Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will join me in explaining to employers in his constituency that this payment of just shy of £2,300 is available to employers under the wage incentive in the Youth Contract where they take on young people. I hope he will also be aware that the Youth Contract consists not just of those 160,000 wage incentives, but of a funded increase in the number of work experience places—a quarter of a million of them—and a significant increase in funding for apprenticeships aimed at young people.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

How much have the Deputy Prime Minister and his Cabinet Office colleagues cost the public purse in conducting a study of alternatives to Trident that has taken more than two and a half years to show that there are indeed no alternatives to Trident as the basis of our nuclear deterrent?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend must be a soothsayer if he can tell what is in a report that has not been published yet. As he knows, the confidential version of the report has been provided to the Prime Minister and me, and we hope to publish the unclassified version shortly, when he will see that options are available to us. I have always argued against the idea that a total, like-for-like, exact replacement of Trident on precisely the same basis is the only option available to us as a country.

Afghanistan and EU Council

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady speaks about this issue with great expertise. I did not discuss Zimbabwe at the European Council, but we did hold a National Security Council meeting relatively recently, at which our high commissioner in Zimbabwe was present. We have been working out how best to maximise the leverage and influence that we have in order to secure a proper election and a proper democratic transition, and that is why we have taken the steps in the European Union to which she referred. However, we keep all these matters under review to ensure that we do all that we can to assist the transition that Zimbabwe so badly needs.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

If western work in Afghanistan is not to unravel after next year, one of two things must happen. Either the Taliban must be persuaded that they made a terrible mistake in giving house room to al-Qaeda, or the Americans must retain one or more strategic bases to dissuade them from offering it house room in the future. Does the Prime Minister know whether either of those things has happened or will happen?

[The Prime Minister]

I may be a little more optimistic than my hon. Friend, but I think the most likely outcome is that both those things will happen. One of the reasons why I think a peace process can get under way is the fact that, in recent statements, the Taliban have effectively said that they do not want Afghanistan to be used to harm other countries. I believe that the decoupling of the Taliban from al-Qaeda is well under way, and I think that that is positive.

I also do not believe that America, NATO, ISAF or any of us are walking away from Afghanistan, and I think that that is positive as well. As I have said, we will maintain the officer training academy and our funding of the Afghanistan national security forces, and I think it likely that the Americans will maintain a presence in the country—to be negotiated, of course, with the Afghan Government.

Obviously we want to see a peace process succeed, but, as we have always had to explain, our security response of training the Afghan national army and police force is the key part of making sure that the country will not fall back under Taliban or al-Qaeda control, and, having observed the effectiveness of those forces, I think we can be confident that they are capable of ensuring that that happens.

G8

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The communiqué pays tribute to the Roma-Lyon group and says that it must have what is necessary to take action so that we can co-ordinate better after dreadful events such as that at in Amenas. In the discussion at the G8, we tried to agree on the drivers of terrorism and extremism across north Africa, and on what more the countries around the table could do so that we do not duplicate our efforts, but divide up what needs to be done. For instance, Britain could do more to help Nigeria, France could do more to stabilise Mali and the United States could work with key partners in the region. We tasked our national security advisers with continuing to work out how to adjudicate who should do more of what. It was encouraging that President Putin agreed to take up that work when he chairs the G8 next year.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that the gravest threat to western interests and safety would be al-Qaeda getting its hands on Syria’s stocks of chemical weapons of mass destruction? Does he think that arming the rebels would make that outcome more or less likely?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right to point to the danger of having extremists in Syria who have weapons and the intent to get hold of chemical weapons. We must ask ourselves how we have got to that point because they already have weapons and that intent. The extremist element of the opposition has become too strong, so our aim should be to reduce its strength. That is why we agreed at the G8 that part of the programme must be to expel extremists on all sides from Syria—that is the absolute key.

I say to those who see dangers, quite rightly, in engaging in any efforts to help Syria that we have got to the point of extremists having arms, ill intent and the desire to get hold of chemical weapons while there has been a deficit of engagement from countries that want Syria to take the right path rather than the wrong path. As I have said, we have not decided to arm the rebels, but are working with the opposition in the ways that I have described. We are working with the Americans and the French. I am sure that being engaged and being positive about what Britain can achieve with its partners is the right approach to reducing the dangers, rather than increasing them.

EU Council and Woolwich

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 3rd June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have great respect for the right hon. Gentleman, but on this occasion I have to disagree with him on both counts. First, it is completely wrong to pretend that Russia has changed its view of Syria or its supply of arms to that country because of the European Union’s decision. Russia has been supplying the Syrian regime with arms for decades, and it has done so during this conflict. To suggest otherwise is really quite naive. I fully support the idea of the peace conference, which is why I flew to see President Putin on the Black sea and why I held discussions with Barack Obama. We should do everything we can to bring the parties together at this peace conference, but I would put the question again: are we more likely to get some sort of compliance from President Assad at a peace conference that would result in a transitional government if he believes that he cannot win militarily? That is the question that we have to put to ourselves.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Will Parliament definitely get the opportunity not just to be updated and kept informed, but to vote on the issue of arms supplies from this country to the opposition in Syria, even if that involves recalling Parliament if we wish to take that decision during the recess?

[The Prime Minister]

One of the things that this Government have done is allow Parliament to hold votes on issues that Parliament wants to vote on. In the first 10 years during which I was an MP, that was completely impossible. It can now happen, so Parliament has that opportunity whenever it wants to.

Tributes to Baroness Thatcher

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

It is a shock for those of us who are old enough to have been politically active in the 1970s and ’80s to realise that a 40-year-old MP today was just four years old when Soviet deployment of deadly SS-20 missiles began in 1977. At the same time, here at home, Labour MPs, including a sitting Cabinet Minister, were being deselected in their constituencies by Marxist and militant infiltrators. I am pleased that the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) rightly acknowledged that it was Margaret Thatcher who saved the Labour party by forcing it to expel the extremists and return to moderation.

To that I will add another short list that others could undoubtedly extend. Margaret Thatcher gave the unions back to their members by making postal ballots for trade union elections compulsory. She freed the Falklands and, indirectly, caused the downfall of dictatorship in Argentina—something that President Kirchner would do well to remember. She secured the future of Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent, as I trust my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition will continue to do, despite the blandishments of the absent Liberal Democrats. She insisted on the deployment of NATO cruise missiles, without which the hard-line grip on the Kremlin would undoubtedly have lasted longer. She worked with Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev to secure the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty of 1987, which eliminated cruise missiles, the Pershing missiles and the Soviet SS-20s, paving the way for what happened two years later.

No one did more than Margaret Thatcher to bury the far left at home and defeat totalitarian leftist extremism abroad. The history of freedom is in her debt, as are we all.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. When a question is asked, Members should not shout their heads off when the Prime Minister is giving an answer.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Given that SAS Sergeant Danny Nightingale has had his conviction quashed following the quashing of his military prison sentence last year, does the Prime Minister agree that it would be totally against the public interest, and against the interests of the SAS Regiment, for Sergeant Nightingale to have to face a fresh trial when others are benefiting from the weapons amnesty that was rightly introduced by the Secretary of State for Defence as a result of the Nightingale case?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Let me say how strongly I support all those who serve in our special forces. As Prime Minister, I have the privilege of meeting many of those brave people and seeing that they are some of the finest and most courageous people in our country. I do not, however, want to get into any trouble with my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General, so I will leave the issues of the courts to the courts.

Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, this is an extension into civil actions. He is talking about special immigration appeals hearings, but I am talking about something very different: when one party is suing the Executive—the Government—for damages. Historically, the Government could press the “eject” button, but for the reasons given by the Minister and my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), we do not want damages to be paid where a case could be exhausted and there could be a resolution of the disputes. That context is very different from one in which somebody’s immigration status is being considered.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

My question is also to do with the right hon. Gentleman’s concept of the last resort. I think he would accept that one of the reasons why we are enacting this Bill is to avoid an unpalatable situation. People who we might know from secret sources, which we cannot expose in public, to be closely involved in terrorism have been able to sue and walk away with £500,000, £1 million or more. That is what is behind the provision.

It will always be open to the Government to pay the money and thus avoid the action. Will the right hon. Gentleman’s criterion of the last resort mean that we can go for a closed material procedure to avoid having to pay out the money unjustifiably or that we will have to carry on doing what we are doing at the moment—rather than exposing secret sources or techniques, paying out a lot of money to potentially very dangerous people?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I ask hon. Members to make shorter interventions, although I know it is important to get things on the record.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hazel Blears]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman would make an amazingly creative lawyer, if he is not already one. By any interpretation that was a list of the items that could be included. I am probably in good company if I am in agreement with the Advocate-General. There is fairly overwhelming evidence that the list that the hon. Gentleman tried not to give would not be suitable for some cases where a huge amount of the information impinges on national security.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Does the right hon. Lady accept that if sensitive material is redacted under PII, that may be the very sensitive material—the secret source, the secret technique or whatever—which is the thing that proves the Government’s case? Therefore it is not good enough to say that PII could be used with redactions, because the redactions themselves may be the key component of the evidence that the Government need to present.

[Hazel Blears]

As ever, my colleague on the Intelligence and Security Committee makes the point in straightforward, direct and proper terms. My understanding is that the Opposition accept that in a small number of cases it will be necessary to have closed material proceedings and that PII does not meet the case in every set of circumstances.

Collective Ministerial Responsibility

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, because the revolt was on primary legislation, whereas the only issue on which the Deputy Prime Minister had given notice that he would lead his troops in the opposite direction to the rest of the coalition was when, in August, he said he would withdraw his support for any Boundary Commission proposals put through the House via a statutory instrument. The revolt must have come as a bit of a surprise, but back in August he was giving public notice that he himself would set aside collective Cabinet responsibility, with or without the Prime Minister’s consent. In light of the information I have set out, it seems as though there was no consent at that stage to set aside collective ministerial responsibility.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend express a view in his narrative on whether the principle of collective ministerial responsibility is being applied rather capriciously? I have in mind those Parliamentary Private Secretaries who had to resign their admittedly very junior Government positions because they were in favour of an in/out referendum on Europe, which is now such a mainstream policy that the Opposition are being taunted about whether they, too, subscribe to it. Does he know whether those people have been offered their jobs back and on what definition of collective responsibility they were deprived of them in the first place?

[Mr Chope]

That is a telling point. All I know is that, for one Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Private Secretary who voted against the Government on tuition fees and consequently was forced to resign her position, it was only a few weeks before she was reinstated, and she has subsequently reached ministerial level. That is the rule that seems to apply to minority members of the coalition. As far as those on the Conservative side of the coalition are concerned, I have no information that suggests any Parliamentary Private Secretary who has been forced to resign has subsequently been reinstated, even if their reinstatement would coincide with a change of Government policy.

On the face of it, double standards seem to be operating, which is why transparency on the rules that apply to Parliamentary Private Secretaries is important. I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will be rather more forthcoming than the Prime Minister has been so far, because collective ministerial responsibility is a developing subject. We have already heard the Prime Minister, having initially said that he has not made up his mind, publicly say that, in the event of an in/out referendum in the next Parliament, which we all welcome, it would not be possible for members of his Government to vote for us to leave the European Union if he, the Prime Minister, were of the opinion that we should stay in the European Union. Collective ministerial responsibility apparently will not, therefore, be set aside on that very important issue, on which divisions within the Conservative party, and indeed across parties, go very deep.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Chope]

I submit that we should not necessarily end up with that problem. We know that one of the disadvantages of coalition government is that it leads to indecision, lowest common denominator decision-making and so on, but lowest common denominator decision-making does at least have a lowest common denominator. What we seem to have is a Government who take two parallel decisions at the same time and pick and mix.

That is evidenced further by the answer given yesterday to complaints about the change in the Government’s approach to inheritance tax. The answer, given by the Secretary of State for Health, was that there is an important difference between promises made by the Conservatives while in opposition and pledges made after the coalition agreement:

“That commitment on inheritance tax was a Conservative manifesto commitment. It’s not in the coalition agreement, so there is an important difference”.

It is not in the coalition agreement, but it is not specifically ruled out of the agreement either. Now the coalition and the agreement are being used as excuses for basically ripping up any policy that the Government do not like and replacing it with another. That is creating a lot of confusion among people outside, who are wondering where that leaves manifestos. We vote for parties on the basis of manifestos. If at the next general election a lot of people vote for the Conservative party on the basis that they will get an in/out referendum, and we then find that we do not have an overall majority and enter into some sort of coalition agreement, the manifesto pledge on which we got so many millions of votes will be torn up.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I am afraid that I am surprised that my hon. Friend has taken so long to realise that the creation of the coalition automatically meant the ripping up of the manifestos, except in so far as the manifesto policies were identical to those in the coalition agreement. Wherever they were not, all bets were off. That is what is so undemocratic about coalition politics.

I have a question to put to my hon. Friend. Let us say that our starting point is what was in the coalition agreement, forgetting about the manifestos. What does he think should happen under collective ministerial responsibility if one of the parties to the coalition agreement decides that, after all, it is not going to abide by a particular policy to which it signed up? What sanction would the Prime Minister have, for example, if the Deputy Prime Minister decided to renege? Would he basically sack the entire Liberal Democrat party from the coalition? Can we live in hope of that?

[Mr Chope]

I know that my hon. Friend and I come from a similar position on this issue; neither of us was an enthusiast of the coalition in the first place. I certainly went on record as saying that we would have been much better off having a minority Government untainted by the Liberal Democrats.

To answer my hon. Friend, that is a question for the Prime Minister. He is solely responsible for collective ministerial responsibility. If he had chosen not to set aside collective ministerial responsibility in relation to the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill, it probably would have been the end of the coalition. He would have ordered the Deputy Prime Minister to resign on the basis that he had breached collective ministerial responsibility, along with all the other Liberal Democrat Ministers who had done so. Then he could either have carried on with a minority Conservative Government and given people such as my hon. Friend the opportunity to join the Government as a Minister. Or, if there had been a subsequent vote of no confidence, we would have had a general election.

However, we cannot carry on like this, gradually eroding the principle of collective ministerial responsibility without anybody being held properly to account. Either the coalition Government stick together on the basis of collective ministerial responsibility or they break asunder, leading to an early general election, which I would certainly favour; that is my personal view. Otherwise, we face two years ahead during which there will be an increasing amount of muddle on these issues. We have only seen the beginning of it so far.

I am delighted that other hon. Members have come along to participate in this debate, as it is important. Although I would have been happy to have a half-hour Adjournment debate, it demonstrates that a much wider audience is interested in the issue, including colleagues from all parties.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Nick Harvey]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point, and puts the case from his point of view; I do not criticise him for so doing. Of course, in the coalition agreement, it was agreed that the Liberal Democrats would support legislation that would provide for a redrawing of the boundaries and the creation of 600 seats. The Liberal Democrats fulfilled that obligation in its entirety a couple of years ago. We did not agree to support any barmy map that happened to emerge as the product of that process. We fulfilled our part of the deal some 18 months ago.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his courtesy in giving way, as he always does. In a spirit of consensus, may I move away from the particular example to the general point? To form a coalition, there had to be a coalition agreement. Does he acknowledge that a code of ministerial collective responsibility should apply to the contents of that collective agreement? If so, what is it, and why will the Prime Minister not make it public?

[Sir Nick Harvey]

It is certainly not for me to speak for the Prime Minister or the Government, because I am no longer a member of the Government. However, my hon. Friend is right: the question is about the nature of the agreement made. At the outset of a five-year term, an attempt is made to agree a coalition agreement that is to run for the five years. Such an agreement was novel territory in UK politics. We had not seen one for a long time. There were pressing economic circumstances in May 2010, as there still are today, and the judgment was made by both sides in the negotiation that speed was of the essence. However, if historians draw any lessons from this experience, they will surely come to the view that we may have something to learn from the experiences typical in continental Europe, where coalitions are negotiated over weeks, or even months.

Agreements reached in a matter of a few short days, however comprehensive they seek to be, cannot by definition possibly take account of every twist or turn that current affairs or political life will take in the five years that follow. There are, of course, “Events, dear boy, events.” Governments will have to take a position on issues that they had not anticipated at the start of a five-year term; that is inevitable. Collective responsibility, in the sense in which we have understood it, can exist only where there is a collective view, a collective agreement and a collective decision between the two parts of the coalition that they will proceed in a certain way. Where something breaks down or has not been anticipated, or something new arises on which the two parties are unable to reach agreement, it is inevitable that we will not be able to apply a traditional doctrine of collective ministerial responsibility. We should not fret about that or worry ourselves unduly about it.

Transparency has been mentioned. On the point that the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) made with reference to Northern Ireland, when there are two parties in a coalition, the world can see, recognise and understand that there are differences of view because there are different underlying philosophies. That is healthy and transparent. In Labour’s years in office, there was the running soap opera of the view in No. 10 and the view in No. 11 Downing street. I should have thought that the differences of view between the wings of that Government were every bit as large as those within the coalition, but there was no transparency there—nobody could really see or understand the debates. We relied on the columns of Mr Andrew Rawnsley and others, who provided us with a running commentary on what they thought was going on. It is far more transparent when two parties with acknowledged differences are conducting a debate. There will always be occasions when the two parties are not able to reach an agreement. Therefore, inevitably, the doctrine of ministerial responsibility cannot be applied.

[Sir Nick Harvey]

I am not saying that the ministerial code is perfect in every detail—I do not think for one moment that it is—but I am not entirely sure that it is as deficient or inapplicable in the circumstances that I have been describing as the hon. Gentleman suggests. He said that the responsibility is very much at the top, with the Prime Minister carrying the responsibility for the way that the collective ministerial responsibility provision operates. That is quite correct.

During my short spell in government, I was surprised at the extent to which more or less all Government business seemed to be escalated to No. 10 and the Cabinet Office, and seemed to be resolved on the desks of the Prime Minister and, in most cases, the Deputy Prime Minister. If we recall the provisions of the coalition agreement at the outset, they were that documents passing the Prime Minister’s desk were also to pass the desk of the Deputy Prime Minister.

The hon. Gentleman’s assertion that responsibility for setting aside the ministerial code, where it is set aside, lies with the Prime Minister is basically correct. Given the way the Government conduct their business, things seem to end up either in a one-to-one negotiation between the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister or in the quad—the quadrilateral meeting that brings into play the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. It is at the absolute top that the conclusion has to be drawn that agreement cannot be reached on a particular matter.

Effectively, responsibility for setting aside the collective responsibility provision lies with the Prime Minister. He faces a choice. He must decide, in discussion with the Deputy Prime Minister, whether there is a collective view on the subject matter at hand. If there is not, he must conclude whether that is so serious and fatal to the ongoing continuity of the coalition that—this is precisely the choice that the hon. Members for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), and for Christchurch, hypothesised about—the coalition must be ended, or whether it is just a tiresome irritant that will have to be taken on the chin, with the overriding work of the coalition continuing, regardless. It is always open to the Prime Minister to arrive at that judgment.

I completely understand that some Conservative Back Benchers are not great enthusiasts for the coalition, but I should not have thought that a day when the opinion polls showed Labour at 41% and the Conservatives at 29% was quite the optimal moment to aspire to an early general election.

I urge the hon. Members for Christchurch, and for New Forest East, to have a jolly good look at the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, because it simply is not the case that ending the coalition, and the Government ceasing to be able to hold their own in a vote of confidence, results in a general election; it would have done previously, but, now that the Act has been passed, bringing about a general election is a very different proposition altogether. The removal of the Government requires a simple majority, but the early dissolution of Parliament requires a two-thirds majority in the House of Commons. Numerically, that can be achieved only if, on the same day, the Conservative and Labour parties feel they have an interest in an early general election.

As a mental exercise, I often try to think of the circumstances in which the Conservatives and the Labour party could both, at exactly the same moment, think it was in their interests to have an early election. Even in the entirely improbable situation that the Liberal Democrat vote had seemingly evaporated to nothing, I cannot see why the Conservatives and the Labour party would both think, at the same time, that it was in their interests to have an early election, so I have concluded that an early election is very improbable indeed.

The alternative to a Conservative minority Government is simply a Labour minority Government, which might appeal to the hon. Member for Christchurch as being quite helpful in the long term. However, an early election is simply not on offer with the ease that hon. Members believe it is.

We have a coalition, which brings together two parties. Where they can agree, we have collective responsibility; where they cannot, we have a free vote—that is, in effect, what happens when collective responsibility is set aside. The Conservative and Liberal Democrat Whips might then attempt a whipping operation to get the two parts of the coalition to vote in line with a party view, but, in Government terms, there is simply a free vote, which is what has happened on the occasions that have been cited.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

For the sake of clarity, before the hon. Gentleman concludes his fascinating speech, will he explain whether he is really saying that, in a coalition, collective ministerial responsibility applies when both parts of the coalition agree, or in other words, when it is not needed, but not when they disagree, when it is needed?

[Sir Nick Harvey]

I believe that it applies in all circumstances other than those where it has been concluded at the top that it does not apply. It clearly applies in the vast majority of cases; the instances where it does not apply are few and far between. It is a matter for ongoing judgment on the part of the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister whether these occasional disagreements, which require collective responsibility to be set aside, are of such significance that the coalition’s overall functioning is at stake. I do not believe that anything we have seen to date brings us anywhere near the realm where anyone would rationally conclude that the coalition cannot continue or cannot work, but if such events became increasingly common, the question would arise.

I am sorry that Conservative colleagues interpreted coalition as meaning a situation in which Liberal Democrats were imprisoned as hostages and simply had to do whatever the Conservatives wished them to do. I am afraid that is not what coalition is all about; coalition is about two parties agreeing. The Conservatives did not actually win the election, and would not have been able to form a Government capable of doing very much at all if they had not been able to reach some agreement on key issues with the Liberal Democrats. That is the only way the Government could be formed, and it is the only thing that sustains them in nearly all circumstances now.

Occasionally agreement will break down and the parties will go their separate ways. That is transparent, and it is not unhealthy. The world can have a look at that arrangement and draw its own conclusions. We need to get increasingly familiar with, used to and comfortable with coalition, because I have a suspicion that, during our lifetimes, there will be more coalitions, of whatever colour and stripe—[Hon. Members: “Oh no!”] If those Members behind me who groan at the prospect find it unappealing, they will simply have to go to the trouble of winning a general election in their own right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Reckless]

I will of course follow your ruling, Mr Bayley, for which I thank you.

Two other areas that I want to discuss are Europe and boundaries. As to Europe, the Liberal Democrats had a manifesto commitment to an in/out referendum, and I was disappointed that it was not carried through to the coalition agreement. However, I am delighted that that is now my party’s policy. I am slightly confused about why it is not the Government’s responsibility, given that it is now, at least on the face of it, the policy of both parties.

Similarly, I was delighted to table an amendment and to secure majority support in the House for a cut in the EU budget. I was a little disappointed that the Deputy Prime Minister described it as “completely unrealistic” to expect a cut, not least because he should be subject to collective responsibility on such matters. Apparently it was hopeless for the Prime Minister, or anyone else, to seek such a reduction. We were miles away from other countries on that matter, and it could not be done. Yet yesterday at Deputy Prime Minister’s questions, speaking as the Deputy Prime Minister—with, I assume, collective responsibility—he told us that he supported that approach, and that it was because of him we had got the cut. He had spent months going around Europe pushing that extraordinarily tough stance, while publicly saying that he disagreed with it and it was completely unrealistic. Which is it?

If we have collective responsibility, we should have answers to those questions. I know that sometimes a coalition is difficult, and that the circumstances are new, but we should not take the attitude of sweeping away all the dusty old conventions because they do not matter very much; there is a reason for collective responsibility. I do not accept that there was any breach of the coalition agreement until the Deputy Prime Minister decided that he would welsh on it with respect to boundaries. Then his Ministers voted against it. Yet they stayed in the Government, notwithstanding collective responsibility and paragraph 1.2 of the ministerial code. If the Prime Minister has waived that, and the need to refer to the coalition agreement on all things in government, I trust that he has also waived the part about international law, at least where our own highest Court has said that international law is being respected.

What is the situation with respect to boundaries? I was disappointed that several Conservative Back Benchers voted against the Government, and that my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), for whom I have great respect, was not with us on the issue. His near neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), abstained. However, I was astonished that a Conservative Minister abstained: the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), did not vote in that Division. I knew that she was concerned about various issues to do with boundaries, but she is a Minister. Why did not she vote for Government policy?

[Dr Julian Lewis]

For the sake of fairness, I point out that I believe some Conservative colleagues who voted against the changes did so not because of the boundaries, as such, but because they did not approve of the reduction in the number of MPs with no corresponding reduction in the number of Ministers. In other words, they were concerned that the House of Commons would become less capable of keeping the Executive in check. I think that that was their reasoning.

[Mark Reckless]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point, and I make no criticism of Back Benchers who take that view. I voted for the motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) on precisely that issue. However, I did not consider that occasion to be the point at which to press the issue further.

Ministers have an obligation to support Government measures. As a Back Bencher, I do not have the same level of obligation, although I have a significantly greater desire to do so now that the Government have such a successful policy of cutting the EU budget. At least my party has the policy of holding an in/out referendum. I look forward to being as enthusiastic a supporter as I can be of the Government and what they are trying to do. However, Ministers should vote for Government policy and should not be allowed to abstain. The hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) abstained in a vote on the welfare cap, and then boasted that she did so despite being a Minister, and nothing was done about it.

I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald was responsible for a positive abstention on the issue of Catholic succession to the Crown. I assumed that was because she is also the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities and, as Equalities Minister, she was abstaining because of discrimination against Catholics, but apparently that was not right: it was a mistake. There was also an abstention, however, on the matter of the boundaries, so we had not only the Liberal Democrats voting against Government policy, but a Conservative Minister failing to support it. We need to clarify the position on collective responsibility so that we can all understand it and work with Ministers and our constituents successfully.

[Mark Reckless]

My hon. Friend said he crawled through the Lobby, but I did not see that, because I abstained. I felt that we had been told by the Deputy Prime Minister that the Labour party had offered him AV without a referendum. When my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) found out that that was not the case, first from the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and then from the Deputy Prime Minister, it seemed to me that the deal we had done had been based on something that did not appear to hold water or—

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Correspond with the facts.

[Mark Reckless]

I was trying to find the appropriate parliamentary language. I thank my hon. Friend for “correspond with the facts”, if that is allowable, Mr Bayley.

The Deputy Prime Minister, then only the leader of his party, promised a real referendum on Europe—an in/out referendum—but now he is stopping us from having one. Furthermore, he said that it was absolutely hopeless to try to get a cut in the EU budget—completely unrealistic—and he gave us all a hard time for even trying to do that. Now, when we achieve it, when the Prime Minister gets what Parliament mandated in response to my amendment, he claims the credit.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Cryer]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I misunderstood what the hon. Member for Christchurch said and thought the concept applied to the whole of the Conservative parliamentary party. Even if it applied only to Ministers, the position remains different from 1975. When Harold Wilson called for a referendum on the basis that he had renegotiated Britain’s terms of entry to what was then the Common Market and won a great victory—although it turned out that he had not; we might see a similar set of circumstances in 2017 or 2018—he allowed Ministers to campaign in whatever way they saw fit. I was only 11 years old at the time, but I remember Tony Benn and Michael Foot, for example, campaigning on the no platform, while other members of the Cabinet and shadow Cabinet were campaigning for a yes vote.

As has been mentioned extensively, a number of Parliamentary Private Secretaries were forced to resign over the vote on the in/out referendum a few months ago. I can remember the first rebellion against the Labour Government in 1997, which was on single-parent benefit. We probably all remember that, and it was a particularly scarring experience—I was one of those who voted against the Government. A large number of PPSs and one junior Minister were forced to resign as a result. At the time, Prime Minister Tony Blair got a lot of stick for being a control freak, but I had no problem with that. My view was that people either abide by collective responsibility and back what the Government are doing, or they resign and go on the Back Benches with the rest of us, so that they are free to criticise, but people cannot have it both ways.

Many Ministers, over many years, not only in this Government but in previous ones, have tried to have it both ways. In previous Governments, some have taken the route of giving off-the-record briefings to the press. Certainly when we were in power, that was done an awful lot by certain Cabinet and junior Ministers. That is completely unacceptable, as is, although I am not directly involved, the current idea that Ministers can more or less do what they want and let collective responsibility simply disappear.

I tend to be a less than unqualified fan of coalition government anyway. I am not a fan of proportional representation, although I do not want to go too far into that subject, because you will probably stop me, Mr Bayley. One of the great problems with PR—this has been debated a lot in the main Chamber—is that we would get coalition Governments, and they tend to undermine faith in democracy, because what then happens is deals behind closed doors, with a lack of accountability. After an election and the subsequent negotiations, Ministers emerge and say that they stood for election on this or that issue or policy, but have completely ripped up their manifesto, because they have done a deal with the lot who stood against them.

My view, although this is not directly my business, is that minority Government is a much more honourable way to go about things. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Steady on! Hon. Members might not like what I have to say next. The minority Labour Government of 1976 to 1979 went about things in a more honourable way. There was not a coalition, but there were disadvantages: every vote was on a knife edge, and there were tragic stories. The story of Doc Broughton springs readily to mind: he was extremely ill, but had to be driven to Parliament in an ambulance to take part in votes before being driven back up the M1 to hospital. It would not be the same now, because we do not have all-night sittings, and we sit after 10 o’clock only on rare occasions. That is another issue, of course; I voted against programming and am against it to this day. The circumstances of a minority Government, however, are far more accountable and clear, and they tend to bolster people’s faith in democracy, unlike a coalition Government, in which decisions are made in private.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

The Liberal Democrat leader, one year after the formation of the coalition, gave an interview in The Observer. He was asked if he had done the right thing by going into coalition with the Conservatives. “Of course we did,” he said, “The arithmetic would not have allowed a coalition with Labour. What would the alternative have been? A minority Conservative Government, probably followed by an early election and a majority Conservative Government.” I could not have agreed with him more.

[John Cryer]

I would not have agreed entirely.

Algeria

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will certainly take the hon. Gentleman’s advice, and he makes a good point. The reason for specifically mentioning the G8 is that in that slightly smaller forum it is possible to have an in-depth conversation with American, French, Italian, Canadian and other partners about what more we can do to thicken our various defence, security, political and diplomatic relations with countries in, for instance, north Africa, making sure that we do not all fall over each other in trying to do the same thing in the same country. We should be recognising that in some cases there are very strong British relationships that we should build on, but in others the relationships may be French, Italian or American.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

May I commend to the Prime Minister the concept of containment when he is considering these long-term problems? It served us well both for 70 years in the cold war and for 38 years in relation to Northern Ireland, and it would help to avoid an oscillation of policy from over-involvement on the ground, at one extreme, to too little involvement and an over-emphasis on withdrawal, at the other.

Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

That has been the charge against the ISC in the past, and I am glad that things are going to change. However, I can tell my hon. Friend that I have given evidence to the ISC on a number of occasions, and it is no patsy Committee. It is composed of senior parliamentarians from both Houses, and they do a proper and effective job. The challenge for my hon. Friend is to explain how, given the nature of its subject matter, that job could conceivably be done by means of open hearings. It is not possible. The choice is between an ISC that operates in the way that the Bill proposes, and the absence of any kind of parliamentary scrutiny. I know which I choose.

Let me now deal with the arguments that have been advanced against closed material proceedings. The most frequently used argument is that we should resort to public interest immunity certificates. I accept that, if possible, gisting should be used or the court should sit in camera, but in most cases those options are not possible. Public interest immunity certificates are used fairly often, but they work effectively only when the evidence that they seek to exclude is relatively peripheral to the proceedings. If they are used in relation to evidence that is central to the case, they make it impossible for a trial of the action to take place at all. They do not protect evidence and make it safely usable in court; they exclude it altogether.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the observation by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis)—I am sorry that he is no longer in the Chamber—that PII certificates have not imperilled national security was obviously correct but utterly banal? As long as we are willing to drop all these cases and pay millions of pounds, national security will not be affected, but the Exchequer will be.

[Mr Straw]

Yes, and using PII certificates in respect of evidence that is central to a case is profoundly unjust to both sets of parties.

Dinah Rose is a leading critic of the proposals in the Bill. I have looked carefully at her response to the consultation document, which was published earlier this year.

She stated,

“PII is not perfect—it does result in some cases being tried without all evidence being available.”

She also stated that in rare cases:

“PII may also result…in a situation in which a party is ordered to disclose a document which it is not prepared to disclose, leaving it no alternative but to settle the claim.”

She is being disingenuous, because in these national security cases we are talking about not a document—her word—but bundles of documents that are central to the adjudication of the action.

I, like the Minister, dealt with lots of PII cases and had to work through them very carefully. If there were thousands of documents, as there would be in these cases, a Minister would have to take a month or so off to operate that and, at the end, if the court accepted the PII application, there would be evidence that could not be used in the case.

Ms Rose concludes her summary by referring to the need for “potential misconduct” by the agencies to

“see the light of day”.

I absolutely agree with her sentiment. The problem is that in the absence of CMPs, there is no way of determining misconduct by members of the agencies in a civil action. The most that can happen is a settlement out of court with a payment into court but no admission of liability. That is profoundly unjust to both sides. It is unjust to the complainant, who might well have right on their side but who is denied the means to have the court find in their favour, and equally unjust to the agencies and their staff, who might also have right on their side but no means of making their defence.

In the other place, various amendments were made that were designed to strengthen the role of the courts in determining whether and, if so, how CMPs should be used. They will be examined upstairs and I look forward to the result of the Committee. I am in no doubt about the necessity of the Bill and if the sceptics want to make the agencies more accountable, they should have this Bill—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Howarth]

My right hon. Friend’s assertion is right. I do not think it is anybody’s intention that that should happen, but we have concerns that the current wording might lead to that inadvertently.

The second issue, which has been referred to by several hon. Members and initially by the Chairman of the ISC, the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), relates to the resources that it will take for the Committee to do the job that is envisaged in the Bill. I do not want to labour the point, but we are being asked to do a great deal more. I think that it is right to extend what we, as the representatives of this House in such matters, can do, but it will take more resources. As others have said, the secretariat of the Committee is working exceptionally long hours, often without any additional remuneration. People cannot be expected to do that indefinitely, especially when the amount of work that they have to do is increasing. I hope that the staffing issue can be put to bed before the Bill gets much further.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

In support of what the right hon. Gentleman, who is also my friend, has just said, the House should bear it in mind that it is not just a quantitative increase in resources that is required. If that increase is forthcoming, there will be a qualitative change because, as the Chairman of the ISC pointed out, the new people will act like investigators, going into the agencies and thus giving a realistic prospect of seriously close scrutiny.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)]

It has been an interesting debate, full of thoughtful interventions, and I have learned quite a bit.

I should like to make three initial points. First, I strongly support the work of the security services, which is essential for our safety. My concerns about the Bill need to be seen in that context. Secondly, I shall refer to the origins of the Bill, and thirdly, I shall deal with what might be at stake, even though we shall discuss it only to some extent this afternoon.

The Bill came about partly as a consequence of the recent exposure of Britain’s involvement in a programme of extraordinary rendition. Bringing all that into the public domain is a matter of deep concern to the Americans, particularly their security agencies. They are worried that our court proceedings could lead to the exposure of intelligence information handed to them by us. The Bill is a consequence, as we have just heard, of the cost and embarrassment of settling a number of civil actions brought by people who have alleged maltreatment. To deal with the first problem, the proposal is to close down the so-called Norwich Pharmacal jurisdiction and, to deal with the second problem, the Government have decided to replace public interest immunity certificates with closed material procedures in most national security cases. I shall come on to the case for those proposals in a moment.

I should like to discuss briefly what is at stake in a broader perspective. All these issues may appear to be abstruse and technical, but they are about the kind of society that we want to live in. It is worth saying a little more about the trigger for the Bill—the issue of extraordinary rendition. We now know that Britain facilitated extraordinary rendition—we do not know its extent—and the Bill may make it more difficult to find out the degree of Britain’s complicity. Senior British public officials have facilitated the kidnapping of people and their transfer to places where our Government knew they might be maltreated or tortured. Last week, Britain paid £2.2 million in compensation to someone who was apparently rendered—and tortured—along with his family, to the Gaddafi regime by British intelligence in 2004. Britain also facilitated the rendition of Binyam Mohamed to Morocco, and apparently he, too, was horrifically tortured. There are other cases, possibly many more: we do not know.

If we do not get to the bottom of our complicity in such disgusting practices, we surrender the moral high ground. We must be wary about extending secret court proceedings for the same reason. Secret courts are usually held to be the tools of dictators, not of democracies, and their prevalence is often a test of whether a society can be called “free”. I am deeply saddened that my country has become involved in kidnap and torture, and I do not want it to be accused—rightly or wrongly—of covering up such things. That, however, is exactly what Britain’s detractors abroad might claim—fairly or unfairly—about this Bill.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I appreciate the serious point about getting to the bottom of a given rendition. Does my hon. Friend agree that if we are left with only PII, pay-offs will tend to be given and we will not get to the bottom of cases? However, if a pay-off is made when closed material procedure could have been used, one can deduce that something was amiss because although the Government could have used a more specific route, they chose not to do so.

[Mr Tyrie]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. The judge now has discretion on CMPs—at least, I hope that is where we will end up as a result of efforts in the other place—so we could arrive at a position where we have more justice and not less, which is the underlying principle we are discussing. With respect to Norwich Pharmacal, the case is unarguable. We would know less about rendition had the Norwich Pharmacal jurisdiction been closed down, because it was used to elicit information about the extent of Britain’s involvement.

The Government have argued that CMPs could deliver more justice because they will be able to introduce evidence that they cannot introduce at the moment for fear it will damage national security. How true is that? I do not know—very few Members present in the Chamber do. The special advocates, security-vetted lawyers who are responsible for making CMPs work, are the small group of people with access to the information required to know the answer. They have been unequivocal—the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) quoted them a moment ago. They say that CMPs are not

“capable of delivering procedural fairness”

and that their introduction

“could only be justified by the most compelling reasons and, in our view, none exists.”

It is worth reading the report by the special advocates in full as it is pretty blistering.

I am grateful to the Minister, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), for returning to the Chamber, as he also said that PII was deeply flawed. It is certainly not perfect but, again, the special advocates have expressed a view and said that

“there is as yet no example of a civil claim involving national security that has proved untriable using PII and the flexible use of ancillary procedures (such as confidentiality rings and “in private” hearings from which the public, but not the parties, are excluded).”