Queen’s Speech (Date)

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am not sure that I followed the hon. Gentleman’s logic. As I understand it, he wants no Queen’s Speeches at all, whereas those on his Front Bench want one more than is currently proposed. How they square the circle, I am not quite sure.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

May I congratulate the Leader of the House, first, on making this written statement to the House of Commons and not leaking it in advance? That is a great benefit for the House.

On the subject of private Members’ Bills, 13 days are allocated and Standing Orders imply that that should be for each year. We must address that now. We already have an extended Session without an extension in the number of days and if we are going to go through an extra extension, we really must have more days.

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. There are consequentials, as I have just indicated to my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr Foster). It would be logical to increase the number of days allocated to private Members’ Bills.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

4. What recent discussions he has had with the BBC on the level of the television licence fee.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

6. If he will bring forward proposals to reduce the television licence fee by 25% over the next four years.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

8. What his plans are for the future level of the television licence fee; and if he will make a statement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hunt]

I have been very clear that in its use of licence fee payers’ money, the BBC needs to be on the same planet as everyone else. We are tackling a huge deficit as a result of the economic legacy left by the last Government. As we are having to be careful about every penny of taxpayers’ money we spend, so the BBC must be careful with every penny of licence fee payers’ money that it spends.

[Mr Bone]

Government Departments are having to cut their expenditure by between 25% and 40%. Will the Secretary of State insist that the bloated nationalised state broadcasting service does exactly the same and passes on the savings to the licence fee payer?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend will know that we are committed to a strong BBC that focuses on producing great TV and high-quality news. He is absolutely right. There has been a trickle of stories about BBC pay and expenses, particularly BBC management pay; lots of people at the BBC do not have high salaries. The BBC must look at what happened to Parliament when we lost the trust of the public because we did not handle our own expenses correctly, and it must be careful not to make the same mistakes.

Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

As I said in response to an earlier question, the views of the Deputy Prime Minister on the Iraq war are well known and should have come as no surprise at all to any Member of the House. Nor is it unusual for Ministers speaking from the Dispatch Box occasionally to let their personal views into the public domain.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Just for clarification, my yellow tie should not be taken to mean anything of significance.

Will the Leader of the House explain who will be in charge of the country, and acting Prime Minister, when the Prime Minister goes on his well-earned holidays or if he is incapacitated? Would it be the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary, the Chancellor or, in fact, the Leader of the House?

[Sir George Young]

I am sure that it would not be the Leader of the House. As my hon. Friend knows, we have a Deputy Prime Minister, and that title makes his responsibilities clear. However, I see—[Interruption.]

Information for Backbenchers on Statements

Peter Bone Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hollobone]

That is a most helpful intervention, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making it. I have huge respect for those who work in news organisations. They have a difficult job to do and, by and large, they do it very well, whether in our local newspapers or as representatives of the national media. What I would say to my hon. Friend is that news is not really news anymore. In the olden days, news used to be about things that had happened; nowadays, news is about things that are anticipated will happen. Often, by the time the event actually takes place the news has moved on to something else. The broadcasters in particular, with the appetite for 24-hour coverage, are distorting the news picture and confusing a lot of our constituents.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. He is making a powerful and historic speech that will go down in the annals of this great Parliament. The reason the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) is unhappy is that there were no amendments to the motion from hon. Members, which is a shame. However, if he was minded to divide the House this evening because the motion did not go far enough, he would be giving all those Ministers who leak the opportunity to vote against it.

[Mr Hollobone]

There’s food for thought. My hon. Friend makes an excellent point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hollobone]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent contribution, and I hope the Procedure Committee will take it into account. I am sure he would want to put the point that he just raised to that Committee.

[Mr Bone]

My hon. Friend is being generous in giving way. Should we not take very seriously the point raised by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) because, after all, he is a poacher who has now become a gamekeeper?

[Mr Hollobone]

That is right: the hon. Member for Rhondda has seen things from both sides of the fence. I am sure he was very careful about the release of information when he was a Minister, and I am also sure that he appreciates how difficult it is—I understand this—for Ministers of the Crown to control the release of information when, over the years, this culture of news management has developed. In Government Departments and in political parties, there are spin doctors and advisers whose job it is to manage the news, but the message should go out to these people that they are getting in the way of our democracy. They are not the most important people in our democracy; the people’s representatives are the most important. All of us here can, in theory, bring Governments down if we have the guts to do so, and we should hold the Government of the day to account for their behaviour.

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[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), who is and always has been a very assiduous Back Bencher. I am sure he can confirm to the House that he did not pre-brief the press on his speech.

We are debating an issue that is of real importance to the way in which the House, and thence our parliamentary democracy, functions. It is imperative for the debate not to be seen through the petty prism of party politics. This is not a partisan issue, and while attempts to portray it as such are understandable enough, given the general atmosphere in this place and the anger that can be generated among both MPs and our constituents when the ministerial code is broken, it would be wrong to do so.

Let me take up the theme initiated by the hon. Gentleman. A hallmark of your tenure thus far, Mr Speaker, is that you have acted to strengthen the role of the Back Bencher and have sought to reinforce the principles of the ministerial code, one of which is that important statements should be made here before they are made to the media. All too often, however, that convention is still flouted, and it is only through the granting of urgent questions that Members are able to represent their constituents’ interests in the face of an Executive who continue the age-old tradition of occasionally treating the House, and the Speaker, with discourtesy.

This is not a new problem, and I do not wish the debate to descend into a tit-for-tat event during which each side decries the other for having “started it first”. The issue has plagued the House under Governments of all colours—although I am pleased that the Liberals, who of course have not been in government until very recently, for once cannot play the “whiter than white” card. I am afraid that we are all implicated.

Announcements on the “Today” programme, to GMTV or to the newspapers are nothing new. Quite apart from the leaking of this year’s Budget, the Queen’s Speech and a raft of subsequent policies, our parliamentary history is littered with examples. In 1936—well before the 1947 leak—the Budget was leaked by Jimmy Thomas to another Conservative Member. He subsequently resigned not only his seat in the Cabinet, but his seat in the House.

[Mr Bone]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech. However, in that instance the Budget may not have been leaked. It is possible that there was an inadvertent interpretation of something that had been said. Even the suggestion that there had been a leak was enough for the Minister concerned to resign.

[Alison Seabeck]

Yes, indeed. It was a question of honour, and I think that we have lost a little of that.

As was mentioned by the hon. Member for Kettering, the 1947 Budget was famously leaked to the Star by the then Labour Chancellor, and the 1996 Budget somehow ended up in the hands of the Daily Mirror. As I have said, it is not a new problem; but it is a problem whose resolution is long overdue. We must take it upon ourselves, in this new Parliament, to ensure that the House is returned to the heart of substantive political life in this country.

I am not interested in the question of who has the worst track record, although it is useful to be able to draw on historical examples. I am interested in how we can bring the practice to an end. This was supposed to be the “clean slate” Parliament. A new Parliament with a large influx of new Members should have been able to start afresh. We have made many advances in the way in which we do things—I am thinking not least of the advent of a Committee devoted to Back-Bench business—but the continuation of the old way of doing things must be nipped in the bud.

The fact that Governments, Labour, Liberal and Tory, have leaked and pre-announced policy to the media in the past—advertently or inadvertently—does not give licence to the current incumbents to carry on in the same way. We are in the process of changing the balance of Parliament, so that it ceases to be a Parliament in which Back Benchers are here simply to cheer on their respective Front Benchers, and becomes one in which ministerial promotion is not seen as the sole career path, and in which Back Benchers can bring their experience to bear and ensure that their constituents’ interests are fully represented. We cannot do that if the House is not treated as the right and proper place for ministerial announcements and statements.

We all know that Ministers have a hard job to do. Working on red boxes at 2 am, as Ministers do in some of the busier Departments, is not fun, and mistakes do occur. Working in haste also leads to mistakes and poor scrutiny by Ministers of vital papers, as has happened in the last week or two. We must not mention the word “lists” too often. However, it is within the power of Ministers to prevent some of those mistakes from happening, and it is a shame—a real shame—that the Education Department’s Ministers did not check the detail of those lists more carefully. As has been pointed out, however, the Secretary of State had the good grace to apologise in person.

Back Benchers really should not have to sit by their radios every morning listening with bated breath to the “Today” programme while simultaneously channel-hopping across the various breakfast television media, simply to make certain that they know what is going on. Back Benchers ought to know that this House, and this House alone, is where statements are made, where policy will first be debated, and where their views will be heard before the media circus kicks off. The comments of the hon. Member for Kettering about the empty Press Gallery reinforce that point. If Ministers had to come to this House, those in the Press Gallery would be able to see the reaction of Back-Bench MPs and hear our constituents’ concerns being voiced directly. An empty Press Gallery is not a good sign.

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[Alison Seabeck]

I thank my hon. Friend for his remarks, and I am sure colleagues on both sides of the House will have heard what he had to say. It is to be hoped that a volunteer or two will come forward. The Committee should be set up as soon as possible, and he is right to say that it will be very difficult to proceed otherwise.

Back Benchers and the whole House ought to be the first to hear ministerial statements and policy announcements, and they should know that the only place for that will be either this place or the other place. That is a matter not only of constitutional convention and courtesy but of practicality. Members of this House should not have to be faced with phone calls from the media telling them what is going on in the outside world and asking for their views on events about which they have no knowledge. We have all experienced that and, apart from anything else, having to say, “I haven’t heard about that” is very embarrassing—nor does it give people confidence in our ability to do our job properly. That is certainly not a way to run a democracy, and I look to the Leader of the House to ensure that, in so far as his remit stretches, our democracy runs as well as it possibly can. I therefore hope he will commit to redoubling his efforts to bring Ministers to the Dispatch Box before they reach for the radio mike.

An excuse that has often been given is that the majority of the White Paper or statement was in fact revealed to the House and that only one or two of the main items have been released to the public—that is of relevance to a point made earlier about the precise wording of paragraph 9.1 of the ministerial code. That excuse is not good enough, because often the juicy bits of the White Paper or statement are leaked to the press and the House is left with the odds and sods—if I am allowed to use that term. [Interruption.] Yes, the bare bones might be a better phrase. My point is, however, that all of the contents should be saved for the Floor of the House.

[Mr Bone]

The hon. Lady has got to the crux of the issue. The Minister wants to leak the juicy bits to the media because it will get a favourable press. If he does not do that, the media might write about the bits he does not want to be discussed.

[Alison Seabeck]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I concur with that view. I do not imagine that any member of the Treasury-Bench team will be willing to defend the practice of pre-announcing policies or leaks to the media. If any of them are, however, then I am ready to give way and hear the rationale, but if they cannot defend the practice then they should not practise it.

Under a Labour Government, we had the release of difficult news under cover of a smokescreen of even worse news—“A good day to bury bad news” was a term used. However, that term was used by a special adviser, and although what she did was not technically out of order, she at least left her job as a consequence. Ministers need to learn some lessons from that.

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[Sir George Young]

I accept the argument that we need a gradation. In a sense, we have that already because we have oral statements and then written ministerial statements, and then I suppose we have press releases put out by Departments. However, it would be helpful if the Procedure Committee could shed some light on the key question of what should trigger the obligation for a Minister to make an oral statement to the House about a major announcement of policy because Ministers, more than anyone else, are anxious to stay within the rules.

The debate gives us the opportunity to stand back and think radically about statements and their role in our agenda. Going back a few decades, the Government made statements to the House because that was the prime means of distributing information to the nation. Life today could not be more different. There are more platforms than ever for the Government and others to communicate with individuals or communities, so the terms of trade have completely changed. It is right for the Procedure Committee to have a fresh look at the rules, which is why I will support the motion.

If the motion is agreed, I propose to submit a memorandum of evidence to the Procedure Committee on behalf of the Government, and at this point I would like to make a point that has not been raised before. In the past three Parliaments, such an inquiry would probably have been carried out by the Modernisation Committee. That Committee was chaired by the Leader of the House, and if that had been the route by which a recommendation had been agreed, the Leader of the House would have submitted a report to the House of Commons. One only has to think about that for 30 seconds to realise that that is entirely the wrong way to set about the issue. That is why it was absolutely right at the beginning of this Parliament not to re-establish the Modernisation Committee, chaired by the Leader of the House, but to ask the Procedure Committee to take on board agendas that the Modernisation Committee would previously have taken.

Let me briefly touch on a few ideas that the Procedure Committee might look at. The Wright Committee said that statements could be taken at a different point in the parliamentary day, and one has to ask whether 12.30 pm or 3.30 pm are the only times for statements. Is there a way of insulating time taken for statements from the time allocated to the business of the House? For example, Governments are sometimes reluctant to make statements on Opposition days because that eats into the time to which the Opposition are entitled. Could statements be shortened by having a yet tighter limit on the time that Ministers’ take, or by releasing the text and relevant papers in advance so that the House might proceed to question the Secretary of State, rather than have the statement read out?

It would also be helpful if the Procedure Committee were to consider whether the earliest opportunity for issuing written statements might be brought forward. Not everyone is on the estate by 9.30 am, but I am sure that a good number are in their offices even earlier than that, and if the timing of written statements is brought forward, it should be accompanied by a system of making those statements available to Members either electronically, by e-mail, or by posting them on the parliamentary intranet. To put that into context, Select Committees release many of their reports at one minute past midnight.

Finally, I have already given a commitment to consider new procedures for the launching of Select Committee reports on the Floor of the House. There is no reason why Ministers should have a monopoly on making statements to the House; Select Committee Chairs should also have that privilege. I had intended to write to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), inviting the Procedure Committee to consider how that recommendation could be implemented. However, as the proposal has something of the nature of a ministerial statement, perhaps the Procedure Committee will be able to include it in the scope of the inquiry that is before the House this evening.

[Mr Bone]

The Leader of the House is making a very important speech, but why does the practice, which the previous Government introduced, of announcing statements in advance on the Order Paper seem not to happen now?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I think that we have done that once during this Parliament, but I agree that it would be helpful if, so far as is possible, the House were given advance notice that a Minister proposed to make an oral statement.

I hope to be able on Thursday to make further announcements about time for Back Benchers’ debates. Those debates are part of a process of moving towards a fully established House Committee, which we are committed to establishing in three years’ time. Together with other reforms that either have been recently introduced or are under consideration, they will make this Parliament one where the terms of trade tilt back towards Parliament and away from the Executive, and oblige the Government to raise their game. This Government welcome that challenge.

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[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson), who made some interesting points. In some respects, I wish that he had been here in the previous Parliament, because his frustration would have been extreme.

I have been very impressed by all the speeches made by new Back Benchers. It is a great tribute to them and a safeguard that this Parliament really will be the home of democracy. It would be wrong not to acknowledge your presence here tonight, Mr Speaker, for the whole debate, thus giving it added impetus. That is much appreciated, as is the fact that the Leader of the House has stayed here for the whole debate, as has the shadow Leader of the House, who, in one of the most helpful comments, praised my hon. Friend the Member for Hollobone Central for introducing it. I always regard him as my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), and he introduced the debate in absolutely the right style and manner. In years to come, people will look back to his speech as a reference on this very important matter.

My right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) has also stayed here for the whole debate. Of course, we hope, as the Backbench Business Committee, that we will kick the football to him to look at when his new Committee is formed. While I am praising hon. Members who have spoken previously, it would be wrong of me not to mention my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies). We go back a very long way from my time in Wales. I am pleased to see him in the House, and he will be an active and able Member.

Probably the last hon. Member to speak tonight will be the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), the new Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee. She has got off to an absolutely flying start, and I should like formally to congratulate her on what she has done so far.

It is a great privilege to speak in the first debate to be held by the Backbench Business Committee on what is an historic night. For the first time, it has been left to Back Benchers in Parliament, not the Executive or Opposition Front Benchers, to decide what should be debated in the House on a substantive motion. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) may yet still divide the House, which would be even better, because we would know the number of hon. Members who support the other view to that taken by the Committee.

The motion that we have chosen to debate goes to the heart of readjusting the balance of power between the Executive and Parliament. I want to declare that I will be equally rude to Labour Front Benchers and the Labour Government and to the Conservatives. I will blame them both in equal measure, so there is no partisanship in that.

Under the last Labour Administration, power was increasingly removed from Back Benchers and instead handed to an arrogant, dismissive and control-freak Government. That started under the Blair Administration, with his concentration on public relations and presentation, and got worse under the Brown Administration, when the need to control every minute detail was the rule of the day. As a result of that and other recent events, public opinion of Parliament is at an all-time low. Something clearly needs to be changed.

The big question for the House is whether anything has changed with the new Government. Are they any less interested in PR, presentation and spin? At the very best, the jury is still considering its verdict. I say that partly because I will be highly critical of the Government’s failure to put Parliament first in certain respects—in particular, leaking information to the press and other media in advance of announcing it in Parliament—but on the plus side, we have two extraordinary parliamentarians in the Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of the House, who believe in putting Parliament first and have demonstrated that not only by their statements, but by their actions. It is also quite clear that the Prime Minister believes in making the Executive more accountable to Parliament and increasing the role of Back Benchers. Clearly, the decision to set up the Backbench Business Committee was a prime indication of the Government’s support for Parliament.

There are other areas in which the Government have put Parliament first. The Prime Minister made the remarkably self-confident decision to give up the right to choose the date of the next general election, which removes a massive advantage for the Government. Equally, his decision to allow Government Back Benchers—I am delighted that the Chief Whip is on the Front Bench to hear this—to table amendments when scrutinising the details of a Bill in Committee and then to vote in the way in which they think fit, rather than according to the party line, will empower Back Benchers enormously. That will no doubt occasionally lead to the Government losing a vote, but that should be regarded as a victory for Parliament, not a defeat for the Government.

The Government have also supported reform of the Select Committee system, meaning that the Chairs are elected by the whole House rather than appointed by the Whips. Equally, the Government’s desire not to programme Bills is a significant advance. Back Benchers will now be able to question the detail of Bills, whereas whole sections of Bills were not discussed during the last Parliament because of programme orders. However, there has been some backsliding on that commitment.

The motion sets out that the most important Government policy announcements should be made to Parliament first, not leaked to the media in advance while Back Benchers are left completely in the dark, because otherwise how are we supposed to ask the most searching questions and properly represent our constituents? It is embarrassing and wholly unacceptable if the local radio station rings up to ask, “What do you think about the statement?” when I did not even know that there would be such a statement and it then tells me what is in the statement so that I can comment. Of course, that has happened under not only this Government, but the previous Government. It makes a mockery of the legislative process when the Press Gallery is packed for relatively unimportant and therefore unleaked announcements, but entirely empty for the most important statements.

There was an exception to that under the previous Government because the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) had a tendency not to leak statements. I remember one occasion on which his statement was not leaked in advance, and the House and the Press Gallery were packed. Actually, the statement was on a Government U-turn, but that showed what could happen if statements were not leaked.

We have heard about the history of Chancellors being fired for leaks and people teeing up on the golf course suddenly to find that they were fired, but I will not go over that. We have also heard many references to your statements, Mr Speaker, on the fact that Parliament must hear statements on important policy first. I remember that the previous Speaker was sometimes so red in the face with rage that Ministers had leaked in advance that I thought that his blood pressure would go through the roof. However, he did not have the success that you have had, Mr Speaker, at getting Ministers to the Dispatch Box to apologise. It was to the great credit of the Home Secretary and the Education Secretary that they did so, but that shows part of the problem, as several hon. Members have said, because however grovelling the apology is, it is not enough to stop the leaking—it continues.

I have spoken to several Ministers and ex-Ministers. They did not want to go on record this evening, but they explained the thought process behind leaking information. It is partly to ensure that the press comments on the particularly juicy bits that Ministers want to get into the media, but it is also because of the news cycle. Ministers want to get information out for the weekend papers and radio programmes, so they leak it then. On the day of the announcement, they ensure that the statement is again leaked. Then, they appear in the television studios and give interviews on it. It was very hard for previous Labour Ministers to deny that they had leaked a statement when I had seen them on the television discussing it several hours earlier. Finally, they get the benefit of the statement and the comment afterwards, and, until we find a solution—a threat, if the House likes—in order to stop them doing that, it will not end.

I have been very taken by some ideas tonight. The idea from the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) of stringing them from the roof was quite novel, but I think that we are against capital punishment. The idea from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming), who is sitting by the Bar of the House, had some attraction as well. I do not know whether the Mayor of London has entered into this debate, but he had Parliament square cleaned last night so that none of the tents and protesters is now there. That large open space is now available, and it was suggested to me that, if we put a large stocks there and the Speaker said that a Minister had to stay in them for several days, that would—I fear, at an instance—stop the leaking. However, I then remembered that it would be against European Union law—although that is another reason why we should go ahead with the idea.

[John Hemming]

It is against the European convention on human rights, which is to do with the Council of Europe, not the European Council.

[Mr Bone]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right, but I did not want the truth to get in the way of my having a go at the European Union.

Earlier, we commented on how the matter was taken more seriously in the past, and the better way forward is to refer it to the Procedure Committee. However, I should like to suggest some more practical measures on how we might deal with Ministers who continue to leak.

First, if the Procedure Committee or another Committee thinks that a Minister or their Department had leaked, that Minister should have to go and see the relevant Select Committee. If the Department leaks again, perhaps, Mr Speaker, you could demand that the Minister make a statement. If they leak again, perhaps we could have a yellow-card system. I think that I read somewhere in a newspaper about a yellow and red-card system that had much merit. So, with a yellow card the Minister would be on their last warning, and then they might have a red card, meaning that they would have to resign as a Minister forthwith. That, I hope, would really end the leaking. If we had such a system, or if the Procedure Committee had an ultimate sanction, that would stop the leaks. That is what the debate is about. It relates to a serious proposal to put this mother of Parliaments at the heart of democracy, and until we stop such abuse of Parliament we will never really do our job of scrutinising the Executive.

[Sir Peter Soulsby]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is important that the Procedure Committee deals with leaks as well as with statements? That is a very small point, but the motion before us refers specifically to “statements”. Does he agree that it is important that we also have the opportunity to ask the Procedure Committee to look at leaks as well?

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[Mr Bone]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, and I entirely agree. I hope that the Procedure Committee will consider a wide range of measures affecting Back Benchers and then make recommendations that the Backbench Business Committee might put on the Order Paper. The great advantage of the new system is that we do not have to wait for the Government to put such business on the Order Paper; we as Back Benchers can do so.

My solution might sound overly harsh, but it is time to stop pussyfooting around the issue, because it is simply unacceptable that Ministers inform the media before Parliament.

[Chris Skidmore]

The hon. Member for Leicester South (Sir Peter Soulsby) just mentioned the difference between leaks and statements, and that is important. The Minister is ultimately responsible for the statement to the House, but there is a difference between the Department and the Minister, because they are not always in total control of their Department in terms of who is leaking what information. I should be interested to know my hon. Friend’s views on leaks and who is responsible for them. Is the Minister ultimately responsible, or would my hon. Friend allow some leeway because somebody else in the Department might be?

[Mr Bone]

Absolutely not. The Ministers in this Government are completely on top of their Departments and the idea that anyone would dare to leak without their authority is not acceptable.

Let us take a situation as an example. Something is leaked and comes before the Select Committee. The Minister explains that it was not him who leaked, but Joe Bloggs at the Department—who, by the way, has now gone. But if it happens again and again and a fourth time, the Minister really should resign. If we are serious about the issue, that is what should happen.

[Sir Peter Soulsby]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is important that Ministers take responsibility not only for the overt statements that they make themselves, but for the covert leaks made on their behalf?

[Mr Bone]

The hon. Gentleman is right. The one thing that this Government have been bad at is leaking covertly; the previous Government could teach this one a lot about that, although I hope that this Government would not take lessons from them.

We have heard a lot about the 24-hour news cycle, and we should take advantage of that. The Order Paper should show that there is to be a statement, for example, on Lords reform, and there should be no leak of that statement. We would know that it would take place on, say, Tuesday at a certain time. I guarantee that the House and the Press Gallery would be packed and that Sky News and BBC News 24 would cut into their programmes and switch their broadcasting to the House to see what was being said. That is the situation that we can and must achieve.

I shall finish now, because most Members want to hear what the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee has to say.

Use of the Chamber (United Kingdom Youth Parliament)

Peter Bone Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

I do not accept the premise of that argument; the basis on which Youth Parliament members are elected is not exactly the same.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech as usual. I had not intended to intervene, but on the last point I should say that the difference between the Youth Parliament and this Parliament is that we are allowed to stand under party labels, whereas Youth Parliament members cannot. It is not the same as this Parliament.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is right about that technical difference between the Youth Parliament and this one. I am not sure that that negates the point made by the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood); any Parliament should be made up as it sees fit. However, I do not particularly accept his premise to start with. He is scrabbling around trying to find what is different about the UK Youth Parliament as opposed to any of these other worthy bodies.

I will tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, what is different about the UK Youth Parliament and its relationship with this Chamber. What is different is that we have, in my opinion, the sight of a lot of very sad people trying pathetically to ingratiate themselves with young people in their constituencies, which is absolutely painful to behold. They think that this is a trendy course to follow. If they want to try to look trendy with their constituents, they will argue that they want to have the UK Youth Parliament sitting here so that they can go back and say, “I’m trendy, I supported you.” It is frankly rather pathetic. That is the only difference between the UK Youth Parliament and all these other bodies, however hard hon. Members scrabble around for differences between it and anything else.

Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Motion 7 on the Order Paper invites the House to agree to a summer recess starting on 27 July, which means that we will miss Prime Minister’s questions on 28 July. I know that the Leader of the House was intending that the House should rise on 29 July. Has he been approached by the Opposition Whips’ office to adjourn on 27 July to avoid the acting leader of the Labour party taking another battering at PMQs?

[Sir George Young]

I agree with my hon. Friend that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is an outstanding performer at Prime Minister’s questions and regularly wins the exchanges. We are rising on 27 July partly because—as my hon. Friend will know—those who represent Scottish seats have a different configuration of school holidays, and it was our judgment that we had made sufficient progress to recommend rising on that date as opposed to the original, provisional plans for 29 July. I wonder whether my hon. Friend is planning to oppose the motion—

[Mr Bone]

indicated assent.

[Sir George Young]

I am dismayed to see that.

Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Ms Winterton]

I certainly will, Mr Speaker. One of the matters on which I wanted to question the Leader of the House with reference to his duties was the “serious training” that he said shadow Ministers had been given in order for them to be able to move quickly to implement some of the policies in the coalition agreement. I think that that “serious training” explains the speed with which the Thatcherite cuts in public service are being implemented. However, the interview does not tell us whether the duties of the Leader of the House include arranging training for Liberal Democrat Ministers enabling them, for instance, to explain during next week’s debate on the police grant report how cutting £125 million from this year’s policing budget will not affect police numbers—especially given that the Liberal Democrat manifesto stated that there would be 3,000 extra police on the streets.

Will the Leader of the House ensure that the Minister for Police explains in next week’s debate what statistics the Prime Minister was using yesterday when he said that violent crime had doubled, given that the UK Statistics Authority has said that it is misleading the public to use anything other than the British crime survey as a measure of long-term crime trends? The survey shows that, in fact, there has been a 41% reduction in violent crime since 1997.

May I also ask whether the “serious training” referred to by the Leader of the House involves training in how to make apologies? If so, I am afraid that the Education Secretary needs a refresher course. On Monday, he released his first list of schools that would no longer be refurbished or rebuilt. He released that list to the media. By Tuesday afternoon he had released a third list. My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) raised the matter with you, Mr Speaker, and last night the Education Secretary was forced to come to the House to apologise. He arrived with a fourth list, but said he

“would be grateful if hon. Members would ensure that any information they had that pointed to inaccuracies was put to me”.—[Official Report, 7 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 492.]

Naturally, Labour Members rose to the challenge and pointed out that Monkseaton high school in Tynemouth, which was listed as having been cancelled, had in fact been opened last year, and had been visited by the one and only right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) when he launched the Conservative local election campaign. That is completely chaotic, and suggests a hurried and unreliable process.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Winterton]

If the hon. Gentleman has any suggestions for the Secretary of State, I am sure that the Secretary of State will listen to them.

Will the Leader of the House ask the Education Secretary to come to the House and, as a minimum, publish the criteria that were used to decide which school building projects would be cancelled, so that parents and teachers can see for themselves whether their school building programme has indeed been cancelled by any kind of reasonable and fair process? That is a minimum; but the fact is that the Education Secretary should simply withdraw the list altogether, and think again about destroying the hopes and aspirations of at least 700 communities around the country. Surely it is obvious that this whole process has become discredited, as has the Education Secretary himself—not least because he keeps telling the House that funding had not been agreed for these schools. He continued to say that in the House even after the permanent secretary had issued a letter saying that it was categorically not the case.

Finally, last week I asked the Deputy Leader of the House to place in the Library the Treasury paper on the 1.3 million people who were going to be thrown out of work because of the Budget. Neither that nor the advice given to the former coalition Chief Secretary on the future jobs fund has appeared. That meant that we had an Opposition day debate yesterday on jobs and unemployment with those two crucial documents withheld from us. How can the Leader of the House possibly justify that when the coalition agreement specifically refers to openness and transparency in government? Will he now place these documents in the Library as a matter of urgency?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for her questions, and I hope that the The House Magazine might one day carry an article entitled “Leading lady”, in which she features. I got on very well with Lady Thatcher—so well that she appointed me to her Administration not once, but twice.

On the police grant order, there will still be an increase in the resources available to the police even after that order, which will be debated next Wednesday. The right hon. Lady knows full well the reason for that order: in the words of the Labour Chief Secretary, “There is no money left.”

On crime, it is important that the actual crimes recorded by the police are used alongside the statistical analysis of the British crime survey. Indeed, that was the measure most often used by Labour Members when they criticised our record in government. We have quoted the only statistics that are available on recorded crime across the period, but I can tell the right hon. Lady that the Home Secretary has written to the shadow Home Secretary stating that we are reviewing how crime statistics should be collected and published in future, and we will make further announcements in due course.

On the subject of apologies, both the Home Secretary and the Education Secretary have had the decency to come to this House and apologise when things have gone wrong. We have had no apology from the Labour Benches, however, for one in five young people being unemployed, and we have had no apology for Labour selling the gold at the lowest level for some 20 years, or for leaving us with the worst budget deficit in Europe.

The right hon. Lady will have seen the question the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) asked about the school list, to which my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary replied:

“It is my belief that the list we have placed in the Vote Office is accurate.”—[Official Report, 7 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 492.]

He went on to say that he understood that double-checking was now taking place within the Department. My right hon. Friend also set out the criteria used to make the decisions at some length in his statement on Monday, and he was questioned about them for an hour and a quarter. The right hon. Lady should remember, however, that the reason for the statement was the over-commitment of resources by the outgoing Secretary of State, who acted irresponsibly by over-relying on end-year flexibility when the resources simply were not there.

We had a debate on unemployment yesterday, and the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), pointed out that over the next few years there will be an increase of 1.5 million in the number of people working.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

On Monday the House adjourned at 10.49 pm, on Tuesday at 2.48 am the following morning and on Wednesday at 8.13 pm. That is very good for holding the Government to account, but for Members who, because of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, have up to a two-hour commute home, it is not sustainable. May we have a statement next week on whether IPSA has broken parliamentary privilege by restricting the ability of some hon. Members to carry out their duties?

[Sir George Young]

On the narrow issue of privilege, that is a matter for Mr Speaker. My hon. Friend will know the procedure that needs to be gone through if anyone asserted there had been a breach of privilege, but may I also say the following to my hon. Friend? Earlier this week for the first time we had a seriously late-night sitting against the background of the new constraints imposed on the House by IPSA. I am aware that a large number of hon. Members were seriously inconvenienced by what happened, and that is something that I and others propose to pursue in a dialogue with IPSA.

Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

It would be very useful to have a debate on that subject. There is a huge amount to be said for co-operative and mutual organisations. That sort of corporate structure has been in abeyance in recent years, and it is time that it made a reappearance. If the hon. Gentleman applies for a debate, I hope that he is successful in securing one at some stage. I have to point out that the case of Royal Mail offers the prospect of an enormous mutualisation and expansion in the co-operative sector, and I hope that Opposition Members will support that.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

During the last Parliament, I was regularly concerned about the blood pressure of the previous Speaker, as he had to tick Ministers off regularly for leaking information to the press before they were brought to the House to make a statement. I am very concerned that your blood pressure is not affected, Mr Speaker, so will the Deputy Leader of the House ask for a statement from the Leader of the House next week setting out the punishment that can be meted out to Ministers who leak to the press before addressing this House?

[Mr Heath]

First, may I also congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his election to the Backbench Business Committee? I am not sure that the Leader of the House has any sanctions that he can apply, other than exhortation, but the Prime Minister does. Perhaps this is something that we need to draw to his attention.

Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Peter Bone Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

I beg to move,

That Mr Nicholas Brown, Bob Russell, Laura Sandys, Mr Charles Walker and Ms Rosie Winterton be appointed under Schedule 3 to the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009 as members of the Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority until the end of the present Parliament.

The motion sets out the nominees for membership of the Speaker's Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, the composition and functions of which are defined in the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009. I remind the House that the Committee is a statutory body established under the Act, not a Committee of this House, which is why its members are being nominated by a Government motion.

There are five nominees, who will sit alongside three ex officio members. The first of those ex officio members is the Speaker. The others are my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House of Commons and the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee. The nominees are drawn from recommendations from both sides of the House.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is listing excellent members of the Committee and I am sure that it will be first class, but will the Committee have the opportunity to report to the House? Some Speaker’s Committees have a quarter-hour slot for question time in the House, and it would be most useful if that Committee reported to the House via one of its members. In that way, we could keep updated and ask some questions.

[Mr Heath]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that point. The duties and functions of the Committee are fairly closely defined by the Act. Its only functions are to ratify the nomination of IPSA’s chair and board members before they are put to the House, and to approve the estimate—a very important function—so there are perhaps limited requirements for reporting, but I think he makes a valid point. We have such an arrangement for the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission. I shall certainly take his suggestion on board and see whether an arrangement can be made for the Committee to be answerable to this House.

As I said, the nominees are drawn from recommendations from both sides of the House and I very much hope that they will be accepted by both sides. I commend the motion to the House.

Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

During the nine years that I have been in the House, I have listened to Conservative Members objecting to programme motions and guillotines as though they were the wicked invention of a terrible Labour Government. The business of the House motion lists the motions on today’s Order Paper:

“Backbench Business Committee, Election of Backbench Business Committee, Backbench Business (Amendment of Standing Orders),Westminster Hall (Amendment of Standing Orders), Topical Debates (Amendments of Standing Orders), Pay for Chairs of Select Committees, Backbench Business Committee (Review), September Sittings, Business of the House (Private Members’ Bills), Deferred Divisions (Timing), Select Committees (Membership), Select Committees (Machinery of Government Change) and Sittings of the House”.

I shall say more about the motion on September sittings later.

The changes that we are to debate will make a fundamental difference to the way in which the House operates not only in terms of the role of Back Benchers, but in terms of the representation of the minor parties in the House, and we should be given sufficient time in which to discuss these extensive motions. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) that it was wrong to tag such important House business on to a major statement about the Saville inquiry—on which, rightly, many Members wished to comment, in an emotive debate that showed the House at its best—and to try to rush it through.

Many of us have recently been on the receiving end of ill-thought-out and ill-informed reform. I am sure that if we had had more time to debate the proposals of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority in detail, we would not have signed up to some of the craziness as a result of which all Members in all parts of the House are suffering.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I have some sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s arguments—I think that I sometimes advanced them from that side of the House myself—but is he suggesting that he would like the House to sit through the night to make the necessary decisions in the early hours of the morning?

[Mr Jones]

No. As one who can remember all-night sittings, I have to say that they were conducive neither to the health of individual Members nor to the scrutiny of legislation. Let us be honest, however: the coalition has hit the ground running with reviews, commissions and study groups. The programme for the period between now and the summer recess is not exactly packed with legislation that would take up time. Unless all the various reviews, study groups and commissions are to report instantaneously, we should find more time in which to discuss the important changes that we are discussing, which will have an effect on the way in which the House operates.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

That is not surprising, because the Parliamentary Secretary is a Liberal Democrat and they say one thing in one place and another in another. We are increasingly seeing—we certainly saw it at Justice questions—the push me-pull me coalition, where some Members think that they can say anything in one sphere and say something else in another.

The Leader of the House, who has been in the House a lot longer than I have, clearly was against programme motions and spoke vigorously about them. I looked up his speech to the last Conservative party conference, which took place on 5 October 2009. It was revealing. He needs to explain to the House why tonight he is a great convert to guillotine motions. He said that

“one of Labour’s worst reforms has been to introduce a guillotine motion before a bill gets a second reading, automatically cutting short the time available, before we even know how complex or contentious the issues are or by how much the government will amend them. Harriet is always there, with her knitting needles.”

No doubt he will be getting the knitting out later. I can visualise the Parliamentary Secretary knitting. I find it hard to visualise the Leader of the House doing so.

I am sorry to say that there is more. The Leader of the House went on to say in his speech:

“As a result, we send huge amounts of poor quality legislation through to the Lords. We don’t have time to do what we tell you to do—read the small print.”

I agree with the Leader of the House in that we need to read the small print of the measures we will be deciding on tonight.

[Mr Bone]

The hon. Gentleman is being very generous in giving way and is making a powerful speech. Will he remind the House of how many times he has voted against programme motions?

[Mr Jones]

Actually, I agree with programme motions, because any idiot in opposition who argues that Government legislation can somehow be got through without programme motions should be taken out to the nearest lunatic asylum. What we are talking about here, however, is House business, which is a different issue.

I find the situation facing us a little bit galling. To be fair to the hon. Gentleman, if we divide on the programme motion he may well join me in the No Lobby, and if so it will not be the first time he has voted against his party because he is an independent soul; and I am sure he will cause havoc to his party on many more occasions in the coming months and years. The important point here is that insufficient time is available to us tonight to examine in detail the complex measures that have been proposed.

It appears that we are being asked to agree to measures that raise questions as to whether we will be able to debate the issues involved again. For instance, motion 10 on the Order Paper, in the name of the Leader of the House, is on September sittings and it states:

“That this House reaffirms the importance of its function of holding the Government to account: and accordingly asks the Government to put to this House specific proposals for sitting periods in September 2010.”

Some of us were Members when the House last had September sittings, and they were a complete disaster in that there was never any business to debate. Frankly, it was just a public relations stunt, which might have made some people feel good—[Interruption.] There is no need to worry, as I am not going to debate September sittings; I shall return to the subject under discussion shortly.

There is a question to be asked, however. If we agree to this motion tonight, will the Government then allow another debate on what is being proposed, because the motion seems to give them carte blanche to impose September sittings? If we agree to the motion tonight, we will need to have a debate on September sittings in Government time. If that is not allowed, we will be denying something that is stated in the motion, in that we will not be reaffirming the importance of the

“function of holding the Government to account”.

Instead, we will in effect tonight be giving the Government a blank cheque to do exactly what they want in September, and that cannot be right.