Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Twelfth sitting)

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Committee Debate: 12th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 5th September 2018 Public Bill Committees

I suspect that the Government will be defeated on this. There is a majority in Parliament for 650 seats, and we will see that when a vote comes. In the event that the Government do a grubby deal and buy off some of their Members, I seek assurances that hon. Members, including the Minister, would not be heading off to the House of Lords after that.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)]

I begin by adding my voice to those who have expressed their condolences to the hon. Member for Coventry North East. It must be a very difficult time for her and we all send our great sympathy.

I will put a few points on the record about the factual position of where we are this morning. As hon. Members will know, the boundary commissions for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are submitting their final proposals for revised constituencies to Ministers today. The Ministers involved are the Minister for the Cabinet Office, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Secretary of State for Scotland—that covers the plural reports. Hon. Members may be aware that the House passed an order that transferred the function from the Leader of the House to the Minister for the Cabinet Office. I confirm that that has taken place.

The boundary commissions have, of course, drawn up their proposals in accordance with the legislation passed in the 2010-15 Parliament, to which the Committee has previously referred. The law requires that the Government must lay the four boundary commission reports before Parliament. Each will be laid as an Act Paper and must be laid when both Houses are sitting. We expect therefore that the reports will be laid before Parliament on Monday 10 September. That accommodates both the Lords and the Commons sitting and, crucially, allows for the reports to be printed—these things do not happen instantaneously. That is the explanation for the laying date of Monday. I hope that is clear to the Committee.

After the reports have been laid before Parliament, the Government will bring forward a draft Order in Council to give effect to the recommendations contained in the reports. The order will, as a matter of fact, be a complex and lengthy statutory instrument. It will take months to prepare, because it needs to transcribe the entirety of those four boundary commission reports. Needless to say, we would all wish that work to be accurate.

We have said that we will keep the private Member’s Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton under review. I understand that hon. Members in Committee have asked for the Government’s view of that Bill. As we have said before, we believe that it is right that the boundary commissions have been allowed to complete their work. Parliament agreed in the 2010-15 Parliament to that process for the review of boundaries, so that stands. I add today that it is my view that the House of Commons, sitting in the main Chamber, will play an important role in making the decisions that flow from the boundary review. It is appropriate that those decisions are considered in the main Chamber rather than in Committee. Recently, there has also been debate in the Chamber on whether the Bill should be allowed to proceed in Committee without a money resolution, and the House decided that that should not be permitted.

I hope that that is sufficient to give a clear indication of the process ahead and an explanation of which Ministers are involved, and also accommodates the question as to the Government’s intention with regard to the Bill.

[Christian Matheson]

The Minister said something very interesting then. Could she clarify? Forgive me, Ms Dorries, if my grasp of procedure is not as great as that of other Committee members. The Minister said the Order in Council would be complicated and take months to prepare. Does that mean that she expects a vote on the order not to take place for several months? My understanding was that, once the order is laid, there is a strict timetable for how long it would take before both Houses were expected to vote on it and that that timetable is short. Is my interpretation right? When can the Committee expect those votes to take place, based on what the Minister has just said?

[Chloe Smith]

I confirm that I used the word “months” and I deliberately did so. I intend to be realistic with the Committee that those instruments are complex and need to be prepared fully and correctly. I wish to be quite straight about that with the Committee.

The more specific scheduling of a vote after that point is, of course, a matter for the Whips, which I am not in a position to confirm any more specifically today. I add something I think the hon. Member for City of Chester and other Committee members might already be aware of: the governing legislation says that the orders shall be laid “as soon as may be”. That is the technical guidance the hon. Gentleman is looking for in his question.

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying that last point. I referred to that in a previous sitting. Ministers cannot unduly delay matters but they clearly have to go through the proper process and ensure that the orders are correct.

I want to ask the Minister a question about what she said on process. In a previous sitting, I brought up the subject of where these issues are debated. There are two points I want her to reflect on: one is what the hon. Member for City of Chester said about whether the House should give us permission to debate the Bill before the House has taken a decision on the boundary reports. I do not think that is sensible because the debate on the order would need to be taken into account if there was a wish to change legislation.

The second point, to which I think the Minister referred, is that these matters affect all Members of Parliament. If we were to debate the substance of the Bill, it should not be done here in Committee. As with the original legislation, it should be debated on the Floor of House in a Committee of the whole House, so that every Member of Parliament had the opportunity to consider it. The Minister has set out a sensible way to proceed.

[Chloe Smith]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s compelling points. The first, on time, is absolutely correct. I agree that there is little point in this Committee discussing matters that are also before the main Chamber before the main Chamber does so. Secondly, on scope, I also agree, as I said earlier, that it is correct for the main Chamber to look at these matters, first, because they affect all Members and, secondly, because they are constitutionally important. It is the convention of this House that such matters are dealt with in the main Chamber.

[Christian Matheson]

The Minister is being generous with her time. In that case, will she undertake to speak to the Clerks to establish a procedure whereby this Bill Committee might be moved to a Committee of the whole House, with an attendant money resolution, so that we can move it forward at the time that she chooses?

[Chloe Smith]

No doubt, Ms Dorries, if I did not say it, you would say that it is not for me to do that. It would be for the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton to have such a conversation.

Following your guidance, Ms Dorries, I shall refrain from commenting on the internal machinations of parties, though, if I did, no doubt questions about the unity of both the Labour party and the Scottish National party would become very clear, given what we have seen in the press over the summer—in the Daily Mail or elsewhere.

Notwithstanding that, I can confirm that the party chairman of the Conservative party has written to Conservative colleagues, as is entirely reasonable and expected, but I do not think it is appropriate to lay that correspondence in the Library, as requested by the hon. Member for City of Chester, because those are party documents. The very important documents that we are discussing are of course the boundary commission reports. I hope I have used my comments to lay out the process that the Government intend to use for those documents, which will be before us very shortly.

[Mr Harper]

Before the Minister sits down, may I press her on one matter that I hope will be helpful to the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton? Picking up the point that the hon. Member for City of Chester made, it would be sensible for the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton to consider talking to the Government about a motion to discuss the substance of the Bill on the Floor of the House. That could save us coming here every week to talk about a motion to adjourn.

However, having listened to my hon. Friend the Minister, I anticipate the Government’s response to be—I am only a Back Bencher, so I do not know—that that makes sense, but that it does not make sense for that process to start before the House has had the opportunity to consider the Order in Council. As I have said before, if we are to debate the substance of the Bill, and therefore amend the current process laid down in law, we should want to do so after listening to Members’ concerns about the existing process. To start changing the law about the process before even allowing one process to conclude under the existing legislation is to put the cart before the horse.

To avoid our having an interesting but slightly null debate every week on whether to adjourn, it may be sensible for the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton to have that conversation. I anticipate that the Government would perhaps agree to that, but to have the process start once the House has had the opportunity to consider the boundary commissions’ proposals. That might be a constructive and sensible way forward. The Minister will no doubt reflect on my contributions and those of the hon. Gentleman, and the hon. Gentleman may well also reflect on them with purpose.

[Chloe Smith]

My right hon. Friend is as forensic, logical and authoritative as ever, and I have nothing further to add.

Question put and agreed to.