Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill: Committee Stage

Debate between Afzal Khan and Bambos Charalambous

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Afzal Khan]

I am not sure how relevant that is to this discussion, but I am a new Member and I do not know the whole history.

The Government are happy to increase the size of the unelected Chamber, at greater cost to the public purse, while cutting the elected side and discouraging participation in what goes on here.

On the money resolution, many people are put off getting involved in politics and Parliament because it is so difficult to understand what goes on here. The private Members’ Bill process is arguably the worst culprit. The process is clearly broken. The public were rightly outraged by how easily the upskirting Bill was blocked last week, even when it had the support of the Government. Similarly outrageous is how easily the Government can block a private Member’s Bill, even when it commands overwhelming cross-party support. Today marks 200 days since my Bill passed its Second Reading unanimously. Our Committee has so far met five times. We have had discussions about money resolutions, the financial sovereignty of the Crown, “Erskine May” and the Bishop of Chester, but we have not yet discussed a single line of the Bill.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about the difficulty of getting private Members’ Bills through. I will have a private Member’s Bill on 23 November—it is No. 21 of 23, with the House set to sit for only five and a half hours. There is absolutely no chance of the Bill being debated and we will then be in a situation where it has to come back another time. Is one of the solutions to have more sitting Fridays for private Members’ Bills to allow more time for them to become law?

[Afzal Khan]

I would be quite happy if the House decided to have more Friday sittings.

I never expected to become an expert in such a narrow aspect of parliamentary procedure, but unfortunately I have spent the last few months reading up on money resolutions, rather than working towards a compromise on boundaries. I have learned that there is a clear parliamentary convention that the Government bring a money resolution after Second Reading of a private member’s Bill. In 2015, a Government Minister reaffirmed this, saying that

“once the House has given a private Member’s Bill a Second Reading, the convention is that the Government, even when they robustly oppose it, always table a money resolution”.—[Official Report, 3 November 2015; Vol. 601, c. 926.]

Since their devastating failure at the general election, the Government have gone against their words. Despite money resolutions having been tabled for many Bills further behind in the queue, none has been forthcoming for this Bill. Too weak to defeat my Bill on a vote, the Government are hiding behind procedure. With complete disregard for democracy, this minority Government are abusing their Executive power to defy the will of the House. We have had business questions, points of order, an urgent question and an emergency debate on this already. These have surprised even me by the extent of cross-party agreement. Opposition parties were united in calling on the Government to table a money resolution. Conservative Back Benchers were lining up to condemn their own Ministers.

It is a shame that we have been pushed to table this motion today. It would be much better for the Government to respect procedure, the will of the House and the will of their party, and bring forward a money resolution, but, given the Government’s continued refusal, we have been forced into this position. The Government’s time is up; we must make progress on this important Bill. To honour the conventions of the House and the will of Parliament, Members must support this motion.