Today’s Business of the House

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

It is for the House to decide on the merits of this. I do not think my right hon. Friend can argue that we are in anything other than prime time at the moment, since the House is well attended and this debate is receiving a great deal of attention. It is for the House to decide on the merits of the motions. If the motion on a secret ballot is carried, it will be for the House to make its own decisions in the future.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

May I say to my right hon. Friend—I call him my right hon. Friend having known him for 35 years and, as he knows, admired greatly his qualities, including his qualities of Churchillian speech-making—that I am afraid that today will not go down as his finest hour?

[Mr Hague]

I am always grateful to my hon. Friend, if I may call him that, for his observations, even if I do not agree with that particular one.

Procedure of the House

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

It would certainly have been much more difficult to do it, so the absence of Lords amendments made a big change and allowed us to consider more motions than might otherwise have been the case. On that issue I am happy to facilitate bringing the motion to the House for decision before the end of this Parliament, as requested by the Procedure Committee. I hope the House will support the extension of the trial in the way outlined. It will then be for the Procedure Committee in the next Parliament to evaluate the trial further, before bringing it to the House for a decision on whether the changes should be made permanent.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Given that the right hon. Gentleman told the House that he tabled these motions on the basis of representations by anonymous Members of Parliament whom he was not prepared to name, is he proposing further changes so that in future amendments and resolutions can be tabled anonymously by Members of Parliament and considered by the House?

[Mr Hague]

I think that would be too much of a revolutionary change, but the particular change I am talking about was recommended before the end of the Parliament by the Procedure Committee.

The second issue, which I shall cover briefly, concerns the pay of the Petitions Committee Chair. On 24 February the House agreed the Standing Order changes necessary for the Petitions Committee, recommended by the Procedure Committee as part of a collaborative e-petition system to be established at the start of the next Parliament. It considered issues relating to the Chair of the new Committee. The motion before us adds the post of Chair of the Petitions Committee to the list of Select Committees that attract an additional salary. That principle is a matter for the House to decide, but in the light of the expected responsibility and work load of the Committee, I believe that a valid case has been made, and I hope the House will support it.

The final motion, which comes after the issue of the secret ballot, follows up one of the final acts of the Procedure Committee in this Parliament, which was to publish a report recommending a revision of the Standing Orders of this House. I shall respond immediately to one of the recommendations and bring forward a motion that facilitates the nomination by you, Mr Speaker, of three Members of the House to serve as Deputy Speakers at the start of the next Parliament and in advance of elections to those posts under Standing Order No. 2A. I hope that the next Parliament will get an early opportunity to consider the report of the Procedure Committee on Standing Order revisions in full, and that the motion to nominate Deputy Speakers at the start of a Parliament, as I have described, will be incorporated in the Standing Orders of this House on a permanent basis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

If the Speaker should have any bias at all, as has been the established practice for more than 150 years, it should be a bias in favour of allowing more debate and continuing discussion and enabling scrutiny. If, therefore, there is a bias at all, it must always be in favour of the Back Bencher, not the Government. For that reason, the Government are always tempted to get rid of a Speaker, but they have never chosen to do so until today. A Speaker should always be able to order proceedings without any fear or favour, in particular without any fear of the Government, the Executive or the Crown.

[Kevin Brennan]

Given that we have a constitutional convention that the Speaker is not opposed by the main parties and that the current Speaker will be standing on that basis, should the Conservative leadership want to get rid of him, should they not be putting up a candidate against him and allowing members of the public, in a secret ballot, to decide who they want to vote for?

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. The Speaker does not stand on a party ticket, so if the good burghers of Buckingham decide that you, Mr Speaker, should be returned as Speaker, and then this House, because of a Conservative plot, decides to get rid of you, what is to become of you? Are you to return to the Back Benches? No Speaker has done that for more than 150 years. Every other candidate presented for Speaker will have stood on a party ticket. It would therefore be a profoundly irresponsible act for us suddenly to change the rules so that we end up with a party candidate rather than a non-party candidate as our next Speaker.

Business of the House

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend is right, and this is a deeply disturbing situation not only in Tanzania but internationally. The British Government are playing a leading role in fighting this. As Foreign Secretary, in February last year I hosted an international summit on the issue, which the President of Tanzania addressed. I now chair a taskforce on how to prevent the transportation of illegal ivory, at the request of His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge. As my hon. Friend says, it is ultimately a matter of demand in countries such as China, Vietnam and Thailand, and it is welcome that such issues are being debated with China during the visit of His Royal Highness this week.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

May we debate debating? I recall that when I succeeded the right hon. Gentleman many years ago as president of the world’s most famous student debating society, he was in favour of debating—indeed, he was in favour of it as late as 2001 when he was Leader of the Opposition, as he told the House today. If we had such a debate, would we at least get one more opportunity to see the Leader of the House in full flow, showing the skill he developed all those years ago of being able to defend the indefensible—namely, the Prime Minister’s craven approach to debating head to head on television with the Leader of the Opposition?

[Mr Hague]

The Prime Minister has debated every Wednesday for years with the Leader of the Opposition, and he has almost invariably come off best in those debates. The hon. Gentleman’s characterisation is not right. He and I have always been committed to debating through our background in the Oxford union, and the Prime Minister has offered the terms of a debate to broadcasters and the other parties. As I pointed out earlier, such an offer was never made to me by the Prime Minister of the day when I was Leader of the Opposition.

Business of the House

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue on which, as he says, the Government made an announcement this week. The statutory instrument was laid this week and will become effective by 6 April. The measure will make it much easier for the Information Commissioner’s Office to take action on nuisance calls, including by issuing monetary penalties. We have just had questions to the Department responsible, and while I cannot necessarily offer a debate, that would be a good issue on which to pursue one in the coming weeks.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

There is much discussion in the corridors of this place about whether the House might dissolve earlier than expected ahead of the general election. Should not hon. Members know now whether that is in the minds of the Leader of the House and his colleagues, given the implications for all of us of the date when we cease to be Members of the House?

[Mr Hague]

Tempting though it would be to spring a great surprise on the hon. Gentleman and others, the date of Dissolution is set down in the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 as 30 March, so there is no doubt at all about that date. Of course, it is possible for people to speculate about a date for Prorogation in advance of Dissolution. The Chancellor has announced that he will present his Budget on 18 March, however, and I am sure that it will be necessary for the House to debate that Budget at some considerable length, so clearly the date of Prorogation will not be very much in advance of the date of Dissolution.

Business of the House

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 5th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I did not know that they were taking bets at 200:1 but I wish my hon. Friend well on shortening those odds. As someone who has served for most of his parliamentary career on one Front Bench or another, I have always been in favour of MPs voting according to their conscience, provided there is some co-ordination of how they feel about their consciences before they come to do so. I have not noticed any great inability of my hon. Friend to vote with his own conscience at any point in this Parliament and I am sure that he will feel free to continue that record in the future.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

May we have a debate on trade with Bangladesh? I was fortunate enough last week to visit Bangladesh with the Wales Bangladesh chamber of commerce, led by my constituent Dilabor Hussain and accompanied by Trefor Jones and Llinos Lanini representing a local company in my constituency called Iviti, which develops and manufactures in Wales an innovative LED light bulb that stays on when the power is cut. Would not having such a debate give us an opportunity to emphasise the strong ties between the UK and Bangladesh, as well as opportunities to trade with this important growing economy?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, it would. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on that little advertisement for something made in Wales. Our ties with Bangladesh are important. While the hon. Gentleman was over there in Bangladesh, I was speaking last week at the British Bangladeshi power and inspiration awards, saluting the many people of Bangladeshi origin who make an immense contribution to this country and our business success. This is something to celebrate. I hope the hon. Gentleman will push the case for a debate, but given all the constraints on our remaining time, he will have to do so through all the other normal channels.

Business of the House

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Personally, I am a great enthusiast for reinforcing and commemorating the intimate links between the United States and the United Kingdom. The US is our most important bilateral relationship and our greatest ally in the world, so we must take this request seriously. I will have to discuss—no doubt with you, Mr Speaker, and others in the House—how we go about facilitating and deciding on any such flag exchange, so I will come back to my hon. Friend on this point.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

May I congratulate the Leader of the House on his decision to move to Wales when he leaves the House? I hope he and Ffion are very happy at Cyfronydd hall.

May we have a debate on improving Members’ knowledge of “Erskine May”, because the right hon. Gentleman will know—as will you, Mr Speaker—that on 19 March 1872 the Speaker condemned the imitation of the crowing of cocks and other barnyard noises in the House? If hon. Members knew their “Erskine May” better, would they not be less likely to greet the Prime Minister with a chorus of chicken noises for ducking the leadership debates?

Business of the House

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

That is a very attractive idea for the last business statement of the Parliament, which we will come to towards the end of March. I will look at that idea. Certainly, my hon. Friend is right that a Conservative Government will want to have a European Union (referendum) Bill, and to have the earliest possible debate on it as a Government Bill in Government time. I do not know whether there would be time for any of that if there were to be a Labour Government, since they would be dealing with the financial crisis, the huge uncertainty in the markets and the difficulty facing the currency. Since they would be on that road to Greece, I am not sure they would have time for much legislation.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Is there any means by which the business of the House today could be suspended briefly at 12 noon to allow hon. Members to attend in Westminster Hall with a pen, joining journalists and members of staff of this House in a show of solidarity with our French neighbours in the face of what happened yesterday, and to demonstrate that ultimately the pen is mightier than the sword?

[Mr Hague]

The whole House will agree with that sentiment. Any suspension of the sitting is a matter for you, Mr Speaker, although it will be possible for the majority of hon. Members to do that even when the House is sitting. The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about showing our solidarity and determination to protect freedom of expression in this country and across the world.

Devolution (Implications for England)

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

As I have already said, I very much understand that point. My hon. Friend has been very assiduous in making that argument over recent months. That is why at least one option does not exclude Members of Parliament from other parts of the United Kingdom from speaking and voting on these issues while determining whether there is English consent. It is also why we must be careful in how we define the cross-border issues, so that MPs are not unfairly excluded when there is such a strong structural relationship between the health care needs of people in parts of Wales and its provision in England.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House explain why his party in the 50 or more years that there was a devolved Parliament in Northern Ireland never proposed the sort of things we are talking about today? Could it be because his party used to be the Conservative and Unionist party and today it is morphing into an English nationalist party?

[Mr Hague]

No, it is because throughout that period, as the hon. Gentleman knows, there was a reduction in the number of MPs from Northern Ireland. The existence of a devolved Assembly in Northern Ireland was treated in a different way in this House, by reducing the number of Westminster MPs from Northern Ireland. I do not think that he would want to advocate that now for Wales, so we have to deal with this in a different way.

Business of the House

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business and the business for the first day back in 2015. I also thank him for the debate that he has granted for Monday on the firefighters pension scheme.

On Wednesday, we will once more stage a debate on the pernicious and cruel bedroom tax. Will the Leader of the House assure us that if the House votes again to scrap the tax, he will actually act and abolish it?

This week, the Government achieved the dubious distinction of losing its 100th vote in the Lords. They were defeated for the second time on their plans to curtail judicial review, and four former Tory Cabinet Ministers voted against them. This was after the Justice Secretary had to admit that he did not understand his own Bill, and in an humiliating apology correct his assertion in this House that clause 64 maintained judicial discretion when it does not.

Will the Leader of the House tell us whether his Government will now see sense and accept the Lords amendments? After losing yet another judicial review last week, should not the Justice Secretary now accept that instead of trying to abolish judicial challenge, he should just get on top of his brief and stop trying to implement unlawful policies?

A week after the Chancellor’s autumn statement, the mask has slipped and his baleful plan for Britain’s future has become clear. He has failed every test and broken every promise he made on the economy, including his promise to balance the books before the election next year. He hoped we would not notice the choice that he has made to cut public spending to 35% of gross domestic product, which would take us back to levels reminiscent of the 1930s before we had the NHS or a social safety net.

In the week when we were reminded that 4 million people in our country are now at risk of going hungry, it seems that the Tory solution is to blame the victims and tell those who cannot afford to feed their families that they do not know how to cook. We all know that the real problem is low wages and in-work poverty. Instead of their ideological obsession with destroying 60 years of social progress, what we really need is a fair and balanced deficit reduction programme that combines common-sense savings with an effective growth strategy. May we therefore have a debate in Government time on these competing visions for the future of our country?

The Tory Chief Whip has had yet another bad week. It seems that some of his ministerial colleagues took his declaration of a three-day week a little too literally. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury was so amazed that he needed to be here on a Thursday that he very nearly missed his own debate on the Government’s flagship stamp duty policy. However, a generous offer from the Work and Pensions Secretary to lead the debate in his absence was enough to send him sprinting down Whitehall from the Treasury. While Government Back Benchers wasted time with points of order, he eventually arrived, flustered and visibly out of breath. What on earth were the Government Whips doing? Were they playing Candy Crush on their iPads? The Chief Whip is always bunking off; when he is here, he is causing trouble at the back of the class; and he never does his homework. I think the Education Secretary would be very happy to put him in detention.

The autumn statement appears to have had a peculiar effect on the Liberal Democrats. The Business Secretary told the Cabinet that it was “excellent”, with “Lib Dem fingerprints all over it”, before getting others to brief the newspapers that he really thinks that the cuts are simply not achievable. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury happily signed it off as a member of the quad, but then he called it

“a mix of unfunded tax promises, harsh spending plans and pandering to UKIP.”

The Deputy Prime Minister has said that he is proud of the autumn statement, but he was so desperate to distance himself from it that he fled 300 miles to Land’s End. We are all used to celebrities having “show-mances” to make the front page of Hello! magazine, but this must be the first time in history that two partners have attempted a “show-vorce”. They are leaking lurid details of their rows to the papers, and they have moved into separate rooms in No. 10 so that they can spin against each other. They have even resorted to “masosadism”—inflicting pain on each other while inflicting pain on themselves at the same time.

The Liberal Democrats must think that we have all fallen off a Christmas tree. Their cynical choreography has now reached such ridiculous levels that I am told that they are forming a Cabinet within a Cabinet in order to shadow their own Government’s Cabinet, and I bet there are still no women in it. It is less like Candy Crush and more like parliamentary zombie apocalypse.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Welcome back, Angela!

[Mr Hague]

Yes, we welcome back the shadow Leader of the House. We were entertained last week by her deputy, but mainly at his expense, so it is good for her party that she is back. She invented one or two new words in her question—[Interruption.] Well, to pick up on the Prime Minister’s invention a couple of weeks ago, we on the Government side know the definitions between those words: sadism is when the shadow Chancellor insists on giving us a speech; and masochism is when we ask him to read it out again.

The hon. Lady noted the debate on the firefighters pension scheme, which we have of course found time for next Monday. She asked about the spare room subsidy, which in our view is a basic matter of fairness, as has been explained many times. That will be discussed in the debate next Wednesday. She asked about the Government’s 100th defeat in the House of Lords in the course of this Parliament, which certainly shows a certain independence in the upper House, but of course that does not mean that the Government agree with its conclusions. It is crucial that judicial review continues to hold public authorities to account for the right reasons. In the Government’s view, the reforms strike a fair balance between limiting the potential for abuse of judicial review and protecting its vital role as a check on public authorities. We are disappointed by the outcome of the votes in the Lords and will now consider our next steps before the Bill returns to this House.

The hon. Lady attacked the Chancellor of the Exchequer for failing every test on the economy. Is not one of the tests reducing the huge deficit that was left behind by the previous Administration? Is not one of the tests reducing unemployment to a much lower level than we were left with? Is not one of the tests having 2 million apprentices in this country that we did not have before? Is not one of the tests keeping inflation under control? Should not one of the tests be having the fastest growing economy in the G7, as now confirmed by the OECD? I am not sure what the Opposition think the tests are if they think they have been failed. Those are the key tests of a successful economy, and they have come about only under this Government. She referred to poverty. The official figures show a reduction of 600,000 people living in relative poverty in the past four and a half years, including 100,000 in the past year. Only a continuation of our approach will succeed in continuing to reduce it.

The hon. Lady aligned her questions with the speech that the Leader of the Opposition is meant to be giving today, for which we should be grateful. It is clear that he has now finally remembered the deficit but is unable to think of anything to do about it. We understand from the now published recollections of the former Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), that the Leader of the Opposition does not get “much of a look-in” from the shadow Chancellor on economic policy. That is exactly the same kind of dysfunctional relationship that we saw in the previous Labour Government, and it ended up with Britain having its biggest budget deficit in peacetime history. If Labour Members have now finally remembered the deficit, I hope they will choose it as one of their subjects for next week’s Opposition day debate, because then we can ask them why, if they believe that the deficit should be lower, they have opposed the entire £83 billion of welfare savings in this Parliament. That would be a debate to look forward to.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hague]

Every month is red meat month as far as I am concerned, and I always think it does me a lot of good. My hon. Friend makes a good case. We have a wonderful industry in this country, including an excellent beef farming sector, and its success is important to agriculture and the country’s overall prosperity. I will always do my best to promote its success, but whether we can institute a red meat month will be a matter for wider discussion among the House authorities.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House is standing down at the next election, so could we see more of his true self during business statements? When he and I were

“young and easy under the apple boughs”

many decades ago, he had a visceral dislike of the Liberals and the Social Democrats. If the Liberal Democrats cannot even be bothered to turn up to business questions, does he agree that they should receive the same treatment that they meted out to poor people who have a spare room in their home, and be evicted at the next general election?

[Mr Hague]

I am surrounded by the Deputy Leader of the House, who is a Liberal Democrat, and the Comptroller of Her Majesty’s Household, the deputy Chief Whip and the Liberal Democrat Chief Whip, who is also a Liberal Democrat, so I think it is a little unfair to say that Liberal Democrats do not turn up for business questions, although it cannot be said that a lot of Liberal Democrats have turned up to ask questions. When the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) and I were students, we made common cause in ensuring that Liberals and the SDP were not very successful at Oxford university in the early 1980s, but circumstances change. There are no permanent allies, only permanent interests, as has often been said.

Business of the House

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Road safety around schools is a very important issue. My hon. Friend is right to raise it. Local authorities have a statutory responsibility to provide appropriate traffic management schemes, and they can put in place “school keep clear” markings, which are legally enforceable, to prohibit parking on a designated length of highway, including near a school, to improve road safety. I know that my hon. Friend will want to keep pursuing the issue with Transport Ministers, and they will be able to respond to him.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

May we debate inequality? GDP per head in the poorest UK regions is lower than in any region of France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Ireland, Sweden, Finland or Denmark, and nine out of 10 of the poorest regions in northern Europe are in the UK. With real income continuing to fall for the poorest, do the Government not need to do more to favour the weakest over the wealthiest?

[Mr Hague]

What is actually happening, of course, is that many more people are getting into work. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have record levels of employment, and since 2010 there are 600,000 fewer people in relative poverty and 670,000 fewer workless households than there were just four and a half years ago. That is real progress in addressing poverty in this country, and we can continue to address it only if we have a growing economy and strong finances, which is the basis of the statement that we heard yesterday.