Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Charles Walker

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Charles Walker]

In the last Parliament, I was totally politically incontinent—in and out of all sorts of Lobbies, voting with the Government, voting against the Government and voting with Labour. I have really tried to make sure that, in this Parliament, I was only in one Lobby—the Government Lobby. I have managed that loyally for the past 18 months, and I am just so disappointed that the Government are not willing to accept Lords amendment 96, because equality of representation is absolutely critical.

I spoke in this place in a previous Parliament about the terrible tragedy of deaths in custody—deaths in detained environments. Let us look specifically at deaths in police custody. If a person dies in police custody, there is obviously a coroner’s inquiry, but there is total inequality of representation at that inquiry. The family of the deceased are up against the state, the police and their legal representation. That legal representation is given to the police without question, and it is funded without question, whereas the families of the deceased, at a time of huge emotional turmoil, have their finances pored over with a fine-toothed comb—it is not just the finances of the parents, but the finances of siblings, aunts and uncles, and even cousins—to see whether the family can bear the cost of their legal representation. That is entirely unfair; it is not just.

The Lords amendment is very sensible in its scope, and I would hope, even at this late stage, that the Government—if for no other reason than to keep me out of a Lobby that I do not really want to be in—might consider accepting it, so that we can all finish the evening on a very happy and unified note.

[Chris Bryant]

I do not think that it is going to be a very unified note by the end of the day, and I think there was an element of irony in the contribution by the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker).

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) for their campaign on stalking. The legislation has changed over the years, particularly since 1997, and it is good that this issue is now recognised for the terrible harm that is done to many victims.

I want to talk primarily—this is a bit of a smorgasbord debate—about the Leveson issues and amendment 24, which I wish was not necessary. However, it is necessary, and it has been put on the amendment paper only because their lordships and a large number of us in this House are distrustful of the Government’s intention in relation to what happened over Leveson.

I believe that it is necessary to have the full Leveson—that is not two Leveson inquiries, but one Leveson inquiry, some of which could be done before the criminal investigations were completed, and some of which could not be done until the criminal investigations were completed. That was always the promise. It was never, “We will think about having Leveson 2 once we have come to the end of the criminal investigations; it was always said from the very beginning that there would be one inquiry with two parts and that the second part would happen. In fact, the Prime Minister, in the quote given by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), said those words the day after Leveson 1 had been produced. So Ministers have absolutely no excuse for turning round now and saying, “Oh no, no, we never really intended to proceed with Leveson 2.”

Why does that matter? Why is it important? The truth is that we are talking about corruption in one of the organisations of the state that matters most to our constituents and to the rule of law in this country: the police. I am sure the vast majority of us agree, given the little bits and pieces that we have managed to glean from Leveson 1, that there was a time when the Metropolitan police, to all intents and purposes, were a partially owned subsidiary of News International. Metropolitan police staff went to work for News International. When they had finished working for News International, they went back to work for the Metropolitan police. There was a revolving door. On the very day that the police decided not to continue with the investigation into what had happened at the News of the World, the leading investigator was having dinner with Rebekah Brooks.

Procedure committee

Debate between Chris Bryant and Charles Walker

Monday 18th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I am presenting the third report of the Procedure Committee 2015-16. On private Members’ Bills, the Government are in the last-chance saloon. I adore this place, and I adore taking part in debates, but for so many good, hard-working and committed people here, Fridays are becoming no-go zones. The private Member’s Bill process is in total disrepute, and I hope that we can bring it back from the edge in the months ahead. If we cannot, I see a world where private Members’ Bills as we know them cease to exist. People in this place are doing so much good work in their constituencies and on legislative matters that they will not be willing to give up their time for something that many would say—indeed, as tens of thousands of people are now saying in petitions—is broken.

Let me bring the House’s attention to our report. The current system is designed to fail. We do not recommend getting rid of the ballot system in its entirety, but at the start of each Parliament it creates a scenario in which people put their name into a lottery and if they are lucky—or, indeed, unlucky—their name is drawn out and they are bombarded with worthy causes to take forward as legislation. That is for Opposition Members. Government Back Benchers are bombarded by bright and good ideas from the Whips, and they are seen as another avenue for the Government to get their legislation on the books.

That means that either we have handout Bills, which are worthy but boring, or we have Back-Bench Bills proposed by Opposition Members, a lot of which, to be fair, are frankly ill thought through and perhaps do not deserve to become law. That is how the system is structured and what it creates. Our key recommendation is to give the Backbench Business Committee a role in how private Members’ Bills are conducted in this place.

Our report suggests that up to four Bills—the first four Fridays—should be decided by the Backbench Business Committee. I hope that will mean that groups of Members, or individual Members with a good legislative proposition, can invest a great deal of time—perhaps upwards of a year—working on that proposition, talking to Ministers and respected Members in this place, and building coalitions in and outside Parliament. They can then take that legislative idea before the Backbench Business Committee and say, “This is our work. This is what underpins our legislative idea. It is not a flight of fancy. It has real support in this place and out in the wider community.” The Committee will decide whether a great deal of work underpins that proposition and whether it deserves to be heard in Parliament. That is for the first four Bills. The Committee could decide in one year that no Bills are worthy of one of those sought-after slots, but in other Sessions it might decide that four Bills are worthy of being taken forward.

We recommend that, on the first seven Fridays, the first private Member’s Bill on the Order Paper gets a guaranteed vote on Second Reading. That is important because a lot of people do not turn up, thinking, understandably and with demonstrable proof, that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), while opining often on things of importance that matter to him, might fail to express himself in a measured period of time—to put it generously—but instead orate for vast acres of time. I am afraid that a lot of people, as much as they love him and other hon. Members who specialise in boring the House to tears, find better things to do with their time.

Our proposals, however, would provide protections even for my hon. Friend—I do not want to ruin his Fridays. If a Bill, when it came out of Committee and on to Report, still did not meet with his approval, he could do what he does best. I am hoping, however, that if we allow the first seven Bills at least to get to Committee, the sponsors will have a significant amount of time in which to talk to Ministers, build support and perhaps iron out some of the problems that would otherwise lead the Bill to be talked out.

We suggest reducing the number of Bills in the ballot from 20 to 14 to ensure better and more thorough scrutiny. Of those 14, four, potentially, could be assigned by the Backbench Business Committee and a further 10 through the ballot, but if the Committee decided that nothing was worthy of being introduced by it to the House, there would be 14 in the ballot. There is a proposal to change the name from “private Members’ Bills” to “Back-Bench Bills” but there are people in the House who might not like that, and we cannot force anything on the House; all this can be contested in debate.

We recommend changing the system whereby Members have dozens of presentation Bills on the Order Paper on a Friday to one in which a Member has only one a day. We want to remove the dummy Bills from the Order Paper. I am sure this will find favour with a lot of colleagues. If we remove them, we will not be asked to turn up to Parliament on a Friday to vote on a Bill that is 18th on the Order Paper and has no chance of seeing the light of day. Our report also refers to the possibility of taking a private Member’s Bill or two on a Thursday, but again that is just a suggestion.

We say that not every happy thought that occurs to a Member should become law—that would not be a good thing—but we think that serious legislative propositions should have the chance of progressing. I read closely the speech by the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) last week in Westminster Hall, and I apologise to everyone in the House for not having resolved this matter in the last Parliament. As Chairman of the Procedure Committee, I have to be held accountable for the lack of progress, but I conclude my brief speech by saying that the Government are in the last-chance saloon, and if they do not act now, there are other people in this place who will be less understanding than me, and the change they will bring forward will make the Government’s eyes water, and rightly so.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) says he adores the House, and we adore him—certainly more than we do the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies)—not least because he is quite right: the private Members’ Bills system is, frankly, bust. It is not only open to abuse but is regularly abused. It misleads the public and wastes the House’s time, so we stand four-square with the Committee and will do everything we can to support him. I take just one tiny exception to his report. He says this should start in 2017-18. What is wrong with now? Why can the Government not give us time to debate these changes before the next Session of Parliament so that we can do it in May?

[Mr Walker]

That is an ideal suggestion, and I look to the Government to be revolutionary in their approach to our report and to take it forward as quickly as possible. I am sure the Deputy Leader of the House will have heard the hon. Gentleman’s comments.