Private Members’ Bills

Helen Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

We welcome the motion that the Leader of the House has tabled. This is a greatly extended Session of Parliament, certainly longer than any that I can remember, and it is therefore right that more time should be allowed for Back-Bench business. As the Deputy Leader of the House said, there are other things to consider about how the House deals with private Members’ Bills and how Members can get a fair hearing for them, but they should and will be dealt with at another time.

Members who table private Members’ Bills deserve the chance for those Bills to receive proper debate and, if they get the necessary support, for them to pass into law. As with all matters before the House, however, we need to ensure that there is a little common sense and, if I may gently say so, a little consideration. Some Members have tabled an amendment to extend the amount of time available for private Members’ Bills, but at the moment a small group of Members are introducing a great many such Bills, which is unhelpful to the House as a whole and to other Members who wish to have their own Bills debated.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

Has my hon. Friend noticed, as I have, that the same group of Members are the ones who seem to speak the most on a Friday? Perhaps if they spoke slightly less, we might have more time to make progress on Fridays.

[Helen Jones]

My hon. Friend tempts me into a matter that is one for Mr Speaker and his deputies. I am sure that if hon. Members were filibustering, Mr Speaker would not allow them to do so.

When I last counted, I think the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) had about 20 Bills on the go, and the hon. Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) had 13 each. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of those figures, because my eyes started to glaze over as I went through the list. Frankly, I started to lose the will to live after a while.

The problem comes down to the fact that Members who are successful in the ballot for private Members’ Bills and wish to introduce legislation should have a fair chance to have their Bills debated and voted on. It is up to them to gather enough support from all parties to get their Bills through, but I say to the hon. Members who have tabled the amendment that that cannot happen if others table so many Bills that they block up the system entirely. It is neither fair nor proportionate.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

But that cannot happen in the second part of this extended Session, because there is not going to be a further ballot to allow private Members to take part in the process. Does the hon. Lady agree with the coalition Government that there should not be a further ballot?

[Helen Jones]

We will wait to see what the Government bring forward, but if the hon. Gentleman thinks that his Bills do not have a chance of getting through, one wonders why he tabled them in the first place.

I hope that we can agree to the motion, so that Members who wish to pursue their private Members’ Bills have a proper opportunity to do so and get a fair hearing from the House.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I call Peter Bone to move the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Jones]

Can the hon. Gentleman quote back to me anything I said that suggests I want the Executive to have control of private Members’ Bills?

[Mr Bone]

I cannot—I do not have that sort of memory—but I got the impression that the hon. Lady was saying, “No more extra days,” whereas the previous Government did not support Standing Orders and reduced the number of private Members’ days in a Session, and I shall talk about that briefly later on. That is a key issue. I was hoping she would stand up and say, “Actually, the previous Labour Government got it wrong on that particular point.”

While I am dealing with the hon. Lady’s remarks, I wanted to talk about the process and the number of Members who have tabled private Members’ Bill. She gave the impression that only three Members had tabled Bills.

[Mr Bone]

Eric Forth was perhaps one of the best parliamentarians ever, and I rather think he enjoyed Fridays, so he probably would have liked more.

I saw a wonderful quote from the Leader of the House, who is not in the Chamber, about how wonderful it was to be selected in the ballot. The main obstacle to getting his Bill on the Order Paper was Eric Forth. Eric will probably be looking down now and saying, “Yeah. Actually, we would like more power for Parliament”—he certainly believed in that—“and therefore more power for Fridays.”

[Helen Jones]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman needs to search his memory, because what I remember most about Eric Forth, for whom I had a great deal of admiration, is that he spent most of his time on Fridays killing off private Members’ Bills rather than allowing them to get through—[Interruption.] As the Deputy Leader of the House says, he would certainly have enjoyed that.

[Mr Bone]

The hon. Lady has misunderstood my comments. Eric Forth killed off hopeless Labour private Members’ Bills, which he did with great relish. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) has now taken on that role, and does it extremely well indeed—no doubt we will see some more Bills killed.

As legislators, MPs have the opportunity only on a Friday—on a private Members’ Bill day—to put forward their Bills. I should like to counter the view of the hon. Member for Warrington North. She said that only three Members put down private Members’ Bills on the days that we are discussing. In fact, on 9 September, my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) will promote the Consumer Protection (Postal Marketing) Bill and my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) will promote his Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulation Bill. On 14 October, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) will promote the Police Terms and Conditions of Service (Redundancy) Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

I have a lot of time for the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), but I, too, was a little disappointed in her statement that Members who thought they had no serious chance of making progress with their Bill should just withdraw it.

[Helen Jones]

I did not say that.

[Mr Bacon]

The hon. Lady did say words to that effect, as the record will show. I have paraphrased, but that is essentially the meaning of what she said: that Members who thought they had no serious chance of making progress with Bills should withdraw them. I have been trying for seven years to get food labelling legislation on to the statute book. The fact that I have now had to introduce a Bill four times, and that at each stage people have said I have very little chance of succeeding, has never stopped me trying.

Members’ Salaries

Helen Jones Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

I do not want to detain the House for long—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] That is clearly the best reaction I am going to get this evening.

I detect throughout the House a real desire not to be having this debate at all. Having to debate our own pay is not good for the House at any time, and particularly not after the debate that we have just had. We are where we are, however. We are caught between a rock and a hard place. Last week, I went into my local hospital and members of staff there told me that they were genuinely worried about how they were going to pay their mortgages. A pay freeze for the armed forces has already been mentioned. I do not think that anyone here believes that MPs could take a pay rise in those circumstances.

Members have rightly said that the whole question of our pay needs to be taken away from this House and given to an independent body. If we are honest, we have to admit that Governments have always interfered in the recommendations of pay review bodies—that has certainly been the case in all the years that I have been in the House. We need finally to get away from that. The solution is not as simple as linking our pay to a grade in the civil service, as the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) suggested. We tried that, but the grade was abolished. That is how we got into many of the problems that we faced later.

We need to get this matter out of the House very quickly, and to establish an independent system for setting our pay. Having listened to the debate, I believe that that is overwhelmingly the view of Members. I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will not simply tell us that that will happen “shortly”; I hope that he will tell us when it will be done, because no one wants to be in this position ever again.

Bill of Rights

Helen Jones Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. This has been a very interesting debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming), the other hon. Members in charge of the debate and the Backbench Business Committee on bringing it about, because it raises fundamental issues about the role of Members of Parliament and about Parliament itself. As hon. Members rightly said, the rights and privileges of Parliament exist not to provide protection for MPs merely, but to protect the rights of their constituents. In that sense, articles 9 and 13 of the Bill of Rights are complementary. We all know, and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley quoted clearly, article 9, which states that

“the Freedome of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parlyament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court or Place out of Parlyament.”

Article 13 makes it clear that one purpose of holding frequent Parliaments is to be able to redress grievances. In other words, Parliament is here not just to make laws, but to address the grievances of Members’ constituents—the two are part of the same thing.

[Mr Cash]

I do not want to take the hon. Lady into a great dialogue on this; I will simply ask her a question. Is she as confident of what she has just quoted in the light of the judgment in the Jackson case, in which several members of the Supreme Court questioned the extent to which they had ultimate authority and said that parliamentary sovereignty was being qualified? They used those words, and many more besides.

[Helen Jones]

If the hon. Gentleman allows me to proceed a little, perhaps I can touch on the issues that he raises, but I want to keep my remarks to the subject of the debate.

One reason why becoming a Member of this House confers huge privileges on us all is that it enables us to act on behalf of our constituents. To be able to do that effectively, as several hon. Members have said, Members of Parliament must have access to information. A number of cases have been raised today, and many of us have had experience of hospitals, schools sometimes and councils trying to deny hon. Members the information that they request. In my experience, that is normally fairly easy to deal with, although the cases involving the courts are much more complex. I hope to be able to come to those in a moment.

Hon. Members know that they must use the protection granted by parliamentary privilege sparingly and not for their own advantage, but use it they must if it is necessary to right a wrong or to get justice for a constituent. Since I came into the House, I have seen a number of examples of hon. Members rightly taking up issues on behalf of their constituents and using parliamentary privilege to do so, because that is the only way to get something done.

If I may speak anecdotally, I have had experience of that myself. Not long after I came into Parliament, I felt it necessary to initiate an Adjournment debate about a charity that I felt was not operating properly. I came under huge pressure from the people running that organisation, but I felt that it was necessary to do that and to use parliamentary privilege to do it, because I believed that the people who were supposed to be being looked after by that organisation, many of whom suffered severe learning difficulties and did not have friends or family to speak up on their behalf, were being done out of their rights. Many other hon. Members will have come across cases such as that. At some point or other, we have all known of constituents who have been told that they cannot or should not approach their Member of Parliament. I say gently to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley that I have known councils and public bodies tell people that, and he must have known of it, too. I have also known Liberal Democrat councillors tell my constituents that they should not come to see me.

A case can probably be made for educating people, but we certainly need a clearer definition. Indeed, the rights of Parliament need to be made clear to many who work for public bodies. In these circumstances, I normally find that a fairly stroppy letter from me—I can write very stroppy letters when I need to—usually puts the matter right. However, some of the cases that we have heard of today are much more serious.

We have to face up to the difficulties of interpreting article 9 that arise simply because of its age. Parliament has developed and changed since 1688. It would be strange if it had not. We now live in a multi-media age, which covers aspects of communication that were not known when the Bill of Rights was drafted.

Many Members would be surprised to learn the limits of parliamentary privilege. For that reason, a review of parliamentary privilege was undertaken by a Joint Committee in 1999. The Committee drew attention to the fact that although Members are not exposed to any civil or criminal liabilities in respect of what they say and do in the course of proceedings in Parliament, there is no comprehensive definition of what “proceedings in Parliament” covers. Equally, there is no proper definition of what constitutes a place “out of Parliament”. That needs to be tackled.

It is generally accepted that proceedings in Parliament are covered by the formal proceedings of the House and its Committees and any documentation directly associated with those proceedings, but there are grey areas around that, as the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) noted about the documents that he had received. The Committee said that article 9 needs clarification. It clearly does, in light of Members’ experience and given what we have heard today.

[Mr Bacon]

Does the hon. Lady agree that in so far as article 9 needs to be clarified, it should be undertaken in such a way as to expand and strengthen the role of Members of Parliament rather than in any way inhibit or constrict them?

[Helen Jones]

The hon. Gentleman touches on an important point. I am a great defender of this House and of Members of all parties having the right to carry out their functions properly. Any review should strengthen the work of Members of Parliament, not undermine it.

The Committee believed that the general principle of article 9, which prohibits the examination in any court of parliamentary proceedings, should be confirmed. It also believed that three exceptions should be made to that general principle. That is something that the House will have to consider in due course.

First, the Committee believed that nothing in article 9 should prevent proceedings in Parliament being examined in court in so far as the examination related to the interpretation of an Act of Parliament or subordinate legislation. That would enshrine in statute the decision of the court in the case of Pepper v. Hart; that case made many Ministers much more careful about what they said in Committee and on the Floor of the House, because their words could be used to help the courts consider what purpose Parliament intended for an Act.

Secondly, the Committee suggested that nothing in article 9 should prevent parliamentary proceedings being used in court for the purpose of judicial review, or in other court proceedings where a Government decision was a material factor. That is not to question the decision itself; again, it is about interpreting the decision.

Thirdly, the Committee believed that courts should be able to examine parliamentary proceedings when there is no suggestion that anything forming a part of those proceedings is untrue or misleading, and—the “and” is very important—there is no question of legal liability.

I suspect that these recommendations, especially the last, will provoke hours of debate when we come to the privilege Bill, but other matters will probably need to be considered as well. The first is the status of Members’ correspondence, particularly that between Members and Ministers about constituency cases or proceedings before Parliament. At the moment, that is not covered by privilege. As we do more and more of our work through correspondence—not everything is done on the Floor of the House, as it was in 1688—the House will need to consider carefully how to deal with it.

The second matter is correspondence with Members of Parliament, a subject raised by the hon. Member for South Norfolk. It is clearly difficult to get the drafting right in such cases. Taking the two extremes, one wants to protect genuine whistleblowing and disclosure without protecting those who write to accuse their neighbours of all sorts of crimes but who have no evidence.

The third matter that we shall have to deal with is defining proceedings in Parliament that are placed “out of Parliament”, and the replacement of section 13 of the Defamation Act 1996. The Joint Committee recommended a new procedure, allowing the House to waive article 9 in appropriate circumstances. Again, that allows Members to defend themselves in defamation proceedings, and we have seen cases like that in past years.

There are serious matters to be considered. I know that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley has already had a case referred to the Standards and Privileges Committee, in which a law firm was held to be in contempt of the House for telling him not to repeat something in the House. I confess that I do not understand how a firm of lawyers could ever draft a letter suggesting that; it is first-year law stuff. It seemed to take the firm an awfully long time to discover its error, but in the end it apologised unreservedly to the House.

The hon. Gentleman and others raised various important matters. One is that in order to redress grievances Members of Parliament need access to information. The hon. Gentleman was right to say that the family courts are opening up, and that information can be given to Members of Parliament with the agreement of the parties concerned, but it is often not recognised. Another problem, when minors are involved in proceedings, is the question of who is able to give consent on their behalf. There is also the question of bullying constituents, and Parliament needs to consider that very carefully. As I said earlier, such matters are often dealt with swiftly; but if they go beyond that, Parliament needs to consider carefully people’s right to consult their MP.

[John Hemming]

Does the hon. Lady agree that if Parliament were to show some willingness to act in one or two cases, it might result in a shift of culture?

[Helen Jones]

First, Parliament needs to define what it wants to do. The question of privilege is complex. Although I might disagree with the hon. Gentleman on numerous issues, I would defend absolutely the right of any of his constituents to consult him whenever they wished to do so, as I would for any other Member of this House.

Another matter of concern was raised today—the role of the courts and of court orders when the preamble to the order or the order itself prevents people from speaking to their Member of Parliament. That is a serious issue, which the House needs to consider in some detail. Like the hon. Member for South Norfolk, I have great concern about whether such an order can stand in law. None the less, I understand that in some cases, particularly family cases, the pressure is on people to agree to such a preamble.

The hon. Member for South Norfolk asked how information coming to MPs should be protected. Many of us remember the case of Clive Ponting, who was tried for giving out information about the sinking of the Belgrano. His defence was that he had given the information to a Member of Parliament.

[Mr Bacon]

I remember the case very well because I wrote a book about it. Unfortunately, I was not able to persuade a publisher to publish it, but that is another matter. When my papers are published, it will come out. Ponting’s defence was that he communicated the information to a person to whom it was, in the interests of the state, his duty to communicate it. That was the point; not that it was a Member of Parliament, although it was, of course, the marvellous Tam Dalyell to whom he communicated it.

[Helen Jones]

I had not quite finished my sentence, but the hon. Gentleman is right; Ponting said that it was in the public interest to communicate the information. Whether or not that defence was sound, the jury simply refused to convict him.

[Mr Cash]

This is, of course, related to the proposed parliamentary privilege Bill to which the hon. Lady has referred. The Duncan Sandys case turned on the question of proceedings in Parliament. It was clear that there was a total and deliberate breach of the Official Secrets Act and that that, in itself, was in the public interest because Whitehall, or the Defence Department at the time, was correctly alleged to have been misleading the House of Commons. There are cases, therefore, in which a breach of the criminal law and the Official Secrets Act can be justified on the grounds of parliamentary “privilege”. I mention that as a good example.

[Helen Jones]

The hon. Gentleman makes a point, but the public interest defence in all these cases is the one that is usually used.

I cannot comment on some of the individual cases that were raised today because I have no personal knowledge of them. None the less, they are serious matters that deserve to be addressed. We have all encountered people who do not want to answer MPs, or who just want to send a brush-off answer. In minor cases, I find that a nice letter from me saying that if they do not answer me, I will just table questions in Parliament and they will have to answer anyway sorts it out. However, we have heard about much more serious cases where there is a refusal to recognise the representative role of a Member of this House acting on behalf of a constituent. I will be interested to hear what the Deputy Leader of the House has to say about that.

Article 9 exists to facilitate article 13; the two are inextricably linked. There is no doubt that we need to clarify the scope of privilege and the rights of Members of this House. Concerns have already been expressed about the way in which some legislation might be eroding those privileges. Although the Government disagreed with this, the Clerk of the House raised concerns about the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill and how it could bring proceedings in Parliament into the ambit of the courts. Similar concerns were raised about the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009. Moreover, there were issues about putting lay members on the Committee on Standards and Privileges and whether they would be able to vote on matters relating to privilege.

As Parliament has expanded its role, a load of issues have emerged that need to be clarified. We look forward to the publication of the draft parliamentary privilege Bill. I hope that the House will be given sufficient time to consider the matter seriously. We have to get it right not just for ourselves but for future Members of this House. It is not a party political issue but about getting the workings of the House right and about the privileges that need to be accorded to hon. Members to allow them to do their job.

I hope, too, that when the Bill finally comes before the House, we get sufficient time to examine it and, if necessary, to amend it. If we do not give proper consideration to this matter and ensure that the drafting is right and that Parliament works properly on behalf of the people we represent, we will be failing not ourselves but our constituents, and that is the important point that has been raised in this debate. I look forward to a proper examination of that draft Bill and to hearing the Deputy Leader of the House’s response.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

I am pleased to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Bone. Let me start by congratulating my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) and for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) on securing this debate. This is the second time in recent weeks that I have participated in a Westminster Hall debate that was initiated by the Backbench Business Committee. I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) for her comments, most of which I entirely agreed with. As she said, this is not a party political issue; it is a matter of Parliament standing up for the privileges of our constituents, who are so important to our process.

The debate has focused largely on the right of constituents and others to approach their own MP to share information with them lawfully, without fear of reprisals, and the right of hon. Members, having received that information, to raise any matter in the House, without fear of legal action. It is those two issues that I wish to address this afternoon. References have been made to specific cases during the course of the debate. Like the hon. Member for Warrington North, I do not propose to comment on them today, as it would not be proper to do so in a general debate of this kind. In particular, I am mindful of the risk of contravening the House’s resolution relating to matters sub judice, and I know that hon. Members will understand why I will exercise extreme caution in everything that I have to say about the relationship between this House and the courts.

Article 9 of the Bill of Rights applies only to proceedings in Parliament, and its protection is absolute. The meaning of “proceedings” in this context is open to interpretation, but the House has never sought to assert that it should apply to dealings between Members and their constituents or other members of the public. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley asserts that it should and I am simply stating the fact that it never has. However, the courts have regarded the communication of information to a Member of Parliament by a constituent as enjoying qualified privilege at law. Similarly, a Member who passes on a constituent’s concerns in good faith to the proper authority, such as a Minister, will not be protected by parliamentary privilege, but is likely to be protected by qualified privilege. Qualified privilege provides protection in certain situations where a person, acting in good faith and without any improper motive, makes a statement about another person, which is in fact untrue and defamatory. According to the case of Adam v. Ward in 1917, qualified privilege arises in situations where

“the person who makes a communication has an interest, or a duty, legal, social or moral, to make it to the person to whom it is made, and the person to whom it is made has a corresponding interest or duty to receive it.”

That point was clearly made during the debate. There are other cases, such as Rivlin v. Bilainkin to which my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley referred, where the courts held that it was not lawful for a person to pass on information if they were not seeking to bring to the attention of a Member of Parliament something which was his duty to pass on to another authority, but was simply making a point. In that case, a woman was making a point about her former husband, and it was held that that was not proper use of the facility and did not benefit from the qualified privilege that would otherwise apply.

The issue of passing on correspondence to a Minister is important and it was referred to by the hon. Member for Warrington North. As I have said, at the moment that does not have absolute privilege—parliamentary privilege—but it has qualified privilege. However, there is the very important case of Beach. In that case, an MP passed on a constituent’s letter that complained about a local firm of solicitors to two third parties, the Law Society and the Lord Chancellor, and the firm of solicitors took action for defamation against the MP. The court held in that case:

“1. MPs have an interest in receiving correspondence from constituents bringing matters of concern to their attention;

2. MPs have a consequential interest or duty in “passing the complaint on to the proper quarter”;

3. The Law Society and the Lord Chancellor both had an interest in receiving complaints about the conduct of solicitors;

4. Consequently, a qualified privilege was made out in this case which acted as a bar to an action for defamation”.

That is a very clear illustration of where qualified privilege assists an MP in the exercise of their proper duties and in the sort of action that we would expect any hon. Member of this House to take on behalf of their constituents.

[Helen Jones]

The Deputy Leader of the House is quite right about the case that he has just quoted. However, does he think that it is now time to consider whether an MP who is carrying out their proper duties should be subjected to a case in court and have to defend it with qualified privilege, or should we consider enshrining privilege in statute?

[Mr Heath]

I am certainly open to the suggestion that we should consider that issue as part of the privilege Bill that we intend to introduce. I will discuss that Bill in a little while.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

I understand the concern about what is normally described as judicial activism, and about the judiciary perhaps wishing to extend its role beyond what has been the traditional separation between its role and that of the House. We have to be extremely wary about that. Nevertheless, I maintain that it is not and never has been the role of Members of Parliament to decide whether officers of the court are behaving properly in the exercise of their duties. Our role is to create the statutory environment in which they work, and that is a very different matter.

[Helen Jones]

It is a difficult area, but does the Deputy Leader of the House agree that while we would not wish to see Members of Parliament interfering in the judicial process—we have both probably had experience of telling constituents that we cannot do that—a constituent who feels that they have not received justice or due process ought to be free to raise that with a Member of Parliament? There are two different issues.

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Lady puts it very well. There is a distinction, and we are right to make it.

I share the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley about the growth of the super-injunction, and what he described as the hyper-injunction. I was concerned when the issue arose during the Trafigura case. I am also concerned that we have allowed a whole new jurisprudence to develop without any real consideration of where it will end, or the consequences for our judicial process.

Happily, the Master of the Rolls, who has a proper role in the matter, has recognised the public concern. He established a committee in April last year to examine the use of injunctions that bind the press, including super-injunctions. He brought together a committee of the judiciary, the legal profession and the press. I anticipate that it will report soon, and we in the House should have particular concern about what it says.

Such injunctions have an impact, potentially, on what we do in the House, and certainly on the interests of our constituents. Personally, I look forward to seeing whether the Master of the Rolls wishes to bring into effect any significant changes to how the courts interpret the whole role of super-injunctions, and what he has to say about the position that has been established whereby my hon. Friend, as a Member of Parliament, cannot know that his constituent is even involved in a case, let alone get involved in it, because his constituent is injuncted by a super-injunction to prevent him passing on that information. My hon. Friend’s concern is perfectly legitimate and I am glad he has had the opportunity to express it today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Jones Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

At the moment, the hon. Lady’s Committee has 15 days of the allotted 35 days left, so we have not yet reached the allocation. There would not be a need for a change to Standing Orders to allocate more if it seemed appropriate to do so, but I stress again that for the system to work—I think it is working very well—we have to get the right balance between legislative time and time for other debates. We often hear calls for more time for Committee and Report stages of Bills, and we have to be aware that that takes time as well. If we restrict the number of days available for scrutiny of Bills, it restricts the opportunity for Back-Bench Members to have their say on legislation that is passing through the House.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

Given the level of interest in Back-Bench business, does the Deputy Leader of the House think that the time has now come to allow Members to make representations in public by having questions to the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee on the Floor of the House? Does he agree that that would have two advantages? It would raise the Committee’s profile with the public, who may well have issues that they would like to see debated, and it would allow the Leader of the House to concentrate on requests for the use of Government time instead of having to refer many bids to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), as he does at present.

[Mr Heath]

As I said earlier, the public sessions that the Committee holds are extremely effective. As I heard on Tuesday, when the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) was unfortunately not chairing the session—it was elegantly chaired by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone)—they give people the opportunity to expand on the case that they wish to put. We are going to move to having a Committee for all business of the House, and we will then need to consider seriously the arrangements for the business statement and how we deal with business sessions, to ensure that everybody has the opportunity to bid for time in an effective way.

Registration of Members’ Financial Interests

Helen Jones Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

I begin by thanking members of the Standards and Privileges Committee, both past and present, for the work they have done to bring these two motions before the House. We have heard from Members about the need for common sense in our procedures. The motions are an attempt to introduce some consistency and common sense into our registration procedures. It is very easy for the House to set out general principles, but it is often quite tricky to bring forward the motions that put those principles into practice. In this case, the Committee has done a good job, and I support the proposals.

One of the motions deals with the registration of all-party groups. I must declare an interest as the chair of the all-party group on stroke and as secretary of the parliamentary friends of CAFOD—the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development—group.

It is interesting to look back on how the Committee’s consideration of these matters arose. Originally, there was a report on lobbying and all-party groups by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. The Committee rightly looked at his recommendations to work out how they could be put into practice and which it was most sensible to put into practice. Having looked back at the original suggestions, I am bound to say that some of them were unworkable.

The Committee has attempted to make the way in which assistance to groups is registered transparent and to prevent the register from increasing to such a volume that it is unusable or that it requires corrections every other day. Hence, it suggests that we stick to the current principle that benefits worth less than £1,500 in a calendar year are not registrable. The onus is put on consultancies that work with all-party groups to be transparent about their clients, either through a published list on their website or by making such a list available to people who ask for it. It also places requirements on charities.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Perhaps this is a question that I should have asked the Deputy Leader of the House. How does the hon. Lady envisage the £1,500 limit working for people who give pro bono advice to parliamentary groups? Will they have to compute a value for that advice, or will it be taken on face value that it is not charged and therefore is not declarable?

[Helen Jones]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting question. It is quite easy to put a value on secretarial support and staff time. Pro bono advice is a more difficult area, and I cannot give him an answer on that off the top of my head. He is right to raise it, and it needs to be discussed, perhaps by the Standards and Privileges Committee and the Registrar of Members’ Interests.

I am grateful to the Committee for considering how charities should operate in this regard, and for making it clear that it does not want to put an insupportable burden on charities that work with all-party parliamentary groups. The Committee does ask charities to make available lists of commercial companies that have donated more than £5,000. That is a sensible proposal.

As we have heard, there are proposals on making websites available. There are also recommendations to align the rules relating to the Register of All-party Groups with the rules relating to the approved list, so that only groups that meet the criteria for inclusion on the approved list should be permitted to register. The Opposition believe that those suggestions are sensible and proportionate. They meet the requirement of transparency, while not imposing unnecessary burdens, particularly on charities.

The House tried in 2009 to deal with the registration of income from employment, when it decided that all income from other employment should be registered, whether or not it exceeded 1% of the parliamentary salary in any year. The then Standards and Privileges Committee said that the rule would probably have to be reviewed in this Parliament. In particular, it suggested that there be consideration of a de minimis rule. Members who were in the House at the time will remember that there was a debate on whether, for instance, a bottle of wine given to someone after a speaking engagement would become registrable as remuneration for employment. The then Chair of the Committee thought that it would, and the Minister replying thought that it would be counted as a gift or hospitality and therefore would be subject to the de minimis rule for gifts. That difference was not over the intention of the rule, but about how it would be interpreted in practice.

It is clear that the advice given to Members has led to the registration of things such as pots of honey and bunches of flowers. I do not believe that such things would be regarded by any of our constituents as remuneration for employment. Frankly, if anyone is working for a pot of honey, I dread to think how many employment laws are being broken in the process. I will not even try to enumerate them, because it is so long since I practised law.

I also think that the registration of such things is perceived as an insult to those who gave them, who simply thought that they were making a generous gesture or rewarding hospitality; they did not in any sense think that they were rewarding a Member of Parliament. It has been common for my constituents to load me with flowers—I am sure that other hon. Members are given flowers wherever they go. My constituents do not believe that they are paying my wages in doing so. They believe that they are making a kind and thoughtful gesture. That is how it should be dealt with.

The Committee has recommended that registration should apply only to payments of more than 0.1% of the parliamentary salary and of more than 1% of the parliamentary salary for multiple payments from a single source. There are Members who think that the registration threshold is still too low. I suggest that we will have to consider that in the future. I understand why the Committee made this recommendation.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady; she is being very generous in giving way, and I do not want to prolong this debate. I have a feeling that the threshold may be too low, particularly as parliamentary salaries are likely to be frozen or have very small increases in the coming years, whereas the inflation on gifts will be 4% or 5%. The fiscal drag of bringing registration into the system will become greater and greater. If we are not careful, it will lead to the situation that she described of the register becoming too full to be used.

[Helen Jones]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point.

I understand why the Committee made these recommendations: they are simple, easy to operate and do not need constant updating. I suggest that the House needs to let the rules bed in and then see how they are working. We have to get to a situation where what we register is what can reasonably be thought to influence hon. Members. I argue strongly that if anyone in this House can be influenced by the gift of a pencil, a pot of honey or a bag, they probably should not be here. I do not think that any of our constituents believes that we can be influenced by such things. We can look again at the operation of the rules over time, but for the moment, they are the sensible way forward. I thank the Committee for its work and I commend the motions to the House.

Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Helen Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

As the Leader of the House said, this motion has two parts, the first of which deals simply with the appointment of my right hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House to the Committee to replace the former shadow Leader of the House, who is now the Labour Chief Whip. I am sure that we can rely on him to speak up for Members’ interests in that Committee, as we can on its other members.

The second part of the motion appoints the lay members of the Committee, in line with the House’s decision when it passed the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. That being the case, Labour Members do not intend to oppose the motion, but I wish to raise a few concerns, which I believe are shared by other hon. Members. The first, while being no reflection on the probity of the members appointed to the Committee, relates to how the public appointments process in general, which is simply reflected in this motion, seems always to appoint people from the same charmed circle to various public appointments. We do not have an appointments process that encourages people from all walks of life to apply. The House will need to consider this matter if this Committee stays in being, because we need a more balanced set of appointments as we do in many other walks of public life.

As the Leader of the House has mentioned remuneration, I should like to put my second concern on the record. The House is getting very concerned at the level of remuneration afforded to those who help scrutinise the work of this House compared with that afforded to Members of Parliament. That is a concern. I do not know how that level of remuneration was arrived at, and perhaps the Leader of the House will tell us when he sums up. It seems to me that the daily rate considered appropriate for Members of this House should also be considered appropriate for lay members of the House’s Committees. I hope that in due course the House will turn its attention to that, because we tend to forget it. Many Members do not necessarily wish to stand up and say that, but this is a concern for Members from all parts of the House.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

May I suggest that any reasonable claim for travelling expenses related to the work should be submitted through the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority process, thus giving the members of the Speaker’s Committee a full appreciation of how that process works or malfunctions?

[Helen Jones]

The right hon. Gentleman tempts me to go down a route that is far away from this motion. However, I have said, as have others, that many of the problems with Members’ remuneration and expenses would be solved if other people in the public sector were tied to the same rates as Members of Parliament. I doubt very much that that will happen.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

Is it a requirement for appointment that one has to be computer literate so as to be able to fill in forms and so on online? Is that part of the qualification for appointment?

[Helen Jones]

I am not aware that that is the case, but I am not sure that even those of us who are reasonably computer literate can cope with a system that seems designed perversely to put as many obstacles in the way as possible. That being said, it is important that we continue with the process that the House has agreed. Labour Members will support the motion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Jones Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am sorry that my hon. Friend has had to dig into her own resources to pay her landlady twice. One of the initiatives that I and other Members are anxious to drive forward is the removal of the need for payments to go in and out of MPs’ bank accounts. If we can move more towards direct payments by IPSA or the use of a credit card, the sort of misunderstanding that has just occurred could be avoided.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

I declare an interest, as a member of the new liaison group. The House has made it clear that IPSA must reform to provide a simpler, cheaper and non-discriminatory expenses system, and the Prime Minister has told it that it must “get a grip”. What assurances has the Leader of the House had from IPSA that advice from the new liaison group will be take seriously in shaping that reform? Can he also tell us what tests the Government will apply in deciding whether IPSA has reformed itself sufficiently or whether further action needs to be taken?

[Sir George Young]

I welcome the fact that the hon. Lady will be serving on the liaison group; she will make a really positive contribution to its proceedings. IPSA will take the new body seriously, because it was set up at IPSA’s suggestion. On her last point, it will not be for the Government to decide whether IPSA has responded to the challenges that she has outlined; it will be a matter for the House.

Standards and Privileges

Helen Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

I echo the thanks given to the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges and to the commissioner for their work on investigating these matters. These were very difficult issues to get to grips with. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) has said, they have arisen from the contact that former Members had with a fictitious company set up by journalists. It is worth noting that the commissioner obtained full certified transcripts of those meetings before making his report, and that he did not rely simply on the parts that had been broadcast or that had appeared in the media. I think we are all grateful for the thoroughness of the investigations that have been carried out.

It is important to put on the record the fact that the report is not concerned with whether former Members were unwise in their dealings, with whether they exaggerated their claims, or even with what they planned to do when they had left the House; it is concerned solely with whether they breached the rules while they were Members of this House. That is the only question before us. Indeed, in some cases the Committee found that Members who had been reported to the commissioner for investigation had not breached those rules, and they were exonerated through the investigation. In three cases, as we have heard, they upheld the complaints and have recommended that parliamentary passes be withdrawn for different periods.

Labour Members support the Committee’s recommendations on this matter. As has been said, however, we believe that the case involving Richard Caborn, who, it is fair to say, was and is widely respected in this House, raises some issues that need to be looked at in future. The report clearly states that

“Mr Caborn…did not bring the House and its Members generally into disrepute”.

We agree with that. However, the Committee found that he had breached the code of conduct. As the Deputy Leader of the House has said, this case raises some important issues. First, the rules need to be clarified. Members need clear rules that they can obey, in which case there is no dispute about whether they have been breached. Secondly, the definition of “a public official” needs to be the same as that in the rules, in the code and anywhere else that it is mentioned. Thirdly, there is the whole problem of what Members who are planning to leave the House may and may not do when they are planning their future careers. Again, clear guidelines are needed.

We also need to consider whether former Members should have a right of appeal. Any existing Member of this House who is subject to a report by the Standards and Privileges Committee can stand up in this Chamber and make their case; clearly, that is not possible for former Members. I welcome the fact that the Committee decided today to hear evidence from Richard Caborn, but that is something that we will perhaps need to consider formalising in future.

I, too, hope that the House will support this motion, and I look forward to a proper debate on the issues that have arisen during the investigation of these cases.

Publication of Information about Complaints against Members

Helen Jones Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

Let me begin, as the Deputy Leader of the House did, by thanking my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) and his Committee, as well as its predecessor Committee, for the considerable amount of work they have done on these issues. They are difficult issues for the House to grapple with, and we want to get the detail right. That view is widely shared across the House. It is good that we are debating these motions today, because hon. Members can be reassured about any issues that they want to raise.

We on the Opposition Front Bench support all the motions. We believe that greater transparency will help the House in future and alleviate any fears that the public might have about our being a cosy little club. That is important in increasing public confidence in the procedures of the House, and it will also be to the long-term benefit of hon. Members. However, I have one or two queries that I want to put to my right hon. Friend that I hope he will be able to deal with when he winds up.

The first motion would allow the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to publish papers relating to complaints that have either not been upheld or been dealt with through the rectification process. My right hon. Friend is quite right that the current practice—whereby the commissioner publishes details on the number and type of complaints received in his annual report, along with details of outcomes—does not give sufficient information to the public. His Committee has pointed out that the commissioner responds if he is asked whether a complaint about a particular individual has been received. The Committee has given good reasons for the change that it proposes today. However, I would be grateful if my right hon. Friend elaborated a little on why it decided to introduce an element of retrospection. He said that the proposal would bring the complaints procedure into line with practices that have been adopted elsewhere in the House. However, I am sure that he would agree that this raises the possibility of complaints that have long been dealt with being reopened, through the media and other means, and often where Members have left the House. I hope that when he sums up this debate he will elaborate on exactly how his Committee considered that point, and on why it came down on the side that it did.

There is also an issue, which I am sure my right hon. Friend will recognise, about publishing evidence on complaints that have not been upheld. He was right to say that on many occasions that will assist hon. Members, by showing that the complaint against them was completely unfounded. However, there is also a risk that the whole affair will be reopened. I wonder whether he could elaborate on what kind of evidence the commissioner will publish on such occasions, and on how he will decide what should be published and what should not.

For those under investigation, the need for transparency has to be balanced with their right to a fair consideration of the complaint against them, as it would be in any walk of life. The House is no different in that respect from anywhere else. However, the reputational damage that can be caused to a Member, even where a complaint is not upheld, is considerable. Given that the commissioner has always recognised that a Member’s reputation should not be risked without proper cause, and given that he has also noted that there is a spike in complaints in the run-up to a general election, will my right hon. Friend say what consideration his Committee gave to that question? Could the Committee and the commissioner together develop a code of practice on what can be published in the run-up to a general election, so as to avoid a huge rise in politically motivated complaints that are not upheld, but made purely so that someone’s opponent can issue newsletters saying, “MP X is under investigation by the Standards and Privileges Committee”?

[Mr Sheerman]

My hon. Friend is a highly trained lawyer, but, for those who are worried about the proposal, let me say that we believe in transparency—we campaigned for a better system—but we also want that balance, with justice for all Members, so that they are treated in a fair and democratic way.

[Helen Jones]

I am a lawyer, but I am not sure that I am a highly trained one—I am certainly a very out-of-practice one. I recognise that my hon. Friend has a long record on campaigning for more transparency, but there is always a balance to be struck between the need for fairness to those under investigation and the need for transparency. We all recognise that it is not necessarily easy to draw the line. The Committee has done an excellent job in trying to make proposals that achieve the right balance, but it is not always easy. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley will consider that point about the run-up to a general election, which is a consideration for Members in all parts of the House.

The second motion would give the commissioner the power to initiate an investigation. That sensible move might increase the access to justice that my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) mentioned, because it would allow the commissioner to look at things that are perhaps aired in public, but not necessarily referred to him. I know, too, that there has been some concern among hon. Members about allowing the commissioner to act pursuant to a finding by the compliance officer of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. That is not because hon. Members do not want there to be a compliance officer; it is because there is some concern about the procedures adopted by IPSA. However, I understand—I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley will confirm it—that it will still be for the commissioner to decide whether there is a case to answer, according to the same standards that he applies now, when he considers whether the rules of the House have been breached. I hope that that provides some reassurance to hon. Members.

The final motion will probably present us with the most difficulties. We are being asked to agree in principle to two lay members being appointed to the Standards and Privileges Committee. We support that move, but there is no doubt that if the House agrees the motion, there will still be a lot of work to be done. The Committee on Standards in Public Life said that lay members should be chosen through what it called

“the official public appointments process”.

Much as we love the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and much as we acknowledge that its knowledge of the rules of the House is deep and abiding, the problem is that none of us knows exactly what the official public appointments process is, because it differs according to which organisation one is dealing with. Therefore, we will first need the Procedure Committee to look at appointments. However, I hope that we do not get another round of the same, small coterie of the great and the good being appointed. There is a quangocracy out there, and I personally would like members of the public who have not previously been involved to be appointed.

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

What is certain about the recruitment process is that we will have head-hunting firms earning a lot of commission from the taxpayer. That is causing a number of people in this place a great deal of concern.

[Helen Jones]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. When the Procedure Committee looks at the issue, I hope that we will be able to avoid that. With great respect to all the ladies and gentlemen who serve on many committees, I do not want to see the usual suspects. I would like to see people who have not been involved before and who bring an entirely different perspective.

[Mr Jenkin]

The third motion concerns by far the most contentious matter before the House this afternoon. As Chairman of the Public Administration Committee, which is responsible for the public appointments commissioner, I can attest to the fact that what the hon. Lady is saying is absolutely correct. I do not think that Whitehall is the model of how to make public appointments, and in any case there comes a point where, even if we are bringing lay members into House, it should be this House that appoints them, not necessarily ex-civil servants who do not understand how the House works.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Jones]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very fair point and he brings a lot of expertise from the Public Administration Committee. Having battled for many years to get more people from the most health-deprived or socially deprived areas of my constituency appointed to health trusts and as magistrates, I have great sympathy for the points he makes. I hope that the Procedure Committee will take those remarks on board and consider different ways of finding lay members to assist the House.

[Mr Sheerman]

Many of us on the Back Benches could be persuaded of the value of lay members, but the House is a strange place with a strange culture, so local knowledge is needed. Anyone who believed that what had happened to Members in the past 18 months or two years did not depend on the Whips and party leadership would have to think again.

[Helen Jones]

As a former Whip, I would have to say that the Whips always act in the best interests of those whom they serve and that they are known for their understanding, kindness and gentleness. However, my hon. Friend makes a fair point. Whoever is appointed will need induction into the rules and procedures of the House, just as Members need that induction when we first arrive here. The Procedure Committee could consider that.

One issue to consider is whether the lay members would have voting rights. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley made a fair point when he said that any decision that was not supported by the lay members would not be trusted by the public. Previously, his Committee has assumed that those voting rights would be confined to issues of standards and not to privileges. Perhaps we should consider splitting the Committee in dealing with those very different issues.

Another possible problem has been pointed out by the Clerk: lay members might not be covered by privilege when they take part in a Committee investigation. If that is the case, the House will face the difficult decision of whether to extend qualified privilege to non-Members. That would have huge implications for the future business of the House and would have to be considered very carefully by the Procedure Committee, who are the right people to do so. I have absolute faith that the Committee would consider the issue in detail, but I suspect that the inquiry would be long and comprehensive. The Committee already has a number of issues to deal with, so we are giving it a great deal more work, but it is most fitted to undertaking that work. These are matters for the House. I know that hon. Members want to be satisfied on a number of issues before we vote on them, and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley will respond to some of those issues when he sums up. We commend the motions to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I agree with the point made by the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Tony Lloyd) about how we choose the lay members. The House has fallen into the habit of finding people seen to be more respectable than we are in order to resolve some of the difficulties that have arisen. Inevitably, they turn out to be former permanent secretaries, but with the greatest respect to those eminent people, they are seen as more respectable only because they have not been exposed in public life to the extent that many of us in public life have been.

[Helen Jones]

Continuing the debate about who should be appointed, does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the problems we have encountered—we will see this in the debate later on the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority—is that civil servants tend to want to fit everyone else into the civil service mode, and often do not understand the work of a Member of Parliament?

[Mr Jenkin]

I wholly agree with that point, and it fits with the one I am trying to make, which is that their perspective is necessarily a different one, owing to civil servants’ long and distinguished experience. Very often—it has to be said—Parliament will have been, throughout their careers, perhaps a matter of great frustration to them, and they might well share the feeling of many others about how poorly the House has done its jobs in various ways over the years. I do not think, therefore, that they necessarily have the right perspective—they have one perspective, but it cannot be solely the right perspective. We have to take their recommendations gratefully and humbly, but add a wider perspective to them to give them life.

On the question of adding lay members to a Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron), who moved the motion, gave examples of where lay members have been added to other committees. However, those are not parliamentary committees and are not, for example, subject to the question of privilege, and it is on parliamentary privilege that I wish to make three brief points. First, there are members of the judiciary and senior figures in public life who have served elsewhere in public life who are either careless of the question of parliamentary privilege or actually could not care less about parliamentary privilege.

The word “privilege” carries certain overtones. At one stage before the election, it went out to the Conservative party that we should not use that word, because it would be misunderstood and seem to relate to the then Leader of the Opposition’s education. In fact, every Parliament in the world of any distinction enjoys some measure of privilege or immunity in order that those Members can do their job. The reason we had the Bill of Rights in 1689 was to enable the House to function, and we still need those privileges, that protection and those immunities. We hold those immunities not for ourselves and the protection of our own persons or private interests, and not to protect us from the criminal law if we commit criminal offences—as we have just discovered in a recent case—but so that we can advance the interests of the country freely and without fear or favour. These are the people’s privileges. I urge the Procedure Committee, as it considers this matter, to accept the advice of the Clerk of the House. Let me, for the second day on the trot, quote from a note from the Clerk. Referring to the role of lay members on the Committee, he made it clear that he did not comment on the merits of the proposal itself, which I personally welcome, but he also said:

“It is not clear to me that their participation in decision-making by voting is in fact covered by parliamentary privilege. At the very least the matter is questionable and therefore may be justiciable.”

Until that matter has been comprehensively and categorically resolved, it would be sensible for the Procedure Committee to recommend that if the Standards and Privileges Committee is to have lay members, they should not be voting members.

I imagine that it would be extremely hard for the Standards and Privileges Committee to ignore the advice of the lay members, particularly if they are as eminent as I hope they will be. I very much hope that one of them will be a retired judge, for example. I think that it would greatly assist the functioning of the Committee to receive more legal advice, so that it could interpret the byzantine rules and regulations and be navigated through difficult, contentious issues of evidence and fairness. After all, that is what the Committee is about. It would be very difficult to ignore the advice of a retired judge, whether he had a vote or not.

Secondly, I should be interested to know how often votes take place on the Committee. Never? I see a shaking head.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Jones Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I am quite sure, Mr Speaker, that in your capable hands and those of your deputies there is no question of filibustering on Fridays. Poetry, however, there may be. Whether that is antisocial or otherwise is for Members to judge. Clearly, procedural devices are sometimes used on Fridays. Any move to remove some of those devices would be a matter for the House rather than for the Government.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

Does the Deputy Leader of the House agree that whatever day is chosen for private Members’ Bills, it is important that opinion on those Bills is tested in the Lobby, not talked out by dubious practices such as speaking for an hour and 39 minutes on a two-clause Bill or quoting what was very bad poetry? What can he do to protect the rights of Back-Bench Members with regard to their private Members’ Bills? Will he give the House an assurance that the Government will not use these tactics to block debate on the Gangmasters Licensing (Extension to Construction Industry) Bill, which is of vital importance for safety in the construction industry?

[Mr Heath]

I remember a very frustrating period of my life in the last Session of Parliament when I had a private Member’s Bill—a very important one about fuel poverty—and it seemed to me that some Members on the Government side, including the Minister, spoke at rather greater length than I had expected to avoid its making further progress. I therefore understand the point that the hon. Lady is making. I repeat, however, that this is a matter for the Procedure Committee to look at, and I am sure that she will make her observations known to that Committee.