Daylight Saving Bill

Debate between Alan Reid and Philip Davies

Friday 20th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Reid]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support. He makes the important point that the debate on the amendment is not about the substance of the Bill, but about whose consent should be required for it. I hope that hon. Members from all parts of the United Kingdom will support the amendment. Wherever an hon. Member comes from, I hope they will agree that a measure like this, which will have different effects on different parts of the UK, is so important that it should go forward only if it has the support of every part of the UK.

[Philip Davies]

I agree with the thrust of the hon. Gentleman’s amendment. As he knows, I have tabled similar amendments, which I hope to be able to discuss. Will he explain why it is so important to him that Parliament as a whole—the Scottish Parliament as a whole, the Welsh Assembly as a whole—rather than the First Minister should be specified? The Bill in its present form seeks the agreement only of the First Minister in Northern Ireland, so why does the hon. Gentleman think the arrangements should be different for Scotland and Wales?

[Mr Reid]

I am grateful, because the hon. Gentleman raises an important subject. When my party was in opposition, I was a spokesperson on Northern Ireland for a few years. I am far from an expert on the Northern Ireland constitution, but one important element to remember is that what is called cross-community voting applies to passing motions or resolutions in the Northern Ireland Assembly. That means that a resolution has to be supported by a majority of both Unionists and nationalists. I was not expert enough on the workings of the Northern Ireland Assembly and its Standing Orders to draft an amendment that would cover the cross-community voting, but the Government amendment added to the Bill in Committee requiring the consent of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland means, in effect, that a majority of Unionists and of nationalists must support the Bill for it to go through. Both the First Minister, Peter Robinson, and the Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, have been given a veto, so even if the Bill is passed by this Parliament, I am far from convinced that it would go any further, as it is odds on that one of those gentlemen would use his veto.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that observation.

My amendment 35 deals with the length of the trial period, which the Bill proposes should be three years. I return to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) made earlier about a city in Kazakhstan that had been built in 15 years; we seem to need three years to conduct this trial but I do not see why it needs to last that long. His amendment 85, in this group, recommends reducing the period to two years, which I would welcome. However, my amendment 35 urges the promoter of the Bill to reduce the trial period to just one year, because we can get a perfectly good flavour of what is going to happen in that time. Of course there would then be the opportunity, if everyone so wished, to carry out another trial beyond that period. I do not see why we should be boxed into having a three-year trial, as that is totally unnecessary.

My amendment 38 deals with the monitoring of the effect of the order. Clause 6, to which my amendment relates, provides for a situation in which the Secretary of State monitors the effect of the order “throughout the period” and then lectures all the parts of the United Kingdom—the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly—on his conclusions and, therefore, what he thinks should happen. My amendment merely asks that reports are also sought from the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly, so that they can equally make it clear what their report on the trial is. Rather than just having the Secretary of State laying down the law, it is only fair that we let those parts of the United Kingdom not only have their say but be seen to have their say, which is not the case at the moment.

Amendment 40 would delete clause 8, which relates to the power to increase the length of the trial period. I think that a trial period of three years is on the excessive side, so I obviously find it nonsensical to have a clause that then gives a power to extend the trial period. The period is already too long, so we should delete any clause that gives a power to increase it; we really should be able to make a decision after three years.

I repeat that I am most concerned about amendment 30, but I am aware that amendment 40 may not be accepted—I do not know whether it will be or not. If it is not accepted by my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point and the Minister, two further amendments I have tabled—amendments 42 and 43—would provide the House with an alternative. Basically, before an order is made to extend the trial we should either gain agreement from the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly—along the lines of the amendment promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute—or we should obtain agreement from the First Minister in Scotland, the First Minister in Wales and the First Minister in Northern Ireland, whichever option the House prefers. It seems to me that if we want to obtain the agreement of the Scottish Government or Ministers or the Welsh Government or Ministers before we start a trial, and if we want a clause that gives the power to increase the length of the trial, we must go through the same process to ensure that we are not railroading something through against the wishes of those people.

I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute was satisfied by the Minister’s response on amendment 13.

[Mr Reid]

indicated assent.

[Philip Davies]

He is a much more generous man than I am, and I am sure that he has taken the Minister’s word at face value. I would be the first to accept that I am more cynical. I have seen evidence of Ministers saying one thing with the best intentions in the world and then it did not quite turn out that way. I heard Ministers say that they were going to have a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, but when it came to it they did not. I do not want just to rely on the word of the Minister, although I accept the good faith in which he made his point. He might move on to pastures new, however, and the Bill does not mention the Government’s view. It says what the Secretary of State will do, not the Government. The Minister might well be expressing the intention of the current Secretary of State, but before we get to any trial we might have a different Secretary of State who holds a different view and comes from a different party.

[Mr Reid]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. For the avoidance of doubt, I want to put it on the record that I am delighted to accept the assurances that my hon. Friend the Minister gave. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) is concerned that this might not apply to a future Secretary of State, but my hon. Friend the Minister gave his assurances on behalf of the Government, so they apply to any future Minister in the Government.

[Philip Davies]

That is very helpful. I feared that my hon. Friend was going in that direction, so I would certainly wish to press amendment 30 to a vote as it encapsulates the flavour of the lead amendment and would make that requirement clear in the Bill.

The Bill says that the Secretary of State

“must consult the Scottish Ministers and the Welsh Ministers.”

That is slightly ambiguous, and I hope the Minister will confirm that the Scottish Ministers and Welsh Ministers are the Ministers in the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament and not the Ministers in the Scotland Office and the Wales Office. It would be perverse if the Secretary of State was consulting another Secretary of State to get something through that the Government wanted. I hope that the Government would be consulting a different body—the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Assembly—but that is not entirely clear from the Bill or from the glossary of terms at the back of it.