European Council

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, my view is that the problem with an in/out referendum is that both the options are not really what I would want or what the British people would want. I do not think that keeping our membership as it is under the status quo is acceptable: nor do I think that walking away from Europe would be a sensible idea. That is why we need a new settlement—and new consent for that settlement —and that is what we will set out.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

At an appropriate moment of the Prime Minister’s choosing—say, around the next general election—will he grant the British people a referendum on our relationship with the EU?

[The Prime Minister]

I will be saying a bit more about that later this year. As I have said, I think that opportunities are opening up. As Europe changes—and the changes are coming because of the single currency and what it is doing to the European Union—options are opening up to form a different, better relationship that the British people would back. We will then have to work out exactly how to get the consent for that relationship that the British people deserve.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I will give way in a moment, but I want to make a couple of points.

A separate but related fear is that opening up the Lords to election will politicise it, creating a Chamber of career politicians likely to rival MPs and robbing the Lords of its wisdom and expertise. Let us be clear about the current situation. The other place contains some extremely eminent individuals who bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to Parliament, but it is hardly entirely dispassionate, an institution somehow untouched by party politics. More than 70% of its Members receive their peerage from party leaders—that is, more than two thirds of Members take a party Whip, and very few rebel.

Members of the House of Lords are more likely to come from this place than from any other profession, with 189 being ex-MPs. In a reformed House, Members will see themselves and their role very differently from us here, not least because of their longer term and the means by which they elected.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

If this reform goes through, 189 will be people who never managed to become MPs.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

What the hon. Gentleman misses is that the Bill will in fact make space in Parliament for a different kind of politician. [Interruption.] Let me explain. [Interruption.]

EU Council

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As ever, the hon. Lady is right about almost everything, and I am rightly chastised.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

What I suspect the majority of British people want is what they were offered in the only referendum that they have ever been allowed on Europe, namely a say on whether there should be a common market—no more, no less. Given that our partners have the overwhelming balance of trade in their favour, why should they veto our negotiation for a free market area? The door is unlocked; why does the Prime Minister not walk through it and renegotiate?

Civil Service Reform

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

For the PAC, it is becoming the practice that, in the right circumstances, former accounting officers can be called back. I hear what the hon. Lady says; it is a powerful case. Actually, I would not find it objectionable if former Ministers were called back to Select Committees to talk about decisions they were involved with in a previous life. I see the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), the former Lord Chancellor, nodding assent, which is courageous of him.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

As my right hon. Friend said, as long ago as 1968 the Fulton commission identified that policy skills were consistently rated more highly than operational delivery. Forty years later, during my time on the PAC, we found out that not a single permanent secretary had ever run a project. After all these reviews, will he really achieve where everybody else has failed, and get fewer permanent secretaries who have an Oxbridge degree in Latin, can write a beautiful minute and are charming, and actually get people who can run a project and be on the right pay scale for it?

[Mr Maude]

I hope that my hon. Friend, who stewarded the PAC with such distinction and speaks with great authority on this subject, would recognise that the appointment as head of the civil service of Sir Bob Kerslake, who has a formidable history of operational delivery in local government and running big local authorities, is a step in the right direction. If my hon. Friend looks across the piece, he will see that there are more, but not yet nearly enough, permanent secretaries with a background in operational delivery. We need to go further, however.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It will consider in the round all the issues about how we manage business in this House in a more devolved United Kingdom. As the hon. Gentleman will know, the McKay commission will report in the next parliamentary Session.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend and I are already, in a sense, married politically—and very happily, at that—but as we have so much to do together on devolution, House of Lords reform and the Health and Social Care Bill, can we just leave it at that: as a partnership?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right that our in-tray is full, but, as I said before, I think it is a good thing that this partnership and this coalition is being as ambitious as we are.

Informal European Council

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, there are arrangements for these things. Actually, the Government have been very generous in ensuring that the Scottish Administration have been fully involved in, for instance, fishing quota negotiations. However, I thought that the hon. Gentleman wanted to leave the UK altogether. If that is the case, he will have to seek access to the European Union, and seek access to joining the euro as well. I think that he ought to read the treaty and work out whether he wants to sign it. Perhaps when he has made up his mind he will be able to tell the Labour leader what to do.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The Prime Minister said this afternoon that, if necessary, we would take legal action. What would trigger that legal action? Is not the problem for the majority the fact that if they stretch the European institutions to achieve greater compliance, the minority may be tempted to stretch them to achieve greater independence?

Parliamentary Standards Act 2009

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Adam Afriyie]

That is an interesting point.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I chair the liaison committee with IPSA, which includes Members from all parties, and know that it can be a deeply frustrating experience. We do our best, but one of the problems we have had is trying to convince IPSA that its primary motivation must be to allow MPs to do their job and have a system that is not bureaucratic, does not allow fraud or error and, above all, saves taxpayers’ money. That is why a central recommendation of the report is that there should be an independent cost-benefit analysis of whether a flat-rate, taxable allowance, so that there could be no fraud, error or detailed administrative costs, would save taxpayers’ money.

[Adam Afriyie]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and for his work on the Committee. I think that together we came to a very moderate view that we hope will, if the recommendations are accepted, move the whole thing forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Adam Afriyie]

We can quibble about one word in a report that is 100 pages long. I am telling hon. Members on behalf of the Committee that that was not the intention. The intention was simply to express a view about whether that was something that we would like to see. Basically, it would be like another recommendation to IPSA.

I hope that there is not going to be some massive argument about the issue; I have just made it absolutely clear to the House what was intended. By the way, I have also put the matter in writing to Front Benchers. Furthermore, I have now stated that I imagine that there would be a statement or early-day motion that said, “The House’s opinion is that we like it or do not like it.” The issue is for IPSA, not the House, to decide. We are looking for demons where they do not necessarily exist.

[Mr Leigh]

The right hon. Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) can be reassured because the House cannot order IPSA to do anything, except by an Act of Parliament. We could pass any motion we liked to express an opinion, but that could not force IPSA to do anything. The right hon. Gentleman talks about the House making a decision, but it is making a decision to express a point of view, and IPSA is independent.

[Adam Afriyie]

I draw hon. Members’ eyes back to the first recommendation—the first thing that we are insisting on is that that independence should remain. That is what this whole thing was about. We were not tackling that in any way, other than to say that in some ways that independence should possibly even be enhanced through a separation of the administration and regulatory functions, so that IPSA would be in an even more powerful position to do the regulation, audit and checking, rather than doing the administration.

Appointment of the Chair of the National Audit Office

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I support the motion moved by the Prime Minister. I remember that his predecessor was a bit cross about having to come to this rather quiet little affair, with all his other very heavy responsibilities, especially as he had already appointed the previous Comptroller and Auditor General as an acting Comptroller and Auditor General.

It is worth emphasising that the reason it is important that the Prime Minister is here is that this is the one job—in fact, there are two jobs, the Comptroller and Auditor General and the chair of the National Audit Office—that is not in the sole gift of the Prime Minister. At least there is one job he does not appoint; I am sure that he is prepared to concede this one. It is very important that he is not in sole control and that he appoints the heads of both these bodies—the chairman of the NAO and the CAG—with the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. By definition, my right hon. Friend is a member of the Government—that is obvious—and, by changing the rules of this House to create a unique rule, we have ensured that the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee is always a member of the Opposition. The two people who run the National Audit Office are therefore appointed on a genuinely all-party basis. That is essential.

Of course, I welcome this sealing of the appointment of Sir Andrew. I could hardly say anything else, as I appointed him in the first place. He is a superbly well qualified person for this job. The reason we created the new role of chairman of the board—I worked with Alan Williams, the former Father of the House, to whom, once again, I pay tribute for his many long years of service to this House—was that previously the Comptroller and Auditor General was, in effect, a dictator. He had sole control of the organisation; there was no board, and none of his judgments should be questioned. It is quite right that when the CAG looks at the accounts of Government— when he is holding the Government to account—he should be completely independent and act on his own, and nobody must be able to gainsay him. He must be able to look into every filing cabinet, summon every civil servant, and expose every scandal. However, in terms of running a modern organisation like the National Audit Office, it was right that we should modernise, move with the times, and create a proper board that could oversee the organisation as opposed to the policy, and that is what we did with the appointment of Sir Andrew. He is a good candidate and I welcome his appointment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

2. What recent discussions he has had on changes to the law on succession to the throne; and if he will make a statement.

[The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)]

As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced on 28 October, the 16 Commonwealth realms have agreed in principle that we should modernise the Act of Settlement with regard to the rules of royal succession. That means that if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were to have a first-born daughter, she would eventually become Queen of our country. In addition, we will remove the barrier to those who marry Catholics retaining their position in the line of succession, thus repealing an explicit and unique discrimination against the Roman Catholic religion.

[Mr Leigh]

After many years of campaigning, I thank the Government most warmly for finally grasping the nettle and removing this unique discrimination against Catholics. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree, however, that this issue and the wider issues have now moved beyond statute? The fact is that the monarch gave up appointing Anglican bishops in the 18th century, and the Prime Minister has recently given up that power. In the future, can we ever prevent anyone from holding a post that they are born into, simply because of their religion or beliefs?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As I have explained, this is a significant step. I understand that there is a perfectly legitimate debate to be had about whether there should be other reforms, but all the Commonwealth realms must move as a convoy on this. We must all translate it into exactly the same legislation, which is what we will be working on in the months ahead. It is important to welcome this step, as my hon. Friend has done. It removes a unique discrimination against people of the Roman Catholic religion, and we must ensure that we implement it in full.

G20

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady makes an important point, but it is not necessarily fair to lump all those countries together. Some of them, such as Italy, have huge deficits in terms of the ratio of debt to GDP, but have managed to compete within the single currency, so I am not sure that the way in which she groups those countries together is entirely fair. The important role of the IMF is not to support a currency system, not to support the eurozone, and not to invest into a bail-out fund. The IMF has to be there for countries in distress. That is why everyone in the House supported, for instance, the IMF programme that went into Ireland. The IMF went in as a partner of other countries, but it did go in. If she turns her question round the other way, it would be extraordinary, would it not, to say to eurozone countries, “You are shareholders in the IMF, you contributed to the IMF, but when you’re in distress you can’t get any money from the IMF at all”? That would be an extraordinary position—but it is one that seems to have the support of those on the Labour Front Bench.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Has not the avoidance of a concentration of political and economic power on the continent been a cardinal feature of British foreign policy for 300 years? How then is it in our interests to facilitate the creation of a single fiscal and monetary union that will have enormous power over us, but over which we will have very little influence?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend asks a question with a broad historical sweep. We are suffering at the moment from a single currency that we are not a member of, but that has some serious structural faults. It is in our interests that those faults are resolved, and one way of helping to do that would be to have a greater pooling of fiscal sovereignty among the members of the single currency. I always felt that that was necessary and was going to happen, which is one reason why I never supported the single currency. However, I do not think that we can stick happily with the status quo when the single currency is having a chilling effect on our economy, through the crisis, and not seek some sort of resolution.