Business of the House
Alan Whitehead Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Hague
Debating infrastructure investment in many different places and in many different ways is very important for the House, so I can assure my hon. Friend that there will always be plenty of discussions on these matters. He will also be aware that part of what we are trying to do with our regional growth fund and city deals is ensure that there is investment in infrastructure, transport and science across the regions of the United Kingdom. We now have the largest rail modernisation programme taking place since Victorian times. We are investing nearly £800 million in superfast broadband. There are many infrastructure developments benefiting the whole of the country, and we must ensure that they continue to do so.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
When will the Leader of the House schedule a debate on the third report of the Committee on Standards, “The Code of Conduct and the Guide to the Rules”?
Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Alan Whitehead Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Angela Smith
The hon. Lady makes a valid point. The reduced limits for the devolved Administrations relate not just to Northern Ireland but to Scotland and Wales. I do not think the Government have thought clearly about the fact that many third sector organisations in the UK are UK-wide, so I take her point.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend think that there is even a modicum of reason behind the proposal to reduce thresholds based on the fear among those on the Government Benches that an individual might decide to campaign on a third party basis and put large amounts of money into such a campaign? The legislation might catch the organisations that she has described, but does she agree that it would be very easy for an individual to be vague about such arrangements, as has happened in America with third party political action committees and related individual-funded organisations? In such circumstances, the provisions would not work.
Angela Smith
I will comment on the reduction to the thresholds presently. Suffice it to say at this moment that the Electoral Commission itself has suggested that the thresholds might even need raising, rather than lowering.
There is a real suspicion out there in the third sector that, unfortunately, many Conservatives would like to see charities pare down their role, shrink their campaigning brief and concentrate instead on welfare provision. That fear has already been borne out in this debate. There is nothing wrong with charities providing help and support for the sick, the young and the old, or for animals in distress—indeed, there is everything right about it—but they also need the freedom to campaign for the legislation and funding that are necessary to make the world a better place.
We have heard the views of the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) on the campaigning role of charities and voluntary organisations. The hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) said recently that
“many charities need to renew their sense of mission, spending less time at conferences and more time valuing their volunteers. They should concentrate resources on helping people rather than campaigns, lobbying and administration”
and the hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel)—
Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Alan Whitehead Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Ms Eagle
It is beholden on the Government to demonstrate that it will not, given that they have widened the meaning of the term “political purposes” and cut the amount of money that can be spent before it is necessary to register; that part of the Bill deals with coalitions and how they account for the cost of what they are doing; and that they have inserted some extremely uncertain definitions of “electoral purposes”. I do not want to get into a Committee-stage debate, but the Government cannot simply declaim that nothing has changed when they have changed, broadened and widened definitions and cut the amount of money that can be spent lawfully during an election period.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend accept that in addition to the restrictions she has described, the effect of the Electoral Commission having to police these very vague arrangements and possibly introduce sanctions after an election means that self-censorship will be the order of the day, particularly for a large number of smaller organisations, given that sanctions may be taken against them possibly a year, two years or three years after the process has taken place?
Ms Eagle
My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point about the chilling and dampening effect on the vibrancy of our democracy of this Government’s approach.
I thought at first that the Government might just have made a mess of the drafting—after all, they often do that and this Bill is certainly a mess—but it seems from the Cabinet Office response and from what the Leader of the House said today that they have deliberately set out to gag critical third-party voices. They have had repeated opportunities to address the concerns put to them by charities and campaigners, but they have dismissed them. This leaves me with the only conclusion that we can draw—that this is a deliberate and cynical attempt by the Government to insulate their policies and their record from scrutiny in the run up to the 2015 general election. Part 2 is totally unacceptable in its current form and it must be changed.
The Leader of the House tried to justify these draconian measures by arguing that they tackle the problem of third-party spending in politics, but he completely misses the point. Third parties spent less than 10% of the money spent by political parties in the last election. We all know that one of the biggest problems in our democracy today is the election expenditure arms race between political parties, not the expenditure of third parties. That is what drives the search for big-money donors. This Bill was a chance to tackle the big money in our politics, and the Government have completely squandered it.
This Government are happy to be financed by donors who pay huge sums to come for dodgy dinners in Downing street. They are a Government so shameless in their search for big-party donations that they were happy to split between the two coalition parties the proceeds of the late Joan Edwards’ half-a-million-pounds of life savings, which she had generously bequeathed to the nation in her will. Their squalid behaviour is left unaffected by this Bill; instead, it seeks to silence legitimate third-party campaigning organisations.
Stephen McPartland
The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. I do not think those reductions will have any impact whatever. I have 400 charities and voluntary groups in my constituency, and if any of them could spend £400,000 they would be over the moon. The reality is that the reductions will not affect them whatever.
Dr Whitehead
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says about the discussion of this Bill and the extent to which it can be discussed in Committee, but is he not aware that the long title specifically talks about regulation of consultant lobbyists, and only regulation of consultant lobbyists? This Bill is not the beginning of a process; it is the end of a process. If he reads the long title, his hope that it can be amended more positively might prove to be sadly misplaced.
Stephen McPartland
I did take the opportunity to read the long title, as I do with every Bill on which I vote. Sometimes I vote in the Lobby with Opposition Members. I am not one who always supports the Government 100%, although I do support them 100% on this Bill because it is starting a process. When matters are discussed on the Floor of the House, it creates a debate in Government and wider society, after which we can push for further improvements if that is what is needed. I have read the title; I have also read the Bill and the huge amount of documentation surrounding it.
I want to emphasise that the Bill represents progress. We are going to establish for the first time a register of consultant lobbyists. I know that some Members are concerned about how in-house lobbyists affect what happens here, but the reality is that if a Government relations person—as I believe they are called—from a particular firm turns up here, it is perfectly obvious that they will be trying to influence policy on behalf of that firm. That is fair enough. It is the same with trade unions. It is their responsibility to try to influence policy on behalf of their members; otherwise, what is the point of them? I do not really see a distinction between in-house lobbyists and others.
The public are more concerned, as am I, about when we meet a representative of some public relations agency and we do not know what they are going to talk about. When I first became a Member of Parliament, I was very naive in my first six or seven weeks here. I did not understand why so many people wanted to meet a mere Back-Bench MP. I actually saw the same lobbyist three times in one week, expressing three different views. I then decided never to meet a lobbyist again. Anyone who wants to meet me has to be the chief executive of their organisation or to be based in my constituency. In that way, I at least know who I am talking to and what they are talking about. For me, that is key.
A further issue relates to transparency and public confidence. The public want transparency. I must confess that, until I heard the wonderful speech by my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main), I never knew that lobbyists had any influence whatever. I thought that they just sat around and had a bloody good chat and then decided that they really ought to do something, but that nothing ever happened. The example that my hon. Friend gave was the first I have heard of a lobbyist having some influence.
James Duddridge
I gently say to the hon. Lady, 13 years and nothing done, three years and we are doing something, and the Opposition in large part are saying, “We don’t want to do it now,” or “It’s the wrong thing.” It is contradictory. I am not saying that the Bill is perfect, but it is a contradictory position that the Opposition are putting forward.
The second part of the Bill deals with third-party funding. The Leader of the House skirted around the subject a little. I referred to it in an earlier intervention as the elephant in the room—the trade union movement. The hon. Member for Glasgow North West is right to ask why the Government are doing this. Clearly, I have a slightly more benign impression of the Government than do Opposition Members. One can think that natural, but looking at the facts and going through the House of Commons Library research paper, I wanted to know who these third parties were. I shall list some of them.
Unison spent £671 million in the year running up to the general election in 2010. The National Union of Teachers spent £121 million—sorry, £122 million if one rounds up the £100,000. The Public and Commercial Services Union spent £84 million. Unite, which receives a bad press, was not spending very much money at all compared with some of the big guns, at £16 million. The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers spent just under £5 million and Wales TUC £4.3 million. That list is not absolutely in order. There are about 20 names and I am less familiar with a number of them, such as Vote for a Change Ltd. I mention it because, under the proposed threshold of £388,000, only it and Unison would have been unable to do what they were already doing, so it is not a major issue.
I also note that 38 Degrees is on the list. It spent either £10.8 million or £10.9 million—I do not know which because of my poor eyesight, but it was a sizable amount. I reflect on the e-mails that I have received about the Bill. The hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) said that it was not just the unions that had written to him, but other constituents more generally. The vast majority of the people who have written to me about the Bill have been from one of the third-party funders: 38 Degrees. It was said earlier that the Wikipedia entry had changed and that the organisation was set up by Labour supporters and members. There is nothing wrong with that, but I think we need transparency.
Dr Whitehead
The hon. Gentleman might like to take a couple of noughts off his calculations, bearing in mind that the total expenditure by third parties at the last general election was £2.8 million.
James Duddridge
The hon. Gentleman is entirely correct; I was getting carried away—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has asked me to start my speech again. I can list the unions again with the correct figures. For Unison the figure was £671,000, rather than £671 million. For the National Union of Teachers the figure was £121,000. For the Public and Commercial Services Union the figure was £84,000. Those are still enormous amounts of money that, if targeted in individual areas, could have a massive impact.
There is a case for having no limits, but if we have that for charities and unions, perhaps the first organisations that should have no limits are political parties. The House has taken the view, and legislated on it, that we should limit public expenditure. Anyone who has been a student of American politics can very much see why. Colleagues in Congress, when they hear how much we spend in individual constituencies, are dumbfounded at how little money is involved. What we do not want to see in the United Kingdom are political action committees or things of that ilk rising up and campaigning on behalf of or against Governments in the run-up to elections as a proxy service.
Opposition Members disagree about Labour history, so I shall talk about it in trepidation, with great generality. The Labour party is the product of a union movement, and quite rightly that movement recognised that workers needed representation in Parliament because they were not getting a fair crack of the whip or fair representation here, but I gently say that things have moved on. The unions cannot have it both ways: they cannot give birth to an organisation that we accept in this place, and has limits on its expenditure at elections, and then spend large amounts of money themselves on those elections. That strikes me as entirely ridiculous.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
When I first looked at the Bill, I initially thought that it was badly drafted. As has been mentioned on several occasions, it has been described as a dog’s breakfast, and I initially thought it was even less nutritionally useful than that. I have now come to a different view. I think it is a well-drafted Bill, because it serves several specific purposes, none of which actually is the purpose that we think the Bill should serve in terms of cleaning up lobbying, sorting out third-party funding and regulating the way in which the political process works for elections and parties.
Part 1, as several hon. Members have suggested, ought to be the subject of further discussion and broadening out. The hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) made an excellent speech in which she set out the extent to which lobbying seems to have made a substantial difference in her constituency on a particular issue close to her heart. Of course, such lobbying not only cannot be included under the definitions in the Bill but has been designed out of it. The title of the Bill includes the phrase “transparency of lobbying”, which will mean that people think the Government are doing something to sort it out, but the long title shows that it is only about “consultant lobbying”, excluding 97% of the real lobbying that goes on in and around this place.
The Liberal Democrats said in their election manifesto that they would:
“Curb the improper influence of lobbyists by introducing a statutory register of lobbyists, changing the Ministerial Code so that ministers and officials are forbidden from meeting MPs on issues where the MP is paid to lobby”,
but I am sorry to say that they have ended up as a human shield for a Bill that is trying to minimise the changes that can be made. It is a damage limitation Bill, not a change to lobbying overall. Those hon. Members who think that they will take part in a process over the next couple of weeks whereby we have a dialogue for change have already lost. The Bill seeks to limit the process by which lobbying can be changed, which is what the public expect this House to be dealing with. It does so to such an extent that it is mendacious about its real effect on lobbying.
Part 2, unlike part 1, was not long in gestation. Indeed, it turned up out of a bright blue sky two days before the House went into the summer recess. Its effect comes from the opposite form of drafting. The drafting of the regulations and amendments is so loose and vague that third-party lobbyists, campaigners and organisations will, as hon. Members have said, probably self-police to ensure that they do not inadvertently get caught by it.
Do not get me wrong—I think that it is important that we take further action on lobbying of Parliament by third-party groups. Hearing some of the discussions this afternoon, one might think that the process had only started with this Bill, but such groups are subject to considerable regulation under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The Bill states that people can be caught retrospectively for undertaking action, particularly at a local level, in the year before an election and can be judged for so doing by the Electoral Commission. Believe me, the last thing the commission wants to do is to get involved in political judgments about who has been doing what at a local level and in local elections. Those people will be subject to all sorts of registration penalties which they never thought they would have to undertake.
My view, on balance, is that the drafting is deliberately vague to ensure that pesky groups do not come along to constituencies during an election period and start campaigning on the doorstep about parties that might have a few worries about their approach to the election.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. The Bill attacks the most important parts of civil society: charities, non-governmental organisations, pressure groups and trade unions. It might well be unlawful under articles 8 and 11 in schedule 1 the Human Rights Act 1998; but of course, the Government would like to get rid of the Human Rights Act as well. This is a fundamental attack on civil society.
Dr Whitehead
I am tending towards that view. As has been said, the Bill should be a matter of careful thought. Indeed, over a long period there has been substantial and careful thought about third-party campaigning. Nevertheless, the Bill has been the subject of no consultation, not even with the Electoral Commission on how it would carry out this rag-bag of proposals without putting itself in an impossible position. Turning up without consultation or warning is just not the way to organise and regulate third-party campaigning at elections.
Part 3 seeks further to regulate trade unions to count their membership in a way that they already do. I wonder what that is about. That seems to be dog-whistle politics that says, “We are putting further impediments in the way of trade unions, which are already doing what they are supposed to do, but we are taking action as though they weren’t.”
Overall, this is a shocking Bill, which goes 100% away from what we should be doing to regulate lobbying and about the process of third-party campaigning and civil society. We really need to take the Bill away and think again. I hope that we will vote to do that today, to get a Bill that we are in favour of—
Lobbying
Alan Whitehead Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Allen
I think there are many ways to skin this particular cat. If the Government are serious about creating an effective lobbying Bill—as many Back-Bench Members and my Select Committee are—then where there is a will, there is a way. We can find a way to do that, but the measure in its current form is a reactive and short-term measure, and it is not part of a serious, well-thought-out reform package, either by the media, who are keen to nail individual Members of Parliament, or, more seriously, by the Government, and, indeed, previous Governments of different political colours.
Parliament must take a lead on the specific issue of lobbying, but I very much hope we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Lobbying is a very important part of our democracy. I imagine most Members of this enfeebled Parliament use lobbying ourselves very directly with Ministers to try to make our points, and many of us create all-party groups. Some of us lobby effectively, although, speaking as someone who is lobbying for the Government to keep their promise on bringing forward proposals for a House business committee, which was in the coalition agreement, some of us are also obviously failing in getting the Government to fulfil their own promises. Government Front-Bench Members will not be surprised to learn that we will continue to press that issue as well, however.
My Select Committee has looked at the lobbying question very seriously. We spent a long time interviewing witnesses. We have eminent Committee members from different parties—some of whom are present in the Chamber—and they might not in the normal shape of things be soul mates or agree on all matters, but they produced a report that the Government have had in their possession for the best part of a year. It is a measure of how seriously the Government take this matter that, first, the Leader of the House is chatting away and not listening to the Chairman of the Select Committee, who is asking him to do something he should have done nine months ago, and, secondly, he does not respond to this House, let alone to me or to my Committee members. That Ministers just do not bother answering is regarded by many as rather cavalier.
However, if a scandal is revealed by Fleet street and Ministers feel they need to show how tough they are by taking action and doing something, suddenly a Bill appears, or the promise of a Bill is made, even before they respond to a Select Committee of this House. I hope the Leader of the House will take these matters a little more seriously, because if he does, and he dares to allow Parliament to be a partner in the process of making the law—rather than finding something off the shelf in the Department—he may be in serious danger of creating a Bill that will command all-party support and the support of this House.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
Has my hon. Friend had any communication in his capacity as Chair of the Select Committee from the Government on why such a response has been so long delayed? Have any particular reasons been put to him, or is it his view that they simply have not noticed that there is a report to be responded to?
Mr Allen
I would be very happy to give way on that point either to the Leader of the House or the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), who very kindly came to our Select Committee last week. They may wish to speak for themselves, but there has certainly been a lot of correspondence in trying to get a response. That is expected—it is standard practice—and I do not know whether I should raise the matter with the Chair. However, I would hope that Select Committees of this House that undertake serious study and scrutiny of Government are usually responded to in a proper way, because that will help us to make better law, instead of having a knee-jerk response because of one person being entrapped by the media—I am not expressing any view on that, as this is still under study—that seems to me to put the cart before the horse. On an issue where there should be support across the House, it seems that there is almost a deliberate attempt to break any potential for consensus on, and longevity for, the legislation that we may bring forward.
As with the Dangerous Dogs Act, we are in danger of introducing a dangerous Members of Parliament Act, and we may well regret that in the longer term. This is not just a news story or just a way of refuting Fleet street in that corrupting partnership between Government and media. This is about an important part of the fabric of our democracy. Lobbying is important, and this is about allowing it to flourish, and getting things right, and making sure the people who put it in such bad odour are exposed.
Lobbying in the UK is currently unregulated. The UK Public Affairs Council operates a voluntary register, but registration rates are low. The Government agree that a voluntary register is not working. A commitment to introducing a statutory register of lobbyists was included in the coalition agreement. My Committee looked at this. We took oral evidence over many sessions and produced our report. I hope the Government listen to what we have said, which was not damning, saying, “This couldn’t happen.” Instead, we suggested how something can be introduced in a way that is sustainable.
The first fatal flaw we asked the Government to look at was the fact that so much of the lobbying industry would not be covered by a statutory register. Just covering third-party lobbyists does not do the job. There are lots of different figures available, but we found 100 organisations that were third-party lobbyists. Spinwatch, at one end of the spectrum in this debate, says there are between 3,500 and 4,000 full-time lobbyists. This proposal does not do the job, therefore, because it is one-eighth of a lobbying Bill, rather than a Bill that covers lobbyists in their entirety.
The second flaw is that we do not have an effective definition of lobbying, so that we all know what we are talking about—and so that lobbyists know what we are talking about, and that Members of Parliament talking to someone in either a private or public meeting, perhaps with a tape recorder or video camera concealed and recording them, know exactly where the lines are. That will enable us to produce something that is sustainable and that people can live with for many years to come. My Committee therefore also asked for a clearer definition.
We came to the conclusion that we were only scratching the surface of the issue. We therefore proposed what we called a medium regulation system as a starting point for a statutory register of lobbyists. A lot of Members have got great ideas, and I hope there will be a process by which they can be fed into our law-making process. There needs to be that starting point—that foundation or bedrock—that we can build on in future years. Let us put this in place. Some may regard it as the lowest common denominator, but that in itself is a good starting point, so that if problems arise, those colleagues who come after us can build on something that commands a consensus of support in this House.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
Like many hon. Members, I am lobbied every day, by my electorate and by people who have an interest in the things that I am interested in as an MP. It is a perfectly honourable process. Provided that it is carried out in an honourable, straightforward and transparent way, lobbying adds to the substance of Parliament and does not detract from it.
However, there is rather more to the issue than simply whether lobbying is carried out in a transparent way. It is a question not just of whether sunlight is the best disinfectant, but whether in addition to sunlight we need Sunlight soap in order to scrub the process clean. That is what the public remain concerned about. As hon. Members have said, it is not just about the transparency of lobbying, but about the way in which it is carried out, the secrecy of substantial elements of it and the influence that is brought to bear as a result of certain arrangements that lobbyists can make regarding resources, access and various other things. Those concerns relate not only to third-party lobbyists but are across the board.
Perhaps we ought to apply a comparative principle in devising what we want to achieve by having a register of lobbyists. If we think about it for a moment, we realise that what we—the parties set up in this House—do in seeking votes is lobby the electorate, and we must do so in a reasonable, bounded and temperate way. A number of sanctions have been laid down in law for a very long time to ensure that lobbying of the electorate is restrained and that we do not go beyond those bounds. They are known as the electoral offences.
There is the offence of bribery. As far as lobbying is concerned, if a Member of this House was asked, “Would you like to be a director of my company? I’ll give you £24,000”, that is a very straightforward approximation of the offence of bribery as it relates to this House. There is also the offence of treating, which means saying to the electorate, “I’ll buy you a slap-up dinner, and drinks at the bar are on us, provided you vote for us.” The parallel, as far as our affairs are concerned, would be offering a week’s holiday or substantial trips around the world in order to exercise some advantage.
Grahame M. Morris
That is a really important point, because there is a distinction between what happens in this place and what happens in local government, for example. If I was serving on a planning committee and owned a building firm, it would not be good enough for me simply to say, “I declare an interest”; I would not be able to take any part. All that happens here is that people declare an interest, but they are still taking money from private health care companies and then voting through the Health and Social Care Bill.
Dr Whitehead
My hon. Friend emphasises the power of Sunlight soap in other parts of the body politic, as opposed to our proceedings.
There are two other main electoral offences that relate to our lobbying of the electorate, and the Secretary of State has referred to one in relation to the content of his proposed Bill. He said that we want to know who is lobbying us and that the Government will legislate to fill that gap. That is the offence of personation. We need to know who is exercising the vote. If we were to try to defraud the electorate by having someone vote in place of the person who really had the vote, an electoral offence would be committed.
The final major electoral offence is that of undue influence. That is the parallel offence that is wholly absent from the proposed legislation as it relates to our proceedings. Undue influence is not about whether someone is paid or given a weekend away, or whether someone else stands in their place; it is about someone exercising various means of persuading another person to vote for them that are beyond the cause of reasonable lobbying. That seems to me to be the crux of the issue. The proposals do not provide for an overall register of all lobbyists, with sanctions and the ability to throw people off it, properly to take account of the question of undue influence in the lobbying process.
I am sorry that that appears to be the way the proposed legislation is proceeding, because it could easily be fixed by some fairly brief discussions between the parties. After all, this is a matter that affects not just one particular party or Government. The legislation needs to stand the test of different Governments of different parties. It is an issue that concerns all parties and this House. Therefore, it seems to me that above all the legislation must be proceeded with on the basis of what the parties think is the right way forward.
It is shocking that the Government have taken a year to respond to the all-party Select Committee inquiry on lobbying and what can be done about it. That is way out of line with what is normally expected of Government responses to Select Committee reports. That ought to be rectified immediately. Pre-legislative scrutiny of what is proposed would not derail the legislation unduly. For example, the Energy and Climate Change Committee was recently given six weeks to consider the entire draft Energy Bill before it came to the House. Pre-legislative scrutiny would give a vital opportunity to get something that works across the House.
I am a little disappointed that much of this afternoon’s debate has been something of a knockabout rather than about principle. I have tried to inject into the proceedings a little focus on what we are really about, which is principles for legislation. Between us, we must ensure that the legislation works for the future. If that takes a few weeks of discussions between parties to get it right, and if there is a little give and take with regard to how it will work, that will be a good thing for the House. If it ensures that undue influence is not exercised in the House by lobbyists, if it is clear about who should be included in the rules, and if the public are confident that the right people are included in those rules, that, too, would be a gain for us all.
I hope that the Government will not decide this afternoon that this is about bashing the Opposition’s motion and getting their amendment through; it is about trying to get something through that is good for us all. If that means both sides laying the motion on the Table in order to proceed, perhaps that would be a good thing for the House. I think that above all we need to get the legislation on lobbying right so that everyone benefits in future. It is not about one party scoring a few points from the other in the short term.
Business of the House (Thursday)
Alan Whitehead Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Hilary Benn
I completely agree with my hon. Friend, who makes an extremely powerful point.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend refers to the orders under the previous legislation, which had to be debated by both Houses on the affirmative basis, following a review, before any decision could be made on future levels of tuition fees. The Leader of the House has suggested that the reason for this debate is entirely encapsulated in that particular piece of legislation. Incidentally, I was involved in assisting with the drafting at the time, so I remember it well. Does my right hon. Friend accept that the intention behind the drafting of those clauses at the time was wholly different from what is being put forward this evening, in terms of what should come up first for discussion, what evidence should be placed before Members to debate before any decision is taken, and when any decision should be taken according to the two resolutions?
Hilary Benn
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The usual order is that we have a committee of inquiry; the Government make a statement; they publish a White Paper, then a Bill; the Bill is considered and then regulations are made. In this case, the process has been reversed. We are being asked to approve the statutory instruments tomorrow in just five hours, before we even know the framework for the future of higher education, because the White Paper will not be published, we are told, until the new year. The cart has truly been put before the horse.
Hilary Benn
If we do hear this evening the voices of Government Members, I hope that they might persuade the Leader of the House to change his mind about the proposal that he wants us to vote for tonight. We have no intention of doing so.
Dr Whitehead
Notwithstanding the clarification about the scope of tomorrow’s debate, does my right hon. Friend accept—bearing in mind that the White Paper relating to the orders will come along later and that details of changes will follow—that if a student got the results of the exam first, then the exam paper, and finally the lecture notes, it would be a rather strange way to go about their university education?
Mr Jones
Programme motions are very similar to the motion that we are debating. If the hon. Gentleman had been here, which he quite clearly has not, he would be following the debate rather than chuntering from a sedentary position.
I should like to compare this situation with the two previous occasions when the House debated changes to the system of tuition fees—before the Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998 introduced the £1,000 fee for students, and before the Higher Education Act 2004 introduced variable top-up fees. In 1998, the Government introduced a number of programme motions. A report said that nobody objected to them, but six hours was allowed to debate amendments. No one spoke against or resisted those programme motions.
It might help if I set out in terms on the Floor of the House the consideration of the 2004 Act. Far more than five hours was allowed for debate. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central said, in 2004, there was more time on Third Reading and Report and otherwise to debate amendments, and the Government also ensured that there was a full debate on the implications of variable top-up fees—we will discuss increasing the cap on top-up fees tomorrow.
On both those occasions, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats spoke against limiting the time—the generous amount of time—that was allowed for debate. It is important to remember that there is some inconsistency in what the coalition Government are proposing, because when the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats were in opposition, they opposed programme motions on the ground that they limited time, but they are tonight going to go through the Division Lobby to allow only five hours to debate the increase in the cap on tuition fees.
Dr Whitehead
My hon. Friend is reflecting on the 2004 Act. He will recall that at the end of the lengthy discussions on that, a sunset clause was inserted that required any suggested increase on the cap on tuition fees to be the subject of a full debate on positive resolutions in both Houses. Does he consider that the hours allocated for tomorrow discharges that clause?
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend played a key part in that legislation, and he makes a good point. If we are to have a detailed discussion on the implications of the Government’s proposals, we need time. That was not the case in respect of the discussion on the 2004 Act. Time on the Floor of the House was given for full discussions on the implications of the measures. I also remind the House that many Labour Members at that time made key points to try to get concessions out of the Government, including my hon. Friend, to ensure that poorer students were protected.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Alan Whitehead Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Andrew George
I agree. Of course we would like to have more than average representation, but we are not asking for special favours. I have said already that we are not asking for favouritism, only for the distinctiveness of Cornwall to be respected.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
Would the hon. Gentleman associate his remarks about Cornwall with other areas in the south of England, such as the Isle of Wight, which are in exactly the same circumstances? The consequences of not associating his remarks with those other areas would mean that the Boundary Commission would have to take completely arbitrary decisions, not based on any community considerations, so part of the integral community would have to be redistributed elsewhere.
Mr Howarth
Yes, and my right hon. Friend may not have realised it, but I am actually supporting his argument. The point I am making is that a public inquiry is able to examine any problems that are thrown up as a result of that, and that is why I am supporting his amendment 15, which would create the circumstances in which public inquiries could still be held.
Dr Whitehead
I wonder whether my right hon. Friend, in reflecting on the problems of the Mersey, might also consider the issues of the Solent and the proposition that 40,000 people will be taken away from the Isle of Wight and distributed to a constituency somewhere in Hampshire. They know not where, they would have no say in where that might be and, as far as I can see, the Boundary Commission may not even be able to determine whether a ferry actually connects them with where they might go. Does he think that that is a reasonable way to proceed on a boundary change—with no public inquiry and no input into what might happen in future?
Mr Dodds
In Northern Ireland, the parliamentary constituency boundaries are the Northern Ireland Assembly boundaries. I know the position is different in Scotland and Wales. That is why, at least for Northern Ireland—and for all the reasons that I and others have outlined this evening, it should be the case for the whole country—I appeal to the Government to think very carefully about the implications for our country of the decision to push ahead with abolition.
Dr Whitehead
Almost all of us are aware of the purpose of the abolition of inquiries into boundary changes. It is about expediency, getting the process through as rapidly as possible, and airbrushing out a particularly important part of the process in order to do that.
I do not accept the idea that because boundary commissions have not changed an enormous amount in the past, that is likely to be the case in future. Because of the wholesale changes that are being made in the rest of the Bill, boundary commission public local inquiries will probably be more important in future than was the case in the past.
In the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, the most recent iteration of the rules for the redistribution of seats, we see, as other hon. Members have mentioned, a balancing arrangement between the idea of equality in representation, between various local considerations, and between representation and decision making. As a result of that relatively balanced mechanism, it is fair to say that the boundary commission process has worked pretty well, without enormous public outcry at its past decisions.
Looking ahead, we find that the Government are removing not only most of the checks and balances that were in the boundary commission arrangement, but the very last check and balance whereby, after that whole process has taken place, the public have an opportunity to question, have their say and find out why those changes are taking place in the way that has been suggested. The idea that that should be replaced with a procedure that is simply not transparent is a complete rejection of all those previous checks and balances, and a rejection of the principles put forward—I am sorry if this sounds ad hominem—by a Minister, the Deputy Leader of the House, for whom I have a great deal of respect, but who would have made exactly the same arguments about public representation, the public’s say and the due process of democracy until one day before the election.
I do not know whether a particular event in Greece, and the electoral practices there, caused the hon. Gentleman to change his mind on the matter, but over the years a large number of Liberal Democrat constituency parties have been active participants in those processes, and he will have to go to them and say, “Actually, you can’t do this any more, because I’ve thrown this out of the window as part of a deal to get something else through.” They will be aghast at what has happened to the principles that they previously put forward.
Dr Whitehead
As my hon. Friend will know, peruse though one might, it is not possible to find such a pledge. If any party had put such a pledge in its manifesto at the last election, that itself would have been the subject of an internal public inquiry, because of what it would have said about that party’s commitment to the process of electoral change.
On the differences that the boundary reviews will make, I refer to the Isle of Wight, which is close to my constituency but separated by a substantial body of water, the Solent. The proposal, which is likely to come to pass, is that 40,000 people will be taken out of that constituency and distributed somewhere else in Hampshire—they know not where. [Interruption.] They will stay on the Isle of Wight, but for the purposes of political representation they will join another constituency.
The Boundary Commission will have a certain say in the process, because it will have to decide which 40,000 people on the island go to various other parts for their representation. It may decide that they will go to Portsmouth, to Southampton or to the New Forest. Each area has a connecting ferry service to the island, but I am not sure whether the commission can even take into account whether the people and the ferry service should be connected, given the changes that will be made and the Government’s conditions for the new arrangements.
All that will be done on the basis of a boundary commission decision—no public inquiry, some representations and no explanation. That represents a serious and fundamental change to the representation of, admittedly, just one constituency, but the process will be repeated throughout the country in a substantial if not such an extreme way, and if that is not a negation of the public’s right to understand what is happening to their own political processes, I do not what is or will be.
We must vote for amendment 15, which would reintroduce the idea of a public inquiry within particular boundaries and for particular concerns to ensure that it was conducted seriously and not frivolously. The idea that the public should have their say in who they are represented by, how they are represented and where their representation takes place has been a fundamental part of our electoral system for many years, and to throw it out of the window for expediency is a move that will be regretted and a move that we should reject.
Mr Heath
Let me start by thanking the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) for speaking to the amendment on behalf of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee on which she serves. It is a great pity that the Chair of the Committee, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), is not also present in order to support its view.
Points of Order
Alan Whitehead Excerpts(14 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker
Many points of order are being made that are not a matter for the Chair. Once again, the matter has been put on the record.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. On 10 June, I asked the Minister for Housing a question concerning the powers that Southampton city council has concerning homes in multiple occupation, and in regulation. The answer I received that those powers would be maintained has proved not to be true and to be seriously misleading. Is it in order for you to ask the Minister to come to the Chamber to give me an answer that is both true and not misleading?