House of Lords Reform (No. 2) Bill

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Friday 28th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 1, page 2, line 23, leave out ‘one year’ and insert ‘6 months’.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 12, page 2, line 24, leave out ‘it is irrelevant’.

Amendment 13, page 2, line 25, after ‘(a)’, insert ‘it is irrelevant’.

Amendment 14, page 2, line 27, after ‘(b)’, insert ‘it is irrelevant’.

Amendment 15, page 2, line 28, leave out from ‘Kingdom’ to the end of line 29 and insert ‘or Ireland’.

Amendment 16, page 2, line 29, at end insert—

‘(c) It is irrelevant subject to a resolution of the House of Lords whether any of the offence, conviction, sentence, order, imprisonment or detention occurs in any Commonwealth Realm.

(d) It is irrelevant subject to a unanimous resolution of the House of Lords whether any of the offence, conviction, sentence, order, imprisonment or detention occurs in any Commonwealth country.

(e) No offence, conviction, sentence, order, imprisonment or detention that takes place in any non-Commonwealth country is relevant under this Act.’.

Amendment 17, page 2, line 37, after ‘appeal’, insert ‘or is pardoned’.

Amendment 18, page 3, line 8, leave out ‘subsection (9) and insert—

‘(9) This section does not apply to unelected hereditary peers who sit in the House of Lords.’.

Amendment 23, page 3, line 8, leave out subsection (9) and insert—

‘(9) A certificate under subsection (2) in respect of a conviction outside the United Kingdom may be issued only if the House of Lords resolves that subsection (1) should apply; and where the House does so resolve the Lord Speaker must issue the certificate.’.

[Thomas Docherty]

I am in august company today. It is excellent to be in the presence of the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), a fine example of the Conservative workers party if ever I saw one. However, I must chide him very gently about one matter, about which I have already spoken to him.

Both the hon. Gentleman and I serve on the Procedure Committee. The House recently resolved that, whenever reasonable, Members should publish explanatory statements. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) has published such a statement, but I have not, because, as the hon. Member for North East Somerset knows, the Procedure Committee said that it was not necessary to publish one when what a Member was trying to achieve was so blindingly obvious. However, I must gently tell the hon. Gentleman that it took me several attempts to understand exactly what his amendments would do, and that an explanatory statement would therefore have been useful.

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[Stephen Twigg]

I rise to speak to the amendment, but, on reflection, Mr Deputy Speaker, I wonder whether it might be more appropriate for the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) to speak first, followed by the two Front-Bench speakers. I am happy to do it in that order.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I call Jacob Rees-Mogg.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

North East Somerset, in the great county of Somerset, is always ready. We are on alert for whatever might come. I am fortunate in that my constituency is not under water, so it is perhaps easier for me to be alert than those in the rest of the county at the moment.

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A previous case, in 1901, involved Earl Russell, who was found guilty of bigamy and sentenced to three months in prison. He was found guilty because he had got divorced in Nevada, and their lordships did not think that Nevada was a proper place in which to get a divorce. They decided that it was not valid, and that he was therefore a bigamist. That leads me to my suggestion that we do not always take the views of foreign courts into account, and that they do not necessarily have standing in the United Kingdom. Poor old Earl Russell was known to his contemporaries as the wicked Earl. I am allowed to say that, Mr Deputy Speaker, because he is not still alive. I am allowed to say disrespectful things about wicked earls who are no longer with us.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I know that the hon. Gentleman has great knowledge of these matters. He will know that he is allowed to mention such people as long as they are not Members of the House of Lords.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am extremely grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am also rather troubled, because that means that I can be rude about hereditaries who are not in the House of Lords. That would be deeply upsetting, however, and I would be shocked if I did such a thing. Anyway, the point about Nevada was that a judgment made there was not considered to be authoritative.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I think I can help the hon. Gentleman on that: we are not going to enter into a debate on the royal family. We are going to get back to the subject that Jacob Rees-Mogg has in hand.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is inconceivable that anyone would ever want to be rude about the royal family.

So, Nevada was not taken seriously and Earl Russell was found guilty of bigamy. My amendments distinguish between the jurisdictions of a variety of foreign countries, and with good reason. The reason for including Ireland along with the United Kingdom is that it matches the form used for exclusion from the House of Commons, and there seems to be a logic in maintaining that. It is also set down in statute that we recognise the unique relationship that the United Kingdom continues to have with Ireland. Irish citizens are the only ones other than Commonwealth citizens who are always allowed to vote in United Kingdom elections, and travel from the Republic of Ireland to the United Kingdom does not require a passport. Ireland is not viewed as a foreign country in the same way as other countries are.

The Commonwealth realms are either serious nations such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada that have a legal form based on ours and that follow the legal traditions of the United Kingdom which they inherited from us, or they are smaller nations, nine of which have the Privy Council as their court of appeal. We can therefore say that any conviction within the Commonwealth realms will be of such standing that we can recognise it because it has been made in a nation with which we have the friendliest relations and the tightest of historical links.

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[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman visits Singapore; he will remember that people there drive on the correct side of the road. They know how to do things there. It is a wonderful country.

Breaking obscure laws that it is unreasonable to expect people to have knowledge of ought not to exclude people from the House of Lords. Uganda has been in the news recently for its stringent laws against homosexuality. Are we really to say that peers who end up in Uganda and get into trouble with the law there should be banned from the House of Lords? They could get a life sentence. Is that really a way of deciding who is in a legislature of the United Kingdom? What happens if a lord displays a flag in Kiribati? Someone who displays a flag in Kiribati or wears a uniform in connection with a political object can be sentenced to a year in prison. Lords would suddenly be excluded for doing all sorts of minor things that in this country would not be an offence.

Rather splendidly, in Swaziland it is illegal for any female under 19 to shake the hands of a man; I do not know what the punishment for that is. Under the Bill, a peer could be convicted, regardless of when the offence took place. A 90-year-old peeress, who as a 19-year-old girl had shaken hands with a gentleman in Swaziland, could suddenly be deported to Swaziland, put in jug for a year and excluded from the House of Lords.

There is a tremendously serious point in this. It is that around the world there are hundreds of countries. I have a list of them: Afghanistan; Albania; Algeria; American Samoa; Andorra; Angola; Anguilla; Antigua and Barbuda; Argentina; Armenia; Aruba; Australia; Austria; and Azerbaijan. That just gets us to—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I think we got the message after the first five. I do not want to hear the rest; I think we have a flavour, without a fully detailed world atlas.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Mr Deputy Speaker, I think you are a mind reader. I was going to read out only the As, so your intervention came at absolutely the right moment to help me to continue.

We know remarkably little about many of those countries. We have not carefully considered their legal systems. What is the law in American Samoa? What offences could lead to somebody being sentenced to a year in prison? If a peer went there on a parliamentary delegation, would they randomly find that they had committed some offence? What if somebody has a gin and tonic in Saudi Arabia? They may get lashed, but—

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[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I beg to move amendment 19, page 3, leave out line 29.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 21, page 3, line 44, at end insert—

‘(9) A person who ceases to be a member of the House of Lords in accordance with sections 1 and 2 of this Act may not be elected to the House of Commons during the course of the next two Parliaments.

(10) A person who ceases to be a member of the House of Lords in accordance with this Act remains entitled to all the other privileges state degree style title and honour of peerage.’.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Amendments 19 and 21 aim to deal with the issue of Members of the House of Lords going from the Lords to the Commons. As the Bill was initially drafted and as we debated it on Second Reading, it would have been possible to have a revolving door or ping-pong back and forth, depending which phrase is preferred. It would have been possible for someone to leave the Commons, go to the Lords, leave the Lords, come back to the Commons and go back to the Lords again. I am glad to say that that was amended in Committee, which has at least to some degree ameliorated the situation. But there is a problem with the House of Lords being changed into a place that can be used as a way of preparing people for political life before bringing them to the Commons. As more and more professional politicians come through—I know this is a matter of concern to the electorate—people can have the following career path: becoming special advisers, going to the Lords and then coming to the Commons, without any real pause in between. As the Bill stands, it would be possible to resign a seat in the Lords immediately before the close of nominations for the House of Commons at a general election—

Thomas Docherty: There is already some precedent for somebody leaving the House of Lords, going straight to the House of Commons and then back to the House of Lords. I think I am right in saying that Alec Douglas-Home did exactly that in 1963 and was elected in Scotland to a seat that he represented for a number years and then became a life peer.

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[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The devolved Parliaments are different, because the simple logistics of needing to be in Edinburgh or Cardiff and also in the House of Lords make it much harder to work on that basis than between these two Houses, where the role, the position, the place of activity are so very similar. It is perfectly reasonable to foresee someone who has just lost a seat spending five years as a Lord preparing to campaign for it again. As it becomes clearer, and parties are well aware of this, that to win seats we have all modelled ourselves on the Liberal Democrats—I say that with not a single one present in the House now—we have worked out that to win marginal constituencies—[Interruption.] I was not aware that there was anyone that I could see in the Galleries.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that we make no mention of the Galleries, only this Chamber.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

That is why I did not see anybody in them, Mr Deputy Speaker. Although, there is, as you know, the right to speak from the Gallery in the event that the House is full. Sadly, it is not full today.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I think that that is something of the past, not of the present.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

No, it is still in “Erskine May” and—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I can help the hon. Gentleman a little more. It is also up to the Chair to decide who speaks, and on this occasion I have decided to hear a little more from Jacob Rees-Mogg.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am very grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker, although I will let you into a secret: one of my ambitions is to speak from the Galleries one day. I think that it was last done in the 1950s.

To return to my point, it has been established that the best way to win marginal seats is to select candidates early and have them working in the constituencies for a long time in the run-up to a general election. That presents difficulties, however, because candidates have to earn a living, need to find the resources to finance their campaign and have to put other parts of their life on hold. If they can do that from the House of Lords, that is an enormous advantage. It gives them an income of sorts and it gives them status, which they can use to intervene in constituency affairs—a local council or Government body will take a letter from a peer just as seriously as a letter from a Member of the House of Commons. There is the risk of setting up an MP and an unelected peer to fight for a constituency for five years, with the peer simply standing down before the election to put himself forward and conceivably take the seat and go back to being a Member of the House of Commons. That seems to me to be fundamentally undesirable.

Members may say that the risk is slim and that that will never happen, but we are becoming a more professional political class. There is certainly evidence that length of campaigning in constituencies helps. There is currently a very good proposal from “ConservativeHome” to provide candidates with funds to help them with that. How much easier it would be if there was a nice, cosy billet in the House of Lords from which it could be done. Admittedly, that could not be done again, because the peer would have burnt all his bridges in relation to returning to the House of Lords, but that is not too bad, because they would still have got 15 years out of the system: one Parliament as an MP, one as a peer and, if they are clever, another as an MP. It begins to look like a means of forming a political career.

If that system becomes a means of forming a political career, it also becomes—I return to what I said earlier—a means of the parties asserting more control over their lordships’ House. A key thing about being in their lordships’ House is that there really are no further baubles the Government can offer. There are very few carrots and no sticks. That encourages independence of mind. It encourages peers, once they get there, to be more rigorous in considering the merits of the issues before them and to act in the proper way of a revising Chamber. The more possible it is for Governments to encourage, coerce and persuade peers to stick tightly to the party line, the less use their lordships’ House will serve, because it will be unable to do its job as a revising Chamber effectively.

Even if the risk is relatively slim and the numbers involved will not necessarily be huge, it seems to me that some sort of stop ought to be placed on that and that people go to the Lords knowing that they have accepted it for life, as we have already discussed, and that it disbars them from the House of Commons. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that people should face the consequences of decisions they have freely made. That is where it is different from hereditary peers and disclaiming, because a hereditary peerage is not a decision freely made; it is an accident of birth. However, any life peer has received a letter from the Prime Minister saying, “Do you want to be a life peer?”, has had letters patent issued by the sovereign and has had to pay Garter King of Arms to draw up the paperwork. They have had to do something to get that noble status. They know, because they have been told, that it excludes them from the House of Commons, by their voluntary choice.

Some argue that that is against their human rights, which is an absolutely ridiculous understanding of human rights. I know that it has been argued that it is against their human rights to stop them coming back to the House of Commons, but they are the ones who chose to be ineligible for the House of Commons. Surely with rights go responsibilities, and surely people must face the consequences of their actions.

I think that the failure to include that exclusion in the Bill is a mistake. It is something that ought to be remedied, because it could lead to problems in future. It could damage the standing of the House of Lords. It could easily be misused by a powerful political party, because obviously the party in government is more able to decide who the working peers will be, and therefore to use it for its marginal seats, to the detriment of opposition parties. No party is in government for ever, so it is always worth all sides bearing those difficulties in mind. It also fundamentally takes away from someone the consequences of their actions, which I think is wrong. I think that people should bear those consequences, and once they have been elevated they should not be allowed to sink back down, at least for a period.

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[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

I rise to commend the Bill to the House and to our noble Friends in the other place.

The Bill makes a sensible reform. I was pleased to be invited by my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) to help prepare and bring in the Bill, and to serve on the Public Bill Committee.

When a previous version of the Bill was discussed, it did not get past Second Reading, even though it had a significant majority at that point. A number of issues have been raised through amendments today and in Committee. I thank, in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who is one of the great champions of constitutional propriety, but who also recognises the need for appropriate reform.

I sincerely hope that the other House passes the Bill without undue delay.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I call Jacob Rees-Mogg, to speak from the body of the Chamber.

Deregulation Bill

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lazarowicz]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and if the Minister wishes to intervene to clarify the issue, I am happy to let him do so.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. May I help a little? If we are to have interventions, could they be a little shorter, because some of them are almost turning into speeches?

[Mr Letwin]

I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker. I accept this is a slightly odd way to conduct a debate, but it seems to me to be productive, so bear with us.

There could of course be a general duty to have regard to sustainable development instead of all the duties on all the regulators—we could say that we do not need any other duties—but all the other regulators have lots of other duties, and by introducing economic growth not as an override but as a balancing consideration, that precisely induces them to consider the totality, namely sustainable development.

Tributes to Nelson Mandela

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I know that Mr Speaker mentioned the number of Members who wish to speak. We will not impose a time limit, but I suggest that Members should limit their speeches to five minutes, because I do not want to see anyone miss out.

Apprenticeships and Skills (Public Procurement Contracts) Bill

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Friday 1st November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

Perhaps I have been speaking in Swahili.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be speaking only in English today.

[Philip Davies]

That is a relief to me, Mr Deputy Speaker. Perhaps my Yorkshire accent is causing the confusion; I am not entirely sure. I have tried to set out why I am not convinced that the Bill will achieve what people want. I made it abundantly clear that I agreed with virtually everything that the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish said in his opening speech, but I am not sure that the Bill matches the speech.

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[Philip Davies]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be arguing that procurement policy will solve every ill in the country. I do not see that. He will be telling me next that public procurement contracts could eliminate illegal immigration. It just does not work like that. Let us focus on how we can make effective progress on individual areas.

As I have said, I think that the Government are doing a very good job at increasing the number of apprenticeships and at making sure that they are proper apprenticeships and that they lead to worthwhile jobs. The Government are already making good progress. We should encourage, celebrate and enhance that work.

The problem with procurement is that public bodies often do not get the best value for money for the taxpayer, so that is what we should focus on. Once we have done that and local authorities and public bodies have iron discipline in getting the best deal for the taxpayer, perhaps then we could look at how they could use procurement to advance some of the public policy areas mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. My point is that we—particularly Bradford council—are a long way from that. Let us get back to basics to start with and start negotiating some good deals for the taxpayer.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am a little bit worried about Bradford council. I know, as you have pointed out, that you are not too keen on it, but I think we ought to move beyond Bradford council. Let us keep to the point of procurement generally and apprenticeships and skills.

[Philip Davies]

Of course, Mr Deputy Speaker. My lack of enthusiasm for Bradford council was clearly getting the better of me.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

It’s showing!

[Philip Davies]

In many cases, public bodies are already co-operating with businesses, and further intervention could have a negative effect. The Minister for cities, the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), has confirmed a second wave of city deals, and that strategy goes a long way towards achieving what the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish wants. I am, therefore, not entirely sure that the Bill is needed in that respect.

My right hon. Friend has issued a written statement about the Greater Ipswich city deal, which is about addressing youth unemployment, increasing the skills level of the local work force and making sure that local businesses, local authorities, colleges and the Government co-operate in order to provide opportunities, ensure that

“dedicated support is available to match young people with jobs through a youth jobs centre…Expand the number of jobs and apprenticeships in local businesses”,

and increase

“local investment in skills training”.—[Official Report, 30 October 2013; Vol. 569, c. 49WS.]

It is not that anyone disagrees with the agenda of the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish, but the Government, through their city deals, are already doing an awful lot to address it. They should be allowed to flourish and continue their work, and I hope they will be successful. The Bill will not necessarily help; it may get in the way of, or even repeat, that work.

I think we would all agree that the Federation of Small Businesses is a leading business organisation of small businesses and the self-employed. It was formed in 1974 and has about 200,000 members, so we should listen to what it has to say. The Federation of Small Businesses is very supportive of apprenticeships:

“We believe apprenticeships can transform a young person’s life and give them access to bespoke training and often a highly skilled job as a result. Apprenticeships should be recognised as vital introductions to careers that can take individuals all the way to the top in the business. We need to see reforms continue to strengthen and protect the image of apprenticeships which, over the years, has been damaged by constant change.”

The Federation of Small Businesses shares the opinion with me and the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish that apprenticeships are valuable, but that they must be high quality. I agree with the FSB that that has not always been the case., but it also welcomes the Government’s “commitment to quality apprenticeships”.

The FSB supports the

“intention behind the Bill, which is to drive up apprenticeship numbers.”

As I have said, it would be difficult to oppose the sentiment behind the Bill. However, it also says that it is concerned that the Bill

“might hamper the progress being made and unintentionally harm the image of apprenticeships by reinforcing the perception that apprenticeships are a government driven work scheme of limited value. It is for this reason that we oppose the use of procurement to boost apprenticeship numbers.”

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[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is right. It is not clear whether or not apprentices in subcontracts count. Is there a requirement on a subcontractor bidding for a proportion of a contract? If the subcontract is for more than £1 million—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has mentioned that he is coming to the end of his speech. Other hon. Members want to speak and I am worried about getting them in. It might be helpful to him if I say that, if you bid for one contract, the subcontract is within the main contract, so it does not apply.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am not entirely sure what part of the Bill states that, but you are far more wise in these matters than I am, and I happily accept your judgment. However, when the hon. Gentleman sums up the debate, he might wish to address those points, so hon. Members can be clear on what we are voting on.

To go back to my initial point, I agree with what the hon. Gentleman wants to achieve. I admire his passion for improving the lot of young people, developing their skills and fulfilling their potential. My fear is that the Bill will not clear up the confusion he has identified, but add to the confusion of local authorities and public bodies. In addition, it could damage small businesses that want to bid for contracts and devalue current apprenticeships. I am sure that he wants none of those things, but that is my concern with the Bill. Until he can answer those questions and deal with those concerns, I am not sure that I can support his Bill, even though I absolutely agree with his thoughts on apprenticeships and what he would like to achieve.

House of Lords Reform (No. 2) Bill

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Friday 18th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

Yes, my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. This is another issue on which there might be amendments. I am concerned about how the Bill will proceed, assuming that it gets its Second Reading today, because if it does not go to a Committee of the whole House, it is quite likely that there will be so many amendments that people will want to move and debate that the Bill could end up taking up all the time available for discussion on Fridays; that is another good reason why it should go to a Committee of the whole House.

I should not sit down before commenting on what my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset said about the potentially ageist nature of the reference to retirement in the legislation. I have the privilege of representing the constituency with the largest proportion of residents aged over 65; the proportion is just over 35%. Obviously, that means that a much higher proportion than that are able to vote in elections, because those under 18 are excluded from doing so. I therefore have a particular reason for saying that it is important that the older generation be properly represented in this House and the other place.

Quite a lot of people see it as their objective in life to try to bring in, directly or indirectly, a restriction on the age until which people can participate in our democracy in a representative capacity. We should be hostile to those moves. That is another reason why I have always been against the idea of a retirement scheme for their lordships that is based just on age. The proposal in the House of Lords (Maximum Membership) Bill, to which I referred earlier, would not require people to retire based on their age; retirement would relate to the date when they first became Members, which can be a completely different kettle of fish.

As my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire said, the Bill is, on any view, a modest measure, but many modest measures have been brought before the House. Some of the Bills in my name further down the Order Paper are very modest measures—two clauses at most—but that does not mean that they will find favour with the Government Front Benchers.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Just to help, if the hon. Gentleman were to finish speaking now, we might be able to get to those modest measures.

[Mr Chope]

I am not that naive; there are two Bills after this one before we get to any of mine. The Government have already indicated that, although the House of Lords (Maximum Membership) Bill has received the Queen’s consent, that does not mean that it has their support. I live in hope, but as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans), who is in charge of the next Bill to be discussed, nobody’s performance or career in this House should be judged on how many private Members’ Bills they have been able to get on the statute book.

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[Mr Chope]

I stand corrected by my hon. Friend, who is a member of the Procedure Committee. My understanding has always been that if there were not enough Members voting in a Division, we went straight on to the next business.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Shall we test it?

[Mr Chope]

We can test it in due course.

The Bill, albeit modest, would need a great deal of change before it would be worthy to go on to the statute book. Once again, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire on introducing it. This debate sends out a warning shot to those in the other place that if they send to this House Bills relating to their own House which they want us to endorse, we will not do so unless we have had a chance to consider them fully.

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[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Is it really a point of order?

[Emily Thornberry]

I ask for your ruling, Mr Deputy Speaker, on whether this is correctly a point of order. The inconsistency that has been shown this afternoon is extraordinary—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. It is absolutely not a point of order. I thought that it might have been something relevant.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 63)(2),

That the House of Lords Reform (No. 2) Bill be committed to a Committee of the whole House.—(Jacob Rees-Mogg.)

Debate on the Address

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mark Tami]

By their very nature, these people, be they from Poland or wherever, tend to be young and healthy, and the health service is probably one of the last things they think about—it is the job they are looking for.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. There are 11 speakers to come, and there are no time limits, but to ensure that everybody gets in, may I ask Members to exercise some self-restraint?

[Mr Davis]

That was the last intervention I was going to take, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The simple truth is that we must be wary of doing something we do not intend to do, under political pressure. More generally, in our approach to difficult economic decisions in the next year or two, I hope that this Government, of all Governments, will work hard to balance the fairness against the difficult decisions. We are going to make hard decisions, which will lead to huge opprobrium from Labour Members for all sorts of reasons. That does not bother me, but what does bother me is that we get the balance of fairness right.

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[Bill Esterson]

The Institute for Fiscal Studies is clear that the lowest 20% of income groups are being hammered by the Government’s various changes. How can the right hon. Gentleman justify disabled people being hit, as they have been, by a combination of the bedroom tax, the council tax localisation scheme, work capability assessments followed by their appeal, and having their benefit cut during that lengthy process?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We are now on 17 minutes. I was working on speeches lasting no longer than 16 minutes per Member.

[Simon Hughes]

I was conscious that I was giving way too much so I will answer that intervention very quickly and move on. Many people with disabilities have had their benefits protected. For everybody there is now a scheme that will make sure they are reassessed—fairly, we hope. The so-called bedroom tax does not apply to people who need a live-in carer and other categories have now been exempted, not least because of internal discussions in the coalition which delivered that outcome. But I am very conscious that we need to do better for the people in the bottom 20% of income. I have argued that within my own party and in the coalition and will go on arguing it. We need to end up with a much fairer society than the Conservative Government or the Labour Government left us. We are trying to make that fairer society, which for us is a priority.

The priority is to make sure that we have a strong economy and a fairer society and that everybody has the opportunity to get on as they wish. To do that, the priorities are very much the ones that the Government have enunciated. Further priorities are social and affordable housing. For many the cost of getting their own home is prohibitive and homes to rent are unavailable. We need to carry on dealing with tax avoidance and the inequalities of wealth at home, but we should not think that the solution to all our problems is to become little Englanders or little Britishers and not to see our future as being within the continent of which we are a part, where we can trade, work, gain and make progress, and within the world of which we are also part.

It is good that the Queen’s Speech makes it clear not only that we will defend people who have been loyal to us, such as Gibraltarians and Falklanders, but that at the G8 next month we will argue for a fairer world, transparency and accountability, conflict prevention and bigger efforts to bring peace to those parts of the world such as the middle east, which have suffered for too long. Abraham Lincoln said:

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other”.

The coalition is resolved to help Britain succeed and become a strong economy again, and Liberal Democrats will play their part in making sure we do that as well as possible.

Tributes to Baroness Thatcher

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. May I just appeal to everyone to be brief, so that nobody misses out? Hon. Members have spent a lot of time waiting on the Benches.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We are now down to only Government Members. Let us keep an orderly line. Everybody will get in, but they must keep it short and aim to speak for three minutes, and no more than four.

Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

My question is also to do with the right hon. Gentleman’s concept of the last resort. I think he would accept that one of the reasons why we are enacting this Bill is to avoid an unpalatable situation. People who we might know from secret sources, which we cannot expose in public, to be closely involved in terrorism have been able to sue and walk away with £500,000, £1 million or more. That is what is behind the provision.

It will always be open to the Government to pay the money and thus avoid the action. Will the right hon. Gentleman’s criterion of the last resort mean that we can go for a closed material procedure to avoid having to pay out the money unjustifiably or that we will have to carry on doing what we are doing at the moment—rather than exposing secret sources or techniques, paying out a lot of money to potentially very dangerous people?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I ask hon. Members to make shorter interventions, although I know it is important to get things on the record.

[Sadiq Khan]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Six interventions ago, I said that I would take my last one; I keep being too generous.

The hon. Gentleman’s point would be good if I was suggesting that we remove CMPs altogether. I am saying that a judge should consider—a word that I shall explain in a moment—all other options, including public interest immunity, before going to a CMP. The Government amendment requires the Minister to consider PII; if it is good enough for the Minister, why is it not good enough for the judge?

We are not saying that there should not be CMPs, but that it is exceptional, for the reasons the Government have given. It should happen very infrequently; people have mentioned figures of seven or 15. The Under-Secretary has said from the Front Bench that he is not sure how many, which is why he will be supporting our sunset clause. What I am saying is that asking the judge to consider all the other options would make explicit the intention of Parliament and the Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sadiq Khan]

With the leave of the House, Mr Deputy Speaker, may I repeat what I said almost four hours ago by citing the words of the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation? As I said, the Opposition accept that there is

“a small but indeterminate category of national security-related claims, both for judicial review of executive decisions and for civil damages, in respect of which it is preferable that the option of a CMP—for all its inadequacies—should exist.”

That is our position and we are not seeking to exclude part 2 from the Bill—to be fair to the Minister, he did not suggest that we were.

I just remind the Minister that when the Green Paper was published, many on both sides of the House thought that it was perfectly adequate. When the draft Bill was first published, some on both sides of the House thought that it was adequate. We did not think that, and we pushed for improvements. When the Bill was published, before it went to the House of Lords last June, many on both sides of the House, including the Minister, thought that it was perfect and in need of no amendment. The Bill has been changed on three or four occasions in a number of areas, not least by the changes made in the House of Lords. The other place sought to put into the Bill some of the recommendations made by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Not all of its recommendations were put into amendments standing in the names of Cross Benchers, including Lord Pannick, but some were—the ones thought to be important in order to secure the checks and balances required in this Bill.

I remind the Minister that Labour Front Benchers have on no occasion sought to remove part 2 from the Bill. He will know, as he has been in this game far, far longer than I have, that we could well have won votes in the House of Lords to remove part 2, but we appreciate the important challenge the Government face. As the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee and colleagues on both sides of the House have put it, “How do we get the balance with our wish to make sure that our citizens are as safe as possible, bearing in mind the huge heroic work that our security services do, relying on intelligence from other countries?” The Opposition accept the control principle and always have done, and we will debate that after the votes at 8 pm. Nobody who has spoken today in favour of our amendments has tried to caricature the people against them as not being concerned about civil liberties and human rights. To be fair, those against our amendments have not tried to caricature our position as being against, or not understanding the importance of, national security.

The hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), who represented the Liberal Democrats in Committee, made a speech today, and I think he indicated that he will be supporting our amendments at 8 pm. I pray in aid the fact that it is not just Opposition Members wishing to press these amendments, as I will shortly. The Joint Committee on Human Rights, in its most recent report last week, confirmed that it was unhappy with the shredding of the Lords amendments in Committee. The special advocates also agree with our amendments, as does the House of Lords. The independent reviewer of terrorism legislation and the former Director of Public Prosecutions also believe that our amendments strike the right balance between national security and ensuring that individuals are able to hold the Executive to account.

During the debate, my view—the Opposition’s view—has been characterised as considering PII perfect and a utopian panacea for some of the challenges we face, but I have not said that. I deliberately took some time to pray in aid the Supreme Court decision in al-Rawi, when the court said, to paraphrase, that it would like the additional tool of CMPs and suggested that it would like Parliament to give it that ability. That is what I am seeking to do.

I say to the Minister without Portfolio that the danger lies is some of the comments made by others, who gave the impression that CMPs are often preferable to PIIs and that rather than being the exception—a point made by a number of colleagues on the Government Benches—they would become the default position. That is where he must be careful. A number of Members on both sides of the House have said that PII is rubbish, that it is not the answer and that CMPs are far preferable, and they have asked why a judge would not opt for a CMP. We are simply seeking to put in the Bill the amendments passed by huge majorities in the House of Lords on the recommendation of the JCHR to ensure that a judge understands that he must consider the other options before he decides to go for a CMP.

I know that the Minister without Portfolio did not mean it when he said that every time he makes a concession, ingenious lawyers move fresh amendments; our fresh amendment would have become stale by now, as it is four months old. I would like to press to a vote amendment 26, which is a paving amendment for amendment 31 to make CMPs a last resort, and amendment 30, which is the gateway for the Wiley balancing test for maximum judicial discretion.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

The House proceeded to a Division.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the Aye Lobby.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government new clause 6—Review of sections 6 to 11.

New clause 4—Expiry and renewal—

‘(1) Sections 6 to 12 of this Act expire at the end of the period of one year beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.

(2) The Secretary of State may, by order made by statutory instrument, provide that sections 6 to 12 of this Act are not to expire at the time when they would otherwise expire under subsection (1) or in accordance with an order under this subsection but are to continue in force after that time for a period not exceeding one year.

(3) An order under this section may not be made unless a draft of it has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House.’.

New clause 9—Recording of data relating to closed proceedings—

‘(1) Rules of court relating to closed material proceedings under this Act, and applications for them, must make provision—

(a) ensuring that key data is centrally recorded for all proceedings, including—

(i) the duration of open hearings and closed hearings; and

(ii) the number of witnesses heard in closed proceedings and the nature of those witnesses; and

(iii) the length of a closed judgment; and

(iv) whether the claimant, defendant and/or intervener applied for closed material proceedings; and

(v) whether the claimant, defendant and/or intervener contested the application for closed proceedings; and

(b) ensuring that centrally recorded data is available to the independent person appointed by the Secretary of State to review the operation of the provisions of the Terrorism Act 2000 and Part 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006.’.

Government amendments 49 and 51 to 54.

[James Brokenshire]

The last debate was about the principles of closed material proceedings; we now turn to a new group of amendments relating to additional reviewing mechanisms for the CMP provisions—in particular, Government new clauses 5 and 6 and associated consequential amendments.

In Committee I said that I was prepared to listen further to concerns expressed about transparency and particularly about ensuring that the new provisions did not make CMP commonplace. I undertook to table amendments on that matter. I have considered the issue carefully and decided to adopt the view of the Constitution Committee. I therefore intend to bring forward annual reporting and a review of the CMP provisions to be conducted five years after Royal Assent.

Given the often lengthy nature of litigation, we believe that the frequency set out in the amendments allows for regular but meaningful reporting and for a review to be informed by enough cases to provide for substantiated conclusions and reasoned recommendations where necessary. We believe that an annual report is the most proportionate approach, as it is anticipated that CMPs will be used infrequently.

The consequence is that there is likely to be little to report on a basis more regular than once a year. Annual reports will not, however, be the only way in which facts relating to cases involving CMPs will be made public during the reporting period. The Government have made an amendment in the Lords to ensure that when an application is made under clause 6(1), that must be reported to the other parties in the proceedings. There are already mechanisms through which the courts publish their open judgments.

The reports will focus on court procedures, as CMPs are a procedural option for the courts and not related to the use of Executive powers. The new clauses list the matters of key concern to be included in the annual reports such as the number of CMP applications and who they are made by; how many CMPs are granted and how many revoked; and how many judgments, both open and closed, are published with respect to the determination of section 6 proceedings. That would include judgments made on the substantive trial and regarding the outcome of the application for a CMP declaration. The new clauses would also cover proceedings deemed to be section 6 proceedings, such as the application process for a declaration and the review of Norwich Pharmacal certification.

In addition to an annual reporting requirement, the Government seek to introduce a provision for a comprehensive review after five years. In line with other legislation, such as the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011, it requires the appointment of a reviewer and does not specify the remit of the review except to indicate that it covers the operation of closed material proceedings. That type of review of CMPs would be different from other reviews, in that it would concern not the operation of the Secretary of State’s powers but rather the operation of court processes. That means that the reviewer will have to take care not to review judicial decisions regarding the operation of court processes or the fair running of individual cases.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Slaughter]

I do not think that is for this debate, but good try. I should follow the example of my boss and try not to antagonise the hon. Gentleman if I want him to vote with the Opposition on this matter. That may be contrary to what he said last Thursday, but it is in line with his party’s policy, what he did in Committee, and what seems to be the current position in Liberal Democrat Voice. We have heard enough of that; let us consider the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which stated in a short but telling paragraph in its most recent report:

“We also reiterate the recommendation in our first Report that the Bill provide for annual renewal, in view of the significance of what is being provided for and its radical departure from fundamental common law traditions.”

I am not sure one needs to go much further than that, and that lies at the heart of new clause 4.

Anyone who has sat through this debate, or previous debates in the other place or Committee, cannot be under any illusion that this Bill is complex, controversial and important, above all, for the reasons given by the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie): it attacks and deals with fundamental issues of fair and open justice. It is also, I am afraid to say, confused—perhaps deliberately so—and has had a very confused birth. The Minister said that, contrary to comparable legislation, this Bill has made slow, stately and clear progress, but I beg to differ.

I do not think that anyone would quarrel with my assertion that the Bill is complex. It is complex even for lawyers, 702 of whom wrote to the Daily Mail last week saying that they would not support this part of the Bill. Views have been expressed either way on it, and I respect the views of lawyers from the senior judiciary and the Supreme Court, as well as of human rights lawyers and special advocates. We are not short of legal opinion on this matter, and it is not of one mind. Overwhelmingly, however, it takes the view that this is territory into which we should proceed with great care and great caution.

I do not think that the Minister would deny that the legislation was controversial, either. He will find similar sentiments on it being expressed in normally Conservative-supporting newspapers such as The Mail on Sunday and normally Liberal Democrat-supporting newspapers such as The Guardian. Huge amounts of thoughtful concern are being expressed across the press about the provisions.

I have heard the Minister without Portfolio say many times that secret courts were undesirable and that we would not have them if we did not need them. Where we differ is on how we should use the provisions and how far they should go. Some say that they should not go any distance at all, while others say, as we do, that they should be as closely constrained as possible.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) does not agree with my view that this is a confused measure. I am not going to repeat the vaudeville act that I so enjoyed doing in Committee, in which I pointed out the four different positions that the Liberal Democrats had held on the Bill, some of them simultaneously, or the four occasions on which the Minister without Portfolio had announced that he had seen the light and decided that he was previously wrong to be so terribly authoritarian and that he now had a package of measures that would ensure full judicial discretion and that CMPs were de facto, if not expressly in the Bill, to be used as a last resort. I think we have all seen through those posturings, which were adopted primarily for political purposes.

We have only to look through the list of amendments to the Bill and at what will be in the Bill after tonight—until such time, I hope, that some of it is removed again in the other place—to see that this is all hugely controversial. Yes, we have the six markers that were put down in the House of Lords, and I accept that two of those—the least far-reaching—have been accepted by the Government. The move from “must” to “may” opens the door to judicial discretion; there is agreement on that. There has been some peculiar dithering about equality of arms, which is a strange term to use in this context as it refers simply to the ability of both parties to apply to get into a CMP; it will have nothing to do with equality of arms once the CMP has been invoked. That proposal was put in, taken out and put in again by the Government. I am not making a point about that; it is in there now and the Government are supporting our amendments on that tonight, but—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Obviously there is a load of historical information that people might wish to discuss, but we need to stick to the new clauses before us tonight, rather than going back through the history. I am sure that that is where the hon. Gentleman is going to take us to next.

[Mr Slaughter]

I am indeed, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The point I was trying to encapsulate is that there is so much in the Bill that is new and highly controversial that it seems utterly right that we should not have to wait five years or have only a single process of review, and that we should have instead a process of renewal. That is to say that this House and the other place should have the opportunity to reject the Bill once they have seen it in operation.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Brokenshire]

I would just say that we have had an extensive debate on all the amendments on which the hon. Gentleman suggests there has been no debate. I wonder whether he might like to reflect on that.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. What I can reflect on is that we should be sticking to the new clauses before us, and, as I have said, I know that is what we are going to do now.

[Mr Slaughter]

I do not know how the Minister can say that when he has tabled new amendments on Report that introduce new concepts to the Bill. [Interruption.] Well, I am in difficulty here, because Mr Deputy Speaker is asking me to conclude. Perhaps this is a matter we can return to on Third Reading.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. It is the new clauses that are under discussion and it is the new clauses we need to stick to, because we have dealt with the previous amendments. We are just rounding off on the new clauses. I am sure that that is what the hon. Gentleman wants to do.

[Mr Slaughter]

It might be that we can return to this matter briefly on Thursday, because the other place will want to see what the Government have done to the Bill before it leaves this House. The introduction at a very late stage, both in Committee and on Report, of substantial changes to the Bill does not make for good legislation. At the very least, our new clause would make the provision subject to a process of annual review. The idea of a review after five years that might lead to nothing but a continuation, without any possibility of sanction from this House or the other place, is not reasonable, so I urge all Members to support not only new clause 4, but amendment 38.

Commercial Lobbyists (Registration and Code of Conduct) Bill

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Friday 1st February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

I appreciate the shadow Minister’s view, but I simply do not agree with it. I do not see where the lack of transparency is. I have no problem telling anyone who asks me about which organisations I have met. If my constituents want to know who I have met—what lobbying firms and organisations—I would have no problem telling them, and I would like to think that that would be the attitude of most of my colleagues on both sides of the House. I do not see where the secretiveness is. If anybody is in an organisation relating to culture, media and sport, whichever side of the argument they are on, I am happy, time allowing, to meet them. As far as I can see, that is perfectly transparent. So I do not see the problem the Bill seeks to solve.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North, I oppose the Bill in principle. It will be a dog’s dinner, to be honest, and will not deal with any of the perceived problems we have heard about. In fact, the Bill is probably the worst of all dog’s dinners.

Let me turn to clause 1, which deals with the registration of lobbyists, and to the fact that there would be a register and the fees that would be charged. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North had an interesting exchange with the promoter of the Bill, the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife, about fees. The promoter not only intended to be helpful but actually was helpful in setting out the fees that he thought would be charged. However, I share my hon. Friend’s cynicism about fees, in the sense that we all know where they start off but there is no telling where they will end up, particularly when a bureaucracy has an audience that has no choice over whether to join. People will have to join because it will be the law of the land for them to join, so the bureaucracy can end up charging what it likes.

Let me therefore say to the promoter of the Bill—I hope the Minister will hear this too, because if she and the Government are so misguided as to go down this path, we may as well try to make it as good as we can—that it would be helpful to have a cap in the Bill on the fees that could be charged. Just to make a suggestion, perhaps the fees would be no more than the £200 to £300 that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife seemed to think would be suitable. That would at least remove the issue of people thinking that the fees would go up and up, in a never-ending spiral, to try to satisfy a never-ending bureaucracy that would grow up as a result of this Bill.

We all see how these things work. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North talked about how such bodies start off being self-funded but end up having to be funded by the state. I think he is probably right. It is not an exact comparison, but we are seeing the start of something similar with the Press Complaints Commission. It is a self-funded body, but it is seen as being too close to the industry it is supposed to be looking after, so people are asking whether that is good enough and whether we need to do something else or get the state more involved. We can see how these things develop, and there is no reason why the same would not happen under this Bill.

I am sure that people will correct me, but it seems to me that clause 2 would introduce the offence of non-registration of one’s organisation. Then there is another criminal offence under clause 3 for breaching the code of conduct—the Labour party created lots of new criminal offences when it was in government and it appears to be continuing the same theme in this Bill. The promoter of the Bill said that we should not worry because everything would be subject to parliamentary scrutiny and approval, and that that was fine—let me say in passing that he has more confidence in parliamentary scrutiny than I do—but as far as I can see the Bill makes no great provision for parliamentary scrutiny. Parliamentary scrutiny is what we are doing now, by discussing the merits of the Bill. It is the council set up under this Bill that would prepare the code of conduct with which, under clause 3,

“those included on the register shall comply”.

It will not be Parliament that draws up the code of conduct, so there will be no parliamentary control there. Once we had passed this Bill, the council would be free to establish the code of conduct as it saw fit and that would be that.

Clause 3 then says, in subsection (2):

“The Secretary of State shall give statutory effect to the code and any revised code by order.”

There is no great parliamentary scrutiny there either. We are basically giving the Secretary of State huge powers to act on his or her own terms and whatever he or she happens to think is the right thing to do. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North, I have a great deal of time for the Minister, but she will know, as we all do, that she will not be the Minister for ever, and we might not get as good a Minister in future. Indeed, we might be left with one who is not as talented and sensible. We might—if we want to be very depressing—end up with the Labour party in government. Who knows what we might end up with at that point? [Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. What I do know is that we are going to get straight back to the Bill and not get into speculation about the next election.

[Philip Davies]

As ever, Mr Deputy Speaker, you are quite right. I was getting carried away with myself—the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife did not help when he invited me to consider the prospect of a Lib Dem Government, which does not even bear thinking about. I will move on, for the sake of my own sanity more than anything else.

The idea that there will be a great deal of parliamentary scrutiny of the terms of the register and the code of conduct is not one that I recognise from my reading of the Bill. Also, I asked earlier who would enforce the criminal offences that the Bill creates. There will no doubt be all sorts of vexatious complaints from people who do not like a particular industry, from people who have been lobbying someone about something, and counter-organisations that do not like a particular industry will put in vexatious complaints here and there. People will be contacting their local police and crime commissioner, their local chief superintendent and their chief constable, and putting pressure on them to investigate this or that case. The police’s resources are stretched enough as it is. I have been opposed to the reductions to the police budget that have taken place over the past few years. Surely at a time when the police budget is going down, the last thing they need is more of these kinds of offences to investigate, when there is much more bread-and-butter crime to be dealt with.

Then we have to consider the Crown Prosecution Service. What will be the chances of getting a conviction for such offences? We all know what the CPS is like. It is very reluctant to take a case to court unless there is a cast-iron guaranteed certainty of a conviction. There will be all sorts of complaints relating to whether the code of conduct has been breached, for example, and it is hard to imagine the CPS taking anyone to court, no matter how much time the police have spent investigating a case.

The whole thing is a complete dog’s breakfast, and that is before we even come to the definition of lobbying in clause 4. Clauses 1 to 3 were bad enough, but clause 4 is the worst clause of all. We have had an interesting debate on the definition of lobbying. There is so much to say on that, and so little time in which to say it. I do not intend to speak at length. As you will know better than anyone, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am always anxious to proceed at a pace on a Friday so that we can get on to the next piece of legislation, and I do not intend to do anything different today. I will make a few remarks about the definition of lobbying, but I just want to say to the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife that I hope his second Bill, which I trust we will get on to in the not-too-distant future, is better than his first one. The first one has not been a good start.

Clause 4 gives the definition of lobbying as

“any activity carried out in the course of a business or employment which are undertaken for financial gain and are designed to influence the Government of the United Kingdom, Parliament, any local authority in England or any member or employee of any of those bodies in formulating its official policy.”

We could spend hours talking about clause 4, because it contains all sorts of loopholes, flaws and omissions. The whole point of anybody approaching a Member of Parliament, on any basis, is to lobby them. It might be to lobby them because the person believes strongly in something, perhaps in their local community, or to lobby them for financial gain. It tends to be one or the other. Someone might come to see me because they want to reduce the amount that they owe to the Child Support Agency, for example. That is a perfectly legitimate thing to come and see an MP about. I cannot always sort such things out, but I will always do my best for my constituents. They are lobbying me for financial gain, of course they are—it is a perfectly legitimate, respectable thing to do.

The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife seems to be trying to distinguish between different types of financial gain. From his definition in the Bill, he seems to be saying that some kinds of lobbying for financial gain are fine, while other kinds are not so fine and need to have something done about them.

Succession to the Crown Bill

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Wayne David]

I have no objection at all—the Minister can say it again if she likes.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) mentioned how the six people nearest in line to the throne could lose their place if the Queen did not consent to their marriage. It is important to say on the record that the explanatory notes state clearly that that would be the case; in fact, it says so in the summary on the front page. I do not think, therefore, that it is fair to say that the issue has not been referred to properly in the House—it has been referred to in the documents and in last week’s debate.

It is also important to remember that we are talking about a constitutional monarchy that has a close relationship with the Government of the day. I am sure that a monarch would not take any action if they believed that, in doing so, they would be acting incorrectly in the background.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Thank you for that short intervention.

[Miss Smith]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and commend the Bill to the other place.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.