Free School Meals: Children with SEND

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing this important debate.

The reason I want to speak is very simple, and I will be brief. My constituent Emma Knops contacted me because her children suffer from coeliac disease, are dairy and soy-intolerant and have sensory processing difficulties. The issue here seems to me an incredibly straightforward one: the law says one thing and the guidance says another. The Government have a choice: they can change the law or they can change the guidance. It seems to me that there is no desire to change the law; they must therefore change the guidance.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Monday 6th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I take the hon. Lady’s point. It is important that we work with schools—and indeed parents —to ensure that they get all the benefits and support to which they are entitled. I assure her that work is under way to ensure that children and schools are not underfunded, and are receiving what they should receive.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Page 50 of the Conservative party manifesto says:

“We will replace the unfair and ineffective inclusivity rules that prevent the establishment of new Roman Catholic schools”.

It did not promise an interminable review. When will my right hon. Friend implement Conservative policy?

[Justine Greening]

I am not sure whether my hon. Friend responded to that review, but we certainly had a number of responses. We are looking through them carefully and I will update the House in due course.

Schools that work for Everyone

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Lady may have misunderstood the proposal. We are saying that if universities want to be able to charge higher fees, they will need to play a stronger role in raising attainment in the system more broadly—alongside the work that they already do with bursaries. We have seen that that works effectively in some cases and want to roll it out more widely.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that academic excellence is a good in and of itself, and therefore that something that is academically the best is worth having and that everything else around it is fundamentally secondary? I also congratulate her on opening up faith schools. That will be particularly welcomed by the Catholic Church, which has a fantastic record on faith schools in some of the most disadvantaged and diverse communities.

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The rule was ineffective and prevented Catholic faith schools from feeling that they could open under the free schools system. It is sensible to consider how we replace it with a set of rules that will work more effectively. From the reaction of the Opposition to my hon. Friend’s points on academic rigour and ability, it is clear that a class war is still under way—it is raging in the Labour party.

Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Friday 20th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I will not delay the House for too long, lest I be perceived as the Mini-Me to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). I was arguing that the Bill puts those of us who feel passionately about first aid and its importance to all of us as citizens, parents and Members of Parliament in an invidious position. The heart agrees that this must be taken forward and given greater prominence, and those engaged in it given greater support, whether by Government, councils, school or any voluntary groups involved, but I am not at all convinced that the current Bill is the answer.

As I said before the urgent questions, I have consulted my local headteachers. I will not reprise what I said earlier, other than to say that in each of those conversations a range of interesting and valuable ways in which first aid and CPR can be furthered was put forward. One school has a first aid-themed day and asks pupils to go in voluntarily on a Saturday to do first aid training. Teachers nobly agree to come in and man the school for that day. St John Ambulance comes in and assists.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an important point. What people do voluntarily they do with more enthusiasm than that which they are ordered to do by the state. Is it not right therefore that that is a better model?

[Robert Jenrick]

I agree wholeheartedly. Not only do the people who engage in these activities when inspired to do that voluntarily do so with greater appetite than if they were compulsory, but when it is not mandated in a prescriptive manner in the national curriculum, there is far more opportunity for teachers and community groups to blossom and come up with interesting and innovative ideas, rather than following tired templates.

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[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend may be better informed than I, but I believe that that is done in Germany and some other countries around the world. Such policies may be good ones. They may be things to consider. However, I do not think that the national curriculum is necessarily the lever to use to pursue this because, as I say, none of the headteachers wants that. They want to continue to do the training in their own—in my experience—innovative and local manner. They also want to work with local groups. As I said earlier, there are some superb ones in my constituency. I am sure that every hon. Member has such groups in their constituency. It is those groups I want to see given greater support, whether by councils, the Government or any other organisation, so that they can continue to blossom and flourish.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Following on from what my hon. Friend has been saying, does he agree that this is actually a very bureaucratic response requiring lots of guidance from the Secretary of State? It is back to the bad old days of schools being lumbered with endless instructions and directives from Whitehall.

[Robert Jenrick]

I quite agree. I wonder whether some of those positive and innovative examples that I mentioned earlier, such as the school in Sutton Coldfield that offers such training on a voluntary basis and sees vast numbers of students take it up, the prefect programme and the weekend activity programme, would have happened if there were a simple prescriptive national curriculum approach to the problem.

The final issue I want to discuss is the fear of the tick-box culture, and this crosses over to other issues. It is one of the most corrosive aspects of our society, whether it is in education, financial services or any other form of regulation. So many professionals, when faced with a box to be ticked, do the bare minimum, rather than seeking to do the best or to offer the most innovative answer. I fear that the vague nature of this Bill, which allows maximum flexibility to our schools—which may appear ostensibly positive—in fact will not ensure that quality prevails. If those groups that I have seen in my constituency provide extremely high-quality CPR and first aid, and I am sure they do, I want to see that continue and be made available to young people, not eroded by the need of some schools—although I am certain it would be a minority—to pursue a tick-box culture.

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[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

I am pleased to be able to contribute to this important debate and would like to start by thanking the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) on taking this Bill forward.

Every year some 30,000 people in the UK have cardiac arrests outside of a hospital or associated care setting, but, at present, fewer than one in 10 of them survive. With a current ambulance target response time of eight minutes, time is of the essence, so acting quickly is essential because for every minute that passes in which immediate CPR is not given, the survival chance falls by 10%. However, if immediate CPR action is taken, the chances of survival rise threefold. Furthermore, it is estimated that 150,000 people die every single year in situations where their life could potentially have been saved if someone with an understanding of first aid was on hand to act quickly.

We will all have our own experiences of family and friends who have had accidents or fallen into difficulty and required urgent first aid. Very recently, a close friend of mine collapsed while playing sport. Thankfully, there were qualified professionals close at hand to assist and my friend now continues to make a recovery. However, such was the seriousness of the situation that it could have been very different if medical assistance had not been on hand. Many people, however, are not so fortunate. Thousands of lives are lost every single year because people do not have the knowledge or the confidence to intervene in such circumstances.

The Bill, of course, is about equipping our young people with the range of emergency life-support skills that are needed to keep somebody alive in such circumstances until professional help arrives. Depending upon the situation, the range of skills and knowledge which such training could provide may well prove to be the difference at a time of a cardiac arrest or a serious accident, when every second counts.

We all appreciate the importance of ensuring that as many people as possible are adequately equipped to assist in such situations, should they be required to do so. Indeed, I wholeheartedly agree with those hon. Members who have suggested that this process needs to start in schools to ensure that all of our young people are taught the life-saving skills that will remain with them through the rest of their lives. Ultimately, the question becomes: how do we encourage schools to teach these vital skills to our young people?

Earlier this year in the last parliamentary Session, the Education Committee, of which I was a member at the time, published a report regarding the teaching of PSHE in schools. PSHE covers a wide programme of learning through which our young people acquire the knowledge, understanding and skills they need to manage their daily lives. Among the various topics taught in our schools as part of this broad subject area is life-saving skills, which include CPR and more general first aid training. While it is up to individual schools to determine how they deliver PSHE, the Committee’s report makes it clear that this is an important part of the curriculum and that the Government should take various steps to improve the quality of provision in schools.

The final recommendations from the Committee cited a number of key steps that are required to improve the quality of PSHE in schools. These included formally measuring the quality of provision, incentivising schools to improve the way in which they deliver PSHE, and the need to ensure that appropriate curriculum time is devoted to the subject.

I was pleased to see that the Government welcomed the report’s findings when they set out their initial response in July on improving the quality of that education in schools. They made it clear that they want all schools to put high-quality PSHE at the heart of the curriculum. In March, before formally responding to the Committee’s recommendations, the Secretary of State announced new measures to improve the quality of PSHE, including the development of a new, rigorous PSHE quality mark and working with the PSHE Association to help them to quality-assure resources. The new PSHE quality mark will be brought in line with similar accreditations of this type that require schools to provide evidence of the depth and quality of their teaching in a particular area. That includes first aid training.

As part of the Government’s initial response to the report in July, they stated that they will work with Ofsted on how best to capture evidence of the quality of PSHE education in schools. They also acknowledged the importance of schools publishing the relevant information about their PSHE curriculum on their websites, and they have indicated that they are considering options to further strengthen schools’ compliance with the current requirements.

In the longer term, the Government have now indicated that they want to go further and that they will work with the sector to develop further measures to improve quality. Indeed, the Secretary of State made it clear that she wanted to make significant progress on this issue during this Parliament and would consider in full the arguments put forward by the Committee as part of that work to ensure that PSHE is taught well in every school. I have alluded to the Committee’s report, and to the assurances that have been provided by the Secretary of State in response to it, in order to make clear the Government’s commitment to enhancing this education, of which life-saving skills are an integral part.

Along with other hon. Members, I look forward to seeing what steps the Secretary of State will take further to improve the quality of PSHE education in schools, but I am somewhat reassured by her commitment to take this work forward throughout the duration of this Parliament. Given the Government’s commitment to improving this provision, the delivery of first aid training and its role within the wider subject area may well be part of the Secretary of State’s report. It might therefore be somewhat premature to consider the question of first aid training in schools while we are still awaiting her report on the wider subject area, of which first aid forms an integral part.

According to research by St John Ambulance and the British Red Cross, only 7% of the UK population have the skills and the confidence to carry out basic first aid in an emergency. We all agree that starting early and providing training in schools is absolutely key to changing that situation in the longer term, but we must not forget the need to raise awareness of the issue throughout the wider community as well. Indeed, even if the Bill were approved, it would take many years to improve the degree to which life-saving skills were common among the general population. Surely we need to start now by raising the profile of this issue, and not only in schools.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is making the crucial point that people might have had first aid training at school, but many of them will have left school quite a long time ago. What efforts does he think could be made, without resorting to heavy-handed legislation, to encourage people to renew those skills?

[Craig Whittaker]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I myself have been on retraining courses over the years since I left school—although, as hon. Members can see, that was not so many years ago. [Laughter.]

As I was saying, surely we need to start now by raising the profile of this issue, not only in schools but in all parts of society from the workplace to voluntary clubs and places of worship. A number of organisations, including the British Heart Foundation, the British Red Cross and St John Ambulance, already work with thousands of people up and down the country to provide these skills and raise awareness of this issue. Those three organisations in particular work with a plethora of voluntary groups and organisations across my constituency, and I am sure that all Members will join me in paying tribute to the work that they do throughout the United Kingdom.

However, we have a long way to go in complementing the work of these charities and working alongside them to raise awareness of these issues and to further promote first aid training among the wider adult population. As MPs, we have a role to play. During a Westminster Hall debate earlier this year, my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) revealed that she had written to all her local schools and colleges about installing defibrillators. Today, other Members have talked about doing that. I recall my hon. Friend saying that a number of schools had subsequently taken her up on that offer as a result. Along with our local councillors, we can have a role in working alongside schools, local authorities, community groups and voluntary organisations to encourage them to consider the provision of first aid training. Following the example set by my hon. Friend, I have written to all my schools within the Calder Valley—and I will do so again—to raise awareness of these issues.

I am pleased that a number of hon. Members have mentioned the availability of defibrillators. While their presence on their own is clearly not enough, particularly in the absence of adequate training, they are an important part of the jigsaw puzzle. My own local authority, Calderdale, has taken steps to increase the number of defibs in public buildings and in places that experience high footfall. This has been an important and welcome first step. Local authorities have a key role to play and it is important that they take these issues seriously and consider how they can work with schools and other stakeholders to promote the wider availability of defibs throughout the community.

We have heard harrowing statistics and personal stories from hon. Members which speak for themselves. We all agree on the need to ensure that more people are first aid trained, and the arguments in favour of providing training in schools have been accepted by all. I commend the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead for introducing the Bill and for allowing us this opportunity to discuss, and raise awareness of, these important issues.

Many schools already teach CPR and more general first aid training as part of their delivery of the PSHE curriculum, and the question is whether that should be prescribed in law as outlined by the Bill. The Government have accepted the concerns about how PSHE has been delivered in the past, and they have made it quite clear that they are committed to working with the sector to develop further measures to improve the quality of PSHE in schools. Indeed, the Secretary of State has indicated that she wants to make significant progress on this issue during the course of this Parliament. To approve legislation relating to first aid training in schools before the Secretary of State has reported back on her development plan for the teaching of the subject area of which this forms a constituent part is, I feel, somewhat premature.

It is up to individual schools to determine how they deliver PSHE. I am pleased that the Government are looking closely at provision in this area with a view to raising standards, but it is important that schools retain the ultimate right to deliver the curriculum in the best way they see fit. It is the professionals, our teachers and headteachers, who are best placed to decide what is most suitable for their students, and they need the flexibility to deliver PSHE, including CPR and first aid training, in a way that is appropriate for their school environment.

The national curriculum creates a minimum expectation for the school programme. Indeed, it does not seek to prescribe everything that a school should teach, but rather, creates a structure and a framework around which the professionals working in a school environment can tailor a programme that works best for their students. We must also remember that schools do not have a monopoly on the provision of education to our children. Parents, grandparents and voluntary groups outside the formal school environment have just as important a role to play.

Let me return to the Education Committee’s report of earlier this year, which recommended putting CPR and first aid on a statutory footing in the curriculum. What Members who served on that Committee have not mentioned is that we stopped short of recommending that that should be done provided we extended the school day. There is a real risk here in terms of a plethora of high-profile issues. I recall discussing the curriculum in 2011, when there were high-profile campaigns for a number of things, such as PSHE, life skills, road safety, financial literacy, advanced technology and even Latin.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend has suggested something that would break my rule of not legislating for specific subjects; to have Latin on the curriculum must be an advantage.

[Craig Whittaker]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I recall that when I was at school—that very short time ago—Latin was not my most favourite of subjects. Some people would say neither was English, but there we go.

The Government have been called on to include many similar subjects in the national curriculum. Simply having this long and overly prescriptive list of compulsory subjects that must be taught could easily lead to a tick-box exercise, as has been said, and to schools being prevented from focusing on what is important for their pupils and their communities. Schools should be encouraged to, and supported in, teaching vital skills such as first aid, but forcing them to do so in law may not be the best way to achieve the outcomes we all desire, unless we have a serious think about extending the school day.

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[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), who knows I have a high regard for him, even though he did not give way to me during his speech. He said that the Bill has strong cross-party support and he talked about the will of the House, which presumably will mean that 100 MPs out of the 650 will be here—it is not a great total to reach—to vote for it today. I am sure that if those 100 MPs are here, it will go through. That is a matter of fact, so if 100 MPs troop through the Lobby, that will be the will of the House and that will be it. We will see just how much cross-party support the Bill actually has, rather than what he asserts.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

In looking for these 100 MPs, how many does my hon. Friend see on the Opposition Benches currently?

[Philip Davies]

I see four, but I am not going to get sidetracked on to the number of people on the Benches, as I am sure you want us to get into the meat of the debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. You know how anxious I always am to get cracking into the meat of the debate, and I am not going to disappoint you any longer.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) on introducing this Bill. It may have strong cross-party support, but it certainly does not have mine.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is congratulating the hon. Lady, but he has not yet congratulated the Chairman of Ways and Means, who conducts the draw. It has become something of a tradition to congratulate him on the way in which he does the draw.

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[Philip Davies]

I am not capable of conducting this in Latin, Mr Deputy Speaker—some would say I am not able to conduct it in English. I am getting sidetracked again by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), and I hope you appreciate that it is certainly not of my doing.

The flavour of most private Members’ Bills that come before the House is that they are backed by a worthy sentiment, but are not really fit for purpose when given any great scrutiny. I fear that we are in that situation today. What we have been offered by a number of Members is what we normally get in this place on private Members’ Bills, which is a painless panacea. Politicians will always offer a painless panacea. With this Bill, I have heard that we can save lives, save money, save time and save absolutely anything. It has been said that there are no concerns and no downsides to this Bill, which will stipulate that it is compulsory for schools to provide first aid education. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), I have spoken to the schools in my constituency, and I wish to share some of the feedback that they have given to me.

If this Bill is so easy for schools to implement—it is said that it will save time, save money and save lives—then there is absolutely nothing to stop them introducing first aid courses now as part of the existing curriculum. We have heard that already today, and we have heard that many schools already do that. Why on earth would we need to make compulsory something that is so wonderful and that has no downsides? Surely we can just sit back and wait for every school to implement it themselves.

One thing I always say is that we should trust the people who are doing things every day. They tend to be the ones who know the best about what goes on and what works. When I worked for Asda, I found that it was the checkout operators who were the best people to ask about what was going wrong or right in the store, because they saw it every day with their own eyes. I certainly believe in trusting the professionals. My father was a teacher for that matter, so I am all for trusting teachers to get on and do their job. I do not really want the Government to be sticking their nose in at every single turn, trying to lecture them every five minutes about what they should be doing when they are perfectly capable of making those decisions for themselves.

If we think that we have recruited the right people to be teachers, then we have absolutely nothing to fear from leaving them to get on and do their job. If we feel that we have recruited the wrong teachers and that we need to lecture them every five minutes about what they should be doing, the problem is in the recruitment process. We should not need to look over their shoulder all the time, telling them what they should and should not be doing. I fear that we have made that particular mistake with this Bill.

I should make something very clear now, because, doubtless, Opposition Members will try to misconstrue my remarks. First aid, as everyone has acknowledged, is a very important life skill. I encourage as many people as possible to learn that skill. I am, and remain, a supporter of first aid, and certainly do not think that it is unimportant. I do not want to prevent anybody from learning first aid if they wish to learn it. I want people to have that opportunity.

Every year, there are 5.5 million attendees at A&E departments, 3 million of whom have the types of accident and injury that first aid treatment could have helped. For example, there are about 2,600 open wound injuries, 2,400 bone injuries, about 40 incidents of choking and more than 290 injuries from burns. Every year, about 66,000 die from heart attacks and seizures. They are all compelling statistics that endorse the increased use of first aid within society. Indeed, those statistics seem a valuable reason to encourage more members of society to learn first aid, but they do not in themselves justify the reason why first aid should become compulsory in the school curriculum, and that is what I wish to focus on today.

This Bill is not starting out from here. In the previous Parliament, Julie Hilling, the former Member for Bolton West, introduced a very similar Bill as a ten-minute rule Bill, which provided amendments to the Education Act 2002. She also brought in an amendment during the Committee stage of the Education Bill to make provision for teaching emergency life support skills in the national curriculum. The response of the then Minister for Schools, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), highlighted some of the same reservations that should be drawn to this debate today. He said:

“I agree that emergency life support skills can have an immensely positive impact on pupils’ families as well as schools and the wider community. It is encouraging to hear about the excellent work in schools…I am also aware of the invaluable support that organisations such as the British Heart Foundation and St John Ambulance offer individual schools or groups of schools to enrich curriculum work. I applaud them for their important work, but I do not agree that making emergency life support skills a statutory part of the curriculum is the right approach.”

I absolutely endorse what he said. He went on to say:

“We are clear that the national curriculum should set out the essential knowledge and understanding that all children should be expected to acquire in the course of their school lives. It is for teachers to design the wider curriculum in the way that meets the needs of their pupils, taking account of the views of parents, the wider community and local circumstances.”––[Official Report, Education Public Bill Committee, 5 April 2011; c. 990.]

That is the nub of my argument today. It should be a schools’ prerogative to incorporate extra-curricular activities, such as first aid education, into the school calendar, and they should not be forced to substitute other lessons to fit them in. That has been confirmed more recently—

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is saying, and I agree with him, that it should be for schools to decide. Does he think that it should be a voluntary activity for the pupils, or is he suggesting that they should be compelled to participate?

[Philip Davies]

It absolutely should be a voluntary thing. I was struck by my hon. Friend’s earlier intervention when he said that people who volunteer for things tend to enter into them with much more gusto than if they are compelled to be there. That is self-evidently the case. I do not see why that should not be the case for the teaching of first aid as well.

I should say that when the Government were pressed on this matter by Bob Russell, the former Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, the Secretary of State made it clear that her Department was prepared to help schools teach life-saving skills more generally if that was what schools wanted—again, that is very laudable. She also made it clear that the Government had negotiated a contract so that schools could obtain defibrillators at reasonable rates and train their pupils in the use of them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I do not know. Schools would presumably have to muddle through as best they can to meet the requirements of the Bill. I am sure teachers are very good at chopping and changing and muddling through.

As I made clear at the start of my speech, I have contacted all the schools in my constituency and got feedback from some of them. One of them had a “requires improvement” judgment in February 2014, and one reason was that the students’ achievement in both maths and English has not been good enough since 2012. The priority for the school and its leadership team is not to expand the curriculum to make us all feel better about ourselves because we are fulfilling a worthy sentiment; the teachers are working incredibly hard to ensure that their pupils leave as young adults who are equipped with the right level of maths and English to set them up for the future. That is the first priority of our schooling system in this country. We should not sit here and think everything is hunky-dory in all our schools; it is not. Those teachers want help do that difficult job, dealing with some difficult pupils, but the Bill does not give them that support.

The National Literacy Trust states:

“Around 16 per cent, or 5.2 million adults in England, can be described as ‘functionally illiterate’. They would not pass an English GCSE and have literacy levels at or below those expected of an 11-year-old.”

That is a serious problem, which schools should be addressing. The importance of that form of education, which is what parents expect when they send their children to school, cannot be overestimated.

As we have heard from various Members, many people learn their first aid skills with the guides or the scouts. The nub of one of my arguments is that children do not need to learn first aid at school, as there are many organisations and clubs which teach it, including St John Ambulance and the Red Cross. The first aid badge is one of the most important badges that people can get in those organisations. Individuals must show a thorough range of first aid knowledge before they are entitled to the badge. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) referred to the pride that people take in displaying their badge on their uniform when they have earned it through those sessions. The guides first aid badge is valid for only two years, at which point they are required to take the test again in order to keep the badge up to date.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is making such an important point. When things are done well by the voluntary sector, is it always necessary for the state to come in in a heavy-handed way, get rid of all the good work that is being done by others, and impose its own solution? Is it not better to encourage voluntary activity to flourish?

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is right.

It is clear from what happens at the guides that first aid skills need to be updated My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall touched on this in an intervention. The guides do it every two years. For it to mean anything at all, schools will have to teach first aid every two or three years, which will mean even more time out of the curriculum. I remember doing a first aid course at school, but I have to admit that if I were faced with a medical emergency, I would struggle to remember all the training I received. In that sense it would be rendered completely useless. That would apply to many of those who would go through first aid training at school, particularly if they were not paying attention because they did not want to be there in the first place.

We in this place would be far better advised to encourage young people to go out and join the guides or the scouts, or to do the Duke of Edinburgh’s award—the bronze, the silver and the gold. That would be a very worthwhile thing for them to do, and as part of that they would get all the emergency first aid training they would ever need. That would be a much more worthwhile message for us to send out—

EU Merger Control

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2015 General Committees

[Nick Boles]

Certainly, we have not suggested that in our response to the White Paper, and I do not believe that it is a position that we would want actively to promote, but if the hon. Lady wants to make representations to me or to the Government generally on the issue, I will be happy to consider them.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson, for, I think, the first time in one of these European scrutiny Committees, of which I have had much experience over the past six years. My hon. Friend the Minister has missed a great treat in not being able to come to more of them. I want to ask about his letter of 21 July 2015, in which he states:

“If a proposal does emerge from the White Paper, we think Articles 103 and 352 TFEU provide the likely legal base”.

If it is article 352, that requires an Act of Parliament to be brought into effect, as indeed is being debated at the moment, so I wonder whether he can give us an assurance that if the minority shareholder requirements remain, the Government will not give their consent, which will be fatal to the EU’s proposal.

[Nick Boles]

That was a long question, and I am happy to give a short answer: yes, I can give my hon. Friend that assurance.

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[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Unusually in a European debate, I merely wish to provide paeans of praise for Her Majesty’s Government, who are doing things absolutely correctly. My hon. Friend the Minister will know that paeans of praise were sung to the god Apollo by the priestesses of Delphi; I am therefore putting myself in the role of the priestesses. [Laughter.] I am putting the Minister in the role of Apollo, which I hope he appreciates.

My purpose, of course, is to encourage the Government to remain robust. In the White Paper, the EU—the Commission—says that it currently does not have the powers to deal with the minority shareholders issue. It refers to articles 101 and 102 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, and says that they are not sufficient.

As Opposition Members, particularly the hon. Member for Luton North, will be only too well aware from discussions in the European Scrutiny Committee, the legal base issue comes back again and again. The EU, or the Commission, is quite good at saying at an early stage that it is not quite sure which legal base it will use and that it may not be certain of its legal base. Then it finds that there is a legal base that it can use under qualified majority voting rather than unanimity, and almost invariably finds that the Court of Justice of the European Union supports it.

Therefore, I was particularly pleased with my hon. Friend the Minister’s answer in relation to his letter, because article 352 is the catch-all provision that allows things to happen that are necessary to help the European Union to carry out its business but which are subject to unanimity. That gives the Government an absolute veto on this issue—indeed, it gives the House of Commons an absolute veto on this issue, if necessary. It is important that that is not given away in horse-trading around other issues. The Government’s response to the White Paper—in the name of the Minister’s predecessor, Jo Swinson—is very powerful in explaining why we should not be doing this; the Minister referred to the question of proportionality.

However, the statement, on page 36 of today’s bundle, is quite strong. It says that the proposal is

“unnecessary, highly burdensome and disproportionate.”

The proposal really is something that would be damaging to our merger regime, and it is worth bearing in mind that what it aims to address never actually happens. The paper says:

“Notification of minority shareholdings under the UK merger regime is rare and in the more than four decades that merger control in the UK has covered acquiring ‘material influence’ over another business only two cases have ever been referred for second stage investigation.”

Many people will remember those two cases: the BSkyB-ITV issue and the Ryanair-Aer Lingus one. The proposal by the EU may lead to many more notifications, not least on precautionary grounds, than the Commission seems to envisage.

That is an important point. Anyone in business will notify in respect of a regulation that they might get tripped up by, just in case; in that way, they are exempt from all the significant possible penalties and it is up to the regulator to look at the issue. That leads to lots of unnecessary but burdensome reporting by businesses, which, in the end, is more than the regulator can cope with. The existing system has worked so far. The Ryanair-Aer Lingus case covered two EU member states and was dealt with effectively by the UK competition authorities, which used its authority as a domestic regulator to require Ryanair to sell its stake in Aer Lingus.

We have a situation where things currently work, where the EU has no jurisdiction and where the proposals from the European Commission would be bureaucratic. That brings me back to a point alluded to by my hon. Friend the Minister about the EU looking to extend its powers. As he rightly said, there is a small note at the end of the White Paper:

“However, as set out above, there is room to further improve EU merger control.”

There is a little superscript “47” indicating that there is a footnote, which seems to me to be a classic of the EU ratchet:

“The scope chosen for this White Paper is without prejudice to additional evaluations of other important aspects of EU merger control by the Commission.”

There we have it! The Commission says, “We’re not going to do very much now, and the first bit we are going to do is actually very sensible.” No one can disagree with it. It is very mild and modest; even someone like me will happily go along with it. Then there is another bit, which is a bit more contentious and risky for the Commission given that it does not have the legal power, and then that lovely little footnote says that there might be more coming along a little later.

That is why I am so pleased with the Minister’s exceptionally robust and clear answer. It might be his first visit to a European Committee, but it has been a model of how such things should be done. We actually got an answer to a question, which is highly unusual and will probably get him into all sorts of trouble with Downing Street. I commend the Minister for his forthright answer, the position he has taken and the alertness he is showing.

Trade Union Bill

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

That is exactly the point I am coming on to.

When old mandates are used, it is not fair on union members. As my hon. Friend said, a two-year-old mandate is unlikely to reflect the latest negotiations and would fail to reflect changes in the workforce. To ensure that any industrial action is based on a current mandate from current members, the Bill provides a four-month validity period after a ballot result is announced.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Is my right hon. Friend not showing with this legislation, once again, that the Conservative Government are standing up for people who want to work and against bullies who want to stop them? That is what fundamentally underlies his approach?

[Sajid Javid]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting how the Bill protects the rights of working people across the country when they are affected by strike action that has no proper mandate.

Consumer Rights Bill (Carry-Over Extension)

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

I am quite aware of that, and I apologise for digressing into areas that are beyond the scope of the Bill.

The central point is that this Government have not been able to programme their Bills properly during this Parliament. Depending on where this Bill gets to in the stack of Bills in the other place, it could end up in the wash-up. If Lord Moynihan presses these matters to a vote again, as he said on the radio this morning that he would, we shall have ping-pong and this Bill and others could end up either being filleted or in a ping-pong session. That could result in important legislation not being put forward. The use of this Standing Order shows that the Government have failed in one of their basic tasks—that of timetabling their legislation in this House. It is an indictment of the incompetent and arrogant way in which they have acted.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Does not this show precisely the reverse? Does not it show the ambition and forthrightness of the Government in having such a busy programme, even at the end of five years, that they need an extra 67 days? That dynamism is something of which the Government should be proud.

[Mr Jones]

I am glad I have woken the hon. Gentleman from his slumbers. In fact, the opposite is the case. The Government have had a year in which to get the Bill through, yet they have had to argue for an extension to finish the process for this and other legislation. They cannot hide behind the argument that there has not been enough time to consider the Bill; there has been plenty of time. This Government have an inbuilt practice of trying to get Bills through the House as quickly as possible, which is why they have ended up with a logjam in the other place. That is not good for this House, because the Bills do not receive proper scrutiny. This House should be the place in which amendments are tabled and discussed.

During this Parliament, we have seen some very badly drafted Bills. They have not only needed amendment in the other place but come back to this House, at which point the Government themselves have had to table reams and reams of amendments. That is about bad drafting of legislation. It says exactly the opposite to what the hon. Gentleman suggests, in that if the Government cannot get it through in a year, that shows either incompetence or, as I said, a strategy whereby they were trying to push everything to the other place so that when they have their in-built majority there they can bang it through as quickly as possible.

That does this House, or how the public see it, no favours. They do not understand the effectiveness of the other place and how it changes Bills. This House should be where amendments are introduced and things are changed. Without that, all we are doing is rubber-stamping the Government’s legislation—that should not be the position. Members should propose amendments and argue against badly drafted legislation and against things they feel strongly about, as on occasion have the hon. Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg).

I think that we will be seeing more of these carry-over motions, which is an indictment of how this Government have been managing legislation. The Procedure Committee needs to look at this practice in order to ensure in future that this House is the body that not only drafts legislation, but ensures that it receives proper scrutiny.

Question put and agreed to.

Recall of MPs Bill

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Commons Chamber

With those few words and few questions, I ask the Minister, at an appropriate time, to respond.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to be serving under your chairmanship in the Chamber, Sir Roger, rather than being hidden away in a dark corner of the House.

I have a very modest amendment to bring forth: amendment 38, which I hope the Committee will consider. All I am doing is changing one word. I am changing the word “maximum” to “minimum”, so I am in fact changing only two letters; I am changing “ax” to “in”, so we are axing “ax” and bringing in “in.” The reason for doing so is because I am a supporter of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith): I think that if we are going to have recall we should do it properly, and if we are going to do it properly we should do it generously, and if we are going to do it generously, it should be easy for people to exercise their right under it.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I know the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) is unable to be here today through illness, but in the argument he was putting forward last week in Committee he championed the fact that people would have to turn up to one place to sign the petition, arguing that that would somehow make it very difficult to achieve the threshold. Is the hon. Member for Richmond Park now saying that that was not the case?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My amendment is supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park, and he kindly added his name to the list; indeed it appears immediately beneath mine on this amendment, so yes, indeed, it does have his support, which I am very grateful for. It is a recognition of the difference between constituencies and the fact that this point is already provided for in other areas of legislation. I listened carefully to what my hon. Friend the Minister said and he made some very important points in saying that there may be discrepancies between one constituency and another and raising the issues of cost.

[Mr Jones]

I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman has not answered my question. The point the hon. Member for Richmond Park was arguing last week was that because people would have to turn up in person to one point—the town hall, for example—his proposed provisions would not often be used. Is the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) now saying that the hon. Member for Richmond Park is arguing we should have multiple centres to make it easier for people to take part in a recall?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman is tempting me to make arguments for somebody who is not here, which is a wonderfully hypothetical approach to be taking. I must make my own arguments for what I believe about this Bill, and my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park will make his arguments when he is here, as he did so eloquently last week in favour of his amendments to the Bill. I must focus on my amendment 38, and its purpose, however. I hope that clarifies the matter, Sir Roger.

I was saying that I completely understood what the Minister was saying on the issues of differentiation between constituencies and cost, but the first point is accepted in all our elections anyway, and is accepted in legislation that this very Government passed. The legislation providing uniform constituencies made exceptions for the very largest geographical areas, because it recognised that it is unreasonable not to make different arrangements for those beyond a certain size. Therefore, when there are thousands and thousands of acres—sometimes into the thousands of square miles—we make different arrangements from those that we have for the much smaller, more compact constituencies.

I do not fully accept the Minister’s point about cost. Clause 18 provides Ministers with considerable powers to make regulations affecting the opening hours of the places where the petition may be signed. The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) has raised this matter in the past. In my view, it would therefore be possible for people to sign the petitions in local post offices during their opening hours. This would involve minimal cost, while giving constituents in the larger geographical areas easier access to the process.

This is important because the difference in size between the constituencies is extreme. I have here a little list, at the top of which is Ross, Skye and Lochaber, whose area is 4,709 square miles. That is a little over 3 million acres, which is three times the size of the county of Somerset. To have only four places in such a vast area would place an unreasonable constraint on people’s ability to exercise the democratic right that we are proud to be giving them. We should be positive about the Bill; it is a good thing to allow constituents to have greater control over their Members of Parliament. Access to the process would be very easy in the smallest constituency, Islington North, which has an area of only 2.8 square miles. Such a constituency would hardly need more than one place, because it would not be too difficult for people to get around, unlike in Ross, Skye and Lochaber.

In my own area, God’s own county of Somerset, my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath)—whom I am happy to see in his place—represents an area of 367 square miles. The constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) is even bigger, with an area of 417 square miles.

[Lady Hermon]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene on his geography lesson, which is very interesting. I know that he will have read the Bill from cover to cover, and he will know that the Minister has confirmed that there will be an option to vote by post or by proxy instead of turning up and signing a petition in person. So why is he campaigning for a minimum of four locations in which people can sign? Should he not be encouraging people to make use of the postal service and to spend money on second-class postage?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I rather agreed with the hon. Lady when she expressed her concern about the difficulties of voting by post. It has become much too easy and is susceptible to high levels of fraud, and I do not believe that that is a problem only in Northern Ireland. It is increasingly a problem in England, and probably in Wales and Scotland as well. We have heard about the problems in Birmingham; my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) has made regular references to them. I would therefore prefer people to be able to go somewhere physically and add their name to a list.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

It is a Daily Mail myth that postal vote fraud is rampant. When the Electoral Commission ran its all-postal-vote pilots in, I think, 2006, it found that there was not widespread fraud, although there were problems in certain communities.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

There are undoubtedly greater difficulties with postal voting. My major concern is that it undermines the secrecy of the ballot. When ballot papers go into people’s homes, they are likely to be seen as a family affair, in contrast to the secrecy involved in going into a corner of a polling station to vote. As I was saying in response to the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon), I believe that it is better for people to turn up to vote in person and that that should be facilitated. That would reduce the need for excessive postal voting.

I shall not go through all the constituencies on my list, but I should point out that my own has an area of 122 square miles, or about 85,000 acres. That is about the maximum area that could conveniently have only four registration places. Such an arrangement would simply be unreasonable in a bigger constituency, such as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome.

There is a broader point to make: the rural areas often get forgotten. There is a polling station in my constituency that is in somebody’s porch. About 85 people go to vote there. There are even smaller polling stations across the country; some have only a couple of dozen electors who are eligible to vote in them. We used to make it easy for people to turn up and vote, and if we are introducing new democratic rights, we ought to make it similarly easy for people to turn up and exercise them.

We should think about the rural areas: they have fewer people, but their democratic rights are just as important as those of people who live in dense urban areas, as the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) so rightly said. There are differences between constituencies, and we recognise them in other ways. In passing, it is worth mentioning the great county of Yorkshire, which has a particularly large number of seats that cover large areas and have small populations. Yorkshire has more acres than there are words in the Bible, if the Apocrypha is excluded, and it is divided into very large geographical constituencies. Again, each of them ought to have more than four places for people to go to. I hope that the Government will listen on this matter, and understand the need for rural populations to exercise their rights as freely, properly and easily as the urban mass population.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I want to comment on amendment 38, which the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) has just spoken to. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), I am generally sympathetic to the idea that having a maximum of four places would be disadvantageous and totally impractical in some large rural constituencies. In the Western Isles, for example, there would have to be a decision about which islands should have such a place. There is a genuine need for the Government to consider that problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Thomas Docherty]

May I first welcome the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) to his place? I understand that yesterday in the south-west he was seen on television but not heard. This evening we have had the benefit of both seeing him and hearing his wisdom. I shall deal first with a number of the points he made before turning my attention to the rest. He talked about minimum versus maximum and explained that he was looking to change only two letters, which perhaps is a new record, even for his minimalist approach. However, I am slightly surprised that he tabled the amendment: I know him to be a great believer in parliamentary process, yet he is seeking to overturn the advice of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. Although we recognise the strength of his argument, we were slightly surprised to see him going against his colleagues.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman will recognise that I take the view that the Chamber is the final and highest authority.

[Thomas Docherty]

I thought the hon. Gentleman took the view that Her Majesty was the final authority; he is obviously becoming a republican in his older age.

We have a great deal of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s argument. He was right to talk about having two constituencies side by side, or indeed one surrounding the other—I think that his constituency completely surrounds that of Bath—and made some valid points about the square mileage and number of hectares in each. We do not necessarily agree that the situation differs for rural and urban constituencies. As the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) pointed out, that would be determined more by public transport links, particularly the provision of bus services.

None the less, we think that the hon. Member for North East Somerset has raised a valid point. For example, we are concerned that Ministers are not at this stage able to give us greater clarity about opening hours, and that relates to a broader point. I refer the House to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee’s report, which set out a concern about the use of Henry VIII powers. That simply means that the Government are seeking to state in primary legislation that all the detail will be covered by secondary legislation, and they have not yet had a chance to set out those provisions.

We are concerned that the Government do not have a clear position on opening hours. There is an argument that opening hours should be from 7 am to 10 pm, as they are in a general election. Equally, however, if the Government are proposing ultimately to use city chambers, town halls and council offices, perhaps it would be unreasonable to require additional opening hours over an eight-week period. My understanding is that central Government would pick up those costs, rather than individual local authorities, so I wonder whether the Minister, if he receives inspiration before having to reply, could say, when the Government worked out the £55,000 cost of running a recall petition, was that based on opening hours of 9 am to 5 pm in up to four locations, or opening hours of 7 am to 10 pm?

The hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) raised an important point about security—if I recall correctly, she made the same point last week during the Committee’s first day of considerations. The Government must accept that clearly more work needs to be done to answer those points. Several hon. Members have made the point, rightly I think, that the Government are yet to set out whether in practice they would use a marked register. If we take the example of having just one location for signing a recall petition—I am conscious that we are in danger of slipping into consideration of clause 18, but this relates to the question of where a petition can be signed—is it the Government’s intention that the petition officer would be sitting with the marked register and would cross off constituents’ names as they sign the petition, or would it not be made available?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

I will have to get back to the hon. Gentleman on that specific point of detail.

In rounding up this debate, I urge my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset not to press his amendment. When establishing an electoral process, the Government believe that we have to ensure that we make it as open as possible. There are many cases where a smaller number of signing places will serve constituents just as well as a large number, but we must not set out in statute expectations of service that could be hard to meet. The flexibility that the Government have built into the Bill following pre-legislative scrutiny provides enough physical locations for signing when people wish to do so in person.

Before I sit down, I want to clarify one point. I said that the MP would not be an MP during the petition process. In actual fact, it is the seat that is vacated if the threshold is reached, but the MP would have to stand in the by-election and win in order to retake their seat. In that sense, the seat would be lost, albeit only temporarily.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

rose—

[The Temporary Chair (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to make a point of order, I will take it, but he knows that once the winding-up speech has been completed no other member will be called. If he wishes to refer to his amendment, I will come to it at the appropriate time, which is not now.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 6 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

[The Temporary Chair]

We now come to amendment 38, which has not been moved, so it is a question of whether any hon. Member who is a signatory to the amendment wishes to move it. You cannot withdraw it, because it has not been moved.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I thought I had moved it in the speech I made earlier.

[The Temporary Chair]

Let me explain, for the benefit of the whole Committee, that only the lead measure, which in this case was clause 6 stand part, is moved. Other amendments and clauses are moved in the order that they are reached, so technically amendment 38 has not been moved, although the hon. Gentleman has spoken to it.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

May I move the amendment with a few words, Sir Roger?

[The Temporary Chair]

No.

Clause 7

Where and from when the recall petition may be signed

Amendment proposed: 38, page 5, line 27, leave out “maximum” and insert “minimum”—(Jacob Rees-Mogg.)

This amendment changes the number of designated places for the signing of a recall petition from a maximum of four to a minimum of four.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Question negatived.

Clause 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 8 to 10 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

Clauses 11 to 13 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 14

Determination of whether recall petition successful

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg]

I do not accept that. However, if the motion were to say that we should review that aspect of the Act, it would have a stronger basis. The motion says that we should repeal the entire Act. I have not heard an argument that persuades me that we should do so.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Twigg]

I will give way one more time but then I need to be able to make my argument.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am very grateful. If the hon. Gentleman accepts that the two thirds majority could be reviewed, is he not accepting that the Act does not work? As soon as it is a normal majority, the Government of the day have the ability to call an election whenever they want.

[Stephen Twigg]

I simply do not accept that, because there is still the provision within the Act for confidence motions on the basis of a simple majority. We are only at the tail-end of the first Parliament in which the Act operates. It makes sense to say, “Let this run its course for this Parliament and the next and then have a review.” That is a sensible way of making constitutional reform.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank my hon. Friend for his point. There were, of course, many other times when Parliament has considered whether we have the right balance for our time. During the era of the American revolutionary war, a Bill for annual Parliaments was moved year after year by a small but committed core of Back-Bench supporters. In response to my hon. Friend, I would say that our debate today continues the fine tradition of probing our constitutional arrangements, and, yes, it is right to continue to probe and to ask the right questions, but he and his colleagues’ concern about the fixed nature of this Parliament is not new in our democracy.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I have a mild disagreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash). I think it is worth recalling that the Septennial Act was introduced because of the cost of elections, particularly the cost of bribing the electors, and it was thought better to have it once every seven years than once every three, to lower the cost to the pockets of Members of Parliament.

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent intervention. Parliament has had this debate several times, and there have been several reasons to alter the length of a Parliament. Sometimes it has been done in the national interest, and sometimes—some would argue—for naked political reasons. The situation that we face today is certainly not an aberration in the history of our democracy.

The genesis of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 raises a number of questions, many of which have been mentioned today, especially by Members on my side of the House. The Act had its genesis in the coalition, which was an historical anomaly. It is therefore important to separate the concept of a fixed-term Parliament and the value that it could have for the British public from the concept of the coalition, although both came together. A single party could have passed the Act if it had had a majority in this Parliament to do so. By the same logic, a single party could repeal it on a simple majority if it so wished. Fixed-term Parliaments are not inextricably bound to the idea of a coalition.

Four years down the line, it is easy for us to forget that when the coalition was formed, words such as “secure and stable government in the national interest” seemed like the punch line to a joke, but this fixed-term Parliament has been able to deliver exactly that for this country. My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset said that democracy should be a wild beast that could rampage around the country. I would hazard a guess that this Parliament has been anything but predictable. It has been unpredictable at every twist and turn. The fact that it has been a fixed-term Parliament has not neutered our democracy; indeed, it could be argued that it has invigorated it in a number of respects.

Canterbury City Council Bill

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

It may well be, and that is my concern. Let us look at what has happened in the past. Their lordships found a lot of evidence that councils were making assertions about the conduct of pedlars that they could not back up with evidence before their lordships’ Committee, so a council might consider something to be sufficient when it is not sufficient, because of that council or its officers having a particular prejudice or taking a cavalier approach.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the Bill would surely be clearer if it did not allow the council discretion. If the council were to err in its use of discretion, that could lead to judicial reviews and all sorts of expenses to the council, so the promoters of these Bills would benefit by accepting his amendments.

[Mr Chope]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for that succinct and, I hope, persuasive—indeed, conclusive—argument in support of my amendments. I hope that our hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey has noted it—although sadly I do not see any messages being passed between him and the people sitting in the officials’ Box on behalf of the promoters of the Bills.

Let me turn to my amendment (e), which would add the following words at the end of subsection (2) of the proposed new clause inserted by Lords amendment C27:

“and shall also be displayed prominently in any designated area.”

It is obviously useful for a motorist visiting a town who is thinking of parking somewhere to know where the parking restrictions apply, and the way to find out is by looking at a notice close to where they intend to park. Similarly, it is quite useful for pedlars intending to peddle their goods in a city or town centre to be able to see on a notice whether a different regime operates there compared with the national regime. That is fundamental to ensuring fair play and justice for visitors to a designated area who are not quite sure whether it is indeed a designated area, and so on. What harm would there be in requiring signs on the circumference of a designated area to make it absolutely clear to any passer-by?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend has given any consideration to the design of such signs and how it might be made clear to people that they are in a peddling or non-peddling zone.

[Mr Chope]

It would be useful if there were distinct signs. Indeed, an enterprising local authority might want to invite local schools to enter a competition to see who could produce the best design for such a sign. I do not think there should necessarily be uniform signs across the country, because that sounds rather bureaucratic and top-down. The most important thing is that the signs should be prominent and clear and not contain a lot of detail—unlike the conditions on the back of one’s new credit card, for example. There need to be relatively few words, prominently displayed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Chope]

Colleagues elected in 2010 have discovered that when they are asked by promoters to sponsor a Bill in this House, it does not mean that they lose all their discretion over it. It is ultimately up to them as Members of Parliament to decide what to accept and what not to accept, and they do not need to be beholden to the officials.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, as I was getting very worried about this constitutional principle. It is surely up to this House and not up to individual promoters or local councils, to decide what passes into law.

[Mr Chope]

Absolutely, and I am sorry if I did not make that clear. There was an occasion—you may remember it, Mr Deputy Speaker—on a different private Bill earlier in this Parliament when one of my hon. Friends felt a certain reluctance to do anything other than what he had been told to do by the promoters. I explained to him that he would be doing the promoters, himself and the House a good service if he showed some flexibility. In fairness to him, he did show such flexibility. That is a good precedent, and I draw it to the attention of my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey in case he was not there at the time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

I absolutely agree. I hope that, in many respects, what their lordships have done will set a precedent and that we will not have to worry so much about some of the worst consequences of such legislation.

A notable omission from my hon. Friend’s speech was the issue of touting, although I appreciate that he was trying to be as brief as possible. If he did mention that and I missed it, I apologise to him. One amendment before us today deals with touting. He did not mention it—[Interruption.] I think it comes later on in our proceedings. It is in the third group, so I will save up my expertise on touting until that time; I apologise for mentioning it now.

The amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch were focused mainly on training. My hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) is my parliamentary neighbour and an excellent Member of Parliament. The only bad thing about having him as my neighbour is that he puts me to shame. He has already successfully steered a private Member’s Bill through Parliament in his short time in the House. He did so with an awful lot of panache and charm, and by being practical and reasonable about what it was sensible to do in order to get that legislation through. I very much hope he will adopt the same strategy now, because he saw how well it worked with his Bill; I hope he will use that experience when considering this legislation, too.

Let us consider the debate we have had so far from a layman’s perspective—from the point of view of people who have no vested interest in the legislation and who have not been going through battles which started six years ago, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch said. People who do not have that baggage and who listened to the argument that my hon. Friend made for his amendments to Lords amendment C27 could not fail to have been persuaded by his case. We started from the position that these Bills were designed to give local authorities far too much power—that was the whole point for us when we started out. As a result of my hon. Friend’s work and what happened in their lordships’ House, gradually, bit by bit, the excessive powers have been whittled down. We hope to end up with legislation that, although perhaps not ideal—it may not be something we particularly agree with—will certainly be an awful lot better than it was when we started out. We have an opportunity to carry on the theme that my hon. Friend started, and that their lordships continued, by removing some of the remaining parts that put far too much power in the hands of local authorities and give far too little protection, literally, to the man on the street.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Is it not very reassuring that the upper House has carried out its traditional role of defending the liberty of the subject from the seizure of goods? Such seizure has been unknown and unwelcome in this country since Magna Carta.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. It is why some of us felt so strongly about these Bills and, in particular, about the issues relating to seizure. It is to be commended that their lordships have done what they have historically done—defend people’s freedoms—but we should not have to rely on their lordships for that; we should be doing that in this place, too. We have a great opportunity to demonstrate how important that is to us through my hon. Friend’s amendments.

The promoters of the Canterbury City Council Bill chose well when they selected my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey as the person to steer it through the House. I am sure that it would be in everybody’s interests if the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch were accepted. I am a signatory to them, so I would say that, but their genesis lies with my hon. Friend and I do not want to take the credit away from him.

I am not so bothered about amendment (a) to Lords amendment C27. Lords amendment C27 seeks to provide that:

“The council shall publish on its internet website information”.

My hon. Friend wishes to remove the words “on its internet website” from that provision. I am not so bothered about that one, not because I disagree with it, but because I am not sure it would achieve what he intends. It would not preclude the council from simply putting the information on its website; the council would still be able to do exactly the same thing, so we would be no further forward. I think my hon. Friend intended that the council should not simply be allowed to leave it at that and that other forms of communications should be used, particularly for people who do not have access to the internet and the relevant website. I agree with his approach, but the amendment would not achieve its purpose and we could end up with a bizarre situation where the unintended consequence was that the local authority published even less information than was available for pedlars. Amendment (a) certainly does not require the local authority to publish more information, so I think we can leave it to one side—I hope my hon. Friend will agree.

There is far more merit in my hon. Friend’s other amendments to Lords amendment C27, and I very much hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey will give them serious thought. None of us wishes unnecessarily to delay further the proceedings on this legislation, and I am sure that the Bill’s promoters do not wish it to be delayed further, so my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey has a great opportunity here. I cannot speak for my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch but I think that if my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey were to give way on these amendments, the progress of this legislation could be much speedier. That would be a small price for the Bill’s promoters to pay, because not only are these amendments designed to make things better for the pedlar, but, as far as I can see, they are better for the local authority.

Amendments (b) and (c) would mean that the council would make things abundantly clear by publishing details of the streets covered by the legislation. That is not catered for in the Bill at the moment. If that is such a big issue for these local authorities and something that needs all this time and expense to deal with it, surely it is in the best interests of these councils that everybody knows which streets are affected and which are not, and the boundaries of these rules. With the best will in the world, I am sure that even my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey would not suggest—I hope he will not—that council officials will be on every corner of every street waiting for pedlars to appear in order to turn them around at the first opportunity and issue them with a fixed penalty notice. I would like to think that council resources do not stretch that far. On those days when there is no council official waiting to move a pedlar on or to issue them with a fixed penalty notice, surely it is in the interests of the local residents and the local area that people are following the rules because things are clear and that they are not mistakenly in a place where they should not be. Through his amendments my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is striking a blow not only for freedom but for the efficiency of the local authority in carrying out its wishes.