Virtual Participation in Debate
Valerie Vaz Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
Quite frankly, I am astonished that the Leader of the House has decided to move this motion formally. This issue has come before the House because we requested an urgent question, and we expected the Government to come up with some sort of mechanism whereby every Member of the House would be treated equally. I am surprised that the Leader of the House has nothing to say, as he will know that this is something that exercises all hon. Members.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
Has the right hon. Lady reflected, as I have, on the fact that for so long the Government have spoken about the importance of Parliament and taking back control, yet today a number of Conservative MPs have withdrawn from debates, and the Leader of the House has not moved motions? Does she share my concern that this Government are rather running out of control, and that the actions we have seen this afternoon are those of a Government who are perhaps panicking?
Valerie Vaz
I agree with the hon. Member. He will know how important it is for people with other responsibilities that there is a different way of voting. The motion states:
“The Speaker shall draw up and publish a scheme to permit Members who are certified by a medical practitioner as clinically extremely vulnerable (or equivalent) according to relevant official public health guidance issued in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, to participate virtually in such debates as are designed for virtual participation by the Speaker.”
Why is a certificate required? Hon. Members are not children. We are not going to school with a sick note. The Leader of the House has frequently said that he has needed that for PE, even though—we hope—one of his children might well play for England at cricket. It is concerning that hon. Members who are serious and want to take part in proceedings have to produce a certificate from a general practitioner.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is also incredibly sensitive? Many Members may have a mental condition that is possibly not known to constituents or even to family members. Why should they have to divulge that? I have no problem personally with this, but particularly with mental health conditions, people may want not to make that widely known. Why should they have to do that?
Valerie Vaz
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I have frequently asked from this Dispatch Box, during the urgent questions and debates that we have had on this issue from the start, why on earth we should have to do that. We are all equal; we are all hon. Members. We were all elected on 12 December, equally. Why should we have to produce something to say that we wish to take part in basic proceedings and our basic democratic rights?
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend referred to Members not being children, and my view is that it is wholly inappropriate for the Government to treat Members of the House as children by suddenly pulling business. Is that not even worse given that the Leader of the House personally volunteered to the Committee on Standards this morning that we would be debating these matters this evening?
Valerie Vaz
I am extremely disturbed, because I had no notice, as shadow Leader of the House, that the Government were going to pull any business. There was nothing from the Leader of the House, I am afraid, to say that the business was going to be pulled, and I find that a huge discourtesy, because he is a very courteous person and we do get on in terms of getting the business done, although we may differ completely on the politics side of it. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that there were important matters to be debated and for hon. Members to know. I had a speech prepared so that hon. Members would know exactly who had been agreed to go through on the independent complaints and grievance procedure, and my hon. Friend says that he was informed that that debate would happen, so this is a huge discourtesy to the House. Will the Leader of the House please say why the business was pulled in such a way?
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
This is also a discourtesy because some Members of the House had considerable objections to the make-up of that particular body. They wanted to ask questions, for example, as to how much these people were going to be paid, along with their civil service salary. We also wanted to ask questions about the social composition of the grouping, but we have been deprived of that opportunity peremptorily—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. The right hon. Gentleman is not addressing the matter before us. I am not having filibustering.
Valerie Vaz
Madam Deputy Speaker, that was a question that I am really happy to answer, because the matter arose as a result of the Chair of the Standards Committee explaining to the House why we have not dealt with the first two motions. I feel that those motions are really important for the House, and I know that this is not the first time that my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) has mentioned the make-up of that Committee. It is important for the House to know, in relation to those two motions that have not been moved, that we are not in the business of secrecy. We are in the business of transparency and hon. and right hon. Members need to know what is going on. Hon. Members are extremely busy at this time, and my right hon. Friend is correct in asking that question, because the question was posed earlier as to why the previous motions were not put before the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I understand that the right hon. Lady is, as always, behaving honourably and that she is giving a background to the matter in hand, which she is addressing, but I am making it clear to the House that we are discussing the matter that is before us now, not the matters that might have been before us, had they been moved. There will be other opportunities to address those matters—
Madam Deputy Speaker
I will take no further points of that kind; thank you. I call Valerie Vaz.
Valerie Vaz
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am disappointed, saddened and alarmed, because this House has effectively been gagged. We are unable to debate two very important motions that were on the Order Paper. With the greatest respect, hon. and right hon. Members should have the opportunity to raise issues in relation to those motions, and that is the purpose of interventions—interventions that the Leader of the House desperately wants because he says that they move the debate along.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend is making a really important point about this House being gagged. I sat through several debates and questions when the Leader of the House said, “Look around you; we are gagged”—I do not know whether he actually used the word “gagged”, but he effectively implied that covid regulations meant that we could not debate properly. Like all organisations, we have had to adapt. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is a proper piece of business that must be debated, and have the opportunity to be discussed fully and with respect, and that the Leader of the House’s attitude today contradicts every point that he has made when we have discussed virtual debating up to now?
Valerie Vaz
I want to address that point. We had a debate last week where a perfectly reasonable person, who passed all the tests that we could possibly have asked of her and more, was prevented from taking up a job. That was an absurd position. I would have liked to have asked the Leader of the House, and I wanted the House to know, whether any of the people who were on the list were members of a political party. That is the transparency we needed—the transparency, not the secrecy. This House is not about secrecy; it is about ensuring that there is open debate.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend has just raised a very serious concern about someone being blocked for a job for which they were in good stead. Would she tell us more about that?
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman was not in the Chamber when I made it very clear that the matter that we are debating now is the matter before us. We are not debating other matters that we might have debated at another time. I call Valerie Vaz.
Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)
I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for giving way so quickly and for allowing me to contribute to her aerobic skills at the Dispatch Box as she stands up and down so quickly. On the issue of gagging Members of Parliament, each of us has our role as representatives of our constituencies, but some of us, as Chairs of Committees, are elected by this House on a cross-party basis to inform proceedings in this House. Consequently, Chairs of Committees need to be given the opportunity fully to debate the issues and to inform Members about our work. If virtual participation is not extended, there are a number of Committee Chairs who—as is the case today—cannot perform their function. Is this not just an extension of the gagging of the will of Parliament?
Valerie Vaz
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I know how assiduous he is in his work as the Chair of a Select Committee. That is a key point, is it not? Chairs of Select Committees cannot be here. I do not think it is our business to say who can be here and who cannot be here. All Members have to be treated equally. As the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) said, there is a hierarchy of hon. Members and we have strived not to have that hierarchy in this House.
Let me go back to the motion and deal with the point relating to “clinically extremely vulnerable”. This is not a happy way to deal with right hon. and hon. Members. It places them in a difficult situation. It is not that they do not want to be here, but that they cannot be here. It is about what they say about their families. They do not want to bring their families into debates. They do not want to bring their families into the limelight or to this place. They want to keep them away from it. However, hon. Members are having to say— sometimes in public, Madam Deputy Speaker—why they cannot be here and they are having to bring their families into it. I say that, because the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay cannot be here. He tabled the amendment, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). He co-signed the amendment and he cannot be here for a very, very good reason.
Mr Kevan Jones
The motion from the Leader of the House refers to Members who are clinically extremely vulnerable, but I know of at least one case in my own region where a Member has not been here because her husband is undergoing cancer treatment. She cannot attend because he is very vulnerable. They live in a house that does not have an east wing to enable him to isolate from her. The motion would not cover extreme cases like hers, would it?
Valerie Vaz
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. He hits the nail on the head and explains the difficulties for hon. Members who want to do their job but cannot. They have to make the difficult choice of whether to be here and balance family with their work.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend not agree that it is the invasion of privacy that so many Members take umbrage at? Family members of Members are not elected and nor are they public servants. They have a right to privacy. A Member can do their job in any other circumstance, so why should family members be exposed by the idea that their health is somehow in the public interest? It simply is not. That is what so many Members across the House find so disingenuous about what the Leader of the House and the Government are doing. They are putting families in the public eye and they do not deserve that. In fact, they deserve a lot better than that.
Valerie Vaz
My hon. Friend is right. We have a very difficult job to do anyway. As I said to the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) and her Committee, some people like to say what they had for breakfast on Instagram, but some people do not want to do that. Some people do not want to say anything about their lives. We are forced to do it sometimes. We are forced to tweet and do various other things that do not come naturally to many of us—I can’t do it, actually. But he is absolutely right that this is a privacy issue. Hon. Members have to decide what they say in the public sphere.
Madam Deputy Speaker, you know that when our right hon. and hon. Friends were pregnant and having wonderful babies—something so natural—they were trolled. They were trolled for doing what they needed to be doing, which was to be at home with their children when they had just given birth. I remember being in the House during the debates in which they had to explain that they were not the laziest MP in the world but were actually looking after their new-born. That was the most terrible thing and it was clarified only as a result of the debates in this House, which is why this is such an important venue.
This is the most important venue: people look to the Chamber to hear about what is going on. Unfortunately, sometimes we talk rubbish, and I am the biggest person to do that—[Hon. Members: “No!”] It is pantomime season! Sometimes we do, but the Official Reporters have to write down every word, and we sound wonderful when we read it back—when we dare to.
Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)
I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) will not mind my mentioning him, because we have been in communication today about this debate potentially taking place. His greatest regret is that he cannot be part of this debate. He secured an urgent question that enabled him to take part in our scrutiny proceedings and raise his point, but he cannot be here to take part in this debate because he has made the health of his family and his wife—he has been very public about that—his priority. We all know that he is working his socks off at home. Does the right hon. Lady agree that he is a great constituency MP and is working incredibly hard for his constituents?
Valerie Vaz
I absolutely agree with the Chair of the Procedure Committee. The hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay had the courtesy to email me before the start of this debate. He told me about the difficulty; I shall not repeat it, but it is safe to say that he is not able to be here today.
That great intervention from the Chair of the Procedure Committee gives me an opportunity to raise the incredible work done by her and members of her Committee, who are scattered all around the House—[Interruption.] She is pointing to them and I am trying to find them.
John Spellar
Does my right hon. Friend, like me, wonder a little at the paradox that we have here today? The Leader of the House has often waxed lyrical about the need for Members of Parliament to be here to debate, yet he pulled a fast one to pull two of the debates that we wanted to have.
Valerie Vaz
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I still do not have an answer to that. I hope that I will get an answer, partly because the normal courtesies of the House were not applied and I was not even informed—I was waiting to come in to speak and the motions were just not moved. That is not the right way to do business.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
I believe I made the Chair’s curfew on speeches, so I will not intervene a lot. To go back to the point about childcare, last week more than a million pupils throughout the country missed out on school, and most of them were forced to self-isolate. This pandemic is throwing into chaos lots of parents’ routines. Does my right hon. Friend agree not only that it often impacts women and mothers disproportionately, but that if we proceed on the basis suggested by the Leader of the House, lots of dads in this place are not going to be able to fulfil the responsibility to their children that they want to fulfil? That is why the motion is wholly inappropriate and the amendment is very welcome.
Valerie Vaz
My hon. Friend makes an important point and I absolutely agree with him. We are now moving to a different stage—this is why we were part of the change of the hours—because many young men came into the House and there were some fathers who also wanted to be hands-on parents.
Valerie Vaz
The hon. Gentleman is one of them and I shall give way in a moment. That is why this is so important: the amendment that has been tabled is an equalising amendment that will mean everybody is treated the same.
David Linden
Is the shadow Leader of the House, like me, struck by the perceived hypocrisy on the part of the Government and in particular on the part of the Lord President of the Council? In some respects he comes to the House and talks about the great conventions of the House of Commons—he talks about the 1300s and we all refer to each other as hon. and right hon. Is not the specific the point that for so long the convention in this House has been that we are hon. Members, so the Leader of the House is trying to question Members’ honourable nature? Does the shadow Leader of the House see, like me, that there might just be a degree of contradiction on the part of Her Majesty’s Government here?
Valerie Vaz
I do. At the moment, as Members of Parliament we are not treated equally and we are not dealt with equally.
The Leader of the House says that he likes interventions and wants us here in the Chamber, so I am quite happy to take as many interventions as possible, whether people want to speak later or not.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
I suspect that I did not quite make the curfew, so I may need to intervene again. Further to the point made by my colleague from the Scottish National party, the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden), he is absolutely right about the behaviour of the Leader of the House today. The Leader of the House has appeared in the Chamber on many occasions championing Parliament and the rights of Members to participate in parliamentary debates and represent their constituents. Does my right hon. Friend share my sense of irony that in the motion the Leader of the House is doing his utmost to restrict Members’ ability to represent their constituents in Parliament? Does she wonder, like me, how he manages to look at himself in the mirror in the morning?
Valerie Vaz
It is appalling that, for some of our colleagues, their right to be here has been restricted in such an appalling way. As I said in a previous speech, and as we keep repeating over and over, we are approaching some of the most important legislation that this country has ever faced. We are coming up to the most important juncture in our history, when we leave the EU on 31 December. Before that, we have to do something with the agreement, whatever it is and whenever it is made. We look forward to statements on that. To give effect to that agreement, legislation will be required, and it has to be introduced before 31 December. As a result of this motion, unless the amendment is agreed to, our colleagues will be prevented from taking part in a debate on one of the most important pieces of legislation ever to come before the House.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend share my bafflement that, as soon as there was a health need, the Prime Minister was allowed to participate remotely, yet he was not immediately clinically vulnerable? Other Members, however, are not allowed to speak. Does she share my view that all constituents are equal in electing us and should be equally represented? [Interruption.]
Valerie Vaz
I do not know whether my hon. Friend wants to intervene on me again. Perhaps she would want her question to be heard properly—there was a fair bit of heckling—so does she want to ask it again?
Fleur Anderson
I hope that I can now be heard. Does my right hon. Friend share my bafflement that the Prime Minister could speak under arrangements for virtual proceedings, although he does not have a clinically vulnerable condition that we know of? It is quite right that we should not know any of the ins and outs—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. That means that the hon. Lady should sit down. I am making a point of order. Let us make sure that we get the facts correct about what we are debating. The motion before us is about participation in debates. Participation in questions, urgent questions and statements is a different matter which has been dealt with. In questions, urgent questions and statements, every Member has the right to participate virtually. I just want to make sure that the facts are correct, because that is a matter for the Chair.
Valerie Vaz
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for clarifying that. I think my hon. Friend was trying to say—and I know that Mr Speaker has made a ruling on this—that both the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister should be here on equal terms, just as Ministers are here on equal terms. Mr Speaker has made it very clear that he wants Ministers here, which is why we are all here—he wants shadow Ministers and Ministers. It is about equality between the two parties, and the two parties being treated the same. We saw what happened with the Prime Minister. We do not know what happens behind the scenes, and we do not know who is helping under the lectern and so on. The fact is that he is here to answer questions asked on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition—
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it in order that the Opposition party is clearly trying to filibuster and talk out a motion that will see our clinically shielding colleagues given a voice in this House? [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. If there were any filibustering taking place in this Chamber, it would not be in order and I would stop it immediately. The right hon. Lady is perfectly in order. She has taken a great many interventions and she has every right to do so.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
Let me go back to the guidance that the Deputy Speaker gave earlier about this being all about participation in debate. Clearly, the Leader of the House is trying to control who participates in debate. We know he is absolutely obsessed with physical participation in debate, so is it not disgraceful that the Government forced 20 Back-Bench Tories to pull out of physically participating in a debate earlier on a statutory instrument? The Government then pulled the Prisons (Substance Testing) Bill money resolution, taking 24 people off the call list. They then did not move the motion on the independent expert panel, taking 10 people off the call list. They then did not move the motion on the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme investigations: Commons-Lords agreement, taking 10 people off the call list.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I have already made it very clear, and I know the hon. Gentleman is one person who has certainly been in this Chamber all afternoon, that we are debating the matter before us, not what might have been debated previously.
Valerie Vaz
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that that is a bit concerning. At one point I thought that the Conservative Members were all at No. 11 being primed by the Chancellor on tomorrow’s statement. I thought that everyone was at a party, with drinks, canapés and things like that.
Let me just go back to the point about the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands, the Procedure Committee and its work—I was going to come on to that, but I will do so now. I have here two reports, its first report of Session 2019-21, “Procedure under coronavirus restrictions: proposals for remote participation” and its sixth report, “Procedure under coronavirus restrictions: virtual participation in debate”. The Procedure Committee has been extraordinary in the work it has done. It has done that work quickly, and I, too, pay tribute to Martyn Atkins, the Clerk. I was lucky to be on the Health Committee when he was a Clerk there. We were lucky to have him on that Committee. He was very assiduous, as were all the Clerks there. I have read all the reports, including the latest one. We did not have enough time to debate it on Thursday—we all just got a question each—but it is so important. I do not know whether right hon. and hon. Members have read it in its entirely. I could read it out, but it makes very important recommendations, one of which is:
“We do not consider that there is a justifiable case for eligibility for virtual participation in debate to be determined by reference to clinical vulnerability. Nor do we consider it appropriate to determine eligibility on a basis different from that for virtual participation in scrutiny proceedings. We therefore recommend that the criteria for eligibility for virtual participation in all House proceedings be made uniform at the earliest opportunity.”
This is the earliest opportunity.
John Spellar
Is it not utterly disrespectful for the Leader of the House and the Cabinet to disregard the House’s Committees, whose members are elected by both parties and whose Chairs are elected by the whole House? Is that not utterly contemptuous of the House and its Members?
Valerie Vaz
My right hon. Friend is right. It is concerning that Chairs of Select Committees, who are elected by the whole House, cannot participate. This is a cross-party report—a report that Members can amend but have not amended—which says that everybody should be treated equally in virtual participation. It is possible; we did it right at the beginning.
Chris Elmore
On the point about virtual participation being available to everybody, it has been confirmed several times—and I raised this with the Leader of the House last week—by the Clerk of the House and Clerks responsible for Chamber management and the broadcasting service that there is now enough capacity for Members to take part virtually in all proceedings of the House. Despite what the Leader of the House has said, there were trials some months ago of virtual Public Bill Committees, in which Members on both sides of the House participated. Since then, that technology has improved and the capacity has increased.
The reality is that for all Members, no matter what their situation may be, this is now a simple process of the Government—or, as it should be, the House—saying to the Clerk, “This is the will of the House, and we would just like all Members to be equal.” The Leader of the House’s excuse that it stops and stifles debate and limits intervention is simply not correct. Does my right hon. Friend agree that most Members would accept not having interventions, on the basis that it is a small price to pay to allow all Members to take part in crucial debates on the Floor of the House?
Valerie Vaz
I absolutely agree. I will come on to the capacity in a minute, but I want to spend some time on these Procedure Committee reports, because—
David Linden
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Over the last couple of minutes, I have observed that quite a number of Government Whips have entered the Chamber. Can you confirm that, in the event that Government Whips tried to move a closure motion, that would in effect be muzzling the House and that a closure motion should not be granted?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I have noticed that there are Government Members on the Government Benches. Who they are and what office they hold is not a matter for me. The Chamber is open to all Members to be here whenever they wish, as long as there are no more than 21 on the Government Benches at a time. A closure motion would be a matter for the Chair. Should one be moved, I would consider carefully how many people have spoken, how long the debate has been, how many interventions there have been and how many important points have been made. I am therefore listening very carefully to the debate.
Karen Bradley
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I apologise, but could you confirm that if a closure motion were moved, proxy votes would not count towards it?
Valerie Vaz
As I was saying, I think Members were slightly alarmed by a group of people walking with a purpose. It is usually the Whips who do that, as John Major used to say.
I will get back to the debate at hand, the Procedure Committee report and what my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) said about the participation of all hon. Members. I still have not finished with this idea of clinical vulnerability to a disease. I think, and I said at the time, that it is an unnecessary, bureaucratic way of saying that hon. Members can or cannot be here. It is in some ways quite humiliating for hon. Members to have to go to their GP and say, “Please could I have a note to say that I am clinically vulnerable so that I can take part in a debate?”
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way because it gives me an opportunity to speak on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft), who is not able to be here with us today and is sitting watching, although she would like to participate. She never wanted to have to say that she was clinically extremely vulnerable or to tell people about her rheumatoid arthritis but has been forced to do so. Does my right hon. Friend agree that forcing people to do this is very unfair?
Valerie Vaz
I agree, and we have seen how effective our hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) is when she speaks at business questions, and when she asks questions. She is so frustrated because she has done some absolutely fantastic work on knife crime and wants to be able to take part in debates, but she cannot. We need to find a way to enable her to do that, and the only way is if the amendment is passed.
Alan Brown
The right hon. Lady makes an important point about the fact that the motion would force hon. Members to go to their doctors, get certification and submit that. Is it not also the case that it is then in the public domain that a certain number of MPs are extremely clinically vulnerable, which will lead to members of the public saying, “I wonder what is wrong with my MP, or that MP.”? That is the real issue. It is effectively breaching confidentiality, whereas if the amendment is passed, it is just a public health reason that covers Members, their families and anything else.
Valerie Vaz
That is absolutely right. We all know as hon. Members that we are only as good as our last election, and we have to fight like mad to be elected.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I thank the shadow Leader of the House and appreciate that she is rising to the opportunity of laying out the fundamental lack of logic in what the Leader of the House is doing. After weeks, if not months, of standing at the Dispatch Box saying that virtual participation in debates was simply not possible and simply not desirable, he has now conceded that in some circumstances it is possible and desirable. If it is possible and desirable for some people, why should it not be possible and desirable for everybody who needs it? There is no logic.
Valerie Vaz
I agree. This is just one small further step that we are asking the Leader of the House to make, which we know he is capable of doing. On the clinically vulnerable, it is very difficult for right hon. and hon. Members to have to go to a medical practitioner.
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
On the point about the clinically extremely vulnerable, does the right hon. Lady not agree that the fact that the definition of clinically extremely vulnerable is different in Scotland and in England raises further issues? Which criteria would we follow?
Valerie Vaz
If someone wanted to help to us to decide what the definition is, that would be very useful.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
I have much respect for the right hon. Lady, my constituency neighbour, but when people at work are asking for reasonable adjustments, they have to go in to their GP and get certificates, so is it the case of one rule for us and one rule for everyone else? Perhaps she will tell our workers in the Black Country why that is acceptable for us here, but not for them.
Nick Smith
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am a bit perplexed about the voting rights of Members tonight. I would be ever so grateful if you could confirm whether the Chair needs 100 Members to go through the Aye Lobby for any closure motion to be agreed.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Yes, that is correct. Where were we? Valerie Vaz.
Valerie Vaz
I am still here. We are Members of Parliament. We are elected to do a job—we are elected to pass legislation. We cannot do that. We are in the middle of a pandemic, and when we first started with this pandemic, we were able to have a virtual Parliament —we were the first Parliament in the world to do that, with the expertise that we have here. We were able to undertake every single aspect of our work, and each hon. and right hon. Member was able to do that on an equal basis.
That is not what we are saying here—this is something different. This is just saying that those who are clinically vulnerable can take part in a debate. Hon. Members have made the point of the hon. Member whose name is on the amendment, the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay, and many other hon. Members, who are looking after and caring for those who are clinically vulnerable and therefore cannot be here, because if they come down here they expose themselves to the virus. We know it is on the estate. We know that there have been people here who have been tested. Many of us have been tested and some have tested positive, including the Prime Minister, who had to take part in a virtual Prime Minister’s questions.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
Does the shadow Leader of the House agree that it is not just the arriving in this place that makes people vulnerable? Members from Scotland have much further to travel and multiple public transport journeys, if they can get public transport that is appropriate. The Caledonian Sleeper would have allowed someone to travel and meet very few people while doing so, but the Caledonian Sleeper to Aberdeen and Glasgow is currently not running. Does she agree that Members are made vulnerable by travelling on public transport in the way that we have to?
Valerie Vaz
I agree. We do not know where we can catch it. What we are doing is exposing families, friends, everyone—people that we work with here. We are in the middle of a pandemic and people are dying. I know people in my constituency—people who have been long-standing friends—who are now dead as a result of this virus. This is extremely serious. All we are asking is for right hon. and hon. Members to take part in debates. Why should they be excluded from the European legislation that is going to come through now? Why should they be excluded from that?
Chris Bryant
In answer to the point made by the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey), I have heard the same argument from the Leader of the House as well: we should not be any different from the rest of the public. I wholly agree with that. However, I think they misunderstand Government rules. The Government rules, as laid out by the Prime Minister yesterday in Parliament, are very clear. He said yesterday that, even in tier 1, if someone can work from home, they should work from home. That is the rule. The other part of the rule is that businesses have to do everything to make it possible for people to work from home if they possibly can. Those are the rules for the rest of the country; they should be rules for us here too.
Valerie Vaz
That is absolutely right. The Prime Minister did say that—
“work from home wherever possible.”—[Official Report, 23 November 2020; Vol. 684, c. 601.]
We can work from home, we have worked from home as Members of Parliament, and other Members of Parliament want to continue to work from home, and that is being denied. We are exposing hon. Members’ families, and the hon. Members, who are travelling backwards and forwards.
I take umbrage slightly with the Leader of the House. He thinks that if we are doing something remotely, we are not working. I have talked to many hon. Members. Zoom is horrible—whatever anyone says, it is awful. You have to concentrate, you have to stare—it is just absolutely terrible. What makes people really nervous about the whole thing is worrying about being late—suppose you have not logged in on time? Who is walking around in the background? Have you got the right background? It is terrible. Are you dressed properly? We would rather be here, of course we would, but we cannot be.
Andrew Griffith
The shadow Leader of the House has been generous to both sides in taking interventions. Having been in the past party to some of the deliberations of the Procedure Committee, I understand that there are strongly held views on both sides. I just put it to her and her colleagues that, tonight, what you are doing is letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. There is a motion that will give our colleagues who are clinically vulnerable the opportunity to participate virtually and what you are doing tonight will deprive them of that opportunity—
Valerie Vaz
That was a point of clarification. Perhaps we can include those in the procedure in future.
Let me deal with the point that the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey) made. The point is that hon. Members cannot take part in the most important part of what we do, which is debate. We are excluding a whole group of hon. Members from taking part in a debate, and to take part in a debate is what they want. The fact is we had this process and we had this procedure and it worked.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
I think it is important to recognise that we do not just have to go back to the situation that pertained in May. The Procedure Committee’s report makes it absolutely clear that, because of the substantial work undertaken by the parliamentary audio-visual service since the discontinuation of hybrid proceedings, we have
“a more resilient broadcast infrastructure, with the capacity to facilitate virtual contributions to debate”
in a much more proper way. Is not that quite a change that needs to be reflected in our decision making?
Valerie Vaz
My hon. Friend is right and that is the point that I was just about to come on to. As I started to say, we were the first Parliament to become a virtual Parliament and we were the envy of the world. Other Parliaments have tried to do what we are doing now and what we did previously and what we are sort of on the way to doing. But I think we are doing a great discourtesy to the people who have worked so hard to get us to this stage. Yes, the Leader of the House will say that we broke down; that the House of Lords broke down. They are able to participate in every aspect of their work virtually. They broke down only once in 62 votes. We had a failure at the card reader, too. I do not think that we broke down whenever we had debates and people took part.
The point is that the broadcasters have worked so hard to get us to this place. One of the broadcasters said to me, “Please say that we are now doing seven to eight hours of virtual proceedings in the House of Lords and they are able to have two Chambers—they are able to have two sets of proceedings going on at the same time.” We have a huge amount of talent, not just in the House, but in the country. We can use that talent to ensure that we here in this Parliament, every single person, no matter what happens, can take part. People will have seen the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), but there are others who perhaps do not want to ask questions and state what their medical conditions are, but who also want to take part. We all have a responsibility to our constituents because we were elected. This is a democracy and we want to take part in every single aspect of our work, and we can.
Jeff Smith
I am grateful, once again, to my right hon. Friend for giving way. She is being very generous. She is making an important point about the improvements in the technology. The House of Lords has very capably been able to facilitate its debates. We rarely have problems in this Chamber. I have heard the Leader of the House say many times that the technology does not work, that it has faults, and that we cannot introduce it for debates because of those occasional faults. In asserting that position, is he not, in the words of his colleague, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), making the perfect the enemy of the good?
Valerie Vaz
I agree. We did have the good and we did have the perfect, and for some reason we cannot have that any more—although we might because the amendment may get passed. The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), who is not in his place at the minute, said that it is the Opposition, but it is not—this is cross-party. If he looks at the amendment, it is signed by the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) and the Procedure Committee has agreed—all sides, all parties.
John Spellar
Is my right hon. Friend as surprised as I am that, given the huge success of our excellent technical operators, a Government Minister has not used the expression “world beating”? In this case it is justified, but it is often a slightly overblown expression; it is normally used by the Secretary of State for Health and the Prime Minister.
Valerie Vaz
It is world beating, but we do not use the term in the same way as they use it, because all their world-beating test and trace and everything else do not appear to be world beating.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way; she is being generous. Given that we have this technology, which can be used for the benefit of all Members, and going back to an intervention about making MPs go to a GP because some constituents might have to go to a GP, is it not a fact that GP practices are run on a very restricted basis now? People cannot get routine appointments because of the measures in place, so why on earth would we try to make MPs go to GPs, taking up valuable space and time that our constituents might want?
Valerie Vaz
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Obviously, I have not put the policy through, so I cannot answer his point, but it is about asking a medical practitioner to say that someone is clinically vulnerable.
Let us go back to the broadcasting and how brilliant it is.
Nick Smith
I thank my right hon. Friend for her contribution. She is doing a brilliant job, taking on board colleagues’ points on both sides of the House. She is taking the issue forward really well. Does she agree that colleagues across Parliament are starting to use Teams and Zoom proficiently now?
Valerie Vaz
They do, but we do not necessarily like them—especially when they break down and we are not linking in the right place.
The point about broadcasting is important because we have got to the stage where, on Zoom, people can put their hands up, so that could be a form of intervention. People have been able to undertake debates—I think this was mentioned at business questions—and, in some European Parliaments, they have been able to take interventions. If that is the key thing that seems to be stopping the Leader of the House from going to the next stage—making that giant leap—interventions can be done. However, we know that hon and right hon. Members can take part in debate, because we did it before. The plea that we all make is that they want to do so on an equal basis, without having to tell anyone that they are incapacitated in some way, or that they are shielding other people in their family in some way.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
The right hon. Lady is being generous with her time. Does she share my concerns about when I have to go back to Stoke-on-Trent, Kidsgrove or Talke and look school teachers, police officers, fire officers, GPs, doctors and nurses in the face and ask them to sacrifice themselves and to be willing to make some sacrifice by going in to look after people? In the end, they are public servants, as are we. Does she not agree that this would send completely the wrong message—that we have some sort of special protected status, compared with those who also work in the public sector?
Valerie Vaz
I would say: do not look them too closely in the face. We have to be 2 metres apart because that is what the Government guidance is. But the hon. Member is back to the same old thing. We are doing our work. I do not know but I hope not a single hon. Member does a face-to-face surgery. I started my telephone surgeries in March because I knew this was coming up; we had heard about the pandemic from China in December. So I think it is important, if the Government are going to give out guidance—[Laughter.] I do not think it is very funny when we are talking about people dying of covid and, if you are too close to them, they could pick it up—[Interruption.] Let me carry on.
So it is back to the same old thing. We are working. We are just working in a different way. I do not know any hon. Member who is not working 24/7. Absolutely every single hon. Member or right hon. Member is opening mail, or checking their WhatsApp. They are working. We are all working. We have a completely different job, and it is right that we do that. On people contacting us in the workplace when they want reasonable adjustments, that is our job. People contact us because sometimes employers are unreasonable. Sometimes people and institutions are unreasonable. People contact us to write those letters for them to make sure that they can get their work done. I am talking about reasonable adjustments.
Wes Streeting
We have heard key public sector workers invoked: “How will we look them in the face?” They will understand the rules perfectly well; they are abiding by them. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, given the reported public sector pay freeze, I do not know how any Conservative MP would look any public sector worker in the eye?
Valerie Vaz
I think that is a really important intervention. Perhaps the hon. Members would go to their public sector workers, look them in the eye and say, “Sorry, we couldn’t find any money for you to have a pay rise, but we”—[Interruption.] Well, I think it was an important intervention.
Let us go back to the broadcasters.
Shaun Bailey
Can I interrupt the right hon. Member at this point? Sorry, I wanted to raise it on a point of order, but can I just bring her back? I do not find death funny. I am sure my hon. Friends here do not find death funny. I actually have vulnerable people in my family that I have not seen in six months, so when she makes comments like that, I find it very offensive. So I would invite her to withdraw that comment and that slur against my hon. Friends, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), because it is not appropriate.
Valerie Vaz
I really do not know what the hon. Gentleman is talking about. All I heard was people sniggering in the back. I heard people—[Interruption.] Oh my goodness, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. Whatever we are debating, we will have a good-tempered and polite debate.
Valerie Vaz
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can I just say this? When I was talking about the difficulties that our hon. Friends and right hon. Friends have taking part in debate, I just heard some sniggering from the Back Benches. Normally, I would just ignore it, but this is such an important debate, and I did not know what it was about.
Valerie Vaz
Joke? I was talking about broadcasting. We were talking about the public sector workers who are not going to get a pay rise apparently, but maybe the Chancellor will change his mind when he has heard this debate.
But let us go back to exactly what is happening here with this motion. It is discriminatory. How can we possibly carry on in this way when we have these two tiers of hon. Members? It is not fair, it is not right and it is not the way that we do things here. We need to treat every single Member equally. There is absolutely no justification.
Patrick Grady
On the point of equal treatment, the right hon. Member is right, because one of the first things the Government did under the proceedings under the pandemic motion was suspend the English votes for English laws procedures. They recognised that they would be practically unworkable, and they actually removed that distinction and that discrimination that Members from Scotland have experienced under the House EVEL procedures. Again, the Leader of the House has been tied up by his own logic, because he is making some concessions to some people, but he is not making them available to everybody. His own logic is his undoing here.
Valerie Vaz
The hon. Member is absolutely right. When the Government want EVEL, they have it; when they do not want it, they do not have it, even though SNP Members have made the arguments frequently. We are now getting to the point where this is discriminatory.
Fleur Anderson
I am grateful for the opportunity to mention discrimination. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is a double discrimination—that not only are some people barred from being here and speaking, but they also cannot speak on behalf of their constituents? All the people who Members have been sent here to represent are discriminated against, as well as the Members themselves, so it is doubly hard.
Valerie Vaz
It is doubly hard for everyone not being able to take part in what we do in this House, which is to debate legislation. To debate—that is what the Leader of the House has said we should do, but hon. Members cannot take part.
David Linden
I have very much enjoyed the first hour of the right hon. Lady’s remarks and look forward to the next. I was reflecting on something said from the Conservative Benches a little earlier about reasonable adjustments being made. I was reflecting that pre-pandemic one of the greatest strengths that we had as Members of Parliament was the ability to come here and put things on the record; indeed, the Leader of the House tells us regularly that people have been able to come here and put things on the record since 1300. But of course, one of the difficulties for some our colleagues who do not have the ability to speak here is that they cannot get things on the record quickly with a point of order—something that many of us did at the beginning of the pandemic to call out bad practices from employers. Given that points of order are a good way of getting things on the record, does the right hon. Lady agree that getting some form of virtual participation in that regard might help some of our colleagues to call out bad employment practices?
Valerie Vaz
Yes. Hon. Members will also know the emails that we all get about particular pieces of legislation when they pass through the House. Whether it is here, in Westminster Hall or on petitions, Members cannot say how they voted or why they voted in a certain way, or talk about what the policy is. I do not know what hon. Members who cannot take part in debates say to their constituents; maybe I need to ask an hon. Member who is not here and cannot take part.
Jonathan Gullis
I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way again. She referred to the idea that our role here is to debate. Well, that is exactly what the Leader of the House is proposing. Those who are clinically vulnerable will be able to debate—or have I misunderstood what has been said?
Valerie Vaz
Yes, with the greatest of respect, I think that the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood. He will know that unless a Member certifies that they are clinically vulnerable, they will not be able to take part in a debate under virtual proceedings. That is where the difficulty lies, because there will be two different sets of hon. Members: those who will have to certify and those who cannot certify. For example, take the hon. Gentleman’s colleague, the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay, who has co-signed the amendment. It is not he who is clinically vulnerable; it is possibly another person who is, and he wants to protect them. Therefore, he cannot take part in the debate, and he should be able to. Why can he not take part in the debate without having to expose whichever person it is, who he would expose to the disease if he came here physically? That is the point, and that is why I say that this is a cross-party matter. It has nothing to do with politics or with anyone here. The only politics is that the Government seem hellbent on ensuring that people cannot take part in debates.
John Spellar
Has not my right hon. Friend exposed another flaw in this, which is the argument made by some Conservative Members that, “Well, you’ll have to go and get a sick note”? But if people have to do that, they hand the note in to their employer; it is not put on the front page of the local paper and out on social media, exposing to the rest of the world their—or in this case, even their family members’—condition. Whatever happened to medical privacy in all this?
Valerie Vaz
I think it has gone out of the window with this motion; my right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is not just about privacy for hon. Members—apparently we can take it because we have thick skins, although I am not sure that we all do; some of us have thin skins. It is about protecting the families, who do not necessarily ask to be exposed in this way. They are not the ones who are tweeting or who are on Facebook. We are exposing them. I know of many such cases. A friend in the SNP is protecting members of her family, and she has said so publicly, but why should she be prevented from participating?
Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)
It has been suggested by Government Members that people in other workplaces have to get sick notes, but will my right hon. Friend clarify that they do not have to get those notes from a GP in order to use Zoom? We are asking to use Zoom to continue working, not to be signed off work.
Valerie Vaz
My hon. Friend is right, and that is why we have these debates. He is absolutely right—I am sure they will come to that in the end, but hopefully not. Let us return to the discriminatory nature of this motion.
Karen Bradley
The right hon. Lady is being incredibly generous with her time, and this is most certainly a full debate—I think we can all agree on that. Will she comment on remarks made by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care at the Health and Social Care Committee earlier today? I was not able to catch it, but I have seen reported that he said we have to stop this British attitude of soldiering on, and that we should not be coming into work with sniffles and coughs because we will pass them on to other people. Does she agree that that is contradictory to some of the other things we are hearing?
Valerie Vaz
That is extremely contradictory. As a result of the Prime Minister being exposed to sniffles and coughs, he shielded and was given the ability to do his work in a different way. That is all that right hon. and hon. Members are asking for.
Let me give two examples of people who are very vociferous and active, including in the Chamber. My right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) is an amazing Member of Parliament, but she is finding that she has not got a voice any more. My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) constantly badgers the Leader of the House during business questions, but he is now not able to do that. The Chair of the Education Committee, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) loves coming into the Chamber—I have seen him—but he is not able to.
Shaun Bailey
May I apologise to the right hon. Lady? I did not mean to barrack her before. It was very discourteous of me and I put on the record my apologies to her now.
We talked about the risk of notes being leaked, and my understanding—I ask the right hon. Lady to please correct me if I am wrong—is that we would hand any sort of certification to the House authorities. Is she suggesting that that would not be a safe process, and that there is some risk that something might be leaked by the House authorities? I am sure she is not suggesting that, but will she clarify how such information might be leaked, were it to be given to the House authorities?
Valerie Vaz
No, I was not suggesting that at all, but as hon. Members know, no matter what happens, things get out. I gave the example of pregnant women or mothers who were not on the voting record because they were not here. That has now all changed, and that is what it took, which is why this debate is so important. We have stopped saying that people must be in the Chamber and voting, hence proxy voting, but it took the Procedure Committee and many debates to get that. That is why we are saying that we must treat people equally so that people outside cannot see any difference and everybody can take part in every piece of work done by the House.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. While the right hon. Lady is on the subject of treating people equally, I appreciate that in her long speech she has taken an enormous number of interventions and covered almost every possible aspect of the debate. However, I am a little anxious that other Members should also have the chance to speak.
Valerie Vaz
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was about to finish. I ask hon. Members to read the amendment carefully. It simply says,
“with a public health reason”,
which is a wide definition.
Peter Kyle
My right hon. Friend talks about public health. GPs are quite busy at the moment because we are in the middle of a pandemic. Does she think that GPs have more important things to do right now than certify that MPs are okay—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Gentleman has not been here for the whole debate. We are not having any more long interventions. A lot of people wish to speak and we are addressing a specific motion, not GPs in general.
Valerie Vaz
The amendment states clearly
“a public health reason”
and no other reason. All Members would be treated equally and everyone could take part in the important debates that we will have on legislation on Europe. We were all elected on 12 December as equal Members of Parliament. I hope hon. Members will support the amendment and ensure that everybody can take part in debates.
Business of the House
Valerie Vaz Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House please give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
The business for the week commencing 23 November will include:
Monday 23 November—Motion to approve the draft Heavy Commercial Vehicles in Kent (No. 1) (Amendment) Order 2020 and the Heavy Commercial Vehicles in Kent (No. 2) (Amendment) Order 2020, followed by a motion to approve the draft Common Organisation of the Markets in Agricultural Products (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 and the draft Common Organisation of the Markets in Agricultural Products (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) (No. 2) Regulations 2020, followed by a motion to approve the draft European Union Withdrawal (Consequential Modifications) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020.
Tuesday 24 November—Consideration of Lords Amendments to the Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Bill, followed by a motion to approve the draft Prohibition on Quantitative Restrictions (EU Exit) Regulations 2020, followed by motion to approve a money resolution relating to the Prisons (Substance Testing) Bill, followed by a motion relating to the appointment of members to the independent expert panel, followed by a motion relating to the Committee on Standards 11th report of Session 2019-21.
Wednesday 25 November—The Chancellor of the Exchequer will deliver the 2020 spending review alongside the Office for Budget Responsibility’s latest economic and fiscal forecast, followed by a general debate on the UK-Japan comprehensive economic partnership agreement.
Thursday 26 November—Debate on a motion relating to the final report from the Climate Assembly UK on the path to net zero, followed by debate on a motion relating to the Work and Pensions Select Committee report on the DWP’s response to the coronavirus outbreak. The subjects for these debates were recommended by the Liaison Committee on behalf of the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 27 November—The House will not be sitting.
Valerie Vaz
I thank the Leader of the House for the business for next week and note that the motion on virtual participation was objected to last night following the urgent question that you granted, Mr Speaker. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will accept the amendment and, if he finds time for a debate in the House, that there will be a free vote—no proxies—and that all Members can take part equally.
That is just a small step, but what we need is the giant leap to return to where we were. Yesterday, Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister did exactly what you did not want—we had Prime Minister’s questions by Zoom. When the Leader of the Opposition had to isolate, we had the deputies taking part. Perhaps the First Secretary of State and the Prime Minister are scared of our deputy leader, but worryingly, Paul Waugh of The Huffington Post tweeted that the Prime Minister would be taking part in a debate virtually next week. I am not quite sure what the debate is. I am assuming it is the Climate Assembly UK debate, which is listed for Thursday—he definitely did that—so I am not quite sure whether the Prime Minister is designated as clinically extremely vulnerable, or maybe he is just politically extremely vulnerable.
Our colleagues have important issues to raise. We now have two classes of MPs and, as the Leader of the House said in response to the urgent question, we have privacy issues around that. The Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), has received advice that the Leader of the House is in breach of article 10, on free speech, of the Human Rights Act 1998—article 14 gives effect to that. I know that the Government do not like the words “Human Rights Act” but if the Leader of the House looks very carefully, he can trace exactly all those human rights via the convention back to Magna Carta of 1215.
I wish the Leader of the House would look at the issue of interventions, because hon. Members have been to Westminster Hall to sit in on the debate, and they were told that they could not take part, or even sit there or intervene, because they were not on the call list. Please could he look at that? Will he look again at restoring a hybrid Parliament now that we are in the middle of a pandemic—with 52,000 deaths—complete with remote voting?
Could we have a statement on the EU negotiations? I understand that they are proceeding at a rapid pace. Will he look at establishing a new protocol on the press conferences that will come from No. 10? I am sure you will agree, Mr Speaker, that it is important that we hear from the Prime Minister here first on issues and matters arising in the House, rather than elsewhere, because we have to hold Ministers to account, as the Leader of the House has frequently said.
Accountability and transparency are so important. Exercise Cygnus took place in 2016. The report was only published on 18 October and, as Lord Sedwill said, some recommendations were implemented, but we do not know. Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate so that we can look at the recommendations and where we are? Many people throughout the country have made sacrifices, and we need to know whether we are implementing those important recommendations.
Last week, I asked about the procurement process, and the Leader of the House said that the Government will have turned out to have behaved impeccably. Has he read the National Audit Office report, “Investigation into government procurement during the COVID-19 pandemic”? It found that the Government were not transparent about suppliers of services when they awarded £18 billion-worth of contracts. It said there were two lanes, with a super-highway for those with special political contacts. Again, I reference “My Little Crony”, the excellent graphic by Sophie Hill. The NAO also said that decisions should be “properly documented” and made transparent if taxpayers’ money is being spent appropriately and fairly but that standards of transparency in documentation were not consistently met. May we have a debate in Government time on that report?
Twenty-one million pounds goes to a middle man, rather than to our frontline staff. The NAO report found that £350 million went to PestFix on false PPE, when our teachers and frontline staff were desperate for that PPE. Perhaps the Leader of the House can look at this ahead of the spending review. My constituent’s daughter, who is an A&E nurse, contracted covid on the second occasion she was working, saving our lives, and she says she has to stump up £300 a year to park—to pay to park to save our lives.
I want to ask about Nazanin, Anoosheh, Kylie and Luke Symons. We must keep their names alive and absolutely in the public domain. Iran is in the middle of a horrendous pandemic. More importantly, they need consular access, so will the Leader of the House please ensure that they get that? Will he also ensure that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office makes a complaint on behalf of Nazanin? She was used in a game of name that spy. That is a horrendous thing to do when it is not true.
Finally, there is some good news. I congratulate Lewis Hamilton—Lewis Hamilton the seventh. I also congratulate Marcus Rashford on his new book club initiative with Macmillan Children’s Books. We also celebrate UNICEF’s World Children’s Day. Let us all work to make the world a better place for all our children.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Before I come to the right hon. Lady’s specific questions, I have been asked to make right hon. and hon. Members aware that the 18-month review of the independent complaints and grievance service is under way, and it is important that as many people as possible take the opportunity to give their views about the scheme. Alison Stanley recently launched an online survey, and I encourage every member of the parliamentary community to take part. The deadline for giving views is 4 December. Please do take part in the survey and send any contributions to Alison Stanley directly.
May I of course join the right hon. Lady in celebrating World Children’s Day? As I have six of them, I do my best to promote children as far as I possibly can. It is a cause that I think I can show the House I am fully in favour of. I am grateful for her once again raising the issue of people illegally detained and the difficulties in getting access to consular representation. Every week after business questions, I write to Ministers highlighting the issues that have been raised, which obviously includes that on a weekly basis. We are therefore ensuring that it is kept at the forefront of Ministers’ inboxes, and they are doing what they can, though it is not easy with regimes such as Iran.
I turn to the various questions that the hon. Lady raises about a range of issues. I would like to make it clear that during the pandemic funding is being provided for NHS staff to get free hospital parking. I understand that London’s King’s College Hospital said that it was going to have to increase charges, but it will not now implement that until after the pandemic. It is important that people are treated fairly, and the Government have provided the funding for that.
As regards procurement, the issue is that a great deal had to be done and procured extremely quickly. The Government would have been much more criticised had we not ensured that the equipment needed was provided. So 32 billion pieces of PPE have been provided since the beginning of the pandemic. It is important to recognise that the normal time for a tender is three months, and often it runs to six months. Had these normal procedures been followed, we would not have been getting any additional equipment until October. So are right hon. and hon. Members who are complaining about procurement saying that the Nightingale hospitals should not have been opened until October? It is a ridiculous proposition. Speed was of the essence and speed is what was provided. [Interruption.] The speed that was provided was what was necessary, and it is worth pointing out that the vast majority of contracts of more than £120,000 in value have been published. This is important because transparency will ensure and will show that things are handled properly.
The right hon. Lady raises questions once again about virtual participation. She said that there should be a vote with no proxies. That would make it very difficult for Members. The reason for having so many proxies is to ensure that the Division Lobbies are not overcrowded and that the estate remains as covid-secure as possible. That has been the fundamental principle of what we have been doing. The House has gone to great efforts, Mr Speaker, particularly under your leadership, to be a covid-secure workplace, not just for Members but crucially for those employed directly by the House and for members of staff at the point when they were coming in.
Virtual participation is allowed in a number of areas such as Select Committees and interrogative proceedings, but it is not allowed in other areas, except—we hope, if certain people do not object to it—in debates, for people who are extremely clinically vulnerable. The question we have to face is whether we should be treated in the same way as our constituents. The Government advice is that those who are extremely clinically vulnerable should not go to work, but that if people need to go to work, they should. We are in that position. We need to come into work to do our job fully. People have to ask themselves whether they feel they do their job fully when they are entirely remote. I think that they will feel that they do not. They cannot attend Public Bill Committees; they cannot attend Delegated Legislation Committees—
Mr Rees-Mogg
That is not true. There are not the resources to do it across all these various forums. The resources are limited, and it is a question of how they are shared out. We are ensuring that the bits that need to be done physically are, and that MPs are here to meet other MPs, to see Ministers, to go to Westminster Hall, to do the great variety of things that amount to the fullness of the role of the Member of Parliament. Fundamentally, we should be in the same boat as our constituents. MPs do themselves and their reputation harm when they argue that they should have special treatment, as if we were some priestly caste.
With regard to the right hon. Lady’s point about human rights and freedom of speech, pull the other one it’s got bells on. We have freedom of speech in this Chamber. It is protected by the Bill of Rights. It is fundamental, and that is one of the reasons for coming together in this Chamber.
Participation in Debates
Valerie Vaz Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Rees-Mogg
I can certainly answer the last bit of the question first. I would always be delighted to meet my hon. Friend at any point, and we can do it virtually or simply by telephone, if that is convenient for him. As Leader of the House, I have made it clear always to all right hon. and hon. Members that it is my role to have as many meetings as right hon. and hon. Members want, so it would be a pleasure to see my hon. Friend. He raises a very important point and one on which I have the greatest sympathy with him and other right hon. and hon. Members: it is, of course, difficult for those with family responsibilities and those with obligations both to themselves and to others who are concerned about their safety and the safety of members of their family. There are, however, a number of constraints on what can be done practically, so these are the considerations we have to take into account before making the decision as to what we are to do in this Chamber and how we are to react to all the various circumstances of individual Members of Parliament.
First, it is important that the House of Commons is a covid-secure workplace, and— very much under your auspices, Mr Speaker, but also under the House authorities’ —that has been ensured. Great steps have been taken since March to ensure that covid security is of the highest level. I think there would be few workplaces in the country that can compete with that. That is important because ensuring that people who come into this place are safe has been your highest priority, Mr Speaker, and also, of course, the high priority of the Clerk of the House of Commons, who has the technical legal responsibility for the safety of this place.
The second point is that it is important that legislation passes and that the Government are held to account in an effective way. There, I look at what happened in May and June, when a number of activities were cancelled altogether: we did not have Backbench business days and we did not have Westminster Hall, but we had three days a week primarily of Government business. The Government business was very heavily truncated and Ministers, to my mind—and I think of many right hon. and hon. Members —were not fully or properly held to account during that period. It was, in the words of the Chairman of the Procedure Committee, “sub-optimal”, a word that became very fashionable. My right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) is very much a leader of fashion, and certainly in linguistic fashion she set the tone with the word “sub-optimal”. But it also meant that Government legislation was not getting through in a timely manner. Government legislation is not just important from the point of view of Government, it is important from the point of view of democratic propriety. The Government were elected just about a year ago on a manifesto and they have a duty to the British people to deliver on what was proposed, in addition to ensuring that we are prepared for 31 December, which is quite an important date, because on that day the transition period ends and legislation has to be in place to ensure that. Unfortunately, with the fully hybrid proceedings, that was not working and that is why we had to move back to a more physical Parliament to ensure that we could deliver on the manifesto commitments, ensure that the Government were held to account, allow for Backbench business debates and get on with business.
There is one other very important and fundamental point which I would like to make to my hon. Friend, because I am sure he will understand it and will sympathise with it. As Members of Parliament, we are key workers and we must behave as other key workers do. Last week, I had to write to a constituent of mine in exactly the same position as my hon. Friend. The Government guidance is that if you are living with somebody who is clinically extremely vulnerable, it does not mean that you should not go to work in a covid-safe environment. That is the advice of Her Majesty’s Government to our constituents, and I do not think it would be right of me to stand here and say that we should treat Members of Parliament differently from the way we are treating our constituents. Indeed, I believe it is of fundamental importance that, as we carry out our duty as key workers, we must consider how other key workers are operating, and we must be shoulder to shoulder with them. So to ensure the legislative programme and proper accountability, we are able to make further steps to allow more remote participation, but we are not able to make remote participation unlimited, much though I think everybody sympathises with my hon. Friend and other Members in similar positions.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) for securing the urgent question and you, Mr Speaker, for granting it. Why did the Leader of the House think it was necessary to make some sort of announcement on Twitter without having the courtesy to let the House know? He will know that I wrote to him on Friday, along with the chair of the Human Rights Committee, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), and the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), to ask him to look again at participation of hon. and right hon. Members in debates. The Leader of the House has been warned on a number of occasions that this would happen, and on each occasion he has said no, no, no, without even considering what we have been saying.
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman: everyone was moved by the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) when she asked at business questions why she was not allowed to take part in the debate—if she had been able to, imagine how someone going through what she is going through could have informed that debate.
I have previously raised the point that there are two classes of Members, and that that is undemocratic. The right hon. Gentleman says that it is our duty to be here but it is our duty to represent our constituents, and the Leader of the House is suppressing and extinguishing the voices of right hon. and hon. Members in that debate. Effectively, he is saying that all Members are equal but some are more equal than others. Where have we heard that before?
Will the Leader of the House now accept that he has excluded hon. Members from doing their democratic duty for their constituents, and will he please revert back to the world-leading system that worked? Such debates should be for every Member, not just a certain class. Why should hon. Members be identified as clinically extremely vulnerable? That is a privacy issue.
The contacts of the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) may well have been identified and isolated, but he did not have a proxy and he was in the queue—that means that he has exposed all hon. Members who were in that queue. Will the Leader of the House look again at remote voting? He said that the system broke down, but that was once and it was corrected. We are so far down the road from the start. The Lords are actually undertaking seven to eight hours of virtual proceedings and they are now looking at the second Chamber. Debate is controlled by call lists, anyway, so will the right hon. Gentleman look at Westminster Hall and Public Bill Committees, which involve small groups and could be done by Zoom? Will he also confirm how long the proposed changes will last and commit to cross-party talks before they are removed?
Finally, I wish a speedy recovery to the Prime Minister, the hon. Member for Ashfield and all other Members who are isolating.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Indeed. We all wish all hon. Members who are suffering from covid a speedy recovery and let us hope that those who are isolating have not caught the disease.
I really would not hold up their lordships’ House as a model. Having a voting system that collapses is deeply unsatisfactory and meant that their business for a day was lost. That was a failure of their system—
Mr Rees-Mogg
I begin by wishing the hon. Lady well in her recovery.
I am sure the whole House would like me to do that.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I doubt the hon. Lady can see, but the shadow Leader of the House is nodding. I know everyone here wishes her well.
As I said earlier, this is a balance between ensuring that parliamentary business is carried out properly and allowing those who are extremely clinically vulnerable to be able to participate. That will not be perfect in terms of debate—they will not be able to take interventions, nor will they be able to intervene. It is hard to see how that could function effectively. The greater the numbers who were involved, the harder it would be to make the system work effectively. I think we have the balance about right, although I absolutely understand that it will be difficult for some right hon. and hon. Members.
Business of the House
Valerie Vaz Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House please give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
The business for the week commencing 16 November will include:
Monday 16 November—Remaining stages of the Pension Schemes Bill [Lords].
Tuesday 17 November—Second Reading of the National Security and Investment Bill, followed by a motion to approve a money resolution relating to the Botulinum Toxin and Cosmetic Fillers (Children) Bill.
Wednesday 18 November—Motion to approve the draft Ecodesign for Energy-Related Products and Energy Information (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020, followed by a motion to approve the Construction Products (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020, followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by a general debate on covid-19.
Thursday 19 November—Debate on a motion on regulation and prevention of online harms, followed by a general debate on International Men’s Day. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 20 November—The House will not be sitting.
Valerie Vaz
I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business.
We have a result: there is a new chief of staff at No. 10. No, seriously, what I actually wanted to do was to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris. It was a historic victory, winning not only the popular vote but the electoral college. Despite the closing of mailboxes, I think democracy won, and I agree with the President-elect that the integrity of the peace agreement in Ireland is vital. He has also made a statement on Iran, which gives hope for Nazanin, Anoosheh and Kylie. It is interesting that Nasrin Sotoudeh, the human rights lawyer, has been released, and it gives hope to Luke Symons too.
I do not know whether you saw the strapline yesterday, Mr Speaker, but while there were squabbles behind the door at No. 10, we reached the terrible statistic of 50,000 deaths. We are the highest in Europe and the fifth highest in the world, and it is a terrible statistic because the other countries ahead of us have larger populations. Everyone in the Conservative party, from the Prime Minister to the bag carriers, was focused on the power struggle at No. 10 for jobs and influence. What this country needs is proper leadership and the Government to focus on the job at hand: saving lives and livelihoods.
The Leader of the House will have to come up with an answer—I asked him this last week—on when the Session is going to end. I hope he gives us the answer soon, because we would like another Opposition day.
Government Members will be interested to note that there was a U-turn on school meals—the Rashford turn—but they must be pretty annoyed because they were asked to vote for it, and then the announcement was made by the Prime Minister to the ether, not to the House. We could only glean what the details were from the press. It is no wonder that the Leader of the House does not want a return to remote voting, where Members actually have to vote themselves. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) was right, was he not, when he said that it is an affront to the House and everything that it stands for that there were 203 proxy votes cast by a Whip? More seriously, there are factions—the common sense group, the northern group, the covid recovery group. What the Opposition want to know—the Whips are asking us—is: do they all have their own Whips? Do we have to deal with each individual group? So I ask again, in the interests of democracy: can we have remote voting?
The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport made a written statement on Tuesday on a new advisory panel for the UK system of public service broadcasting. The panel, interestingly, is this: the former Conservative Prime Minister’s director of communications, who has been helping GB News to challenge the BBC; a Conservative peer; and a former Conservative Prime Minister’s press secretary. After the claims from the Leader of the House about political impartiality earlier this week, can we have a statement on the recruitment process? We do not want this to be another assault on public broadcasting.
I do not know whether the Leader of the House is aware of the interactive map, “My Little Crony”, which has been created by Sophie Hill. I raised last week all the contracts that have been handed out to those connected to the Tory party and I did not get an answer, but it is well worth a look. He will know that I think it might be time for a public inquiry, particularly on the £670,000 that has been allocated by the vaccine tsar for public relations. If you look at the My Little Crony interactive map, it links directly to the special special adviser’s relation. I do not know whether that is because they are essential workers, to enable them a visit to Barnard Castle, but it would be interesting to know what they do, because they are actually based in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, where there are 100 comms staff. But if it is something about a vaccine, I would rather Dr Van-Tam told me about it, instead of a public relations so-called expert.
There are more concerns about the use of public money, so will the Leader of the House find time for a full debate on the Public Accounts Committee report into the towns fund? It concluded at page 5:
“The selection process was not impartial.”
He was fond of saying that word earlier this week and it is a cross-party Committee. Is it the kind of Committee that the Leader of the House does not actually like, given his comments earlier? The Committee said that it was
“not convinced by the rationales for selecting some towns and not others.”
We have a crowded programme coming up in the next six weeks. We have the comprehensive spending review on 25 November, and already nurseries have contacted me to say, “Can the Chancellor find long-term funding for us?” They will be part of the recovery after the pandemic, with parents going back and children being looked after. One of the heads apparently described the Secretary State for Education as “missing in action”, so can we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Education, particularly ahead of the comprehensive spending review?
Will the Prime Minister come to the House and update us on the trade talks that are going on with the EU? I think he made a statement to the press, but not to us.
Last week, the Leader of the House highlighted his love of heritage, and I ask him to join me in lying down in front of the bulldozers at Stonehenge. Professor Mike Parker Pearson said:
“When we’re looking at prehistory, the buried remains are the only evidence we have. It’s rather like burning ancient manuscripts…There will be almost total destruction of all archaeological remains within its path”,
referring to the road scheme. Will the Leader of the House help us to stop it?
Finally, I wish everyone a happy Diwali. It represents good over evil, light over darkness and knowledge over ignorance. I know that is a sentiment that the whole House agrees with.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Absolutely, we are in favour of the triumph of good over evil, and we wish everyone a happy Diwali. I think that conservatism is very generally the triumph of good over evil. As regards Stonehenge, as I take the A303 to Somerset, the sooner it is a dual carriageway the better. I fully support the proposals to have a dual carriageway, though I would add that one of the great joys of going on the current A303 is that one gets a glimpse of Stonehenge. That is a benefit and is uplifting for people to see.
As regards statements by the Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend has been incredibly assiduous in updating the House, coming to the House, making statements, answering questions and leading debates. His appearances here have been exactly what we require, and he has met and exceeded the expectations of the House.
The right hon. Lady rightly congratulates the President-elect of the United States, as Her Majesty’s Government have. The Government look forward to working with—
Mr Rees-Mogg
I have congratulated him. The Government congratulate him, and I am speaking as a Minister for the Government. It is very important, as the Prime Minister rightly said on Wednesday, that the British Prime Minister has a good relationship with the American President, and that is in the interests of the United Kingdom. It has to be said that one person who was particularly good at that was the former leader of the Labour party, Tony Blair, who was able to get on with different American Presidents of different ideological outlooks, and that I think is a model for British Prime Ministers.
I know that the Foreign Office has responded to the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) about Nazanin and the other people improperly held, and her campaign is an important campaign to ensure that they are kept at the forefront of people’s minds.
It is of course a deep, deep sadness, and a tragedy for the families, that 50,000 have died with covid, but it is too early to be making international comparisons, because the statistics are not calculated in all countries in the same way. But the Government have made enormous efforts to limit the effect and to ensure that the interests of safety are paramount. That is why we entered into the second period of lockdown and, indeed, had the first period of lockdown. It is why £200 billion of taxpayers’ money has been provided in support to the economy in these very difficult times. Yes, it is a deep sadness, but it is not, I think, a matter of party politics, one way or another. The Government have made every possible effort, strained every sinew.
The right hon. Lady mentions my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who of course himself gave a proxy to the Deputy Chief Whip and proved the efficacy of the system, because he was able to take his proxy away and vote the way he wanted to, having listened to the debate. This is a way that is working, it is effective and it has reduced the queues in the Division Lobbies, which I know is a great concern of the right hon. Lady. I do my best to accommodate her, but I feel sometimes that she models herself on the deaf adder, and charm I ever so nicely, still no notice is taken of the efforts I have made to meet with her approbation. In spite of having made every effort to help, still more is asked for, but I am afraid we need to be here in person. Government business has to be carried through. Important legislation has to be scrutinised. This is best done in person, as we found when we were hybrid earlier in the year, so there will not be a return to remote voting.
As regards the questions about the vaccine and the vaccine tsar, and the money spent on publicity, may I say from this Dispatch Box what a fabulous job Kate Bingham has done? She deserves credit, plaudits and praise—paeons of praise—for what she has done for free. She has been working for free. She has not been charging the British taxpayer. She has brought her energy and her enterprise to ensure that we are one of the best-placed countries to have supplies of the vaccine when it comes through.
Of course, we have to tell people what is going on. There are a few nutters around, Mr Speaker—I am sure you have never met them—who are anti-vaxxers. They go around spreading rumour and causing concern to people. We need to put out the true information to reassure people. That is a reasonable and a proper thing to do. The attacks on Kate Bingham are discreditable and unpleasant.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The reference to the vaccine tsar in disparaging terms, but more generally than the right hon. Lady. Kate Bingham has done enormous public service and we should be grateful to her for what she is doing.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am not sure that I can freelance and support Burnley’s bid, but I wish my hon. Friend every success with it and commend him for being such a dedicated campaigner for his constituency. The towns fund is a wonderful opportunity for regeneration throughout the regions, and he has been making a very good case for Burnley. I would say, as regards the criticism of the towns fund, that the Government completely disagree with the Public Accounts Committee’s criticisms of the towns fund and its selection programme, which was comprehensive, robust and fair. The towns fund will, as my hon. Friend says, help to level up the country, creating jobs and building stronger and more resilient local economies. Those on the Opposition Benches should be ashamed of themselves for not welcoming this effort to help—
Mr Rees-Mogg
It has been discredited only in the minds of those who never wished to give any credit to it in the first place. It is a great scheme. It is an important scheme, and I am afraid the Public Accounts Committee got it wrong.
Committee on Standards
Valerie Vaz Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment (a), in line 1, leave out
“be appointed as lay member”
and insert
“and Ms Melanie Carter be appointed as lay members”.
I thank the Leader of the House for finally tabling this motion, but I am extremely worried and concerned about what he has done today. I was in politics in 1987, and the reason that I am taking this personally and have tabled this amendment is that this sort of thing has happened to me. It used to be known as blacklisting. I was prevented from having certain posts because people thought I had a particular political viewpoint. I thought that we had moved away from that and that this country had changed—that it did not really matter what someone’s politics were, but was about the kind of job that they did.
I am deeply concerned that some of the conversations that we have had in the Commission are public. The Leader of the House has said in some accounts that he apparently knows why Melanie Carter joined the Labour party and why she resigned from it; he appears to know exactly what those reasons are. The difficulty that we face is that Melanie Carter is not here to defend herself. She cannot question the Leader of the House or state what he has said in public; she does not have a chance to do that. That is not right in any forum, not least the House of Commons.
As I understand it, Melanie cannot have resigned from the Labour party. I do not know who she voted for in the leadership election. I do not even know that she joined the Labour party to vote for a particular candidate. I have no idea and I do not know where that has come from. I understood that she had resigned because she had applied for a post. I do not know where all this information is coming from. Is it tittle-tattle, gossip or just politicking? It really is unbecoming of the Leader of the House.
The Leader of the House failed to answer the question from the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin); he failed to say how the process was at fault or how it was flawed. Let me take hon. and right hon. Members through the process, because it is important for the House to know that there were 331 applicants. There was a sift and 10 applicants were interviewed. Those 10 applicants were actually whittled down through questions and an interview. That was all done by other impartial people, away from politics.
The applicants then went before an experienced panel that included Jane McCall, who is an external member of the House of Commons Commission. There was also my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who chaired the Committee on Standards at the time. She had resigned because she had been given a new post, but we agreed that she would stay on even though my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) was the new Chair of the Committee. The other members of the panel were Mark Hutton, the former Clerk of the Journals, and Dr Arun Midha, who is a lay member of the Committee on Standards. The top two applicants were chosen: Melanie Carter and Professor Michael Maguire—in that order. I thank the panel all for their hard work, because sifting through all those experienced applicants is not an easy task. We should be pleased that all those people applied for the post.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
I am interested in the impartiality. Was there guidance to the candidates and to the selection committee about whether being a member of political party would disqualify a candidate?
Valerie Vaz
As my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston said earlier, it was very clear that it was not in the criteria for disqualification, and it cannot be. It reminds me of when Brian Redhead was on the BBC. I think he was accused of voting in a certain way, and he said to the now Lord Tebbit, “How dare you know how I voted? Nobody knows how anyone votes when they go into that booth with that pencil. It is a private matter—nobody knows.”
Let me go back to the way interviews were done. I want to thank all the panel for finding these two excellent candidates. This came to the Commission for discussion, which I will not go into, but concerns were raised. I will not say who the concerns were raised by. The panel members were asked to go and ask questions of the candidates again, and so they did. They did the due diligence and they came back. That is the process.
If Members are asking about impartiality, let me just set out exactly what Melanie Carter is. Her current role is senior partner and head of the public and regulatory law department at Bates Wells solicitors. She is an independent adjudicator for the Marine Stewardship Council. She is a tribunal judge. She is a founder member of the Public Law Solicitors Association. She has previously worked as a partner at DMH Stallard and a solicitor with Bindmans, as director of standards and deputy registrar with the General Optical Council, and with Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw solicitors. She also worked for the Government Legal Service. Her previous public appointments were as an independent member of Brighton and Hove Council standards committee, as the legal chair of the Adjudication Panel for England and as a magistrate on the south-west Bench in London.
Melanie Carter qualified as a barrister and a solicitor. As solicitors, we owe a duty to the court first. We have to uphold the truth and the rule of law. She does all that, and she does it independently. That is why the panel recommended her. Let me tell hon. Members exactly what the report says, through the Commission:
“The two candidates represent a combination of experience and qualities which should reinforce public confidence in the independent element in the House’s disciplinary processes.”
This House is now saying to all those highly qualified people who sat on the panel, “You are talking rubbish. We don’t agree with you. We don’t agree with one part of what you say, but we agree with the other part.” That is absolutely outrageous.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
I cast no aspersions at all on the individual. She is clearly a very well qualified individual in her field. However, I take the point about the rules but, given that we have seven politicians who can be politically declared and seven lay members, surely we can accept that it makes sense for all those on the lay side of things to be completely beyond reproach, so that accusations cannot be made. I just wonder why we were unable to find people who were interested in being lay members but were not politically interested. I say that as, I hope, a very independent minded representative in this House.
Valerie Vaz
It is wonderful, isn’t it, when you know how someone is going to deal with a matter just on the basis of what their background is. With the greatest respect to the hon. Member, he does not know what is going to come before a Committee. The Leader of the House suggested that Melanie Carter might vote for an Opposition who were going to be good opposition for the current party, but actually, how does he know who is going to win the next the election? Nobody does, so he cannot say that she would vote for someone so that they would provide better opposition to the party that he represents.
Chris Bryant
It is actually more than that. The criteria that were sent out to all the candidates said that having been a party member need not be a bar and that, indeed, it may be an asset because they might understand politics better than some others. So we really are moving the goalposts, nine months after those people were invited to apply. I think that that shows us in a terrible light.
Valerie Vaz
I saw no bar when Tim Davie, who is now Chairman of the BBC, stood as a Conservative councillor; no one saw a bar to that. So what happened in someone’s past—and this applies to numerous people. I spent last Thursday going through how contracts were handed out to friends of the current Government—but we digress; I apologise.
Valerie Vaz
No.
I want to mention Professor Michael Maguire, because I do support the motion when it comes to appointing him. He was the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland and, among other things, he was a research officer at the University of Aston and he is currently the honorary professor of Senator George J Mitchell’s Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice. So he, too, comes highly qualified, and we support his nomination.
To go back to some of the points that my hon. Friends have touched on, the Committee applied a selection criterion to all the candidates and the House should not derogate from that criterion, if that criterion was accepted by the panel and was accepted by the Commission—and it was.
I support the motion, and I intend to press the amendment in my name.
Business of the House
Valerie Vaz Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House please give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
The business for the week commencing 9 November will include:
Monday 9 November—Second Reading of the Financial Services Bill.
Tuesday 10 November—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill, followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by a motion to approve a money resolution relating to the Forensic Science Regulator and Biometrics Strategy Bill, followed by a motion to approve the draft Ship Recycling (Facilities and Requirements for Hazardous Materials on Ships) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020, followed by a motion to approve the draft Food and Feed Hygiene and Safety (Miscellaneous Amendments etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020, followed by a motion relating to the appointment of a lay member to the Committee on Standards.
Wednesday 11 November—A general debate on remembrance, UK armed forces and society, followed by a general debate on covid-19.
Thursday 12 November—Debate on a motion on the effect of the covid-19 pandemic on refugee communities, followed by a debate on a motion on achieving the ambition for a smoke-free England by 2030, in the light of the covid-19 pandemic and public health reorganisation. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 13 November—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the week commencing 16 November will include:
Monday 16 November—Remaining stages of the Pension Schemes Bill [Lords].
Valerie Vaz
I thank the Leader of the House for the business. I should like to start by thanking Parliament’s Education and Engagement team for all the excellent work they have done to support UK Parliament Week. They have enabled all our constituents to understand what it is to participate in a democracy so that we know that every vote counts and that they will all be counted equally.
Will the Leader of the House please tell us when this parliamentary Session is going to end? They usually last about 12 months, and it would be useful to know because we would quite like another Opposition day and, as he knows, we get them pro rata. The private Members’ Bills have now been moved to next year. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), the shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has asked whether the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill could be looked at by the Government so that it can be taken forward earlier, rather than waiting until next year.
I am pleased that the Leader of the House has realised that voting in the way we vote at the moment is unsafe and that he has extended proxy voting, but I want to remind him that the Procedure Committee said in its fourth report that
“the system of remote voting used in May was a more effective means of handling divisions in the House under conditions where the division lobbies could not be used in the traditional way”.
I do not know whether he has seen the record, but even those hon. Members who are on the estate have a small p next to their name to indicate that they have cast their vote by proxy. This will give the impression that some hon. Members are not here when in fact they are, so we need to look at that.
I wonder whether the Leader of the House could explain how he thinks democracy works, when some hon. Members can take part only in urgent questions and statements, and Members who are being careful and responsible but cannot be here cannot take part in debates. Debates are the very stuff of what we do, ergo this is not a democratic process. I know that he will be aware that “Parliament” comes from the old French word “parlement”, which means “a place to speak”.
I do not know what it is about this Government, but they are obsessed with tiers, and we now have two tiers of hon. Members—we could say two classes of hon. Members—which is not right and not fair. I want to remind the Leader of the House what he said on Monday:
“We have to ensure that these new coronavirus regulations…are properly debated and that the Government are held to account.”—[Official Report, 2 November 2020; Vol. 683, c. 62.]
I should point out that although the time was extended to three hours, it was not sufficient to hold the Government to account because hon. Friends were unable to take part if they could not be here. They could not do so remotely. That is why this has to change.
Those hon. Members cannot hold the Government to account, but we need to find ways to hold the Government to account because they seem to be bypassing the normal procurement process and helping the VIPs to win lucrative Government contracts for personal protective equipment. How do we hold PPE Medpro to account? It was incorporated in May this year with share capital of just £100, yet it was awarded contracts of £200 million. It was set up by a former business associate of a Conservative peer. How do we hold SG Recruitment to account? It is a staffing agency, and it won two PPE contracts worth over £50 million, despite auditors raising concerns about its solvency. A Tory peer sits on the board of its parent company. How do we hold P14 Medical Ltd to account, which is controlled by a former Conservative councillor and has been awarded three contracts worth £276 million, despite having negative assets?
Parliament is giving the Government unprecedented powers, so could the Government prove to us that they are not misusing public money? Decisions so far have been characterised by cronyism and incompetence—and I have not even got on to Randox yet. I ask again, could we have a list of all the contracts that have been awarded under the coronavirus regulations and any declarations of interests? The shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has asked for an inquiry. It would be very simple to publish every single contract.
We need an urgent ministerial statement on what the head of the Vaccine Taskforce has said. If it is an official, sensitive Government document, why was it disclosed to people who spent $200 to hear that inside information? If it is not, why do we not all know about it? Could we have an urgent statement on who the head of the Vaccine Taskforce is accountable to?
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting an urgent question to my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) on Nazanin. That was the sixth urgent question about her. The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa said nothing about Anousheh, although he accepted that the debt is 40 years old—that is older than Nazanin. We also have to remember Kylie and Luke Symons. I look forward to receiving the letter from the Foreign Secretary that the Leader of the House has kindly facilitated.
Finally, Sergeant Matt Ratana’s funeral was held yesterday. We remember all those police officers and frontline staff who have given their lives in the line of duty. I know that Remembrance Sunday will be slightly different this year, but nevertheless, we will remember everyone in the same way. It will be more poignant because of those who have given their lives to save us. I think the Kohima epitaph will apply to everyone, which says:
“When you go home
Tell them of us and say
For your tomorrow
We gave our today.”
We will remember them. We will remember them.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The right hon. Lady is so right and puts it so well. We will remember them. I am very glad that there will be a chance on 11 November for a debate in the House where remembrance may take place properly, in a year when the full remembrance that we normally have will be curtailed. I am pleased that we are able to have time for that debate.
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for once again raising the case of Nazanin, Kylie, Anousheh and Luke. As always, the proper processes of this House are being used, and the Government are being held to account with urgent questions. I will say one thing: it is very important not to conflate any question of money with the proper treatment of people who are held improperly. The British Government have a very clear policy of not connecting the two, and it would be open season on British citizens if we were ever to be in a position of paying for people’s releases. It is fundamental that those two are not conflated.
May I echo the right hon. Lady’s comments on UK Parliament Week? It is a fantastic week, and we would have done much more had we been able to go out and about. Mr Speaker and I would have been up and down the country making speeches and receiving plaudits for Parliament and all the work it does.
Mr Rees-Mogg
And the shadow Leader of the House too. We would have shared a charabanc as we went around the country praising Parliament. It is none the less a very important week, and we should be really proud of our democracy and proud that Parliament is here doing its duty. That, I am afraid, is where the right hon. Lady and I fall into a level of disagreement. It is so important that we are here to do our job—that we are here to debate and to challenge. She says that some Members cannot be here for debates. I recognise that, and I sympathise with them, but they are debates; that is the point. We have seen how many times somebody comes on to complain that they cannot come here, and the connection goes down. We have seen in the House of Lords remote voting fail, so business does not happen.
Business of the House
Valerie Vaz Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
I thank the Leader of the House for his business statement. My party, of course, agrees with the business changing in this way. We have just heard the Prime Minister make one of the gravest statements. We are going to enter a lockdown of four weeks, and we are asking our fellow citizens to do something that they have not done before. The Leader of the House and the Prime Minister sometimes talk about “Captain Hindsight”, but was the Leader of the Opposition not Captain Foresight, because he called for a lockdown two weeks earlier? He did so because, as the Leader of the House will know, the number of deaths could be higher than it was in March.
We are asking people to stay at home, and many of our colleagues will be staying at home. The Leader of the House read out a list of legislation. In UK Parliament Week of all weeks, many of our colleagues cannot even represent their constituents. They are excluded from taking part in debates. They are excluded from voting. That is not only bad for their constituents; it is bad for democracy. Worst of all, we all have to line up together to vote. There is one simple way of dealing with that. May I ask him again to think very seriously, in this grave time, about us going back to remote voting? Those who can be here and need to be here will be here, but we must think about the safety of the House staff who have to marshal us into what we hope will be two different queues. I ask him to think very seriously, at this very serious time, about us going back to remote voting and to enable our colleagues to take part in debates on behalf of their constituents. I am sure he will agree that it is outrageous that they cannot represent their constituents. They must do that. He must look at this immediately, to save lives and livelihoods.
Business of the House
Valerie Vaz Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House please give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
The business for the week commencing 2 November will include:
Monday 2 November—General debate on covid-19.
Tuesday 3 November—Remaining stages of the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill.
Wednesday 4 November—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Agriculture Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill, followed by motion to approve the draft Blood Safety and Quality (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020, the draft Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020, the draft Human Tissue (Quality and Safety for Human Application) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 and the draft Quality and Safety of Organs Intended for Transplantation (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020.
Thursday 5 November—Debate on a motion on coronavirus business interruption loan schemes, followed by general debate on the UK Government’s role in ensuring innovation and equitable access within the covid-19 response. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 6 November—Private Members’ Bills.
The provisional business for the week commencing 9 November will include:
Monday 9 November—Second Reading of the Financial Services Bill.
Valerie Vaz
I thank the Leader of the House for the business next week and for the motion extending proxy voting until 21 March. I do not know whether he has heard the outcome of the Public Health England visit, but I say again that the voting queues are not safe. On Monday, as we were walking round and round, it felt like something out of the book “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”. We want remote voting because it is safest for Members and, most importantly, for staff, and it is quickest for staff behind the scenes.
The Leader of the House continually talks about democracy and “Erskine May”, but he is excluding Members from taking part in debate at this really difficult time, because some of them are in tier 3 areas that are in lockdown. Will he please reconsider remote voting? It is just for the pandemic, not for life. He will know that proxy votes do not count as a quorum for private Members’ Bills on Friday. We know that more than 25% of Members have proxy votes. I wonder whether he could consider, perhaps through the usual channels, a fairer way of enabling Members to take part via a proxy, so that those votes are not wasted.
Again, there is no update from the Foreign Secretary on Nazanin, Anousheh and Luke Symons, even though Iran is now in its third lockdown and other countries are having some success.
They came for our public money and wasted it. The Government have already spent £12 billion on Test and Trace, and yet they have accounted for only £4 billion, with the private sector consultants being paid £7,000 a day and everyone saying that this is a failed Test and Trace programme. The worst thing is that the Care Quality Commission has been told that its inspectors cannot have weekly testing when they go into care homes. That is one of the most important jobs that needs to be done at this time. Could we have a debate on the whole Test and Trace programme? Who is getting the money? Let it be laid bare. It is difficult to get answers from the Government. Even if we table written questions, the responses are taking a long time to come back. The Government need to be accountable for public money during this pandemic.
Then they came for the Labour Mayors. The Government are now dictatorially moving areas from one tier into another. The Mayor of Greater Manchester has brought everybody together. The Conservative leader of Bolton Council, the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green), who has resigned as a Parliamentary Private Secretary, and the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady)—a really serious person who has been in the House for a long time and is chair of the 1922 committee—have all said that they want to do the best for their community in Greater Manchester. On Tuesday, in response to the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care said:
“the cases were shooting up before we took action and then levelled off.”—[Official Report, 20 October 2020; Vol. 682, c. 1032.]
It would be nice to know what figures he is using. If cases are levelling off, why are the Government taking this action?
Let us look at the facts. Liverpool city region has received £44 million; that is £29 per person. Lancashire has received £42 million; that is £28 per person. After three months of restrictions, Greater Manchester was offered—by text—£22 million; that is £8 per head. Will the Government publish the funding formula behind those decisions? The shadow Chancellor, my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), has called it a “phantom” formula.
Then they came for the trade unions. The union learning fund is about to be abolished, at such an important time. It was established in 1988, in the time of Margaret Thatcher. It is one of the most successful learning, training and reskilling projects currently running in British industry. It is value for money. For every £1 invested, there is a return of £12.30, with £7.60 going to the worker taking part and £4.70 going to the employer. The Trades Union Congress said that it contributes £1.4 billion to the economy at a cost of £12 million. Can we have an urgent statement on that decision or a reversal of it?
Yesterday marked the 54th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster when 116 children and 28 adults lost their lives. There was a one-minute silence on Wednesday at 9.15. We must remember them.
Our thoughts are also with my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), who is in hospital after testing positive for covid-19. We wish her well, as we do my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), who is an assiduous attender in the Chamber, and all other Members who may not have said that they have got covid.
Yesterday, the deputy leader of the Labour party, despite grieving for her aunt, Anne Irwin, who died of coronavirus last week, came to the Chamber and said:
“I come here wanting the Government…to succeed, because lives literally depend on it.”—[Official Report, 21 October 2020; Vol. 682, c. 1081.]
We say that there is another way: Labour in Wales’s two-week circuit break and £300 million package, just as was done in New Zealand. The Prime Minister of New Zealand memorably said that the tooth fairy was an essential worker, and we congratulate Jacinda Ardern and Labour party on their historic landslide victory. As they in New Zealand, “Mihi.”
Mr Rees-Mogg
I hope the right hon. Lady will provide a translation for the benefit of Hansard.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The right hon. Lady kindly translated not only for the benefit of Hansard but for me. I believe the Prime Minister has also congratulated the Prime Minister of New Zealand.
I absolutely align myself with the right hon. Lady’s remarks on the anniversary of Aberfan. I am sure it will be remembered. It was a great tragedy, and it was acted on, with most coal tips removed for safety reasons. I also very much join her in sending best wishes to the hon. Members for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) and for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi). The hon. Lady is an assiduous campaigner, and the work she has done on Primodos is of fundamental importance. I supported her strongly from the Back Benches, and I hope that she will soon be back to resume her effective campaigning and holding Government to account.
On the union learning fund—£1.4 billion on £12 million? That sounds a little bit exaggerated. One can always find experts to come up with some figures if they are asked. With that sort of return, they ought to be in my former profession of investment management rather than in a union learning fund.
As regards the Manchester issue, the Government have provided £60 million of taxpayers’ money, not £22 million. In Lancashire, Liverpool and South Yorkshire, agreement was reached with the Mayors, whereas in Manchester we had this ridiculous fandango with the Mayor pretending he did not know when he had been told by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government hours earlier. It was as if he was trying to go on the stage. It was the most ridiculous prancing performance that one could imagine when he should have been seriously trying to help the people of Manchester, which is what Her Majesty’s Government were doing. I am afraid he was playing party politics of the cheapest and most disagreeable kind, whereas people such as the Mayor of the Liverpool city region, who was clear in his political opinions when he was in this House, were able to work with the Government and put aside party political differences. He has shown himself to be a model of how to behave.
As regards Test and Trace in care homes, 120,000 test kits are made available to care homes on a daily basis, so the Government are doing everything they can to ensure testing in care homes. Of course, it is expensive to set up a system from scratch—that is not something people should be surprised about—but the system is now testing up to 300,000 people a day from zero earlier in the year, because nobody knew that Test and Trace would be needed. One should recognise that significant achievements have been made. Of course, I accept that it is expensive.
I will, once again, take up the issue of Nazanin, Anousheh and Luke Symons with the Foreign Secretary. I do so every week on the right hon. Lady’s behalf. She is right to carry on raising it. The Government are doing what they can, but obviously there are limits to what the Government can do when dealing with foreign regimes that are undemocratic.
As regards remote voting—we have discussed this on a number of occasions—it is important that MPs are here. MPs have a right to be here. They are essential workers, and all the advice that the Government have given, whether it be in tier 1, 2 or 3, states that people who have essential work to do must carry on doing it. We are in that category. We expect people to teach schoolchildren, and we expect other people in other categories to go to work, so we should do the same. We have, as yet, received no formal response from PHE on Divisions, but they seem to me to be working well and efficiently. We are getting through them in about 15 minutes, which is in line with the time that a Division takes ordinarily. The system is one that I think you came up with, Mr Speaker, and it is working extremely well.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I quite like petrol engines, I must confess, with some old cars. However, the Government have consulted on bringing forward an end to the sale of new petrol and—
Mr Rees-Mogg
I think that is a jolly good heckle, don’t you, Mr Speaker, though for the record, I deny that I model myself on Mr Toad. The policy on petrol and diesel cars will be beneficial, and a consultation is taking place on bringing it forward earlier. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the key to making this happen will be changes in behaviour driven by the ease with which people are able to charge their cars, and that means having more charging points. There is £500 million over the next five years to support the roll-out of infrastructure for electric vehicles, so taxpayers’ money is being spent in this direction.
Business of the House
Valerie Vaz Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House please give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
The business for next week will include:
Monday 19 October—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Immigration and Social Security Co-Ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill.
Tuesday 20 October—Consideration in Committee and remaining stages of the Non-Domestic Rating (Lists)(No.2) Bill followed by, general debate on Black History Month. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Wednesday 21 October—Opposition day (13th allotted day) There will be a debate on a motion relating to “fire and re-hire tactics” followed by, a debate relating to social care. Both debates will arise on a motion in the name of the official Opposition.
Thursday 22 October—General debate on covid-19.
Friday 23 October—Private Members’ Bills.
At the conclusion of business, the House will rise for recess and return on Monday 2 November.
The provisional business for the week commencing 2 November will include:
Monday 2 November—General debate on covid-19.
I am not going to pre-empt the statement from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, but if there were to be any subsequent implications for next week’s business I will of course update the House in due course.
Valerie Vaz
I thank the Leader of the House for the business. I note that it appears from the House of Commons Twitter account that we have not had any votes in the House. He mentioned last week the need for impartiality, but I point him to the “MPs’ Guide to Procedure”, that really handy book, which says that an explanatory statement must
“objectively describe the effect of the amendment”,
so all the Twitter account is doing—the House account; it says it in the name—is using the same words that for centuries have been drafted independently by House authorities and Clerks: the name of the ten-minute rule Bills and the vote. I consider that to be objective. Can the Leader of the House confirm that the Government are not censoring that Twitter account?
Mr Speaker, I am glad that you clarified with the Prime Minister yesterday that it is a matter for the Government whether we go back to a hybrid Parliament and remote voting. May I ask the Leader of the House to be careful how he updates the Prime Minister? He clearly is not doing a good job of it. We are entering a really difficult phase. As we speak, people are isolating, and hon. Members are doing the right thing by staying in their constituencies. The Leader of the House has scheduled two debates on covid-19. May I ask him again if we could return to remote voting and a hybrid Parliament? This is a fast-moving situation, and people have to be very careful.
On a House matter, the Chair of the Committee on Standards, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), wants to know when the motion on lay members of the Committee will be laid before the House. This is an independent procedure. There was only one Member involved—the rest were all outside, lay members—and they will think it slightly odd if we do not follow the correct procedure.
We must not use the pandemic to hide accountability for public money. According to The BMJ, £100 billion has been spent on Moonshot. No one has come to the House to explain Operation Moonshot, which has been paused. Who is responsible for it? The technology, as I understand it, does not exist, so where is the money going? The Good Law Project would like to know the answers for its pre-action protocol, so I hope it will get them. It is no wonder the Government are looking into a review of judicial review. Judicial review is a way of holding to account people who make decisions on the people’s behalf, using people’s money. May we have a statement from the Lord Chancellor when the review is completed? It is our job to uphold the rule of law, not to dismantle it.
I think it is frightening, and my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) thought it was grubby, this idea of one Minister saying, “I’ll give money to your town if you give money to my town.” I do not know if people are aware of the Carltona principle, but it means that a senior civil servant can stand in the shoes of a Minister and make a decision, which to me would seem an important way of dealing with this and avoiding the perception of Ministers giving money to each other. Given that the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee have both said that there is an issue with the towns fund, will the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government come to the House, as asked by his shadow, and explain this?
The shadow Secretary of State for Health has highlighted that £56 million has been paid to consultants. I think now is a good time to publish the Cygnus report, so that we know whether public money has been spent in the right way.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) has said that public money has been used for legal fees to stop the debt being paid to Iran. At the heart of that are the two victims, Anoosheh and Nazanin, and also Luke Symons in Yemen. At Foreign Office questions, the Foreign Secretary said that all he has done is entertained his counterparts at Chevening; he has not made a statement. The Chair of the International Development Committee has tried to get him to appear before her Committee since June, but he has not done so.
I thank the Leader of the House for announcing that the Backbench Business Committee has a Black History Month debate next Tuesday. My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) is co-ordinating an appeal for Memorial 2007, to remember the victims of the transatlantic slave trade and slavery. The Government have provided money for other memorials. Will the Leader of the House have a word with the relevant Minister so that in their response to the debate next Tuesday, they can announce that they are also going to put some money into the memorial to enslaved Africans?
Finally, Remembrance Sunday is in three weeks’ time. May we have an urgent statement on the organisational advice and guidance for local authorities for what will happen on that day?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The right hon. Lady is right to ask about Remembrance Sunday, but obviously regulations around the pandemic are changing and it would therefore be too early to commit to anything at this stage. She mentions Memorial 2007, and a very worthy memorial that is. It is worth remembering that in Victoria Gardens there is a memorial to the ending of the slave trade. It was put up in the 19th century, but most people walk past it without even knowing why it is there. We do commemorate, not very far from this House, the great effort that this country made in ending an evil trade.
I entirely agree with the right hon. Lady that all public money should be scrutinised carefully, however it is spent. We can be proud that this country has such a good record on its expenditure of public money. I think we are one of the least corrupt countries in the world, and that is because we have proper scrutiny of how public money is spent. I have every confidence that the way money has been spent by this Government, particularly on the towns fund, has been absolutely proper, because we know that there is scrutiny. That is the role of this House and has been since it came into existence. It is quite right that that should be the case.
As regards the review into judicial review, that manifesto commitment is being carried out. I am delighted that a Conservative Government are carrying out their manifesto commitments—that is why people voted for us, Mr Speaker. It shows that we are people of our word.
I am fascinated that the right hon. Lady should have raised the issue of the Good Law Project; I seem to remember that that is associated with a fox killer—a fellow who likes to go out into his garden and bash poor foxes over the head. I am surprised that people want to refer to that organisation, which is not necessarily led by the finest people in the land.
On Operation Moonshot, I do not recognise the figure of £100 billion having been spent; I am not sure where that comes from. Figures get bandied about, but £100 billion is a very, very large amount of money and I have to say that it might have been noticed had that much been spent.
The right hon. Lady asked about the lay members of the Committee on Standards. As often happens, motions are brought forward at the right time, and no doubt a motion will be brought forward, or more motions may be brought forward, at a suitable time.
I come to the heart of the right hon. Lady’s questions today: they are about how this Parliament does its business. We have a duty to be here doing our business. It is unquestionably the case that democratic scrutiny is essential, even during a pandemic. We have to be here, holding the Government to account, asking questions, getting answers, legislating and ensuring that statutory instruments of national significance are debated on the Floor of the House, so that our constituents are represented thoroughly, questions are asked and we seek redress of grievance for the people whom we seek to represent.
As we come here, we have a responsibility to ensure that we act in a responsible way. The House authorities, led by you, Mr Speaker, have made every effort to ensure that we are covid-safe. Look around this Chamber and look at what we have done. We are sitting 6½ feet apart from each other; we are socially distanced. Look at the markings on the floor—I am pointing at things in the Chamber; I hope that that is not too difficult for Hansard to take down. Those markings are set out. People are wandering around wearing masks. I cannot pretend that I like wearing a mask. I cannot pretend that I do not find it slightly tiresome that my spectacles steam up, and therefore one is wandering around somewhat unable to see where one is going. But we are wearing masks because we are showing the nation what we ought to be doing, and we are legislating at the same time. We have a personal responsibility and a duty to legislate. We have a duty to be here. We have to show the way. To suggest that democratic accountability is not an essential service seems to me to be an offence to democracy.
Business of the House
Valerie Vaz Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
I thank the Leader of the House for coming to the House to make a statement.
When will these regulations be published? The Leader of the House listed all of them. Will they be taken together, or separately by region? How long will the debate on the regulations be? Will it be a full day’s debate? There are constituents who are losing their jobs as we speak, and they will expect their MPs to scrutinise and debate the regulations fully. Will the subject matter include the package of economic support available for the communities affected and the evidence that has been used to place our constituencies in the different tiers?
The Leader of the House will know that Members have been unable to take part in some of the debates on primary legislation for public health reasons. Could he confirm that we can return to virtual debates allowing all hon. Members to take part equally as these regulations are so important and they need to do their democratic duty on behalf of their constituents?
The Secretary of State for Health said on Wednesday that there will be a new convention that wherever possible we will be holding votes before such regulations come into force. Could the Leader of the House confirm that if there are any future changes to the tiered system where constituencies are moved from one tier to another, we can have a debate and a vote on that?
We will work with the Government if there is any legislation that needs to be expedited. However, the House first heard of the financial package on Friday when the Chancellor made a statement to the media at the same time as the Prime Minister was talking to the leaders in the north-east and the north-west, and some of our colleagues—hon. and right hon. Members—were not even invited to that call. Will the Chancellor come to the House regarding any future package, because economic support goes hand in hand with lockdown measures? We should not have to hear about this in a “Dear colleague” letter when he is just across the road.
All our citizens behaved absolutely brilliantly during the first lockdown, and that resulted in a lifting of restrictions over the summer. Will the Government repay that trust by ensuring that they treat our constituents’ elected representatives in a democratic way by informing hon. and right hon. Members of any measures that are made in this House, and doing so expeditiously?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I hope that the orders will be laid even while I am speaking, but certainly the intention is for them to be laid very shortly. A programme motion will be attached to that. It will not be a full day’s debate because we will be moving on to the Fisheries Bill, but there will be some hours of debate available.
The right hon. Lady is right to point out that it was unfortunate that the Chancellor’s package was leaked and therefore an announcement needed to be made when the House was not sitting. This is most regrettable, as announcements should be made to the House first, and that was the intention of the Chancellor and of Her Majesty’s Government.
With regard to remote activities, interrogative proceedings remain possible remotely, but it is worth remembering that attendance at this House is essential work and that all the restrictions still allow people to travel for their work, even out of a restricted area, so Members remain entitled, free and, indeed, under some element of duty to attend this House if they are capable of doing so. The commitment is to have votes on matters that are of national significance. Inevitably, that is not a precise definition, but I hope that the Government and Members of this House will work together to ensure that any issues that are of national significance, and are widely deemed to be of national significance, will come to the House first. I think that is the right thing to do, and the commitment that my right hon Friend Secretary the Health Secretary made in answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) in a recent statement made this absolutely clear.
May I thank the right hon. Lady for the support that she has volunteered today and for her right praise of the behaviour of the people of the United Kingdom? We are governed by consent and therefore regulations that are passed by this place need the consent of the British people given through their representatives. That has been given in a remarkable way, and I am sure that that will continue. It will certainly be shown in the respect by Members of Her Majesty’s Government to this House. The Prime Minister was on his feet for the best part of two hours answering as many questions as he possibly could, and this level of engagement is only right and proper.