Business of the House

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I shall take my hon. Friend’s last comment as a late bid to the Chancellor of the Exchequer prior to the autumn statement, but he has made a good point about the importance of the aviation industry to the country’s economic health and job creation. I think that Boeing’s investment at Gatwick is a further sign that, despite the political turbulence that is bound to follow the referendum result, our country is still seen as an extremely attractive destination for global investors.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

This building is one of the most iconic in the world, and millions of people take photographs of it every day, but it has problems. Last week the House of Lords had to go into “Pleasure”—its word, not mine—because of the noise of the building work that was going on. It is now 10 weeks since the Joint Committee, two of whose members were Ministers, produced its report on what should happen here, and all the evidence suggests that any delay of this nature costs millions of pounds more. Why can we not have a debate as soon as possible, and certainly before Christmas?

Privileges

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I am going to deal with the question of penalties a little later in my speech.

I said that the questions raised by parties to the inquiry about parliamentary powers and proper jurisdiction were troubling. In its report, the Committee of Privileges cites submissions from lawyers acting on behalf of the News of the World journalists. Those legal representatives claimed that the House does not have penal powers in respect of contempt of Parliament. It is regrettable that Parliament and its powers have been challenged in such a way. Although Parliament has chosen not to exercise penal powers for many years, there is no doctrine of desuetude in English law or, I believe, in the law of any part of the United Kingdom. It is for Parliament to make a judgment about the best course of action in addressing that challenge, and for that reason the motion refers

“the matter of the exercise and enforcement of the powers of the House in relation to select committees”

to the Committee of Privileges for further consideration. Without such a formal referral from the House as a whole, under our Standing Orders that Committee could not consider the matter further. Of course, in practice there have been relatively few instances where the authority of the House has been challenged—at least in recent years—so the House has had little need to exercise its powers.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Does the Leader of the House accept that as the two men concerned have made it absolutely clear since the Committee’s report was published that they have no respect for the decision of the Committee and for the processes of Parliament, merely admonishing them through a motion, rather than requiring them to appear before the House, will, to all intents and purposes, undermine respect for Parliament, not enhance it?

[Mr Lidington]

I take very seriously the points that the hon. Gentleman has raised, and he and I have discussed this matter outside the Chamber. I will come on in a little while to explain why I think that to move now towards trying to take the further action that he wishes to see would not be the right approach—certainly not at this time.

One reason why the House has had little need to exercise its penal powers is because refusing to attend Select Committees as a witness or otherwise committing a contempt of Parliament itself causes reputational damage for the perpetrator. We should not underestimate that impact. Being designated as having committed a contempt of Parliament or having even been described as not a “fit and proper” person to hold a particular office or exercise a particular function can cause reputational damage to the individual and can also cause commercial damage to the organisations they represent. We should not lightly underestimate the incentive that that provides to witnesses to give evidence to Select Committees and to speak truthfully when they do so.

The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and other Members in this House, including my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), would like to see us go further now: they would like the people found in contempt to be summoned to the Bar of the House. I agree with them that those who hold Parliament in contempt should not escape with their reputations unscathed, but I have concerns that moving in that direction immediately, without further careful consideration by the Committee of Privileges, would itself pose reputational risks to Parliament. The Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege was clear in its 2013 report that an admonishment can

“take the form of a resolution of the House, without any requirement for the contemnor to appear in person.”

Of course the convention in this House has been that the Leader of the House and the Government will normally table and support resolutions brought forward by the Committee of Privileges in order to uphold the authority of that Committee. In this case, it is the Committee that, having examined the evidence in great detail, has chosen to call for the formal admonishment of the two journalists concerned. It has chosen not to recommend to the House that the two journalists be summoned to the Bar of the House to be admonished in person by Mr Speaker.

[Chris Bryant]

I am sorry, but some of what the Leader of the House has said is inaccurate. This is a matter for the House, not for the Government. Historically, the Committee of Privileges has brought forward a report. It has heard people at the Bar of the House, and then the House has made up its own mind. For instance, in 1947 we decided that the Committee report was right that Mr Heighway should be heard at the Bar of the House. He implicated Mr Allighan, a Member of the House, and both of them were then found guilty of contempt. Mr Allighan was removed from the House for six months. I just say to the Leader of the House that, as a House, we should be free to do what we want, and not be bound by the Committee of Privileges.

[Mr Lidington]

I do not differ from the hon. Gentleman on that point. The House is free to make whatever decision it wishes, but the fact that he has to cite a case dating back to 1947—I respect the argument that he is bringing forward—suggests that to summon someone to the Bar of the House is not a step that we should rush into today without some pretty careful consideration.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I, too, am grateful to the Privileges Committee for the diligent work it has done, and I hope that we will hear from its Chair very soon. I am grateful not only to the Committee Chair and its Members, but to the acting Chair, who had to take much of this through over the last few months.

I will not make any comment about the individuals, Mr Myler and Mr Crone, but I think that the Committee did its absolute best to make sure that there was due and fair process, and that the two men were able to put their own case. The very fact that of the three names originally put forward by the Select Committee, two names are before us today—the Committee found that Mr Les Hinton had not misled the House, or certainly that there was not enough evidence to say that—shows that there has been due process.

The right hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), whose most important role in the matter was as the former Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, is right to say that we should not underestimate admonishment. The Privileges Committee was right to say that that should be the only punishment. We should not be considering a fine or imprisonment, because I do not think that a political institution such as Parliament should be able to do that. That is one of our fundamental principles of habeas corpus. We should not underestimate admonishment, because it would be the House saying that these two men are liars; that they are not honourable; that they have deliberately misled Parliament; and that they are not reliable witnesses. Anybody who wanted to employ them would obviously want to bear that in mind.

If the same thing had happened in the United States of America, the Leader of the House is absolutely right to say that it would have gone to court rather than being dealt with by Congress. The penalties would have been considerably higher than some words in the Journal of the House of Commons. The last such instance in the United States of America led to somebody being fined $10,000 and imprisoned for six months.

I accept the points that have been made about not wanting to infringe the Bill of Rights, and not wanting the courts to be able to question or impeach proceedings in Parliament. At the same time, there is a real problem if people can, effectively, proceed with impunity. This is a much more serious case than any that we have had before the House for some considerable time, including the cases that have been referred to from 1947 and 1957. I do not think that either of those cases would come anywhere near the House today. Simply telling a journalist off for having published somebody’s telephone number and trying to get people to vote in a particular way—that was, to be honest, the House behaving a bit like a prima donna.

In the case that we are discussing, however, two men lied to Parliament. They chose to lie to Parliament. They made it impossible for the Select Committee to do its work properly, and other forms of justice were not available to those who were involved. I think it is much more serious than any other case since 1879, when two men said that they had bribed Members of Parliament to secure contracts for the building of bridges across the River Thames. Then, we did imprison; it was the last time that we imprisoned. The truth of the matter is that if the same thing happened today, the only thing that would be available to us, according to what we are deciding today, is admonishment. Frankly, I think that that is the kind of situation in which people should be going to prison.

The whole thing is made worse by the fact that the individuals concerned do not accept that they have done anything wrong. On the very day the report was published, they went on the record to say that they did not accept the Committee’s findings, they did not accept the way it had done its work and they did not accept Parliament’s remit. I tabled two amendments simply to say that we should not increase the penalty above that which was agreed by the Privileges Committee—it should still just be admonishment—but that it should be done at the Bar of the House.

I understand the argument that we should not do that. Lord Lisvane has his arguments, although he is too excitable on this matter for my liking, but I think the real problem was adumbrated by the Leader of the House. The reason we are not doing it is that we are frightened that we cannot summon someone to the Bar of the House because the Speaker’s warrant has no effect and the Serjeant at Arms has no power. The problem is that we cannot force somebody to appear as a witness before a Select Committee, which really means that we have become a paper tiger. We have become a lion with no teeth.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

We should insist that we have certain powers, but my concern with bringing someone to the Bar of the House is that it is unduly theatrical and would make the House of Commons look foolish in the public arena, rather than making us look wise and providential.

[Chris Bryant]

If somebody were brought to the Bar of the House, I would hope that they showed contrition. John Junor certainly did so in 1957, which meant that the House decided immediately thereafter that it would not pursue the line of admonishment but let the matter lie. Perhaps if the two men in question had been brought to the Bar of the House, they would have shown contrition and that is exactly what we would have decided as well.

It is the counsel of despair to say that we cannot use the powers of the House. We need to address the situation urgently, because the number of witnesses who have tried to avoid appearing before Select Committees has grown exponentially in recent years. That was true of the Maxwell brothers, and then there was nobody for about 10 or 15 years. James and Rupert Murdoch tried to refuse to attend, and Rebekah Brooks refused to attend for some time. All sorts of excuses were provided, but they did eventually attend. It is extraordinary that the Murdochs, having been in control of such a large part of this country’s media empire, did not appear for 20 years. Mike Ashley and Philip Green tried not to appear, and we had to stamp our feet to secure their attendance. That eventually happened, but there may come a time when, if we keep saying that we do not have the power to force people to come, they will decide not to, and then we really will have lost. If we cannot summon witnesses and require them to attend, what price our ability to hold the powerful to account?

This is not about those of us who are in this Chamber today. We as individuals come and we will be gone. We pass through here but very briefly and the waters will very soon cover us over, but the role of Parliament endures, because Ministers do not have the sole prerogative rights on the abuse of power. We have to be able to summon witnesses, to force them to attend, to pursue the truth, to hold the lies and half-truths of the great and the good up to the light. I think that people in this country are sick and tired of the extremely powerful and the extremely wealthy being able to lie, scam and brag that they have been able to do so with impunity.

Finally, Rupert Murdoch has tweeted:

“Maybe most Muslims peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible.”

That tweet in itself is an act of incitement and it is despicable, but if we were to apply his logic that all Muslims, including peaceful Muslims, are responsible for jihadism, we would conclude that it must surely be true that Rupert Murdoch is personally responsible for the lies that were told to this House by Mr Myler and Mr Crone.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

My initial reaction on the day of the report’s publication was that I was pleased that the Privileges Committee had agreed with our 2012 report saying that Colin Myler and Tom Crone had misled us and were in contempt. I made those comments, which are on my website, following a statement by Les Hinton, the former executive chairman of News International that led to claims that he had been exonerated. Clearly, this Privileges Committee report provides no substance for that statement, and nor does it provide any substance for Mr Hinton’s claims that the CMS Committee reached false findings in 2012. In my comments, I also said that I found the second half of the report more disappointing and I want to explain why. I also have questions about an aspect of the Privileges Committee’s methodology.

I join the right hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) in expressing my sympathy for the Committee. During its long, interrupted inquiry, it clearly received only grudging, and certainly not full, co-operation from three of the subjects: Colin Myler, Les Hinton and News International, and their solicitors. That was an all-too-familiar experience through all our reports into phone hacking.

I turn to chapter 6 of the report and Les Hinton. Mr Hinton, often described as Rupert Murdoch’s right-hand man, was the executive chairman of News International until December 2007. He resigned as chief executive of Dow Jones, another News Corp subsidiary in New York, in July 2011, within a week of the closure of the News of the World—that fact should speak for itself. We found that he was not full and frank in his evidence to our Committee about the payments made to the convicted royal reporter Clive Goodman; about their purpose, which was to buy silence; or about suspicions that were communicated to him about the extent of phone hacking beyond one rogue reporter and one hacker. One only has to look at the detailed memo from Harbottle & Lewis, the lawyers to the group, to see that he also misled us over claims that a full and rigorous investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World happened on his watch—it certainly did not.

On Mr Hinton, the Privileges Committee made three findings, each of no contempt. First, on payments to Clive Goodman, the report concludes that he failed to tell us, but would certainly have remembered, his role in authorising a £90,000 pay-off to a convicted criminal. The Committee says that it found its conclusion of no contempt “particularly difficult”. I, for one, find that a little confusing and surprising, because we certainly, and unanimously, did not find it difficult to reach our conclusion.

Secondly, on knowledge of the allegations about the extent of phone hacking at the News of the World, the report documents that Mr Hinton received a letter in 2007 from Clive Goodman appealing his dismissal, in which he implicated other senior members of staff. Mr Hinton subsequently told our Committee that he had never been provided with any suspicions of wider involvement, and he never sought to correct that comment. Paragraph 269 of the Privileges Committee report says:

“On that basis we agree that Les Hinton’s evidence was misleading because it did not reveal that Clive Goodman was the source of one of those allegations.”

Yet in paragraph 270—the following paragraph—the report goes on to conclude that the allegations that Mr Hinton misled us were not

“significantly more likely than not to be true”,

so it made no finding of contempt. I am not the only person to find that conclusion rather contradictory and confusing.

I will not delay the House in relation to the third finding in this chapter of the report, about the payment of Mr Goodman’s legal fees—the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) may want to ask questions about it—as I have said enough about Mr Hinton. I will say, however, that throughout our investigations we found a pattern of payments, settlements and confidentiality clauses that clearly had one aim in mind: to suppress the truth about phone hacking.

Chapter 7 of the report deals with News International, which has since been renamed News UK. It was the parent company of News Group Newspapers, which ran and published the News of the World and The Sun. I must say that, at the outset of the chapter, the Privileges Committee took a narrow approach to the question of whether News International itself was in contempt. It

“looked to identify the individual who could be said to be a controlling mind such that their written or oral evidence could fairly be said to be on behalf of and bind the company.”

That is tantamount to saying that statements by the company, individual senior employees or its lawyers, with plenty of chance to correct the record, are not binding. The report concludes that, by that test, only the executive chairman or the chief executive giving direct evidence at the relevant time—Les Hinton, James Murdoch or Rebekah Brooks—fits the bill. That is rather contestable.

On corporate liability, the report says that it was unclear why our Committee chose to focus on the parent company, News International, rather than News Group Newspapers. That, too, is a rather narrow point. The Privileges Committee did not ask us about that before it issued its report, but I hope to shed some light on why we chose that route. The issue was not raised before we reached our findings, when the Clerk of Committees was acting as our Committee Clerk and the recently retired Speaker’s Counsel was giving us advice. The title of our 2012 report was, indeed, “News International and Phone-hacking”.

I should mention some of my uncertainties about the Privileges Committee’s methodology. It reviewed, inter alia, oral and written evidence formally given to us, but that was clearly not the sum of our knowledge. It says that it reviewed “other publicly available documents”, but it is unclear from the report whether those included, in particular, court evidence in the myriad civil phone hacking claims and press releases from News International. We certainly considered those documents, as well as the whole behaviour of the organisation over a long period, when reaching our findings. They were not allegations; they were findings.

Throughout, we sought the truth beyond the initial “one rogue reporter” defence. We were clearly not alone in doing so. Along with media investigations, notably by The Guardian and The New York Times, a raft of hacking victims sued in the civil courts. In each case, the pattern of behaviour in the whole organisation was always the same—denials, misleading statements and evasion, until being forced, grudgingly, to make admissions. That extended to out-of-court settlements with strict confidentiality clauses to avoid cross-examination in the witness box and, in the case of the investigator Glen Mulcaire, to indemnities and costs being paid as long as he played ball. We know that, as we knew it then, from all the court documents.

In July 2011, but only after closing the News of the World, News Corporation and News International changed tack, setting up the so-called management and standards committee to handle the scandal. Any notion that afterwards a so-called “zero tolerance”, as the report describes it, equated to openness and full co-operation in reality is completely wrong. We had to probe, dig and cajole, as did lawyers in the civil cases. During our inquiries, News International issued misleading and false corporate statements, including press releases on 10 July 2009 denying a key story in The Guardian and, on 24 February 2010, savagely attacking our earlier report. At the time of that report, News International’s chief executive was Rebekah Brooks, to whom I will turn in a moment. As far as Les Hinton is concerned, I have said enough.

I will not dwell too much on James Murdoch, save to note his “lack of curiosity”, as we termed it, about the key items and events about which he was made aware during his tenure, including the damning opinion from Michael Silverleaf, QC, in June 2008, and the settlement with Gordon Taylor of the Professional Footballers Association to which that related. In evidence, the Murdochs rested on a letter from their lawyers, Harbottle & Lewis, claiming that there had been a proper investigation. In a key memo to us, the lawyers told us that the Murdochs were not entitled to do so. They said that the Murdochs were either mistaken or confused.

Those senior people were far from being the only News International executives from whom we took evidence. Tom Crone, for instance, who is found in the Privileges Committee’s report to be in contempt, was the legal manager for both News Group Newspapers and News International. In key ways, our 2012 report was unfinished business. Owing to the imminent criminal charges, we, on advice, made no findings about the former editor of the News of the World, Andy Coulson, or Rebekah Brooks. Whether the Committee will wish to do so now, raking back over old ground, is clearly a matter for the Chair and its members.

In June 2014, Andy Coulson was convicted of conspiracy over phone hacking, while Rebekah Brooks was acquitted. However, those charges were not related to the evidence given to us about whether she had misled our Committee. On page 112 of its report, the Privileges Committee mentions that her evidence in criminal cases and to the Leveson inquiry was “constrained”, as was her oral evidence to us on 19 July 2011. That was four days after she had resigned as chief executive, and the report says that

“as such her answers cannot be said to be on behalf of News International.”

She was sitting alongside the Murdochs at the time. The report concludes:

“There are therefore no particular matters arising from her oral evidence in 2011.”

I am afraid to say that I am not the only one who would beg to differ with that narrow, premature conclusion. Ms Brooks is now, of course, the chief executive of News UK—so much for Rupert Murdoch’s penitence when he said:

“This is the most humble day of my life.”

[Chris Bryant]

Is it not a curious irony that, because of the Bill of Rights, neither Lord Justice Leveson nor the courts could, when interrogating Rebekah Brooks, ask her why, in an answer to a question from me on 11 March 2003 about whether she had ever paid a police officer for information, she said yes?

[Paul Farrelly]

I agree with my hon. Friend. That highlights the long record of Ms Brooks coming—or declining to come—to give evidence in this House. We have taken issue with such evidence.

In evidence to our Committee in July 2011, Ms Brooks repeated one central assertion:

“the fact is that since the Sienna Miller…documents came into our possession at the end of December 2010, that was the first time that we, the senior management of the company at the time, had actually seen some documentary evidence actually relating to a current employee.”

The Sienna Miller civil case was seminal in terms of disclosure. Ms Brooks went on to say:

“It was only when we saw the Sienna Miller documentation that we realised the severity of the situation.”

Yet we know that, by then, News International had plenty in its possession to suggest that hacking was widespread, including the Silverleaf opinion. We know that Rebekah Brooks personally negotiated the big out-of-court settlement with Max Clifford, which was all wrapped up in confidentiality, just days after our 2010 report. As the Privileges Committee report records, we know that she was present with other people from News International at the meeting of its lawyers Farrer and Co. on 20 January 2010 that was held to discuss Mr Clifford’s civil claim.

Business of the House

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I heard my hon. Friend’s question to the Prime Minister yesterday, and her answer. He spoke fiercely in support of his own local authorities and I am sure he will persist in that campaign. I think that an Adjournment debate, either in this Chamber or in Westminster Hall, might be the right way in which to pursue that particular course.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I am not so sure about “Dad’s Army”, but one of the other shows was “Hi-de-Hi!”. I am not quite sure who to cast the Leader of the House as, whether Gladys Pugh or Peggy Ollerenshaw—or maybe just the camp host.

I want to ask the Leader of the House about the proceedings in the House of Lords last night. As he will know, the Government’s answer to everything at the moment, in relation to last Friday and to Leveson part 2, is to put it in the Bill in the House of Lords. The Minister in the House of Lords last night was unable to say whether we are going to have Leveson part 2, which has been guaranteed many times in this House. Will the Leader of the House make sure that this does now happen?

[Mr Lidington]

The key point about Leveson 2 is that the Government have been consistent in saying that we would not announce a decision on that until the completion of all criminal proceedings arising out of the phone tapping allegations. We have not yet come to the end of those proceedings, so it would not be right at the moment for the Government to come forward with the decision.

Private Members’ Bills

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I do not always agree with my hon. Friend, but on this occasion he makes a very reasonable point.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The thing is that tens of thousands of people were watching the debate last Friday as though it really were a matter of life and death for them, because it was about their own sense of shame, how society had treated them, and whether they would have a possibility of real exoneration. For all the fine words that we hear about 100 Members and all the rest of it, the truth is that last Friday brought the House into disrepute. I have no beef with the Minister; the problem is that the system encourages Ministers to do that week after week. The system is bust and it needs mending.

[Mr Lidington]

I repeat that as a result of the course that the Government have chosen, Turing’s law will now be enacted within weeks as part of a Government Bill, together with safeguards to ensure that anyone who is not supposed to receive a disregard or pardon will not be able to secure it by subterfuge.

Business of the House

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his place on the Opposition Front Bench and congratulate him on an extraordinary comeback. Mr Speaker, you might not know that it is 26 years since he last sat on that Front Bench, or that what he has in common with his immediate predecessor—and quite a lot of people on the Opposition Benches—is that when he last sat on that seat, he also resigned from his position. Since then, he has become a distinguished Back Bencher—so much so that he has written a book on how to be a Back Bencher. It contains many words of wisdom. For example, his advice to Ministers in waiting is:

“Cultivate the virtues of dullness and safety.”

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

You’ve been doing that for years! [Laughter.]

Business of the House

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Chris Grayling)]

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 13 June—Conclusion of the remaining stages of the Policing and Crime Bill (day 2).

Tuesday 14 June—Second Reading of the Wales Bill.

Wednesday 15 June—Opposition day (2nd allotted day). There will be a debate on the economic benefits of the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union. The debate will arise on an Opposition motion.

Thursday 16 June—As you will be aware, Mr Speaker, we go into recess until after the referendum, so the House will not be sitting.

Friday 17 June—The House will not be sitting.

The business for the week commencing 27 June, when we return, will include:

Monday 27 June—Motions to approve Ways and Means resolutions on the Finance Bill, followed by Committee of the whole House of the Finance Bill (day 1).

Tuesday 28 June—Conclusion of Committee of the whole House of the Finance Bill (day 2), followed by motions to approve Ways and Means resolutions on the Finance Bill.

Wednesday 29 June—Opposition half day (3rd allotted day—part one). There will be a half day debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced, followed by a general debate on the centenary of the Battle of the Somme.

Thursday 30 June—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 1 July—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 4 July will include:

Monday 4 July—Estimates (1st allotted day). Subject to be confirmed by the Liaison Committee. At 10 pm, the House will be asked to agree all outstanding estimates.

[Chris Bryant]

Let us start with a brief quiz. What is the shortest ever piece of British legislation? Answer: the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918, which in 27 crisp words enabled women to stand for Parliament for the first time. As we commemorate the 150th anniversary of the founding of the campaign for women’s representation, it is worth remembering that the campaign is often long but the moment of justice is short and very, very sweet.

What a week it has been: torrential rain; floods in the SNP offices; downpours in the lifts; thunder and lightning—very, very frightening. Clearly, God is very angry with the leave campaign. The Prime Minister was on the Terrace on Tuesday evening enjoying a sneaky fag—no, not that kind—and some congenial company, but then he was mostly chatting with Labour MPs because Tories will not talk to him any more. In fact, there has been so much blue-on-blue action this week that the air is getting as blue as the Culture Secretary’s DVD collection.

The Tory Government in waiting, also known as the Justice Secretary and the former Mayor of London, have been touring the kingdom in their blunder bus like Dastardly and Muttley in the mean machine. The special thing about Dastardly and Muttley, of course, is that no matter how much they cheated—and, boy, did they cheat!—they never won a single race. On the one occasion when they nearly won, Dick Dastardly stopped just before the finishing line to pose for his picture, as it was a photo finish. How very Boris! As Dick Dastardly always said, “Drat, drat and double drat!”

When will the Leader of the House publish the Government’s response to the Procedure Committee’s report on private Members’ Bills? The House is hoping that the Government are genuine about reform, because the system, frankly, is a monumental waste of time and a fraud on democracy.

Can the Leader of the House explain something to me? He has announced the 13 days that are for consideration of private Members’ Bills, but the first one this year is not until 21 October. In previous years, it has always been in September—and early September at that. Why so late this year? It makes it virtually impossible before the end of January for any Member to get a Bill through the House of Commons, let alone through the House of Lords. Are the Government deliberately sabotaging private Members’ Bills even before they have started?

On 14 January, my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) asked the Leader of the House whether the rules of the House could be changed to allow Welsh to be used in the Welsh Grand Committee when it sits here in Westminster. I understand that the language of this House is, of course, English, but Welsh is the mother tongue of many of my compatriots and constituents, so is it not time that we allowed Welsh in the Welsh Grand Committee?

We are about to consider emergency legislation on electoral registration for the referendum. It is obviously a delight that so many new people have tried to register. In the last three months alone, there have been 4.5 million extra attempts. Even allowing for the fact that some of those will be people just checking that they have already registered, that is the equivalent of 63 extra parliamentary seats in areas with high numbers of students and ethnic minorities. Would it not be bizarre in the extreme for the Government to insist on the Boundary Commission using the old December 2015 register to determine the boundaries and number of seats allocated to Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England—or is this just gerrymandering?

Our Opposition day debate, as the Leader of the House announced, will be on the economic benefits of the UK’s membership of the European Union, because the last thing our very fragile economic recovery needs is the prolonged bout of uncertainty and the self-inflicted recession that Brexit would undoubtedly bring. We always achieve far more by our common endeavour than by going it alone. John Donne was right that no man is an island, and these islands are not a hermetically sealed unit. If we want to tackle climate change, environmental degradation, international crime and terrorism; if we want a seat at the table when the major decisions affecting our continent are made; if we want to shape Europe and fashion our own destiny: we have to lead Europe, not leave it.

Is it not fitting that on the Wednesday after the referendum we shall commemorate the Battle of the Somme, in which there were at least 200,000 French, 420,000 British and 620,000 German casualties? The continent that has been at war in every generation and in every century, that has spilt quantities of blood on the seas and the oceans, on the beaches, on the landing grounds, in the fields and in the streets and in the hills is now—thank God—at peace. We should not ever risk our children’s future: remain, remain, remain.

[Chris Grayling]

I start by marking the anniversaries of the campaigns to get votes for women and to get women into Parliament, which we are currently celebrating. I commend everyone involved in the art exhibition and new work of art in Westminster Hall and indeed all who came together in this Chamber last night for the photograph to mark the occasion. It is a very important development in our history that we should never forget. It is not so many years ago that, inexplicably, women were not given the vote and did not have the right to sit in this House. To our generation, that is incomprehensible. It is a change that always should have happened, and I am very glad that it did.

With apologies to the Scottish nationalists, I offer my good wishes to the England, Wales and Northern Ireland football teams in the European championship that is due to start this weekend. I very much hope that all of us here will cheer on all the home nations as they play their matches in the weeks ahead. [Interruption.] I am asked what this has got to do with the Leader of the House, but half the things that the shadow Leader of the House mentions have nothing at all to do with the business of the House—talk about pots and kettles, Mr Speaker! [Interruption.]

If I can shut up the shadow Leader of the House for a moment, let me confirm something that he would like to hear. We will be flying the rainbow flag from the top of Portcullis House to mark Pride weekend in London from 24 to 27 June. It looks like that has shut him up, Mr Speaker.

On the boundaries issues, let me remind Members that the current boundaries are based on figures from the 2001 census. In no way is that fair; in no way is it right and proper. In future, the boundaries will be based on figures that are updated every five years, and it is right and proper that, given concerns about the nature of our register, reforms be put in place to ensure that it is robust, appropriate and honest in a democracy.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the private Members’ Bills report. We will respond to it shortly, as is due process.

I have given question of the Welsh Grand Committee careful thought, as I said I would a few weeks ago in the House. English is the language of the House of Commons, and it would cost taxpayers’ money to make a change at this point. I therefore think that English should continue to be the language of the House, although if someone who cannot speak English arrives here, we may need to look at the issue again.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned next week’s Opposition day debate on Europe. I was delighted to see that, notwithstanding the lively debate we are having in this country at the moment, the April figures for our manufacturing sector showed an improvement, which is a sign that the economic improvement over which we have presided since 2010 is continuing.

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman managed to pay a visit to my constituency this week, and to speak to my local Labour party. He was, and always is, most welcome in Epsom and Ewell. I am sure that, in the event that things become too tough in Rhondda and the threat from Plaid Cymru becomes too great, my local Labour party will be delighted to welcome him as its candidate in 2020.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

May we please have a debate on how this House responds to the very diligent work of the European Scrutiny Committee? At a time when the nation is just two weeks away from taking the most important decision in a generation, it is inexplicable why there are no less than eight documents—

[Chris Bryant]

No fewer.

Business of the House

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Chris Grayling)]

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a short supplementary business statement.

Thursday 9 June—Motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the European Union Referendum (Voter Registration) followed by the previously envisaged general debate on carers, as determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

I will, of course, make my usual business statement announcing future business tomorrow morning.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I am very grateful to the Government for doing what we asked earlier. It is obviously important that we try to make sure that everyone who is trying to take part in the referendum is able do so. I am grateful for the consultation there has been between the two Front-Bench teams. I hope that the Leader of the House will be able to confirm that there will be no other extraneous statements tomorrow, but only his business statement. The debate on carers is very important—it is national Carers Week and many people care about the issue.

[Chris Grayling]

We will see tomorrow morning, as normal, whether there is other business, but I am acutely aware that the debate on carers is a matter of great importance to people in this House. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his words.

Business of the House

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Chris Grayling)]

Mr Speaker, you will notice a degree of commonality in the business for next week:

Monday 23 May—Continuation of the debate on the Queen’s Speech on defending public services.

Tuesday 24 May—Continuation of the debate on the Queen’s Speech on Europe, human rights and keeping people safe at home and abroad.

Wednesday 25 May—Continuation of the debate on the Queen’s Speech on education, skills and training.

Thursday 26 May—Conclusion of the debate on the Queen’s Speech on economy and work.

Friday 27 May—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 6 June will include:

Monday 6 June—Remaining stages of a Bill. It will be one of the two main carry-over Bills, and we will confirm which one early next week.

I should also inform the House that the statement on Syria, which we unfortunately had to move at the last moment, just before Prorogation, will take place alongside the foreign affairs debate next Tuesday.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 6 June will be:

Monday 6 June—Debate on an e-petition relating to restricting the use of fireworks.

[Chris Bryant]

Mr Speaker, if only the rules allowed me to take some interventions.

I am sure the thoughts of the whole House will be with the families and friends of those on EgyptAir flight 804, which has disappeared over the Mediterranean. People will want to know what has happened, so I hope that the Leader of the House will be able to tell us and to ensure that the House is updated on any developments, not least because, as I understand it, there is at least one Briton on the flight.

I am delighted that the Leader of the House made a sort of apology for not giving us the statement on Syria which he went out of his way to promise the last time we were here. I note that he says that it will be alongside the foreign affairs debate, but will it be separate?

[Chris Grayling]

indicated assent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

The Leader of the House has nodded, so we can move on.

Can we also have a statement—another statement—from the Foreign Secretary explaining why he wanted to have General Sir Richard Shirreff court-martialled? Leaving aside the Foreign Secretary’s incompetence for not realising that Shirreff reported to NATO and not to him, surely the general should have been congratulated, not threatened, for stating that slashing troop numbers was a “hell of a gamble”.

I love a bit of dressing up just as much as any other defrocked vicar—almost as much as you, in fact, Mr Speaker—but I did think that yesterday was a case of all fur coat and knickerbockers. There were so many ironies. Her Majesty announced that the Government will legislate for driverless cars and space ports—and arrived in a horse-drawn carriage. She announced that the Government intend to tackle poverty—to a room full of barons and countesses dressed in ermine and tiaras. Even the door handles on the royal coach were decorated with 24 diamonds and 130 sapphires.

The Government also announced that they will put the National Citizen Service, which operates just six weeks a year, on a statutory footing, while the nation’s youth service, which works all year round, has been slashed, losing more than 2,000 youth workers, closing 350 youth centres and cutting 41,000 youth service places between 2012 and 2014 alone. Why not put the youth service on a statutory footing too?

That really is what is so truly awful about yesterday’s Queen’s Speech. It was pretending to be a one nation speech; it was all dressed up as such. It was a candy-floss speech if ever there was one—all air and sugar, whipped up with just a hint of pink in an attempt to make us all believe that compassionate conservatism is still alive. But the truth is that the Chancellor puts a stake through the heart of compassionate conservatism every time he stands at the Dispatch Box.

Yes, let us reform the Prison Service, but we should not dare to pretend that the horrendous state of our prisons—with the rate of suicide, murder and other non-natural deaths at a record high; with daily acts of violence; and with drugs freely available throughout our prisons—has nothing to do with this Government’s assault on the Prison Service budget and the loss of 7,000 prison officers since 2010, largely on the right hon. Gentleman’s watch. Yes, let us improve adoption, but we should not pretend that social services budgets in the poorest local authorities in the land are not now so stretched that children are being put at further risk every single day of the week.

The Government can say until they are blue in the face that they want to tackle some of the deepest social problems in society, but when they have pared public services to the bone, inflicted the toughest cuts on the poorest communities and systematically undermined the very concept of public service, all their blandishments are nothing but a sugar coating for a cyanide pill.

I do not know what time you got up yesterday morning, Mr Speaker, so I am not sure whether you were up early enough to catch the Leader of the House on the “Today” programme, when he tried to defend the former Mayor of London. I particularly loved the assertion, repeated four times, that Boris is a historian and he was making a historian’s comment, as though that somehow meant that he could get away with saying anything he wanted. Where on earth do I start? The former Mayor has a habit of making up so-called historical facts. My favourite was his assertion that King Edward II enjoyed a reign of dissolution with his catamite, Piers Gaveston, at Edward’s recently discovered 14th century palace. I do not doubt that Gaveston liked a bit of royal rumpy-pumpy, but since he was beheaded fully 12 years before the palace was built, it is pretty unlikely that he did so there. My only explanation for that so-called fact from the former Mayor of London is that he was a member of the Piers Gaveston society at Oxford with the Prime Minister, where they got used to porkies.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The short answer to the hon. Gentleman is that if the Leader of the House was doing his business on the “Today” programme between 6 and 7 am, I was almost certainly in the swimming pool at the time. Talking of beheading, the hon. Gentleman is in some danger of beheading himself, because he has already had five minutes. I think he is in his last sentence.

[Chris Bryant]

I am certainly in my last paragraph, Mr Speaker.

Finally, I gather that the Leader of the House is off to the United States of America next week. He is such a close friend and ally of Mr Trump that I am sure Trump tower is preparing the ticker-tape reception for him now. They have a habit in the United States of America of playing appropriate music when important politicians and international statesmen, such as the Leader of the House, appear on stage. The President always gets “Hail to the Chief”. I have had a word with the American ambassador, and I gather that they have got Yakety Sax from “The Benny Hill Show” ready for the Leader of the House.

[Chris Grayling]

First of all, on a very serious point, all our good wishes and sympathies go to the families of the passengers on the EgyptAir plane, who must be beside themselves with worry about what has happened. It is a deeply worrying situation. Clearly, if it turns out to be something more than an accident, we will want to discuss the matter in the House, but it is important that we await the outcome of the initial investigations and the search for the plane. All our hearts go out to everyone involved.

On the Syria statement, I reiterate that it will be a separate statement, but we have put it alongside the foreign affairs debate to ensure that those who are most concerned about the issue are likely to be present.

The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is such an old misery. Yesterday was Britain at its finest: strong institutions, great tradition—things that make this great city one of the finest, if not the finest, in the world—a monarch we should be proud of and a programme for government that fulfils the commitments we made to the electorate at last year’s election which, I remind Labour Members, they lost and we won. We set out 21 new Government Bills. The programme for government completes most of the manifesto on which we won the election. It helps us to achieve our financial targets to balance our nation’s books and complete the sorting out of the mess that we inherited from Labour. It includes measures on children in care and on prisons. It helps to boost our digital economy. It helps to strengthen our ability to combat terrorism.

The hon. Gentleman talks about compassionate conservatism. Let me remind him of three things. First, in the past 12 months we have introduced the national living wage. Secondly, in the past 12 months claimant count unemployment has been at its lowest level since the 1970s. Thirdly, there has been a fall of more than 750,000 in the number of workless households—a change that will make a transformational difference to many of our most deprived communities. Those achievements were made under a Conservative Government, sorting out the mess that we inherited.

The hon. Gentleman started by talking about taking interventions, and here I have some sympathy with him. He did better this morning than the leader of the Labour party did yesterday. I noticed that the shadow Leader of the House yesterday spent 41 minutes trying to look at the shoes of Conservative Members rather than looking at the leader of his party making such an awful speech.

I am not sure whether the shadow Leader of the House raised any other questions. I was grappling with trying to understand what on earth he was going on about in the middle of his contribution. Let me be clear that we are at the start of a Session in which we will deliver before the House measures that will make a transformational difference to this country; measures that will make a difference to our most deprived communities; and measures that will make this country more secure economically and more secure against the national threats that we face.

In the week that the YMCA has named its latest building the Chris Bryant centre—after the famous Chris Bryant, not this one—we should pause for a moment to praise the shadow Leader of the House. He is a great champion of equalities in this place, and he and I share the ambition of wanting more women to be elected to office. I am delighted to see that his constituency has done its bit by electing a woman to represent it in Cardiff, and who knows whether we will see a further step in that direction in this House in 2020. While we are on the subject of the shadow Leader of the House, may I congratulate him on stepping in to save the local calendar competition in Rhondda following the defeat of its founder, Leighton Andrews, in the Welsh elections? Who knows, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman will have his very own calendar girl for the month of May 2020 in the Rhondda—Leanne Wood.

Business of the House

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 5th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week, please?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Chris Grayling)]

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 9 May—Debate on a motion relating to BIS Sheffield proposal and Government Departments outside London. The subject for this debate was recommended by the Backbench Business Committee, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Energy Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Housing and Planning Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Immigration Bill.

Tuesday 10 May—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by business to be recommended by the Backbench Business Committee.

Wednesday 11 May—Consideration of Lords amendments, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Armed Forces Bill, followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by business to be recommended by the Backbench Business Committee, followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments.

Thursday 12 May—Consideration of Lords amendments.

The House will be prorogued when Royal Assent to all Acts has been signified.

I should inform the House that Ministers will provide a quarterly update on Syria before Prorogation.

[Chris Bryant]

Talk of the fag end of a parliamentary session, the business the Leader has just announced is the sludgy, slimy, foul-smelling, trashy, ych a fi dregs of politics.

Yesterday’s Prime Minister’s questions showed me, if nobody else, that there ain’t no gutter low enough for the Prime Minister to slop around in. That kind of despicable smearing of one’s opponents degrades the whole of politics, and I would gently say to the Government that those who live by the gutter die in the gutter. I am absolutely certain that that kind of politics is not welcome to British voters.

What a year it has been! Every single economic target missed. Growth forecasts constantly downgraded. Debt up. Homelessness up. The use of food banks up by 19%. Absolute child poverty set to rise. NHS waiting lists up. Libraries closed. Net migration higher than it has ever been. There has been one Budget in which the Chancellor attacked working tax credits, and another in which he attacked welfare payments. Morale at rock bottom—in the NHS, the teaching profession and the police. Election rules bent to benefit the Tories in marginal seats. Financial rules rigged to give more cash to the richest councils. Standing Orders changed to benefit the Tories in this House. Was it just a cruel joke last year to make Her Majesty say:

“My Government will…adopt a one nation approach”?

Come off it, this is not a one nation Government: it is a nasty, vindictive Tory Government, balancing the books on the backs of the poor and the vulnerable. I hope voters today will say, “Enough! Now go!” and will vote Labour in London, Wales, Scotland and across the whole United Kingdom.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

And Northern Ireland.

[Chris Bryant]

Northern Ireland is in the United Kingdom, in case the hon. Gentleman has forgotten his history.

You can tell state opening is coming. The awnings are going up outside the Lords. The Doorkeepers have been rubbing up their brasses. Countesses have been brushing off their tiaras. The Clerk has had a haircut—you cannot tell, but underneath his wig, he has had a haircut. And I gather you have even had your annual bath, Mr Speaker. [Interruption.] Don’t do that mock outraged look, it doesn’t suit you. Could we introduce an innovation this year at state opening? I know the Leader of the House does not want to listen to the President of the United States of America, but could we have a roll-call of ambassadors and high commissioners, just to check which of our allies want us to stay in the European Union? So far as I can see, they include not just our oldest ally, Portugal, and every other EU country, but the Commonwealth countries of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, and doubtless many more. Who knows, perhaps we will be adding Japan later today and of course Norway—so the Norway model is that we should stay in. The only international figure who wants us to leave is Donald Trump—Grayling with a hairpiece. How on earth can the Leader of the House argue that we would increase our influence in the world by leaving the European Union?

May we have a debate about the BBC? The Culture Secretary says he relishes the demise of the BBC. He wants to ban “Strictly” and “The Voice” and to force the BBC to make deliberately unpopular programmes. He has even said that if he does not renew the BBC charter by the end of this year,

“it may be that the BBC will cease to exist”—

something he calls “a tempting prospect.” Now, I do not want to get into the Culture Secretary’s temptations, but when will Ministers get it into their fat heads that the British people love the BBC? They are proud of it and see it as our greatest cultural institution, and they do not want some right-wing Minister pursuing a personal agenda and handing British broadcasting over lock, stock and barrel to his chum Murdoch. Will the Government publish the White Paper next week, stand by the financial deal they signed up to with the BBC last year and guarantee that there will be a new 11-year BBC charter in place this autumn?

In recent years, some of the most destructively powerful people in the land have done their level best to avoid appearing before Select Committees of this House. The Maxwells, Rebekah Brooks, Rupert and James Murdoch, Philip Green, Matthew Elliott—they all initially refused to attend and had to be formally summonsed or persuaded to attend. Irene Rosenfeld, chief executive of Kraft Foods, point-blank refused to appear to discuss the takeover of Cadbury and got away with it. Surely that is not just a clear contempt of Parliament, but a contempt of the British public as well. Our constituents want us to hold the powerful to account, and we should not be shy of doing so. Some people think our powers are unclear, and witnesses are beginning to call our bluff, so we have to do something. In 2013, the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege recommended changes to Standing Orders to make it absolutely clear that Parliament can arrest, punish and fine offenders, saying that

“if the problems we have identified…are not resolved…today’s Parliament should stand ready to legislate”.

The Committee said that doing nothing was not an option, but that is exactly what the Government have done—absolutely nothing. So surely it is time for us to make it a criminal offence to fail to appear or refuse to appear without reasonable excuse before a Committee of this House.

The mayoral election ends today, so will we finally now get a decision on Heathrow? In the words of Bucks Fizz in their epic Eurovision-winning number, “Making Your Mind Up”, just before they so memorably tore off their skirts,

“Don’t let your indecision

Take you from behind.

Trust your inner vision

Don’t let others change your mind.”

Incidentally, good luck to Joe and Jake next week—let us hope the UK agrees with them that “You’re Not Alone” in the European referendum on 23 June.

[Chris Grayling]

May I start, Mr Speaker, by congratulating you on your indulgence and your patience? I am sure you have powers that would enable you to take much more robust action against comments such as the ones we have just heard.

What a load of twaddle we just heard from the shadow Leader of the House. Let us be clear: we have spent the past 12 months fulfilling the trust that the public put in us at the general election last year when we defeated the Labour party. Let us look at the things that this Government have done. We have introduced new powers to turn around failing schools. We have paved the way for the northern powerhouse. We have passed the European Union Referendum Act 2015. We have provided substantial new powers of devolution to Scotland. We have paved the way for the national living wage. We have passed English votes for English laws. We have passed a childcare Act that doubles the amount of free childcare each week. We have taken further important steps to consolidate peace in Northern Ireland. These are real achievements that Government Members are proud of.

The hon. Gentleman talks about a one nation party. I am proud to be part of a Government who have seen unemployment fall to its lowest levels since the 1970s. It is worth remembering that there has never yet been a Labour Government who left office with unemployment lower than it was when they started. I am also proud that we are living in a nation where we now have more than half a million fewer children growing up in workless households than there were in 2010—a legacy of poverty that we inherited from the previous Government and that we are turning around.

The hon. Gentleman talks about the language of politics. I hear the language of politics on the Opposition Benches as Labour Members fight like ferrets in a sack, desperately working out how to deal with their leadership crisis and trying to deal with the endemic problem of anti-Semitism in their party.

It is worth saying today that this week marks the 37th anniversary of a great step forward in equality in our society: the moment we elected our first woman Prime Minister. I am sure that everyone, even the shadow Leader of the House, would agree that that was a really crucial moment in our political history that we should mark unreservedly.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the BBC. Once again, he is making the mistake that I am surprised he does make of always believing everything he reads in the papers. He needs to wait for the White Paper on the BBC, which will be brought before the House shortly. He and his colleagues will have the opportunity to question that White Paper when it appears, but I say simply that Conservative Members expect the BBC to have a strong future in this country.

The hon. Gentleman made a serious point—among others—about attending Select Committees. On this point, he and I do agree. It is essential for the workings of this House that if people are summoned to appear before a Select Committee, they do so. I am very happy that in the new Session we hold cross-party discussions on how we ensure that happens.

The hon. Gentleman asked about Heathrow. I am surprised, because Labour Members have been raising issues about air quality, and the reason we are taking time over the airport decision is precisely to address air quality and NOx emissions around Heathrow. If they were in government, they would be doing exactly the same thing.

As the hon. Gentleman said, today is of course local election day. There are not just local elections—we have mayoral elections and police and crime commissioner elections. I think we should send our thanks from this House to everyone involved in those elections—the officials, the counting agents and the police, as well as every participant, regardless of their political persuasion, because without them putting their heads above the parapet to stand for election we would not have a democracy in this country. Obviously, I want Conservatives to win. We will watch with great interest, though, after the Labour leader said that he was going to lose no seats at all at these local elections, to see whether his forecast is fulfilled. The next few days will be big ones for the shadow Leader of the House, because we know how much disquiet there is among Labour Members about the leader of their party. Members of the Shadow Front-Bench team are seriously considering quitting over the next few days because of their despair about their leader.

The shadow Leader of the House has other targets in mind. He has a campaign group set up, and he has been courting support from Conservative Members for his plan in due course, when you decide to hang up your hat, Mr Speaker, to take over from you. If he has a different goal, if his Front-Bench position does not matter to him and if he really does not approve of his party leader, will he join those who are looking to put principle before career in the next few days and resign after these elections?

Business of the House

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Chris Grayling)]

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 2 May—The House will not be sitting. It is the May Day bank holiday.

Tuesday 3 May—I remind the House that we will be sitting Monday hours, not Tuesday hours. We will be debating a motion to approve a Ways and Means resolution relating to the Housing and Planning Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Housing and Planning Bill.

Wednesday 4 May—Opposition day debate (un-allotted half day). There will be a half-day debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced, followed by debate on a motion relating to education funding in London. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Thursday 5 May—General debate on the contribution of faith organisations to the voluntary sector in local communities. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 6 May—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 9 May will include:

Monday 9 May—Debate on a motion on Government Departments outside London. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee, followed by consideration of Lords amendments.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall on Monday 9 will be:

Monday 9 May—Debate on an e-petition relating to the Government’s EU referendum leaflet.

[Chris Bryant]

Ed Balls! Do we actually have a Government at all? They are all over the place. We all thought that the referendum was a simple question of “EU—in or out?” but this week it got much more complicated, as we learned it was also about “ECHR—in or out?” The Home Secretary is an “in, out”, but the Lord Chancellor is an “out, in”. The Chancellor is an “in, in”, along with the Attorney General and the Solicitor General, but the Leader of the House is an “out, out”. As for me, I am out for in, but that is more of a gay pro-EU kind of thing.

The Health Secretary says he is in his last big job in politics—hurrah!—and I hear that with an impending reshuffle several Ministers have been scouring the jobs market. I have even heard rumours of new government postings to overseas territories being planned. Boris is off to St Helena to cultivate his Napoleon complex and Whitto to the Falklands, and for the Health Secretary there is Inaccessible Island, in the south Atlantic, which is probably where the junior doctors want to send him anyway.

As for the Leader of the House—this is very exciting news—I gather that he is 33:1 to be the next Chancellor of the Exchequer and 80:1 to be the next Tory leader, but I have a much better idea. On this day in 1789, as I am sure Members know, Fletcher Christian mutinied on the Bounty. Christian ended up on Pitcairn Island, which is 9,000 miles from here. I can just imagine the Leader of the House as the governor of Pitcairn, dressed in his white linen shorts, his solar topee and his white socks and sandals, lording it over all 56 inhabitants. If he wants, I can put in a word with the Prime Minister for him—because I see that the Prime Minister is trying to advance my career.

Can we have a debate on irresponsible politics? I suspect the Leader of the House might never have heard of Arfon Jones, but he tweeted:

“I think we should have a protest where thousands of us send emails containing the words bomb+terrorist+Iran. That should keep GCHQ quiet.”

Now Arfon might be a stupid crank, but he is also the Plaid Cymru candidate for North Wales police and crime commissioner.

Can we have a statement from the Home Secretary on the deeply worrying breakdown of the e-borders system on 14 and 15 June last year? We need to know, first: have there been other breakdowns? Were full warnings index checks implemented and, above all, why did the Home Secretary cover this up for so long? The Leader of the House says that we should leave the EU so we can control our borders, but surely the lesson we should learn is that the greatest threat to our borders is, frankly, Tory incompetence.

The Leader of the House says that we should consider Lords amendments to the Housing and Planning Bill on Tuesday. As I walked into Parliament this morning, the police were moving on two homeless people who have been sleeping on the doorstep of this parliamentary palace for the last week. Under the Tories, rough sleeping has doubled and funding for those sleeping rough has halved. We believe that this Bill will make the housing crisis in London even worse. So will this Government ensure, for heaven’s sake, that for every single social housing unit sold off, at least another is built in its place?

On 29 November 2012, the Prime Minister said of the Leveson inquiry that there would be

“a second part to investigate wrongdoing in the press and the police”.—[Official Report, 29 November 2012; Vol. 554, c. 446.]

I listened to the Home Secretary very carefully yesterday. She made an excellent statement, but she also said:

“We have always said that a decision on Leveson 2 will be made when all the investigations have been completed.”—[Official Report, 27 April 2016; Vol. 608, c. 1441.]

Well, that is not right. Up until now, the Government position and the Prime Minister’s position has always been that Leveson 2 will start—not might start—as soon as the police and prosecuting authorities have finished their work.

Surely, one of the many lessons we must learn from Hillsborough is that when the relationship between the police and the press gets too close, it corrupts them both. After all, some have argued that the law of libel means there is no need for a strong independent press regulator, but the 96 people whose reputation was dragged through the mud by the police, The Sun and The Spectator could not sue for libel, could they? So surely we need Leveson 2 now more than ever.

As Passover ends on Saturday, let me say again as clearly as I possibly can that anti-Semitism is wrong—full stop, end of story. I am sick and tired of people trying to explain it away—and, yes, I am talking to you, Ken Livingstone. Of course the illegal settlements are wrong and the Palestinians deserve a better deal. Of course, too, rocket attacks on Jewish kibbutzim are wrong, and Hamas and Hezbollah must acknowledge the right of Israel to exist. I was taught to judge people not according to the colour of their skin, their race, their religion, their gender or their sexuality, but according to the strength of their character.

Frankly, it is no better when a senior politician looks at the President of the United States and sees only the colour of his skin and his “part-Kenyan ancestry” or when the Tory candidate for the Mayor of London runs a deliberately racially charged campaign against his Labour opponent. It is profoundly irresponsible, and it offends the fundamental decency of the British people. I hope I speak for all Members when I say that racism and racial prejudice are simply not welcome in our political system or our political parties.

[Chris Grayling]

I shall come back to that issue in a few moments, but I of course share most of the sentiments that the hon. Gentleman has just raised. Let me deal with other issues first.

I start by wishing you, Mr Speaker, and the shadow Leader of the House a very happy Ed Balls day. I never thought they would come to miss him as much as they apparently do.

I was asked about the European convention on human rights. The hon. Gentleman spoke about in-out policies and out-in policies, but what he did not talk about was all-over-the-place policies, which is the Labour party’s position on this issue. Labour Members do not want prisoners to have the vote, but they do not want to change our human rights laws. They should be smart enough to realise that those two positions are completely incompatible.

The hon. Gentleman raised the matter of the Health Secretary’s comment about his last big job in government. What we would remind the hon. Gentleman of is the fact that he does not see his job as his last big job in government, as the Prime Minister wisely reminded us yesterday. The hon. Gentleman spoke of odds on jobs for the future, but I suspect that the odds on his becoming Speaker of this House are longer than the odds on my becoming manager of Liverpool football club.

On the subject of Liverpool football club and the hon. Gentleman’s comments on Hillsborough, I would like to say a couple of things. First, when we were in opposition, I served as a shadow Minister for Liverpool, and I have enormous regard for that city, its people and their resilience. I would like to pay a personal tribute to all the Hillsborough families and all the people in Liverpool who supported them through their long years of struggle. They achieved justice this week.

I also wish to pay a personal tribute to the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham). I thought that what he said in the House yesterday was incredibly moving. It was a fine moment in our parliamentary history, and the right hon. Gentleman deserves enormous credit for what he has done.

The shadow Leader of the House talked about Leveson 2. Let me simply remind him of the Government’s position, which is that we will not move forward until the cases are complete. That is the right thing to do, and we will continue to stick to our position. The hon. Gentleman also made a point about Arfon Jones. Yes, I do know who he is, and I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the views he has expressed are objectionable. It is my sincere hope that he is not elected as police and crime commissioner in that part of north Wales.

I remind the hon. Gentleman that the e-borders programme was supposed to arrive and be put into effect when Labour was in power, but that did not happen, because Labour failed to deliver it. When Labour Members talk to us about what we have done in government, they should bear in mind that they were in power for 13 years, and that they started by dismantling the exit checks at our borders and then completely failed to provide an alternative.

The hon. Gentleman talked about homelessness. Let me just remind him of his party’s record in government. In 13 years, the Labour Government built fewer council houses than we built during the first Parliament in which we were in office.

Let me now return to the question of anti-Semitism, and pay a personal tribute to the hon. Gentleman. When it comes to this issue, his has been a voice of reason, sanity and common sense in the Labour party, and he deserves credit for that. However, I wish that all his colleagues saw things in the same way. What he said about Ken Livingstone was absolutely right. Ken Livingstone’s comments yesterday, suggesting that the matters that were at the heart of yesterday’s controversy were not anti-Semitic, were disgraceful. I do not understand —as, indeed, many Labour Members do not understand—how Ken Livingstone can still be a member of the Labour party today. He should be suspended from the party for the things that he said. I also think, however, that there has been some naivety on the Labour Benches this morning.

The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) said on the “Today” programme that she regarded these events as “trial by Twitter”, and likened what had happened to the tweeting of a picture of my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) on a zip wire. It is clear that she does not fully understand the gravity of the situation. We heard wise words from the shadow Leader of the House, and I respect him for them, although I profoundly disagree with what he said about my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip. He made a powerful point, and, in this regard, he is a beacon of sense in his party; but where is the sense on the rest of the Labour Benches in respect of what is a deeply, deeply serious matter?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

Before I answer my hon. Friend, I pay tribute to the Minister for Community and Social Care, who has just arrived, and to all the Members of this House who ran the marathon last weekend and emerged intact, with medals around their necks—

[Chris Bryant]

And in the past.

[Chris Grayling]

And in the past, but I will celebrate this year, if I may. The hon. Gentleman always wants to jump in and have his say, but I want to commend all those who ran this year for the valuable work that they have done to raise funds for charity and raise awareness of charities. They deserve a collective pat on the back from people in this House.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) is right. It is an extraordinary position where nobody wants to enforce parking, and I can understand the frustration of local businesses. I urge him simply to redouble the pressure on the local authority. If he has enough people behind him on what he wants to achieve, in the end, the local authority will have to give way.