Covid-19 Update

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I will of course set all this out in the course of the next few weeks. What I can tell the House are some obvious things that the House can see for itself. We need to be sure that the vaccine roll-out continues to go at the pace, and with the success, that it currently is. We need to ensure that we are targeting all those groups, reducing the overall level of vulnerability in the population.

We need to ensure, clearly, that the vaccine is working—or the vaccines are working, because there are at least two now—in the sense that they are driving down the mortality rate in those elderly and vulnerable groups. We need to start to see that. There are promising signs from Israel. In this country, we have not yet seen the data that would help us to be absolutely confident of that point.

Then, of course, there are the pressures on the NHS and other important considerations—to say nothing of the very important economic considerations that my hon. Friend raises. I assure him that we will set out much more in the course of the next weeks to give reassurance and certainty, as far as we can, to all our constituents.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

When Australia had a second wave it held an inquiry that showed the failures of the private contractors in the system of quarantine that they were running. Australia learned from it, the Minister resigned, and it is better. Now, it is almost covid-free. The Prime Minister is so right in saying that of course every Government will make mistakes, but why will he not open an inquiry now so that we can learn from those mistakes, not keep repeating them, like delays in lockdown and in schools opening, and actually start to turn this thing around? Will he commit here and now to do a short, sharp public inquiry, as the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, on which I sit, suggested, so that we can all be the better for it?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and indeed for the work of his Committee. I know that those conclusions, along with many others, will be studied with care. I know that you want brief answers, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I direct him to the answers that I have already given on that point to his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and to many others throughout the day. Of course we will learn the lessons, but at the height of the pandemic we would have to concentrate a huge amount of official and health sector time to an inquiry, when we need to get on with beating the virus.

EU Withdrawal Agreement

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is about UK authorities carrying out our procedures in our territory under our laws.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

This was the never-ending story, but it seems a bit like it is turning into a never-ending nightmare for businesses, which have been told not of a settled situation, but that the can is going to be kicked down the road for three to six months. Is it not time to be honest with the British people and say, “This will never end. Negotiations will continue forever,” because this Government are just not capable of securing decent deals that are settled wills with the European Union?

[Michael Gove]

I absolutely take the hon. Gentleman’s point, but it is the case that in the future we will be negotiating new free trade deals, as it happens, with other countries outside the European Union that we could not have negotiated inside the EU. These negotiations are led by my brilliant colleague, the President of the Board of Trade. She has secured deals—for example, with Japan—that are even better than that we had in the EU, so negotiating going on is what Trade Secretaries do, and we are lucky to have the best in the world.

Integrated Review

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is always a pleasure to thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence whom I have known for many, many years and is a good friend of mine. He is supported, as my hon. Friend rightly said, by thousands of brilliant officials, to say nothing of the members of our wonderful armed services who have helped to make this package what it is. I believe that it will deliver for our people and deliver for our country for years and years to come.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

In the mid-‘90s, the UK was one of the largest contributors to UN peacekeeping missions in terms of troops and personnel. Now we have only 600 personnel worldwide whom we contribute. Will this budget turn that around and take us back to our proud tradition of peacekeeping troops, and will the Prime Minister commit to ensuring that the 0.7% is not devalued at all in this wider review?

[The Prime Minister]

One reason why I am so excited about going up to 2.2% of our spending on defence, as the hon. Gentleman points out, is that it will allow us to do more on peacekeeping. By the way, he is right to draw attention to the fact that the UK could do more on peacekeeping. I am proud of what we are doing, for instance, in Mali, but this programme, this investment, gives us the scope to do even more.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

He who waits it all comes to. I was going to answer that point in a minute.

The MOD argued two things in that case. First, it argued that the case was out of time, and the families won the limitation hearing to take the case forward. The hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) has just said it would be within the six-year limit. No, it would not. Let us suppose they had taken the case not in 2016 but six years later. They would not be able to take a limitation hearing at all. The Minister does not quite understand that problem.

The case I raised in Committee was of an aircraft engineer who developed a very serious nerve condition from paint. The only reason he was able to take forward his case was because the technology had changed and research had shown that the paint actually damages people’s nervous system.

The Minister said in Committee that, somehow, he is on record in The Sun as guaranteeing that no one will lose out, but he cannot because that will not happen: as I said to him in Committee, using the Robin Day analogy, we are all here-today, gone-tomorrow politicians. Frankly, what will happen is that MOD lawyers will use this to stop people making claims.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Jones]

If I must.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

My right hon. Friend does not have to if he does not want to.

Will the passing of the Bill mean that civilians working for the MOD down the road will end up having, in effect, more rights than Army service personnel who have served in operations overseas? Does that not bring us back to the fundamental issue of the breaking of the armed forces covenant, on which the Government really must think again?

[Mr Jones]

It does. The Bill’s provisions will also mean that prisoners will have more right to sue the MOJ, for example, than armed forces personnel. The Minister said in Committee, “That’s terrible because you’re comparing armed service personnel with veterans”; no, I am not. I am saying that if the Bill goes through, prisoners will have more rights than armed forces personnel. That cannot be right. The Minister mentioned the 6%; I am sorry, but if even one veteran loses their rights under this Bill, I am not prepared to support that.

My next point is about the Human Rights Act. I support the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) and the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), because it is about how this looks in terms of our international reputation. There is derogation in the Bill; I accept that there cannot be derogation for torture, but it can and will be used to stop claims by MOD personnel against the MOD itself. The Snatch Land Rover case was brought under the Human Rights Act. Some people have the idea that the Human Rights Act is there to protect nasty foreigners and people we do not like; no, it is not. It is there to protect us all, including armed forces personnel. I am sure that that derogation will be used again by the MOD to deny the rights of individuals to take cases.

People should look at the Smith judgment on that case. What were the Government arguing? They were arguing that combat immunity, which is covered and was reinforced by the Supreme Court judgment, applied in that case because it happened in Iraq. No, that was not the case; the case was actually about the design and the decision to procure those Land Rovers and put them into theatre. The derogation will clearly be used in such a way.

I wish to make one final point, about our standing in the world. I am a supporter of the service justice system—it works well and we should be proud of it—but the problem with the Bill is this: do I want to see British servicemen and women tried in the International Criminal Court? No, I do not. I want them to be tried by their peers in a court in this country. As the Judge Advocate General, Judge Blackett, said in Committee, under this Bill there is a danger that if we have a presumption against prosecution and the issue around torture, we will get a situation whereby individuals will be tried not here but elsewhere. That would be terrible, not just for those individuals but for this country’s international reputation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Tugendhat]

I will carry on.

It is also an issue for the human rights of some of the people we are fighting. Bizarrely, there were situations in Afghanistan where individuals could only be detained for a certain number of hours. They could not, for various reasons, be handed over to the Afghan authorities, despite the fact that we were, in theory, supporting the Afghan Government. It meant that after a certain number of hours—normally about 96 hours—they had to be released. The fact that they were known bomb makers who had definitely been handling explosives because chemical evidence showed it, could not be used, because in order to be used, those people would have had to be handed over to the Afghan authorities, and various people argued that the Afghan authorities were too inappropriate, too corrupt or too violent.

So, what happened? What do you think happens when someone who has taken up arms against you, literally tried to kill you and planted bombs to try to maim you cannot be detained? It is simple: after the legal limit was reached, the prisoners were released and followed for a number of hours, until they did exactly what we would expect: they went back to a weapons cache or arms unit and were engaged again as lawful military targets. How is that a defence of the human rights, even of the individual concerned?

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

The hon. Gentleman, who is a good Member and a friend, is making a really interesting argument, but I fail to understand how it has anything to do with the Bill. How has limiting the ability of service personnel to take civil action against the MOD got anything to do with what he is talking about? How is requiring a five-year statute of limitations on things like torture anything to do with what he is saying about the operation in war? Can he explain how the interesting points he is making are relevant to what is in the Bill? I and, I think, my colleagues fail to see it.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I am sorry that the hon. Member is failing to see it, because I thought I explained it quite clearly with the Ukraine example. We also see in other operations how the use of law has undermined the combat effectiveness of the armed forces. We see time and again in operations the opportunity for an individual with nefarious intent to try to bring legal action against the MOD to prevent operations.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Sunderland]

I could not agree more.

I am aware that several amendments were tabled in Committee, but none was agreed to. The Bill is hence essentially unaltered from Second Reading, so perhaps it is no surprise that such a large list is being considered today. I will admit that some of the amendments have merit. Having been contacted over the weekend by the eminent hon. and gallant Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) and my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), I have looked in particular at amendments 1 to 10. My view, however, is that this Bill will not prevent the UK from rightly prosecuting acts of torture, war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide, and that the Bill does not need to exclude these from its triple lock because existing provisions already exist in law.

I also struggle with the notion that the MOD would somehow fail to investigate or prosecute, because the bad apples will always face justice, as indeed they did during my time in uniform. Regarding torture, the Government’s position is that the presumption against prosecution will not prevent any prosecutor from considering the severity of the crime or the unique circumstances in which it was committed. Indeed, war is a nasty business, so I do not believe that a court should somehow be prevented from giving weight to the mental health of the individual or the prevailing conditions. Hence I am minded against amendments 21 and 22. I agree with the Minister that this would be nonsensical, as prosecutors should give recognition to the difficulty, the trauma and the acute stress of military operations, as any member of HM forces will testify.

In addition, the Bill confirms that on a case-by-case basis, a prosecutor can determine that a crime is exceptional, so there is no collision course here with the UN convention against torture, the Geneva convention, the Hague or even NATO, as nothing will be swept under the carpet. As for the five-year time limit, this is correct, as the clock will start ticking from the point at which matters come to light, not from the time of the alleged incident. That was also the overwhelming preference during the public consultation. Not only should it be possible for all the evidence to be gathered within a five-year period, but I concur with the Minister that memories do fade, that evidence does deteriorate and that it remains in the interests of everyone involved to deliver justice quickly. I do not therefore support amendments 18 and 19, which seek to lengthen the period to 10 years. This is ultimately about taking pressure off our people, not prolonging it.

Part 2 of the Bill relates to claims by service personnel against the MOD. As 94% of all employer liability claims against the MOD since May 2007 have been brought within the limitation longstop of six years, I agree that there should be a time limit here, too. To be fair, I have considered the suggestion that this Bill is more about protecting the MOD than it is about protecting HM forces, but that, too, is ridiculous. I note that the time limit extends here, too, from the point at which the issue first came to light. There is more than enough time here for any complaint to be submitted, and the MOD cannot simply write a cheque for yesteryear. I will be voting against new clauses 5 and 6 and amendment 23 if they are divided on.

Lastly, I am aware that this Bill has attracted lots of interest in the media in recent months, so I want to set the record straight: I am not convinced that the criticism from the Royal United Services Institute, the Royal British Legion, the Joint Committee on Human Rights or other senior figures is necessarily fair, as the Bill delivers what it says on the tin. Having read it in detail, I am clear, too, that any new presumption against prosecution is not a statute of limitations and does not in any way create a bar to either investigations or prosecutions. Unlike some, I have complete faith in both our legal system and our armed forces, so I commend this Bill to the House.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

We all agree that the aims of the Bill are noble, and that the idea of revolving investigations or a life in investigatory purgatory, never knowing when a vexatious investigator will come knocking at the door, is wrong and must end. The mental stress of that legal uncertainty needs clarity. The loopholes need to be closed and fixed, but this Bill does not do that. It does not even come close. In fact, in a number of areas, it makes things worse.

--- Later in debate ---

What we have here is a Bill that does not do what it says it wants to do. I think we all agree that the flawed investigation system needs to be fixed. We are in this situation because the Bill does not address that. The Bill ensures that members of the armed forces will be further exposed to the International Criminal Court, which I do not believe any Member wishes to see. As has been highlighted time and again, the Bill is written in such a way as to protect the Minister and his officials in Main Building, not to best serve members of the armed forces and veterans.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Does the hon. Member share my worry that potentially putting our armed forces up against the International Criminal Court could be the beginning of a path to undermining the Court itself? It is quite easy to see a situation where British service personnel are investigated, and then Conservative Members start braying for us to leave the Court in its entirety.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

That is exactly the slippery slope I fear we are on. I hate the phrase “the thin end of the wedge”, but I am afraid that it rather fits where we are with this Bill and this Government. We have those senior opinions in military, legal and political circles against the Bill. That is before we get to the recent damning report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which made clear the number of flaws in the Bill.

I am conscious of time, so I will conclude. The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), suggested that, were we to change our defence posture with regard to training or peacekeeping in supporting Ukraine, we could be subject to what he called “a Russian hand” trying to take legal action here—no doubt that Russian hand is a Tory donor. That is exactly the kind of thing that would see UK personnel further exposed to the International Criminal Court.

EU Exit: Negotiations and the Joint Committee

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Absolutely. The broader point that my hon. Friend makes about the need for solidarity among democracies at a time of increasing insecurity across the globe is an important one. We cannot agree to a deal at any price—we have been very clear about that—but the broader context that he provides is very helpful.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

My very first question in this place was to ask the then Prime Minister whether she would consider separately negotiating access to Erasmus and Horizon, which did not need to be part of the wider agreement, because of the risk of a deal falling down. Now that the deal has fallen down and all predictions about this incompetent Government have come true, will the Government consider a separate track to negotiate Erasmus and Horizon entry—which they can do and which the European Union was willing to do—so that our students and universities can have security on this issue?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and we would like to continue participation in both those programmes, but obviously that depends to a significant extent on conversations that are still going on.

Covid-19 Update

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I understand my hon. Friend’s point about people’s behaviour after leaving the pub. That is why it is vital that everybody shows common sense and follows the guidance.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

You and I, Mr Speaker, and the Prime Minister could probably live on a one-third pay cut on our pay. Someone on the minimum wage, with a one-third pay cut on their pay, cannot live and pay the bills and will therefore be disincentivised to follow the rules. Will the Prime Minister look again just at the minimum wage people to ensure that the new scheme has a floor?

[The Prime Minister]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. That is why we have extended the job support system. The universal credit system is also there to provide a safety net and to help people, precisely because, as their incomes may go down, so universal credit goes up. That is the point of the system.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith]

I think in the case of Port Talbot it was the 5% quota that meant that that decision had to be reached. When we are talking about quotas, we know that internationally a larger quota is used and promoted as best practice for securing fair representation. Indeed, the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission’s code of good practice in electoral matters recommends allowing a standard permissible tolerance of an average of plus or minus 10%.

As the Minister knows, there is a consensus amongst respected experts such as David Rosser and Professor Charles Pattie who agree that the 5% rule causes significant disruption to community boundaries.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

We have heard from the other side a suggestion that we should use polling districts as the building blocks, not wards, but is there not a problem with deviating from wards? Wards are agreed by an independent commission, whereas polling districts are decided based on the location of the local church hall for use as the polling station. Surely we need independent commissions that create the building blocks of wards that then form the building blocks of constituencies. The only way to do that is with the 10% or 7.5% variance.

[Cat Smith]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the legal standing of polling districts. Wards that are drawn up by the local government boundary commission have that independence in terms of the boundaries that they represent, whereas polling districts are for administration of elections done by local councils and, as he says, can be decided basically on their proximity to a church hall.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) mentioned Wales earlier, and this restrictive quota will disproportionately impact Wales. I know that many more Welsh colleagues will express their concern about the geographical challenges that the quota will throw up in Wales. With mountains and valleys dividing communities, the task of creating constituencies that make sense to those communities becomes extremely difficult.

I shall conclude by highlighting the fatal flaw in the Government’s arguments on the 5% quota. Throughout the Bill’s progress, the Minister has argued that a robust boundary review with a 5% quota will magically ensure that every vote carries the same weight. But the Government’s central argument turns on the ludicrous suggestion that the 5% quota will achieve parity of representation for all electors across the United Kingdom. On what planet does every vote count equally in this country? Leaving aside the fact that there are so-called safe seats, which effectively disenfranchise huge swathes of the population at every election, it simply is not true that every vote would count equally as a result of the Bill. At any given election, in the region of 9 million eligible voters are incorrectly registered and lose out on their chance to vote, and millions more will join them with the Government’s voter ID plan set to lock more people out of democracy simply for not having the right form of ID.

The new boundaries will not be based on the reality of the British electorate, with millions of eligible voters missing from the register, so can the Minister stop rolling out the line that somehow a 5% quota will revolutionise our electoral system and suddenly make every vote count equally? The truth is that she knows exactly what measures will make our electoral system more equal, because 11 months ago the Electoral Commission made clear recommendations, including encouraging the introduction of automatic voter registration. The Government still have not responded to those recommendations, meaning that the electoral register to be used as the basis for these boundaries is incomplete and patchy at best. When will the Government start to prioritise democratic engagement?

It is clear that the Government’s central argument about making every vote count falls at the first hurdle and that their secondary argument about the removal of Parliament’s role preventing delays to the process just does not hold water. As Professor Sir John Curtice pointed out, the Government can easily delay the process. The Labour party fundamentally rejects the Government’s attempt to end parliamentary approval for new constituency boundaries, and we ask that Members think hard and long about the impact of removing Parliament from the process. In its current form, this Bill is an insult to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Cherilyn Mackrory]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but on this review, the mathematics mean that the people in Cornwall will be represented within its boundary, as we would expect.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Clive Efford]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

It is a pleasure to participate in this debate, and a particular pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory), with whom I agree quite strongly that Cornwall is its own nation and should be respected. Indeed, in Committee, we received quite a bit of evidence to that effect from Cornwall Council and Councillor Dick Cole, who drew our attention to the fact that the UK Government recognised Cornwall as a minority nation back in 2014, and that its territorial integrity in terms of representation in this place must be respected.

I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Member that that should be addressed. Where we might disagree somewhat is that I believe we perhaps need to go further —this is something that could be looked at again under this Bill, perhaps in the other place—to see how we can ensure that those safeguards for the people and the nation of Cornwall are adequately protected.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I am a fan of the Kingdom of Sussex and I still sing “Sussex by the Sea” on our national day, but is that not an argument for keeping within county boundaries or historic national boundaries? We therefore need a higher variance on the number; otherwise, the Cornish will be saved this time, but they will not be saved next time.

[Ben Lake]

The hon. Member makes a good point in terms of the fact that the protections are temporary, in so far as the mathematics, or the population, this time around is protected and works for Cornwall, but in the future there need to be other safeguards.

--- Later in debate ---

In conclusion, I support the Bill and thank the Minister and her team for all the work they have done on it. We must get as close as possible to the principle of equality, so that all votes in this place and in the country count the same.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

When I went to the Table Office a few weeks ago to pick up this Bill I picked up the wrong one, and I was reading it and thinking, “This is a particularly good Bill and it seems very reasonable and sensible,” and then I realised it was actually a private Member’s Bill from a number of Conservative Members. So better suggestions have been laid here in Parliament, and it is such a shame that the Government do not take more heed of their own Members. But let us talk about the content of the Bill before us today.

The question is, of course, what is in a number, because the reality is that a percentage does not really matter. We are talking about building blocks that are numbers, not percentages. We do not say, “In this ward there is 5% of the population”; we say, “In this ward there are 3,000 voters.” That is what we are working on.

So let us talk about practicalities. In the average metropolitan borough or London borough, the average ward size is 9,800 people—about 10,000 people. A 5% variance at the moment excludes all of those borough wards. It does not affect nice shire counties where, of course, Government Members predominately come from, because their average size is only 3,000. So of course they are able to build coherent communities in those places more easily, but it is harder in urban areas and we divide and rule communities there with this 5% variance. If we had a 7.5% variance, we would of course avoid that, because then the variance is 10,000; the vast majority of our urban wards would be able to be included as a whole, and there would be very little problem.

I think there is actually an argument to review how we do boundary proposals in their holistic nature from bottom to top, and say that the boundary commissions for local government should be creating wards of smaller sizes, so they fit into the shape of what we want the variance to be. There is an argument for doing that to get the building blocks right, but the Government have not come forward with such a proposal; they have rejected the idea of talking about local government reviews at the same time as parliamentary Government reviews. Since that is off the table, we need to accommodate ourselves to the situation that we have.

[Mr Holden]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

No, I am afraid that time is very tight.

The predecessor Committee to mine suggested 10%, with a 15% allowance in exceptional circumstance. That was agreed across the parties in 2015; this is a far more modest proposal. Of course the Boundary Commission should aim to be dead on—no one is saying otherwise—but where that is impossible, we should allow it flexibility. To use a judicial analogy, we should allow the judge to use their expertise, rather than tying their hands behind their back.

We know that if the rules are written incorrectly, we will get a gerrymandered outcome. That is not the fault of the commissioners; it is not the fault of the judges, although it is not a judicial but a quasi-judicial process; it is a fault in how the rules are written, which is why it is so important that the question should come back here. It is not we who vote in Parliament; our votes are for the people, so removing this place’s oversight is removing the oversight of the people.

Finally, I will quickly touch on how we look at the numbers. The 1917 boundary review, which was the first major boundary review in this country, used census data. The 1911 census, which I have been looking at recently while doing my ancestry—scarily, I am related to the Eustices; I must inform the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—was used as the building block, because it was both the census and the electoral roll. Splitting it has meant that we no longer have an automated electoral roll. If we either had an automated electoral roll or used the census, we would have fairer constituencies as well. I am disappointed that the Government have not included that.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call Alex Davies-Jones.

Covid-19 Update

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Lloyd Russell-Moyle.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Prime Minister. Sorry, thank you, Mr Speaker —it would perhaps be much better if you were Prime Minister. Let me thank the Prime Minister for a welcome statement. We have a plethora of small businesses in Brighton. I have just spoken to our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender businesses, along with Gscene, our LGBT magazine, and they, and, in particular, our bars and clubs, are keen to get open. However, they are worried at the moment that the furlough scheme, which will rightly be closing for new entrants this month and which will allow part-time working, will not allow people to come off furlough to see whether the business is viable and then be put back on it. Will he consider some flexibility, such as for a two-week trial, with people then able to be put back on furlough for the remainder of the scheme, so that businesses can test the water? Otherwise, many businesses say that they will just stay shut completely, which would be a real disappointment.

[The Prime Minister]

I hope that businesses will recognise that now is the moment to get going and to get their valued staff back working again, doing what they want to do and love doing. I have no doubt that all the bars in Brighton have every reason to be confident, provided that we do this in a sensible way. I think everybody in the House understands the balance of what we are trying to do today and can join together in expressing that balance to the public.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 2nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

That is a really important point and a good argument. I will come to that shortly because it is, quite rightly, at the forefront of all our minds.

Let me first deal with the other two arguments that are put forward in Labour’s reasoned amendment. It is a little disappointing to see those arguments, because all political parties really ought to be able to get behind the Bill. It is the right thing to do and it is disappointing to see an attempt to block it, because we need to have equal and updated boundaries.

In Labour’s 2019 manifesto, the party pledged to

“respond objectively to future, independent boundary reviews.”

The first two points in the amendment do not live up to that. The first says that the Bill concentrates power in the hands of the Executive. That is not true; the Opposition are wrong and I will go on to explain why. As I said in response to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who has left his place, the second point in the amendment argues for less equal seats, and I cannot believe that there is a political party in this House that does not wish to see itself as following in the footsteps of the Chartists, seeking equal representation across the land.

I do not know how the Labour party does want to see itself, but it ought to reflect on what it said when it was last in government, as it agreed with the then Committee on Standards in Public Life that there was inequality of electoral quotas, which would erode equal representation. Labour did not change that, and it came to the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in government later to put that right, bringing in the quota of plus or minus 5%. It is that which we maintain today in this legislation, and it is that which provides more equal seats and ought to be supported.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I agree broadly with the hon. Lady that equal representation between seats is really important, but we all know that from time to time different numbers of people register in different constituencies. When the first major boundary review took place in 1911, the boundaries were based on population census data and not on the whims of who had registered that year or not. Is there not a case now to go to that data, and then 5% possibly could be perfectly agreeable?

[Chloe Smith]

I understand the argument on census data, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for putting it, but I do not think it is the right thing to do. I am very happy to explain why, notwithstanding the perhaps obvious point that censuses are only every 10 years—they are on a different frequency to even the amended cycle we have here in front of us—so straightaway they are not suitable because of a different rhythm. There is an important point that we ought to recognise, which is that in a census a different group of people are counted. For example, censuses, naturally, count people who are not citizens and electoral registration must count those who are eligible to vote. That is an important distinction and I think it is right that we use electoral registers as the basis of the data. Another point on which we must all agree—I am confident that he does—is that we all ought to encourage everybody to be registered to vote, because that is the core answer to his point.

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[Chloe Smith]

Yes, I can confirm exactly that. My hon. Friend illustrates the point I have just made; the intention of that improvement is indeed to allow prospective local government boundaries to be taken into account.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

On local boundaries, in Brighton our average ward size is 10,000 whereas in Birmingham some of the ward sizes go up to 20,000. The difficulty of having only a 5% variance is that inevitably in urban areas we will have seats that are cut, confusion for the electorate and MPs often having to cover three council areas. Is there not a case for allowing the Boundary Commission at least to weigh up these things on an equal standing, rather than requiring them always to be subordinate to the numbers and not to the community?

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[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:

“this House whilst supporting the retention of 650 parliamentary constituencies declines to give a Second Reading to the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill because the Bill would disproportionately and undemocratically concentrate power over constituency sizes and boundaries in the hands of the executive, because the Bill fails to create a more flexible electoral quota allowing greater consideration to be given to local ties and community connections when drawing constituency boundaries, and because the proposed numeration date for the boundary review of 1 December 2020 risks boundaries being based on an incomplete register owing to the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the preparation of electoral registers.”

Every single one of us in the House today represents a constituency that has been drawn up based on the electorate data of nearly two decades ago. Twenty years ago, our country and our communities looked very different. Some of our communities have grown and others have seen population decline. Indeed, in that time, 2 million more electors have come on to the electoral roll and it is time we counted them when it comes to the constituencies we represent.

We hope that the review can be completed before the next general election and that there will be no further delay. After two shelved boundary reviews, the public will not want more taxpayers’ money to be wasted on a review that does not see the light of day. We need a boundary review, and the Opposition stand ready to work with the Government on that if it is fair and the rules are not inserted or omitted on the basis of any perceived political advantage for any party.

The Bill must proceed with the aim of delivering a fair and democratic review. We want the new boundaries to reflect the country as it is today and ensure that all communities get fair representation. Those boundaries must also take into consideration local ties and identities.

I welcome the Government’s decision to reverse their previous position of reducing the number of MPs to 600. As we have left the European Union and the work of the UK’s 73 MEPs falls to this House, it would have piled a heavier workload on to fewer shoulders. More importantly, it would have handed further power to the Executive, because reducing the number of MPs while refusing to cut the size of the Government payroll would create a dangerous level of Executive dominance at the expense of Parliament and our democracy.

Welcoming the return to proposing 650 MPs brings me to the last two wasted reviews on the 600 figure. With two abandoned reviews, we are in a farcical situation with boundaries. While Tory Ministers argued with their Back Benchers, public resources flooded down the drain. Millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been wasted. The unfinished 2013 review cost British taxpayers £7 million. It wasted the time and expertise of the boundary commissioners in working towards a target that was destined to be scrapped, and the 2018 review was equally wasteful. In a written question, the Government estimated the cost at £8 million. The Government have not provided a recent figure on that, but I have given the Minister the opportunity to do so by tabling a written parliamentary question asking just that.

However, one of the biggest concerns that the Opposition has about the Bill is the Government’s decision to end parliamentary oversight of the process. It is yet another attempt to diminish scrutiny over executive power. Parliamentary oversight is fundamental to the democratic passing of a Bill, and this Bill is no different. The Minister says that it is to stop MPs blocking new boundaries, but in the last Parliament it was her Government who never tabled that review for a vote, so we will never know the outcome of a vote that never took place.

The process of needing MPs to vote for the final report from the commission is an important safety net, because without it we would now have just 600 MPs here today. When the Government wanted to go back to 650, it was that safety net that allowed them to do so and make that happen, but removing parliamentary scrutiny is worrying for the future integrity of our democracy. This loophole allows a power grab, with no parliamentary backstop to limit the dominance of the Executive. The Government have not shown any regard for the primacy of Parliament. Indeed, the unlawful prorogation of Parliament is a case in point.

I note the remarks that the Minister made about the enumeration date in the Bill of December 2020. I am glad that she is looking at this, and I look forward to her update to the House, because after 20 years of delay, the boundaries must reflect the electorate with the best possible accuracy. I urge her to consider ditching the 1 December 2020 register in light of the unprecedented covid-19 crisis that we are currently living through. Our councils are working flat out to support our communities at the present time, and to ask them to undertake an annual canvass at a time of social distancing when they have stretched capacity risks that register being patchy at best. So I welcome the Minister’s remarks and put on record my thanks for the hard work that all our councils are doing in supporting some of our most vulnerable residents at this time.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there may be a case to always link the register to the last general election? We know that that is a credible register. Other crises might come up in the future, and the Government will always have to be changing, whereas if the register is always based on the last election we will know that it is based on a mandate that people have exercised.

[Cat Smith]

I thank my hon. Friend for that very sensible point. What he notes, of course, is that we see a spike in voter registration when we have a general or a local election. Of course, this year there are no elections because of the coronavirus crisis, but just six months ago we had a general election in this country and we know that the December 2019 register is incredibly accurate because we saw a spike in voter registration.

We are also aware that electoral registration officers are already expressing concern about the impacts that coronavirus will have on the December 2020 registers, and the prevailing opinion is that the annual canvass is likely to be impacted in some significant way. I urge the Minister to favour using the very recent general election data of December 2019. The Office for National Statistics released that data just last week, and we saw more than 1 million people register between December 2018 and December 2019, indicating that the December 2019 register is much more accurate than the December 2020 register will potentially be.

The fact that the data was published last week demonstrates the lag in collating that data. So if, for example, the Government were to continue to use the December 2020 register, commissioners would probably be waiting until May 2021 before they had collected that data from EROs and could get on with their work. Let us help the boundary commissioners begin their important work as soon as possible by using the data published last week, which we already have, relating to December 2019 and the general election.

Future Relationship with the EU: Negotiations

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Were we to extend the transition period, as some have argued for, including the SNP and, in a previous incarnation, the Leader of the Opposition, we would find ourselves paying additional sums to be part of the EU subject to new laws over which we have no say and without the freedom to regulate our economy in a way to ensure that our recovery works.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Under the single-use plastics directive, the EU is introducing a range of bands, labelling and extended producer responsibility on single-use plastics, as the Minister, who worked in this area, well knows, which will lead to increased recycling and producers covering the costs. In developing our own world-leading environment management system, what discussions are we having with the EU on its schemes, and when will we inform industry if we plan to align with the EU or to produce our own betterment plans, because they need to know soon?

[Michael Gove]

Yes, during the happy years that I spent at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, we made strides, as indeed did European nations, on improving recycling and reducing the use of single-use plastic. We pay close attention to what is happening in Europe and elsewhere as we develop our plans, but, in significant areas, our plans are ahead of where the EU is now. None the less, we want to work co-operatively because, even though we may be in different jurisdictions, we all share one planet.