House of Commons Business

Debate between Lord Harper and Charles Walker

Thursday 8th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

First, I want to thank the Leader of the House for being so expansive in his arguments and when explaining the reasons behind many of the Government’s positions. I will focus first on some of the Procedure Committee recommendations, and come on to the issues relating to e-petitions at the end of my short speech.

I think that the decision on Standing Order No. 33, which allows amendments to be called at the end of the Queen’s Speech, was made after consultation between the Leader of the House and interested parties. I think it reflects a certain maturity in his office, a willingness to listen to diverse views and, in the end, an ability to make the right decision. The Leader of the House knows that no decision will be met uniformly with acclaim. That is just not possible, but I think that what we have before us today is about the best result we could have hoped for. It reflects the original position put forward by the Procedure Committee after consultation with various interested parties, including the Speaker’s office, the Leader of the House’s office and the shadow Leader of the House. So the decision on Standing Order No. 33 is a step in the right direction and I welcome it.

The Procedure Committee has also made some recommendations around programming. I could spend the next 10 minutes focusing on those aspects of our report that the Government rejected and do not feel comfortable about, but that would be extremely churlish. Today, as we head towards the Prorogation of this Parliament, we should focus on the positives that have come out of our reports, not the negatives. I regard this as a journey and all journeys start with a step, and then baby steps along the way until eventually we reach our point of arrival. I might not be alive to see that point of arrival, but it is just possible that my grandchildren or great-grandchildren will be able to celebrate that.

Our changes to programming come under the heading “Boring but important.” Anybody who reads The Week magazine, which makes us all instant experts—give it 10 minutes of our time and we become a world expert on what is going on in Ukraine, South Africa or Brazil—will know it has a section headed “Boring but important”, and I think that that applies to our changes to programming. They might be boring but they are very, very important.

[Mr Harper]

And very exciting.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Lord Harper and Charles Walker

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. My short answer is that I was not disappointed.

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

I will give way in a moment.

If the Lords amendments were accepted, the electorate would have no certainty as to how long the Parliament that they will elect on 7 May 2015 would last. Such certainty, and the principle behind the Bill, have been welcomed by many electoral administrators and by members of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee.

[Mr Walker]

Will the Minister tell the House where that desire for public certainty in relation to a five-year Parliament comes from? Does he think that there would be huge upset in 2015 if people were suddenly to discover that the Parliament might run for only four years—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. It would be helpful if the hon. Gentleman could let us know which part of the amendment he is referring to.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Shepherd]

rose—

[Mr Charles Walker]

rose—

[Mr Harper]

My comments seem to have provoked interest. I shall give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd).

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

I would not characterise the relationship like that at all. A good case was made, and on this particular issue the Prime Minister has demonstrated tremendous leadership. He is the first Prime Minister to give up the power—a power that was his personally—to seek a Dissolution from Her Majesty the Queen. That improves our arrangements, because we now know the date of the election and so for the last year of this Parliament we will not have the “will he, won’t he” proposition, where everyone is trying to second-guess when the election will be and people are arguing about when the best time is for the party or parties in government. That is an incredibly powerful step forward and it is very welcome.

[Mr Charles Walker]

rose—

[Mr Harper]

I promised earlier to give way to my hon. Friend.

[Mr Walker]

The current system has served us pretty well for 350 years. The Minister cites other Parliaments around the world that have been established for perhaps 20 or 30 years at best. Perhaps they would be best advised to follow our example, as opposed to our following their example.

[Mr Harper]

As I said at the beginning of my remarks, I do not believe that the general public support the exercise that we go through in the run-up to the end of a Parliament, where we enter the “will he, won’t he” argument. We all know—this came out clearly in the debate in the other place from some who had been close to these decisions—that the decision that is taken, perfectly honourably, is about how best the Prime Minister can choose the date to maximise the chance of their party being re-elected. I simply do not think that that is a good basis on which the decision should be made, and I think that our approach is an improvement.

Review of Parliamentary Standards Act 2009

Debate between Lord Harper and Charles Walker

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

Yes; I have said that several times and it is important. Although this House has many new Members, it is important that we remember why we got to this position. We have to ensure that we move things forward, and focus on independence and transparency. We have had debates recently on our pay, and the consideration of our pay will be moved across to IPSA in the not-too-distant future. Its independence is important so that people have confidence. The Committee, when it is set up, will have to remember that the recommendations it makes about the scheme and the operation of the scheme will be made to IPSA.

[Mr Charles Walker]

Does the Minister accept that when we legislate in haste, as we did in 2009, such legislation sometimes has to be revisited and amended with the benefit of hindsight?

[Mr Harper]

I made a distinction in my remarks. Clearly, if the Committee, or indeed the National Audit Office, makes recommendations about value for money and cost-effectiveness in the way IPSA operates, IPSA will pay attention to them, as with all its recommendations. It may be that the Committee makes recommendations about legislative change. However, we do not want to go back to a system in which the Government—heaven forbid—or the House start to micro-manage the details of the scheme. We have an independent system with transparency, and it is important that we stick with that. The Committee needs to bear that in mind. There will be two important audiences for what the Committee recommends. In the same way that we should not legislate in haste, we should not re-legislate in haste and change things further. The Committee needs to bear that in mind when it considers this matter, and should not immediately leap to the conclusion that we have to change the entire structure of the system.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Harper and Charles Walker

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I will be happy to take interventions when I have made a little more progress. I think that the House would expect me to do that in a time-limited debate.

We have also amended the Bill to provide that the boundary commissions must publish all the responses to their initial consultation and allow an additional period during which people will be able to make further representations or counter-representations related to the arguments put forward by others. This is the second area where we thought that some good points had been made in the debate, and we acted in response to an amendment tabled by Lord Lipsey on the Opposition Benches. We think that this amendment, in combination with the public hearing proposals, will deliver a consultation process that represents a real improvement not only on the one that was in the Bill originally, but on that in the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986.

We have made other significant amendments to part 2. We have tabled amendments explicitly to empower the boundary commissions to use wards as the building blocks for constituencies—the other place got very exercised about that—and to give the commissions discretion to take account of existing parliamentary boundaries. The amendments respond to concerns about the degree of explicit guidance given to the commissions on what they could take into account. We have accepted an amendment expressly enabling the Boundary Commission for England to take account of the boundaries of the City of London.

In response to an amendment from Lord Williamson, a Cross Bencher, we will require that a review is established after implementation of the new constituencies at the next election to consider the impact of the reduction in the number of seats in this place to 600. There was extensive debate about that in the other place, where we heard all about the fears, largely of those who had been Members of Parliament, that slightly fewer—7.6% fewer—Members of Parliament in this place may place constraints on their ability to do the job. We thought that Lord Williamson’s suggestion of a review in the next Parliament to consider the effect of that reduction to see whether there were some lessons that could be learned was very sensible, and we were happy to accept it.

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it seems strange to many Members across the House that we are reducing this House to 600 Members while increasing the size of the unelected House of Lords by 150 peers?

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend makes what would be a good point if it were not for the coalition Government’s clear commitment to bring forward a draft Bill in the near future—early this year—to reform the other place. If we were not doing that, he would have a solid case, but given that we are proposing to do that, his case falls away and there is just a timing difference.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Walker]

I will be extremely brief, because I come here naked, without a formal speech to give. All I would say in response to the two Front-Bench speeches that we have heard is that I think that the Lords did an absolutely magnificent job. The Bill has been rushed through this House in haste, and the Lords did exactly what they are meant to do, which is to act as a reforming and revising House. We will ignore some of their recommendations this evening at our peril.

The Prime Minister is not one for taking revenge against those who disagree with him, or perhaps delay his ambitions. I therefore disagreed with the shadow Minister when he quoted Sky News and said that the Prime Minister was gearing up great armies to swoop down on the House of Lords and duff them up a bit. However, I am concerned about the vague promises made by those on my side of the House about setting up a commission to review whether reducing the number of Members of Parliament to 600 is a good idea. This really should have been done by now, as part of the work of a far wider cross-party commission, bringing together all parts of the House to look at the proposals, because we are talking about fundamental constitutional reform. If such reform is to be successful, it will need to carry the support not just of Members of Parliament but of our constituents.

Our constituents will be concerned about what they are seeing, because in essence we propose to reduce the size of the House of Commons by roughly 10%. We do not propose to reduce the number of Ministers, and we are increasing the number of peers by 150. I am sure that some proposal or other will be made to address the question of the House of Lords—there might be a proposal for an elected upper House—but that could be kicked into the long grass and become a third-term aspiration for this coalition Government.

[Mr Harper]

I will be brief in my intervention, given the time limit. As my hon. Friend has said that he thought that the House of Lords did a good job, he should know that the proposal for a review after the next election was made by Lord Williamson, a Cross Bencher. It is a proposal that we agree with, and it had broad appeal in the House of Lords, not just for those who take a party Whip, but for Cross Benchers. I hope that on that basis my hon. Friend will welcome the proposal, which the Government accepted, and which we propose to accept in this House.

[Mr Walker]

I would say to the Minister that we should have shown more foresight in this House, and addressed those issues here before passing them over to the House of Lords.

I conclude by saying that I support any movement and organisation in this House that is difficult, and makes some attempt to resist the will of the Executive.

Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Debate between Lord Harper and Charles Walker

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I can answer only for how Ministers and I deal with parliamentary questions. I endeavour to answer mine promptly and within the time limits, and I would have thought that others should do so too. However, thankfully, the Government are not responsible for IPSA’s ability to answer questions.

[Mr Charles Walker]

rose—

[Mr Harper]

Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), who has a key role in the process, can help the House.

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) is right to be annoyed at having to wait so long for the answer. I signed it off yesterday as the SCIPSA member. The hon. Gentleman should get it next week.

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful for that intervention. I shall now try to make some progress, as I want to leave sufficient time for other hon. Members who wish to get in.

I said that the Prime Minister would be listening closely to this debate. In July, during Prime Minister’s questions, he said that:

“what is necessary is a properly transparent system, a system with proper rules and limits which the public would have confidence in, but what we do not need is an overly bureaucratic and very costly system. I think all those in the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority need to get a grip of what they are doing, and get a grip of it very fast.”—[Official Report, 14 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 946.]

That is what all Members have said today. They want IPSA’s system to be transparent, straightforward, not bureaucratic and not costly. IPSA should get on with that.

Prisoners’ Right to Vote

Debate between Lord Harper and Charles Walker

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

In respect of what the hon. Lady said in the first part of her question, she is leaping ahead. Ministers are considering how to deal with the judgment in the Hirst case. I should also explain that one of the problems with the previous Government’s inaction is that if they had implemented the judgment based on the decision in the Hirst case, we might well have been in a stronger position. As she will know—I am sure she follows this issue closely—case law has moved on. Ministers are considering these issues and, as I have said, when we have taken the decisions we will come and announce them to the House.

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

We in this place have a duty to represent the people who elect us and, almost to a man and woman, they will be saying, “No, no, no.” What is the point of having a sovereign Parliament if we have to bend down to the European Court on this? Surely we can help the Minister by having a vote and sending a strong message that we do not want this, and then he can go and negotiate it away.

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend will know that we do have a sovereign Parliament but that about 60 years ago it signed up to the European convention on human rights and effectively made that part of our law and our legal obligations. The Government are following the judgment of the Court in implementing our legal obligations—nothing more and nothing less.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill (Programme) (No. 2)

Debate between Lord Harper and Charles Walker

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

The Minister is being very generous, but bearing in mind that there will not be a general election until 2015, surely there is not that much of a rush to get this measure through the House.

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend is right that the coalition Government are strong and that there will not be an election until 7 May 2015, as set out in the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill. The Deputy Prime Minister has made it clear, however, that we want the referendum to take place next year in order to make progress, and we also need to kick off the boundary review, ensuring that it reports in good time before the next election. That will allow parties across the House to select their candidates. We have secured a balance between moving at a reasonable pace, while also allowing adequate time for proper parliamentary debate. I think that we have done so.

[Mr Walker]

But why must we have the referendum in May next year?

[Mr Harper]

We made a commitment in the coalition agreement to have the referendum, and the Government believe that we should arrange to have it at an early opportunity, putting the question to the electors so that they can decide what voting system they want to use in the next election. That is the decision that the Government have made, and that is the view with which I will ask the Committee to agree later today. The House has already agreed with it in principle.