English Votes for English Laws

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

That may be a current issue for one or two of them, having moved down from Scotland to be here, but my hon. Friend makes an important point. We do have an odd imbalance, yet no one on the SNP Benches has been able to explain to me—nor have those on the Labour Benches now lining themselves up against these proposals—why it is right and proper to continue with a situation in which an MP from Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland can vote on education in my constituency but not in their own constituency. That seems to me to be a flaw.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

rose—

[Chris Grayling]

I shall give way for the last time and then wind up.

[Mr Hanson]

I am grateful. One person he has not mentioned in detail so far is the Speaker of the House of Commons. There will be moments when controversial issues arise in relation to the certification of an England-only Bill and the parties are in dispute. What consultation has the right hon. Gentleman undertaken with the Speaker and the Deputy Speakers on this matter?

[Chris Grayling]

Mr Deputy Speaker, I am not sure whether it is appropriate to discuss in this House conversations that have been held with the Chair. Suffice it to say that consultations and discussions have taken place, as the right hon. Gentleman would expect. I have every faith in the Speaker’s ability.

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[Ms Eagle]

I may have to be corrected, but my understanding of the process is that if it is an England-only ping-pong, the English will have a veto on it. So there could be a majority in both the Lords and the Commons in favour of something being in a Bill, but it could be vetoed by a minority.

[Mr Hanson]

On that point, I wonder whether my hon. Friend can help me: Lord Thomas of Gresford in Wrexham, who has never won an election in his life in north-east Wales, will vote on these matters in another place, while I, who have won elections on six occasions in north-east Wales, will not be able to do so.

[Ms Eagle]

My right hon. Friend, who has the unique distinction of missing out by one vote from being selected in Wallasey before I was, is a very experienced winner of elections and the point he makes is absolutely spot-on.

What the Government are suggesting is all in direct defiance of the advice given by the McKay commission, which the Government appointed and whose advice they have inexplicably ignored for reasons they have not chosen to share with us.

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[Pete Wishart]

My hon. Friend has been following these issues with a very keen interest. She has already brought to attention some of the great things about this: she actually discovered, in the response from the Leader of the House to a written question, that the Scotland Bill was a piece of English-only legislation! I am grateful to her for discovering that amazing fact.

[Mr Hanson]

Does the hon. Gentleman also accept that there is no mechanism to make representations to the Speaker before he makes his decision? Those of us who have interests in England but represent seats in Wales could not influence the Speaker’s decision beforehand.

[Pete Wishart]

That is another point. We can see how bad this is, placing the Speaker in such a position. Shame on this Government for placing our Speaker in such a position. Politicising the Speaker of one of the biggest and most powerful Parliaments in the world is a disgraceful thing to do. I really hope the Government rethink this.

What we have is a complete and utter shambles. The Leader of the House has managed to divide the House. There is no consensus. There is no agreement. He is imposing the Conservative will on all of us here. He is denying us full rights within this Parliament, consigning us to second class. He has done nothing to revise his plans. I appeal to him once again: take them away, and let us have a proper discussion on how we can go forward. If he is so interested in making sure that there are English votes for English laws, he should get his own Parliament. He should do the work and make sure he delivers it.

This is unacceptable. We now have a few weeks and months in which to look at this again. I appeal to the Leader of the House to get rid of this dog’s breakfast and come back with something that is reasonable and sustainable.

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[Mr Jones]

That may be the case, but my constituents in upland north Wales are still bemused as to why it is happening. It needs to be addressed. I commend my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for trying to address an issue that has been put off for far too long.

I believe that the method of addressing the problem, through a change in Standing Orders, has been handled sensibly. My right hon. Friend has told us that it will be reviewed after 12 months. As my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) pointed out, a change in Standing Orders is a fragile and tentative means of addressing the issue. We are going through an extensive consultation at the moment, and again I commend my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for listening to the concerns expressed on both sides of the House. It is right to give the process the benefit of the doubt and to road-test it and see where we are in 12 months’ time.

That said, there are issues I want to address. The principal one concerns the test applied to determine whether the new procedures should apply to a particular legislative proposal. This is a matter of certification by the Speaker, who will be required to carry out a double test. He will be asked to consider whether the issue is devolved to Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales and to determine whether it relates exclusively to England or to England and Wales. I have sympathy with the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas), who pointed out that approximately one third of patients at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt hospital in Shropshire came from Wales. This issue is repeated in various other areas. For example, economic development is devolved to Wales, but north-east Wales is very much part of the north-west economic area, so arguments will arise about whether, under the new proposals, north Wales MPs should be excluded from proposals relating to the economic development of the north-west.

The issue that causes most concern, however, is that of health, which is why the hon. Member for Wrexham lighted upon it. North Wales is almost entirely dependent on north-west England for specialist services, as is a good part of north Wales for general hospital services. For example, the constituency of the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) is served by the Countess of Chester hospital, the local general hospital. I remember a few years ago an issue occurred in my own constituency. The Welsh Assembly Government decided that all elective neurosurgery should be dealt with on an “in-Wales basis”, as they called it, meaning that patients from Colwyn Bay would be required to go to Swansea or Cardiff for treatment, which was nonsense. At the time—and to this day, thank goodness—north Wales patients travelled to the Walton centre in Liverpool, an internationally renowned centre of excellence and the local neurosurgery hospital for north Wales, which has Welsh-speaking staff to accommodate Welsh patients. The Speaker, when deciding whether to issue a certification, could not possibly decide that a measure relating to health in north-west England related exclusively to England, because of the heavy dependence of the people of north Wales upon those services.

[Mr Hanson]

While I remain sceptical about the whole process, would a solution not be for the Speaker, when he is minded to certify a proposal, to allow a period of grace—say 14 days—in which to receive representations from Members on both sides of the House?

[Mr Jones]

I was coming to exactly that point. As I said in an intervention on the hon. Member for Wrexham, a mechanism has to be devised so that in areas of doubt, of which there will be many, the Speaker can apprise himself of Members’ views and take any wider evidence he requires to make that determination. It seems to me that there would be nothing to preclude him from doing so on the basis of the draft Standing Orders as they stand. My suggestion to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is that an amendment to the draft Standing Orders should be made in order to accommodate that very procedure.

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[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin). She might not know this, but like her I wanted to be in “Coronation Street”. Of the three other people on my drama course at university, one ended up presenting “Blue Peter”, one has won an Oscar and one wrote “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”; and I ended up here. She can decide who was the most successful. She made a strong maiden speech, however, and I was pleased with her tribute to my colleague, Willie Bain, who served her constituency well.

I am also pleased to follow the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach). I have lost her seat and she has lost mine, so I think we are equal. We border each other, however, and it is crucial to this debate how that border is affected and how I, as a Welsh Member, serve my constituents.

I have been very lucky; I have been here for 23 years, and every year I have walked through that door into this Chamber, I have done so as an equal Member of the House—equal to everybody elected to this House on a universal franchise after the people have put a cross by my name and my party’s name and thereby elected an MP who can speak on any issue before the House. I did that—dare I say it?—when the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) was Secretary of State for Wales and made decisions in this House affecting my constituents without a majority in the area I represented. I was here when Lord Hunt served as Secretary of State for Wales and made decisions in my area without his party having a majority in that area.

I have also served as a Northern Ireland Minister—this supports the arguments made by the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson)—as a Welsh Member in a UK House of Commons dealing with devolved issues in Northern Ireland when the Assembly was suspended. I did so as an equal Member because I happened to believe in the United Kingdom. When Members walk through that door into the Chamber, they do so as equal Members.

I object to the proposal because it strikes at the heart of this Parliament and a United Kingdom in this Parliament. It also strikes at the heart of what my constituents send me here to do. I think that I should decide what I say in the Chamber on behalf of the people who have elected me and that I should be accountable for that to those people, yet, under these proposals, I will be able to speak but not vote in Committee on crucial issues that affect my constituents. Why does that matter? It matters because the Government’s proposals will give a veto to English MPs on issues before the House. It will veto my being able to table amendments that I can vote on in this House, and it will veto my serving as a Minister dealing with UK matters on devolved issues. As was said earlier, that would have meant the likes of John Reid not being able to serve as Secretary of State for Health, having been chosen by a UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and elected to the United Kingdom Parliament to serve under a Prime Minister representing a seat in Scotland. He would have been unable to vote in a Committee of the whole House on matters that his Government had bought before the House. That creates a second-class tier of MP.

This matters in my constituency for reasons that the hon. Member for Eddisbury has mentioned. We are close to the border with England. By dint of previous Governments’ decisions, things that happen in England matter to my constituents. My constituency is served by Glan Clwyd hospital in north Wales and the Countess of Chester hospital in Chester, England. The latter currently services 66,514 out-patient attendances from constituents who have a Welsh postcode. It also services 14,185 finished admission episodes and 14,404 accident and emergency attendances by Welsh citizens, which are paid for by Welsh Assembly Government funding to that hospital. Under the Government’s proposals, if legislative proposals were made about that hospital, I could not table an amendment that I could vote on here. If I cannot do that, who can?

[Antoinette Sandbach]

I have absolutely no doubt why attendances have gone up at the Countess of Chester. The Labour-controlled Welsh Assembly proposed to close the maternity unit at Glan Clywd, which will have had very severe knock-on effects for Countess of Chester hospital. Indeed, the hospital said that it would not be able to cope with the consequences of that decision. The problem was that my constituents had no way of influencing the decision in the Welsh Assembly or the right hon. Gentleman’s policies in that regard.

[Mr Hanson]

The hon. Lady might like to take up that issue with her right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones), who I think shares my view. Let me quote from the annual report of the Countess of Chester hospital:

“We are the main Trust serving Western Cheshire and provide services to approximately 30% of the population covered by the Betsi Cadwaladr University Local Health Board in Wales. Welsh patients represent approximately one fifth of the workload of the Trust.”

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

The right hon. Gentleman would be able to table amendments in Committee. I accept that he would not be able to move them, but he would be able to table amendments on Report, as well.

[Mr Hanson]

The Minister makes the point: I cannot vote on tabled amendments that I have moved in Committee, which I can do now. I can walk through that door to do so now, and I have done for 23 years, being accountable only to my constituents and my colleagues in the Whips Office. I have been accountable to my constituents and my party. I can do this now, but the Deputy Leader of the House is taking away from me a right, which my constituents voted for on 7 May, to speak on any matter in this House. It is important that the Deputy Leader of the House understands that argument, although I am grateful to her for meeting a delegation of north Wales Members and me yesterday.

What matters in Cheshire matters to me—not only in respect of hospital services, but of employment, when my constituents work there, and transport. Is HS2 an England-only matter, for example? The train service will go to Crewe, which will link to north Wales, so it matters to my constituents. The key point is how these matters are to be decided. Who decides what is an “English-only” matter? The draft Standing Orders say:

“The Speaker shall, before second reading”.

What opportunity do I have to put it to the Speaker that there are real issues in my constituency that make it right for me to table amendments and vote on them? What representations can I make on those issues?

[Mr David Jones]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that I share many of the concerns he is expressing. He asks what influence he can have over the process. It seems to me that a dual test is set out on the draft Standing Order. One test is that a matter should relate “exclusively to England”. To follow his example of the hospital scenario, that clearly does not relate exclusively to England, because it serves a large number of Welsh patients. Does he not agree that what we really need is to build a mechanism into the Standing Order to clarify that point?

[Mr Hanson]

I do agree. At the moment, the draft Standing Order states:

“A clause or schedule which relates exclusively to England is within devolved legislative competence if…it would be within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament”

or of

“the National Assembly for Wales”.

Mr Speaker could be faced with the dilemma of saying, “This is a matter for the National Assembly for Wales” because it involves health, when both the right hon. Member for Clwyd West and I have a clear interest in it. It is important to have some understanding of how we might be able to influence Mr Speaker by putting representations to him before those decisions are made.

What really annoys me, Mr Deputy Speaker—if I may say so between us, in confidence, in the Chamber today—is the fact that Lord Roberts of Conwy, who has fought five elections in north Wales and not won a single one, and Lord Thomas of Gresford, who has also fought five elections and not won a single one in north Wales, will be able to table amendments in the other place and speak on matters that I, the elected Member, will be unable to speak on.

[Martin John Docherty]

The right hon. Gentleman has taken the words right out of my mouth. The former Member of Parliament for Dumbarton and, subsequently, for West Dunbartonshire, which it became, is now Lord McFall. He sits in the other House, which is unaccountable because its members are not elected. Unlike the right hon. Gentleman, however, he will be able to walk through the Lobby in the other House and vote on these issues.

As the right hon. Gentleman has also pointed out, and as I made clear in the House last week, the position of what is currently the independent Chair of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will become untenable.

[Mr Hanson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. On this issue, at least, we share a perspective.

As I have said, I have fought my constituency seven times, and I have won my constituency six times. Lord Thomas of Gresford has lost five elections, as has Lord Roberts of Conwy, yet they will be able to table amendments, speak, vote and contribute, but I shall be barred by this Chamber from doing so. In no circumstances can that be deemed fair and proper. When my constituents put a cross by my name—or, indeed, by the name of any other candidate—they are propelling one of us into this Chamber to argue their case. It is entirely out of order for unelected Lords to have a power that we in the House of Commons do not have.

I oppose these proposals, but I will, if I may, extend the hand of friendship to the right hon. Member for Clwyd West in saying that, as the Deputy Leader of the House knows, measures could be taken to give us an opportunity, at least, to provide more traction in regard to these issues. I hope that she will bring back amendments to that effect. I still believe that we should have one House of Commons in which all of us can speak on every matter, but ultimately I must be a pragmatist as well, and I think that if there are pragmatic solutions, we should consider them as well as opposing the principle.

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[Alex Salmond]

My hon. Friend, who knows about all these things and has served on almost as many Grand Committees as I have, is undoubtedly correct. That Grand Committee has changed its complexion a number of times, and when it became Scottish Members only, members were not allowed to vote to stop or veto legislation; they could consider legislation on Second Reading and then the legislation came to the full House. In effect, it was roughly what the McKay commission recommended as the answer, although there is actually no answer to the West Lothian question.

My old friend Tam Dalyell posed the West Lothian question precisely because he believed from his study of constitutional history that the only answers to it were either Unionism, which he supported, or independence for Scotland, which I supported. Tam Dalyell did not, and still does not as far as I know, believe there is an answer to the question he proposed, nor, as he would be the first to say, was he the first person to raise that question.

The question was raised in the 19th century. Gladstone considered a similar proposal. I was going to say that it was exactly the same proposal, but the proposal Gladstone considered was much more sensible than the one before us today. None the less, he rejected it, and did so on two grounds. He thought it would be difficult to have a situation where Members of Parliament were going in and out of various votes depending on how they were defined, and he thought it would be too much for the Chair to bear—“for the shoulders of any one man to bear”, if I remember the quote correctly—for the Speaker to have to certify which votes were which and which hon. Members were allowed to vote on which Committees. They say there is nothing new under the sun. All this has been considered before and there is actually a reason why William Gladstone did not come up with this dog’s breakfast before us today.

[Mr Hanson]

That was also because Gladstone lived in Wales and represented a seat in England.

[Alex Salmond]

There are two reasons why William Gladstone did not come up with the dog’s breakfast before us.