Business of the House
Peter Bone Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Sir George Young
Women have an interest in the Government’s economic policies, which lay the foundations for sustainable growth, enabling the country to remain competitive. They have an interest in the success of the action that we have taken to get the deficit down and rebuild confidence in the country. Women have much to gain from the success of that policy.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
At the start of Parliament week, and with a leading Parliamentarian at the Dispatch Box, one thing that the Government could do very quickly is move towards the establishment of a business of the House Committee, so that Parliament timetables everything? The commitment, I accept, is not to go beyond 5 May 2013, but could we have it earlier, and may we have a statement from the Chief Whip welcoming that measure?
Sir George Young
I know that my hon. Friend has a good working relationship with my right hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary, particularly in the light of the private Member’s Bill that my hon. Friend introduced to abolish the Whips Office.
The Wright Committee recommended the measure but, at the end of the previous Parliament, the outgoing Government failed to accept that recommendation. We remain committed to doing it in the third year of this Parliament. Whether it makes sense to bring it forward before the review of the Backbench Business Committee is complete, I am not certain. However, we are committed to further reform of the way in which the House manages itself, and we are committed to the establishment of a House Committee to work alongside the Backbench Business Committee so that there is a slightly broader basis on which Government business is decided.
Business of the House
Peter Bone Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Sir George Young
We have just had Department for Business, Innovation and Skills questions; I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman had an opportunity to raise this issue then. I shall draw the matter to the attention of the Business Secretary to see whether there is abuse of that piece of legislation and, if so, what action we can take to stop it.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Monday’s historic debate was a great success for Parliament. The mother of Parliaments was watched by our nation and we had 90-odd Members participating in the debate. They spoke from their hearts and when the Division came Members from all three major parties voted differently. One point that has not been established, though, is that that debate could not have taken place had the Leader of the House not personally driven through the e-petitions process, and I do not think the Prime Minister has given him the credit for Monday’s debate that he deserves. Could we have a statement from the Leader of the House next week on ensuring that we have more such debates?
Sir George Young
May I take this opportunity to congratulate my hon. Friend on his first-class winding-up speech to that debate, which I am sure had an important impact on the subsequent Division? My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is a firm believer in empowering the House of Commons: he signed up to the e-petition process and the Backbench Business Committee. We are committed to a minimum of 35 days a year for the Backbench Business Committee, and although it is sometimes inconvenient for the Government, we firmly believe that it is right that the House of Commons should have some control of its agenda, at times choosing subjects that the Government perhaps would not have chosen.
Business of the House
Peter Bone Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Sir George Young
I understand the importance of securing that funding for continuity of education. I cannot promise a statement, but I will contact my hon. Friend and ask him to write to the hon. Lady with a response to the important issue that she just raised.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
This Sunday a regular season National Football League American football game will be played at Wembley. During that game—[Interruption.] During that game, the NFL will honour our brave servicemen and women, and it is providing 500 free tickets for them. May we have a statement next week supporting that measure and encouraging other sporting events to do the same, and can we ensure that it is not on Monday. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Just before the Leader of the House responds, I note that there is quite a lot of sedentary chuntering about the inappropriateness of the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) having a prop. On the whole, we discourage the use of props in the Chamber, but it is fine for the hon. Gentleman to hold the ball or even to put it down—but not to do anything violent with it.
Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund
Peter Bone Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Sir George Young
The position is exactly as I said: under legislation passed by the House we will not vote on our own pay, which IPSA will determine independently. It will have the authority to do that and, without primary legislation, which the House would have to agree, its determination will be the last word.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
May we get this clear? Some of us will be rather surprised to hear that we will never again vote on our salaries, because Ministers have told us that before but we have always been persuaded to vote again on them.
Sir George Young
Primary legislation precludes that. Were the Government to be minded to change that, they would have to persuade the House to reintroduce primary legislation overturning the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, which deals with IPSA, and the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, which have taken the matter out of our control, so there is no longer a parallel with the previous position.
Ms Eagle
My hon. Friend makes a perfectly good point, and I hope that the Government are listening. They have to show understanding and good will if they are to make appropriate progress on public sector pensions, especially at a time of pay freezes and the most ferocious squeeze on living standards since the great depression.
The Government should not play politics with this issue, and they cannot take our support for the motion as any endorsement of the way in which they have so far chosen to pre-empt meaningful negotiations with public sector trade unions to resolve the outstanding issues on pensions caused by the announcement of an across-the-board 3.2% increase in contributions, a shift from RPI to CPI for indexation—
Ms Eagle
The trouble with the amendment, as the hon. Gentleman would probably admit if he sat down and thought about it, is that, the amended motion would look like we wanted our public sector pension to be treated differently from the generality of public sector pensions, and that would be an unfortunate impression. I hope that he reflects on that meaning of the amendment, to which he has put his name, and thinks better of it when it comes to the debate.
I was in the middle of saying that the outstanding issues caused by the announcement of an across-the-board 3.2% increase in contributions, a shift from RPI to CPI for indexation and speeding up the increase of retirement ages, the latter of which hits women particularly hard, are real issues that I hope the Government will address with good will in the negotiations, rather than regard as a complete fait accompli.
Mr Donohoe
The trustees do not have that power. Given IPSA’s independence, which is enshrined in legislation, at the end of the day, it makes the ultimate decision, but it must do so after meaningful consultation with the trustees. Any changes that IPSA wishes to make to the pension fund must be reported to the Speaker and laid before the House. That is the power within the Act.
The trustees at the time were presented with the proposals to amend the 2010 Act. They asked for and got a number of amendments, but they had no power to overturn the Government’s proposals, which were eventually agreed. I can tell the House that the trustees made an exceptional effort and fought extremely hard in that period, and they won numerous and significant protections for Members’ pension benefits. By way of an example, accrued benefits will be fully protected after the transfer. Because the benefits have been built up, they obviously must be protected, but they are not currently protected and they could be interfered with. That is a clear indication of what the trustees were able to implement—that protection will be enshrined in legislation following the transfer. I do not have time to give more examples, but I can give them to hon. Members after the debate if they want me to.
IPSA can make changes to MPs’ future pension benefits and contributions only after formal consultation with the trustees, the majority of whom, following the transfer of the power, which will happen whenever the Leader of the House gets round to signing the order, will be Members of Parliament or former Members of Parliament. That is an enhancement of the trustees’ powers, because there is currently no such requirement.
Currently, there are 10 trustees—eight are Members of Parliament and two are former Members, but when the order is signed, one trustee will be appointed by the board of IPSA and one will come from the Government. The Ministry for the civil service, the head of which is the Prime Minister, will appoint the latter. I do not suppose the Prime Minister wants to become the trustee of the Members’ pension fund, but who knows?
Mr Donohoe
I will explain. That individual would be responsible only for representing the Ministers’ section of the pension fund. A former Minister would have a different contribution rate. I see the Leader of the House agreeing with me on this. The pension fund administers that at present and will continue to do so, but by virtue of the contribution, it will come from the Department that the person was in or from the civil service. The Government are not going to start playing a part in the Members’ pension fund. I hope that that answers the hon. Gentleman’s question.
There was originally a proposal in the Bill that members of the board of trustees could be removed by IPSA. That has now been forgotten, and the eight members of the board will continue to be appointed by this House and no one else. They will continue to be elected or selected from this place or from among former Members. At our trustees’ meeting on Thursday, we thought it sensible to determine that we would lose two members at this stage so that this whole process could be carried out smoothly. Otherwise, all sorts of complications could have arisen. As a consequence, I would like to put on record my appreciation—and that of the other members of the board—for my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd) and the hon. Member for Watford (Richard Harrington), both of whom have now withdrawn as trustees.
The increase in contributions is the main point of any argument on this matter. I have already argued, and I want to reinforce the point, that IPSA must be seen in every respect as independent. I see no reason why the House should indicate that it would like our pension contributions to be treated in the same way as those of other public service workers. IPSA has a statutory duty to act independently of Parliament, and by giving such an indication, the House is putting undue pressure on IPSA. It should not be influencing IPSA in that way. IPSA must undertake its role as laid down in statute, and in no other way.
Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
It would be hard to argue with what the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) has just said if we had not already agreed to do this. We are halfway down the line, and we have been since before the last general election when we said we would give IPSA this responsibility. The debate should have stopped then. We should have said, “Right, we agree today that we’re going to do something we should have been doing over the last 16 months. We’re going to tell IPSA to get on with it by sitting down with our trustees and negotiating a settlement based on the way pension schemes across the world operate.”
Why are we having this debate tonight on a lengthy motion that pulls in public sector pensions? I take the Leader of the House at his word of course, but I am convinced that other people will use this debate as a stick to beat public sector workers over the head with. They will say, “MPs have agreed to have their pensions changed, so why don’t you?” That is the wrong way to deal with something as integral to someone’s terms and conditions as their pension. The terms and conditions of public sector workers, or of any other worker in this country, should be based on a genuine debate between the employer representative for the pension scheme—IPSA in our case—and the trustees. They should come together to weigh up the evidence about what the scheme does, what it is there for, whether it is sustainable and whether there is evidence to back changes.
This country faces a situation in which the Treasury is telling us that a levy must be imposed on those in the public sector, which in some cases will be 3% and for us could well be 5%, without any account having been taken of whether it is legitimate, whether it makes schemes affordable or whether, as has been said, it makes them less sustainable. A survey carried out by YouGov for the Fire Brigades Union suggested that 27% of its members could opt out and 12% would be very likely to opt out of their scheme if these changes go through. Unison has suggested that 350,000 people could opt out of these schemes. These schemes are good for the people in them. They are not gold-plated, but they are probably as good as most people in work can get. If people opt out, that will affect not just those individuals but will have a huge effect on the investment potential of this country, because those pension schemes invest heavily in the stock market.
Mr Anderson
I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. This debate should be about the processes of this House—House business is about that, not the politics of this House. It should be about whether we agree that this is the right way for Members of this House, and whoever comes after us, to be treated. This should not be about whether this suits someone’s political agenda and allows them to go outside and say, “Look, MPs think it’s legitimate to have a 5% or 3% levy. Why won’t you do the same?”, but my worry is that that is what this is about.
Let us not forget that we had a debate that concluded three years ago about public sector pensions, including our own. That resulted in big changes to public sector pensions. As has been suggested by our trustee colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr Donohoe), a cut-off was introduced: people would retain the benefits if they joined before a certain date, but for those who joined after and for new members the pension contributions would be more and their benefits would be less. Public sector workers agreed to that three years ago on the basis that it would make their pensions sustainable for the future. Nothing has changed since then, except for the fact that the Government want to impose a levy on public sector workers to try to dig themselves out of the hole created by the collapse of the global financial system. That approach is clearly wrong. Public sector workers should not have to carry the can for the failure of the banks, and that is clearly the message being given throughout the world.
My worry is that if we tell people that they should start paying 50% more for their pensions at a time when they face pay freezes, freezes of increments, a tax on shift payments, potential redundancies and so on, they will walk away from these pension schemes, as I said earlier. That will be to the detriment of the schemes, investment and the welfare system, because as people reach retirement age there will be a bigger drain on the welfare state than there would have been had they been able to provide for themselves.
This approach is a con trick. It is not about pensions’ stabilisation; it is about taking money out of the pockets of nurses, firefighters, street cleaners, social workers and home care workers to pay for the failures of capitalism. The truth is that we should stand together with those workers, as public sector workers, in a debate that is about our terms and conditions. They have a similar debate about their terms and conditions and we should say, “We stand in solidarity with you. It’s wrong that the Government are robbing you for your pension and taking money out of your pockets.”
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) who, as usual, made a number of good points. I think it would be wrong if I did not mention the speech of the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr Donohoe), which I thought was the most reasoned and sensible speech of the whole debate. Uncharacteristically, the Leader of the House was not on his best form and did not show his usual charitable nature. I think that when he reads Hansard tomorrow, he will regret the remarks he made about the implied position of Members who signed the amendment, which was quite wrong. I really think that, on reflection, he will regret saying that.
The emoluments of Members should be a matter for the House and Members should have a free vote and be allowed to make their own minds up—this should not be party whipped. That is where a lot of the problems with our pensions and salaries have occurred in the past, with every party leader trying to bid lower to attract what they thought was the best press coverage on the issue. I do not think that a single Member has said that our pension scheme should not go to IPSA. What I am concerned about is our sending it to IPSA, and then the Executive—the very Government who say they want there to be an independent look at how our pensions are run—telling that independent scheme what to do. That is the whole problem.
The amendment is very simple. It simply takes out all the garbage, goes to the heart of the matter and transfers our pension scheme to IPSA for IPSA to make up its own mind. I am quite sure that Sir Ian Kennedy will ignore the rest of the motion anyway, saying that it is just a representation and that IPSA will make its own mind up. It seems to me that the Government can quite properly make their own submission but that they cannot tie it to the House. Members should be able to make their own submissions and it is wrong to try to force this through. This is what every single Executive have done since I have been here. I say to the Government, “You really have to butt out; you have to leave the pay, conditions and expenses to IPSA.” With all due respect to the Leader of the House, I will have a 10p bet with him that we will be back here again voting on our salaries, because the Government at some stage will not like something that IPSA has recommended.
Let me address the comments of the shadow Leader of the House. I am amazed that the Opposition are going to vote for a motion that states that the House
“supports the approach to public service pension reform set out in the Final Report of the Independent Public Service Pensions Commission chaired by Lord Hutton of Furness”.
I might think that is a good idea, but I did not think that was the Opposition’s view. If they vote for this motion, they are voting for that. They cannot argue about it because it is on the Order Paper.
Ms Angela Eagle
I spent a little time talking about some aspects of the Hutton report that we did support, and I also made observations on some aspects of the Hutton report to which I thought the Government should pay more attention. I think my speech was entirely in keeping with our response to the Hutton report to date—as the hon. Gentleman will see if he reads it in Hansard tomorrow.
Mr Bone
I listened very carefully to the hon. Lady. If this motion goes through, the Government will quite rightly be able to say that the official Opposition support the wording because they voted for it in the House of Commons. That may well be her position—I am happy to accept that—but this is not the right place to be debating this issue.
Mr Bone
That is tempting, but I do not think it is that. I think that the Opposition are between a rock and a hard place. They do not want to support that particular point, but, equally, they do not want to be spun against by the Government who will say, “There we are, the official Opposition didn’t want to restrict our pensions.” That is what they are really scared of. They have decided that they would rather put the perception in the papers above taking a principled stand. Time and again we do that in the House, and I think it is a huge mistake.
Richard Graham
How would my hon. Friend answer his constituents in the public services whose pensions are about to be significantly downgraded when they ask him why the parliamentary pension scheme remains the most generous of all and whether he missed the opportunity to amend it?
Mr Bone
That is simple to answer in the way that I hope that my hon. Friend would answer it: the House believes that our pensions, expenses and salaries must be determined independently, so they should be determined by the independent body, not by him or me. That is how we got into this mess in the first place. I hope that he and all other Members would make that point.
I came to the House expecting the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) to be a probing amendment, because we thought that the Government would say that this was up to IPSA, that this was just their view and that it was an independent matter. Unfortunately, the remarks of the Leader of the House have so incensed me that, if my hon. Friend wishes to put the amendment to the vote, I shall support him.
Business of the House (17 October)
Peter Bone Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
I beg to move,
That, at the sitting on Monday 17 October, notwithstanding Standing Order No. 14(3A) (Arrangement of public business), the Speaker shall put the Questions necessary to dispose of the proceedings on the Motion in the name of Sir George Young relating to the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund not later than two hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion; and such Questions shall include the Questions on any Amendments selected by the Speaker which may then be moved.
I do not want to detain the House any longer than necessary on this issue. The motion provides for two hours of debate on the Government motion on pensions on Monday. It provides certainty for the House, and it is necessary as the day is being shared with a debate scheduled by the Backbench Business Committee on the Hillsborough disaster. That is the first debate in this Chamber that has resulted from the new e-petition system introduced by the Government.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Would it not be better to protect the Hillsborough debate by stating that there should be a minimum of three hours for it, so that it could go beyond the moment of interruption? Otherwise, if there are statements or urgent questions on Monday, the Hillsborough debate could be squeezed to one and a half hours.
Mr Heath
I have to say that I believe the programme motion does provide the required protection. It is a sensible procedural motion, and it is my great regret that we have to debate it at any length this evening. The mood of the House was apparent last night during the various points of order on this matter. The debate on the Hillsborough disaster was supported by nearly 100 Members of the House when presented to the Backbench Business Committee. It also has the support of more than 139,000 members of the public who signed the e-petition supporting the debate. Members of the House have been liaising with the many hundreds of people who intend to travel to London on Monday to listen to the debate, many of whom will be bereaved families of those who lost their lives in the tragedy.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) asked a question of the Prime Minister earlier today. He said:
“Does he understand that the perception out there in the real world is that some MPs would rather talk about their own pensions than discuss a 22-year-old injustice and the deaths of 96 men, women and children?”
I have to say that if the House were unable to agree to this motion this evening, that is exactly the impression that would be given. I want to avoid that, which is why I commend the motion to the House.
Business of the House
Peter Bone Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Sir George Young
I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s concern, but I think the issue would be best explored in the first instance through an informal meeting between me and the Liaison Committee, as I imagine that it affects a number of Select Committees. I should be more than willing to engage in such a discussion to establish whether any further steps are necessary.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
My constituency contains the villages of Irchester and Wollaston, which are separated by some beautiful countryside. I have been contacted by residents who fear that the Government’s planning proposals will lead to the land being concreted over. Further to the question asked by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), may we have a debate that would expose the myth that the Government’s planning legislation will concrete over the whole of the countryside?
Sir George Young
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the role that he is playing in demolishing such myths. I said earlier that I would welcome a debate on the draft national policy framework, but if there is a local plan, local people can protect that piece of land from development. I think the message conveyed by my hon. Friend’s question is that it is important for each local authority to have an up-to-date local development plan, informed by local opinion, so that any development that takes place has a local consensus behind it.
House of Commons Disqualification (Amendment) Bill
Peter Bone Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
It is a great pleasure, and somewhat of a surprise, to be able to move on to this uncontroversial and straightforward little Bill. We have the best part of an hour to discuss it, so I think we should make good progress.
I am introducing such an uncontroversial and minor Bill in the true spirit of private Members’ Bills. Its aim is to act on the Prime Minister’s wishes, support coalition party policy, increase parliamentary scrutiny, reduce the size of the Government and save considerable amounts of money for the taxpayer. As I have said, it is uncontroversial, helpful to the Government and supportive of the Prime Minister.
I know that people will be suspicious that this might be a Government hand-out Bill. Let me reassure the House that although I have had some robust exchanges with the Government about the Bill, I can confirm that it is not such a Bill. I also noted, however, that the objections raised by the Government were weak and half-hearted, so reading between the lines I know that they are actually keen for the Bill to become an Act.
In a nutshell, the Bill would stop Members of Parliament becoming Whips. Why am I introducing the Bill now? There is, of course, an argument, which I shall explore later, that Members of Parliament should not be Whips at any time, but there is a more practical reason why the Bill should be passed. The Government have confirmed that they will set up a business of the House committee by 2013 as part of the ongoing radical reform of Parliament that is allowing better scrutiny of Government business. May I praise the Deputy Leader of the House, who is in his place and who I hope will have a chance to reply, for what the Government have done? They have taken the reform of Parliament seriously and there is ongoing progress—this Bill would just add a little to that progress.
The business of the House committee will timetable the business of the House so that the parliamentary week will be controlled by Parliament instead of being controlled by the Executive. That will have the effect of doing away with most of the work that the Whips now do, of which the organisation of the business of the House is a major task. Only yesterday, the Leader of the House reaffirmed at the Dispatch Box the Government’s absolute commitment to setting up the business of the House committee by 2013. He said:
“This Government successfully implemented the recommendation to establish a Backbench Business Committee, which I am sure that the hon. Gentleman welcomed. The majority of the remaining recommendations of the Wright Committee are a matter for the House rather than Government. The Government will be bringing forward a Green Paper on intelligence and security later this year in which we will make initial proposals on how to reform the Intelligence and Security Committee. As set out in the coalition agreement, the Government are committed to establishing a House business committee in 2013.”—[Official Report, 8 September 2011; Vol. 532, c. 546.]
Clause 3(2) of my Bill states:
“This Act comes into force on the day of the appointment of the House of Commons Business Committee.”
My Bill would not abolish overnight the right for Members to be Whips. There would be a period of transition for up to two years.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
Obviously, I have to disagree with the hon. Gentleman about the wonderful job that the Whips Office does, as it says here in my notes, but will he clarify what would happen to the functions that are provided to the royal household by the Whips? Who would take on those roles?
Mr Bone
Time is limited but I will address that later if I get to it.
This is not an attempt to denigrate or try to get rid of individual Members or right hon. Members of Parliament who are Whips at the moment. Almost without exception, they are talented, thoughtful, hard-working Members of Parliament who would be better employed as Executive Ministers in the Government, as shadow Ministers or on the Back Benches scrutinising the Executive. It is a waste of their considerable talent to have them in the Whips Office. I should like to single out and praise two Whips—the Government Chief Whip and the Government Deputy Chief Whip, who have been exceptionally helpful Members of Parliament and who have certainly produced a system of whipping that is fairer, freer and better than in the previous Parliament. In my opinion, they should both be Executive Ministers and should not waste their huge talents in the Whips Office.
The problem is not with the individuals or the tone of the Whips Office but with the institution itself. One could argue that when there was slavery in the southern states of the USA, there were benign slave owners, and the tone of slavery definitely improved over the years, but that does not take away from the fundamental fact that the institution of slavery was wrong because it sought to control other human beings through various methods. Similarly, the Whips Office seeks to control the minds, actions and votes of individual Members of Parliament. That is fundamentally wrong. I would argue strongly that we have a benign set of Whips at the moment, and the tone of whipping has definitely improved considerably over the years, but it is the institution of whipping that is wrong.
Looking elsewhere, let us imagine what would happen if any other organisation, private company or individual told a Member of Parliament when to speak, what to say or how to vote. They would be hauled before the House for contempt, but that is exactly what the Whips try to do every day. They will flatter, cajole, threaten or even use blackmail to achieve this. They are a perfect example of people who believe that the ends justify the means. I have lost count of how many times the Whips have shouted or sworn at me. The institution of the Whips Office is secretive and highly efficient. It is exceptionally talented at getting what it wants.
Before I go into the detail of the Bill, I shall briefly mention a television programme that many of us have probably watched. In 1980, “Yes Minister” aired for the first time. It went on for a further four series. It is of course a satirical sitcom about a hapless Minister and Parliament, but I understand that it is also the training manual for Ministers. However, I mention the programme for one episode and one scene alone. Jim Hacker, the hapless Minister, says to his private secretary when the Division bells sound, “What’s the vote?” The secretary goes on to explain that it is about the education Bill, and continues to explain about the details of the education Bill and what it hopes to achieve. However, before he can finish Jim Hacker cuts him off and says, “No, don’t tell me about the Bill; tell me which Lobby the Whips want me to vote in. I don’t need to know about the Bill. I just need to know which Lobby I have to vote in.” That was 30 years ago, and nothing has changed over that period.
Most Members of the House, on most occasions when Division bells ring, have no idea what they are voting for. Many do not even know the basics of the Bill; they are just voting the way the Whips tell them.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Is not the fact that Members do not know which way to vote exposed whenever there is a free vote in the House and individual Members have to make up their own mind on an issue? They are standing by the doorways, not knowing which Lobby to enter—which way to vote. It shows how mechanical the system has become.
Mr Bone
As usual, my right hon. Friend—he should be right honourable, but he is in fact my hon. Friend—is right. We have just seen an example of that. Allegedly, Labour Members had a free vote in the Division a few minutes ago, and outside in the corridor Members were asking which way to vote. They had no idea what they were voting on. Luckily, there were some Labour Whips there, helpfully indicating which way they should go on the free vote. We have had a problem in Parliament for more than 30 years. Members of Parliament are voting, not according to what a Bill is about, but according to what the Whips say.
May I explain how most Bills go through the House of Commons nowadays? A Bill
“gets sent to the House of Commons where it’s debated without diligence—because automatic guillotines cut time short. It’s passed without proper scrutiny—because standing committees for Public Bills are stuffed with puppets of the Government. And it’s voted through without much of a whisper—because MPs have been whipped to follow the party line.
We’ve got to give Parliament its teeth back so that people can have pride in it again—so they can look at it and say ‘yes: those MPs we elect—they’re holding the government to account on my behalf.’”
[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] No wonder there were cheers for that, because they are not my words, they are the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), the Prime Minister.
By stopping Members of Parliament becoming Whips and stopping Whips telling Members of Parliament how to vote, we would help to address many of the Prime Minister’s concerns; and as with so many other things, the Prime Minister is absolutely right: we need to bring power back to Members of Parliament and away from the Executive. The Bill would enact the Prime Minister’s wishes.
I have not had the opportunity to discuss the Bill with the Prime Minister, but I am sure that if he is available and my Bill goes to a Division, he will be in the Aye Lobby. One may even say that his words were uttered in the same spirit as those of Edmund Burke, that great Conservative thinker, who once said about the perfect MP that,
“his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice…to any set of men living.”
That is what we Members of Parliament should do, and it is what Parliament itself was set up for us to do. We should act on behalf of our constituents, and use our unbiased opinion and mature judgment to scrutinise every piece of legislation that comes our way so that we hold the Government to account, regardless of party politics. Burke could surely not have foreseen how hard it is today for a Member of Parliament to live up to his ideal. Sadly, all too many of us succumb to pressure from a particular set of men living: our flatterers, cajolers and bullies who make up our party Whips.
Mr Hollobone
I am enjoying my hon. Friend’s powerful contribution immensely. Does he agree that the better that Back Benchers do their job, the better the Executive will do their job, because we can raise the bar and hold them to account properly?
Mr Bone
My hon. Friend is quite right. I think it was the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), when he was Leader of the House in the previous Parliament, who said that there had never been a piece of legislation that had gone through the House and received proper scrutiny that had not become a better Bill as a result of that scrutiny. The thinking of the Whips—that pushing stuff through without proper scrutiny achieves the best for the Executive—is the wrong way round, because that actually results in completely the opposite.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I strongly support my hon. Friend’s Bill, but does it deal with the problem of the Committee of Selection? That Committee is dominated by the Whips and it effectively prevents honest Back Benchers with an independent mind from serving on many Public Bill Committees.
Mr Bone
My hon. Friend hits on an important point. One of the problems in this Parliament is that someone who does not agree with the line of the Executive or the shadow Executive cannot get on to such Committees. That happens because Whips nominate the membership of Committees, but a side benefit of my Bill would be that that would end, because there would be no Whips.
Unlike in many other countries, the Executive live within Parliament, rather than outside it. They propose from within Parliament, and sit, live and breathe within it. Over the years, people have therefore sought election to Parliament not to become Members of Parliament, but to become Ministers. They want to be either a Minister in government, or a shadow Minister in opposition. In the vast majority of cases, people who are elected to the House of Commons want to be a Member of Parliament not for its own end, but as a method to become a Minister. That gives enormous control to Government and Opposition Whips. If someone proposes to exercise their judgment against what the Whips want, they will rapidly be given the threat that their career will be over and they will never become a Minister—I think that I have probably qualified for that advice.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that that leads to a form of creeping patronage? Mechanisms such as negative briefings are also used, and I was subject to a hostile Culture, Media and Sport briefing that was sent around. That goes to the heart of a culture in the House that undermines the integrity of individual hon. Members.
Mr Bone
My hon. Friend has been elected to the House to be a Member of Parliament and to use her own judgment. She hits on a good point, and if I get time, I shall deal with the problem of the black art of misinformation that the Whips operate so successfully.
For a new Member of Parliament, the Whips’ threat that their career will be over if they do not vote in a certain way is enormously powerful. However, history suggests that completely the reverse is the case. Many people who have voted against the Whips on the most controversial matters are now Ministers—some are actually in the Cabinet.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I think that new Members are under a misapprehension. They think that if they ever vote against the Government, they will not get into the Government. Actually, people get into the Government if they are good: if they are principled and intelligent, and crack it at the Dispatch Box, they will get in. They should be far more confident about that.
Mr Bone
My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. A yes-person who always agrees with the Whips will never be a good Minister. A person has to have independent thought to be a Minister. Some members of the Cabinet voted against the Maastricht treaty—probably the most controversial issue for the Conservative party—and it did not seem to do them any harm.
Parliament was originally intended to act as a check on the Executive, and to hold them properly to account, but with the advent of the party and such concepts as party loyalty and party manifestos, Members of Parliament who put their individual judgment to one side are increasingly frequently—more often than not—treated by the Whips as little more than sheep. They are blindly herded into Division Lobbies and told to vote a particular way on a subject that they know nothing about. Whips even have the nerve to divide the groups that they look after into flocks, because they regard them as sheep. Sadly, Christopher Hollis MP had it precisely right when he said in 1946:
“On most votes it would be simpler and more economic to keep a flock of tame sheep and from time to time to drive them through the division lobbies in the appropriate number.”
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
I have great sympathy with what my hon. Friend says, and I was standing in about this position in the House when I first advocated abolishing whipping. However, does he not agree that it is necessary to organise for votes, and that without whipping, or at least some system of organisation, it would be very difficult for any Government to get their business through?
Mr Bone
Unusually, I disagree with my hon. Friend. If we go back to the years of Wilberforce, or the time of the American civil war, Members of Parliament quite often campaigned and voted against the Executive’s line. The Government would lose major pieces of legislation, but the Government did not fail; they carried on. That was what Parliament was supposed to do.
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, particularly as, I must confess, I was not here for the beginning of his comments. Does he not acknowledge that in the time of Wilberforce, to whom he referred, political parties were a little different, and there was not the same volume of legislation? Perhaps I could ask him a key question. Is he not really arguing for a strict separation of powers? Ultimately, is not his point of contention that he objects to the fusion of the Executive and the legislature? That seems to be the real point.
Mr Bone
A shadow Minister—somebody who is obviously going up the greasy pole. The hon. Gentleman asks a very reasonable question about the separation of powers. Some Labour Members, such as the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), argue strongly that there should be a complete separation of powers. I do not, but I argue that the danger of a total separation of powers comes if Parliament is not effective. I understand the point that the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) makes, but although my Bill would increase the separation of powers, it would stop their total separation.
Mr Umunna
Again, I take issue with what the hon. Gentleman says, because it ignores developments in the House of Commons over the past few months. Let us look, for example, at how the Select Committee system has absolutely reasserted the scrutiny power of this place. Many would argue that the drift of the culture in this place is towards much more scrutiny and less takeover by the Whips system.
Mr Bone
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. This is a totally different Parliament. There has been huge progress by Parliament and the coalition. Now is the time to press for even more reform. The one group of people who are absolutely opposed to any lessening of the Executive’s power are the Whips, because they see their whole job as getting the Executive’s business through. This is an opportunity that we should not miss and may I say, as heartily as the hon. Member for Streatham does, that I acknowledge the huge improvements that the Government have made to parliamentary scrutiny?
Mr Hollobone
As the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) rightly states, Select Committees in this Parliament have more power and authority than they did in the previous one, largely because of direct elections by all Members for their membership. However, there have been retrograde steps such as the huge increase in the number of PPSs, which increases the Government’s payroll vote and reduces the opportunity for Members to scrutinise the Executive.
Mr Bone
My hon. Friend is correct. Although we may take two steps forward, we sometimes take one step back. The Whips Office have found it difficult to deal with the fact that their patronage has been taken away. They cannot appoint Select Committee Chairmen any more, so they have gone to a different camp and we have many more PPSs. We have probably got PPSs to PPSs—it is getting to that stage. At any time, the Government can probably rely on 150 votes in the House. I regret that control by the Executive over Parliament, and it would help enormously if it were not possible for MPs to be Whips.
Moving on to a more controversial part of an uncontroversial Bill, I shall describe the problems with the Whips Office. There is a story about a new Member who went into the Labour Whips Office and said, “Does it mean that we can’t beat people up any more?” That is probably an urban myth that has been widely cited, but there are other stories that are clearly true and are much more worrying. In fact, not a single hon. Member would deny that the Whips Office uses a whole arsenal of weapons including patronage, flattery, misinformation, which is highly effective, and the direct threatening of parliamentary careers should the unfortunate victim of their attention not comply with their wishes.
Occasionally, the operation of the Whips Office becomes public knowledge. Let us go back just a few weeks to June, when a Backbench Business Committee debate on wild animals in circuses dominated the news outlets. First, I must say that this reforming Government have set up the Backbench Business Committee which, for the first time, has allowed Back Benchers to table business in the House. We have 35 days per Session to allocate debates, which is a huge step forward in parliamentary reform. It allows better scrutiny of the Executive and allows issues that would not otherwise be heard to be debated on the Floor of the House.
My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) secured a debate on wild animals in circuses. Unfortunately, the Whips had not embraced the idea of non- Executive business or the notion that Parliament should take a view on the matter different from that of the Executive. They still tried to influence my hon. Friend with their normal bag of tricks: flattery, inducements and threats. However, my courageous and independent hon. Friend stuck to his guns and forced a change to Government policy. He said in the Chamber:
“I am not going to kowtow to the Whips or even the Prime Minister of my country on an issue that I feel passionately about and on which I have conviction.” —[Official Report, 23 June 2011; Vol. 530, c. 548.]
He also said that MPs should show “a bit of spine” and that he would not be bullied.
The result of my hon. Friend’s bold stand was that the Government caved in and allowed a free vote on his motion, which was overwhelmingly endorsed by the House of Commons. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) said, it produced better legislation as a result.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
If I remember correctly, there was no vote that day. Am I right in my recollection?
Mr Bone
My hon. Friend is not quite correct. The Question on the motion was put, but because nobody expressed dissent, it was carried by the collection of voices. Many of us who returned especially to vote on that were delighted that there was no opposition.
My argument about that day is that the Whips should not have attempted to influence support for the actions of my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin, as the debate was Back-Bench business. The Whips should simply have butted out. The Bill would make it impossible for such pressure to be applied in the future because Members of Parliament could not be Whips. Instances of such behaviour abound and we all know several Members whose careers have been significantly affected by the actions of the Whips Office. It is, sadly, a simple fact of parliamentary life that even the size of the room a Member gets depends on how much they have pleased the Whips. My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering is still in a shoebox.
As for disinformation, let me give the House an example, particularly in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). I know that Whips deliberately misinformed hon. Members about the facts relating to the new Backbench Business Committee by sending out an e-mail out that claimed the Committee always held its business on a Thursday and decided the topic under discussion only a few days before. That was sent out by the Whips as authoritative fact, although it was completely and utterly untrue. It was intended to rubbish the new Committee because that Committee put business before the House that the Whips did not want to see debated.
It is astonishing to think that in an age where employees have more rights than ever before and workplace bullying has, thankfully, become increasingly unacceptable, Members are still treated in such a manner. If I were to treat my staff in this way for even an instant I would, quite rightly, be taken to an employment tribunal, yet it is through these often underhand methods that Whips ensure that the Executive line is strictly obeyed, and that the public are therefore denied the independent-minded Members of Parliament and, indeed, the Parliament that they deserve.
The situation is worse in coalition Governments, as Whips often force Members to vote in totally the opposite way to what their party manifesto stated on issues that they stood on at the last election. Although Liberal Members signed a pledge before the last election not to increase tuition fees, they were forced by their Whips to do completely the opposite when they were in government. Equally, Conservative Members who stood on a platform opposing the alternative vote were forced by the Whips to vote for a Bill on a referendum for the alternative vote system.
Let me give a personal example of Whips’ tactics. In the last parliamentary term, on 30 March 2011, a Whip sent out an e-mail, which I will read out:
“I regret to have to inform colleagues that we are all required tonight after 7pm on a strict 3-line whip with respect to a Motion by the Leader of the House to which an amendment has been tabled by Mr Peter Bone and others so it is now votable. Unless you have previously been slipped by me, your presence is required.”
The e-mail was sent out to every Conservative Member of Parliament. Not only did it cause great embarrassment, but it was factually incorrect and misleading—another example of misinformation. The e-mail received an understandably negative response from my colleagues, including a Minister who had to return from an important meeting because of the Whip’s action. After I contacted many of my colleagues and explained the true situation, they were appalled that the Whips had ever sent out such an e-mail. What was so outrageous was that the Whip was trying to influence Members of Parliament about a matter relating to House of Commons business which was of no concern to the Executive and entirely the responsibility of Parliament. Of course, though, that is insignificant compared with some of the other episodes in which the Whips have involved themselves.
That is not to say that all Whips behave in such a manner, and nor is it to say—this is a response to an earlier intervention—that the Whips do not perform useful functions, but it is the Whips Office that performs those useful functions. We do not need Members of Parliament to be Whips. We can get civil servants, who are currently employed in the Whips Office anyway, to carry out the administrative necessities. There is nothing that the Whips do that could not be done by civil servants, if there was a business of the House committee. The only thing left for them to do would be the strong-arming tactics of trying to tell people how to vote.
Dr Wollaston
I thank my hon. Friend. In these challenging financial times, has he estimated how much this would cost the taxpayer, and does he think that it would deliver value for money?
Mr Nuttall
The Whips Office would submit that it performs another function—a pastoral role for Members of Parliament. Does my hon. Friend agree that that role could be undertaken by the parties—for example, by the parliamentary Labour party or the 1922 committee? Does he think that they could perform that pastoral role?
Mr Bone
My hon. Friend raises an important point that has been used as the sole argument for keeping the Whips Office. If a Member of Parliament is suffering from a problem with which they need serious help, the last person they will want to go to is their Whip. Their party might even be the last people they would want to go to. Instead, they would want to see an independent professional, and such a person should be available in the House of Commons. It would be a huge improvement, not a setback.
Mr Bone
Now Madam Deputy Speaker—no, I am not going down that route. I am saying that professional help should be made available, as it is in any other organisation, through human resources, for people having serious problems. We all know that if we were in a big company, there would be somebody in that company who would either provide professional advice or get us to the right person, but we do not seem to have that in the House of Commons. Given the enormous pressure we are all under, that is rather surprising.
Another argument for the Whips Office is that it channels the views of Members of Parliament back to the leadership. Well, it certainly does that! But, of course, all the parties have vocal and successful Back-Bench committees. In my party, it is the 1922 committee. The Labour party has the PLP. It channels views back to the leadership, and I do not see why that function needs to be duplicated by the Whips. The role of the Whips could be made redundant quite easily. The public are crying out for a change in how Parliament operates: they want less power given to the Executive and they want Members who represent their views and use their own judgment, rather than acting as Lobby fodder to rubber-stamp the decisions of the Executive and blindly following the leadership’s view without even knowing what a Bill is about.
The Government’s recent initiative on debating and voting on e-petitions demonstrates their wish for a stronger Parliament and more scrutiny. Well done, again, to the Government! However, if these petitions are to be successful, there must be no whipping. What is the point of introducing an e-petition to Parliament that hundreds of thousands of people have signed, if the decision is to be made not by individual Members of Parliament using their own judgment, but by Members following the party Whip? I hope that e-petitions, at least for Government Members, will be subject to free votes.
The public want Members of Parliament who take their time to understand the issues being debated, who vote according to their conscience and who have at least some independence of spirit. Therefore, despite the recent scandals—or perhaps because of them—Parliament needs to be strengthened. I argue strongly that my Bill would benefit our democracy hugely, by ensuring a proper separation of the Executive and Parliament while still keeping part of the Executive in Parliament. The danger of not doing so is that we would end up with a US-style settlement, as some hon. Members want, where the Executive are outside Parliament.
However—to address the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes made—that would not be the only benefit; there would also be a huge benefit to the British economy. The public, having followed recent events, have become increasingly irritated by the scale of expenditure in Parliament. By abolishing the Whips’ positions, we would be saving approximately £6.5 million per Parliament in ministerial salaries—a quite astonishing amount. One of the reasons, the Executive say, why the number of MPs is being cut is to save money. Alongside the well-thought-out plans to reduce the number of Members, surely we should at least make some effort to reduce the size of government as well. It should be remembered that Whips are in fact Ministers. By getting rid of Whips, we would be reducing the number of Ministers; we would, in fact, be supporting smaller and better government.
Although I like to think that my argument about preserving the democratic heritage of Parliament is enough to win the day, I understand that there are those who feel that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) said, nothing would get done if parties did not organise their Members sufficiently strongly. In other words, business would not go through the House and everything would grind to a halt. I say that we should look to the other place. Of course the other place has parties too—it also has Cross Benchers—but its Members are far more independent-minded and far more likely to vote against the party Whip, and yet nobody would seriously suggest that this Chamber does a better job of scrutinising legislation than the other Chamber.
Mr Chope
Before my hon. Friend finishes, let me say that I am absolutely delighted with his speech. I am sure that my decision not to go any further with the National Health Service Redress (Amendment) Bill was a wise one, because otherwise we would have been deprived of his contribution. Does he think that his Bill could be summed up as a deregulatory Bill, replacing regulation with self-regulation?
Mr Bone
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and as usual he is at one with the Prime Minister in wanting deregulation.
Let me finish by quoting the words of a man who has the best interests of our democracy and our country at heart. This man said:
“We will give the House of Commons more control over its own timetable so there is proper time for scrutiny and debate. We will make MPs more independent, with more free votes so that they can vote as they wish and not as they’re told to.”
Those are words of our new Prime Minister, uttered in 2009 in his powerful speech about rebuilding the connection between Parliament and the people. He has already done much by giving us the Backbench Business Committee, ensuring the election of Select Committee Chairmen and promising to set up a business of the House committee by 2013. I am moving the Second Reading of this Bill today to help the Prime Minister achieve his aims.
Oral Answers to Questions
Peter Bone Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Hunt
As I have told the shadow Culture Secretary, the decision was mine and mine alone, and I did not consult the Prime Minister about that decision. Not only that, but I consulted Ofcom and got independent advice, which I followed. However, let me say to the hon. Gentleman that he still does not appreciate that section 3 of the Communications Act 2003, which was passed by his Government, gives Ofcom the duty to ensure that all holders of broadcast licences are fit and proper at all times and the duty to remove them at any time, so these powers exist. We want to strengthen them in specific areas, and we are working hard to ensure that we make the right changes to avoid what happened before happening again.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
13. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for the Home Department on the Government’s policy on human trafficking in respect of major sporting events.
The Minister for Sport and the Olympics (Hugh Robertson)
Regular Olympic briefings take place between my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, me, Home Office Ministers and the Olympic intelligence centre to discuss threats to the games, including human trafficking. Although there is currently no evidence of an increase in human trafficking linked to the games, the Government are aware of the threat, which is real, and will remain vigilant.
Mr Bone
I thank the Minister for that full response. The danger of modern-day slavery at the Olympics is great. I appreciate that the Government have recognised that in their new strategy on human trafficking, which talks about the intelligence leading up to the games, but can he tell us a little more about how that works?
Hugh Robertson
Yes, of course I can. We have a bespoke Olympics intelligence centre, which looks specifically at intelligence leads surrounding information of all sorts feeding into the Olympics. As my hon. Friend correctly says, there is evidence that hosting world-class sports competitions can, in certain circumstances, lead to an increase in human trafficking. As yet there is no hard evidence that that is happening, but the threat remains and we will remain vigilant.
Sir George Young
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The Government have no ownership of the days in Westminster Hall—that falls between the Liaison Committee and the Backbench Business Committee—but I take to heart what he has said. My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, who attends Cabinet, will be speaking in a debate in Westminster Hall next Thursday.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Following on from that, if Secretaries of State attended Westminster Hall, perhaps Monday afternoon could be opened up for Westminster Hall debates, and the general debates we used to have in this Chamber on defence and Europe could be held there?
Sir George Young
That is a helpful suggestion from my hon. Friend. He will know that the Procedure Committee is at the moment undertaking an inquiry into the calendar. Whether or not we open up Westminster Hall on a Monday afternoon is a proposition that my hon. Friend could usefully share with my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), who chairs that Committee.
Business of the House
Peter Bone Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Sir George Young
I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says, and it is an industry in which this country has a competitive advantage, with many of the market leaders. He may like to apply for a debate in Westminster Hall or on the Adjournment, so that he can make his case and then listen to the steps that the Government are already taking to assist that innovative industry.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
The Government are taking us back to the time of Wilberforce and should be congratulated. Then, mass petitioning was how the public influenced Parliament, and now e-petitions will be. However, may we have a statement from the Leader of the House next week on e-petitions? There is misunderstanding of how the system is working. The Backbench Business Committee did consider e-petitions this week, but not a single Member was there at our public session to promote any e-petition.
Sir George Young
My hon. Friend has performed a service in reminding everybody that in addition to a petition getting 100,000 signatures, somebody needs to go along on a Tuesday morning on behalf of the 100,000 petitioners. That may not have been fully understood. I suspect that by next Tuesday it will have been, and that Members may present themselves and ask for a debate on the two subjects in question.
Points of Order
Peter Bone Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
I was not proposing to take a long sequence, but I shall take a short sequence.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Is this not a rather unusual way of dealing with business when the House has not adjourned? Is it not normal to have a business of the House motion—on whether Parliament was going to extend its sitting—for the House to debate?
Mr Speaker
There are all sorts of things that are normal. [Laughter.] The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) might well see himself as the very national embodiment of normality and therefore a suitable judge of what is an example of the genre, but the fact that something is normal does not preclude alternatives. The Leader of the House is the person to judge these matters, and he has made his own judgment. If the hon. Gentleman wants a chat or a cup of tea with his right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, that is a matter for them and not for the Chair.