Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice)
Debate between Oliver Heald and Chris Bryant(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Chris Bryant
In the debate that would transpire, I do not think that hon. Members would vote for such a motion. The hon. Gentleman asks me a hypothetical question, and we have been dealing with lots of hypotheticals. I have tried to search through history for a moment when the Government refused to abide by the will of the House when there was a Humble Address and I simply cannot find one. We should therefore deal with the actuality rather than the hypothetical. I say to Conservative Members that it is all very well when sitting on the Government Benches to say that the Government should have their way, but that does not normally serve the long-term interests of the nation, and in our current system, the Government have phenomenal power.
Sir Oliver Heald
The hon. Gentleman knows that our Committees often ask for papers and sometimes the response to such requests is to say that the documents are legally professionally privileged. In those circumstances, the House tends to use a bit of discretion and common sense and often an agreement is reached about exactly what is to be disclosed. Is not that what is needed here?
Chris Bryant
It would have been interesting if the Government had made that argument, but they did not. They made no argument—they allowed the motion to go through. If they had said in the meantime, for example, yesterday afternoon, “We will provide the document that you want. We’ll give it to the Chair of the Exiting the European Union Committee, which has a majority of Conservative Members, and it can decide what should be in the public domain”, I think the House would have been content. That would have been a perfectly logical process to adopt, but the Government have not done that. Perhaps they will do it later today if they lose the motion—I do not know.
Let me consider the important substantive point. Can the House require the Law Officers to provide their legal advice to Parliament? It is important that Select Committees can require documents of all sorts of people outside Parliament, and it is difficult to enforce that if we cannot even require documents of Ministers. Yesterday, the Attorney General referred several times to “previous editions of ‘Erskine May’” to show that “the motion to return” is traditionally always
“confined to documents of public and official character.”—[Official Report, 3 December 2018; Vol. 650, c. 563.]
That was his argument for saying that “Erskine May” did not really allow for Law Officers to provide anything that was sought by the House, even though the current 24th edition does exactly that. He suggested that the 22nd or the 23rd edition had changed the rule and that we should return to a previous version.
Perhaps the Attorney General was referring to the 10th edition of “Erskine May”, which, as I am sure the hon. Member for North East Somerset knows, came out in 1893. In that, the traditional version of this doctrine, which I think the Attorney General meant, is laid out:
“The opinions of the law officers of the Crown, given for the guidance of ministers, in any question of diplomacy or state policy, being included in the class of confidential documents, have generally been withheld from Parliament.”
I think that the Attorney General believes that that should still be the case, although that has been superseded. Unfortunately for the Attorney General, “Erskine May” goes on to say:
“In 1858, however, this rule was, under peculiar and exceptional circumstances, departed from, and the opinions of the law officers of the Crown upon the case of the Cagliari, were laid before Parliament.”
I will not go into the instance—I know that hon. Members are saddened by that.
The point is that, when the House has required that the Law Officers provide the information, they have always done so. The Attorney General’s argument therefore does not stand.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Oliver Heald and Chris Bryant(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Sir Oliver Heald
The hon. Gentleman will realise that none of these decisions is taken lightly. It is important to work closely with local government, and that is exactly what has been happening. To give him an impression of the tremendous improvement the court modernisation programme is making, it has been going for four months and 6 million pieces of paper have been avoided as a result.
Sir Oliver Heald
Yes, 6 million pieces of paper have been avoided by using digital case files. That is a pile of paper as high as the Shard—the largest building in London.
Deregulation Bill
Debate between Oliver Heald and Chris Bryant(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Chris Bryant
I was on my very last sentence. Normally, hon. Members are clamouring for me to stop, but I see that the hon. and learned Member is clamouring for me to continue.
Sir Oliver Heald
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that in principle it is wrong for somebody to be sent to prison for not paying the licence fee?
Chris Bryant
I believe in the licence fee. I would like to see decriminalisation. If we can achieve decriminalisation of non-payment of the licence fee in a way that does not dismantle the rest of the licence fee, yes, I would agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman. However, in order to do that, one cannot simply send forward to Her Majesty legislation which suggests that the Government can introduce that decriminalisation in a few weeks’ time. We have to carry the amendment as tabled, substantially agreeing with the House of Lords, while pretending to disagree. I am grateful that the hon. and learned Gentleman passionately agrees with me. He still has a beating socialist heart and will support the licence fee, as we shall.
Deregulation Bill
Debate between Oliver Heald and Chris Bryant(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
It is a delight to support the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), and an enormous shame that those who drafted the original clauses are not present to take part in the debate that they began.
Chris Bryant
I do not really think the Solicitor-General should be replying to a debate on broadcasting, but I am happy to give way.
The Solicitor-General
I am sure the hon. Gentleman will accept that we did have a debate in Committee, in which the hon. Gentleman who tabled the amendments was a very active member, and he was satisfied with the Government’s approach.
Chris Bryant
Of course—it stands to reason that the hon. and learned Gentleman was present; otherwise, he would not have been able to speak to the amendments. That is a rather redundant, kind of tautologous point—[Interruption.] No, the debate is not finished and I am sorry that the Solicitor-General is adopting that approach. The honest truth is that the Government have approached this whole issue in completely the wrong order. The amendments tabled this evening are the only way we can correct that order because we are putting the cart before the horse.
Surely we should decide what the point of the BBC is and how it should be financed, and then decide on sanctions should those things not be met—not the other way round. Under the Bill, however, before any review of the licence fee and the next charter, it has been decided in principle that there should be a change to the arrangement on sanctions for not paying the licence fee. That is completely the wrong way round. The Government have caved in to some frankly preposterous Back-Bench campaigning, and it is a shame that those campaigners are not present to see the end of this debate and listen to the next stage. The discussion is far from over.
If the Education Secretary were here and looking for a list of British values, I would tell him that I would put the BBC and British broadcasting at the top of that list. I have spoken to politicians from India who said that the style of broadcasting that we invented in this country and exported around the world inspired them to have free and independent broadcasting in their country. I have known politicians from Chile, Argentina and Spain who talked of sitting under the kitchen table and hiding while listening to British broadcasting on the radio—largely through the World Service as it was in the past—because they believed that was the only way they could get an independent source of news.
Chris Bryant
In a moment.
Many of my constituents are on low incomes and in a deprived community, but they are happy to pay the licence fee because it guarantees something for everybody. For them, the sport on television, which would probably be commercially available elsewhere, is public service broadcasting; “EastEnders” is public service broadcasting. The quality that is brought by ordinary broadcasting to everyday lives is part of what people in my constituency believe to be public service broadcasting.
Chris Bryant
I will give way first to the hon. Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) because I said I would.
Chris Bryant
It is not, actually. What we are discussing is the order in which the Government should proceed—in other words, whether they should first decide what the future sanction should be and then review the licence fee, or whether they should first review the licence fee and the charter and then decide what the sanction should be. I believe the latter is the only logical and commonsensical way of proceeding. That is why I am strongly supportive of the amendments that my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland has tabled, because that is precisely what they do. It would be extraordinary if the Government were to oppose our amendments this evening. I know that the Solicitor-General is sometimes a very reasonable man—[Interruption]—although he has not got his reasonable face on now, I see.
The Solicitor-General
The debate we have been having, in Committee and with my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen), is about enforcement of the licence fee, not about the principle.
Chris Bryant
I have read all the debates, which were actually about fundamental principles as well, and the fundamental principle for me is that we should do the whole policy in the round, rather than doing it piecemeal in a deregulation Bill.
That takes me to the key point about sanctions. Whatever regime one moves to—whether one decriminalises or not—one needs some form of sanction if one is not fundamentally to undermine the licence fee. As I understand it, the Government do not want to undermine the licence fee. They still support it—[Interruption.] From the look on the Solicitor-General’s face, I see that he is not so sure about that. However, broadly speaking, given that the majority of people in this country support the licence fee and believe that although it might not be perfect—they may support decriminalisation—it is none the less the best way to finance the BBC, it is only common sense for us to ensure that some of form of sanction is available.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland pointed out, we would need only a very small increase in the rate of licence fee evasion to see a significant fall in BBC income. I can imagine Government Members then being the first to say, “You can’t cut spending on programming in my area”, or “You can’t cut the regional current affairs programme”, or “You can’t cut spending on orchestras”, or “You can’t cut spending on programmes that are produced and delivered in my part of the country.” However, I say to them that if the Government make it easier for people to evade the licence fee, because they have not put in place sanctions—
The Solicitor-General
There will clearly need to be a mechanism to effect the change; someone will have to decide what the variable penalties should be, and I shall come on to that in a moment. I do not think it right, however, to prejudge who or which body should do the setting. The hon. Lady suggested one particular body, but we are happy to let the review look into these issues and come up with its thoughts on what sort of regime should or should not be approved.
The amendments are designed to achieve two objectives. Under amendment 62,
“The Secretary of State must lay the terms of reference of a review”
of the TV licensing enforcement regime
“before each House of Parliament.”
Those would be key papers for the review, and there would be others. What normally happens, and what we propose, is that those papers are deposited in the Libraries of both Houses. It would be unusual to lay them before the House. That would be the normal and best way forward, and it would achieve the same effect as the amendment—that is, it would ensure that the House of Commons was fully aware of the details.
Amendment 63 looks to ensure that the power to decriminalise the failure to have a TV licence via secondary legislation, either by replacing the criminal regime with a civil regime, or by enabling the imposition of civil penalties for such offences, would not be exercised until after the conclusion of the charter process. As previously mentioned, this power would need to be exercised in the light of the review’s findings, and considering the full impacts, costs and benefits to licence payers, to the court system—where, as the hon. Lady said, changes are being made—and to businesses of any changes to the enforcement regime. That would be considered in the context of the charter review.
At this stage, it would be premature to put restrictions on the timing of when the power may be exercised, given that the charter review has not yet started, and the Government have not set out the detail of the process and the timing. The Government therefore resist the amendments on the following grounds. First, the key papers will be deposited in the Library in the normal way and, secondly, we do not want to restrict what should or could happen, in terms of decriminalisation, by aligning the legislation with the timing of the charter review, although the legislation would be in the context of the review.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) made the point that we are living in a changing world. That is true, both as regards the courts and how they go about enforcing, and about the media and broadcasting world. It is also true in respect of how we look at enforcement. Given that so many public services have civil enforcement and that it can be effective, it is certainly right, I think, at this point to have a review, and to try to move away from the aggressive approach that my hon. Friend mentioned. The point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley), and I have encountered the issue in my constituency postbag and at surgeries. Elderly people who feel that they have paid their licence fee—they often have—can be threatened with bills, letters about going to court and so forth, yet it is often the TV licensing authorities that have made the mistakes. A civil approach, where at least the threat of court is not frightening elderly, vulnerable and poor people, might be a better way forward. It is certainly something worth reviewing. On the issue of excellence and free markets, it is right that both can deliver.
Chris Bryant
I got a bit confused with all the different reviews we seem to be talking about. We are talking about a review of the charter, which is coming along; and a review of the system of sanctions, which may lead to recommendations on what needs to change and on the use of the secondary legislation included in the Bill. All I am saying is that the latter should not come before the former.
The Solicitor-General
I hope the hon. Gentleman would accept that we are where we are. That may not be novel, but it is true. [Interruption.] It does. The Bill had within its scope the enforcement arrangements for the licence fee. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire—not me—was concerned about the issue, which garnered considerable support in the House. He was persuasive in saying that it was right to review this area and take the powers at this convenient opportunity, in case the review comes to the same conclusion as him. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda is very experienced in these matters and has had a role in the leadership of House operations, so he understands these things. This is not such a novel and surprising thing. It is actually a good opportunity to tackle an issue that has arisen in Parliament.
Chris Bryant
What I think I understand by that—I hope the Solicitor-General will confirm whether I am right, or will correct me if I have it wrong—is that his Government would or could bring in and use the secondary legislation before the charter review happened. Is that his intention?
The Solicitor-General
It is certainly not the intention to do anything that does not take into account the full context—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman laughs, but there is a full context to the charter review. It is difficult when the process has not been set out and nobody is aware of the full details, so one needs to be wary of tying one’s hands too much. All I am saying is that some commitments have been made about the time scale for the review; that is in the legislation. We know when the charter review will take place, and we know that nothing will happen until the review has been completed, taking into account all the various points I have made. That should satisfy the hon. Gentleman.
The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland mentioned variable fees; they are provided for in the Government amendments, which also deal with the question of extent and the Crown dependencies. I commend Government amendments 14 and 15 and 20 and 22, and urge the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Oliver Heald and Chris Bryant(10 years, 9 months ago)
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The Solicitor-General
The hon. Lady raises an interesting point. Hot off the press today, we have had the annual report of Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate, which looked at this issue and concluded that compliance with court directions was improving, as was monitoring. Looking at the overall picture, which is what the hon. Lady’s question was about, there are 800,000 cases a year—
The Solicitor-General
I have answered the question, which is that there has been an improvement in compliance. I would like to point out, if I may, that conviction rates are at 86% and that with ineffective cases the Crown Prosecution Service is not ready only in 1.5% to 2% of cases.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Oliver Heald and Chris Bryant(11 years, 5 months ago)
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The Solicitor-General
It is certainly important to recognise that this is not an alternative to prosecuting in serious cases, and the SFO and the CPS are very anxious to ensure that that is the case. It is particularly important that individuals should not feel that they have any way out of their liabilities, but this relates purely to organisations. A sunset clause is not contemplated at present, but the hon. Lady has put the idea forward and of course I will look at it. I thank her for making that important contribution.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
But all too often directors of companies are, in effect, complicit in what has been going on when economic crime is involved in their organisation. They want to protect the company rather than self-declare. Indeed, this surely must lead the Crown Prosecution Service to take very seriously the idea, when directors are negligent, of bringing prosecutions under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 or the Data Protection Act against the body corporate—for instance, News International.
The Solicitor-General
I clearly cannot comment on a particular case, but the hon. Gentleman makes a good point. It is important that this should be about self-reporting by companies. That does not let individuals off the hook, but it means that the business and jobs can continue and that these business entities have certainty, while ensuring that they are on tough conditions. The whole point of this is that a company should pay a penalty and be on tough conditions that will be monitored by a judge, to ensure that it cleans up its act and provides all the information necessary to the prosecution authorities.
House of Lords Reform
Debate between Oliver Heald and Chris Bryant(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Oliver Heald
I welcome that intervention, and I agree with my hon. Friend. In fact, when we came to the votes in 1997, an unclear picture emerged.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is 10 years out—I think he means 2007, not 1997. Is not the most bizarre element in the argument against any form of election the fact that 70% of the present House of Lords take a party Whip, and 85% of those who attend on a daily basis take a party Whip? Surely those people at least should be elected.
Oliver Heald
Yes, the case for election is this: it would give the appointment mechanism for the political element of the other place an added respectability. I agree passionately that we do not want to set up a rival Chamber. It is important that we do not run the risk of two people, both in Parliament, representing the same area, and one interfering with the work of the other. I do not think that would be satisfactory. I am gradually coming round to the idea of a national list system: a voter would decide at a general election whether they were Conservative, Labour or Lib Dem, and the lists would be devised in proportion to the votes cast. However, I am quite happy to agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West that we should consider a range of options. Some people say that we could improve selection.
Oliver Heald
It depends how we view the people appointed under the current system. I happen to believe that the current system works pretty well but needs some maintenance. Those who think that the people appointed to the other place have been the wrong people, or that it has not worked well, might take a different view, but the benefits of a national list system are that it gives us elections, it does not create constituency rivalries and it recreates what we have now but in a way that has an elected element to it. It therefore answers one of the problems. It is just a thought, but it might be something to look at.
When we voted last time, in 2007, there was no clear outcome. There was actually a lot of support among Conservative Members for the status quo, and quite a lot of support among Conservative Members for 80:20. Then, at the end of the day, everybody—apart from me—voted for 100%. I am not sure why, but it was curious—
Oliver Heald
It might have been, but I think it unlikely. I am not going to give the hon. Gentleman the credit because he mentioned 1997—or perhaps I did. What was I thinking? It was a terrible year.
I think that the Committee will do useful work. There are a lot of options to be considered, and I think we should show respect for the work of the other place, and the fact that it does an excellent job and has saved us when we needed it.
European Council
Debate between Oliver Heald and Chris Bryant(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
Does the Prime Minister accept that it is welcome, if unusual, to see so many Heads of State supporting a British Prime Minister on an issue on which the European Parliament takes a different view? Does he agree that perhaps there is a role for national Parliaments, which, right across Europe, are facing difficult economic decisions, to support these Heads of State, including, of course, the Prime Minister, because it is right—