Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Lord Beamish and Lord Lansley

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

I do not think that money should determine that or, as my hon. Friend says, how Members behave. People should be elected on a broad range of issues, and it is for the electorate to determine subsequently whether they are re-elected.

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) says that he is proposing strong financial controls, but his amendment 23 would provide only that Ministers should have the power to apply controls on spending to the notice of intent and recall referendum processes. He does not say what the controls or the financial limits might be. Indeed, the limit during the recall petition period for which the Bill provides is £10,000 per accredited campaigner, but there is no limit on the number of accredited campaigners.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Beamish and Lord Lansley

Thursday 7th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend is right to refer to the great distress and shock that people have felt as a result of those events. Many people have called for the provisions in the Bill relating to harm caused by dangerous dogs on private premises for a long time. They have been debated in this House, but the Bill continues to be considered, so I know that Members of both Houses will consider the points he makes and the application of the Bill in any individual circumstances.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Serious accusations were made in this morning’s edition of The Times that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions tried not only to nobble a Select Committee, but to smear a civil servant. The Leader of the House has just told the House that he has spoken to the Secretary of State, so will he tell us what the Secretary of State said in response to the accusations? Would not the best way of clearing things up be for the Secretary of State to come to the House and make a statement?

[Mr Lansley]

I have told the House that there is no truth in those allegations, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), a member of the Public Accounts Committee, who entirely endorsed the point that I made.

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Debate between Lord Beamish and Lord Lansley

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

We always made it clear on the Government Benches that if the House of Lords remained unreformed it would be necessary to enable it to better reflect the character of the outcome of the preceding general election. I will not reiterate the point I made to the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane), but if the Opposition had supported House of Lords reform we would have been able to deal with that.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Lansley]

No, I am going to make more progress—this is only a two-hour debate.

I am asking the House to maintain the boundary review. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) reminded us earlier, it was my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister who said, quite rightly, on Third Reading of the Bill that became the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011:

“Fairness demands constituencies that are basically equal in size…there can be no justification for maintaining the current inequality between constituencies and voters across the country.”—[Official Report, 2 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 864.]

I have heard no argument that changes that, nor any justification from the Lords to seek to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend makes a good point well. Anybody who votes to agree with the Lords or not to disagree with them on this amendment will, I fear, have to explain to their electorate why they are not reducing the cost of politics when we are asking the public services generally to do that.

In what is colloquially known as the Hart-Rennard amendment we have not only an abuse of parliamentary process, but a democratic travesty. The unelected House is seeking to frustrate the precisely expressed will of this Parliament—not a previous Parliament—to deny fairness and equality in the franchise and fundamentally to manipulate the basis on which this House is to be elected.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why this Government have appointed 125 new peers since 2010? Contrary to what my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, the average cost is £130,000 a year, which adds an extra £16,250,000 a year to the cost of politics, or £81,250,000 over five years.

[Mr Lansley]

Leaving aside the fact that some of the figures that the hon. Gentleman quotes were from the resignation honours back in 2010, I would say that he heard what I said about House of Lords reform. If he and his colleagues had supported the programme motion, we would be in a completely different place in the House of Lords.