Business of the House

Natascha Engel Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s work as chairman of the CPA in organising an important conference at the end of next month. I am glad that a number of my ministerial colleagues will speak at the conference, which I hope will be a great success. I would be misleading him, however, if I said that I could find time between now and the summer recess for a debate on the Commonwealth, but I hope that there might be an opportunity to raise the issue in Foreign and Commonwealth Office questions or perhaps to seek a debate in Westminster Hall.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I am sorry to go on about this, but the Leader of the House gives me absolutely no option. The Government are not sticking to their promise of allocating one day a week as Back-Bench time. At the moment, we are running at about one day a month, and I am sure that the problem cannot possibly be the subjects that we are choosing to debate on the Floor of the House, so will he please again consider allocating one set, regular, non-Thursday slot as Back-Bench time?

[Sir George Young]

Let me reassure the hon. Lady, whose work as Chair of the Backbench Business Committee I admire, that we will stick to our promise that there will be 35 days in the Session, plus injury time because this Session is longer. We cannot offer one day every week, and a large number of days at the beginning of the Session were devoted to general debates. We might be able to catch up towards the end of the Session, but at the moment I am under enormous pressure to provide adequate time to debate Government measures, and she has a whole day today to debate Back-Bench business. I reassure her that we will honour the agreement of 35 days per Session, plus injury time because this Session is longer than normal.

Oral Answers to Questions

Natascha Engel Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I certainly believe that Thursday should be a paid-up member of the parliamentary week. There have been 38 sitting Thursdays in this Parliament, for 21 of which my right hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary has indicated that he would like me and, indeed, the Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons, my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), to be present. When the Backbench Business Committee has tabled business on a Thursday that has required a Division there has been a good turnout by Members of Parliament, so I am not sure that I entirely accept the view that Thursday is not a fully paid-up member of the parliamentary week.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

The question put by my fellow Backbench Business Committee member, the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), is about establishing one day every week in the parliamentary calendar as a Back-Bench day, which would surely be helpful to the Leader of the House and the business managers as the Government could then schedule business around us and have the certainty of having one day a week for Back-Bench business.

[Sir George Young]

My own view is that it is to the advantage of the Backbench Business Committee and the House to have the flexibility of the current arrangements. The Wright Committee, on which the hon. Lady and I both sat, said at paragraph 214 that

“it could be left open to a process of regular discussion and negotiation as to which day of each week would be devoted to backbench business. This would avoid the rigidities referred to above.”

Business of the House

Natascha Engel Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I remind my hon. Friend that in the last Session of the previous Parliament, not once did we get two days to debate the remaining stages of a Bill. The Government allocated two days for the remaining stages of the Localism Bill and we are going to do exactly the same with more Bills that are in the pipeline. We are determined to allow the House adequate time. I say to my hon. Friend that I understand that the Public Bill Committee had the opportunity to discuss all the amendments and new clauses and to conclude its deliberations slightly ahead of time.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

Until recently, Back Benchers have been allocated roughly one day a week of time in the Chamber, which has almost always been on a Thursday, but I will leave that for another day. In the past couple of months, for various reasons, we have had nothing like one day a week and as a result quite a long list of interesting debates is stacking up. I know that the Government will be as keen as we are to hold those debates on the Floor of the House, so will the Leader of the House tell us what allocation will be made available to Back Benchers for debates in the Chamber between now and the summer recess and how he plans to let us catch up a little on Back-Bench time in the Chamber?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question and for her work in chairing the Backbench Business Committee. I remind the House that the coalition Government introduced that Committee—something that the previous Government failed to do. I stand by the commitment we made to implement Wright in full and allow 35 days a Session, which works out at roughly one day a week. That remains my intention and that will apply to the longer Session, so there will continue to be roughly one day a week. There may be a few weeks of famine but there may then be a few weeks of flood to compensate. She mentioned Thursdays, but we have allocated her a Tuesday next week.

Business of the House

Natascha Engel Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I applaud my hon. Friend’s campaign on behalf of those in her constituency who are threatened by the decision taken by Pfizer. I will certainly draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health to her request for more corporate social responsibility. It might also be appropriate for her to intervene during the Budget debate, as that is a direct matter for businesses in this country.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for his business statement, as well as for his written ministerial statement yesterday on extra time for private Members’ Bills, Opposition days and time allocated to Back Benchers. Will he tell the House exactly how many extra days will be allocated to Back Benchers? Will he also tell us how many of those debates will be in the Chamber? He has just announced that the pre-recess Adjournment debate—a Back-Bench debate—has been reduced from the normal six hours to three, to give the House the chance to have an important debate on Libya and humanitarian aid. I acknowledge how important it will be to have that debate, just before we break up for the recess, but will he explain why he cannot simply add an extra day on to the parliamentary calendar in order to give the pre-recess Adjournment debate and that important debate on Libya and humanitarian aid a whole day each? It is in the Government’s gift to do that. I am sure that this would never have crossed the mind of the Leader of the House, but perhaps that will not happen because the extra day would be a Wednesday, and the Prime Minister would therefore be forced to come to the Dispatch Box to answer questions.

[Sir George Young]

Let me rebut instantly the hon. Lady’s final suggestion. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister looks forward to every Wednesday with relish. On her question about the extra days, we have tabled a motion to extend the number of days for private Members’ Bills. We do not need to lay a comparable motion to deal with the days for the Backbench Business Committee. Since the Committee was established last July we have allocated roughly one day a week to it, and I propose to continue to do that. We do not need to table a motion in order to do so, however.

On the question of extending the sitting days to include next Wednesday, the House values the certainty of having a calendar published well in advance, and there are precedents for the pre-recess Adjournment debate taking half a day rather than a whole day. We have tried to reconcile the need for certainty with the need for the House to be updated on the difficult position on Libya and to contribute to that debate, as well as respecting the demands of the pre-recess Adjournment debate. I hope that we have struck a fair balance between those three demands. I can tell the hon. Lady that I propose to table a business motion so that the protected time of three hours for the pre-recess Adjournment debate will not suffer any injury as a result of any statements or other events on that day. I hope that when I table that motion, she will smile at it.

Business of the House

Natascha Engel Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

There will be an opportunity on 28 March to raise that matter with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The Chair of the Backbench Business Committee is in the Chamber and will have heard the hon. Lady’s question. A bid for a debate on local radio might be well supported by all Members, and the Committee might provide an opportunity for such a debate in future either here or in Westminster Hall.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

As you know, Mr Speaker, the Backbench Business Committee is given comparatively little time to allocate debates in the Chamber, and all Chamber time is liable to be withdrawn or eaten into by the Government at very short notice. Westminster Hall, on the other hand, has a regular, protected three-hour Thursday slot for Back Benchers, and it is just as effective at holding the Government to account as the Chamber. However, the more we look down our noses at Westminster Hall, the more difficult it will be to use the second Chamber as a way of holding the Government to account. Will the Leader of the House encourage Members to respond to the Procedure Committee’s sitting hours inquiry, including on the role of Westminster Hall, so that we can make full use of our second Chamber and not just see it as second best?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Lady said at the beginning of her question that her Backbench Business Committee did not get enough days in the Chamber, but it gets 35 more days than it got in the previous Parliament, so at least we are moving in the right direction.

I agree entirely with the hon. Lady on the importance of Westminster Hall. My hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House will be there this afternoon for an important debate on privilege—I hope to look in on that. As she says, debates in Westminster Hall are not interrupted by statements or proceedings in the Chamber, and they take place at predictable times and for three hours. It is important that Westminster Hall is not seen as the poor relation of the Chamber. It is a partner and has a crucial role to play in our proceedings, and I would encourage all hon. Members, where appropriate, to take part.

Bill Presented

Tax and Financial Transparency Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Caroline Lucas, Kate Green and Jeremy Corbyn presented a Bill to require the Secretary of State to take steps to require banks, corporations and trusts to provide information on their status, income arising and tax payments made in each jurisdiction in which they operate; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 10 June, and to be printed (Bill 166).

Oral Answers to Questions

Natascha Engel Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

It is the business managers who allocate the days that are made available, but that is done within a framework by which the number of days is allocated according to a formula, as the hon. Gentleman knows and the House understands.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

Further to that answer, the Deputy Leader of the House is aware that the 35 days allocated to Backbench Business Committee debates at the moment is a minimum number, so given the popularity of those debates, will he increase that number from 35 to many more?

[Mr Heath]

At the moment, the hon. Lady’s Committee has 15 days of the allotted 35 days left, so we have not yet reached the allocation. There would not be a need for a change to Standing Orders to allocate more if it seemed appropriate to do so, but I stress again that for the system to work—I think it is working very well—we have to get the right balance between legislative time and time for other debates. We often hear calls for more time for Committee and Report stages of Bills, and we have to be aware that that takes time as well. If we restrict the number of days available for scrutiny of Bills, it restricts the opportunity for Back-Bench Members to have their say on legislation that is passing through the House.

Business of the House

Natascha Engel Excerpts

Thursday 17th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I commend my hon. Friend’s work as chair of the all-party group on smoking and health—a group of which I used to be an active member. He is right to draw attention to the importance of making further progress on smoking, which causes some 100,000 premature deaths each year. It is right at the heart of our public health strategy. I cannot promise a debate in Government time, but there may be an opportunity at some point in the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill to debate that important aspect of public health.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

This week, the Deputy Prime Minister published a written ministerial statement on public reading stages during Bill Committees. As the Leader of the House knows, my commitment to public engagement in the legislative process is absolute, but not at the expense of a Back Bencher’s ability to scrutinise legislation and hold the Government to account. What is the evidence base for this policy? What assessment has been made of its impact on a Back Bencher’s ability to scrutinise legislation? Just between these four walls, can he say what consultation the Government had with him? They certainly had no consultation with Back Benchers.

[Sir George Young]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s commitment to the House getting more engaged in the legislative programme. It is our intention to publish more Bills in draft. We will publish more in this Session and even more in the Session that follows. The hon. Lady was a member of the Wright Committee, one of whose recommendations was that there should be more engagement between the public and the House on the legislative programme. The Deputy Prime Minister’s written ministerial statement was a further step down that road towards a public reading stage. We have invited their with comments on the Protection of Freedoms Bill to log their comments on the Government website, which will then be moderated and made available to the Public Bill Committee. I hope that that will enrich and inform those who participate in Committee.

I want to engage with the hon. Lady, the Procedure Committee and the Liaison Committee before we move to the fulfilment of what is in the coalition agreement—a commitment to a proper public reading stage. I hope that at that stage the House will take ownership of the process, rather than its being led exclusively by the Government.

Business of the House

Natascha Engel Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. He is right that the Foreign Secretary is making a key visit to the middle east, and the Government will want to keep the House informed. We have had a debate on middle eastern matters in Back-Bench business time, but the Government have reserved the right, if necessary, to have debates in Government time on issues such as the one he refers to.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for listening to Back Benchers and allocating the next Back-Bench business slot in the Chamber to Monday 28 February. The leader is always very generous on a Thursday in pointing Back Benchers in the direction of the Backbench Business Committee when they demand debates in Government time. Will he emphasise that all non-Government business is legitimate Back-Bench business and that the Backbench Business Committee welcomes representations with open arms every Tuesday at 1 pm? Given the obvious and necessary conventions during statements and questions, will he meet me to discuss how I can make my public service announcements without thinly veiling them as rather convoluted questions?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that. We did indeed listen to the representations that she and others made that Back-Bench business should not take place exclusively on Thursdays and, as she has generously recognised, we now have a Back-Bench debate on a Monday. I am a keen supporter of the Wright recommendations, which worked out the allocations for what the Government and her Committee ought to do, and we are anxious to abide by those. I welcome her public service announcements in the middle of business questions. In due course, we will move to a new regime, when we have a House business Committee, and there might then be an opportunity for her and other hon. Members to make such announcements in a different format.

Business of the House

Natascha Engel Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I understand my hon. Friend’s concern about the decision taken on 2 February by the NHS North West board on the reconfiguration of maternity services in the north-west, which followed a period of consultation. I will, of course, draw his concern to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House will be aware of today’s very important Westminster Hall debate on parliamentary reform, led by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). Will he join me in encouraging as many newly elected Members in particular to take part in the debate to offer their ideas for making this place work better, and will he show his ongoing support for parliamentary reform by attending in person?

Also, the Government have set a grown-up precedent in allowing a free vote on next week’s Backbench Business Committee motion on prisoner voting rights. Will the Leader of the House now ensure that votes on all Backbench Business Committee motions will be unwhipped, to ensure that any outcome this House comes to can truly be said to represent the will of the House?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. I do hope to attend the debate on parliamentary reform later today in Westminster Hall, a debate to which my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House will be replying. He shares my commitment to and appetite for more parliamentary reform.

On the hon. Lady’s second point, I welcome the opportunity that this Government have given the Backbench Business Committee not just to propose subjects but to table motions. If a motion is tabled that causes difficulties for the Government, the Government may have to take a view, as we did with the debate on contaminated blood, so, with my right hon. Friend the Chief Whip sitting a few feet away from me, it would be rash to make any commitment about unwhipped votes.

Parliamentary Reform

Natascha Engel Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. I am not going to read out a speech; I have just scribbled some notes and cannot read what I have written. I thank the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) for bringing us this debate. The number of hon. Members here is testament to how important it is. She is keeping the fires of reform burning. I do not think that she needs to worry that we are at the end of reform; this is the beginning of a continuing process.

It is nice to see so many new Members in this Chamber today, because it is important to get the views and ideas of people who have come from outside, and who are much more normal than those of us who have been here a while. We must not forget that being here for even one Parliament has already made some of us accept as normal things that clearly are not, to the outside world.

As the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee I want to say that its very existence has made a real difference in terms of reforming Parliament and the difference between then and now. Two debates are being held in the Chamber that are massively oversubscribed. All the debates that we have timetabled so far in the Chamber have had speech limits. Today the limit is five minutes per speaker. I shall try to speak for 10 minutes or less; as has been said, what cannot be said in 10 minutes is not worth saying. It is worth noting that when Back Benchers take responsibility for their own time they use it wisely and well, and take an interest in what is being debated. That is something for the Government to consider. They should recognise that, through the Backbench Business Committee and Select Committees, Back Benchers are doing what we were sent here for—to hold the Executive to account better.

The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion has single-handedly contributed to raising the status and profile of Westminster Hall. It is such a shame that we have this Chamber and underuse it, as the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) said. Along with the Procedure Committee, the Backbench Business Committee will be considering the use of Westminster Hall, and providing another forum for debate that is more interesting than just having an Adjournment debate with one Member and a Minister responding. This debate really shows what we can do with Westminster Hall.

[Chris Bryant]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend would consider an idea that was suggested earlier, which is having Second Reading debates of private Members’ Bills in Westminster Hall with the vote subsequently, at a fixed time, as a deferred Division in the main Chamber.

[Natascha Engel]

Absolutely. To widen that point, I want to see Westminster Hall being used as a more experimental Chamber. As the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden said, some of the experiments that were conducted in the past worked and some did not. That is what experiments are all about, to see whether or not they work, and unless we actually have a go at them we will not find out. Westminster Hall seems to be exactly the type of forum where we can conduct those experiments. I would have ministerial statements and any number of things taking place in Westminster Hall that currently we may or may not do in the main Chamber.

I want to make a very broad point before I make my one suggestion for parliamentary reform. That broad point is about being very clear what we as parliamentarians do and to make that our starting point for reform. I was with the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion when we were giving evidence to the Procedure Committee on reforming sitting hours, in a pre-inquiry seminar, and one of the points that emerged is that every MP is different. There are different parties, but MPs are also different as individuals. They have different lives, different backgrounds and different experiences that they bring to Parliament. No one way of doing things will suit everybody, but we have come quite far from there being a clear idea of what we do in Parliament. The increasing focus that we have given our constituency work, which is something that has been happening over a long period, not only undermines the work that used to be done by local councillors and local authorities—work that they should be doing—but there has been a direct correlation between the amount of time that we spend doing very local constituency casework and the amount of time that we do not spend scrutinising legislation in Parliament and holding the Executive to account. I wonder whether the Hansard Society would like to carry out some proper research into that issue. It is a very important case that we need to make.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making an extremely good point. Does she agree that there is a direct correlation between the increasing power of the Executive, which we have seen over the last 20 years, and the increasing quantity of time spent by Back Benchers doing stuff that should be done by somebody else in their constituencies? What we want is people here in Parliament, working hard, holding the Government to account and getting a grip of the Executive.

[Natascha Engel]

Yes. I would not like to say that we should never go back to our constituencies, but the hon. Gentleman makes an absolutely fair point.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

One thing that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) did not speak about—unsurprisingly, because she is a one-Member party in this place—was the way that the Whips operate. One of the things that I found when I first entered Parliament was that the infantilising impact of Whips on Members of Parliament was quite damaging and it shows in some of the issues that my hon. Friend is raising. Every Member of Parliament is different. Every Member of Parliament brings different experience and represents a different type of constituency. We need to find mechanisms whereby those differences, within the context of party agreement, can effectively be aired so that we get the best legislation that we are capable of making.

[Natascha Engel]

I agree. Sometimes, however, we are in slight danger of overplaying the idea that Whips infantilise Members and sometimes we should just be big enough to stand up to them, if we have an issue.

[Mr Bone]

rose—

[Natascha Engel]

As the hon. Gentleman has frequently done.

[Mr Bone]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on making a very powerful speech. I want to bring to the attention of the House my private Member’s Bill abolishing the Whips Office. I have tabled it for a Wednesday night—7 September 2011. All things come if we wait.

[Natascha Engel]

I look forward to taking part in that debate. In fact, that brings me to the end of my general points. There is one thing that I consider would be a really good piece of parliamentary reform and it relates to Select Committees. Select Committees are the thing that we as a Parliament do really well. They are possibly the only forum where Members of Parliament, after they are elected, learn, gain in expertise and develop. It is an absolute privilege for MPs to be members of Select Committees. Being a member of a Select Committee is not open to everyone. In fact, it is only open to a minority of MPs. We have taken away the ability of Whips alone to appoint people to Select Committees and we now have elections across the House, and that has worked really well.

I do not see why the Select Committee principle cannot go much wider. Initially, I thought that every MP should be allowed to be a member of a Sub-Committee of a Select Committee that looks in greater detail at individual issues that may be cross-departmental, and that we should also have departmental co-ordinating Committees. However, I think that we should go even further and invite Members of the House of Lords to take part in that process.

We massively neglect the House of Lords. Regardless of whether we believe that Members of the Lords should be elected, or even if we do not believe that they should be there at all, there are people in the Lords who are specifically there for their expertise; indeed, it is their only reason for being in the Lords. Sometimes, we have people who are very expert in the House of Commons, but in the House of Lords there is a group of people who are expert in a certain subject. I would love to see Select Committee membership widened to include absolutely everybody.

For example, instead of a Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change, or on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, we should have a Select Committee that examines the issue of waste management and incineration. In almost every single constituency, the issue of where an incinerator is placed is a massive one. It involves planning laws, waste management and the local authority; all these different aspects of the issue need resolving.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Is that not the role of the all-party groups? Although I respect their lordships in the other place and there are a couple of Joint Committees, having the House of Commons shadowing Departments is the right way forward.

[Natascha Engel]

I disagree and I will develop my point very briefly, because I have already spoken for my 10 minutes. I would like to see smaller Select Committees going out into the country and taking evidence from people rather than just sitting in this place.

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, especially as I know that she wants to speed up and finish her speech. Does she agree that there is much to be learned from the example of the Scottish Parliament, particularly from its Public Petitions Committee, which can refer particular items that have been brought by members of the public to other Committees of the Parliament for them to examine in more detail? Perhaps that is something that could be looked at.

[Natascha Engel]

Absolutely. I would throw all these ideas into the pot. I simply repeat that Select Committees are the thing that works best in this place and I would love to see their role expanded, not only because they work so well and because they develop the expertise of individual MPs but because they could become a forum for us to be, as the Speaker always says, “ambassadors for Parliament”, by going out and engaging with people on individual issues that are not party political, just as Select Committees are not party political. We could go out there and really engage with individuals.

[Ann Coffey]

May I make a quick suggestion? One way that Select Committees could engage Back-Bench Members more would be to accept oral evidence from us more often.

[Natascha Engel]

Absolutely. The Backbench Business Committee is a perfect case in point. We receive oral evidence from Members every week. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to make that suggestion. In that context, I would also love to see the work of the Procedure Committee develop now that it has taken on so much extra work, especially after the Modernisation Committee was effectively merged with it. What the Procedure Committee does, in terms of parliamentary reform, is interesting to most people, not only to those in this room but across the rest of the House. I would love to see that kind of work much more widely debated and extended, and for people to be given the opportunity to participate, especially the people we represent in this place. That is my one little suggestion: looking at widening the role of Select Committees within parliamentary reform.

I really hope that this is not the end, but rather just the beginning of developing ideas on how we can reform this place to make it work better, and on how we, as individual Members, can much better represent the people out there who send us here.