Today’s Business of the House
Lord Barker of Battle Excerpts(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Hague
I have not spoken to Mr Speaker. I do not accept that. I do not think that the institution of a secret ballot that frees all Members from pressure from Whips on either side or from the Chair is an underhand thing to bring about. As I will explain in the debate, I think that would be an improvement in our procedures and would help Members on both sides of the House.
Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
May I ask the Leader of the House for clarity in this debate? Following the progressive reforms that there have been, how many elected House positions are decided by secret ballot and how many simply on an open Division?
Mr Hague
The great majority of our positions are now elected by secret ballot, and that has been warmly welcomed across the House. It applies to the Chairs of Select Committees; only two weeks ago, we agreed the election of the Standards Committee Chair by secret ballot, with the support of the Opposition on that occasion. That has increasingly become our standard procedure, and the public would be surprised to hear that it was anything other than our standard procedure.
Procedure of the House
Lord Barker of Battle Excerpts(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
It is with genuine sorrow and anger that I rise to oppose this motion today. I shall address only the real point at issue—the third motion, which seeks to change Standing Order No. 1A on the election of the Speaker. Despite the fact that the Procedure Committee asked for this not to be done in this way and for no changes to be made to this Standing Order, we are—in arguments rehearsed in the urgent question earlier—in this appalling situation with only one hour to discuss an issue that we could have discussed in great detail. It is a matter of great interest to all Members on both sides of the House.
There are arguments on both sides about the options that the Procedure Committee considered—
Ms Eagle
No.
The Leader of the House has taken nearly a third of the time that he has allocated for the entire debate in his opening speech. Every Member of the House has a direct interest in what he suddenly proposed out of the blue late last night. This is an appalling and shabby way to treat the House.
The motion to make changes to Standing Order No. 1A would effectively create a motion of no confidence in the existing Speaker at the beginning of every Parliament and mandate that it should be held in secret. Let us stop and think about the meaning of that for future Parliaments. Let us try to get away from the partisan nature of what has been presented to us today and think about the principle that we have been given almost no time to think about or debate. Let us think about how it would affect the position of Speaker in the future. It opens up the possibility that any future Government will be able to threaten an existing Speaker in a way that undermines the independence of the House of Commons.
The motion before us was decided in underhand negotiations by the Government parties. It has been presented with no notice, no consultation with the Procedure Committee or the Opposition—a point I made extremely forcefully to the Leader of the House when I found out about it by accident late last night—and it is against the express wishes of the Procedure Committee. I refer the House to the minutes of the Procedure Committee from 6 February 2013 which, on this very issue, state that
“with reference to the recommendation on the re-election of a former Speaker, the Committee agreed that the motion to be put to the House should be ‘That no change be made to Standing Order 1A (Re-election of former Speaker).’”
An e-mail I have from the Clerk of the Procedure Committee to the office of the Leader of the House confirms this. In the list of proposed motions that the Clerk of the Committee sent for debate on House business, on the question of re-election of a former Speaker, it reads:
“That no change be made to Standing Order 1A”.
I also have letters from the Chair of the Procedure Committee to the Leader of the House stating that any debate on these matters should take place in the early part of the week and
“not tucked away on a Thursday afternoon”.
I doubt that even the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) could have anticipated that the Leader of the House would seek to spring this motion on us on the very last day of a five-year, fixed-term Parliament—the Leader of the House cannot argue that he did not know when it was all going to end, because we have known for five years—after all whipped business has been concluded and many MPs will have already returned to their constituencies. This is a matter for all of us. It is not, and should not be, a matter for this kind of ambush.
In our parliamentary system, the Leader of the House has two jobs. The first is to ensure that the Government of the day get their business by being the voice of the Government in this House. The second is to be the voice of this House in the Government, restraining the wilder excesses of a powerful Executive and ensuring that the House can do its job effectively. I am sorry to say that by supporting this grubby little plot against the Speaker on his last day as a parliamentarian, the Leader of the House has failed in his duty.
Ms Eagle
No. The Leader of the House has taken a long time and we have a very short time to debate these matters.
The Leader of the House must know that it is improper to change the Standing Orders of this House with no notice on the last day of the Parliament. This is no way for the House to be asked to change the way it governs itself, and in such a crucial area.
We all know what is really going on here. In all the morass of procedure, this is really a spiteful attempt to get rid of a Speaker who has the temerity to stand up for this House. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] And it is a cynical attempt to bring the speakership into play and use it as a bargaining chip in coalition negotiations because the Tories have accepted that they cannot win a majority. I urge the House, for the future of our constitution, the way we do things and the freedoms we enjoy in the House, to vote the motion down.
Mr Speaker
Well, people can attend to our proceedings if they so wish. I imagine that some will and some won’t.
Gregory Barker
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Given the very sensitive nature of this discussion, have you taken advice on whether you, sir, should actually be in the Chair? [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
I will respond to the right hon. Gentleman in a moment with pleasure.
Chris Bryant
I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman, because previously he exposed the whole rationale behind today’s debate, which is that he has a personal vendetta against Mr Speaker.
Gregory Barker
On the contrary, I have not made a single personal remark about the Speaker during my entire time in Parliament. The hon. Gentleman has wandered rather far from the motion. Will he address himself to it and tell us whether he is in favour of a secret ballot or against it? This is similar to when Labour consistently opposed secret ballots in the reform of the trade unions. It is their dirty little prejudice against real democracy.
Chris Bryant
If the right hon. Gentleman does not mind, let me say this. If he has not worked out my views on this by now, he must be a little dim. My biggest fear is that the Conservatives are planning to hand out the speakership to somebody else as part of the coalition negotiations, because they know they will not get a majority in the next Parliament.
Members’ Paid Directorships and Consultancies
Lord Barker of Battle Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Ms Eagle
Let me finish my first sentence. If our manuscript amendment is accepted, the motion would also ban paid trade union officials. The public deserve to be safe in the knowledge that every Member of Parliament works and acts in the interests of their local constituents, and not in the interests of anyone paying them.
Ms Eagle
Let me make a little bit of progress and then I will give way.
I note that, unusually, the Government have tabled an amendment that simply restates the status quo and would completely obliterate the Opposition motion. I intend to deal with all that, but first I want to take a few minutes to deal with the circumstances in which the House of Commons finds itself, and argue that the time has come to make a decisive break with the status quo on Members’ remunerated interests. I believe the current situation has become untenable.
I do not intend to talk about the detail of what was revealed in the “Dispatches” programme on Monday. I think we should concentrate in this debate on developing a solution to this recurring problem. Those events are being dealt with by the independent Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, and that investigatory process must take its course, although that I note that the court of public opinion has already pretty firmly made up its mind. If the rules were clear and easy to follow, rather than riddled with grey areas and open to endless convenient interpretation, perhaps we would not find ourselves repeatedly having to deal with newspaper headlines such as the ones we have witnessed once more this week. It is undeniably true that these headlines bring this place into disrepute, as far as voters are concerned. Theirs is the opinion, I believe, that we must take the most seriously. They are, after all, the people we have been sent here to represent.
Gregory Barker
On that point, I do not think anybody in this House is condoning the breach of rules that exist for a very clear purpose. However, if we are talking about being good parliamentarians and representing our constituents, how much time over the last week, or in any week this month, have the hon. Lady and her shadow Cabinet colleagues spent away from this place, neither in their constituency nor performing their parliamentary duties, but instead campaigning on behalf of the Labour party in the country? How much time are they spending doing that, rather than pursuing their parliamentary duties?
Mr Speaker
“Erskine May” does treat of this matter. The short answer to the hon. Lady is that, yes, it should be clear to the House what is constituted by the interest, because that makes the debate that much more intelligible. It is a straightforward point, and I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising it, and I have ruled, on advice, accordingly.
Gregory Barker
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Is it in order for Labour millionaires to give us the value of their freehold property in London when declaring their interests—
Mr Speaker
Order. Sit down. The right hon. Gentleman is an experienced ex-Minister, and that was a very poor attempt at a point of order—it did not even begin to get into the category of a point of order. [Interruption.] Order. The right hon. Gentleman should not be wittering irrelevantly from a sedentary position. I have ruled on the matter, and I have done with clarity and accuracy. Those hon. Members can accept it, and that is the end of it.
Mr Hague
The right hon. Gentleman is trying to make a distinction between different circumstances, as another Member did earlier, but that distinction is not made in the Opposition motion, and the debate is on the motion. That suggests that if he disagrees to some extent with the Opposition’s policy—
Gregory Barker
Does my right hon. Friend agree that he is exposing the fact that this is not a genuine, sincere motion addressing the governance of the House, but a cheap, opportunistic way of expressing the prejudice of Labour Members? They are anti-business, anti-enterprise and anti-aspiration, and they would trash the economy if they ever got their hands on it again.