Prorogation Recall

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

The technical position would be that, if a deal is reached, a withdrawal agreement Bill would be introduced, hopefully for approval by Parliament. We are absolutely clear that there is time to do that. There may be a need to obtain the consent of Parliament to sit at rather unusual hours to do that, but we are clear that it can be done.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My noble friend will recall that the 30 days referred to in the press conference at which the Prime Minister spoke with Chancellor Merkel expire on 21 September. Can he explain by what means this House and the other House might look at any proposals brought forward by the British Government and comment on them?

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend makes the point that during Prorogation it is impossible to do that. The point I was making earlier was that, once Parliament reconvenes, there is in fact ample time for it to consider any proposals that may be on the table.

Business of the House

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My noble friend argues that the Bill is therefore unnecessary, but I am afraid that it would be necessary if, for example, the European Council made a counterproposal for a significantly longer extension of Article 50. In the absence of this legislation, the Prime Minister would have to use the prerogative power to refuse that, and we might then leave on 12 April without a deal. The House of Commons, with this legislation, seeks to exclude that possibility. I am sorry; the argument that this is unnecessary does not wash.

[Baroness Noakes]

I have to disagree with my noble friend on that. We have to trust that the Prime Minister means what she says.

Business of the House

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, my noble friends Lord True and Lord Forsyth are of course correct to say that it is not usual practice for the House not to consider SIs until the JCSI has both considered and reported on them. This is indeed an unusual request but I remind noble Lords that the House of Commons asked the Government to seek an extension last week. We have done that and laid an SI on the first sitting day that we could after a decision was made. I accept that noble Lords may not like that, but it is the position we are in, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for recognising that we are in exceptional circumstances. I have recognised that.

That being said, the practice has in the past been set aside where there is a clear case for an SI to be considered urgently. In this Session we have set it aside twice before, each time making a case on its merits, as I hope I have done today. The first instance was to ensure the continuation of the non-jury trial provisions in Northern Ireland; and the second was to control a substance under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. I reiterate to my noble friend Lord Forsyth that while the JCSI has not looked at this in detail, the extension SI was sent in draft to its lawyers at the end of last week to undergo pre-laying scrutiny.

I am surprised that noble Lords are now asking me to dictate the terms of how a committee meets. I do not think that in normal circumstances they would want me, as the Leader of the House, to start dictating what our independent committees do. I just ask that that is considered. The JCSI is entirely entitled to decide when, how and why it meets. I genuinely do not believe that it is for me to say that. If the JCSI reported in the usual way, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, said, we would have to meet on Friday to consider it. I believe that noble Lords would like us to get this SI through, so that as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said, we can have certainty, which is what we deserve to deliver for the country.

As noble Lords know, the terms of our exit from the EU are governed by Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union. On 22 March, last Friday, the UK agreed to EU Council decision 2019/476 to extend the period provided for in Article 50. The EU Council decision and the UK’s agreement to it constitute a binding agreement in EU and international law. It is important that the definition of “exit date” in UK law is changed before Friday because, as the noble Baroness said, that is when a significant amount of our EU exit legislation, including hundreds of SIs, is due to enter into force. Unless the date is changed, our statute book will not function properly. There will be clashes between UK and EU law, contradictory provisions will apply and, in some cases, new UK laws will permanently replace EU ones. Our domestic law would be left in a state of confusion and this could have serious consequences, which we all want to avoid, for businesses and the public.

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, for his comments: we are confident that the instrument is legally correct, but we will of course look in more detail at his comments today and respond to them in detail tomorrow, when, no doubt, we will have a further discussion.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I apologise for interrupting my noble friend, but the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, asked a very interesting question to which I would genuinely like to know the answer. My expectation was that the Government would lay a statutory instrument that would change exit day to 12 April and, if it were necessary to move to 22 May, would lay a further SI. I simply do not understand the motivation or rationale for putting both dates into the SI.

Brexit: Negotiations

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, can I put it to my noble friend that, while not overselling the political declaration, neither should she undersell it? It was not given to the Prime Minister to satisfy either remainers or leavers in full. The point was to deliver the Brexit for which people voted while minimising the economic and other harms to this country. In that context, does she agree that this framework gives us a basis on which to achieve that to a significant extent?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Yes. I am very happy to agree with my noble friend.

European Council

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I have said, we have put together what we believe is a fair and serious offer, and we are beginning the negotiations on that basis.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister has said that Britons who live elsewhere and are pensioners at the specified cut-off date will, as at present, have access to healthcare elsewhere in Europe after we leave the European Union. Are we therefore to infer from that that those who live elsewhere in Europe and become pensioners after the specified cut-off date will lose access to UK-funded healthcare; and that people who move elsewhere in Europe after the specified cut-off date, even though they are pensioners, will not have access to healthcare? On the European health insurance card, can my noble friend explain the rationale for the British taxpayer funding health insurance after we leave the European Union for a family that visits France but not for a family that visits Florida?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We intend to treat EU citizens with settled status in the same way as if they were UK citizens for the purpose of not just healthcare but education, benefits and pensions, and we intend to protect the current healthcare arrangements for EU citizens who are ordinarily resident in the UK before the specified date. We will also continue to export and uprate the state pension and provide associated healthcare cover within the EU. We want, subject to negotiations, to continue to participate in the European health insurance card scheme, and we will try to achieve that.

Outcome of the EU Referendum

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Higgins (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords—

Housing and Planning Bill

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Am I missing something? Were we not told explicitly during Committee that almshouses would be exempted?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I apologise if that is the case. If almshouses are exempted that is helpful; nevertheless, the issues which the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, raised about houses specifically adapted for particular purposes remains true and very much part of the case.

The question of permanent endowment of property, which also relates to housing associations, many of which are charitable, remains at stake. There are issues here about the potential move from voluntary to a little less than voluntary, which is implied in the suggestion that the noble Lord talked about, when providing guidance. The lawyers with whom I have discussed this tell me that so long as it remains entirely voluntary, we will remain on the right side of the law. But if the guidance issued by the Government after passing the Act moved towards the border between voluntary and non-voluntary, we would indeed be risking some of the underlying principles of charitable law. My simple request to the Minister is that, in order to provide reassurance to this extremely important sector—I am sure that all Conservatives are committed to the future flourishing of the charitable third sector—she be willing to ensure that the relevant officials and Ministers meet with representatives of the expert associations so that such reassurances can be given.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

I follow that point with a very brief intervention. Does it mean that a local authority will be told by the Government what percentage of its stock should be sold off—in other words, that there will be a target cap beyond which there is no expectation, but below which the local authority will be allowed to sell up to that cap? In other words, Westminster might be told that 60% of its stock is the cap, Camden might be told 50%, or Cambridge 20%. Is that how this will work in practice?

[Lord Lansley]

My Lords, in making a brief contribution, I remind the House of my interest as chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum. In that context I will refer specifically to Cambridge. There was a concern in Cambridge that, if there was to be a definition of “high value” by means of comparison across the country as a whole, a very high proportion of the properties in Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire in particular would be likely to be treated as “high value”. I very much welcome the amendments that my noble friend the Minister has tabled in this group. They will enable the calculations to be undertaken and the agreement to be reached for a determination in each authority, taking account of all individual circumstances.

Of course, the measure is not mechanistic. Trying to argue that “higher” becomes mechanistic is simply trying to introduce rigidity where that is not necessary. The provision as amended would allow a determination to be made in relation to each authority, specific categories of housing or different comparators. It is deliberately flexible. I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Foster, on all the questions that he said need to be answered in order to proceed. But the point is that if one began to answer all those questions, one would take away from the Government and local authorities, working together, any flexibility to adapt to individual circumstances. In doing so, his proposed Amendment 61A—I cannot find it on the Marshalled List but I interpret from his remarks that it would leave out Clause 67—would take away the opportunity to realise value from the stock of higher-value housing and unlock new build for affordable housing in local authorities, support the right to buy and, by extension through the right to buy in housing associations, offer the additional opportunities for them to undertake new building.

A Select Committee in another place might well think that everything the Government want to do must be funded out of some taxpayer subsidy but the reality is, as we all know, that there is no such magic money tree that we can continue to shake to deliver all the objectives we want. I entirely agree with my noble friend Lord Deben that we want to build more houses. Frankly, realising value out of the higher-value housing stock that becomes vacant in local authorities is precisely the mechanism for this. That realised value can then be deployed with a multiplier effect to enable local authorities and housing associations, as a result, to build more houses. I thoroughly support that.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, before the Minister replies, I would like to be really clear about what is being said—in part, following what the noble Lord, Lord Porter, said a little while ago. I understand from what the Minister told us that there will be a further amendment at Third Reading on the matter of high-value homes. I would appreciate confirmation of that when she replies. Will the Government leave with local authorities enough money from the sale of higher-value homes to build replacement homes? That is what I heard the noble Lord, Lord Porter, say but that is not explicitly stated in the letter we received just before 3 o’clock this afternoon. I would just like to be really clear about that one-for-one replacement. One of our concerns in Committee was that there was to be a two-for-one replacement in London but not—in the Bill—a one-for-one replacement in the rest of England. I think the House would find it helpful to know exactly what the Government propose here.

Valedictory Debate

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford); I found much in his speech with which to agree. I am sorry we did not have more opportunities to agree on precisely those things over these years, but he justified in his career his remark about leaving Ministers in their office. He showed tremendous capacity as local government and housing Minister, and was much admired for his work in this House.

You and I entered the House in 1997, Mr Speaker, as part of the small Conservative intake. I am choosing not to stand again, but I and our 1997 colleagues wish you well for the future. I will look on with pride at that intake. I remember way back when, as we were engaging in—what did we call it?—in-flight refuelling in opposition against the Labour Government’s large majority, we learnt some of the tricks of the trade of parliamentary life, and the 1997 intake has demonstrated some skill in that area in subsequent years.

[Mr Straw]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the felicity of the 1997 intake.

[Mr Lansley]

As ever, the right hon. Gentleman is very kind. Just as the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich mentioned that he shared an alma mater with my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley), the right hon. Member for Blackburn and I share an alma mater. I followed him there and I followed him here, albeit with a slightly bigger time lag.

I want to make some remarks from my heart. First, I want to thank my constituents. I hope they agree with many of the things for which I fought on their behalf in the constituency—infrastructure, the A14, the rebuilding of Papworth hospital, broadband infrastructure, the planning, maintaining our quality of life, supporting research and development and science, and making it the best place in the world for life sciences investment and one of the best in the world for any kind of scientific or high-tech investment. We talk about the Cambridge phenomenon, and a great part of it is in South Cambridgeshire; we can honestly say that we are the eastern powerhouse. I hope it is not hubris to say that I leave my constituency in extremely good shape and with a quality of life among the best in the country.

I also want to say a big thank you to Michael Howard and to the Prime Minister. They gave me the chance to be the Conservatives’ shadow Health Secretary for seven years—contrary to what the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich said, I had a long tenure in that post—and then the privilege of serving as Secretary of State for Health. Supporting the NHS and improving the health of the people of this country has been my passionate commitment in Parliament. In opposition, we fought for safer care and, in government, we got it. In opposition, we secured the highest ever level of public trust in the Conservative party’s policies for the NHS. In government, we delivered on our commitment to increase the NHS budget in real terms and to safeguard the NHS in tough times. I know that commitment will be sustained by a Conservative Government in the years to come.

I was determined to do more—to achieve the reforms in the NHS that virtually all recent Secretaries of State knew were needed but had not been secured. Many say that I implemented a reorganisation of the NHS that I promised not to do. That is not true. The Conservative manifesto had no reference to “no top-down reorganisation”. I was elected on the Conservative manifesto and I delivered it, including rising real NHS resources; getting rid of political targets; using information and choice to drive better outcomes; creating a strong, independent NHS voice, with GPs at the heart of commissioning; creating Healthwatch to represent patients; cutting administration costs by a third to increase front-line staffing; commissioning a 24/7 service, with GP access from 8 to 8; setting up the 111 service; virtually eliminating the longest waits for operations; cutting infections to record lows; abolishing mixed-sex accommodation; more than 1 million more people getting NHS dentistry; establishing the cancer drugs fund, with 60,000 benefiting from access to the latest treatments; and reforming social care so that people no longer have to sell their homes to pay for their care.

We did that and more. With our Liberal Democrat colleagues, we established health and wellbeing boards, with public health responsibilities and the capacity to integrate health and care. It was not easy and it was not popular, but public service reform is not a popularity contest. It must and will survive. It needs to survive because it will make a big difference in the future. My Back-Bench colleagues were robust, solid and consistent in their support, and I thank them and the Prime Minister for backing reform. The reality will show through in the years ahead, as we have seen in recent announcements, not least from NHS England.

I had a career before coming here and I will have a career after leaving, but I will always remain proud of what we have done here, as well as thankful for the comradeship of colleagues, those with whom I have worked, the staff of the House, the staff in my office and so many across my constituency.

When we are here, we trade blows and we take a lot of blows, but it is probably our families who feel them the most. They cannot go into the arena and fight back, but they feel the pain at least as much as ever we do. I want to say a big thank you to Sally and my family.

I would like to conclude, if I may, with a quote from Teddy Roosevelt, who said:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds”.

I have always striven to leave my constituency and the country better for my efforts. I may have erred, but I have always cared deeply for my constituency and my causes, and I will continue to do so. Time will be my judge. I am content to have been a man in the arena.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he said. It might be helpful to the House to know that there are 13 colleagues still seeking to catch my eye, and I am looking to call the wind-up speeches from the Front Bench at approximately 4.10 pm. Members can do the arithmetic for themselves. It is roughly five minutes each, but no more.

[Mr Frank Doran (Aberdeen North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley). We served together on the House of Commons Commission for a number of years and learned a lot about each other.

I was first elected in 1987. I have to say it was an accident, because I did not expect to win. I took a Conservative seat that had only ever once been won by my party, when Donald Dewar won it in 1966. It is quite an experience when one does not expect to be elected. I lasted until 1992 when the inevitable happened and I lost the seat, but I managed to come back in 1997 as a retread. I now have had what I think is likely to be the unique privilege of representing three separate seats in the city of Aberdeen—Aberdeen South, Aberdeen Central and Aberdeen North—all because of boundary reviews. In the 23 years that I have represented the city, I have been moving firmly further north. I am now, I think, the most northerly Labour Member of Parliament.

This year, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first discovery of viable quantities of hydrocarbons in the North sea. In that time, Aberdeen has grown from a city that depended on agriculture, fishing and light engineering to become the undisputed energy capital of Europe. It has been a privilege and an honour to have represented the city for 23 years.

The oil industry has brought great wealth to the city, but it has also brought tragedy. The Piper Alpha disaster in 1988 was, with 167 deaths, by far the worst disaster in any offshore industry in the world. The impact and the aftermath have been a huge part not just of my political life, but my life generally. It is not something one shakes off easily. When preparing for these sorts of events, one tends to pick out the main areas that one has concentrated on. I have concentrated on the Piper Alpha disaster and its consequences for offshore health and safety.

I have had a substantial number of opportunities. One I want to say a little about was the part I played in the minimum wage legislation. I think the right hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire was a member of the Public Bill Committee along with you, Mr Speaker. We spent many happy nights in Committee. I remember one occasion when we sat through the night from 10.30 on Tuesday to 1 pm on Wednesday. We were prepared and the other side were not, and I have to say we enjoyed it immensely. I have also spent much of my political life on trade union issues, and I am proud to have been for 14 years—until relatively recently—the secretary of the trade union group of Labour MPs, which works closely with the trade unions. I have always valued that connection.

I have followed a different career from most. I became the first Chairman of the Administration Committee when it was formed in 2005, and from there I graduated to the Commission, on which I have served with you, Mr Speaker, for the whole of this Parliament, and, as I said, with the right hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire. I learned a lot from my time with both Committees about how this place is run, and on this point I think we have to work harder. I quickly discovered how much I did not know about how this place operated and functioned, and I think most Members are in the same position; they do not find out about something unless they need to. There does not seem to be a ready need to find out how this place functions and is managed, or about the many staff it employs.

[Mr Lansley]

When we went through the night, I discovered the merits of a fully-fledged bathroom downstairs in the House of Commons.

[Mr Doran]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman; I now have a minute left.

The other Committee I have taken an interest in, was a member of and became Chair of was your works of art committee, Mr Speaker. I am proud of and have enjoyed the work I have done on that committee. However, probably the most enjoyable experience of my life—sitting next to my wife, I think this is saying quite a lot—was when the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, of which I was a member, visited Hollywood to look at the film industry and I managed to spend two hours on my own with Maureen O’Hara and Jean Simmons. I challenge any Member to beat that.

Like everyone else, I want to thank the staff of the House, particularly the Clerks on the various Committees I have been involved with, and especially my loyal staff in Aberdeen, most of whom have been with me for a very long time and have kept me sane for most of it.

Petitions and e-petitions

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Tuesday 24th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I apologise to the House and to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) for missing the start of his remarks. You have been so admirably brisk this afternoon, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I was caught elsewhere in the Palace when the debate began—[Interruption.] It did not happen like that in my day, but the present Leader of the House is so efficient.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne. Some time ago when I was Leader of the House, the House resolved to ask the Procedure Committee to consider this matter. I take no issue with the way it has been brought forward as there has been an excellent examination of it. The Committee has made very good recommendations that will enable us to do something for the next Parliament and beyond that will be regarded as important: enable people to interact directly and collectively with their Parliament on issues that matter to them. There is a very rich history of petitioning Parliament. If the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) were here, he would be able to explain it to us in great detail. Petitioning is at the heart of Parliament, along with voting Supply. It is one of the central missions of a Parliament and in recent years it has fallen into disuse.

I give credit to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young). At the start of this Parliament, the e-petition system was developed so that people had a mechanism to petition what they thought of as their Parliament. In reality, they were petitioning the Government. It was only by virtue of the Government’s reference on to the Backbench Business Committee that there was an expectation—no more than that; nothing was written formally into Standing Orders—that petitions that attracted substantial support would get formal responses from Government, which is something I introduced or, that those with more than 100,000 signatures, would be eligible for debate in this House. The way in which the Backbench Business Committee has consistently and positively responded to that has enabled people to believe that they were petitioning their Parliament, but they were not. We have debated before in this Chamber the distinctions between Government and Parliament. Those distinctions are important. It was clearly the public’s belief that they were petitioning both Government and Parliament. They were not really distinguishing between the two. They wanted the people who had Executive power to listen to them and respond. They wanted their representatives to take their issue and to hold the Government to account, or to have the opportunity to express their view. The proposals will enable that to happen in the next Parliament. I think it will rapidly become a very meaningful part of our new reformed relationship between the public and Parliament.

The Deputy Leader of the House and I visited the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament. We saw, in the Public Petitions Committee of the Scottish Parliament in particular, a lot of good practice, which we were very keen to bring back here. I know that the Procedure Committee has looked at that experience too. Of course, the scale is immensely different. In the order of magnitude, there is a greater scale of petitioning to this Parliament than to the Scottish Parliament.

In truth, as my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne made clear, very large numbers of petitions do not attract substantial support and do not raise broader issues of public policy or accountability. It will be for a Petitions Committee to examine the flow of petitions and isolate those that are important enough to be debated. What I think will become a significant part of our practice here will be the opportunity to bring petitioners before the Select Committee on Petitions to present their case. People will literally have their day in the court of Parliament. They will be able not just to present but explain their petition. As my hon. Friend made clear, through the mechanism of enabling them to tell their Member of Parliament that they have signed a petition, they will be able to update their MP on the progress of that petition. There will an opportunity for MPs, if they wish, to join in that process of examining the merits of a petition and examining how Parliament and Government are responding. I think that that will be a dramatic improvement in accountability.

We have seen during this Parliament some positive indications that the public believe that this Parliament, in the past four-and-a-half years, is more likely to debate issues of relevance. Other measures have contributed—the use of urgent questions and so on—but the petition system has been a part of that. We are seen here to be responding on issues of importance and relevance in a timely way for members of the public. This will add to that. I think the public will recognise that and use it—whether they use it will be the deciding factor.

I pay tribute to the Government Digital Service and to my former colleagues in the Leader’s Office, who have managed this system. They have demonstrated how this can be done effectively, efficiently and economically. The new system will, to a large extent, rest on that and we should certainly give them credit for that. The Government and Parliament working together is a powerful illustration of how we can bring our activities together to benefit the public.

On cost, one of the recommendations of the Wright Committee, as yet unrealised, is a critical examination of the number of Select Committees. We are resolving here to have one more Select Committee. I make no bones about that: I think it is the right thing. However, Members in the next Parliament should be prepared to examine critically—it will not be me—the structure of Select Committees and whether there are more than we need to do the job they are required to do effectively. There should be no part of Government activity that is without a Select Committee scrutinising and holding them to account. To some extent, however, we have some overlap. It will be important for the House to take an active decision at the start of the next Parliament on how many Select Committees there should be and on their future structure.

Having made that more contentious point, I would like to return to the consensus and say a final thank you to the Procedure Committee and to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne for the efficient and effective way in which they have taken the request from this Chamber and turned into it a practical way forward for the next Parliament.

Devolution (Scotland Referendum)

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

The way the question is premised demonstrates that the hon. Gentleman does not understand that he is part of the problem. It is not a Westminster elite solution. He fails to grasp the crisis that there is in this country.

England makes up over 80% of the UK. There is no easy federal answer to the problem, and it does a huge disservice to disillusioned voters to pretend that there is. The Leader of the House may be one of the finest historians in the Palace but he has learned the wrong lessons from history. We need to be clear about the stitch-up that is taking place.

The unhappiness with the way the country is run is an opportunity to make some truly radical changes. The British people want to reshape the country and the way it is run, but they will not put up with a top-down, imposed settlement because that would be a stitch-up and that is precisely the kind of response from Westminster that the anti-politics mood is railing against.

I give way to the former Leader of the House.

[Mr Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

If the shadow Secretary of State is talking about the detail, he must surely come to it first by enunciating what principle he is applying. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said what principle he applied to the question of English votes for English laws. The shadow Secretary of State has had plenty of time to look at the McKay commission report. It said:

“Decisions at the United Kingdom level having a separate and distinct effect for a component part of the United Kingdom should normally be taken only with the consent of a majority of the elected representatives for that part of the United Kingdom.”

Will he or will he not accept that principle? If he has another principle to apply, what is it?

[Sadiq Khan]

If this had been the position of Her Majesty’s Government before UKIP was a threat, one would have expected that response when the McKay report was published last year. That was not the Government’s response last year. Their response was, “Let’s properly consider this and assess the consequences.” The right hon. Gentleman is trying in a piecemeal manner to pick off the various challenges that we face as a country. That is one of the reasons we are so hated by the public.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will try to be as brief as I can.

I am very pleased to follow the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds). I think many of us on both sides of the House can agree that it was very important to all of us that the people of Scotland voted as they did to support the Union. That did not mean that there should be symmetry across the country and it certainly did not mean that they were voting in any sense to undermine the Union by stages. On the contrary, we can strengthen the Union, be true to the positive vote secured in the Scottish referendum and, at the same time, give people what I know they are looking for in Scotland and elsewhere across the United Kingdom: a sense of greater control and accountability for the decisions made in their name and by their elected representatives.

I want to put on the record that it is absolutely vital that, recognising and welcoming the vote of the people of Scotland, we should deliver on the commitments that were made to them. We will deliver on those commitments, for example, those in the vow. That is not conditional and should be done within the agreed timetable. We should bring those measures forward and ensure that we live up to that.

Part of the vow was the commitment to the ability of the people of Scotland to make their own decisions on the resources and the organisation of the national health service in Scotland. During the course of the referendum debate, I was astonished to hear Nicola Sturgeon, who was my counterpart in Scotland as Scottish Health Minister, talking about how, in the future, there was a risk to the independence of the NHS in Scotland. There never was when she had any conversations with me. Whenever we worked together we did so voluntarily, for example on standardised packaging for tobacco products. I would never hear her countenance the thought that anything that I said should happen in the NHS in England should necessarily happen as a consequence in Scotland. She retreated to the issue of finance. Frankly, with what we are committed to and will bring forward in terms of further devolution of the power to raise and spend one’s own resources, Scotland will have the absolute right to determine the resources and the organisation of the NHS in Scotland.

As a consequence of all that, in this country we have to recognise—I will not go on about it; I do not have time—further fiscal devolution to the local authorities in this country. I do not think for a minute that we are interested, as the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs Riordan) suggested, in regional government. I agree with her that we are not interested in an English Parliament. I think that the people of England look to the Westminster Parliament to make their laws, but I think they recognise that raising and spending money locally is a good thing. With accountable elected representatives, we can and should make that happen.

[Mr MacNeil]

Does the right hon. Gentleman support full fiscal autonomy for Scotland? That is the logical solution to his argument, not the partial devolution of taxation which, when we take into the account the Barnett formula arrangements, is merely rearranging the deckchairs.

[Mr Lansley]

We are committed to retaining the Barnett formula. There will be an extension of the ability to raise and spend one’s own resources, not full fiscal autonomy. That has to be an outcome determined by the Smith commission—to see to what extent this can happen—but it seems to me that it is right. As the right hon. Member for Belfast North made perfectly clear, the outcome in each of the countries of the UK will look different because our devolution settlement is asymmetrical.

If there is not an English Parliament or fiscal devolution, a further question arises. Can we have English votes for English taxes? I might not agree with all my colleagues on this point, but I thought that the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) raised an Aunt Sally and attacked it. There is not a Conservative proposal for English votes on income taxes. I do not think the analogy holds between devolution on income tax in the other countries of the UK and England. For example, Scotland has a Scottish Government with a Scottish Budget accountable to a Scottish Parliament, and it can determine Scottish income tax in that structure of decision making and accountability. We do not have an English Government, an English Parliament or an English Budget; we have a UK Budget, and to support a UK budget we must have UK taxation. We cannot contemplate the separation of English income tax, although we can devolve some taxes inside England, especially to local authorities and city regions.

[Mr Redwood]

Is my right hon. Friend seriously suggesting that Scotland could set its own income tax at a lower rate and that Scottish MPs could come to Westminster to make English people pay more?

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, I am, because it is untenable to have a separate vote by English MPs on English income tax, if the consequence, should the vote go a certain way, were to undermine the UK Budget.

English votes for English laws is, however, entirely tenable, and we now need to act. I agree fundamentally with the McKay commission where it states:

“Decisions at the United Kingdom level having a separate and distinct effect for a component part of the United Kingdom should normally be taken only with the consent of a majority of the elected representatives for that part of the United Kingdom.”

However, that ought not to exclude the views of other Members, whether they be my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young), my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) or anyone else. We can do it in Parliament by making provision, through a Grand Committee or a legislative consent motion, for English MPs, or English and Welsh MPs together, to give explicit consent to legislation that applies separately and distinctly to England, or England and Wales.

That should not exclude the central proposition, however, that all laws made by the UK Parliament should be made by all Members of the House of Commons. Anything else would undermine the character of the Union Parliament, which is the basis on which our Union is constructed—the Crown in the Union Parliament as a whole. We can make it happen. It would be a proportionate response to the undeniable demand of my constituents, and constituents across England, that their elected representatives determine what laws are made in England, without the perverse and unacceptable anomaly—as they see it—of Scottish MPs voting on laws in England that do not apply to their own country. We can make this happen, but we need to make it happen now.