Today’s Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, as always, for his remarks. I do not mind any amount of personal abuse, because he cannot compete with the abuse I have received in previous years in the House; it is water off the back of this particular duck as I leave the House today. I make no apology for asking the House, on a day when the public are entitled to expect large numbers of Members to be here, to make a decision on its procedures for the day it returns after the general election. That is what Members should be able to do; that is what the public would expect us to do. I have received representations from Opposition Members who will not speak or ask questions today for fear of their formidable Chief Whip—I could say who they are but will not—and they are entitled to have matters debated, just as everyone else in this House is.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I would not put it quite the way the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) did, but the gist of what he said is correct. This House should not be asked without proper notice to decide on such an important thing. I think that the Leader of the House will live to regret this—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Mr Barker, calm yourself. Your hon. Friend is on his feet, and he is entitled to be heard with courtesy. [Interruption.] Order. It is better to remain silent and look a fool than to speak and remove any lingering doubt.

[Mr Bone]

This is a bad day for Parliament. Of course, if we had a business of the House committee, which the Leader of the House could have introduced today in this rash of measures, we would not be in this position.

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend has been a long-standing champion of a business of the House committee, as I am sure he will be in the next Parliament, but that is when that will have to be decided. What we are proposing to bring to the House today are those issues that would affect the opening days of a new Parliament, which obviously cannot be decided with any usefulness or meaning any later than today.

Procedure of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

That is an important point. There was a clear view from the Procedure Committee in 2009, but it was not acted on at the end of the last Parliament. It is possible to go on for ever not acting on those recommendations and arguments in one Parliament after another.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House confirm what would happen at the beginning of the next Parliament? As I understand it, the Father of the House—whoever that is—will take the Chair and will decide on the collection of voices whether there is a contest or not. It will be up to the Father of the House to decide whether there are enough voices

[Mr Hague]

That is absolutely true. All that we are discussing is whether that would be followed by an open Division or a secret ballot. My hon. Friend will be aware that we have already changed the procedure for the election of a new Speaker, so that that is by secret ballot. Indeed, most of the elections to offices in this House have been changed on that basis, and what remains—I will quickly cover the arguments now—is in my view an anomalous situation where an open Division remains in one part of those procedures.

Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I think that was a question not about the business of the House of Commons, but about the general election campaign, but I am sure this candidate will be a splendid candidate for Clwyd South, as Boris Johnson was—I remember that very well. I assure the hon. Lady that I will be stepping out from my new home in mid-Wales to support Conservative candidates the length and breadth of Wales, to help continue the very strong performance in recent years of the Welsh Conservative party.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

On 30 March, there will be no more Members of Parliament, but I understand that the Government will continue and that there will still be Ministers. May we have a statement from the Leader of the House on what is going to happen after the general election? When will Parliament assemble? What would happen if there were a hung Parliament and therefore some delay in forming a Government? In those circumstances, would existing Ministers continue in post? Taking a random example, let us say that the Deputy Prime Minister lost his seat. Would he continue as Deputy Prime Minister until the new Government had been formed?

[Mr Hague]

The technical answer to my hon. Friend is that when Parliament is dissolved, it is normal at the same time to set out when it will meet again. Indeed, the writs that go out around the country requesting new Members of Parliament will set out when those Members should report to the House of Commons. That happens then, however, and it is not for me to set out such details now. I hope that there will be no doubt whatever about who is the next Prime Minister or about which party has the majority in the House of Commons, and I hope that my hon. Friend will be part of that majority. I do not think it would be helpful to get into other, more chaotic scenarios when discussing the outcome of the election. One has to think about them only for a moment to understand the importance of averting the possibility of their happening at all.

Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

That is an interesting idea. I salute the courage of the individuals whom the hon. Gentleman met. I have had many distressing conversations internationally with victims of sexual violence—he will be aware of my campaign on that—and I am very much aware of the courage that it takes to speak out and to speak to other people about such experiences. We will have to consider with other authorities in the House whether it is possible to do what he has just proposed, but we should give consideration to that.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I wonder whether the Leader of the House could give me some guidance on next week’s business. I have a number of private Members’ Bills that I can move on Friday. Will he indicate which ones the Government are going to support so that I know what to concentrate on? Here is the list: the Wind Farm Subsidies (Abolition) Bill, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Abolition) Bill, the Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the United Kingdom) Bill, the Free Movement of Persons into the United Kingdom (Derogation) Bill and—my personal favourite—the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Abolition) Bill.

[Mr Hague]

I cannot indicate a sudden rush of Government support for the massive legislative programme on which my hon. Friend has embarked so indefatigably—indeed, we have all seen on the BBC how many sleepless nights he had in order to put together this massive legislative programme. As he might anticipate, his Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Abolition) Bill could run into handling problems in the coalition Government, to put it mildly, so I do not expect the Government to perform a sharp about-turn on these issues, but he will have to wait until the day—it will be exciting—to see which Bills the Government object to.

Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

There has been a big change under this Government. On coming to office, we found that some British aid was going to Russia and China, for instance, but DFID has stopped those programmes. What the Secretary of State for International Development announced in 2012 was that all financial aid grants from the United Kingdom to India would cease in 2015, after which DFID would provide support only in the form of private sector expertise and technical assistance, and that is exactly what is happening. The financial aid grants to India will end this year, and any new projects will be supported by development capital investment and technical assistance. No doubt DFID will be able to expand on exactly what that involves for the benefit of my hon. Friend.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

rose—

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[Mr Speaker]

What a delicious choice! Mr Peter Bone.

[Mr Bone]

As you know, Mr Speaker, Question Time is one of the most important times in the week for Oppositions, because it enables them to scrutinise Ministers of the Crown. However, some very bizarre things are now happening. All the questions in the second half of business questions today have come from Government Members, but over the last few weeks something has been happening to the most important Question Time of the week, Prime Minister’s Question Time. After the Leader of the Opposition has given his views and been beaten up by the Prime Minister, swathes of Labour Members disappear. Yesterday a third of the seats were empty, while poor Conservative Members were having to stand. Just to prove that the Chief Whip is a Minister, will he make a statement giving dispensation to Conservative Members so that they can fill the empty seats to make it look as though there is an Opposition?

[Mr Hague]

That is a characteristically creative idea from my hon. Friend, although I think that the spectacle of Conservative Members crossing to the other side of the House might have its disadvantages. He is right to draw attention to the vast expanse of space that exists on the Opposition Benches today—as it has during many debates—and develops quite rapidly during Prime Minister’s Question Time. It makes one wonder whether there is some zombie meeting place where they have all gone to have lunch, and whether they have to get there before the end of Prime Minister’s Question Time.

Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 5th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Flood insurance is a very important issue, as I know from when flooding has taken place in my constituency. It is of huge importance to people. I do not think there can be any serious suggestion that the policy on this is being decided on the basis of rich or poor. Nevertheless the hon. Lady is making a case for a debate on an important subject. I will reflect that to the Ministers responsible and I encourage her to pursue it through all the normal methods of achieving a debate on a general issue in this House, with which she is very familiar.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

If my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) says that, at 100:1, he has no chance of being the party leader, I, at 200:1, cannot even expect the support of the Leader of the House. Interestingly he is only 7:2 to be the next leader of the party.

This may help my cause, Mr Speaker: I and my hon. Friends the Members for Shipley, for Christchurch (Mr Chope), for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) and for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) have been conducting a pilot scheme on behalf of the Prime Minister for the whole of this Parliament which, only this week, the Prime Minister announced he was in favour of. On Sky News he said that he wants more people to vote according to their conscience and not the party line. He wants more free votes. Could we have a statement from the Leader of the House next week on whether he has been able to transmit that information to those people who represent the forces of darkness?

[Mr Hague]

I did not know that they were taking bets at 200:1 but I wish my hon. Friend well on shortening those odds. As someone who has served for most of his parliamentary career on one Front Bench or another, I have always been in favour of MPs voting according to their conscience, provided there is some co-ordination of how they feel about their consciences before they come to do so. I have not noticed any great inability of my hon. Friend to vote with his own conscience at any point in this Parliament and I am sure that he will feel free to continue that record in the future.

Points of Order

Peter Bone Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am sure that these matters can be looked into, and I think I can say without fear of contradiction to the hon. Gentleman that we will always profit by his counsels. We will leave it there for now.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr—

[Mr Speaker]

I will come to the hon. Gentleman; I am saving him up. I saved up the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) momentarily, and we have now dealt with him. Let us first hear a point of order from Mr Reckless.

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[Mr Speaker]

I am very grateful to the Secretary of State. A last point of order, I think, for now, from Mr Peter Bone.

[Mr Bone]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We have had two exceptionally important statements today, and with your great courtesy, as usual, you have got every Back Bencher in. However, it is a little unfair on the Opposition, on a day when they have two official Opposition day debates. We do have the Leader of the House here. Is there any mechanism whereby we can extend today to make up for the two hours the Opposition have lost?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman is nothing if not fair-minded, and a champion of the rights of all parliamentarians. As he knows, I would be perfectly happy to sit here for an indefinite number of hours because I enjoy nothing more than listening to all hon. and right hon. Members from all parts of the House expressing their views. There may be people attending to our proceedings who think, “What a strange chap”, but the fact is that I like listening to hon. and right hon. Members. I do not sense any great desire on the part of the Leader of the House urgently to accommodate the hon. Gentleman’s fair-mindedness, but he is a very fit and lithe fellow and if he wishes to leap from his seat to offer comfort and encouragement to the hon. Gentleman, there would be no happier Member of the House than I.

Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Gentleman will be able to raise that matter directly with the responsible Ministers next Tuesday, if he catches your eye, Mr Speaker, because it is questions to the Justice Secretary. That is the most immediate opportunity to raise such matters further on the Floor of the House, and to add to the points that he has already made today.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), Tom Pursglove, the national director of Together Against Wind, and I were waiting to go in Downing street last week, and my hon. Friend said that in his constituency, unemployment had gone down 50% since Labour lost power. I said that in my constituency it had gone down 55%. Then Tom said that in Corby, it had gone down 60%. Was I right in thinking that the Leader of the House announced a debate called “Labour’s job guarantee”? Is that some sort of joke?

[Mr Hague]

Well, my hon. Friend and I might think that it is some kind of joke, but such a debate will give us the opportunity to talk about the huge fall in unemployment since the last election, including in Corby, to which my hon. Friend draws attention. Employment is now up by 1.75 million, which is a remarkable record. We are creating more jobs in this country than in the whole of the rest of the European Union put together.

Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I am sure hon. Members will be able to take part in the debate from whatever point of view and wherever they are sitting. It will not be necessary to reorganise the furniture. Of course, the basic furniture of the British constitution was supported by the people of Scotland when they voted to remain part of the United Kingdom, including those who live in the area represented by the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House arrange a statement next week on the leaders’ debate? The Prime Minister is absolutely right that national parties should be included, including the Greens. I understand that the Scottish National party is considering running candidates in England. If so, could it be included in the debate? If it runs in north Northamptonshire it will get more votes than the Liberal Democrats.

[Mr Hague]

I think it is fair to say that that suggestion will receive a mixed reception in the coalition Government, but I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend on the importance of the Green party also being able to take part in the debates if other parties that are not the long-recognised major parties of the country do so. I do not know why the Labour party is so afraid of having the Green party take part in the debates.

Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

On the solemn note on which the hon. Lady began, I absolutely join her, as will the whole House, in condemnation of yesterday’s terrorist attack in Paris. The people of France are very much in the thoughts of this House and of the British people today. As the Prime Minister has made clear, we will, of course, offer all possible assistance to our colleagues in France. I think this attack will only redouble the determination of people in Britain, France and across the world to defend freedom of speech, because that is clearly what is at stake here.

The hon. Lady said that, despite that, it was appropriate to wish a happy new year. I am not sure why she thought I particularly needed a rest over the new year, but I join in wishing her a happy a new year. It will, however, still be a year for a considerable amount of work in this House. The hon. Lady used the phrase “zombie Parliament”, and I ought to point out that in this Parliament we will actually sit for 734 days, which is more than the 718 days of the five-year Parliament under the last Government, and that in this Session we are considering, including the Bill to be introduced today, 23 Government Bills, compared with 13 main programme Bills under the Labour party in the last Session of the last Parliament. In the penultimate Session of the last Parliament there were 18 Government Bills, whereas there were 20 in this Parliament. I therefore do not think the Opposition have much to crow about in that regard. The Bills we are considering are not only numerous, but they include the Pension Schemes Bill, which is giving people a freedom on retirement that they never enjoyed under any previous Administration, a small business Bill, which is very good for entrepreneurs, and an Infrastructure Bill, which is giving another multi-billion pound boost to our economy, and these are things that the Opposition do not seem to think are necessary or desirable. That is what is happening in this Session of Parliament.

The hon. Lady asked about the very important report on the governance of the House. I certainly intend that that will be debated soon—almost certainly in the week after next, although I have not been able to announce the full business for that week. That will mean that debate can take place after the meeting of the House of Commons Commission, which, as she knows, will also take place that week, on the 19th. I am sure the House will want to make a decision about how to proceed with this, rather than, as she said, just take note of matters. A great deal of work has gone on in the Governance Committee. It has been very good work, as I am sure the House will agree, and we do now need to get on with implementing many of the conclusions of that report.

The hon. Lady asked about various aspects of political campaigning and advertising in the last week, including a road in Germany. We know that what the Opposition would lead us to is the road to Greece—not the road to Germany, but the road to the deficit of more than 10% of GDP that they left us with.

I am happy to read out to the hon. Lady the note that the press noticed me carrying:

“In this Parliament, we’ve shown that we can protect the front line by making the Education budget more efficient and effective…But putting the economy at risk because Ed Miliband doesn’t have an economic plan, Labour would put our schools at risk.”

I am very happy to read that out to her, but I do not think she can lecture us about competence when the rebuttal document from the Opposition to what we said on Monday first of all confused a “million” with a “billion” three separate times, which does not inspire confidence as to how they would make any numbers add up, and asserted that one of their spokesmen was only a Back-Bench peer, the noble Lord Rosser, when he turns out to have been on their Front Bench for five years now without them even being aware of it in their own party headquarters. So telling us about competence after such a document may not be a very appropriate way to start the new year. Labour has also been forced to drop 12 policies in their entirety over the course of this week. It is too long a list for me to go through them all—

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Oh, go on!

[Mr Hague]

Well, the list is too long for me to go through them all, but a proposal to ban food waste from landfill was dropped within minutes of Monday’s press conference. Bringing back Care First—[Interruption.] The shadow Leader of the House says that that has never been Labour’s policy, but according to her colleagues it was. Other policies that were dropped include additional funding for a national refuge fund; justice reforms for 18 to 20-year-olds; a women’s justice board; and reinstating Cycling England. Also, Labour’s opposition to reductions in the Arts Council budget was dropped within hours of Monday’s press conference. So competence has not really been on display from the Opposition this week. I notice that, over the recess, the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery)—I can say this because he is here—gave a very good analysis of the Labour leadership, saying:

“We’ve got an elite which quite frankly frightens me. They haven’t been anywhere or done anything, and when you’ve got an accent like mine, they think, ‘Well, that man doesn’t really know too much’.”

Well, on the basis of that, I think he knows quite a lot. It is time the Labour leadership listened more attentively to the hon. Gentleman’s views on that and perhaps on other things.

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[Mr Hague]

Foreign Office Ministers have, as I know from my experience as Foreign Secretary, been very ready to discuss these things with Members of Parliament, and I am sure that if the hon. Gentleman asks for a meeting for Members of Parliament with Foreign Office Ministers, it would be entirely the normal thing for them to give a positive reply. It is very important to be able to discuss these things. We have often raised human rights concerns directly with the Bahraini Government, but I stress that the minesweepers that are based in Bahrain are there for the protection of our own national security and that of our allies more widely. They provide a very important role in assuring safety of navigation through the strait of Hormuz. So the British military role there is not something simply about Bahrain; it is about our wider collective defence and it should be seen in that context.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

May I offer a happy new year to the shadow Leader of the House? She is an excellent shadow Leader of the House and I hope that she continues in that role in the next Parliament. Has the Leader of the House given any thought to the sad day when he delivers the last business statement of this Parliament? Will he do a multi-choice? He has to announce the first week’s business of the new Parliament. Will he announce what the Labour party might do if it was able to form a majority Government? It would obviously have to have an emergency Budget to increase taxes and borrowing. If it was a Conservative majority Government, we would immediately introduce a European Union (referendum) Bill. If it was a Liberal Democrat majority—no, I am not going into fantasy land. Could we have a statement next week?

[Mr Hague]

That is a very attractive idea for the last business statement of the Parliament, which we will come to towards the end of March. I will look at that idea. Certainly, my hon. Friend is right that a Conservative Government will want to have a European Union (referendum) Bill, and to have the earliest possible debate on it as a Government Bill in Government time. I do not know whether there would be time for any of that if there were to be a Labour Government, since they would be dealing with the financial crisis, the huge uncertainty in the markets and the difficulty facing the currency. Since they would be on that road to Greece, I am not sure they would have time for much legislation.