to give some more answers today.
The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting question, ably supported by the hon. Members for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) and for Enfield North (Nick de Bois). If I was asked to defend 15 years as the right length of time for qualification, I am not sure that I could come up with a convincing argument, other than the fact that that is what Parliament decided. Parliament has considered this matter on a number of occasions, and it has come up with different definitions of the appropriate qualifying period. On no occasion hitherto has Parliament decided that there should not be a qualifying period, however; it has always said, “Well, there must be a point at which somebody’s links with their country of origin are sufficiently tenuous not to entail having a vote.” Whether that is the correct view is for the House to decide. I merely report the view the House has taken when it has discussed this matter previously.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
Surely the fact that somebody would want to register their overseas vote to take part in a general election in this country is sufficient evidence in itself that they have sufficient interest about what is going on in this country to merit being allowed a vote, rather than being denied it.
Mr Heath
The hon. Gentleman makes a strong point. I am simply reporting the fact that when Parliament debated this matter in the past, it always took the view that there should be a limit.
As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, many other countries take a different view on the appropriate franchise. Some provide for their citizens to vote in domestic elections, while others have specific Members of their legislatures who represent the diaspora. I recall once meeting a charming gentleman who was an Italian Senator. I think I represent a fairly large constituency in the context of the UK Parliament, but its size paled into insignificance when compared with that of his constituency, which, if I recall correctly, was Australasia, Asia, Africa and Antarctica. That is a fairly large part of the world. I do not know whether he visited every parish council on a regular basis, but he certainly represented a lot of Italians who were living abroad. The point is that different countries find different ways of addressing this issue.
Our position at the moment is that we give eligibility to vote to people within 15 years of their living abroad. We extend that also to Members of another place for the purposes of voting in European elections. Some exceptions are made in respect of members of the armed forces, persons in Crown service, persons working for the British Council and their spouses and civil partners.
Mr Heath
So we would still need to have a responsibility on overseas electors to register, rather than have the registration officer seek these people in order to enable them to be registered. Having said that, if we can find better and easier ways to enable that to happen, we should do so; the advent of IT processes may well do exactly that. I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his new clause. He has made some very important points and I undertake that the Government will give them serious consideration. We will see whether there are proposals that we might wish to bring forward in due course to address some of his points.
Mr Heath
We are not entitled to vote only through Commonwealth membership. We are entitled to vote as British citizens. British citizens are Commonwealth citizens, and that is why the legislation is drafted in such terms. I understand why the hon. Gentleman feels that it is important to make such a distinction, because I would hope that those of us who hold British citizenship are proud to do so. I am also proud to be part of the Commonwealth, which reflects the great history of our nation, and our electoral law takes account of that.
There are aspects of British electoral law in which such a distinction is necessary, and therefore is specifically stated, because an entitlement is restricted to British citizens. For example, the Representation of the People Act 1985 sets out that only British citizens are entitled to register as overseas electors. When the distinction is necessary in legislation, it is made. While I understand the intention behind new clause 5, it is not necessary to change the construction of our electoral law in such a way. I fear that if it were enacted, it would introduce a potential inconsistency with other legislation which uses the phrase “Commonwealth citizen” to include British citizens and other Commonwealth citizens.
However, the hon. Gentleman raises an important point and I will go away and consider it further to see whether there is a useful distinction that ought to be made in our legislation. I hope he will not press the new clause today, although it is useful for him to have raised the issue. Perhaps we should at some stage address the question of whether that distinction should be made. Perhaps we should at some stage also look at the franchise, but now is not the right time and the Bill is not the right place to do that. Nevertheless, he is perfectly entitled to raise the point today.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
With the leave of the House, may I comment briefly on what the Deputy Leader of the House said in response to my new clause? He said clearly that the Government were keen to look at the issue. He rose to my challenge and raised a few minor problems with extending the franchise beyond 15 years for overseas voters, and he responded to some of my hon. Friends, whom I thank for supporting me in the debate, about some of the difficulties of the registration process.
Of course everybody wants the integrity of the electoral register to be maintained to the utmost degree. Only those who are eligible to register should register. We all understand that. The Deputy Leader of the House asked how an electoral registration officer would promote who is entitled to register as an overseas voter, which in the Bill is a positive duty. May I suggest that for overseas voters, that would be only a reactive duty? The electoral registration officer would have to react only to a valid application that was made to him.
May I suggest to the Deputy Leader of the House and to the Committee a practical way of dealing with the issue? The hon. Gentleman should table an amendment on Report or an amendment should be tabled in another place to take powers to extend but not reduce the 15-year period at a time when the Government are satisfied that the registration process is robust and maintains the integrity of the electoral register. He would be able to do that in tandem with the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, his hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who told the House last week that he would look at the measures for the registration process that I suggested to him—namely, using the passport as an identity document, abolishing the annual requirement to register, perhaps introducing a permanent opt-in for people who had registered validly once, and the possibility of using British embassies so that people could register and, even better, vote there. The Cabinet Office Minister undertook to look carefully at those measures, which could be introduced under the Bill and under the existing legislation and secondary legislation. I suggest that the Deputy Leader of the House table an amendment to take a power to extend the 15 years when the Government are satisfied that those measures are in place. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw my new clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 4
Voting procedure
‘(1) Schedule 1 to the Representation of the People Act 1983 (c. 2) (parliamentary elections rules) is amended as follows.
(2) In rule 37 (voting procedure) after paragraph (6) insert—
“(7) A voter who is in the polling station or in a queue outside the polling station for the purpose of voting at the time specified for the close of the poll shall be entitled to apply for a ballot paper under paragraph 1 above and a ballot paper shall be delivered and the voter entitled to vote in accordance with this rule.”.’. —(Mrs Laing.)
Currently, voters who are in a queue at a polling station at 10 pm but who have not yet been issued with their ballot paper are unable to cast their vote. This amendment would allow for ballot papers to be issued to any registered voter who is in the polling station or in a queue outside the polling station at 10 pm, in order that they may then cast their vote.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Backbench Business Committee
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
I beg to move,
That Mr David Amess, Mr David Anderson, Bob Blackman, Jane Ellison, John Hemming, Mr Marcus Jones and Ian Mearns be members of the Backbench Business Committee.
I am grateful to catch your eye, Mr Speaker, at this late hour and I apologise for delaying the House to debate the motion. I shall outline the factual position that has brought us to where we are this evening. The concept of the Backbench Business Committee emanated in the last Parliament from the Committee on Commons reform, commonly known as the Wright Committee. The Backbench Business Committee was created by Standing Orders made in the House on 15 June 2010.
The Committee has responsibility for scheduling debates on 35 days, at least 27 of which must take place in the Chamber. This represents a significant amount of parliamentary time in each Session to schedule debates on matters of genuine interest to Back Benchers—more than that afforded to Opposition parties. Before these reforms, Back Benchers had not been able to bring forward substantive motions regularly to the Floor of the House since the late 19th century.
On 12 March 2012 the House amended the way in which the Chair and other members of the Backbench Business Committee were elected, with the following effect: first, to ensure that the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee will always be a member of the non-governing party; secondly, to bring minority parties into the fold by allowing the Backbench Business Committee to invite a Member from a party not represented on the Committee to participate in its proceedings; and thirdly, to amend the rules on electing members of the Backbench Business Committee to reflect exactly what happens now in other Select Committees.
There would be elections within the three major party groups, and it was the Members who emerged from these elections that the Committee of Selection, which I have the honour to chair, selected for membership of the Backbench Business Committee. That forms the basis of the motion on behalf of my Committee that we are debating now.
Business of the House
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Sir George Young
I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s concern. He will know that we have now enshrined in statute an obligation to report annually on the military covenant, and it would be appropriate to include the issues that he raises in that review. I will see whether it is possible to have a debate on the military covenant, given that we have to review it every year, and see whether we can reflect on the regional disparities.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
While I would defend to the hilt anybody’s right to peaceful protest, a permanent encampment is a different matter altogether. The City authorities have now cleared the Occupy London site around St Paul’s, and the sites around Parliament square have largely been cleared. Today it looks fantastic as it is being prepared with flagpoles, but one or two eyesores remain on the pavements, which are the responsibility of Westminster City council. Will my right hon. Friend join me in urging the council to make sure that they are cleared as soon as possible?
Mr Speaker
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is looking for either a statement or a debate on the matter.
Sir George Young
Following the passage of the legislation that we introduced last year, Westminster City council took action to remove the encampments. I think that there is an injunction that protects one residual encampment and that the case is being heard later this month. If the council is successful, as it hopes to be, that remaining encampment will be removed, and then we can begin to restore Parliament square to the glory that many of us remember—a place that can be enjoyed by tourists and visitors—and remove some of the problems that Members and staff have encountered with the noise that used to emanate from the site, which I hope that we have now dealt with.
Members’ Salaries
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
Hear, hear to what the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) said at the end of her speech: I do not think that we want to be in this position again.
I want to pick up on something that my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) said about pay review bodies. Yes, it is true that a succession of reports from such bodies has been accepted by the Government. They deal with teachers, the Prison Service and the health service. Every single one of them says that there should be no increase in pay this year for those who earn more than £21,000. Only one pay review body is proposing an increase for people who earn considerably more than £21,000, and that is the one that deals with Members of Parliament. Why is that happening? Because it is not an entirely independent review, as we have already heard from my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House of Commons, and because it was pre-emptively interfered with by the decision of the previous Government and the previous House in setting the parameters for our pay, which has resulted in the anomalous position of the proposal of a 1% pay increase for MPs while everyone else in the public service gets a pay freeze. That is why we have had to come back to the House today.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
On a point of clarification, there has been a lot of disquiet in the debate about Members of Parliament having to vote on their own pay. Can my hon. Friend confirm whether there will be an annual vote on our pay when IPSA takes over this matter?
Registration of Members’ Financial Interests
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
I begin by thanking members of the Standards and Privileges Committee, both past and present, for the work they have done to bring these two motions before the House. We have heard from Members about the need for common sense in our procedures. The motions are an attempt to introduce some consistency and common sense into our registration procedures. It is very easy for the House to set out general principles, but it is often quite tricky to bring forward the motions that put those principles into practice. In this case, the Committee has done a good job, and I support the proposals.
One of the motions deals with the registration of all-party groups. I must declare an interest as the chair of the all-party group on stroke and as secretary of the parliamentary friends of CAFOD—the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development—group.
It is interesting to look back on how the Committee’s consideration of these matters arose. Originally, there was a report on lobbying and all-party groups by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. The Committee rightly looked at his recommendations to work out how they could be put into practice and which it was most sensible to put into practice. Having looked back at the original suggestions, I am bound to say that some of them were unworkable.
The Committee has attempted to make the way in which assistance to groups is registered transparent and to prevent the register from increasing to such a volume that it is unusable or that it requires corrections every other day. Hence, it suggests that we stick to the current principle that benefits worth less than £1,500 in a calendar year are not registrable. The onus is put on consultancies that work with all-party groups to be transparent about their clients, either through a published list on their website or by making such a list available to people who ask for it. It also places requirements on charities.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Perhaps this is a question that I should have asked the Deputy Leader of the House. How does the hon. Lady envisage the £1,500 limit working for people who give pro bono advice to parliamentary groups? Will they have to compute a value for that advice, or will it be taken on face value that it is not charged and therefore is not declarable?
Helen Jones
The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting question. It is quite easy to put a value on secretarial support and staff time. Pro bono advice is a more difficult area, and I cannot give him an answer on that off the top of my head. He is right to raise it, and it needs to be discussed, perhaps by the Standards and Privileges Committee and the Registrar of Members’ Interests.
I am grateful to the Committee for considering how charities should operate in this regard, and for making it clear that it does not want to put an insupportable burden on charities that work with all-party parliamentary groups. The Committee does ask charities to make available lists of commercial companies that have donated more than £5,000. That is a sensible proposal.
As we have heard, there are proposals on making websites available. There are also recommendations to align the rules relating to the Register of All-party Groups with the rules relating to the approved list, so that only groups that meet the criteria for inclusion on the approved list should be permitted to register. The Opposition believe that those suggestions are sensible and proportionate. They meet the requirement of transparency, while not imposing unnecessary burdens, particularly on charities.
The House tried in 2009 to deal with the registration of income from employment, when it decided that all income from other employment should be registered, whether or not it exceeded 1% of the parliamentary salary in any year. The then Standards and Privileges Committee said that the rule would probably have to be reviewed in this Parliament. In particular, it suggested that there be consideration of a de minimis rule. Members who were in the House at the time will remember that there was a debate on whether, for instance, a bottle of wine given to someone after a speaking engagement would become registrable as remuneration for employment. The then Chair of the Committee thought that it would, and the Minister replying thought that it would be counted as a gift or hospitality and therefore would be subject to the de minimis rule for gifts. That difference was not over the intention of the rule, but about how it would be interpreted in practice.
It is clear that the advice given to Members has led to the registration of things such as pots of honey and bunches of flowers. I do not believe that such things would be regarded by any of our constituents as remuneration for employment. Frankly, if anyone is working for a pot of honey, I dread to think how many employment laws are being broken in the process. I will not even try to enumerate them, because it is so long since I practised law.
I also think that the registration of such things is perceived as an insult to those who gave them, who simply thought that they were making a generous gesture or rewarding hospitality; they did not in any sense think that they were rewarding a Member of Parliament. It has been common for my constituents to load me with flowers—I am sure that other hon. Members are given flowers wherever they go. My constituents do not believe that they are paying my wages in doing so. They believe that they are making a kind and thoughtful gesture. That is how it should be dealt with.
The Committee has recommended that registration should apply only to payments of more than 0.1% of the parliamentary salary and of more than 1% of the parliamentary salary for multiple payments from a single source. There are Members who think that the registration threshold is still too low. I suggest that we will have to consider that in the future. I understand why the Committee made this recommendation.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I am grateful to the hon. Lady; she is being very generous in giving way, and I do not want to prolong this debate. I have a feeling that the threshold may be too low, particularly as parliamentary salaries are likely to be frozen or have very small increases in the coming years, whereas the inflation on gifts will be 4% or 5%. The fiscal drag of bringing registration into the system will become greater and greater. If we are not careful, it will lead to the situation that she described of the register becoming too full to be used.
Helen Jones
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point.
I understand why the Committee made these recommendations: they are simple, easy to operate and do not need constant updating. I suggest that the House needs to let the rules bed in and then see how they are working. We have to get to a situation where what we register is what can reasonably be thought to influence hon. Members. I argue strongly that if anyone in this House can be influenced by the gift of a pencil, a pot of honey or a bag, they probably should not be here. I do not think that any of our constituents believes that we can be influenced by such things. We can look again at the operation of the rules over time, but for the moment, they are the sensible way forward. I thank the Committee for its work and I commend the motions to the House.
Business of the House
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Sir George Young
One or two Labour Members tried that argument yesterday during the statement by my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. I wholly reject the premise on which hon. Gentleman based his question. We have taken firm action to deal with the deficit, which is far lower than that in the Irish Republic, so I reject entirely his comparison.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I shall try not to test your patience this time. Earlier this week, you launched an important survey of Members’ services in the House. That is important because it will indicate which Members give priority to which service, and which services should be provided in future. Will my right thon. Friend do all he can to encourage every hon. and right hon. Member to participate in that survey so that it provides as complete a result as possible?
Mr Speaker
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman was asking either for a statement or for a debate, but just forgot to do so.
Oral Answers to Questions
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Mr Heath
Well, that is their opinion. It is perfectly clear that it is not possible for Bills to be produced in time to allow full pre-legislative scrutiny in the first 10 weeks of a new Government when those Bills are to be debated in the very near future; I would have thought that that was obvious to any Member of this House. We are clearly committed to using pre-legislative scrutiny whenever possible, but I repeat that it is clear that, with a new Government and a new House of Commons, there will be new Bills that cannot go through that procedure.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
The Deputy Leader of the House will be aware that in the previous Parliament many Bills were almost totally rewritten during their passage through the House. In due course, after the Government have had time to write their Bills, will the Deputy Leader of the House be able to say that pre-legislative scrutiny will be the norm, and not the exception, for a Bill in this Parliament?
Mr Heath
The hon. Gentleman makes the important point that what is most important is that Bills are written correctly and are made right first time, rather than having them rewritten, as was so often the case under the previous Administration. [Interruption.] We hear protestations from Opposition Members, but may I remind them that in the 2009-10 Session only five Bills were submitted for pre-legislative scrutiny and in the 2008-09 Session there were only four, whereas we have already announced three.
Use of the Chamber (United Kingdom Youth Parliament)
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Philip Davies
I am certain that MYPs who are avidly watching tonight will have been impressed by my hon. Friend’s intervention, and that he has enhanced their opinion of the House. However, I hope he is not suggesting that we should not debate this motion. If he thinks that the debate should not be till any hour, I presume that he did not vote for previous the motion. The Government could have tabled a motion to limit the debate so that it could last only an hour, an hour and a half, two hours or three hours, but they did not do so. It appears—I am sure he will correct me if I am wrong—that he voted for the debate lasting till any hour. Given that, I am sure that he will happily live with the consequences. Perhaps in future he will not listen so avidly to the Whips when they tell him how to vote. He may be signally disappointed again in the future.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
I have listened carefully to my hon. Friend’s concise speech for nearly an hour and he has taken a fair few interventions. He has made two germane arguments. The first is that this gathering could take place anywhere other than in this Chamber and, second, that it sets a precedent. If it does set a precedent, we will have to have another debate and a full chance to debate it. I would be grateful if he would now address himself to the actual harm that he sees in allowing the members of the Youth Parliament to debate in this place when the Chamber is not being used for the legitimate business of this House.
Philip Davies
The point is that I am a Conservative—as is my hon. Friend—and the principle of Conservatism is embodied in the saying, “If it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change.” As a Conservative, I believe that the onus is on those who propose change to make the case for that change. The case for no change does not need to be made. The point that I am making in my contribution—if I am allowed to get on with it—is that the case for change is a poor one. All of the arguments that have been given are spurious and do not stand up to much scrutiny. I urge my hon. Friend to ask other people to make the case for change, because they have not done so thus far.
We were told earlier that allowing members of the Youth Parliament to sit here will inspire them to get involved in politics. That is one of the arguments that was made last time. It was said that we must allow the UK Youth Parliament to sit here, because if we do so they will be inspired and become interested in politics. That is a curious argument because, by definition, those people who are members of the Youth Parliament are already interested in politics. That is why they are there. If our motivation is to try to inspire more young people to get involved in politics, we should be asking those young people who are not members of the Youth Parliament to come and have a debate here, because that might encourage them to get involved in the Youth Parliament. Why would we want to limit the opportunity to those members of the Youth Parliament who are already interested in politics?
Business of the House
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Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Does the Leader of the House agree that we should in no way wish to curtail demonstrations in Parliament square, but that the present system of almost permanent incumbency is unsatisfactory? The square should be used on a much wider basis by more demonstrators and by people for recreation, including tourists.
Sir George Young
I agree with my hon. Friend. With the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and Whitehall, it is a historic setting, and the presence of a shanty town right in the middle does no credit to the centre of one of the greatest capital cities in the world. As he will know, the Mayor of London is responsible for the green in the middle of the square, and he is in the process of taking action through the courts against those currently occupying it. If he is successful, I hope that the green will be cleared and accessible to more people. Personally, I have no objection to people lobbying and protesting outside the Houses of Parliament, but I think that at the end of the day they should go home.
Backbench Business Committee
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Mr Heath
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I am not a member of the House of Commons Commission and I do not wish to tread on its toes, but what he says makes perfect sense to me and I shall ensure that that is communicated to members of the Commission.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Is the Deputy Leader of the House aware that radical and far-reaching repairs need to take place in the basement of this place, where high pressure steam calorifiers are located right next door to very high voltage electrical cables? That is so much the case that I understand that in the previous Parliament the House of Commons Commission even considered whether there would be a need to move out of this building. Has he taken that into consideration in these proposals?
Mr Heath
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I can say only that the House of Commons Commission is considering this. As I say, I am not a member of that body, but I would not be putting forward this proposal today—I should remind hon. Members that it is one of the things that the Wright Committee asked us to put before the House— if we felt that there were impossible hurdles to cross this year. However, this matter may be something that we need to consider in future years.
I wish now to deal with the points made by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone)—they were also reflected in the comments made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz)—about the important matter of private Members’ Bills. The hon. Member for Wellingborough rightly drew attention to what I had said on a previous occasion when he tabled a similar amendment. He quoted me, so may I quote myself? That is always an invidious thing to do but as he quoted me, I shall quote myself. He said that I had said that “perhaps there should” be a change in Standing Orders. I stand by that comment—perhaps such a change should be made—because I want us to do a much better job of dealing with private Members’ Bills.
We do not do a good job on these Bills at the moment and the process contains procedural hurdles that are absurd, and are seen as such by our constituents. Far too often, excellent measures that are introduced by individual Members do not make it to the statute book, despite substantial support in the House, simply because of the way the system works. I am therefore delighted that the Chair of the Procedure Committee, the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), has volunteered that his Committee will examine this as an early matter of priority. It is essential that the Committee does so and I hope that it will make proposals. I also hope that the issue of how many Fridays are made available will become redundant because we will have so improved the way we manage private Members’ legislation that Fridays are not the crucial factor in deciding whether we make progress.