EU Membership: Economic Benefits
Debate between Nick Clegg and William Cash(7 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD)
I am grateful to be following the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) because he is widely considered to be one of the more erudite spokesmen for the Brexit campaign. I waited with bated breath for a cogent, coherent and practical economic analysis of why Britain’s economy would thrive out of the single market. Instead we got this curious mix of fantasy and naivety, which I never thought I would hear expressed in such a way.
I would like to make three points. First, the right hon. Gentleman’s diagnosis of the British economy and its relationship to its European economic hinterland is based on a backward-looking view that belongs to an era of gunboat diplomacy, tariff wars and 19th-century economic rivalry. As Margaret Thatcher and Lord Cockfield, the inventor of the single market, recognised, modern trade is not about taxes, levies and tariffs; it is about the rules, the standards, the norms, the qualifications and the regulations that assist or impede trade. What possible control would we gain by being outside the room in which those rules are made but none the less, as the right hon. Gentleman has just admitted, abiding by them? That would be a catastrophic loss of sovereignty and control.
Sir William Cash
As usual, the right hon. Gentleman is off beam. He is completely incapable of getting anything on the European Union right. Decisions are taken in the Council of Ministers, as he well knows, largely behind closed doors by COREPER. Those decisions are not made in the manner he suggests.
Mr Clegg
Being called “off beam” by the hon. Gentleman is quite something. He and I share a passion for Sheffield, however, so I shall put that aside for a minute. In the economy of this country, 78% of GDP is generated by services. Services are barely affected by taxes, tariffs and levies, but British lawyers, British engineers, British architects and British creative industries trying to sell their wares, as they successfully do—we are a services economy superpower in Europe—are affected by precisely the rules that are thrashed out in Brussels, in discussions that we would be excluded from if we left the European Union.
As the right hon. Member for Wokingham acknowledged, the completion of the single market in services is, indeed, a work in progress. We are the chief author and architect of the success in that area. Why on earth would anyone walk away from the construction of a building of which they were the chief architect and the chief beneficiary? A 7% increase in our GDP is the calculated improvement in the economic performance of this country if we complete the single market in services, but the Brexit camp want to walk away from that.
Royal Charter on Press Conduct
Debate between Nick Clegg and William Cash(11 years, 2 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I would like to conclude—[Interruption.] All right, I give way.
Mr Cash
In relation to the question of statutory underpinning, will the Deputy Prime Minister explain whether the fact that only two thirds of the Members of each House, rather than the whole of each House, will have to vote on the matter will make a difference to the outcome?
House of Lords Reform (Draft Bill)
Debate between Nick Clegg and William Cash(13 years ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
As I have said, we are very keen to proceed on as consensual and pragmatic a basis as possible. [Interruption.] If I may just finish, we are presenting the Bill and the White Paper today. We hope the Joint Committee will be established before the summer, and it can then do a thorough job of applying pre-legislative scrutiny to the proposals we are publishing today, with a view to our submitting final draft legislation in the next Session. The Bill will be treated in the same way as any other Government legislation. It was part of all our manifestos and features in the coalition agreement, and if we cannot make headway by any other means, we will use all the legitimate instruments at our disposal to get the Bill implemented before the next general election. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about Robin Cook: I am very happy to recognise that it was an omission not to acknowledge the very significant role played by Robin Cook—and also, dare I say, by the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and many other Opposition Members, who have for many years argued precisely the case we are seeking to promote today.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
The Deputy Prime Minister will know that the draft Bill states that nothing in these proposals shall affect the primacy of the House of Commons. As nobody else has been able to define what “primacy” means, how does the Deputy Prime Minister propose to define it?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Primacy is clearly set out in the two Parliament Acts, and was also clearly set out in my earlier statement. My view is that the fact of greater election to another Chamber does not in and of itself mean the balance between the two Houses is seriously disturbed. That is confirmed by examples of bicameral systems elsewhere in the democratic world.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Debate between Nick Clegg and William Cash(13 years, 6 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I would like to make a little progress.
At the heart of this Bill are some simple principles. It is right that constituencies are more fairly sized, so that the weight of a person’s vote does not depend on where they live. It is right that we reverse the unintended trend that has seen this House grow in size and cap its membership at a more reasonable number. It is right for people to have their say on the extremely important question of which system voters use to elect MPs, and crucially, it is right that, at a time when people’s trust in Parliament has been tested to destruction, we act to renew our institutions.
Mr Cash
I am most grateful to the Deputy Prime Minister for giving way and hope not to detach him too long from his speech. Would he be good enough to explain to me, in the light of the announcement earlier today on votes for prisoners, whether under the Bill prisoners who are currently disqualified from voting in parliamentary elections will be unable to vote in the referendum? Do the Government propose to change that to bring it into line with today’s announcement?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), explained this afternoon, we have made no decision on the matter other than to state the obvious point, which was first stated by the previous Government, that we will need to act in accordance with the law. We are still debating exactly how and when to do that, and we will make announcements as soon as we can.
I am sure I do not need to remind Members of the damage that was done by the expenses scandal, which lifted the lid on a culture of secrecy, arrogance and remoteness right at the heart of the democracy. The coalition Government are determined to turn the page on that political culture and give people a political system that they can trust. That is why we have set out a programme for wholesale political reform. We are starting with this Bill, which, through its commitment to fairness and choice, corrects fundamental injustices in how people elect their MPs.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Debate between Nick Clegg and William Cash(13 years, 8 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
Let me make a little more progress.
Although I understand that some hon. Members have expressed unease at the speed with which we are advancing, let us remember that we are not starting from square one. People have been debating the length of Parliaments since the 17th century and all the parties now agree on the principle of fixed terms.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
In advancing his rather remarkable theory about improving the powers of Parliament, can the Deputy Prime Minister give an assurance—indeed a guarantee—that in order to ensure that Parliament as a whole could properly make a decision on any such motion, there would be a guaranteed free vote on it?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman is a great expert in expressing his views regardless of what the Whips say. Whipping is of course a matter for the parties. I question his suggestion that there is something unorthodox or unwelcome about giving the House more power. We have a Prime Minister who is the first in history to relinquish the right to set the date of the general election. Surely the hon. Gentleman, who has always fought so valiantly for the rights of the House, welcomes that shift of power from the Executive to the legislature.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I shall finish what I am saying about this detailed and involved point.
During that case, the House of Lords reiterated that courts cannot interfere in those proceedings, so far from leading us to believe that courts may intervene under the provisions of the Bill—
The Deputy Prime Minister
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that I have merely referred in passing to a court case, which, as I said, confirms that courts will not involve themselves in internal parliamentary proceedings.
The Bill explicitly confirms that the Speaker’s certificate
“is conclusive for all purposes.”
So the decision is for the Speaker, not the courts or the Executive.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Not yet, as I suspect the hon. Gentleman might want to raise the point that I am about to mention.
It is also a power that falls totally outside the remit of the European courts. On that note, I give way.
Mr Cash
It was not that point at all. I assure the Deputy Prime Minister that I am very much more concerned about our domestic arrangements in this House in this respect.
The Clerk of the House, a very distinguished expert and our pre-eminent expert in the House on matters of procedure, was quite clear in his evidence. Does the Deputy Prime Minister not find it, to say the least, a little curious—even bizarre—that he should be using this opportunity to repudiate the views of the Clerk of the House of Commons about a matter of vital constitutional importance, without our having had the opportunity to see the counter-evidence? In addition, does doing that in this way not undermine the integrity and standing of the Clerk of the House?
The Deputy Prime Minister
First, it is worth acknowledging, as the Chair of the Committee would do, that many other distinguished experts and academics in this field explicitly demurred from the analysis provided by the Clerk when the evidence was provided to the Committee recently. Secondly, the Clerk’s memorandum was provided to the Committee and it is therefore available to everyone in the House to examine for themselves. Thirdly, we have today placed in the Library of the House a letter from the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean, that sets out in detail our reasoned views. I do not think that this is a question of scientific doctrine. It is a matter of some significant judgment, and our judgment, based on important precedent, is that there is nothing in the Bill that will invite the courts to intervene in the internal proceedings of the House.
Mr Cash
This is a very important constitutional question. The Deputy Prime Minister has just implied that there could well be a dispute. The letter—which I have not yet had an opportunity to see—itself disputes the view of the Clerk of the House. Will the Deputy Prime Minister not concede that this matter could well be referred to the courts, even if he and his Government take the view that it could not, and that their view does not preclude the courts from intervening in certain circumstances? This is his view, and the view of the letter writer, but it is not necessarily the view of the courts.
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I have said, it is not only our view in the Government; it is also the view of a number of very distinguished constitutional experts who gave evidence to the Committee on this very point just a short while ago. As I was seeking to point out, we have looked at the court case on the Hunting Act 2005 specifically cited in the memorandum from the Clerk, and found that it arrives at exactly the opposite conclusion.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Debate between Nick Clegg and William Cash(13 years, 8 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
It is impossible to predict what effect a new electoral system will have—[Interruption.] Well, many people have tried and they have come up with conflicting views—
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
The Deputy Prime Minister refers to the question of the most fundamental matters of our democracy. Does he not agree that one of those is that we subscribe to our manifestos?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As my hon. Friend knows, this Bill is the product of an agreement between the two parties in the coalition Government. It is by definition a compromise between our manifestos.
There are two major issues that we have to face. The first is the big difference between the sizes of many parliamentary constituencies, which has the effect of making some people’s votes count more than others, depending on where they live. The second is the widespread concern about first past the post as the means by which MPs are elected. Therefore, the Bill will require the independent boundary commissions to redraw constituency boundaries so that they are more equally sized, and it will pave the way for a referendum next May on whether to change the voting system for the House of Commons from first past the post to the alternative vote.