Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill

Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Mark Lazarowicz

Friday 9th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I am sure that all Members on both sides of the House work as hard as they can for their constituents.

I have tried not to be diverted too much from the amendments, although, understandably, there have been a number of attempts to persuade me to deal with wider issues. Amendment 6 is at least an improvement on a bad provision, which not only implies that there will effectively be two Governments and two classes of MP, but does not make clear whether it applies only to primary legislation or, in addition, to secondary legislation, amendments to primary legislation and, indeed, private Members’ Bills. The amendment does at least try to make a bad Bill more consistent, and I hope that the House will support it. In fact, I hope that the entire Bill is thrown out on Third Reading, or following its passage through the House of Lords.

There is an important debate to be had on this issue. The amendments are intended to highlight some of the difficulties raised by the Bill, but I feel that if we are to have a debate on law-making in relation to MPs with constituencies outside England when it comes to decisions that apply only in England, we should debate that issue in its generality. Let us have a proper debate on whether there should be some matters on which MPs outside England should not vote, rather than cloaking that issue in discussions about a certificate. Let us deal with the real issue, rather than with what I consider to be a bogus issue and a diversion from the real concern that I accept is felt by some Members.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I am pleased to learn that the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) does not propose to press her amendment. If I followed her argument correctly, amendments 8 and 14 would extend the effect of my Bill beyond what it was carefully drafted to do. I do not think that they are necessary, and I hope that we can move swiftly on to the next stage of the Bill.

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[Harriett Baldwin]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

Let me start my remarks by reassuring Opposition Members about a number of things that are not in the Bill and say that—surprise, surprise—both the BBC and The Guardian occasionally misreport things. I want to reassure everyone here that I am a whole-hearted supporter of the Union. I have referred before in the Chamber to the memory of my late, lamented grandmother, Flora McLean McLeod Morison, from the Isle of Skye, and I think that that will go a long way towards reassuring everybody what a strong supporter I am of the Union, being a physical embodiment of it myself.

I also want to reassure everybody that I support the trajectory that we have been on over the past 10 or 15 years in terms of devolution. I think that all decisions, as we are seeing with the Localism Bill, should be made at the lowest possible level in terms of the people whom they affect. That brings democracy close to the people who are affected by laws, so I am wholeheartedly in favour of devolution. I also want to reassure Opposition Members that there is nothing in my Bill that would create two classes of MP. That has been a characteristic of previous attempts by colleagues to resolve this question, but that situation is clearly not acceptable. We cannot have an answer that relies on two classes of MP at Westminster, and the Bill deliberately avoids anything along those lines.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the constructive way in which she is presenting her Bill, but if she does not want to create two classes of MP, what is the purpose of certifying legislation in this way? What would happen if a Bill were stated to be English only? Why is she saying this, if she is not expecting MPs in some way to be disbarred from taking part in discussions and voting on such issues? What is the purpose behind her Bill?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that I shall be going into great detail on that point.

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[Harriett Baldwin]

I think the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), sets an absolutely marvellous example in all respects, as one would expect me to say. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, who represents the Scottish nationalists, will be delighted with the Scotland Bill that my right hon. Friend is helping to bring forward in this Parliament; he is being very uncharitable to my right hon. Friend.

This is an urgent problem that needs to be resolved in this Parliament. To make my point, I need refer colleagues and Opposition Members back only as far the last general election when, as we know, no party got an overall majority in this Parliament and there were negotiations between not only the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties but between the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats. At that time, there was talk of a rainbow coalition of parties that might come together at Westminster, and I remember the upsurge of resentment in the correspondence that I received as a representative of what I like to think of as the heart of England about how completely undemocratic it would be to have a situation in which English-only legislation came through the House relying for support on a majority of MPs from other parts of the United Kingdom.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

Is not this getting to the heart of the issue, because the logic of what the hon. Lady is saying is that if that situation had developed, some MPs should not have been allowed to vote on England-only matters? This is not just about a certificate; she is going down the road of trying to bar MPs from outside England voting on such issues. That is very divisive to the whole nature of this House and the constitution.

[Harriett Baldwin]

I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the wording in the Bill: there is nothing in it that would prevent him from continuing to vote on English matters, should he so choose. However, if a piece of legislation came forward and he could be confident, as a result of this Bill, that the measures in it would have no effect whatever on his constituents, he might feel comfortable writing to his constituents and saying, “Having looked closely at this piece of legislation, I feel comfortable that I might abstain from voting on it.”

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[Harriett Baldwin]

I will not digress down that particular historical byway.

Let me get back to the Bill, which does three simple things.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way such a lot—this is a very important Bill for us all. Is her position really that if a Bill affects one part of the UK, it should not be supported if the majority of MPs from that part of the UK are not behind it?

[Harriett Baldwin]

My position is an English position. As a representative of an English constituency, I think that an increasingly large amount of the legislation that comes before the House affects England only and that if the House continues not to tackle this issue, it will increasingly become one that our constituents find extremely distressing.

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[Harriett Baldwin]

I thank my hon. Friend for that Welsh perspective and that support for the principles of the Bill.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

Does not the issue of HS2 illustrate how impractical and divisive this attempt to divide the House would be, even if only in terms of indicating where a Bill applies? The legislation on HS2 may appear to affect only England, with trains going to Manchester and Liverpool, but the trains, hopefully, will go north to Scotland, and will also go to north Wales. In many areas it is not possible to make a simple division into Scotland-only and English-only Bills. It would divide the House and divide the way in which it operates.

[Harriett Baldwin]

I am not saying, am I, that a lot of legislation will have those characteristics, but some legislation will, and there will be more and more of it as we devolve more and more powers to other parts of the UK. So why not know about that when such legislation comes before the House? Indeed, as the hon. Gentleman points out with his example, there may well be knock-on consequences for other parts of the UK, in which case that would be very apparent to him.

I was mentioning some of the eminent minds that have informed the Bill. I also drew heavily on a piece of work that was done by the Conservative party in opposition. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) is now Secretary of State for Justice, but in those days he chaired the democracy taskforce. He prepared a committee that included my hon. Friends the Members for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) and for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) and none other than our distinguished Leader of the House. They came up with recommendations for dealing with the democratic deficit on this constitutional issue.

One suggestion was that Standing Orders might be used. Some of the examples given mentioned Standing Order No. 97, which was formerly used to deal with Scotland-only legislation. As I understand it, however, some of the academic reaction was that it might put the Speaker in a very awkward position, were he asked to certify that a piece of legislation applied to England only.

The Bill is designed to address that challenge for the Speaker, because we would certainly not want to politicise the Chair. Goodness me, this is so far above my pay grade that I feel I should not be trespassing on these areas at all, but the provision of more information in draft legislation would make it easier for the Speaker to use his powers or to allow the House to agree changes recommended by the Procedure Committee in 1999— I am sure the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) will allude to that in a moment—to alter some of the Standing Orders to allow certification of Bills as applying to other parts of the UK.

Women (Government Policies)

Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Mark Lazarowicz

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

We should bear in mind what these women are preparing for. An average 55-year-old woman today will live to 88, on average, and many more women will live to see their 100th birthday. Having the extra year to prepare for saving for that very old age is not at all a bad thing. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt), I have absolutely no intention of retiring in my early 60s, and I welcome the fact that men and women will be treated equally regarding pension age.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

rose—

[Harriett Baldwin]

I am sorry—I do not have enough time to give way.

I acknowledge that equalising the pension age means that there is a group of women who are disproportionately affected, but I would like to hear proposals on how we could avoid that and still end up in what we all agree is the right place, where we have longer to prepare for a much longer old age.