Tributes to Tony Benn

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

First of all, may I say on behalf of my sister Melissa and my brothers Stephen and Joshua and the whole family just how much the words we have heard today mean to us?

I do not propose to add to what has already been said, and indeed written, about my father’s political legacy—apart from anything else, everyone already seems to have their own opinion, as today’s debate has demonstrated—but I do want to say a few words about what Parliament meant to him, because it was the centre of his very long life. He won 16 elections, proudly representing first Bristol South-East and then Chesterfield. Fifteen of those elections enabled him to walk through those doors and take his place in this Chamber. One of them—the by-election he fought after the death of his father—did not. He was barred from entry to the Chamber on the instructions of the Speaker because, it was alleged, his blood was blue. His blood was never blue; it was the deepest red throughout his life.

That moment taught him that the right of people to choose who will represent them here in this place—the very foundation of our democracy—was never, ever granted by those in power. It had to be fought for. That is why democracy is so precious.

His fight to stay in the Commons had, I think, a marked and profound effect on his life. It was why he was so determined to support others in their struggles: to bring an end to apartheid and the death penalty; in support of the miners, as we have heard; and to campaign for peace, because it was war that had taken from him his beloved elder brother Michael.

It was also why he was so determined to commemorate in Parliament the history of those struggles because, as he would often say, all change comes from below. That is why, as we have heard from many Members today, he went down into the Crypt with his screwdriver and put up that plaque in the broom cupboard. He wanted to teach us: why did that brave suffragette spend the night in the broom cupboard in 1911? The answer is because it was census night. What do you do in a census? You fill in a form, and she wanted to write: “Name: Emily Wilding Davison. Address: Houses of Parliament.” Why? Because she believed that a woman’s place was in the House—the House of Commons.

He was very fond of challenging those in authority, assisted by “Erskine May”. He once even moved a motion of no confidence in the Speaker. But he also had a great sense of fun. On one occasion, he was part of a group of Labour MPs who had decided to delay a Division in the Lobby because they wanted to make trouble for the Government. The Serjeant at Arms was dispatched in order to investigate and told them that if they did not move he would have to take their names. My father looked at him and, as his diary records, said, “But that would be completely contrary to Mr Speaker’s ruling of 1622.” After the Serjeant at Arms had departed from the fray, Dad turned to his fellow conspirators and, with that mischievous twinkle in his eye, admitted that he had just made that all up but it seemed to have done the trick.

He loved this place, the people who built it and those who help us in our work. He loved the debate and the argument. But he did not idealise Parliament. He saw it as the means to an end: to be a voice for the movements outside these walls that seek to change the world for the better, as well as being a voice for the people who send us here and whom we all have the privilege to represent.

That was the essence of his character. Yes, it was shaped, as we have heard, by events and experiences but also, as for many of us, by his childhood. He was, at heart, not just a socialist; he was a non-conformist dissenter. His mother taught him to believe in the prophets rather than the kings, and his father would recite these words from the Salvation Army hymn, which I think best explain what he sought to do in Parliament:

“Dare to be a Daniel,

Dare to stand alone,

Dare to have a purpose firm,

Dare to make it known.”

If we are not here to do that, what are we here for? Well, he was. He knew what he thought. He was not afraid to say it. He showed constancy and courage in the face of adversity. Whatever the scribes and the Pharisees may have to say about his life, it is from the words and kindnesses of those whose lives he touched that we—those who loved him most—take the greatest strength.

After all, any life that inspires and encourages so many others is a life that was well lived. [Applause.]

Tributes to Nelson Mandela

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

There are rare moments in life when the death of one person brings the world together and touches many hearts, and the passing of Nelson Mandela is such a moment. In truth, the words we reach for to try and describe his achievements seem not to match the scale of the task or do justice to what he achieved, the feelings we hold for him and the memories we have of both.

In Leeds, we have our memory of that day in April 2001 when he came to our city to receive its freedom—the highest honour we were able to bestow. We cheered his arrival in a packed Millennium square as he climbed the stage and, in his characteristic way, paused to greet every person who was on it, including the children who had been singing: everyone mattered and everyone was included. He then addressed us, and he began with these immortal words: “It is wonderful to be here in Liverpool.” There are other occasions on which uttering those words in Leeds could get you into some difficulty, but did we care? No, we did not: we cheered him all the more, because it was a privilege to be there in that throng to see a man who had made history.

Whether in public or in private, Nelson Mandela was that same man: he was calm, he was dignified, he was resolute, he was unfailingly courteous. It is no wonder that he was an inspiration to so many people, because, with grace, he showed that belief makes everything possible.

However, as we have heard today, it did not always seem so, and so as we remember one man’s extraordinary life, each of us recalls—including in the contributions we have heard, many of them extremely moving—how our lives were intertwined with his. Although the House speaks with one voice today, it was not always so. As we have heard from my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, those who marched to Trafalgar square or stood on the pavement outside South Africa house were not treated as heroes—indeed, some regarded us, them and him as dangerous extremists. My right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain) gave us a reminder by reading out those petty, demeaning rules on how much food the prisoners on Robben Island could get. When I visited and saw those things written on the signs, my jaw dropped, because there was represented a perpetuation of racist difference instead of what Mandela stood for, which was to embrace our common humanity. It is therefore right that we should pay tribute to all those people, including those still in this House, who showed such courage to stand up for him, for his ideals and for the ANC at a time when it was neither fashionable nor popular to do so.

Mandela’s passing also reminds us that many of the great changes we have now come to take for granted—and, oh, don’t we take them for granted—came not through the consensus we have heard expressed here today, but in and through struggle and through politics. My right hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) was absolutely right to make the point about the power of politics to utterly transform our world and people’s lives.

Out of all the words that have been used to describe Nelson Mandela two stand out for me: magnanimity and reconciliation. After those long years of imprisonment, he showed magnanimity at the very moment when he had forced the apartheid regime to grant him his freedom by refusing to yield, and he preached reconciliation. Why? It was because he knew it was the only way he could achieve his vision of a non-racist and democratic South Africa—it was his leadership that made that possible.

I simply say that one of the best ways in which we can honour Mandela’s memory is to let his example stand—the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) made this point—as a lesson to the leaders in other conflicts in the world today, because, like Nelson Mandela, they face two simple choices. The easy path is to remain a victim. The more courageous path is to say to those they lead and to the world, “This is what we must now do in the interests of peace.” Nelson Mandela once said:

“No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.”

May he be granted in death the peace for which he campaigned so hard in life.

Review of Parliamentary Standards Act 2009

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

I welcome the opportunity that the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) has given us—I, like others, think he made a very thoughtful speech—to assess what progress has been made in addressing the concerns that were last debated here in December.

Like the hon. Gentleman, I strongly support an independent and a transparent system, because publication is the best safeguard and there can be no going back on that at all. I know that that view is shared across the House, but I do share the feeling of Members that, despite the outcome of the recent review and the progress that we have made, which I want to touch on, dealing with IPSA takes up far too much time. Time, whether of Members or our staff, has an opportunity cost, and that means we have less time to do our job.

First, we ought to recognise that setting up IPSA was a very big task. Parliament asked for it to be done in a very short space of time, and Professor Sir Ian Kennedy and his senior colleagues, who have been unfailingly generous in the time they have given to listen to us, himself acknowledges that IPSA did not get everything right. I agree with the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who said that IPSA staff continue to be unfailingly courteous and as helpful as they possibly can be in trying to assist us, but the concerns that bring us back here today are not about them but the system itself.

I said in December that if we asked Members, “Is IPSA helping you to do your job?”, we would find that the answer was overwhelmingly no. That was certainly reflected in the survey of parliamentary Labour party members that we undertook in submitting evidence to the review, and frankly that ought to be the test. We should not be spending any more time than is necessary on discussing the matter, particularly when it ought to be a relatively simple task.

The issue is about making sure that we as Members have the means that we need to do the job. “Expenses” is a terrible misnomer, because it is about the means to do the job. They include staff, loyal and incredibly hard-working, who support us in our work and without whom we could not manage; an office; paying the telephone, electricity and stationery bills; the travel costs between Westminster and our constituencies; and, as the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) rightly said, the cost of having to live and to work in two places, which is in the nature of the job of being a Member of Parliament.

On the review, we should acknowledge the progress that was made on, for example, support for MPs with family responsibilities—in relation both to travel and to accommodation; a start-up budget for new MPs, learning from the experience that our new colleagues faced a year ago; the definition of London; and the merging of the budgets for constituency office rental and for general office costs.

There has been an increase in the staffing budget, although it still does not take account of the costs of the pension contribution that was passed on to MPs’ budgets a year ago, or of the additional work load that dealing with IPSA places on Members and on their staff. That situation will leave a number of MPs having to go back to the contingency fund again this year in order to continue to employ the staff they already have and need, and that really does strike me as unsatisfactory.

There is now greater use of the payment card, but that is not an unalloyed blessing: it is still not available for all costs—as I understand it, it can be used for business rates but not for office rent, and for stationery but not for photocopiers; and reconciliation is still far too time-consuming. I can say from personal experience that accounting for train travel takes much longer than under the old system, when I have to take account of finding the tickets, going on to the IPSA website, typing in destinations repeatedly, copying everything and then posting off the form having made the details available online.

What would really help and, I think, deal with a lot of frustration is either if more details could be obtained from the credit card company to satisfy IPSA, if IPSA could just agree with the House of Commons travel office that buying a ticket through the office would provide the assurance that it was we who bought it, and that it was a ticket between Westminster and our constituency or back. I use that as an example, because it should be a relatively simple thing to do, and I think it would take away a lot of the frustration that has been expressed in today’s debate and before.

The second issue I wish to raise is about what is allowed and what will be approved, because IPSA has realised sensibly that there is a balance to be struck in relation to increasingly prescriptive rules. IPSA has come face to face with the way in which we do our job, with Members saying, “What if? This is what I do. Is it okay?”, and it has thought about the issue and realised sensibly that we can either have an increasingly long rule book, with an increasingly lengthy “frequently asked questions” page on the website, or let Members exercise their judgment, in the context of the rules as they are laid down and subject to the sunlight of publication.

The review has moved more in the direction of the latter, but may I offer some advice to the Committee that we are going to establish on the work that it is going do? There is still a process in-between through which a Member may choose to exercise their discretion and IPSA may second-guess that when deciding whether to approve a claim. We are betwixt and between a more sensible approach.

Thirdly, we have heard today about how Members feel the system treats them in individual cases and on case work, and I hope that the review will dig into the detail and draw on the experience of the liaison committee, so that the issues which the hon. Member for Gainsborough raised might be looked at.

Fourthly, there is the question of value for money, something that the Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority is looking at. Indeed, as Members will know, the National Audit Office is carrying out a value-for-money review.

Finally, I say to the hon. Member for Windsor that I welcome the transformation in the motion before us from that which was on the Order Paper yesterday. If we have learned one lesson, it is that legislating in haste on this matter can create difficulties.

I support the motion because it seems to be a very sensible way forward. We should take the opportunity to review the effectiveness of the system that Parliament established, and we should assess progress as well as identifying what more needs to be done. I, for one, look forward to the result of the Committee’s work.

Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

I welcome the opportunity provided by the Backbench Business Committee to debate the operation of IPSA, courtesy of the effort shown by the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie). I do not propose to rehearse how we got here, as other hon. Members have done so, except to say that parts of the previous system did not bear close examination, nor did they command public support when they were unveiled to public view. The hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr Gale) summed it up well when he said that things went badly wrong.

Things had to change, and the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009 was the means by which the system was changed. As the House has learned, transparency was the best way of dealing with the problems of the past and is the best way of doing things. Members know that all the expenditure that they incur will be seen and scrutinised by the public. When the public, our voters, see the cost of the phone calls, the office rent, the stationery, the train travel and the accommodation, which is published today by IPSA, they too will realise that this is about nothing more and nothing less than the tools that MPs need to do their job.

The first point that I want to make is that in debating changes to the system as a prelude to the review that IPSA is undertaking—changes that are definitely needed—we must preserve the principle of transparency, a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) and many others, and we must uphold the principle of independent oversight. I gently say to my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) that nobody wants to overturn that, and nor should we.

[Mr Jenkin]

Will the right hon. Gentleman comment on the fact that IPSA has said it is not going to publish invoices and evidence of payment? Does he agree that it is slightly illogical to have a system based on transparency and evidence of payment if we do not then publish the evidence of payment, and that that recalls how we got into this mess in the first place?

[Hilary Benn]

I would make two points. First, an independent body is now looking at those receipts and making a judgment about whether they come within the purview of the rules, which is very different from what happened before. Secondly, there is a balance to be struck between the cost of publishing receipts—it would be very expensive—and total transparency. Since one of the themes of our debate has been the cost of IPSA as a whole, in offering a view, the House will, in the end, have to say to IPSA, “How do we wish to balance that?”

[Mr Bacon]

The right hon. Gentleman says there is a balance to be struck between cost and transparency, but in fact the reverse could be the case: total transparency through the right kind of card payment-based, web-based instant publishing system could be cheaper as well as more transparent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn]

I think there is a lot in what the hon. Gentleman says. This debate has produced many ideas and suggestions, and I hope IPSA will take them on board in deciding how the system might be changed.

We must also take into account that setting up IPSA was a very big task. We all acknowledge that there were bound to be teething problems, and hon. Members should recognise that a lot of hard work in a very short space of time has gone into establishing the organisation. I, for one, would simply want to say that in my experience all the IPSA staff I have met—I have visited the offices—and all the IPSA staff to whom I have spoken on the phone have been unfailingly helpful in trying to assist. The problem that brings us here today is clearly not the staff; it is the system itself—how it was designed and the ways in which it does not work.

If we ask Members, “Do you think IPSA is helping you to do your job,” which ought to be the real test, the clear answer we get—we have heard it today—is, “No, it is not.” It also seems that Members are not entirely sure that IPSA fully understands the work we do as Members of Parliament.

[Mr Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

Members such as the saintly hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) have allowed the impression to be put about that expenses are, somehow, some sort of perk. In fact they are what we need in order to do our job. Before I entered the House, I worked for months, or years, with “Newsnight”, “World in Action”, “Panorama”, The Sunday Times and ITN, and what amazed me on arriving here was how many things that I needed to do my job had to be paid for from my own pocket, which was never the case when I worked in the media. I cannot think of any organisation that regularly expects one subset of its members to spend seven or eight hours at home every night on this issue. It is extraordinary.

[Hilary Benn]

The salaries of the staff who support us in our work are not by any reasonable definition an expense. In fairness to my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw, I do not think he was making that argument; that is an interpretation that others have sought to put on what has been said.

A number of issues have been identified both in this afternoon’s debate and elsewhere. The first is the expense of the whole system because of its complexity, the multiple checking, and the transaction cost to IPSA and Members of Parliament in trying to make it work. The second is the sheer amount of time it takes, in part because compared with the old system a lot of the inputting of data has been outsourced to Members of Parliament and their staff. The time taken in collecting, checking, clarifying, going online, copying and posting and so forth means MPs and their staff are spending too much time doing accounts, rather than holding the Government of the day—of whatever party—to account, which is what we are elected to this House to do. We know that some MPs do not claim back legitimate expenses because they are afraid of getting it wrong or because of the time it will take. Some also say they get contradictory advice, in that a claim might be accepted one week but not the next.

The third problem was the assumption at the beginning—we must all acknowledge that this is changing—that all MPs had a bottomless private pocket out of which they could pay bills before claiming the money back. They do not. Some people are still owed money, others have been overdrawn, and we should recognise that the situation is particularly difficult for new Members, who have additional costs because they are establishing offices for the first time.

Every one of us dislikes intensely the fact that the money is forced to go through our personal bank accounts. It should not, and that is another reason why the system has to change. The point has been made forcefully that we know of no other workplace where one would tell an employee—although we are not employees—to pay the rent or the photocopier bill out of their own resources, and then pay them back. That is why direct payment has to be the way forward.

The fourth problem is that the budgets set do not reflect in all cases the commitments that MPs already have, the work loads in their offices or the higher cost of renting offices in some parts of the country, some cities and some towns. One practical and simple step to help MPs would be to allow virement between the staffing, office rent and office costs budgets, because that would allow Members to make that judgment. The overall budget level needs to be looked at, because adding the 10% pension contribution has created a real problem. The argument was, “We have taken some other expenses out,” but I do not know many Members who claim them.

MPs who have been worried that they cannot meet their commitments to staff—the number of hours and so on—have been told that they can approach the contingencies fund. I hope that IPSA will in all cases, therefore, meet those costs out of contingencies, because that problem needs to be addressed.

We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) about the difficulties of trying to obtain paternity leave, and I know of problems with maternity leave, too. I echo what my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) said about consulting staff and the unions. We should recognise the enormous contribution that our staff make in supporting us and in doing a job on behalf of our constituents.

Fifthly, we have heard about the impact on family life. The fundamental truth is that MPs have to live and work in two separate places, and we should not make it difficult for MPs, their partners or their children to do so. On the problem that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Tony Lloyd) raised, the current rules are utterly inconsistent, because they only partly acknowledge family life, paying for some things but not others.

Sixthly, there are the problems that arise because of the definition of London. We have already heard some of those cases, including the commuting distance at unsocial hours because of the unpredictability of House business. That needs looking at.

There is also the problem of what is known as extended travel, including by Opposition Front Benchers, which is an issue for us now, given the outcome of the election. The Opposition get Short money to help meet the costs of research and support, as the current majority governing party got over the previous 13 years. In addition, the Fees Office used to pay extended travel for Opposition Front Benchers and others, but when IPSA arrived it said, “No, we’re not going to pay that any more.” That prevents Opposition Front Benchers from doing their job, travelling the country to talk to people, listen and bring that experience and voice back to the House.

Another point, which affects all hon. Members, is that if we look at the IPSA rules on extended travel, we get the impression that it sees us only as constituency MPs. That is incredibly important, because we are also parliamentarians, and, if a matter in which we have an interest comes before the House, the ability to travel to gain knowledge and understanding—to listen, which is what we need to do as Members—is important. It is important that IPSA changes that interpretation. I have written to the chief executive to make that point.

I shall make three other points in conclusion. First, one difficulty we are grappling with is that each MP is different, a point that has been forcefully made. The way in which we work is different, and a system that does not reflect that is a system that is not working. Secondly, all that has an impact on people who have become MPs or might be thinking of doing so, a point that the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) made more eloquently than I can.

A battle was fought—the Osborne judgment has been referred to—and winning that £400 a year payment was a big step forward, so we should not go backwards now. We should remember that 19 years earlier Keir Hardie arrived in the House. As hon. Members will know, when he was spied and people looked at his clothes, they said, “Are you working on the roof?”, and he replied, “No, I’m working on the Floor.” We must not go back to the time when how much money we had determined whether we could undertake this job.

Thirdly, to be perfectly honest, I wish that we did not have to spend time debating what should be straightforward in any job, which is having the means to do the job. The fact that we are tells us that there is a problem that needs to be sorted out. That is why the review that IPSA is undertaking is an opportunity, just as this debate has been an opportunity for hon. Members to send a clear message.

I end by welcoming the fact that the chief executive, Andrew McDonald, has shown a willingness to engage in discussion about how things can change. I am confident that we can get change, but it needs to be the right change and it needs to happen soon.