Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Lord Beamish and Sheryll Murray

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 18th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) on her success in securing this private Member’s Bill. Although I do not agree with all the objectives she has proposed in the Bill, private Members’ Bills are an essential parliamentary device that enable Back Benchers to address issues that concern us and our constituents and, in some cases, to secure good, sustainable changes in public policy and legislation. I have successfully piloted two private Member’s Bills on to the statute book, the Marine Navigation Act 2013 and the Deep Sea Mining Act 2014, and I am very proud to have done so.

I do not agree with the provisions in the Bill that reverse the decision to reduce the number of Members of this House from 650 to 600. I stood on a manifesto in 2015 that said that we would

“reduce the number of MPs to 600 to cut the cost of politics”

and I stand by that pledge.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Is the hon. Lady not an example of that very rare thing, a turkey voting for Christmas? When these changes were first mooted in 2010, the main losers in Cornwall would have been the Liberal Democrats. If the changes go forward, some of her Tory colleagues will surely lose their seats. Why would she want to support that?

[Mrs Murray]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his view, but I happen to disagree. I am hopeful that, at the next election, Cornwall will still be represented by Conservative MPs, and I stand by that election pledge. My constituents voted me to this place to represent them, knowing that that was my pledge.

I have a lot of respect for the hon. Member for North West Durham, but I have to tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I was going to raise a point of order during her speech this morning. In the interest of the smooth transition of the debate, however, and having asked to make a speech, I have chosen instead to raise the matter now. The hon. Lady said that she had received more representations on her Bill from Cornish people than from anyone else. I am sure she respects the unwritten protocol in this House that if representations are made to us from another MP’s constituents, we inform the MP and usually pass on the representations. I am quite happy to take an intervention, so that she can confirm that none of those representations came from South East Cornwall because nothing has been passed on to me.

[Mrs Murray]

I just felt that I ought to put it on the record that I, a Member for a Cornish constituency, have not been informed of any emails sent to another MP. I am quite disappointed about that.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I am not quite sure what the hon. Lady’s point is. From what she is saying, she would not change her mind anyway, so it would be a complete waste of time her constituents lobbying her on the Bill.

[Mrs Murray]

It is a case of treating other Members, no matter what their political affiliation, with some respect.

[Mrs Murray]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend.

I would like to quote the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg). I know that he has already been quoted today and it is not something that I do often in this place, but he outlined well how we compare around the world. He said:

“Reducing the number of MPs allows us to bring our oversized House of Commons into line with legislatures across the world. The House of Commons is the largest directly elected chamber in the European Union, and it’s half as big again as the US House of Representatives.”

My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) mentioned that last point earlier. The Government have estimated that the reduction in the number of MPs will save £66 million over the course of the Parliament. I am quite disappointed with Opposition Members who seem to have made light of that figure. That money could be focused on looking after and benefiting our constituents.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

The hon. Lady, using the larger figure spun by Cameron, talks about £66 million, but the figure is £12 million a year. She was part of a Government who spent £9 million on a leaflet arguing their case for the EU. Where is her perspective?

[Mrs Murray]

If the hon. Gentleman refers back, he will see that I did not agree with that.

I am sure that these savings would be welcomed by taxpayers across the country. We often have to take difficult decisions to try and balance the country’s books, so should this place not do what it can to contribute? Should we not have to face a fair share of any cuts? We are always being criticised for cutting expenditure on education, putting pressure on teachers, putting pressure on NHS workers and putting pressure on our armed forces. Should we not share some of that burden and try to make some savings ourselves?

[Mr Jones]

If the proposals go through, the hon. Lady’s seat disappears and she is not one of the successful Tory candidates, would she then refuse a peerage?

[Mrs Murray]

To refuse something, one has to be offered it. I think that the hon. Gentleman should pay attention to the Prime Minister’s response to a question from an Scottish National party Member on Wednesday: things like that are not normally discussed in this place.

Why are Opposition Members supporting the Bill? Is it to change the number of seats? That will lead to the redrawing of a map and the need for sitting Labour Members to be selected for new areas. Are those who did not champion the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) as Leader of the Opposition now nervous of the membership that gave him its support? Some 80% of Labour Members gave a vote of no confidence in their leader less than six months ago. Are they now nervous?

I cannot say that the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 is perfect. In 2010, I put forward my own amendment to the Bill as it passed through this place to recognise Cornwall as a distinct area, and it stipulated that no constituency should cross over to Devon. As far as I remember, that was supported by my Cornwall colleagues at the time. Unfortunately, we lost that argument, and the legislation was enacted, with priority given to providing each elector with an equal say in who runs the country. Our Cornwall population is not currently such that a cross-over seat with Devon was avoidable—no matter how undesirable it was.

Last month, I upset councillors when I made a comment about Cornwall Council. Since then, rather than focus on local government matters, the council has been spending money on a Queen’s counsel and has convened a full council meeting to discuss the very subject that we are debating today—parliamentary boundaries. I will not call the council what I called it in this place last month but leave my constituents to make up their own minds on whether that is good use of resources.

I am similarly concerned about the cost of the Bill. This provision would be an unnecessary disruption to the boundary commissions’ well advanced reviews and undoubtedly mean more unnecessary costs, but the Government want to make an estimated £66 million saving. Although the hon. Member for North West Durham is no longer in her place, I ask her where she would find this money if not from legislation—would it come from further cuts to our NHS, our schools or our armed forces? I say no.

[Mr Jones]

rose—

[Mrs Murray]

I am just coming to my conclusion.

Let us kick this expensive piece of legislation into the long grass where it belongs. Let us save some money, so that we can invest in our NHS, our schools and our armed forces, as a Conservative Government would, instead of spending money on politicians, which Labour seems to want to do.

Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Lord Beamish and Sheryll Murray

Thursday 15th October 2015 Commons Chamber

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

I welcome this Bill. As was said by a number of Members, including the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State, this is an important Bill in that it involves a key constitutional issue. This Bill might seem quite dry and boring, but it actually asserts Parliament’s control over the armed forces and the fact that we have a standing Army. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman) did not understand the significance and importance of that. As he is new to the House, I may suggest to him very gently that if he does not understand something, it is perhaps better not to comment on it.

I am a veteran of Armed Forces Bills. I considered the Armed Forces Act 2006, which was a major Act in that it radically changed the disciplinary acts of the three services. Unfortunately, it then followed me into ministerial office in the Ministry of Defence. The constructive way in which that Bill Committee did some very detailed work over a number of months not only improved service discipline and brought the Acts into the modern day, but helped to address some of the public concerns.

The hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond) talked about Deepcut, and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned the service complaints commissioner. Getting those issues into place has involved a long journey. We are now in a good place with regard to the service complaints commissioner. I was on the Defence Committee when Nicholas Blake compiled his report on Deepcut. I met the families involved on numerous occasions. Were they let down by the system, by Governments and by the Army? Yes, they were. Could we turn the clock back and find out what happened in those cases? Tragically, the answer is no, but what came out of the Blake report was a step forward in terms of the armed forces commissioner. I welcome the Government’s current commitment to the armed forces ombudsman. The Act tried, where possible, to apply to armed services personnel the modern standards that we would expect in civilian life. That is difficult because we are asking people to do different things. Where possible, the two areas should be mirrored. Clearly, the transparency that people expect in their dealings with Government should also be afforded to members of our armed forces. The ombudsman is a move in that direction.

The Bill before us is a piece of cake compared with the 2006 Act. It tidies up quite a lot of minor issues. As my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State said, we will support that, and ensure that those issues are scrutinised so that any unintended consequences are addressed. It is important that we send a message to the members of the armed forces that we are taking these things seriously. When they raise matters that they are not happy with, we should consider whether we can amend and change things for them. Obviously, I am not talking about interfering with the rigid discipline that is required or breaking the chain of command. The hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond)—I must welcome her to the House and say that she is a vast improvement on her predecessor—made a point in that regard.

One issue that came up in the 2006 Act—it is a continuing one that needs to be addressed—is whistleblowing. I am not talking about whistleblowing for minor complaints or things that are not relevant. If members of the armed forces have serious concerns, there needs to be a mechanism, or a safety valve, in the chain of command—I know that the ombudsman will address some of this—so that these things can be dealt with. That is very important.

The worst thing that happened in previous years was that some complaints were not taken seriously—that has improved greatly—and delay added to the problem. Quite minor things should have been dealt with lower down the chain of command. Not only would people have felt that they had been treated better, but the bureaucratic outcomes for both the armed forces and the individuals would have been better.

We had seven contributions in this debate. I am not sure that many were on the actual details of the Bill, but I will touch on some of the remarks. Let me turn first to the hon. Member for Portsmouth South. I congratulate her son on graduating from Sandhurst. The academy does a fantastic job. She made a really important point, which is that we need to be proactive, not reactive, on issues. Those issues could include mental health, service discipline or just the way that we treat people. I also pay tribute to the work of Castaway House. I visited it when I was a Minister and saw for myself what a fantastic job it does in supporting veterans and the wider armed forces community in Portsmouth and the surrounding area.

We also had a contribution from my friend, the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), who paid tribute to the work of HMS Raleigh. I agree that the Royal Navy does a fantastic job there with its new recruits. One of the many highlights of my ministerial career was attending a passing out parade on HMS Raleigh. It is humbling to meet both the parents and the recruits and to see the dedication and hard work that goes into ensuring that those people are not only transformed in the short period that they are there, but given life opportunities to work within our armed forces, which many would never ever get.

The hon. Lady was a little bit naughty, which is unusual for her, when she referred to the nuclear deterrent. The hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) also referred to the Labour leader’s position on the nuclear deterrent. May I reassure them that the Labour party policy on the nuclear deterrent has not changed? It was agreed at the Labour party conference this year that we are in favour of a minimal credible nuclear deterrent provided by four boats under the continuous at-sea deterrent. We are committed to ensuring that we are part of multilateral disarmament talks so that we get to that point that everyone in this House wants to get to, which is a reduction in the ownership of nuclear weapons.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray]

If the hon. Gentleman had listened to what I said, he would have heard that I referred to the continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent.

[Mr Jones]

I am not sure what point the hon. Lady is making. That is what I referred to. That is Labour party policy and it has not changed with what has happened in our great party in the past few months.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Sheryll Murray]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned that as a Minister he visited HMS Raleigh. Does he agree that during the six weeks’ initial sea training, from the time they arrive until they pass out, a massive transformation occurs in those young people?

[Mr Jones]

Indeed. I have always said that. As the current ministerial team recognises, we should celebrate the life chances that membership of our armed forces gives young people. They get opportunities and skills that many of them would otherwise not have. That initial training is part of that ongoing process. It is not newsworthy to say that joining the armed forces is good for their career prospects, and what I am about to say might not be popular, but all the evidence suggests that it is good for their mental health as well. However, when things go wrong in service or after service, we need to make sure that mechanisms are in place to deal with that.

The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) spoke about the armed forces federation, which might be relevant in that situation, although I am not sure how it would fit into the Bill. Clearly, this is the SNP’s latest campaign issue, but may I disappoint the hon. Gentleman? I got there first: I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill on that topic in about 2005. In other countries, as he said, such organisations work effectively, and provided it did not interfere with the chain of command, an armed forces federation could improve the system, as it does in other countries, by acting as a safety valve. Alas, having read the Bill, which I am not sure others have, I am not sure how we could get that into the Bill.

We will examine the Bill in detail in Committee and my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) has outlined our approach. We will not oppose the Bill. Much of what it contains is sensible and includes a number of tidying-up measures. In any scrutiny process, it is important that any changes made do not result in unforeseen consequences, so in Committee we need to make sure that we road-test our ideas to destruction. I accept the assurance from the Secretary of State on the fire regulations. Those seem sensible, but it may be helpful if chief fire officers are asked for their views before the Bill goes to Committee.

I look forward to serving on the Committee for my third Armed Forces Bill. I am thankful that it will not be the marathon of the 2006 Bill. Our approach will be constructive, with the aim of ensuring the best outcome. Across the House, we want the best for our armed forces personnel.