Oral Answers to Questions
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(13 years ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I certainly think that most reasonable people would say that, in this day and age, it cannot be right to have rules that discriminate on the basis of gender or religion. This is clearly a sensitive area, however. I have always been explicit in my own view, which I have expressed publicly on several occasions over the years, that we needed to look at these rules. I am delighted that we have now been able to mobilise a consensus among all the Commonwealth realms, so that we can now put this into practice.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
3. What discussions he has had with local authorities on (a) voter registration and (b) maximising participation in local and national elections.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
We have been having regular discussions with local authority registration officers and those involved in our electoral data-matching pilots and the smooth implementation of individual registration. Everyone in the House has a responsibility to encourage people to participate in elections. Mr Speaker, you will know that the Electoral Commission has a particular role to play in that work, which the Government find very valuable and which I am sure is supported by every Member of the House.
Mr Sheerman
Surely the Minister realises that a party that seems to believe in the big society and in localism would want participation to increase. Local authorities are deeply unhappy about the effect that the changes that are being mooted will have on local participation. Is he aware that the Deputy Prime Minister’s constituency—the wealthiest constituency in the north of England—could manage only a 73% turnout? What are we going to do about the others?
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman is confusing two things. Clearly, the Government want to ensure that the electoral register is complete and accurate. As regards the turnout for elections, however, it is the responsibility of all of us in the House to ensure that we provide people with compelling reasons to vote. For example, we are taking the necessary steps to clear up the mess left for us by the Labour party.
Public Disorder
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
As I said in my statement, we keep the sentencing powers under review. Magistrates courts can pass sentences of up to six months, and they have been doing so. They have been passing sentences overnight, and also referring cases to the Crown court. I think it vital for us to ensure that there is enough Crown court capacity to deal with these cases quickly.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
May I beg the Prime Minister to change his mind about the commission of inquiry? This is not going to go away, although we might wish it to do so. It is a complex, changing social phenomenon, which we have to understand in order to combat it. Will the Prime Minister announce the establishment of a commission of inquiry this week? This goes to the roots of the present situation. As the Prime Minister knows, I am a great supporter of Select Committees, but it is not enough to leave the matter to a Select Committee inquiry; we need a national commission of inquiry.
The Prime Minister
I think that we should have confidence in the ability of our Select Committees in the House to do this work, and I think that the Home Affairs Committee does an excellent job. As I have said, I do not rule out other things for the future, but let us start with that. Sometimes, commissions of inquiry have had to be ordered because Committees of the House have not been able to reach the information or the people, but I do not see why that should be the case in this instance.
Public Confidence in the Media and Police
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I could see the development of a beautiful relationship there, just for a brief moment. I think, on slumber parties, if it is perfectly all right, I do not rule out my children having slumber parties, if that is acceptable to my hon. Friend, but I promise to leave Rebekah Wade out of it.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
May I press the Prime Minister on the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford)? In the last year, has he been briefed by the intelligence services about the phone hacking and surveillance of a senior public servant? Has he had that briefing, and will the intelligence services be requested to give evidence to the inquiry?
The Prime Minister
We do not discuss intelligence issues in the House. If the hon. Gentleman wants to come and talk to me about this issue, he can absolutely beat a path to my door and I will see him.
House of Lords Reform
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
On the first point, we have an array of different electoral systems already in this country, from that used for the European Parliament to that used here in London and those used in the devolved Assemblies. Those systems all co-exist. I do not think that we need perfect consistency of electoral systems, as we do not have it anyway. On the second point, when all three parties have committed to something in their manifestos, such as House of Lords reform, the situation is unlike that with electoral reform to this place, so there is not a similar case for a referendum.
A range of issues will no doubt come up today, and many of them have been brought up already. There are two particular areas of concern, however, that have frequently come up in debates so far, and I want to address them in turn. The first is that the Government’s proposals risk creating a second Chamber that is too powerful and the second is that Members will be elected but not properly accountable.
On the question of the balance of power between the two Chambers, it is simply not the case that the other place will rival the Commons—with 300 Members, it will be half the size. That is the number that we judge to be right, although we are listening to views on that question. Whatever number we settle on, however, the Commons will remain significantly larger, as is the case in the vast majority of bicameral systems around the world. Members of the other place will serve long single terms of 15 years with no prospect of re-election, keeping them a step removed from the electoral cycle of this House. They will be elected according to a different voting system, which will be proportional and will have, we propose, larger multi-Member constituencies, giving them an entirely different mandate from MPs. Their elections will be staggered, so that they will be either elected or elected and appointed in combination in thirds. That will mean that they will never have a more recent mandate than the Commons.
The two Chambers will remain entirely distinct. The Commons will continue to assert its authority through the Parliament Acts, through MPs’ decisive right over the vote of supply and through the Government’s need to retain the confidence of MPs in order to remain in office.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The right hon. Gentleman knows my interest in this matter, which is to protect the power and functioning of this House. I do not know of any bicameral system that works as efficiently as the arrangements that we have at the moment. Every other bicameral system that I know ends up being deeply conservative and with the elected, mandated Government in the lower House being frustrated in implementing their manifesto by a second Chamber that becomes increasingly powerful over the years.
The Deputy Prime Minister
No doubt, those are the reasons why the hon. Gentleman voted for 100% election last time this matter came up for vote.
Mr Sheerman
I have several times voted for the abolition of the House of Lords, and I want that to be on the record.
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I know as a leader of a party, people are queuing up to get in there right now without elections, and I suspect that that will continue, because the House of Lords does an excellent job as a revising and scrutinising Chamber. There is a place in politics for people who do not want to become Members of this Chamber, but who want to play a role as serious scrutineers of legislation and holding the Government of the day to account.
Mr Sheerman
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I represent Huddersfield, and presumably one of these 15-year senators, or whatever they will be called, would, theoretically, float above the two constituencies of Huddersfield and Colne Valley. They would be elected only every 15 years. My successor or I would be fighting an election every four or five years, whereas this person, who presumably might be from another party, would not get involved in my election, campaign in general elections, have any political will or conduct any activity at all. Is that what he is saying? A kind of neutered politician would float—
Sadiq Khan
The hon. Gentleman makes a good intervention. It is important that the Joint Committee respects party policy and manifestos, and I hope that it will do so in its recommendations.
The draft Bill does not adequately address these issues. Clause 2 simply states that nothing in the Bill
“affects the primacy of the House of Commons”.
That is inadequate and ignores work done on rules and conventions by previous Committees, including the Joint Committee on Conventions chaired by Lord Cunningham of Felling. The new Joint Committee will need to recognise this fact and seek to open up the issue of powers and conventions; otherwise, the reform process runs the risk of being fatally flawed.
Another area of concern is the length of term of those elected to a newly reformed upper Chamber. Increasing the democratic accountability of the Lords has to be one of our key objectives, but I am unclear how this will be best served through single 15-year terms for those elected. What do we do in a situation where some less diligent individuals are elected and recognise, almost straight away, first, that the next 15 years are now sorted and, secondly, that they do not need to worry about what the electorate believe or want because they will never need to face them again at the ballot box? Is this what we want in our second Chamber?
We also face the tricky constitutional issue of the future of the bishops. I recognise that we have an established Church and that a move to a fully elected upper Chamber would not accommodate our current system. Some have argued that if we allow the bishops to stay in the reformed second Chamber, we should allow representatives of other major religions to have seats. However, there are major practical difficulties, not least the fact that some religions do not have such obvious hierarchical structures as others, so it is unclear who would be their representatives—let alone whether it is right for organised religion to play such a central part in our political system. It is right and proper that this House and the Joint Committee debate such issues if we are to get reform of the second Chamber right.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
My right hon. Friend is making a very good speech. At the beginning, I was a little concerned that those of us who have consistently, even when we have voted tactically to frustrate some of the motions—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] Yes, Members on both sides of the House have done that. Some of us resent the suggestion that we are anti-democratic. Those of us who believe in the primacy of this House want either the abolition of that place or a very weak upper House. That is the democratic position and it is due some respect from both Front Benches.
Sadiq Khan
My hon. Friend makes his point very well.
Another area that the Joint Committee will have to examine is the transition. What will happen to the existing Members of the House of Lords? One option is to allow them to continue until they choose to leave by their own volition or die. Even the option of a phased move over time leaves the question of which Members to keep and which to ask to leave. That would not be easy to manage and would not be cheap.
Oral Answers to Questions
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I can certainly confirm that, as far as I am concerned, there will be no move to dilute incredibly important protections to enshrine and bolster equality in this country under the guise of dealing with unnecessary or intrusive regulation.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
If the Deputy Prime Minister is in listening mode, from where is he hearing a vote or voice calling for a House of Commons diminished in power and influence?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I ask the hon. Gentleman, as I ask all his Opposition colleagues: what is wrong with the basic democratic principle that those who create the laws of the land should be accountable to the millions of people who have to abide by the laws of the land? It used to be called democracy. It used to be something the Labour party believed in. I do not know why it is turning its back yet again on a progressive step towards further reform.
Oral Answers to Questions
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I agree with my hon. Friend. We are leading the process of trying to reform the ECHR so that it pays more attention to the decisions of national Parliaments and, crucially, national courts. As for the ECJ, one thing that we must do is stop the transfer of further powers from Westminster to Brussels. That is why we are putting in place the referendum lock.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Prime Minister think that the power and influence of this House of Commons will be diminished or increased by the reforms to the House of Lords that were announced yesterday?
The Prime Minister
I think that Parliament as a whole will be increased in terms of authority and respect. It is right to insert into the House of Lords some elected peers, so that we recognise that in the modern world, it is right to have two Chambers that are predominantly elected. That is the policy of the Government. It is clear to me that there are massive divisions on both sides of the House about that policy. However, this is an opportunity for the House of Commons to try to find a path through those, which we must do to achieve what was in every manifesto: elections to the House of Lords.
Review of Parliamentary Standards Act 2009
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Adam Afriyie
I thank the hon. Gentleman for mentioning that. I noticed just the other day that 40 hon. Members have been reported and may well be investigated for some very minor and seemingly almost irrelevant matters. I have seen newspaper coverage of Members’ being criticised for claiming £3 here and £4 there. It seems to me that the public standing of this place is not necessarily enhanced by some of the practices in place at the moment, and that is why we need calmly to take a step back and review the situation. We need to review the 2009 Act and ask whether it is improving and restoring the integrity of Parliament and its hon. Members through its operation.
Clearly, some disgraceful acts happened in the past and no one is condoning that. We needed to make changes and I welcome the progress that has been made, but we must now calmly review the Act, its operation and the current arrangements.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Gentleman is making a very good speech, but is it not a fact that the vast majority of Members in this House never did anything wrong and never broke any rules—I am talking about more than 600 of us—but have been rewarded by having our job of serving our constituents and checking on the Executive made much more difficult? My job here is to serve my constituents and call the Executive to account, and I am finding it much more difficult to do that under the new rules.
Adam Afriyie
That is the observation of many Members, I think. I have to say—I hope I will not get a hiss for this—that the media and those who really understand how this place works are beginning to recognise just how difficult it is becoming for Members of Parliament on both sides of the House who want to go about their duties of holding the Executive to account, representing their constituents and picking up issues, but they are constantly being harangued over issues regarding which, one might argue, they should not necessarily be under pressure.
I shall not go through the litany of the crimes of the current system, much as I would love to. Anybody reasonable and anybody who knows how this place operates—the people who voted us into this place last May clearly recognised that the people being elected here were people who wanted to serve—will know that the overwhelming majority of Members are desperate just to get on with their job and to perform the duties for which they were elected. I hope that this motion is carried today so that we can have a calm look at whether the 2009 Act is performing the function that, with all the good intentions and good motivation in the world, it was intended to achieve.
My heart goes out to the new Members who came in in 2005. Many were elected on a ticket saying that they abhorred the expenses crisis, and they were right to campaign on that ticket—
EU Council and North Africa
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is pulling me into territory where I should not go, but it does seem to be a pretty good medical record that people released from prison, normally on the brink of keeling over, then last for a very, very long time.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Prime Minister mentioned that he wants to see a strong and secure eurozone. On a day when our papers are still full of stories about the predicament of British banks, which are vulnerable to loans that they made over recent years, and at the same time full of stories about bankers’ bonuses, can the Prime Minister tell us whether there was a discussion about the still perilous state of our banking system throughout Europe, and the fact that bankers’ bonuses are still paid out at such levels?
The Prime Minister
Of course we did discuss what lies at the heart of the eurozone crisis, part of which is about banks that were hopelessly over-leveraged, over-extended and all the rest of it. Here in the UK, we are having a serious conversation with the banks whereby we try to sort out what we want to see. I want to see them paying more tax, I want to see them doing more lending, particularly to small businesses, and I want to see a smaller bonus pool than last year. I am confident that we will be able to achieve those things in this country.