Virtual Participation in Debate

Debate between Lord Beamish and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

Obviously I do not go quite as far as that, but when we had the firebreak in Wales—the Labour Government in Wales have dealt with all of this much better, delivering a clearer message all the time, but that is by the by—some of my constituents said to me strongly that they did not want me to come to Parliament, because they thought it would be inappropriate for me to do so as they were not allowed to travel. I make no judgment—some MPs felt they had to come, some felt that they did not, and all the rest of it—but the truth of the matter is that there are different rules in different parts of the country, and there will be different rules in different parts of England in the forthcoming weeks. It would seem to make far more sense, on an equality basis, to allow everyone to participate on an equal basis.

The Leader of the House denies this—I am sorry to be so obsessed with the Leader of the House, but I was looking forward to a long speech and we have barely had a word from him today, which is a terrible disappointment to us all—but on occasion he has intimated that we cannot really do our job as an MP unless we are here. My experience is that, of all my 19 years as a Member, this has been the toughest year as an MP in terms of the understandable demand from constituents. Most arrives by email, not from people physically coming through the door—several Members have mentioned that they have not held surgeries in person, but have been doing them online. On social media, Facebook in particular, I have been dealing with many thousands of cases every week. Some questions are not right—such as, “Is Lidl open?”, or, “How much are nappies in Sainsbury’s?”, neither of which I knew the answer to, but in a way, it has been a good thing for Parliament that many MPs have had engagement with their constituents that they never had in the previous year.

It is tough, because there is no point going on holiday this year as an MP, because frankly, at all hours of the day, we have been dealing endlessly with requests from constituents. A lot of the job we can do perfectly well from our living room, back study, outhouse or stable, depending on how grand or ungrand the house is.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

An example of that was this weekend. The annual NATO Parliamentary Assembly took place, involving individual parliamentarians from NATO countries, including the United States and all across Europe. It was all done virtually, and I was even chairing meetings on Saturday afternoon.

[Chris Bryant]

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and all sorts of organisations have been doing this perfectly well, fully engaging all their members and enabling them to take part. Members might say that it is more difficult for people to travel, but sometimes some Members in the House forget that the travel is as risky as the business of actually physically being in Parliament. Mr Speaker, you and all the staff in the building have done a phenomenal job in making this place as covid-secure as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful for your guidance, Mr Speaker, but let me make the point clear. I am moving the amendment in the names of the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay and myself.

It is worth bearing in mind what Members are not able to take part in. I have heard very moving and important speeches by Conservative Members, saying that this year has seen a phenomenal suspension of liberty in this country—extraordinary. The Coronavirus Act 2020 has taken power away from individuals to live their lives as they want more than any other piece of legislation in our history. We subscribed to that because we believed that it was necessary. The Government insisted that they should require only a single vote every six months on a 90-minute debate, but the Members whom we are talking about are not able to take part in those 90-minute debates—to be honest, not many other people are able to take part in those 90-minute debates either.

If we look at the secondary legislation, we will see that, during this year, there have been 297 coronavirus statutory instruments, using powers in 106 Acts of Parliament. Why should none of the Members whom we are talking about be able to take part in any of that secondary legislation when it is depriving people of their liberty? More importantly, it is not about the Member; it is about the community that they represent—their constituency. Why should they be barred, for instance, from expressing a view about the 10 o’clock curfew in pubs, or whether their constituency should be in tier 1, tier 2 or tier 3? They are not able to take part in ten-minute rule Bills. They are not able to make points of order, which must be a terribly depressing thing for all of them—how can you live without making points of order? Ironically enough, they are able to table amendments, but they are not able then to speak to them. That is the irony of where we are at tonight. The hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay can table an amendment, but he is not able to take part in this debate because of the way that things have been structured.

I say to all hon. Members, first of all, I do not buy this argument about the perfect being the enemy of the good. Earlier today, I understand that the Government Whips tried to strong-arm the Opposition, saying, “Well, you’ll never get what you want. We’ll pull the motion.” But the Leader of the House said that he would enable the House to resolve this. The proper way to resolve this is to have a proper motion on the Order Paper when all Members know that the debate is coming and we can consider the thing properly.

Secondly, I believe that all MPs are equal—the good, the bad, the ugly. All of them are equal. It is a really important principle.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Name the ugly.

[Chris Bryant]

Especially the ugly, yes.

[Mr Jones]

No, name the ugly.

[Chris Bryant]

Oh. Anyway, the point is that it is such a historic principle that every MP is treated equally that it is a terrible shame that we have abandoned it this year just because there is a pandemic. I do not believe that House business should ever be whipped. I think it is wholly inappropriate to do that, and I think that there has been a tendency in the past year for the Whips to interfere. Sorry, I have just seen my Chief Whip—everything that he has done has been absolutely perfect. On a serious note, I just think that more of our business should be done without the Whips’ engagement, because sometimes that would mean that it was less cantankerous.

I especially object to the idea that large numbers of proxies should be used in a vote, unless the person who is delivering those proxies has asked each and every individual Member—every single one—how they intended to vote. Let me just say to Members who would even consider the idea of voting against the amendment, which I guess is the argument that many of them are advancing—

Draft Agriculture (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Lord Beamish and Chris Bryant

Monday 21st October 2019 General Committees

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I am no farmer, though I used to own a farm in the Rhondda for a few years, where we had sheep.

[Mr Jones]

And killed a donkey.

[Chris Bryant]

My right hon. Friend tempts me to tell the story about my donkey, called Dusty, who died. It is a very sad story, but I am not going to tell it—nor that of the one-eyed sheepdog called Nelson.

It is always very tempting, when a Minister describes legislation as technical, to start worrying, and to ask him questions such as, “In regulation 6(2)(b)(v), what does proposed new point (f)(cc) mean?” But I am not going to do that, because I am sure that the Minister is right that, in large measure, this is entirely technical. As the hon. Member for Windsor said, in all honesty there is a lot of such legislation that we have to put in place to ensure that things will be in a good place.

I will, however, ask about regulation 3 and the provisions on eggs being imported into the UK. Why do we have to have a specific element on that in the legislation? One of my farmers who came to see me recently, along with other members of the Welsh National Farmers Union, was very keen to point out one of his big anxieties. He is a chicken farmer who produces eggs. A key part of his business model every year is deciding how many chicks to import from France, I think from Portugal, and from Spain. He has some anxieties about quite what route the Government are going down. He is not sure whether to import large or small numbers. It depends on whether he will be able to sell his chickens and eggs later next year. I should be grateful if the Minister would explain.

Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Lord Beamish and Chris Bryant

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point.

[Chris Bryant]

I just wonder whether we might bear in mind Sidney Silverman and David Steel, who both courageously advanced causes that were considered to be very unpopular at the time. They both represented marginal seats, and I would argue that they kept their seats because they were prepared to say uncomfortable things.

[Mr Jones]

I have no doubt that what my hon. Friend says is correct, but I will explain in a minute why they would not have kept their seats if there had been recall, because a small and vociferous minority could have removed them.

Health and Social Care Bill (Programme) (No. 2)

Debate between Lord Beamish and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

If the Deputy Leader of the House had allowed more than an hour for debate today, I would give way to him, but I am not going to give way now. We have already heard from a Minister for 15 minutes.

It is a bizarre selection of clauses that the Committee will be allowed to discuss. For instance, it will not be allowed to discuss clause 239 on NICE’s charter, nor clause 240 on its functions, but it will be allowed to consider clause 242, on the failure of NICE to discharge its functions. There is absolutely no logic to what is being presented to us.

In addition, the programme motion does not allow enough time. The Prime Minister is profoundly confused about all this, because he said many times this morning that 10 days would be allowed. Indeed, he said:

“Ten days… I don’t want to sort of misquote the Monty Python sketch but when we were in opposition we used to dream of tens days to debate a government bill”.

Well, yes, we are dreaming of 10 days now. We would love to have 10 days, but there will not be 10 days; there will be 10 sittings.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

The Prime Minister is not very good on detail, because the Criminal Justice Bill to which he referred, and whose Committee he sat on, actually had 38 sittings over eight weeks.

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, but surely the key point is that we need to do this scrutiny properly. The Government may think that they are doing themselves a favour by trying to get the Bill out of this House by the summer recess, but all it means is that those in another place will have to do a proper job of scrutiny, and I bet that they will not get it out of the second Chamber before next year.

Finally, the motion states that we have to commit the Bill to the same set of people. Now, some splendid people sat on the Government Benches in that Committee, including the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb). He is a splendid Member of Parliament whose integrity I do not want to be questioned, but he will now have to force all the people whom he forced previously to vote for one set of proposals in the Bill to vote for exactly the opposite. I therefore beg Government Members, if they value the hon. Gentleman’s career, to vote against the motion.

I say that because, theoretically, the Committee Chairman could rule that some amendments cannot be taken or selected because we have already presented them and the same Committee is re-sitting. We will find, however, that many Government Members have to stand on their heads and vote for the exact opposite of what they voted for earlier.

I understand that one of the great passions in life of the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh), who speaks for the Liberal Democrats, is weight-lifting. Well, he did no heavy lifting of any kind on the previous Committee, and if there are changes to the Bill they are the work of Opposition Members, not the hon. Gentleman. He said that it was a wonderful Committee and could not have been better. Well, why was the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston)—somebody who knows about general practice—not put on it? Of course, we know the reason: she did not agree with the Government.

I do not believe that the new Committee should include the same set of people, in particular because the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), on the final day in Committee, asked the Minister one of his great insightful questions: “What is the point of clause 249?” He is clearly a man of insight. In addition, he later said:

“I am still a member of the Committee, I think.”––[Official Report, Health and Social Care Public Bill Committee, 31 March 2011; c. 1268.]

We should have a new set of Committee members. There is no point in every Member who sat on the previous Committee, including those with direct financial interests in the Bill, being on the Committee in future, so I say, “Vote against this ludicrous, shameful and disgraceful programme motion.”