House of Lords Reform Bill
Debate between Sadiq Khan and David Heath(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Sadiq Khan
It is worse than that. The Joint Committee did not even examine the type of voting system that is now being proposed. It was pulled out of a hat without any proper consideration.
Although the Bill recognises that conventions—[Interruption.] Ministers on the Treasury Bench need to calm down.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the semi-open list system was exactly the system that he personally asked for in the Joint Committee?
Sadiq Khan
Will the hon. Gentleman confirm two things: first, that the Joint Committee stopped sitting in November 2010; and, secondly, that the Joint Committee of both Houses failed to consider this system? He decides not to respond.
Sadiq Khan
The Bill recognises that conventions may evolve, and assumes this will happen of its own accord during the transition phases. We believe that that is too passive and is a dangerous position. The obvious questions requiring clarification include the following. What is the position on the Salisbury-Addison convention about Bills and the prevention of manifesto commitments? What about the convention that the Lords does not usually object to secondary legislation? More than 1,000 pieces of secondary legislation go through Parliament each year; the Parliament Acts do not cover this. What about the convention that the Government should get their business through in reasonable time? The Parliament Acts still allow Bills to be delayed for 13 months. What is the position on the exchange of amendments between Houses? The Lords could force the Commons to concede on major changes or resort to the use of the Parliament Acts. I am not saying that those questions cannot be answered adequately; it is just that the Government appear not even to realise that these are live issues. They have their heads in the sand.
Sadiq Khan
I thank the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee for his helpful words. It is important for us to ensure that we do that so that the public can see that we are genuine and because we believe in House of Lords reform. We do not want the Bill to get stuck in the House of Commons so we will enter into discussions, but the Government must talk to us. The Deputy Prime Minister has failed to talk to us on the substance of the Bill and what is really important is that the usual channels operate—
Sadiq Khan
I have already allowed the hon. Gentleman and others to intervene—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] Of course I will give way.
Mr Heath
Let me make it absolutely plain: we have tried to speak to the Opposition at all times during the development of the Bill to find out how they long they want for the programming of it. They have declined to tell us and the right hon. Gentleman is declining to tell us today. That is why we cannot reach consensus; the Opposition do not want to tell us how long they want for the Bill, but simply want to vote against the programme motion.
Sadiq Khan
It will be for others to draw what conclusions they want to from those crocodile tears.
As the Leader of the House has returned to the Chamber, it is worth reminding ourselves of what the Conservatives believe about programme motions. He has said that
“today I can announce that we will abolish the practice of automatically guillotining Government Bills and give Parliament back the time it needs to make real improvements to the law.”
The manifesto on which he stood—the Conservative manifesto, not the Liberal Democrats one—stated that they would allow
“MPs the time to scrutinise law effectively”.
That is the point that we have been trying to make. Both coalition parties are clearly on the same page as Labour. The Bill before us today should be allowed to be fully debated and there should be no guillotining of debate by the Government.
Mr Heath
The right hon. Gentleman says “Do it now.” I asked him dozens of times how long he had waited for this Bill, and he never replied. Not once, so he can pipe down!
Others argue that they want reform, but not now, as there are and always will be other priorities. They are absolutely right that economic issues must be pre-eminent. That is the reason for this coalition Government, but it does not stop the House doing other things, and it never has. It did not prevent this House from passing one of the most important pieces of legislation on social policy we have ever had—the Education Act 1944—in the middle of a world war. I simply do not believe that this House cannot address more than one issue at a time.
A variety of Members said that they want reform, but not this reform. Some have argued that it is a mixture of proposals and not the unadulterated product of a single party’s programme. That is true, but these are the same people who also argue that we have failed to listen to others and that we have failed to reach consensus. We have tried to find common ground between the parties, and that is what is before us today.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Debate between Sadiq Khan and David Heath(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Sadiq Khan
That Bill is being discussed in the other place. It starts again at 3.30 tomorrow.
The hon. Lady should be interested in my next point, however, because the Bill before us also ties the hands of the Conservative party to the Liberal Democrats. With this Bill, their respective fates and identities become inseparable. Make no mistake: the Bill is not for the good of the country; it is for the good of the Ministers on the Treasury Bench. What compounds that outrageous piece of attempted constitutional fixing is the fact they are trying to ram it through at breakneck speed. That urgency is because Back Benchers from both coalition parties are having second thoughts about the issue, so party managers need to get them super-glued together quickly, with no way out.
Throughout the Bill’s passage, we have raised a number of concerns about its content and its scrutiny. I have no problem with the Conservative party being converts to fixed-term Parliaments.
Sadiq Khan
No, I will not. Not to you.
The Liberal Democrats’ policy was for four-year fixed-term Parliaments, but unfortunately the coalition has hijacked a sensible and progressive idea, amended it for its own means and tried to rush through legislation preventing a proper, wide-ranging debate on an important —[Hon. Members: “Give way!”] I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman. He has been in charge of timetabling the Bill, and if he had wanted to speak, he should have allowed more time for debate.
Once again, we will rely on the other place to inject a sense of fairness—
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Debate between Sadiq Khan and David Heath(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Sadiq Khan
With respect, may I tell the hon. Lady why she is wrong? My hon. Friends’ constituents will have their lives changed because they will have to deal with different people as a result of the boundary changes. Those changes will be made not to make things more efficient, or to save money, but because the system has, for partisan reasons, been based just on numbers. An MP’s ability to do his or her constituency a service will be affected. More importantly, however, a constituent’s ability to contact the person he or she needs to contact to improve things will also be affected.
Mr Heath
I find it extraordinary that we have these complaints from Members representing small constituencies. They say that it is quite impossible to do something that is normal for half the House. I have three local authorities in my constituency. That is normal on our side of the Bristol channel, but it is apparently impossible on the Welsh side.
Sadiq Khan
If the Minister is so confident in his arguments, why does he not allow the public to make objections and to have a local public inquiry, rather than a bureaucrat in a quango taking only written submissions before reaching a view? The Minister has to answer that question.
Another possible outcome of the proposed consultation is legal challenge by political parties, or local cross-party or apolitical campaign groups, such as Keep Cornwall Whole. Boundary commission decisions could be subject to judicial review. It is worth noting that only one judicial review resulted from the previous boundary review, but in evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, Professor Ron Johnston, who is an expert on such matters, said:
“I can well see people using it”—
judicial review—as a means of addressing
“the issues that they think they are not able to address because they are not having public inquiries.”
Excluding those cases when the only change was the name of the constituency, in the fifth periodic review of boundaries 27% of English constituencies were altered by one degree or another following a public inquiry into commission recommendations. In many cases, those inquiries looked at the local ties of a particular village or town. Most of the participants were concerned about the integrity of their local constituency.
Sadiq Khan
The Deputy Leader of the House will be aware that the average time taken for a review in the current system is six years. In his new system it will be three years. Bearing in mind that he has conceded that people will still be missed off the electoral register, is not the real reason for the rush that he wants the change before the next general election rather than the one after?
Mr Heath
It is hardly a secret that we want a general election based on fair constituencies, and I do not think that is an unreasonable aspiration.
The second reason why we are abolishing the public inquiries is that they do not achieve their purpose. They do not provide the boundary commissions with a good indication of local opinion to aid them in the process of drawing up constituencies. [Hon. Members: “How do you know?”] I will tell Members how I know—academics have been clear on that point for a number of years. Professors Butler and McLean, in their evidence to the Committee on Standards in Public Life in 2006, argued that a faster approach could
“simplify the system without leading to any significant decline in equity.”
Oral inquiries were described by Professor Ron Johnston and his colleagues, whom the right hon. Member for Tooting quoted several times, as
“very largely an exercise in allowing the political parties to seek influence over the Commission’s recommendations—in which their sole goal is to promote their own electoral interests.”
That is why the right hon. Gentleman and his friends like the system at the moment. It gives the power to the parties, not to the public.
Sadiq Khan
The Deputy Leader of the House makes an interesting point and quotes a generalised point that the professor made, but did not he and many other experts also make the specific point that bearing in mind the huge changes that are to be made, this is the one occasion if any when a public inquiry is essential?
Mr Heath
No, it is the one occasion when it is absolutely essential that we have the fullest possible consultation process, and that is why we are extending the consultation period for three months, allowing every single person to have their say, not just the political parties that want to turn up at public inquiries. I hope the right hon. Gentleman recognises that.
Mr Heath
We did not propose legislation on the Boundary Commission at that point, but we are doing so now, and those are the proposals before the hon. Gentleman. He must look at them and see whether they make sense. I believe that they do.
During our discussions, we have had a flavour of some of the arguments that are put before commissioners in public inquiries. We have had people claiming that constituencies can never cross a river. We have had Members complaining that they cannot have a connection to more than one local authority in their constituency. Those are the sorts of spurious argument that a public inquiry throws out of court every time.
Sadiq Khan
The Deputy Leader of the House quoted Professor Johnston out of context and now has issues with lawyers earning lots of money in inquiries. Will he confirm that Professor Johnston said:
“I can well see people using”
judicial review
“as a reason for addressing the issues that they think they are not able to address because they are not having public inquiries”?
Does the Minister agree with Professor Johnston or does he not?
Mr Heath
If each of the boundary commissions does a thorough job, which I fully expect them to, and takes the proper matters into consideration, I do not expect an increase in judicial review. That is my answer to the right hon. Gentleman. He mentions the fact that he is a lawyer and that I do not like highly paid lawyers very much, but I am surprised that he decries the idea of submissions being made in writing rather than orally, because that is a well-known and fundamental principle in law.
The improved process in the Bill will deliver faster reviews. Time-consuming public inquiries that do not bring new arguments to the table and which are dominated by parties attempting to advance their electoral interests are not beneficial in Northern Ireland or anywhere in the UK. I urge hon. Members not to press the amendments.