Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

In the past financial year, a total of 2,531 EDMs were tabled, with 120,158 names added. Clearly, the obstacles are not insuperable, but the hon. Gentleman raises an important point, which he has raised with me previously and which I have taken up with the House authorities. I hope that we will soon make progress on the matter.

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

Had it not been for the availability of the EDM procedure, I would not have been able quickly to gather 249 signatures for an EDM that helped in considerable part to change the law so that the mad decision of three judges that our home addresses should be revealed to anyone who asked for them could be stultified and reversed. May I suggest gently to my hon. Friends and other hon. Members that if they are so shy about saying no when asked to sign an EDM, they have the option of simply informing the Table Office that they do not sign any EDMs, and informing their constituents of the same? Those of us who want to make use of the procedure can then continue to do so.

Business of the House

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman raises a serious issue. There will be questions to the appropriate Department on 13 September and I suggest that he seek to table a question for then, as that might be a suitable forum in which to raise the issue further.

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

This is my blue and, I hope, red side. May we have a statement as soon as possible on the courtesies that need not and should not be extended to leading members of the British National party, even if they have been elected under an appalling system of proportional representation? That would enable those of us who do not wish to rub shoulders with neo-Nazis at Buckingham palace garden parties to return our tickets even at the last minute.

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend invites me to tread on delicate territory. The best response that I can give is that the responsibility for invitations to the garden party at Buckingham palace rests not with me but a higher authority.

Business of the House

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I understand that there has been a meeting between the two. Next week there is an Adjournment debate on Sheffield Forgemasters, which would be the appropriate time to raise the concern that the hon. Lady has just uttered.

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

A few days ago, there was a report that a Cabinet Minister, no less, had compared the cost of Britain’s future aircraft carriers with the number of children who could be educated worldwide for that money. May we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Defence, explaining the role of Britain’s armed forces in general, and the Royal Navy and aircraft carriers in particular, in humanitarian intervention worldwide and the protection of our interests at home and abroad, and the fact that the Royal Navy has an important function to fulfil that should not be offset against other causes, no matter how worthy?

Business of the House

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

Obesity is an important issue, although, happily, it is not one that either the hon. Gentleman or I would appear to suffer from. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health has made it clear that, where possible, he wants to work with the industry rather than against it. That is the background to the announcements that he has just made. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, however, that this is an issue that, if possible, we should find time to debate. If we cannot, there will be an opportunity to raise it during Health questions.

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

I hope that I have not been called with reference to the last question, Mr Speaker.

The Leader of the House worked his magic when asked for a full day’s debate on the strategic defence and security review and supplied one about a week later. Will he work his magic again, following yesterday’s statement on Afghanistan, and arrange a full day’s debate on strategy in Afghanistan? Will he have a word with his counterparts in the other place, where there are many experts on this subject, so that they too might express their views on this extremely important subject?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It is the Government’s intention that the House should be kept regularly up to date on the position in Afghanistan and, as he knows, there was a statement by the Secretary of State for Defence yesterday. It is our intention to carry on with that process and to have statements and, where appropriate, debates. I am sure that my colleagues in the other place will have heard my hon. Friend’s request for business there—that is happily a responsibility that does not currently rest with me.

Business of the House

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I seem to recall that there was a significant increase in the allowances made available to members of our armed forces serving in conflict areas. That seems to me to be a significant development. However, the hon. Gentleman will have the opportunity to raise these matters in the very near future, because Defence questions are on Monday 5 July.

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

Given the excellent agreement in New Forest East between leading Liberal Democrats and Conservatives that fluoridation should not be imposed on the community against its will, may we have a statement—not in the next two weeks, but perhaps in the next two minutes—from the Deputy Leader of the House, confirming that the fact that the Liberal Democrats have joined the Conservatives in government in no way vitiates the pledge given by shadow Conservative Health Ministers before the election that fluoridation should not and would not be imposed on communities that did not want it?

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman will not have a statement from me on a matter of health policy, but he can quite properly ask hon. and right hon. Friends in the Department of Health to give a response. It seems to me that this is a very important issue—I have a great deal of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s position—and I am sure that his constituents would like some clarity on the issue. However, I also know that the legislative framework under which these proposals are considered is the legislative framework introduced by the previous Government.

Business of the House

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am genuinely sorry if there has been any discourtesy to the hon. Gentleman, and I will draw to the attention of my ministerial colleagues at the Treasury the need to get him an urgent reply.

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

May I welcome the late conversion of the former Labour Government to not leaking to the press before making announcements in this House? May I ask the Leader of the House for an early debate on the importance of maintaining specialist mental health facilities, which would allow me to raise the question of the loss of the intensive care unit at Woodhaven hospital in the New Forest and the threat to the Crowlin House rehabilitation centre there?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and I know that this is an important issue for New Forest Members. He might like to put in for an Adjournment debate on this important issue or raise it with Ministers at the next Health questions.

Business of the House

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I will pass on to my right hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for housing the request for a meeting. The hon. Lady may have just attended Communities and Local Government questions, when social housing was raised.

Perhaps a half-hour Adjournment debate on the future of the Walthamstow greyhound track is a suitable opportunity to share with Ministers the hon. Lady’s concern about its future.

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

May we have a reaffirmation by Health Ministers of the statement made in opposition that fluoridation would not be imposed on Southampton and Totton without the approval of the majority of the people concerned, given that South Central strategic health authority has put aside £400,000 to fight a court case, despite opposition to fluoridation from 72% of the community?

[Sir George Young]

The coalition Government have no plans at this stage to change the legislation under which the health authority is proceeding with its plans to add fluoride to the water in Southampton and the surrounding district. My constituency verges on that district, and I am aware of the strong local feelings and the unhappiness among some people about the consultation exercise that was undertaken before the decision was made to go ahead. However, I would mislead my hon. Friend if I said that we were planning to do anything in the short term to change the legislative framework in which the decisions are made.

Business of the House

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 3rd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Lady makes a forceful case, and I can only suggest that she puts in for an Adjournment debate so that her anxieties can be shared and she can get a response from the Minister responsible.

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

May we have a full day’s debate prior to the strategic defence review on the adequacy of our strategy for Afghanistan? That would enable us to examine whether a policy of short-term surging, medium-term withdrawal and no apparent long-term plan for security whatever is the best way to proceed.

Business of the House

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s constituency interests, and he might have an opportunity to raise those either in further debates on the Queen’s Speech or, when the time comes, through direct questions to the Ministers concerned.

I have now refreshed my memory of the coalition agreement, which does in fact refer to an

“Ombudsman in the Office of Fair Trading who can proactively enforce the Grocery Supply Code of Practice and curb abuses of power”,

so I hope my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) is reassured by that.

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

In opposition, my right hon. Friend, now the Leader of the House, expressed himself robustly against the permanent colonisation of Parliament square, and against the guillotining of Bills as they went through the House. Will he make a statement to the House on what we propose to do about those two matters now that we are in government?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for taking such an interest in the speeches I have made in the past. It is certainly the Government’s intention not to guillotine Bills automatically in the way that the previous Government did, and to allow adequate opportunity for debate.

On Parliament square, we need to strike the right balance between, on the one hand, the right to protest and, on the other, the conservation of a very important site, right in the middle of the capital, next to Westminster abbey and the Houses of Parliament. In my view, the balance at the moment is not right. The House will know that the Mayor of London is seeking to enforce the byelaw under the Greater London Authority Act 1999, under which it is an offence to erect tents or other paraphernalia without permission of the Mayor, so I hope we can come up with the right balance. People should protest there but they do not have to live there all the time and create what is becoming a shanty town, which does not do credit to the environment in which Parliament square is located.

Dissolution of Parliament

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

I am interested in the fact that my hon. Friend was and is in favour of fixed-term Parliaments, and he is quite right to reflect on the balance of opinion within the Conservative parliamentary party and throughout the House more widely. At one stage during the previous Parliament, it seemed that the then Government were flirting with the idea of a fixed-term Parliament. Indeed, I think that the Modernisation Committee—I shall be corrected if I am wrong—looked at the idea for a time and took evidence on it, including evidence from Officers of the House. The whole project was then kicked into the long grass.

I revert to what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden. The Prime Minister said that

“we are determined to deliver that stability with our lasting coalition. The introduction of a fixed term Parliament was, therefore, a necessary and important measure to propose. Obviously, this is a new idea for our Parliament and necessitated a mechanism for dissolution. I want to reassure you that a mechanism for a no confidence vote in the Government is unchanged.”

That is an important statement. The Prime Minister continued:

“Rather, what our proposals would do is give Parliament a new power to dissolve itself”—

rather like a Beechams powder, although that is perhaps an unfair analogy. That power, he said, is

“currently only exercised by the Prime Minister. We are, in effect, taking a power away from the Executive and putting it in the hands of Parliament, not the contrary. As you know it has always been my intention to reinforce the powers of our Parliament. I hope that this proposal is one positive measure to do just that.”

In my final quotation from the letter, the Prime Minister says:

“The House of Commons will remain able to call a vote of no confidence in the Government as at present. If that took place, a vote of 50 per cent plus one would mean that the Government falls and unless an alternative workable majority can be formed within a specified number of days, a General Election would be called.”

The convention that prevailed meant that if the Government were defeated, the Prime Minister would go to the sovereign and invite her either to dissolve Parliament or to invite somebody else to form a Government, but the new proposal seems to leave Her Majesty out of the equation. I do not know whether that is the intention, and if I am incorrect on that, I am sure that I shall be corrected in the Minister’s response.

I am not criticising anything that has been proposed; all I am doing is asking questions and saying, “Why is the change to the convention on Dissolution necessary or desirable?” The Prime Minister is giving up his constitutional right to request a Dissolution, and I can understand that that is very important—a matter of honour between himself and the Deputy Prime Minister. It means that the Prime Minister cannot pull the rug from under the coalition, but why do we need legislation or, indeed, a motion to achieve that? Surely the Prime Minister’s word is sufficient. Such a unilateral commitment gives the Liberal Democrats the assurance that the Prime Minister will not pull the rug, but during the debate on the Loyal Address earlier today the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) said that the measure might provide for less stable government, because it would enable the Liberal Democrats to withdraw from the coalition and vote against the Government on a motion of confidence without causing a general election. I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will be able to deal with that issue. If at some stage the Liberal Democrats withdraw from the coalition, the threat hanging over them, as things stand, is that the Prime Minister would go to the Queen and invite her to call a general election. But if the Prime Minister said that he would not do that in any circumstances, but had no reciprocal Liberal Democrat commitment not to withdraw from the coalition in any circumstances, the Liberal Democrats could withdraw and align themselves with the left, as the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) would have much preferred them to have done in the first place. They could create an alternative coalition.

That predicament is unlike the situation that prevailed immediately after the general election, when the Liberal Democrats, those on the left and the nationalists were not able to form a sufficient number to guarantee staying in Parliament and enjoy a confidence and supply measure of support. In the situation that I have described, the Liberal Democrats would have no such constraint—they would be able to form a minority Government and stay in office for the remaining period of the fixed-term Parliament. I hope that that nightmare scenario, from a Conservative perspective, is just a nightmare and is not realistic, but I have yet to be persuaded of that. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to persuade me.

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

I am afraid that my hon. Friend is unlikely to be so persuaded, because that situation is par for the course in proportional representation systems, which create shifting coalition Governments. I shall give a classic example. On a visit to Slovenia after the fall of communism, I was told that one day two small centre parties in a centre-right coalition fell out with their partners about something to do with passport legislation and decided to cross the floor. The people of Slovenia went to bed one night with a centre-right coalition and woke up the following morning with a centre-left coalition, without a single vote having been cast by any elector. It is no good my hon. Friend’s grumbling about that or anticipating it with fear—the reality is that it is the logical consequence of hung Parliaments, coalitions and proportional representation. That is why all those things are undesirable, although sometimes we have to live with the consequences of undesirable outcomes.

[Mr Chope]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that powerful intervention. At the moment, we have not yet signed up to the fixed-term Parliament or the 55% lock. We are not there yet. If my hon. Friend fears the consequences of those changes, he and others have it in their power to prevent them from happening. I am sure that when we get to the referendum on the alternative vote, he will be campaigning actively against that system for the reasons that he has spelt out so powerfully.

Notwithstanding what my hon. Friend has said, I hope that I will be able to be persuaded that there is some guarantee to prevent the minority partner in the current coalition Government from jumping ship and getting on board with the other parties.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

We will have a period of reflection: first, we will publish the motion, which the House will consider, and then, at a later stage, we will publish the legislation, which will be considered in advance and then by both Houses of Parliament, which will give them the opportunity to have their say. I do not think that this is a precipitate process; it is carefully considered. Hon. Members such as the hon. Gentleman might well have views that they want to express on behalf of their constituents, and they will be listened to, because that is how we intend to run debates in the House.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way so generously. I was reassured by what he said earlier about the lack of a guillotine on the legislation. Would he like to take this opportunity to say whether that will be the Government’s new general policy on guillotines or whether it is specific only to this legislation? I remember, time after time, quite rightly being sent into the No Lobby to vote against guillotine motion after guillotine motion. I trust that we will be carrying into government the opposition to guillotines that we indicated when in opposition.

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman will have noticed that I was in the same Lobby voting against those guillotine motions. That is why it is our clear intention not to apply automatic guillotines or automatic programme motions, because we do not believe that to be in the interests of proper consideration in this House. This is the new politics—the new way that we are going to run this House of Commons.

Returning to where a vote of no confidence has taken place, it is extraordinary to suggest that there would be circumstances in which this House would refuse to vote for a Dissolution when it was clear that a Dissolution and a new general election were the only way forward. However, even given that, we are putting forward the automatic Dissolution proposal, as a safeguard that we will make part of the legislation, if no new Prime Minister can be appointed within a certain number of days. It seems to me that that is appropriate.

I know that the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk has said that we cannot make any read-across to the Scottish legislation, but I am afraid that I do not entirely agree with him. One thing in the Scottish legislation is that although a two-thirds majority is required for an early Dissolution, there is a fall-back position, with which he will be familiar, which provides for automatic Dissolution if the First Minister resigns and the successor is not appointed within 28 days. That seems an entirely proper constitutional safeguard, and I am very happy to propose something of that kind for our legislation.