Oral Answers to Questions

James Gray Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. By the content of his answer, the Minister has opened matters a bit beyond Birmingham and we might even stretch to Wiltshire. I call James Gray.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the political and constitutional reforms that would most benefit the people of Birmingham, as well as the people in North Wiltshire and elsewhere in England, would be the early introduction of English votes on English matters?

[Greg Clark]

I do agree with my hon. Friend. It is right that we correct an anomaly. That should happen as well as the devolution of power within England, which this Government have been pioneering.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his compliment. We are trying to make a lot of progress, and the British Government are now regarded as world leading, after having been, frankly, a byword for failure in Government IT. Other Governments are now using the source code for gov.uk, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Baroness Lane-Fox leads the Go ON UK charity, which is dedicated to getting more people online, which is the key purpose. When we provide the assisted digital option, we ideally want to frame contracts so that they incentivise the provider not just to provide a service, but to use it to help individuals to get online so that their lives are enriched more widely.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

In answer to the very good question from my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray), the Minister responded that those, like many in my constituency, who have no access to computers and are not online will be given something called an “assisted digital alternative”. Will he perhaps tell us what that is?

[Mr Maude]

It can take many forms, but the point is that the service is provided or the transaction is conducted digitally—it is conducted online—although not necessarily by the citizen themselves. For example, it could be done in a library, where someone sits alongside the citizen to help them to input data or conduct the transaction, or it could be done on the telephone, with someone on the other end to put data into the web service. There are a lot of different ways of providing it, and they will be fashioned around the needs of the user, not the convenience of the Government.

Iraq: Coalition Against ISIL

James Gray Excerpts

Friday 26th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have said that we will come back to the House if, for instance, we make the decision that we should take air action with others in Syria, but I am not contemplating the use of British combat forces because I think it would be the wrong thing to do. The lesson to learn from previous conflicts is that we should play the most appropriate role for us. It is for the Iraqi Government and for the Iraqi army to defeat ISIL in Iraq. Indeed, in time I hope, it is for a proper, legitimate Syrian Government to defeat ISIL in Syria. Where we should be helping is with aid, diplomacy and political pressure and, yes, with our unique military assets where they can help, but it should be part of a comprehensive strategy and should not go over the heads of local people and should not ignore the regional powers, learning the lessons of the past. That is what this debate is about, that is what this motion is about, and that is why I believe that we are taking the right steps.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that the wording of the motion before the House today was carefully chosen to ensure that we get support for it? Would he accept that it to some degree hamstrings the Government? Is there not a place here for leadership and statesmanship, rather the popular support of the House? He needs the support of the country, but do we really need a vote on the matter?

NATO Summit

James Gray Excerpts

Monday 8th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is a rare event for the hon. Gentleman and I to be in almost complete agreement, but I think this is it! I agree with what he said about the importance of the issue of addiction to prescription drugs, but above all I think Newport really did put a great face forward in how it responded, because there are pressures with a NATO summit: there are traffic problems and disruption, but I thought people were incredibly reasonable about that and very welcoming, including the local media, to everyone who came. Securing the legacy is about supporting the investment conference and making sure we maintain a pro-business environment in south Wales.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

The growing parliamentary convention, which the Prime Minister mentioned a moment ago, that this House should be consulted and given a vote on all overseas deployments would fail for two reasons in this context. The first, of course, is that the NATO rapid reaction force he has described would be deployed within two days, so presumably there would be no possibility of any such vote—perhaps there should not be one anyhow. It would also be deployed under NATO command. Secondly, the House has voted on war on only two occasions—one was Iraq in 2003 and the second was Syria last year—and neither of them was an outstanding success. Does the Prime Minister agree that serious thought ought now to be given to precisely what role this House should have when we decide to deploy our troops overseas?

[The Prime Minister]

I hear what my hon. Friend says, but I would say that the convention that has grown up is that if a premeditated decision is made by the Government about action to be undertaken—whether the war in Iraq, or my view that it was right to consider action in response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria—it is right to consult and, if possible, to have a vote in the House of Commons. I do not think that we need to write that down in some book of rules for it to be the overwhelming convention. But as I have said, there are times where very rapid decisions have to be taken, and I think that the House of Commons understands that when that happens, as was the case with Libya, you make the decision and come straight to the House to explain yourself afterwards.

Ukraine (Flight MH17) and Gaza

James Gray Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I strongly agree with what the hon. Lady has just said about Hamas, as I mentioned a few moments ago. In terms of the rules governing which airline should fly on which routes, I have asked the Secretary of State for Transport to consider the issue carefully. Eurocontrol is the organisation that sets out the parameters for European flights and obviously airlines themselves have to choose whether to continue with those flights. We are going to look very carefully at whether more needs to be done in this area.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Even if the Prime Minister will not accept the call from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) for some reappraisal of the defence strategy after these terrible events, will he not accept that the national security strategy was written some four years ago, before Iraq, before Syria, before these events and before Ukraine? Surely it is now time for a fundamental reappraisal of our position in the world.

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with my hon. Friend that the important thing about a national security strategy and a strategic defence and security review is that they should be regularly refreshed. That is why we are planning to do that next year. We start with the strategy and then move on to what that actually means in practice, but I do not think that we should do this every time a new event takes place. We should have a proper process for setting out these things and that is what we will do.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Gray Excerpts

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

A disproportionate number of those not registered are among the 200,000 members of our armed services. Many of them are either not interested or are registered in places where they used to live or used to be based. What more can the Government do with the Ministry of Defence and our armed services to encourage our servicemen to register to vote and then, of course, actually to vote?

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. One of the great advantages of online registration is that it is available to our serving servicemen and women around the world. It is a huge step forward that they do not need to rely on the post.

Conflict Decisions and Constitutional Reform

James Gray Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Allen]

For the convenience of Members, I asked the powers that be whether it would be possible to take the two together, which will allow people such as the hon. Lady to catch their trains back to their constituencies if they intervene early, rather than having to wait for the second debate. I thank the Chair for assistance in that.

If I may, I will introduce the first of the two topics: Parliament’s role when the country goes to war. It is an onerous responsibility, and in many ways we have been relieved of it over the years, because the Executive, exercising their control over the legislature, have often not bothered to involve Parliament. In a modern democracy, that is no longer a tenable way to run our affairs and govern ourselves. For me, the most obvious abuse of the system—one that demonstrated that a new, clear, honest and open relationship between Government and Parliament was necessary—came with the events around the Iraq war.

As our troops were gathering in the desert, it was pretty evident—every news channel was certainly briefed—that something was going to happen and that serious engagement was going to take place, but Parliament had gone into recess. I and numerous others were keen for Parliament to return and have a debate and discussion. Our Prime Minister was popping off to Camp David for regular discussions with President George W. Bush, who was keen to go into Iraq, yet our own Parliament had not been convened. Members of this House from all political perspectives and with all views on Iraq were not allowed to vocalise those views in the forum of the people.

It got to such a point that I and others organised petitions to the then Speaker to reconvene the House. They fell on deaf ears, and it became evident that in fact it was not within the power of the Speaker to recall Parliament; he could only do so at the behest of the Government. Perhaps my Committee needs to have another look at how Parliament is recalled. The power vested in Government was obviously not being used to request that the Speaker recall the House. I remember that it got to the point where I asked whether it would be possible for a Member or many Members to get together and hire, rent or be given permission to use a place to have our own debate, without having to recall the full panoply of the House. Of course, that was dismissed without a thought. We were getting ever closer to war—to a decision that some of us felt would make millions of terrorists, rather than reduce the chances of global terrorism. It was a very important question—not a little bush fire war, but a regional war that would have consequences for decades, possibly centuries—but no, the House could not come back.

I started to organise a way for my colleagues in all parts of the House to create their own parliament, to give Members of Parliament a chance to get together and voice the concerns that were clearly out there among the British people. We hired Church House over the road. I asked Members if they wanted to come to our parliament—a Members’ parliament, rather than an official Parliament—and we got to critical mass when a majority of the non-payroll vote replied “Yes” to the invitation to Church House. The former Speaker, Jack Weatherill, agreed to put down his name as speaker, with the proviso, which he and I discussed, that every Member who attended had at least 10 minutes on their hind legs to say what they felt about the impending war, even if that meant—this is the first time you will hear me say this, Mr Weir—an all-night sitting, something I opposed when we, thankfully, won the battle on that issue many years ago. Everybody would stay there, and Lord Weatherill would sit there, until everybody had had their say.

Even that did not get Government to reconvene Parliament. What did was that I communicated with the BBC, which agreed to cover the parliament in Church House gavel to gavel, as the BBC called it—from the opening moments until the close. Within a matter of hours, I received a phone call from the then Leader of the House, Robin Cook, who told me that the Government were going to reconvene Parliament.

We should not have to do that. Members of Parliament should not need to organise their own parliament to consider such issues. It is an abuse of our democracy that that takes place. Although in the end there was a vote, despite the biggest rebellion in a governing party in British political history, people on the payroll vote sided with the Prime Minister of the day, and people were threatened, intimidated and cajoled into supporting the Prime Minister. Sadly, my soon-to-be good friend, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), who was then the leader of the Conservative party, led most of his troops through the Prime Minister’s Lobby, although the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) and many others, including Liberal Democrat Members, sided with the incredibly large number of Members of Parliament who said that now was not the time, and that the case, importantly, was not proven.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Allen]

I will in a second. What that underlines to me is the need for process. In a democracy, in which a Parliament and a Government need to work together, there must be an accommodation, a form of words that both Executive and legislature can agree on that allows sensible debate. I will define “sensible debate” in a moment, when I have given way.

[Mr Gray]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is making an extremely interesting speech. He has spoken on these matters extremely interestingly for 10 or 15 years, to my knowledge. However, I am slightly puzzled by his line of argument. First, he is of course right about the recall of Parliament, but that is entirely separate from the matter that we are discussing. Of course Parliament should be recalled when something important has to be discussed, but that has no relevance whatever to what we are discussing now. Secondly, he may not like the outcome of the vote on Iraq, and he may say that people were cajoled and persuaded by the Whips to vote in a particular way and all those things, but that is precisely what happens for every single vote in this place, and quite rightly, too; that is the nature of democracy.

The interesting thing about the Iraq vote is that for the first time in 250 years this Parliament voted to go to war. Incidentally, the hon. Gentlemen is wrong in saying that there was simply that last vote on 13 February—I think that was the date. There was also a vote in November and another in December. The House of Commons voted three times to go to war in Iraq, and that was the first time in recent parliamentary history, going back to the 18th century, that Parliament had in fact voted to go to war.

[Mr Allen]

I do not disagree with any of the facts that the hon. Gentleman has outlined. In fact, we are in the middle of an interesting discussion in The House magazine. It is one of those debates in which one person writes a paragraph, then their opponent writes a paragraph and then the first person comes back. It is very interesting stuff, and I am having great fun with the hon. Gentleman; I hope that he is, too.

This is not about the facts. It is about the interpretation; it is about the judgment. Above all, for me, it is about process; that is the point that I am trying to make. It is about having the right process. To be told what to do and “This is the way we’re doing it” is not my definition of process. Process seems to involve more than one party, and in this case the Government of the country and the Parliament of the country, I think, can work out a sensible way to go forward.

[Mr Gray]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Allen]

Let me just make this argument first—

[Mr Gray]

This is a central point—an absolutely central point.

[Mr Allen]

—and then I will give way.

[Mr Gray]

I thought you said you would give way.

[Mr Allen]

If the hon. Gentleman allows me to speak and does not heckle me, he may get in a little faster than he is currently likely to do.

The process is very, very important, and I believe that my Select Committee, with its members from all parties producing unanimous reports, could not have done more in attempting to craft words that would satisfy all parties. It may just be a rumour, but I understand that most of the Departments in Whitehall and most of the Ministers involved are content with the words that we have all come up with, apart from one Department—I understand that it may be the Ministry of Defence; I do not know—which still feels that any legitimate process would be inhibiting, so let me just address one remark to the Ministry of Defence, if indeed it is the MOD or its Minister who is doing this.

It is a great strength, when people go or have been to war, if they have legitimacy in what they are doing. In a modern democracy, if people choose to push and cajole elected Members of Parliament, members of the public and others into a particular view without making their case—not without voting for or against; I am not even suggesting that—they lose the moral high ground. They look as though their case is weak. We need to develop a process and a procedure whereby we strengthen our democracy, particularly when we are fighting against people who care nothing for moral or ethical values and will, at the drop of a hat, ride roughshod over democratic process. We above all should not do that.

The final—

[Mr Gray]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Allen]

The final point that I will make on this—

[Mr Gray]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Allen]

I am probably less interested in the history of this, although we need to learn from the history and the ins and outs of what happened—all the dossiers, the weapons of mass destruction and so on. What I am interested in as a parliamentarian is that we all learn the lesson of how we can do this better. That is the main thing that my Select Committee is pursuing. There are people on my Select Committee who voted one way, people who voted the other, and people who were not even in the House at the time, but we have an interest in saying, “In the future, let there be clarity, to the degree that we can obtain it, on how we take the most important decision that any of us will ever face.” My Select Committee—

[Mr Gray]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Allen]

No.

[Mr Gray]

Why not?

[Mr Allen]

If I may continue—

[Mr Gray]

You are supposed to be giving way.

[Mr Mike Weir (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Mr Allen]

This is a rather important issue, Mr Weir, and I know that the hon. Gentleman is agitated about it. If he wishes, I can make a case even on the back of what has happened in Iraq this week, with thousands of people dying and with individuals being executed on television for the benefit of people with particular views. These are really serious issues, so I would like to explain how this Parliament and this Government can work together to ensure that on similar, very serious occasions, we get this right in a way that perhaps we have not before. Again, we have made no outrageous demand that not a soldier should be deployed anywhere at all without the wise words of this House—of course not. We have made five reports to Government and the House, trying to get a clear resolution of this issue.

We have had three or four wars during the time we have been trying to get Government to come to the table and make an agreement that will take us all forward together, united as a nation in the most difficult circumstances we are ever likely to face. Have we been tolerant? One could argue that we have been far too tolerant.

In our first report, we suggested—this is not outrageous language—that the Government should

“bring forward a draft parliamentary resolution for consultation with us among others, and for debate and decision by the end of 2011.”

Similarly, the Government responded to our second report by saying:

“we hope to make progress on this matter in a timely and appropriate manner.”

That was in September 2011.

Our third report concluded:

“The Government needs to honour the Foreign Secretary’s undertaking to the House to ‘enshrine in law for the future the necessity of consulting Parliament on military action’”.

That was not me or my Committee, but the Foreign Secretary. He still is the Foreign Secretary, and one hopes that his words will come to pass. Our report continued by saying that the Government should

“do so before the end of the current Parliament. In the absence of any other timetable, this is the one to which we will hold them.”

Let us move on to the fourth report on this issue by a Select Committee of this House—my Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. In September 2013, after the House had debated the Iraq question, we called for the Government to

“provide a comprehensive, updated statement of its position on the role of Parliament in conflict decisions.”

Again, the language was hardly inflammatory. The report went on:

“We also recommend that it precisely details the specific steps which will now be taken to fulfil the strong public commitment to enshrine in law the necessity of consulting Parliament on military action.”

That shows a Committee trying to make the system work for everyone’s benefit.

Finally, in March this year we published the fifth report, on which the Minister may like to comment in his speech. We drafted a resolution—a draft resolution means that the House and the Government can discuss it, change it and make it more workable if we have failed to make it as workable as possible. We produced a resolution that set out the process we could follow in order to get approval from the House of Commons on future conflict decisions. We called on the Government to consider the resolution and come forward with a revised draft by—we were getting a little frustrated, so specified the time—June 2014, with a view to having the House agree a resolution by November 2014.

We are now in June 2014. So far, we have received no Government response, but I hope that we get one this month. Knowing the Minister as I do, I hope very much that it will be a positive, creative and constructive response. I hope it will be in a form of words that can take us forward for perhaps 50 or 100 years, and will agree with us on a sensible way in which the House, its Members having been duly elected by the public, can be involved with the Executive, who have a vital and necessary interest in sometimes being able to move swiftly and expeditiously on conflicts that we would hope to avoid in other circumstances. I hope that the Minister has had the chance to prepare, and will give us some good news today on how we can go forward together on such a vital issue.

Just to show how forgiving I can be, I am going to let my friend the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) intervene.

[Mr Gray]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman, although I am not quite sure what he is forgiving me for.

[Mr Allen]

You talk too much, James, that is your problem.

[Mr Mike Weir (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Mr Gray]

All I did was to seek to intervene at a crucial point in his speech. The hon. Gentleman’s entire thesis seems to be based on the fact that he did not approve of or agree with the Iraq war. My question to him is simple: if indeed he is basing his entire report and thesis on that fact, how could it be that, of all wars in the past 250 years, the Iraq war was the only one in which there was not one but three substantive votes in this place before the deployment of troops? If his answer is that he does not like the way in which his party whipped its Members, and all the cajolery, bribery and other things he mentioned, I am afraid to say that that has absolutely nothing to do with going to war; it is to do with processes in this place.

[Mr Allen]

I will just let the Members present make of that what they wish.

[Mr Gray]

Why not try answering it instead?

[Mr Allen]

I will have to put the hon. Gentleman on the naughty step if he carries on.

I would like to move on to the report issued by my Select Committee on the need for a constitutional convention for the United Kingdom, on which I will be happy to take interventions from colleagues.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mike Weir (in the Chair)]

Order. Before we proceed, I must say that interventions are becoming very long. I appreciate that these are complex matters, but will Members please keep their interventions short? There will be chances for you to make speeches later on.

[Mr Gray]

On a point of order, Mr Weir. As you will have guessed from my interventions, I had intended to contribute to this debate, but I have just had a message from outside that my stepdaughter has collapsed and is in difficulty. I had intended to express my view, but if the House will forgive me, I will push off and sort her out.

[Mr Mike Weir (in the Chair)]

That is perfectly understandable.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are helping families with child care, not least by giving 15 hours—[Interruption.] That is happening before the election; it has happened under this Government in this Parliament—15 hours of free nursery care for three-year-olds and four-year-olds. [Interruption.] Opposition Members say it is not enough; it is more than Labour ever provided. [Interruption.] It is good to see the shadow Chancellor gesticulating in favour of his leader now; he will be outside in a minute briefing against him.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

The whole world has watched with grave concern events in Crimea and the massing of Russian troops on the eastern border of Ukraine. Coming on top of other instability in the world—in Syria, north Africa, the Central African Republic, Venezuela and elsewhere—is it not time that the Prime Minister re-examined the national security strategy and maybe, just maybe, thought about revising some of the recent deep and damaging defence cuts?

[The Prime Minister]

We will review the national security strategy on the four-year rolling basis that we established it—that is the right thing to do. On what we have done on defence spending, we still have a top five defence budget of any country in the world; we have removed the £38 billion black hole that we inherited; and we have set out spending of £160 billion over the next decade on defence equipment. But we would not be able to get that modern defence equipment—the things that modern defence forces need—if we had not taken difficult and long-term decisions at the start of this Parliament.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Gray Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

The lessons that were to be learned from the experience in Northern Ireland have been learned. For example, the canvass that was not followed in Northern Ireland will be followed here in this country. The right hon. Gentleman rightly says that there is a positive duty on electoral registration officers to ensure that the register is complete. I take that very seriously, and I know that they do.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

A unique opportunity will arise to improve the scope, depth and accuracy of the electoral register in the next couple of years as our servicemen and women return from Afghanistan and Germany. What new initiative will the Government take to ensure that when these personnel are settled in their seven super-garrisons across Britain they will be almost 100% registered to vote?

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. It is crucial that our armed forces serving the country overseas are part of the franchise. He will know that arrangements have been put in place to make sure that the need for registration—the renewal of registration —should happen only once every five years, rather than annually, to reflect the difficulties that are sometimes experienced in registering during active service.

St John Ambulance

James Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to have this debate, although it is not one for which my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) or I wished to call. My name came out of the hat, but I take no pleasure in the necessity of the debate taking place. I am—at least for the next hour and a half or so—the vice-president of the Canterbury and Coastal branch of St John. Before the restructuring of the organisation, I was proud to be the vice-president of the Herne Bay branch in my constituency.

The St John Ambulance service is an organisation that has been revered, honoured and respected in Herne Bay for generations. Its presence at the Queen Vic memorial hospital summer fête, the Lark in the Park, football matches, rugby matches and other sporting events, and many concerts and performances held in Kings Hall has been part of the fabric of the town, and the branded ambulances have provided succour for those injured, sick or in need of transfer from one medical facility to another. In my parliamentary lifetime, volunteers such as the late and much loved John Morriss and, currently, George Tunnadine and his partner have been mainstays of our community. They and many others around the county of Kent have accumulated years of dedicated service to society and the public, and have provided countless hours of hard work behind the scenes, learning and then passing on to others their first-aiding and medical skills.

That wonderful inheritance has been placed at risk through mismanagement and a failure to communicate by those charged with protecting it, preserving it and passing it on to their successors, which is why we are here this afternoon. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury—if he catches your eye, Mr Turner—will deal with specific issues illustrated by and arising from the situation at St John nursing home in Whitstable in his constituency. Others will also wish to have their say, and I am aware that the St John damage control machine has sought to brief individual Members and the Minister about the huge and unqualified success of what others regard as administrative vandalism.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend about the incredible service of local people to the St John Ambulance brigade over so many years. I pay particular tribute to my own friend and colleague, David Hempleman-Adams, who was the chairman of the Wiltshire organisation, until it was closed recently, and is now a trustee nationally. He would disagree about the structural points that my hon. Friend is about to make.

[Sir Roger Gale]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is sitting on my right, but as those remarks have not yet been made, it might be polite, if nothing else, if he were to wait until I have said what I am going to say. I can say to him that I am sure that the St John briefing notes, which I have seen, will have been well and truly read into the record by the time that we are through.

I will not detain hon. Members for too long, but I need to illustrate with broad brush strokes what has gone wrong and then, as the subject of the debate is the regulation of St John Ambulance by the Charity Commission, set out why the commission has been unwilling, or unable, to intervene in a manner that might have been expected in the interests of those supportive members of the public who have so generously given many millions of pounds over the years to the St John Ambulance service. It is not my style to say under privilege anything that I would not be prepared to say outside Parliament on the record or in public. Nor do I propose—this might come as a relief to some—to name names or to besmirch individual reputations. There is, however, a collective responsibility at the very top of St John that has to be held to account. My understanding is that, in recent years, the St John accumulated reserves have suffered from a near catastrophic 30% loss. I am sure that that figure will be disputed and that “reasons beyond our control” will be offered for the failure to protect the charity’s funds properly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Roger Gale]

I accept that. I know the lady to whom my hon. Friend refers and she is extremely hard-working. I concede that there may well be regional variations, and I will come to that precise issue almost immediately, but I cannot help feeling that the fundamental malaise comes from the very top, and that while some organisers have chosen to interpret instructions in a particular way and successfully, others have been perhaps less successful or felt that they were put under pressure. I am not suggesting that the people doing the job are bad people, except perhaps at the very top, and even then I do not mean that they are bad people in that sense.

We now move into uncharted territory, and I will offer the House some observations that have been made to me, not only from Kent but from East Sussex, the midlands and Yorkshire, as examples of precisely this effect of top-down diktats. When events such as this debate reach the public airwaves, testimony also emerges. During the past week, I have taken phone calls and received written communications from people whose details I have but whom I propose to anonymise for the record.

From East Sussex, a volunteer with 35 years’ service under their belt speaks of a branch that in 2008 had a membership of nearly 86, but which has now declined to just three or four. They also tell me of some 13 units whose headquarters buildings are to be sold, and that is in just one district. Another volunteer tells me of training that has gone downhill, with sessions booked from a centralised HQ in Aylesbury that is out of touch with the rest of the new region. In the former area, there were 146 trained emergency ambulance crews; in the corresponding new administrative area, there are only 86. I was told of headquarters premises sold by St John for £80,000 to a developer, who cleared the site and sold it on for £220,000. St John’s justification for that seems to have been, “We’re not property developers.”

It has been suggested to me—of course, the accurate figures must be available within St John—that the result of reorganisation has been a loss in Kent alone of perhaps as much as 75% of the membership. That is all anecdotal, of course, but it is a matter of record that on Thursday 24 January 2013, a special resolution was tabled calling for a vote of no confidence in the priory and the priory council of St John. That resolution was defeated, but in circumstances that the record suggests were, at the very least, bizarre.

Instead of citing telephone calls, I will quote directly. From Kent:

“We learned of the reorganisation in 2011 and that the new structure would be in place by October 2012.

Kent became part of the South East Region on 1st October 2012 being administered from the Regional Office in Aylesbury.

Our County HQ at West Malling was closed and almost all of the loyal staff made redundant.

All funds that were held in County accounts were amalgamated into the Regional Pot.

The feeling among the membership is that the new Regional Directors are trying to run St John as a commercial company and that making a profit is their main aim.

A small number of local events that we covered for a small donation are now not able to run because St John wants to charge them a commercial price and they cannot afford it.

Each Division would raise funds to buy a new Ambulance; they took pride in their vehicle, kept it clean and well stocked and were proud to display their Divisional name on the side of the Ambulance. Those Ambulances have had the names removed and no longer belong to the Division but are moved around the Region with no-one taking ownership for their cleanliness and equipment.

Kent was one of the best-run Counties in the Country with a very strong membership providing thousands of hours of voluntary service to the public of Kent. Sadly, the membership is declining fast and it appears that what has taken over 1000 years to establish the new management have destroyed in just over a year.

I would be interested to know where the funds that we held in Kent have disappeared to.”

From the east Midlands, a long-standing and very faithful divisional superintendent gave the following reasons for his recent and unexpected resignation from St John. I am quoting from a minute:

“That the commercial side of St John was taking over and using the voluntary arm, for financial gain, neither of which is within the spirit of St. John.

To achieve this end there is no regard or concern for the volunteers. We have not been consulted about anything, decisions are made over our heads even when affecting our Units personally, even including the decision to close down a particular unit.

The Leaders of East Midlands Region say whatever is suitable for the occasion, even if it’s not the truth and even if they’d said the total opposite before.”

That is followed by something that is even more disparaging and I will not read it out. It continues:

“The need for change in St. John is understood but the harsh, inconsiderate manner, with few explanations and little consideration of the volunteers, is not an appropriate way to introduce these changes. A more humane, considerate approach could have produced a better outcome.”

Another volunteer from Kent said that

“having been a member for almost 38yrs I am totally confused with this ‘restructuring’. All I see is an excuse to take all Divisional funds away from the Divisions into one large pot… Divisions virtually have to beg for funds and they are a long time coming if they come at all.

We now have a District Manager in Kent telling us he wants us to work with local authorities and KCC and his vision is to cut out event cover completely! Our whole ethos…for the past 1000 years has been to give help to the sick and since we were reformed in 1877 in England we have always covered public events assisting the injured. Our Division has some events we have been covering over fifty years.

I am very sad that everything St. John stands for is being undermined.”

[Mr Gray]

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend. I understand that local people are disturbed by these kinds of reorganisations; that is always the case. Will he explain why this is a matter for Her Majesty’s Government, or even why it is a matter worth raising in this Chamber? These might be worrying developments, but are they really a matter for Parliament?

[Sir Roger Gale]

I have already indicated the subject of the debate to my hon. Friend. The debate is about the Charity Commission’s involvement in the matter, which is a matter for Her Majesty’s Government. I will come on to that in a few moments, if he can possess his soul with a little patience.

A community first responder unit said:

“We would like to inform St John that after a unanimous vote by all CFR members we are going to close the Community First Responder Scheme… This will also mean that our St. John Membership will also cease. Some of the reasons that have caused us to take this decision are listed below…poor communication on behalf of St. John…poor record keeping on behalf of St John…lack of information on behalf of St John…forced to purchase through St John’s Services—not the best option…bad press coverage of St. John Ambulance”.

That final catalogue perhaps exemplifies the high-handed, arrogant and remote manner in which the Priory of England and the Islands of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem and the St John Ambulance leadership seem to have severally and collectively treated their volunteers and erstwhile supporters—that and the selling of the family silver.

Local headquarters are, of course, ultimately the property of St John, but with the funds to purchase and maintain those properties raised locally, it is not surprising that a sense of local pride and ownership has prevailed. To see their premises flogged off to meet the costs of the failings and excesses of what they regard as a bureaucratic and elitist London headquarters has proved to be more than many formerly loyal supporters can bear. A cleric from Yorkshire writes that

“when Selby was sold, the property which had been bought by the county had its proceeds taken from them for HQ funds. When a new property was found, the county leased it on a rent and had to pay so much a month for its use out of their own funds. They were not able to use the monies from the old property in any way! The same also was true for the Scarborough Division when it changed properties. I always think that it is unfair when London swallows up what has been raised by hard work in the counties—don’t you agree?”

I have to say that I do agree.

Against that unhappy backdrop, the Chamber will, I hope, shortly hear of the concerns surrounding the future of funds donated for the support of the St John residential home in Whitstable. Members may also hear of the shift—denied by St John—away from its core and Christian services and values, morphing a fine institution into little more than a commercial health and safety training organisation.

To directly answer the question from my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), I have a question for the Minister. When my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury and I referred the conduct of St John to the Charity Commission, we were told that:

“It is important to emphasise that although the Commission’s functions include encouraging and facilitating the better administration of charities, and taking remedial action to tackle misconduct or mismanagement, the law prohibits the Commission from acting directly in the administration of the charity. Trustees are the managers of their charities and it is their job to make the administrative and strategic decisions necessary for their charities’ proper and effective management… The Commission cannot direct the trustees to take one particular course of action or another. Neither does the Commission have discretion to overrule the trustees’ validly taken decision on the grounds that others take a different view, however strongly held.”

Either my hon. Friend the Minister will tell me that the commission is wrong and does have the powers to instigate independent inquiries into the conduct and management of St John, or he will have to tell me that the commission is correct and has no powers to intervene. If the latter is the case, the House will need to address that by giving the Charity Commission the additional powers necessary to properly discharge its duties in the public interest.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Turner. I will try to be brief because much of what needs to be said in the debate has already been said—I will certainly try to avoid repeating anything.

Let me start with what I believe to be three truths that will be welcomed by everyone in the Chamber. The first is that over many years St John Ambulance has done fantastic work for the people of this country. Every year it attends 52,000 events, many of which would not occur were St John Ambulance not there. An ambulance and first aid service have to be available at such events, and St John provides that at very modest cost to the organisers. I have been a beneficiary of that service.

The second universal truth is that the very many people who are members of St John Ambulance and have been trained by the organisation enjoy their participation greatly. It is a superb volunteer organisation. I pay huge tribute to the people of Wiltshire who are members of our extremely active branches throughout the county. Their great work is much appreciated.

The third universal truth, however, is that when any organisation—whether a voluntary organisation such as St John Ambulance, a business, a military organisation or a political organisation—is reorganised, many people in that organisation do not like it. Those who have been the chairmen or members of the committees of the 41 separate organisations that were previously St John Ambulance—or, indeed, members of the sub-units, or other committees and organisations—do not like the fact that they are no longer involved in the way in which they were previously. I understand that very human emotion.

Let me put the counter-argument for a moment, however. I have been briefed on the matter by my close friend, David Hempleman-Adams, who was the chairman of the Wiltshire branch of St John Ambulance. He assisted in the reorganisation and is now a trustee nationally. He is one of those who say, “We couldn’t go on the way we were. This was not the sustainable structure that we wanted to have for the time to come.”

Let us put aside for a moment the question of whether people in the organisation wanted it to be reorganised, although that is a key matter of great concern, and I am sure that St John Ambulance will be listening carefully to the concerns of many local people that are being raised in the debate. However, as I mentioned in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), that is not a matter for the Government. It would be wrong if the Government took an interest in the internal organisation of a voluntary body such as St John Ambulance, so the Minister is not qualified to respond to those particular criticisms.

The subject of the debate is the charity commissioners’ governance of St John Ambulance, and of course that, to some degree, is a matter for Parliament and Ministers—or at least it would be if the charity commissioners were not doing the job that the Government have asked them to do. The commissioners’ job is to look at the huge number of charities in the UK—I suspect that there may be hundreds of thousands if we include all the very small ones—and keep an eye on them to ensure that they are fulfilling the charitable functions that they are supposed to fulfil and that they are sustainable.

I think that I am right in saying that the charity commissioners would intervene only if a charity was not doing what it was set up to do, or if it was not sustainable. If a charity were, for example, losing large amounts of money every year and misusing the funds of volunteers or members of the organisation, that would indeed be a reason for the charity commissioners to step in and look that. I was not surprised in the slightest by the reaction that my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet got from the charity commissioners—indeed, I strongly welcomed it. They said, “We’ve looked into this and actually these are not matters for us; they are matters for St John Ambulance internally.” I was very glad indeed that the charity commissioners did not choose to intervene in detail on the ground.

I suspect, however, that had the organisation continued to lose the £9 million a year that it was losing until the reorganisation, that would indeed have been a matter for the charity commissioners. I understand that St John Ambulance still has reserves of some £20 million. As it was losing £9 million a year, that would mean that it would have been insolvent after another two years, which would indeed have been a matter of grave concern to the charity commissioners, as well as the organisers of the 52,000 events that the body attends every year and the 300,000 people who take part in it. That would be an extraordinarily important matter, and I am glad that that situation will now not occur following the body’s reorganisation.

I fear that bodies that have existed for many tens or even hundreds of years often become a little sclerotic and very local. We in the Conservative party know that extremely well. Some of our branches and associations are not quite of the great strength and power that was the case were many years ago. We see such things nationally all the time, but I very much welcome the fact that St John Ambulance realised the problem that it was facing. It understood that it would be in difficulty with the Charity Commission if it did not do something about it, and it set about saying, “We provide a first-class service for local people, and local people love being part of it. We will therefore take difficult steps to reorganise the organisation so that it remains solvent for the years to come.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) on securing the debate. I will make some local points about the St John home in my constituency, after which I will address several of the national issues that have been raised and debated by people who have had a longer involvement with the Order of St John than I have. I should perhaps say that my grandfather was the St John Ambulance county commissioner for Kent. At the time, he was the county’s largest employer, so I imagine that the many years of his time that he gave for free were of some value. That was a long time ago, but more recently a friend of mine has been involved with the St John eye clinics in Palestine, and I am constantly impressed when I see people on the St John operation.

I will focus specifically on the St John home in Tankerton in my constituency. That much-loved home was founded in 1947 and given to the Priory of England and the Islands in 1955. It was transferred to St John Ambulance in 1999, and it has always had a separate governance structure. The people who gave the home its £750,000 in assets did so, almost without exception, because they had a connection with the home. Had any of them realised that its separate governance structure had no legal basis and that those assets might one day be seized by the centre, I suspect that the fundraising would have taken a very different shape. The capital earns around £30,000 in interest, which bridges the gap between the cost of running the home and the income that it receives from residents and Kent county council. The home is small, with only 18 beds, and that money is essential for its financial viability.

I have huge respect for my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry), but I found some of his contribution surprising. I was surprised by his allusion to the restructuring of the Red Cross, and the fact that he did not pass on—perhaps because St John had not told him—what actually happened with the Red Cross reorganisation. When he referred to the St John home in my constituency, however, I was truly staggered to hear him quoting from the letter of 17 October from the prior, when the letter that we received only a fortnight later dated 5 November stressed that the moneys referred to in previous correspondence could not be regarded as legally restricted. As the separate governance structure of the home is being broken up, there is nothing to stop the priory taking those moneys at any notice.

I will turn to the national picture before saying a few words about the role of the Charity Commission, which is the core of the matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) mentioned concerns about how criticism of the changes in St John has been treated. Of course, wherever there is change, some people will be against it, but never in any charity— I have seen it occasionally in a political party—have I seen the kind of conduct that has reportedly occurred over the past two years.

I shall expand a little on what my hon. Friends have referred to. There was a no-confidence motion in January 2013, as a result of which 10 people were suspended. The hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Mike Wood) said that the leafy parts of Kent formed too large a part of the debate, so let me quote from my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray), who is unfortunately detained in the debate on the Floor of the House. She was contacted by a constituent who is an old friend and was one of those suspended. She wrote to me:

“I am very concerned to have heard from my constituent that 10 senior members of the chapter of St John were suspended last March on charges of gross misconduct”—

basically for saying that they did not agree with what was going on—

“on account of signing a motion of no confidence in the trustees and excluded from any further work or contact with St John for the best part of a year. A debate was held as a result of this properly constituted and well supported motion, and in the event the motion was only defeated on a 40/60 split.”

Many of those involved in the debate had served for more than 20 years. My hon. Friend continued:

“The process for deciding on the charges has been dysfunctional and frankly beyond parody”—

those are her words, not mine—

“resulting in each of them being found guilty of the charges and given ‘suspended sentences’ of exclusion from office.”

I have dug a little further into the matter, and I want to share one fact that illustrates the extent to which governance has broken down in the organisation. The case was heard by an individual who was, on paper, extremely well qualified. He had a long involvement with St John, he had legal training and he was a clergyman. Unfortunately, he breached the first principle of natural justice, because he had been an extremely partisan participant on the other side of the debate. He could not, by any possible standards, be said to be independent. Such a breach of administrative justice should not be allowed to occur in any well-founded organisation.

I move on to the role of the Charity Commission. My hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet asked the Minister, whom I am delighted to see in the Chamber—I know that, in the short time he has had available to prepare, he has taken a close interest in the case—a specific question, and I would like to ask another one. Is it right that the Charity Commission should confine itself to areas in which it has a specific legal duty to intervene? Might one reasonably expect any regulatory body—one thinks of the Bank of England, as a larger example—to take an informal interest when concerns are reported, and perhaps to do some informal prodding and make the odd telephone call?

I hope that hon. Members do not regard me as particularly pompous, but I find it extraordinary that after a group of MPs wrote to the Charity Commission, it would refuse to see us to discuss the matter. Whatever the merits of a case, if the Charity Commission is not even willing to discuss it with elected representatives, something has gone wrong in the organisation. It may well examine what is going on in the St John charity and conclude that the whole thing is a storm in a teacup, although I maintain that the administrative failings of the process at the centre, and the changing of mind on the various guarantees paid to the St John home in my constituency, need serious answers. The Charity Commission has been unwilling even to hold a meeting. Of course, since we secured the debate, the organisation has said that it will be happy to see us, but it was not able to fit us in before the debate.

[Mr Gray]

May I make a point on behalf of the charity commissioners? I understand that my hon. Friend may well be frustrated by the inability to hold such a meeting. However, does he agree that, if the charity commissioners were to start having meetings of that kind, with either one side or the other, about the many thousands of charities that might well be in similar disputes throughout the nation, they would be doing nothing else with their time—there are very few of them—and would become improperly involved in the internal politics of the charities? That would seem to be an absolutely wrong use of the commissioners’ time.

[Mr Brazier]

In its correspondence to us, the Charity Commission said that a charity’s trustees are legally responsible for all aspects of a charity’s management and administration, which I am sure we would all agree with. It went on to say that the commission would take action only if it believed that its regulatory powers were necessary or would be of use. In other words, an informal investigation is ruled out. That is very odd, however, because, to answer my hon. Friend’s question directly, the Charity Commission’s own description of its responsibilities and duties on its website states that it should be concerned with

“breaches of trust or abuses that otherwise impact significantly on public trust and confidence in the charity and charities generally”.

Given that three MPs representing different parties and areas—the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) may have been born in Kent, but she represents a seat in Derbyshire—had already expressed concerns, and that, from memory a fourth, my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall, came on board between the two letters, I would have thought that this was more than just a casual inquiry. I would have thought that the Charity Commission would have liked to have been involved.

I have detained Members for long enough, but would like to end with what I was about to say before the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray), for whom I have huge respect. St John Ambulance is a very precious charity. Every single MP who has spoken in this debate believes passionately in it, and most have had a much greater involvement with it than I have. It seems that something has gone wrong, and that the Charity Commission should be looking at that.