Yemen

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I inform the House that I have selected amendment c tabled in the name of the Prime Minister.

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[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I have a lot of sympathy for those wanting to make interventions, but many Members want to speak in this debate and we are not going to get there. The time limit could be three minutes, so short interventions, please.

[Emily Thornberry]

I refer the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) to the earlier part of my speech in which I quoted one of his own Ministers saying that a “deliberate error” had resulted in hundreds of deaths in Yemen. He must bear that in mind when we are deciding whether to continue supporting the ongoing action in Yemen. I will answer the rest of his question in the rest of my speech.

This is about the kind of signal that we are sending to the rest of the world. On Syria, Members on both sides of the House have rightly protested the bombardment of eastern Aleppo by Russia and Assad, demanded tougher international action against Russia, dismissed Russian claims that civilians are not being targeted, and called for those responsible to be tried for war crimes if necessary—they must face justice.

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[Ms Ahmed-Sheikh]

I know that the Government do not like hearing legal opinion, or indeed the opinions of experts, unless it suits their case, but I will continue to make my case. [Hon. Members: “Give way!”] I understand, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I am within my rights not to take interventions unless I so wish. I shall therefore proceed. [Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We all want to get through today’s debate. Shouting means that I cannot hear the hon. Lady. That is not helpful to me, and it should not be helpful to you.

[Ms Ahmed-Sheikh]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The UK is also in violation—[Interruption.] For those who are clearly not listening, this is legal opinion. The UK is also in violation of article 7 of the arms trade treaty on the basis of a clear risk that future weapons supplies could be used to commit or facilitate serious breaches of international law.

What have this Government done to address and investigate these serious and widespread concerns? By their own admission, they have done nothing. After spending most of 2016 telling Parliament that assessments had been conducted and that they were confident that no breach of international law had occurred, they changed their story to declare that no investigation had been carried out at all, and now appear to have changed their mind again. On 4 January 2016, the then Foreign Secretary told this House—I am glad that I now have the Government’s attention—the following:

“I regularly review the situation with my own advisers and have discussed it on numerous occasions with my Saudi counterpart. Our judgement is that there is no evidence that”

international humanitarian law

“has been breached, but we shall continue to review the situation regularly.”

However, the written statement published by the Government on 21 July this year stated that it was important to note that the Government had not reached a conclusion as to whether the Saudis were guilty of international humanitarian law violations in Yemen. They said:

“This would simply not be possible in conflicts to which the UK is not a party, as is the case in Yemen.”—[Official Report, 21 July 2016; Vol. 613, c. 42WS.]

Then last month the current Foreign Secretary, who is in his place today, completely contradicted his own ministerial colleagues—a frequent occurrence—in an interview with “Channel 4 News”. He definitively stated that, after taking evidence from a “very, very wide” range of sources, the UK Government do not believe that Saudi forces have broken humanitarian law, despite the fact that his own Ministers withdrew previous similar statements to Parliament.

Who are we to believe—the previous and current Foreign Secretaries, who say that there has been a UK investigation, or the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who is in his place and has been sent out to defend the indefensible once again? Do they really believe the assurances given to them by the Saudis? Have this Government really not properly independently investigated the claims? Do we really have no idea at all, given the close links that clearly exist between our Government and the armed forces, whether our closest ally in the middle east is using our weapons in this conflict, as the Prime Minister herself suggested last week to my right hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Angus Robertson)? This matters, because when the UK is presented with serious and widespread evidence of breaches of international law, we simply cannot take for granted the words of those who are accused of it.

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[Tom Tugendhat]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. There can be only one person on their feet. You have indicated that you want someone to give way, but if they do not, you must take your seat again.

[Ms Ahmed-Sheikh]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. We also agree with the joint report by the BIS and International Development Committees, which states:

“We do not believe that the UK Government can meet its obligations under the Convention on Cluster Munitions by relying on assurances from the Saudis.”

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[Ms Ahmed-Sheikh]

Through sheer generosity and kindness of spirit, I now give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

You are too generous!

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I just want to help inform the debate. I put the point about cluster munitions directly to the Saudi Foreign Minister when he came here. He said that, yes, they had bought them, but that was 30 years ago; that they are not usable, because they are 30 years old; and that it would not be possible to use them anyway, because they cannot be integrated with modern jets.

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[Ms Ahmed-Sheikh]

I hope that hon. Members and the Government were listening to my hon. Friend’s point. This is a serious issue, and it should come as no surprise that people in this debate speak with such passion and concern about the loss of life and the Government’s inability to hold themselves to account. One wonders what the Government are afraid of.

There is a clear and overwhelming case for halting UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia. As the shadow Foreign Secretary pointed out, if the Foreign Secretary read the motion he would see that the amendment on halting UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia was ours. The amendment was not selected, but it remains our position that unless and until it can be confirmed categorically that these weapons are not being used on civilians, we should not be selling arms to Saudi Arabia. There is a moral and a legal case for that position, and the Government should act now. We need full disclosure over whether UK personnel have played any part at all in the conflict in Yemen. We support calls for an international independent inquiry into violations of international law in Yemen. It is the duty of all of us—all states—to uphold international law, and we should not be afraid to argue for that. Let us be absolutely clear: the UK must immediately suspend all sales to Saudi Arabia.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. May I just advise Members that we are going to have to be very brief and very concise? I will be a bit more lenient with the first two Members; I have asked them to take only seven minutes. After that, the limit will be five minutes.

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[Crispin Blunt]

I will.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Can I just say to the hon. Member for Reigate—sorry Mark, because I am sure you want to come in shortly—that he has had eight minutes. I want to bring Keith Vaz in. When other Members have no minutes left, they are then going to wonder who to blame. Is the hon. Member for Reigate going to give way?

[Crispin Blunt]

I will.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I just remind Members that the time limit is five minutes.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Unfortunately, because Members have been giving way, I shall have to reduce the speaking time limit to four minutes in order to accommodate Members. I am sorry about that. I call Kevan Jones.

EU Membership: Economic Benefits

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We have 50 speakers who want to get in. I want to get them all in, but I cannot do that with very long interventions; they have to be short and sweet and get to the point.

[Stephen Gethins]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point about the health aspects that we all benefit from in a large range of ways.

My hon. Friend also mentioned that the European Union makes us greener. I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will join me in congratulating the Scottish Government, who have met their world-leading climate change targets four years ahead of schedule, with very little help from this place but plenty from co-operation with our European partners. We have worked together on the environment. She mentioned air quality. A number of years ago, complaints about acid rain affecting Germany’s forests led to air quality directives that are benefiting each and every one of us.

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[Stephen Gethins]

I will happily take an intervention from a Conservative Member—they are all helpfully badged.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Can I help a little? I say to people who are going to speak very shortly and want to remain on the list: if you intervene, I am going to drop you down the list. Make your minds up—you cannot have it both ways at the expense of everybody else.

[Mrs Murray]

I will not intervene, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Okay, thank you.

[Stephen Gethins]

Working with our partners has made us greener, and wealthier in terms of the industries in the sector.

Collaboration with our partners has made us smarter through our universities, not least the University of St Andrews, where I see the benefits daily. Since 2014, Scotland has received over £200 million from the EU science fund, and is set to gain £1.2 billion by 2020. The opportunities for collaboration and from the students that come here benefit us all and enrich our campuses.

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[Ian Blackford]

The right hon. Gentleman is making some very powerful points. May I remind the House that we are still living with the consequences of the financial crisis in 2007 and 2008? We have the answer to the question he is asking: the stock market has fallen by £80 billion in the past few days as investors recognise the risk to this country if we have a Brexit vote next week. That is the start of the tsunami that he is talking about. Why would we risk the prosperity of the United Kingdom and, indeed, of Europe by taking such a rash action?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Interventions must be short to give everybody a chance to speak.

[Mr Clegg]

I played a role, somewhat thanklessly as it turned out, for five years in the coalition Government—as did my party, although it is not abundantly represented today on the Bench next to me—to try and provide the political stability that the country needed to recover from the cardiac arrest that occurred in 2008. I think it was the right thing to do. A country cannot recover from that kind of trauma if there is constant constitutional and political instability, yet that is what the Brexit camp want wilfully to inflict on this place and on this country. It is astonishing that they want to drag us back into the furnace of that economic disaster from which we are still escaping right now.

My third and final point is that, unlike, I think, every other Member of the House, I actually worked in a relatively lowly manner—in a previous incarnation, before I went into politics—as an international trade negotiator. I was part of the EU trade negotiation team that sought to settle the terms of China’s accession to the World Trade Organisation. I spent months haggling with hard-nosed Russian trade negotiators about the overflight rights paid by British Airways and European airlines for flying over Siberia. I have spent a lot of time with a lot of international trade negotiators, and I know that they are very unsentimental folk. It is almost laughable simply to state it, but the idea is that we could pull out of the world’s largest economic bloc and then say to these unsentimental folk, who have driven such a hard bargain with that bloc of 500 million people, that we want not just the same but better deals and a better set of conditions on behalf of an economy of only 60 million people. Who do the Brexit camp think these negotiators are? They are not stupid or naive: they will just snigger.

I have looked in vain—I scoured the internet this morning—for the apparently many freedom-loving nations that will cut such favourable deals with us as we depart into this world of milk and honey in which, effortlessly, people will give us concessions that they did not give to a bloc of 500 million people. Can we find anyone? Have the Indians said, “Yes, sure, we’ll give you what you want”? Have the Americans, Canadians or Australians said that? Has anyone said it? Not a single country anywhere in the world has said that it will give better terms of trade to the United Kingdom on its own than to the European Union.

So please, if we do one thing between now and next Thursday, by all means let us thrash it out between those who want us to remain in the European Union, flawed though it is and reformed though it must be, and those who want us to go out, but let us not do so on the basis of these falsehoods, this misleading nonsense, this naivety and fantasy, which would do this great country of ours such a terrible disservice.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. After the next speech there will be a five-minute limit.

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[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I now have to announce the result of the deferred Division on the Question relating to local government. The Ayes were 278 and the Noes were 4. Of Members representing constituencies in England, the Ayes were 260 and the Noes were 3, so the Question was agreed to.

[The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]

I now introduce a five-minute time limit on speeches.

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[Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, not least because we might have the opportunity to get answers to some important questions. He will be aware that when the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) was asked about the impact on the economy in GDP of Brexit, his answer was, “We don’t know.” He will also be aware that when Diane James, a UKIP MEP, was asked whether visas would be required, the answer was, “We don’t know.” Given that the answer to every question posed to the leave campaign is, “We don’t know”, perhaps the hon. Gentleman could answer these questions now.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We need to have short interventions, not speeches. That was longer than five minutes!

[Sir William Cash]

I can say that I do know. I know because I look at the facts as they are now. The facts I have just given demonstrate that inside the single market we run a monumental trade deficit, while we have an enormous and growing trade surplus with the rest of the world. That surplus is the future. That is the vision. That is the means by which we will get jobs and ensure the future of our children and our grandchildren.

To conclude, it is very simple: this is about who governs us. If we get this wrong, we will not be able to organise and establish a democracy in this country, which is what people fought and died for in not just one world war but two.

Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mike Gapes]

Is it not the case that the right hon. Gentleman wants remain to lose because he could then pursue his agenda of holding another referendum on independence within two years? His party is hardly doing anything to campaign to remain in the United Kingdom and for the United Kingdom to remain in the European Union.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. [Interruption.] Order. No. Mr Gapes, senior Member you are, with a lot to offer, but you also want to speak, and I do not want to be the man who puts you at the bottom of the list. Between us, we can all get there. Short interventions if you must, but it would be better if you did not intervene.

[Alex Salmond]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) should read today’s pamphlet, “The EU and You”, released by the Scottish Government, which explains in a considered and proper way why European Union membership is of benefit to Scotland. Not even the most rabid of the leave campaign could describe that pamphlet as anything resembling “Project Fear”. It makes a considered case for why EU membership benefits Scotland.

If the hon. Gentleman looks at the ICM poll for the UK today, he will see that the two sides are level in an online poll. In the ICM poll in Scotland, the margin is nearly 2:1 for remain. Given that even the hon. Gentleman will have noticed the diminishing fortunes of his party in Scotland and the rising fortunes of the SNP, does that not suggest that the campaign that we are conducting in Scotland is rather more successful in winning hearts and minds to the European cause than the campaign that is being conducted across the rest of the country?

A case in point is the release of the Treasury statistics on the economy yesterday—the expectations analysis. An expectations model is the ultimate GIGO model—garbage in, garbage out. The result is manufactured from the input to the model. The Treasury analysis suggests a 6% wipe-out of GDP from a Euro exit. No other credible forecaster is suggesting anything like that effect. Oxford Economics suggests 1.3% and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation suggests 1.5%. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research, which uses the Treasury model, is suggesting 2.3%.

[Mr Baron]

I agree with the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making about “Project Fear”. It is terribly counterproductive. However, we should always remember that those who are peddling “Project Fear” are broadly the same group of people who predicted doom and gloom if we did not join the euro, so they have form. There is one ray of hope. Lord Rose, leader of the remain campaign, has said that if we were to leave the EU, there would be better control of immigration for the sake of public services—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. No. Now we have to be serious with the House because Members want to get in. I have just mentioned the need for short interventions. Please do not abuse the Chair, because what you are doing is abusing colleagues on both sides and that is not good for anybody. I want to get as many people into the debate as possible and, ideally, I want to get everybody in.

[Alex Salmond]

It is ironic that the Conservative Members who have been complaining loudly about “Project Fear” hardly raised a peep when the same campaign was conducted against the Scottish people some two years ago, so I would claim over the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) at least a right of consistency on these matters.

Established and credible forecasters are indicating enough of the economic damage that I believe would be done to this country by an exit, without having to manufacture and inflate statistics which brings the whole argument into disrepute. It is enough for people to know that there will be an economic impact, without trying to inflate that impact beyond what is reasonable.

I commend the Governor of the Bank of England, who has gone no further than saying that the scenarios

“could possibly include a technical recession”.

The Bank of England has demonstrated in both the Scottish referendum and, indeed, this referendum campaign how public servants should behave in terms of offering information and considered analysis.

The major danger to the remain campaign is not the arguments of the leave campaign, because the leave campaign is fundamentally split between those who see the UK’s future after an exit as similar to that of Switzerland or Norway, and those who think it can be some sort of transatlantic Singapore. That fundamental division cannot be resolved, because the way to minimise economic damage from an exit would be to adopt the Norwegian model, but the majority of the leave campaign will not subscribe to that because it would bring with it acceptance of the single market, various regulations and, of course, free movement of labour. That is the fundamental problem with the leave campaign.

The remain campaign across the UK should at the moment be as far ahead as we are in Scotland. The fact that we are not is an indication that the campaign should be recalibrated into one that starts to win hearts and minds, and that addresses some of the issues to which the Foreign Secretary alluded. Sixty-six years after the Schuman declaration, we can say that the European Union has contributed to peace, stability and prosperity across Europe. Over that time, building a single market of 500 million people has been no mean achievement. For Opposition parties in particular, the social gains for every family and every trade unionist in this country—things that the Government do not like to talk about—are a very substantial reason for not leaving the EU behind. It would also add to the credibility of our arguments if we accepted—as, indeed, the Leader of the Opposition did in his speech—the problems and difficulties that people have with the European Union.

The fishing community in Scotland, which takes 60% of the landings, are hugely sceptical, because, of all the EU polices that could be considered disastrous, the common fisheries policy is the greatest. On 11 May I wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, suggesting that support for the remain campaign might be enhanced if, as part of the UK’s presidency of the European Council next year, he agreed that the Scottish fisheries Minister should co-chair—with the UK fisheries Minister, the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice)—the Agriculture and Fisheries Council. Incidentally, the Prime Minister was very open to such a suggestion when he came to office in 2010, as indeed was the Foreign Secretary’s predecessor, William Hague.

I suggested that a response to that invitation before purdah in three days’ time would be helpful to my former constituents in Banff and Buchan. I was therefore delighted to receive a letter last week from an unnamed correspondence officer at the direct communications unit at Downing Street, saying that my request was being considered. However, if the Foreign Secretary is genuinely interested in strengthening the position of the remain campaign, I hope he will indicate today to the fishing communities of Scotland that the Government will take advantage of the opportunity provided by the European Council presidency to address their needs and iron out many of the difficulties in the current regulations.

SNP Members would have wished the Government to address the fears that many of our constituents have about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership without being forced to do so by an amendment, because there are genuine fears that a court process may allow an aggressive intervention in the national health service. Last week, I had a meeting with the Baltic state and Scandinavian ambassadors, who indicated that when this Government took office, they invested great hopes in the Prime Minister’s northern agenda—the reform agenda for the European Union that he was putting forward at that time—but their view and belief is that the agenda has been deflected by a referendum that is about British exceptionalism as opposed to genuine reform of the European institutions.

My submission is that if we are to have a campaign that people will endorse and give an enthusiastic response to, that will prevent the danger of differential voting between enthusiastic Brexiteers and those who are cowed into submission by the Government’s “Project Fear” and that will mobilise people to get out of their houses and into the polling stations, the Government will have to rise above the campaign they are fighting so far and actually make a positive case for the European Union.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am now introducing a five-minute limit. I know it is disappointing but it is the way to get everybody in.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I shall try to proceed with Twitter-like brevity in this Twitter age, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I want to reinforce the points made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) on prisons, although I gently remind him that, given the position we inherited, there would now be 96,000 people in prison had we not done anything. That the number has stabilised at 85,000 is a signal achievement, therefore, even if it is disappointing that it has not gone down.

On the European convention on human rights, I entirely endorse the sentiments expressed in the speeches of the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve). I do so having just returned from Russia with the Foreign Affairs Committee.

While pausing to put on record my thanks to Laurie Bristow, our ambassador, and his team in Russia for the programme they put on for us, I should say that part of it included meeting human rights activists in Russia. The convention is often the only resort they have as they go through the Russian courts. The Russian legal system is presided over by a Duma passing laws that are going in an illiberal direction, but there is at least a contested space of some kind. It is possible to get some protection, and overseeing that is the protection provided by the convention itself. We had some good briefings while we were in Russia, and the message came back clearly to us that this House should think about Russian human rights activists when we are considering British support for the European convention. Issues such as whether a few prisoners should have the right to vote stand pretty small in comparison with the quality of the work being done there and the courage behind it.

When it comes to reflecting on our overall relations with Russia, it is the case that they are absolutely in the deep freeze right now. Our bilateral relations are in an extremely poor place. I am struck by the fact that both the Russian mission here in London and our mission in Moscow are largely obstructed by tit-for-tat measures that prevent them from carrying out their duties effectively. Both missions are reduced to that situation, with both complaining about the measures imposed on them.

In our meeting with a Russian official in the Russian Foreign Office who oversees British affairs, I suggested that it might be an idea to start relaxing some of the measures on British representation in Moscow to begin to try to get out of this downward spiral. Let us see if some micro-measures can be made to make the work of British diplomats easier and start this process off.

What has gone wrong, of course, is the strategic relationship fall-out at the end of the cold war. Probably rightly, the west decided to secure the position of central and eastern European people, but the price was the failure subsequently to get an effective strategic relationship with Russia. That is now being made infinitely more difficult by Russia’s departure from the international rules of the road.

There is an issue about whether we are going to try to help the Russians out of the cul-de-sac that they have got themselves into. Even if it is initially at the level of cultural exchanges and students coming over here and so forth, we should invest in this relationship in any way we can. It is a very important relationship; Russia is a very important country. That is why it becomes even more critical when a country of that size is under the leadership that it is—a leadership that underneath it all has a deep lack of self-confidence, even though tactically it might feel strong.

Finally, on the European Union debate, I thought the first part of the shadow Foreign Secretary’s speech was terrific, but then he set up the Aunt Sallies about the opposition case. There are two internationalisms competing here, and there are very good arguments to show why geopolitically the United Kingdom has a choice here. I believe we need positive arguments on both sides. I cannot go into those arguments because of the time limit, but I urge all colleagues to be positive in how they present their case on this issue.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Let me say that Chris Elmore’s will be a maiden speech. I call Chris Elmore.

[Hon. Members]

Hear, hear.

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[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

There were a number of things I wanted to say, but time is limited. However, there are one or two omissions from the Queen’s Speech. Members will recall the debates we have had over the last few months about women’s pensions, and I thought there would be something in the Queen’s Speech to start to address the anomaly on that issue. As many Members in this Chamber know, some women feel they are being discriminated against, and the Queen’s Speech should have addressed that.

A campaign is also going on at the moment over the cuts to pharmacies in the national health service budget. Those cuts could result in some local pharmacies closing—so much for the Government talking about local democracy and involving local people. There is also the issue of student nurses and their bursaries. The bulk of student nurses are women—again, it appears that women are being discriminated against.

On the European situation, I was one of those who campaigned against going into Europe in 1975. I did that for a lot of good reasons. At the time, most people in the labour movement saw Europe as a market that had no benefits—certainly for the trade union movement. We had campaigns across Coventry. Trade union leaders came to Coventry and said, “If you go in, you won’t get out.” Then, of course, we had the Delors speech about social justice and social policies being introduced in Europe. That changed the attitude of the labour movement and the Labour party.

If we were going to have a referendum, we should have had one when we talked about the single market. As everybody knows, if there is a single market, there is a single bank and a single currency, whichever way we argue it. The Government at the time said they were going to change the agricultural policy, but, unfortunately, they did not do that. They signed us up to the single market, and they boasted about the rebate they got. It was a very interesting scenario. There was another occasion when we should have had a referendum—in fact, there was a chance of one—and that was Maastricht. I welcome the fact that we are now having a referendum, but we can see that there have been lost opportunities.

Like a number of people, I have changed my mind, and I have explained why before, but let me give an example of why. Nissan was interested in investing in Coventry; it was going to locate its car plant there. However, when it discovered that there was no regional aid and no leverage into Europe at that time, it located in Sunderland. I wish the people in Sunderland well, because Nissan has done well there. That is a good example of how people can change their minds when they are faced with the realities.

One reason that a lot of people—particularly some in the Conservative party, but not all—want to pull out of Europe is red tape. However, when we ask them to try to define it, the only thing they can come up with is health and safety or labour relations; they do not come up with any other reasons. In fact, the Leader of the House gave the game away about a month ago in a television interview, when he was pointedly asked, “What do you mean by red tape?” He blurted out, “Health and safety.” This is one of the reasons why we should certainly remain in Europe. It has been suggested that the world will be lovely outside Europe. However, people who argue that tariffs in the United States would be only 3% are wrong. We would find that when we traded with the United States, and particularly with the South American market, we paid a higher tariff. Equally, we would pay higher tariffs outside Europe but be expected to conform to the rules and regulations of Europe. These are the hard facts of life.

With the referendum only one month away, I support the right of people in Coventry to have their say, as I have indicated, but must clearly highlight the fact that the hard-won rights of the workplace are at risk—paid leave, for example. Anti-discrimination laws, jobs growth and our place in the world are at stake. We have two universities in my constituency that rely heavily on EU membership. European academics, scientists, technicians and students all play a leading part in Coventry.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order.

EU Membership (Audit of Costs and Benefits) Bill

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Friday 26th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Colvile]

My great grandfather was a rural vicar in Oxfordshire. He said that he did not mind his congregation looking at their watches; it was when they started shaking them that he became concerned. I feel that that is something we should take on board.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I assure you that I am beginning to look at my watch.

[Pat Glass]

That is helpful. As the hon. Gentleman has spoken about his great grandfather, I will talk about mine a little later. [Interruption.] Would the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) like to say something about my great grandfather? I will talk about him later, and perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to intervene then.

European Affairs

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pritchard]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

No! No! Please.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I will not give way, because others wish to speak. My hon. Friend has already given me extra time just by standing up. [Interruption.] I will finish my speech, because I do not wish to abuse the procedures of the House.

On a final note, there is a world out there. Let us grasp it; let us trust the people; let us not be afraid and let us regain our freedom.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. We have 10 speakers and two wind-ups. It works out at six minutes each, and that is without interventions. I ask those who have spoken to think about those who have not to make sure that they also get on the record. If we can help each other, we will all get there.

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[Mr Rees-Mogg]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thought the Minister might begin with an apology for the absence of the Foreign Secretary. It is custom for senior Ministers who have opened debates to return for the end of them. On such an important matter, it is a rather surprising discourtesy to the House that the normal convention has not been observed.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. What I would say is that it is the choice of the Foreign Secretary, and who knows, we may hear something yet, as the Minister for Europe has so far only managed to get three words out.

[Mr Lidington]

My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is meticulous in his courtesies to this House, but sometimes Secretaries of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs have to deal with extremely urgent matters to do with this country’s national security.

I want to single out the speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), as anybody who heard it, whichever side of this argument they stand on, will remember it as one of the great parliamentary set pieces of their years in this place.

I do not want to dwell at length on the arguments about renegotiation, because my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister went into them in great detail and answered questions about the subject for three hours on Monday. I simply say that I have sat through a fair number of these debates in the last six years, and I will be the first to say to my hon. Friends the Members for Wycombe (Mr Baker) and for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) that they are models of consistency in their opposition to British membership of the European Union. If the Prime Minister had come back from Brussels brandishing the severed heads of the members of the European Commission and proceeded to conduct an auto-da-fé in Downing Street of copies of the Lisbon treaty, they would still be saying, “This is feeble, insufficient, not enough.”

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

The Minister for Europe is desperate to answer.

[Mr Lidington]

I am happy to respond. The Prime Minister responded to this point in answer to questions on Monday. The Government have a very clear position, which is to recommend to the country that people vote to remain members of a reformed European Union. Quite exceptionally, Ministers are being allowed to depart from the normal rules on collective responsibility in order to dissent from the official Government position on that referendum question, but the civil service exists to serve and support the policy agreed by the Government of the day. The letter published by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, subsequently extended by formal guidance from the Cabinet secretary to civil servants, does no more than give effect to that policy.

[Mr Jenkin]

Further to that point of order, I am grateful for your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, but that does not answer a great many of the questions. How can I raise this very urgent matter?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

The simple answer is that I have had no notification that anybody is going to make a statement. I can do no more than allow the Minister for Europe to reply.

[Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Does the Minister accept that the position that he has just explained comes to an end when the purdah period starts?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Let me help everybody. We are not going into a debate. That is the end of it. We need to move on.

Yemen

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Lady makes a very important point. She is illustrating the horrors of war, which largely occur in populated areas when one adversary chooses to hide within such populated areas. Unfortunately, that leads to casualties. We are not in any way saying that when a civilian area or facility is attacked or destroyed that is somehow acceptable; it absolutely is not. When there is collateral damage of that form, it is important for whichever side has done it to put its hand up and say that it will conduct an investigation. We are not saying it is right, but we are making it clear—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. In fairness to the Minister, he cannot take advantage of the situation. We are struggling to get everybody in, and interventions are meant to be very short. He cannot make a speech now, given that he will be making a speech later. That is unfair to everybody.

[Alison Thewliss]

The point is that such bombings have now happened three times, and those involved in the conflict are not taking responsibility for their actions. Médecins sans Frontières is struggling to get the support it needs when it says that such a situation is unacceptable. People being taken to hospital in ambulances have been hit in this conflict, so it is clear that huge errors have been made in the conduct of the conflict. We could say that such hospitals are not being targeted, but what is worse is that bombs are being dropped in crowded areas, which is where the danger arises for many of the people living there. Cluster bombs, which are illegal, are being used in the conflict, as we can see from the pictures that appear on Twitter and other media sources. Who would bomb a hospital? It is completely wrong, and it is completely against all the rules of warfare. We should challenge that on every possible occasion.

If we have troops embedded with the Saudis, they should be making that clear and not allowing such attacks to happen. The Saudis are getting their bombs from us, so we could stop this happening. We could suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia today, and we could be an honest broker in bringing peace to the people of Yemen. I ask the Government to act, and to act now.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I have to bring the time limit down to four minutes. I call Mike Wood.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate, which I thank the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) for organising, because Yemen is an important country to many of us.

Yemen is important to me personally because I studied my Arabic there some 20 years ago. Though I was not born in Khormaksar, as some of my hon. Friends were, and though I did not grow up overlooking Crater lake, as so many did, the country has marked itself on me. It has done so because it is a country of such wonderful contrasts. It is a very rich, green and beautiful land. It grows some of the world’s finest coffee, as well as khat, which, although banned in this country, is very popular in certain parts of the world. It is extraordinary in its richness. It is the place where the Arabic language was formalised and the domestication of the camel happened and therefore the place from which the colonisation of the deserts of Arabia and the rest of al-Jazeera al-Arabiya began.

Yemen is, then, at the heart of Arabia, and that is one reason why the conflict matters so much. For the Saudis, it is not some minor adjunct to their territory or some neighbouring state that they can ignore. It is a country with which they have such close relationships of blood and history that they cannot cut it off. Many tribes that now live happily in Saudi Arabia have cousins and links across the border. I remember as a soldier watching as convoys of donkeys crossed the Saudi border—forgive me, Mr Deputy Speaker, for taking a slight diversion. They would load up donkeys with hay and take them on the route five or six times, and when the donkeys knew where they were going, they would remove the hay, take away the donkey driver and load them up with heroin, and the donkeys would follow the same route. And so these self-propelled donkey caravans of drugs would come straight out of Yemen.

The Saudis have a real and personal interest in Yemen, and we should recognise, therefore, that they are defending their own interests. I will not argue, however, that they are doing so in the most humane way; they are not. They are behaving in ways that frankly call into question the training they have received from some of the finest pilots and servicemen in the world. I would urge them, therefore, to remember the lessons and doctrines they learned at Shrivenham and Cranwell and to remember that civilians are not a target.

This is an extremely important moment for Saudi Arabia. It is just beginning again to assert its presence in the region, as it has the right to do, being an important country. It is also right to do so given the expansion of the Iranian empire into traditionally Arab areas, such as Iraq, the eastern seaboard of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, where the Iranian influence is growing. The Iranian encirclement of Saudi Arabia is certainly a threat. I welcome the fact, therefore, that the Saudis are reacting and that Britain is playing her role, as a good ally, in supporting her, but I urge them to think hard about how it conducts this campaign.

The campaign, in the heart of Arabia, is being played out perhaps not in our broadsheets, but in the broadsheets of the cafés of Cairo, Algiers and Baghdad. People are watching the leadership of Riyadh and its conduct, and they are thinking, “Are these the allies we want? Is this the example for Arabia and the post-Arab spring generation?” I ask the Saudi Government to think hard about the human rights and lives of the people they are affecting, not just in Yemen, but around the Arab world.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I suggest that the Front Benchers take eight minutes each.

Central and East Africa

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. and learned Gentleman on securing this debate. On my visit to Burundi in 2009, I visited a Save the Children hospital that was helping women who needed Caesarean sections to deliver their babies safely. That was one of the many projects that we funded in country, and it made a real difference in a country where one in five under-fives did not make it to their fifth birthday. I agree that by withdrawing from the country, we have a lesser voice and less influence. I gently say to all hon. Members that what Chad and the Central African Republic have in common is their abject poverty and the fact that they are so-called aid orphans. There are ways to channel aid into those countries through the UN and perhaps through partnering with other Governments. We need to be a bit more flexible in the future.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. It is intended that the opening speech lasts between 10 and 15 minutes. We are running over already and many Members wish to speak. I know that the hon. and learned Gentleman will want to conclude his speech shortly.

[Stephen Phillips]

I am grateful for your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker. The hon. Lady makes a strong point. There is a balance to be struck between deciding whether aid will be displaced and the influence for good that British aid can have.

With your injunction in mind, Mr Deputy Speaker, let me move on to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has similar problems. The constitution says that President Joseph Kabila must stand down this year, but many doubt that he will. He has been in charge since his father was assassinated in 2001. DRC has itself been the subject of an appalling civil war in the past and the worry must be that if he does not stand down, and instead seeks to circumvent the constitutional time limits, that will lead to violence and instability in the region.

There is also concern about the ongoing elections in the Central African Republic. Ongoing violence between rival Christian and Muslim armed groups since 2012 has displaced about 1 million people, and countless different militias control various parts of the country. Although the first round of presidential elections last month seems to have gone well and, thankfully, to have passed off peacefully, no winner has emerged yet and it is not entirely clear what is going on in the CAR and what the state of its Government is. It might be suggested that it is something of a tinderbox—some in the print media have said that—and if there is not a smooth run-off vote, that could spark a new round of violence.

The important point is about political stability. Constitutions are there to be observed, and if they are not—if people treat themselves as having a right to govern and to govern for as long as they want—that is detrimental to fragile democracies and is likely to lead to political violence, and runs the risk of leading to civil war. Such civil war is what Rwanda went through in 1994. One of my earliest political memories is of the appalling pictures we saw on our televisions of the genocide, in which approximately 1 million were killed during a period of several months. We must keep those images in mind, because we must try to avoid such a genocide and the political instability that leads to appalling acts of violence against the people of countries in the region, which in turn leads to our having to go into the region and spend British taxpayers’ money to try and restore order and stability, and can lead to problems on these shores in terms of economic migration and terrorism.

I said I would speak about eight countries, but with your injunction in mind, Mr Deputy Speaker, although I have spoken only about four or five I will conclude, as I know many Members wish to contribute. I look forward to hearing those contributions and the Minister’s position and that of the Opposition in due course.

Middle East

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Last Thursday I warmly commended the Prime Minister for the way in which he had treated the House in relation to the matter of Syria. He was forthright in coming to this House and giving a lengthy statement and then answering questions for two hours. I also said last Thursday that it would be a big mistake for the Prime Minister to attempt to bounce this House into a decision early and without proper debate.

I understand that the Prime Minister has just announced on television—not to this House—that the debate and vote on Syria are to take place this Wednesday. First, can you confirm, Mr Deputy Speaker, that there could perfectly easily be a business statement at 10 o’clock tonight—that would be perfectly in order—so that that could be made clear for the convenience of the whole House? Secondly, will you confirm that if the Government do not table their motion until tomorrow, which I understand will be the case, the only amendments that can be considered on Wednesday—if the debate is still on Wednesday—are manuscript amendments? In 2013, we could only consider manuscript amendments, but that was because the House had been summoned back from recess. In these circumstances, there is no excuse for us to be proceeding in this way when making such important decisions.

Will you also confirm, Mr Deputy Speaker, that there is no reason why the debate should not be a two-day debate, as we have been requesting for the past two weeks, so that we do not have two-minute, three-minute or four-minute limits to speeches, but can properly consider the very serious issues that many Members on both sides of the House want to raise with the Government?

Finally, I hope you can confirm that if the debate is to end at 10 pm on Wednesday, rather than at the moment of interruption at 7 pm, another motion also needs to be tabled. It would surely be for the convenience of the House if it was tabled today, again so that Members can table amendments to it that do not have to be manuscript amendments.

I just say to the Government that there are many Members on both sides of the House who want to listen to proper debate on a matter that is not straightforward and simple, and any shenanigans or attempts to bounce the House into a decision would be wholly regrettable.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. To run through his questions, he is absolutely right that the motion could be tabled tonight. He is correct that if it is tabled later any amendments would have to be manuscript amendments. It would also take a business of the House motion in order to change the hours of the sitting on Wednesday to take us through to 10 pm. As ever, the shadow Leader of the House is absolutely correct on everything he asked—because he knew the answers before he asked—but I confirm that he is correct. Of course, that is now on the record. Obviously, it is not for the Chair, but for the Government to decide the business of the House. I am sure the usual channels will be in discussions to try to come to an early agreement that will benefit all Members of the House.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I suggest that hon. Members now speak for six minutes, as I want to bring the shadow Minister in at quarter to 10.

Iran: Nuclear Issues

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Not me.

[Jim Shannon]

I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker. I meant the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), although I know you share our interest.

Everyone in this House wants to see change in Iran—how could we not?—but I have to see evidence of changes on human rights. Under article 13 of the constitution of Iran, it is impossible for those of the Baha’i faith and other religious beliefs to enjoy such rights The Minister says that he wants “smooth implementation of the agreement.” I am a friend and supporter of Israel, for many reasons. I am a Christian and believe that Israel is the land of God’s chosen people. That is my opinion and belief. At the same time, I understand that that does not give them the right to do everything they want. I think of Israelis trying to protect themselves. Some of those in Iran who are part of the process of changing the sanctions have said that they want to see the destruction of the state of Israel. That does not mean firing a couple of bombs—it means no Israel. Given such statements, where is the “smooth implementation of the agreement” when it comes to Israel? Last Saturday I attended an event in support of Israel at the Parliament buildings at Stormont in Belfast, and the speakers there were very aware of what we were trying to say. When it comes to agreed steps to reduce the nuclear programme, where is the evidence of change among the Iranians we are talking to?

Many see Iran as part of the axis of evil in the middle east. Sometimes we have to jump into bed with people we are not terribly happy to jump into bed with, but it happens. Sometimes we have to make agreements with people who are a wee bit unpalatable. I understand that, but I would love to see the evidence that the issues of human rights and religious belief are being addressed. I want an agreement as much as anybody else in this House, including the Minister and the right hon. and hon. Members who have participated in this debate, but I want an agreement that safeguards religious beliefs for all in Iran and that addresses the situation of those who are persecuted because of their beliefs, those whose human rights are abused and those who are under threat.

I respect the Minister greatly and know that he is genuinely trying to achieve something we can all get behind and support, but I want to know what is happening with human rights and religious beliefs. What is happening with regard to those who need help? They do not have a voice in Iran, so let us in this House be their voice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ellwood]

I say in all politeness and courtesy to my hon. Friend that we are now spending a lot of time discussing when the debate should happen. It is happening now. With respect to the European Scrutiny Committee, we have made it very clear that this is the earliest I have been requested to come to the House. I would have been delighted to come earlier. I make it clear that we have had other debates. Now that we are here, I suggest that we focus on the issues.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We do not want to get into a debate about when we should have the debate. I know that the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) wants to get back to the issue and is going to bring us back to it now.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I must finish my point on this crucial issue because it is appalling of the Government to take this high-handed line with scrutiny in the House of Commons. It may be that the Minister did not know that this debate was asked for, but if he cared to read, daily, the daily agenda and the requirements for debates, he would have seen that this debate appeared day in, day out. If the Minister has not heard that from his officials, or read it for himself or been told it by the Whips, that is not the fault of the European Scrutiny Committee; it is that the Government are deliberately obstructing debate in this House. They always have time.

I will finish on this point shortly, Mr Deputy Speaker, but it is so important because we need to have these debates scheduled properly and quickly. The time that we have now is outside the normal sitting hours, so the argument that there was no day previously when it could have been held is false. We could have an extra 90-minute debate on any day since the request was made by the European Scrutiny Committee two months ago. And that is not the worst of the Government’s treatment of debate in the House. It is quite wrong that the Government should shy away from democratic accountability. I shall say no more on that today, but it is a subject that I will come back to if the Government do not treat the Chamber of the House of Commons properly.

To come on to the documents, I am afraid that I am going to change tack because the Government find me in support of what they are trying to do and, indeed, accepting of the override of scrutiny. When it comes to sanctions on individuals and the lifting of those sanctions, they cannot necessarily go through the full scrutiny process prior to the decision being reported to the House because, particularly when sanctions are being imposed, people would have the opportunity to avoid them in advance. There is a natural understanding of the confidentiality in relation to imposing and lifting sanctions and of the sensitivity with which this was being discussed with Iran. That is completely reasonable.

The second point that is worth making is that most of this was agreed under article 29 of the treaties on the European Union, which operates under unanimity. That is relevant because it shows that the European Union can work on a unanimous basis without any sacrifice of sovereignty by the individual member states. That is a model for future European activity—that we should take action when everybody is agreed because it is then much more powerful.

That is the next point: what has been done has succeeded and what was being aimed for was of the greatest importance. Trying to ensure that Iran did not become a nuclear state in the broad perspective of global security must have been a pre-eminent interest. It is worth noting that the most rogue of rogue states, which I think is North Korea, is secure in its wrongdoing and its internal oppression and is cocking a snook at the rest of the world because Kim Jong-un has a nuclear weapon. Those of us who wish to see a sensible world order want a limit on the number of states with nuclear weapons, and want to try to stop states that are on the margins of the international order getting hold of nuclear weapons. This is a successful policy that has had great advantages for security, but in the process that the Government have undertaken with other states and with the United Nations an important step has been taken in bringing Iran back into the global community. I slightly disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) and, indeed, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I think it is a great advantage that Iran is back in the community of nations.

It has long been the case that the best way of achieving international security is dealing with nation states, but all nation states have an inherent interest in their own stability. They wish to maintain law and order within their own nation because it threatens their rule if they do not do so. That makes most nation states in most circumstances the enemy of the terrorist. The terrorist is a greater threat to the United Kingdom than the rogue nation state is likely to be. Equally, the rogue nation state is easier to deal with, because it has a structure that can be attacked from outside if fundamental national interests are offended. Terrorists cannot be attacked in that way, because they are harder to pin down.

We have come to the point in British foreign policy—and, perhaps more importantly, US foreign policy—at which Iran is being brought back into the family of nations. That could be a significant boost to our ability to ensure security in the middle east but also more broadly because it goes back to a fundamental principle that has generally been accepted by most countries since the peace treaty of Westphalia in 1648: the principle that it is the nation state that underpins that security. It is what went wrong from the late 1990s onwards, when it was thought better to interfere in the internal activities of nation states to make them better nation states. That policy turned out to be fundamentally wrong-headed.

We have gained three very good things from the suspension of sanctions. First, it has been shown that the EU can work on the basis of unanimity. Secondly, it has reduced the likelihood of Iran having a nuclear bomb, and, thirdly—this is overwhelmingly the most important—there has been a change of attitude back to treating the nation state as the building block of global security. I very much hope that the Government will apply that in other cases.

European Union Referendum Bill

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Manuscript amendment (a) to Government new clause 10, after subsection 5 insert—

‘(5A) Any regulations under subsection (2) must be made not less than four months before the date of the referendum.’.

The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that the “purdah” arrangements that govern ministerial and official announcements, visits and publicity are made at least four months before the date of the referendum.

New clause 5—Restriction on publication etc. of promotional material by central and local government etc.—

‘(1) This section applies to any material which—

(a) provides general information about the referendum;

(b) deals with any of the issues raised by the question on which the referendum is being held;

(c) puts any arguments for or against the proposition that the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union; or

(d) is designed to encourage voting at the referendum.

(2) Subject to subsection (3), no material to which this section applies shall be published during the relevant period by or on behalf of—

(a) any Minister of the Crown, government department or local authority; or

(b) any other person or body whose expenses are defrayed wholly or mainly out of public funds or by any local authority.

(3) Subsection (2) does not apply to—

(a) material made available to persons in response to specific requests for information or to persons specifically seeking access to it;

(b) anything done by or on behalf of the Electoral Commission or a person or body designated under section 108 (designation of organisations to whom assistance is available) of the 2000 Act;

(c) the publication of information relating to the holding of the poll; or

(d) the issue of press notices;

and subsection (2)(b) shall not be taken as applying to the British Broadcasting Corporation or Sianel Pedwar Cymru.

(4) In this section—

(a) publish” means make available to the public at large, or any section of the public, in whatever form and by whatever means (and “publication” shall be construed accordingly);

(b) “the relevant period”, in relation to the referendum, means the period of 28 days ending with the date of the poll.’.

This new clause replicates section 125 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, and applies it directly to the EU Referendum. It is supplemented by New Clause 6 on Exemptions to prohibition on publication of promotional material by central and local government etc. (No.2). Amendment 4 removes from the Bill the disapplication of section 125 of the 2000 Act.

New clause 6—Exemptions to prohibition on publication of promotional material by central and local government etc. (No. 2)—

‘(1) For the purposes of the referendum the Secretary of State may, by regulations, specify materials that he or she intends or expects to publish in the relevant period to be exempted from the prohibitions on the publication of materials under section (Restriction on publication etc. of promotional material by central and local government etc.).

(2) Any materials listed in regulations made under this section will not be subject to the prohibitions on publication under section 125 of the 2000 Act.

(3) In this section “the relevant period”, in relation to the referendum, means the period of 28 days ending with the date of the poll.’.

This gender-neutral new clause permits the Government to specify material that they intend or expect to publish in the “purdah” period for the referendum that would be exempted from the prohibition on publication of promotional material contained in section 125 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, which Amendment 4 would apply to the EU Referendum. The material would have to be specified in regulations exercisable by statutory instrument, which under clause 6 of this bill must be laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.

Amendment (a) to new clause 6, at end add—

‘(4) Before laying any regulations under subsection (1) the Government shall seek the advice of the Electoral Commission on the subject of the proposed regulation.

(5) Any advice given by the Electoral Commission under this section shall be published by the time the regulation is laid.

(6) Any regulations under subsection (1) must be made not less than four months before the date of the referendum.’.

The Electoral Commission gives advice to the Government about proposed referendums. The proposed subsections (4) and (5) would reinforce this role in respect of regulations made under this section. Subsection (6) sets a time limit to ensure stable “purdah” arrangements are in place in advance of the start of referendum campaign.

Amendment 11, in clause 10, page 5, line 28, at end insert—

‘(1A) (a) Section 1 will come into effect after a resolution has been passed by both Houses approving arrangements for a purdah period covering a period of five weeks before the referendum date.

(b) arrangements for a purdah period will include—

(i) restrictions on material that can be published by the government, public bodies and the EU institutions; and

(ii) measures to determine breaches of purdah and penalties for such a breach.’

The referendum provision of the Bill could only come into effect after arrangements for purdah had been approved by both Houses of Parliament.

Government amendment 53.

Amendment 78, in schedule 1, page 19, line 23, leave out paragraph 26 and insert—

‘26 (1) Section 125 of the 2000 Act (restriction of publication etc of promotional material by central and local government etc) applies in relation to the referendum during the referendum period with the following modification.

(2) Section 125 (2) (a) of the 2000 Act has effect for the purposes of the referendum as if, after “Crown”, there were inserted “including ministers in the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government, the Northern Ireland Executive and Her Majesty‘s Government of Gibraltar”.’

The purpose of the amendment is to apply the “purdah” arrangements that govern ministerial and official announcements, visits and publicity during general elections to the campaign period before the referendum.

Amendment 4, page 19, line 23, leave out paragraph 26.

The purpose of the amendment is to apply the “purdah” arrangements that govern ministerial and official announcements, visits and publicity during general elections to the campaign period before the referendum. The amendment should be read in conjunction with New Clause 5 (Restriction on publication etc of promotional material by central and local government etc) and New Clause 6 (Exemptions to prohibition on publication of promotional material by central and local government etc (No.2)).

[Mr Lidington]

In Committee, I promised to reflect on the concerns that were raised about the Government’s proposal to disapply, for the purposes of the EU referendum, section 125 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The Government accept completely the importance of the referendum being conducted in a way that is both fair and seen to be fair by the partisans on both sides of the debate. In particular, that means that the conduct of both Ministers and civil servants must be beyond reproach. We are therefore bringing to the House today proposals that we believe provide the rigorous safeguards wanted by hon. Members on both sides of the House.

I reiterate what the Foreign Secretary and I have both said before, namely that the Government will not undertake activities during the final 28 days of the campaign that would be seen as the province of the lead campaign organisations. In particular, there should be no question of the Government undertaking any paid advertising or promotion, such as billboards, door drops, leafleting, or newspaper or digital advertising during that period.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

I realise that I should not be interrupting the flow of people to whom the Government are only too anxious to make any concession that is demanded and who are obviously quite clear about what result they want from the referendum—indeed, they are rather more concerned about the result than the process—but will the Minister confirm that, whatever further concessions he is now making, it will still be possible for Ministers to give a clear and authoritative opinion on whether, according to the constitutional Government of the country, it is in the best interests of the United Kingdom in respect of its political future in the world and its economic prospects to be in or out of the European Union, and that little things like being allowed to take advice on the factual accuracy of what they are saying on behalf—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. [Interruption.] Order! The right hon. and learned Gentleman knows that interventions have to be short. We cannot have speeches at this stage. [Interruption.] I will make the decision. I am sure that the Minister will want to reply. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman needs to intervene again, he may do so, but we cannot have speeches or long interventions.

[Mr Clarke]

I do apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I sense, looking around, that I am grossly outnumbered in the Conservative party, given my views, by a certain section of my hon. and right hon. colleagues. They wish to silence Ministers. I do realise that I—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. [Interruption.] Order. The right hon. and learned Gentleman will have to sit down for a moment. He is well known as the big beast and I am certain that he has never worried about the number of people around him who may not be on the same side.