Procedure of the House

Debate between Pete Wishart and Chris Bryant

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I am not giving way any more, as I ought to draw my remarks to a conclusion.

I say to Conservative Members that when our procedure was crafted in 2001, we took the view that the re-election of a Speaker at the beginning of a new Parliament was, in effect, a vote of confidence in the Speaker. The Leader of the House suggested that anybody elected to a position of power over the people should be elected by secret ballot. The Prime Minister will also depend on a vote of confidence or a vote of no confidence. If the Leader of the House is to continue with this, his argument must be that a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister should be a secret ballot. Of course it should not. If Conservative Members genuinely believe that hon. Members will be so frightened that they will not be able to own up to the public how they voted on such a motion of confidence or no confidence in the Speaker, frankly, they have no confidence in one another.

The proceedings of this House were secret for centuries. John Wilkes campaigned to be allowed to reveal to the public what went on in this place. What did the majority Government do at the time? They used their majority to chuck him out of Parliament, and what did the voters do? They put him back in. What did the Government then do? They chucked him out. What did the voters do? They chucked him back in. They believed that this House’s proceedings should be in public and should be known to all so that voters could make their decisions.

The Leader of the House has done himself no favours; he has betrayed the confidence of the House today. He tabled his motion at some time about 7.30 last night. He did not notify the Opposition, but let us get over that. He is arguing that we should have a secret ballot for the election of the Chair of the Procedure Committee, yet he has deliberately gone behind the back of the very person who was elected by the whole House in a secret ballot. His argument bears no weight. Moreover, he constructed today’s one-hour debate in such a way as to make it impossible to table an amendment for consideration. It is completely impossible for us to consider a single amendment today. That is not the action of a Leader of the House who respects Parliament. That is why I say to him: in the name of God, go—and I think the people of this country will say the same.

[Pete Wishart]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Given the great unhappiness about this process and the way this House has been bounced into considering it, is there any way that this question could not now be put?

European Convention on Human Rights

Debate between Pete Wishart and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

No; we, at least, are certainly not reviewing it.

However, the hon. Member for Keighley did say something with which I wholeheartedly agreed. He said that it was not racist to want to debate immigration. I have said this at the Dispatch Box before, and I will say it again: just because someone wants to talk about immigration does not make them a racist. There are certainly some people who want to talk about immigration because they are racists, but I believe that everybody has a perfect right to debate this issue, and we should be able to do so calmly and reasonably.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) expressed a view about the motion before us which I think a lot of us had come to when he said, “I no longer know what this debate is about,” and when he referred to the unusual process that has been used. I will refer later to why I think this is not the process for us to go through. I think we have come to a much greater understanding of what the legal implications will be of the decision we take this evening, but he was right to highlight the fact that some of the water had been somewhat muddied by earlier contributions.

[Pete Wishart]

What about the Liberal contribution?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

We did not have a Liberal contribution—I was going to point that out earlier—but I am sure that the Liberals will be reserving their position for when they form a Government on their own, without the Conservative party.

The hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) made a thoughtful contribution, as usual. He was right to say that the European convention on human rights was never originally intended to have any kind of extra-territorial effect. However, I would merely point out to him that it was not intended to have any effect on whether homosexuals could serve in the military in any country in the United Kingdom or how marriage law should be interpreted. There are undoubtedly aspects of how the ECHR has been interpreted by the Court in Strasbourg that have been significantly beneficial, not only to people in the United Kingdom, but to people in Russia and other signatory countries.

The hon. Gentleman also referred to the shifting goalposts of article 8. That is another area where there is some agreement across the House, and certainly between the two Front Benches. He also pointed out that it would be difficult to be precise about what constituted success in the terms to which the Home Secretary referred at the beginning of the debate. How will we know whether what we are doing today has been successful? It is difficult to be precise.

I would not call the speech by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) a rant, but it had—

[Pete Wishart]

It was barnstorming.

[Chris Bryant]

I would not call it that, either. I thought the hon. Gentleman’s speech was just wrong, and in some areas inappropriate, although he did unite the House in condemnation of himself—I think that is mostly what he seeks to achieve in politics—so it was quite a success.

The hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel)—again, she is not in her place—spoke about a whole range of wider immigration issues. All I would say is that today’s debate is not about those wider issues; rather, it is about the specific set of issues that are incorporated in the motion—a motion that is tightly drawn and does not have any papers tagged to it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris) did a very good job of demolishing the argument of the hon. Member for Perth and—is it “Perth and Perthshire”?

[Pete Wishart]

Perth and North Perthshire.

[Chris Bryant]

I see; otherwise, I would have thought that it was a rather tautological name for a constituency.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: many of our constituents, in many different parts of this country—in Wales, just as in Scotland and England—have significant concerns about matters relating to the deportation of foreign criminals, and they want them addressed better in the criminal justice system.

I always enjoy listening to the hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox), not least because I see him as a very successful barrister, and I am aware that there is a convention in this House that if an hon. Member were to ask another Member who practises at the Bar to represent them in court, that Member would be required to provide their services, free, gratis and for nothing. I therefore look forward to him representing me one day in some action, free, gratis and for nothing. [Interruption.] I think he is mouthing something at me, but I am not quite sure what it is. I know that he was seeking to be helpful to the Government and to support the direction of travel in which they are moving, but I noted that he said, “I do not hold out an enormous amount of hope.” I think he was referring to whether this proposal is going to be a successful manoeuvre, which is partly our concern as well. It is not a concern about the direction of travel, but a concern about whether this measure is precisely the right way in which to steer ourselves in that direction of travel.

The hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) is one of my favourite Members, because I have debated with him so many times—and he also told me once that he loved me, so I cannot dislike him. He referred to the application of the rules of the European Court’s decisions in relation to the courts in the United Kingdom. He, too, said that whether the decisions we make today will have any effect remains to be seen. I say that—and I think he said it, too—not out of a desire to undermine where we want to go, but to ensure that we securely get change in the direction to which many hon. Members have referred.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) made a moving speech about some of the experiences that she has had personally and in dealing with her constituents. In particular, she mentioned the situation facing many women and children. We would do ourselves a disservice if we were to pretend that the European convention on human rights had done nothing to protect the sorely abused rights of women around the world. In many cases, it has acted as a beacon for what a decent society should look like and how a decent society should go about its business.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said that he thought that there would be no Division on the motion. I thought that he might have been having a dig at the hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon when he said that everything goes wrong when lawyers get involved. He was also critical of some of the judges in the European Court of Human Rights because they sometimes did not have the level of qualifications or the amount of experience that we would expect of a British judge. I am certain of the need for reform of the way in which the judges are appointed and the way in which the Court does its business and comes to its decisions, but that is not a reason for us to leave the European Court or to abandon the convention, not least—I might not be able to carry the hon. Gentleman with me on this—because it is a requirement of membership of the European Union that we should be a signatory and adhere to the Court.

The hon. Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), who has just fled the Chamber, made a tiny intervention on the hon. Member for Strangford, in which he pointed out the difference between the European Union, the European Court and the European convention on human rights. He was absolutely right to say that that difference was often not recognised.

The Home Secretary made several issues crystal clear in her speech. First, she made it clear that Pepper v. Hart was right, and that it is absolutely right for the courts to bear in mind what is said by a Minister or in a debate in the House of Commons—or, for that matter, the House of Lords—when legislation is ambiguous and the court is uncertain of how to proceed, without breaching article IX of the Bill of Rights, which states that a court is not able to question or impeach a proceeding in Parliament.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Pete Wishart and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

Does the hon. Gentleman believe that it is right that the boundaries be redrawn, whether in three years or seven? Does he agree that it is almost absurd and bizarre that Labour can secure 70% of the MPs from Scotland with 42% of the vote? Surely that is wrong and must be challenged.

[Chris Bryant]

Obviously I would love Labour to secure every single seat in Scotland, but I think the hon. Gentleman is trying to entice me to talk about proportional systems, which are not the material of part 2. As he knows, I believe that there is a case for reform and for redrawing boundaries, but how do we decide how that should be done? More importantly in the context of clause 8, we have to consider what time should be allocated for a boundary commission to be able to carry out a review in a genuinely independent way that meets political needs. I understand that he may believe that the boundaries in Scotland are currently drawn up so as to benefit Labour over the Scottish National party, but I am not sure whether that is true.

[Pete Wishart]

That is exactly what I contend. It takes many fewer electors in Scotland to elect a Labour MP than one of any other party. The reason why I believe a boundary review is necessary is that there is something wrong with the fact that 42% of the voters in Scotland can elect 70% of its MPs. Surely that cannot be right. As a fair man, surely the hon. Gentleman will concede that it is wrong.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman knows that in majoritarian systems, there is a disproportionate benefit for parties that get beyond 40% of the vote. That is a simple fact, so in a sense, his argument is partly in favour of a change to the electoral system, which I am sure he supports, although I suspect he supports a fully proportional system rather than the one subject to the referendum. However, it is not true to suggest—as we read in some of the propaganda—that it takes fewer votes to elect a Labour MP than a Conservative or Liberal MP. [Interruption.] I am not denying that that has happened, but it does not happen because of the drawing of the boundaries. It sometimes takes fewer votes to elect a Labour MP because of the tendency of likely Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat voters to live in certain areas.