Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Government’s commitment to ensure that the House has updated and equal parliamentary constituencies has been reflected in the tenacity of my hon. Friend the Minister for the Constitution and Devolution. I apologise to the House that I am a mere stand-in for her today, because her efforts to legislate to that effect have been unstinting throughout this Parliament.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend think it appropriate just to take this moment to send our best wishes to the Minister, our hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), who is suffering very bad ill health at this moment?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Yes; my hon. Friend has momentarily pre-empted me, because that is exactly what I was about to do. The whole House has noted our hon. Friend’s positive approach to the challenge that prevents her from being here today. She is a wonderfully popular and singularly effective Minister, and I know that Members across the House wish her the speediest of recoveries. None the less, she is continuing to work very hard, and I have therefore had the opportunity to discuss the Bill with her. I am pleased to report to the House that she is delighted, as am I, that the principle of updated and equal constituencies is shared by both Houses and across parties. That is in no small part down to the efforts of my noble Friends Lord True and Baroness Scott of Bybrook, and I extend our thanks for their sterling efforts in taking the Bill through the other place.

It is of course right that this short but important Bill has enjoyed extensive debate and scrutiny in both Houses, and we will always welcome the thoughts of their lordships, but it is important to remember that this is a Commons Bill about the composition of the House of Commons based on the mandate of the elected Government. This is an area in which I have taken a great interest during my years as a Member of Parliament, so it is with a spirit of gusto that I now roll up my sleeves and prepare to delve into the detail of their lordships’ amendments. I will speak to each amendment in turn.

Lords amendments 1 and 2 provide that a boundary review would be carried out every 10 years. This is a significant change from the current legal requirement for a review every five years. The Government’s approach, as in the Bill before it was amended, is to mandate a boundary review every eight years. The Government’s aim, as set out in our manifesto, is to ensure that parliamentary constituencies are updated regularly, but without the disruption to local communities and their representatives that might occur with the current five-year reviews.

While developing this Bill, my hon. Friend the Minister for the Constitution and Devolution discussed the Government’s proposal for an eight-year cycle with parliamentary parties and electoral administrators and shared with them our broad plans for the Bill. Concerns were expressed about the importance of up-to-date data—particularly local government boundary data, hence clause 8—but the Labour, Liberal Democrat, Plaid Cymru and Scottish National party representatives from the parliamentary parties panel were among those content with our approach.

If reviews were to happen only every 10 years, as these amendments propose, the data used in boundary reviews would be older and less reflective of current local government boundaries and demographic change. That would also create an unfair situation for electors, because where boundaries were not regularly updated to ensure that they more accurately represented changing demographics, there is a risk that some would feel that their vote was not of equal value to the votes cast in a neighbouring constituency. We believe that the middle ground of eight-year cycles, as proposed in the unamended Bill, is the right way forward. It removes the disruption of a review happening roughly each time an election occurs, but as not too much time will pass between reviews, it also delivers boundaries that are up to date and fair. I therefore trust that the House will disagree with these Lords amendments.

Under Lords amendment 6, members of the Boundary Commission would be chosen using a bespoke appointments procedure that would sit entirely outside the existing public appointments process. The Bill as originally drafted did not make changes to the current processes, and there has been no dispute or controversy to date with the manner in which the commissioners have been appointed. The automatic implementation of the boundary commissioners’ final recommendations is crucial to achieving regular and effective boundary reviews.

Automatic implementation also shines a light on the boundary commissioners themselves. As parliamentary scrutiny is not involved in the process, we must be able to trust that the commissions are effective and independent. We need to be able to satisfy ourselves that the process of appointing all Boundary Commission members is thorough, independent and fair and that there is no room for any undue influence of any kind. I can reassure the House that our current processes fulfil all those criteria. Let me first outline how the deputy chairman and the ordinary members of the commission are appointed at present and then look at how the amendment would change the status quo.

The deputy chairman position in each Boundary Commission must be filled by a High Court judge. The amendment is unnecessary for two reasons. First, the judges appointed to the Boundary Commission have already undergone a rigorous recruitment procedure that gives reassurance that they are able to act independently and impartially. Secondly, the Lord Chancellor consults the Lord Chief Justice over these appointments in any case. This provides the views of the head of the English and Welsh judiciary. The appointment of ordinary members of the Boundary Commissions are public appointments. The four commissions are listed alongside many other public bodies and independent offices in the Public Appointments Order in Council 2019. The order is the legal basis for the governance code on public appointments and the independent Commissioner for Public Appointments, who regulates appointments processes.

The governance code and oversight of the commissioner ensure that appointments are made openly, fairly and on merit to the Boundary Commission and many hundreds of other public bodies. The governance code includes robust safeguards to ensure the political impartiality of the two ordinary members of the Boundary Commissions. These members are appointed by Ministers, having been assessed by an advisory assessment panel that includes a representative of the organisation in question. For Boundary Commissions, the representative is the deputy chairman or an ordinary member if the deputy chairman cannot attend. It is the job of the panel to assess which candidates are appointable, so that Ministers may make an informed and appropriate decision. At the application stage, all candidates are asked to declare political activity over the previous five years. Future advisory assessment panel decisions should not be prejudged, but it would seem likely that recent significant political activity would present a degree of conflict that would be incompatible with the panel finding a candidate appointable as a boundary commissioner.

The Bill, as amended, creates a bespoke system for Boundary Commission appointments in primary legislation. There are three main reasons to oppose that amendment. First, the existing public appointments system has secured dedicated and expert members for the Boundary Commission for decades; in simple terms, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Secondly, a separate appointments regime could cast doubt on those appointed to public office under the current system. That doubt would be unjustified, as the current system is independently regulated and ensures that talented individuals with the right skills and experience are appointed to many hundreds of bodies across government to carry out vital public work. We should use it wherever possible and resist the urge to create new, niche systems.

Thirdly, I have already mentioned that the deputy chairman’s previous appointment as a High Court judge will have been sufficiently robust to ensure their ability to act impartially. The Government are also unconvinced by the argument that the Lord Chancellor cannot be trusted to act impartially when making such appointments. The role of the Lord Chancellor—the Lord High Chancellor—occupies a unique and significant position in our constitutional firmament, defending the judiciary and its independence through a duty to rise above party politics where required.

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[Alec Shelbrooke]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it should be the aim of the boundary commissions to try to hit the electoral quota number as closely as they can and that the tolerance is, as he outlined, merely for circumstances that may be out of their control? The message from the House to the boundary commissions should be true equality and please try to hit the number as well as they can.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My right hon. Friend makes a fair point. We all recognise that the numbers will diverge from the moment the commission finishes its work as people move around the country. Therefore, the tolerance of 5% either way—10% in total—gets the balance about right in the knowledge that, by the time of an election, it will inevitably have changed regardless A 15% tolerance range has been thoroughly debated in both Houses and twice rejected by this one—in Committee and on Report—so the settled view of the elected Chamber, to which, after all, the Bill relates most directly, should prevail. I therefore urge the House to disagree with the amendment.

As I turn to amendment 8, I will first pay tribute to Lord Shutt of Greetland, who tabled the amendment in the other place and sadly died recently. Lord Shutt was a stalwart campaigner and advocate on electoral issues, as reflected in his recent excellent chairmanship of the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 Committee. I am sure I speak for the whole House when I say he will be much missed and offer my condolences to his family on behalf of the House. The amendment would require the Government to make proposals for improving the completeness of electoral registers for the purposes of boundary reviews. It suggests two possible ways in which the issuing of national insurance numbers could trigger 16 and 17-year-olds being included on the registers. I will look first at the completeness of the registers and then discuss how the amendment proposes to register 16 and 17-year-olds. It is important to note that recent elections have been run on the largest ever electoral registers, despite the removal of 1 million ghost entries from the register when the transition from household registration to individual registration was completed in December 2015. People who want and are eligible to register to vote find it easy to do so.

The Government believe that every eligible elector who wants to be included should be on the electoral register, but that it should be up to each individual to decide whether to engage with the democratic process. The Government seek to make registration as easy as possible and to work with many others to reduce any barriers to registration. For example, we introduced online registration. As a result, it became simpler and faster to register to vote; it now takes as little as five minutes to register. Similarly, we are focused on ensuring that electoral registration officers—with whom the statutory responsibility for maintaining complete and accurate registers lies—have the tools they need to do their jobs efficiently and effectively. For example, the Government have made many resources to promote democratic engagement and voter registration freely available on gov.uk. Furthermore, our changes to the annual canvass of all residential properties in Great Britain will improve its overall efficiency considerably. The data-matching element of the initiative allows electoral registration officers to focus their efforts on hard-to-reach groups. This is the first year of the reformed canvass, and anecdotal reports so far suggest that administrators have found the new processes much less bureaucratic.

The amendment makes two suggestions on what the Government may include in the proposals they would be required to lay before Parliament to improve the completeness of the registers. The first would see a form of automatic registration introduced for attainers—16 and 17-year-olds who can register to vote in preparation for attaining voting age—and their inclusion in the electorate data used in boundary reviews. We are opposed to automatic registration for attainers or any other group, in both principle and practice, as we believe that registering to vote and voting are civic duties. People should not have these duties done for them or be compelled to do them. That was one reason why we introduced individual electoral registration in 2014. The evidence shows that an individual system drives up registration figures. After individual registration was launched, the registers for the 2017 and 2019 general elections were the largest ever. Electoral registration has worked.

There are a number of practical concerns about automatic registration. Among others, it is almost certain that an automatic registration system would lead to a single, centralised database of electors. We are opposed to this on the grounds of the significant security and privacy implications of holding that much personal data in one place, as well as the significant cost that such a system would impose.

Business of the House

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Thursday 17th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

May I take this opportunity to thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing the NATO Parliamentary Assembly to use the House? The House did itself proud, and many of the delegates, from all around the world, including partner nations, were very impressed by what we are able to do here.

Thousands of women in the UK suffer from the debilitating, chronic disease of endometriosis. Despite employment law requiring employers to support employees with medical conditions, many women find themselves forced out of work, with little redress, especially because, on average, diagnosis can take seven to 12 years. May we have a debate on workplace practices for women who are suffering with this terrible disease, so that they do not have the trauma and stress of losing their jobs, on top of having to deal with a debilitating condition that destroys their work lives, as well as their personal lives?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Government recognise that there is more work to do on raising awareness of conditions such as endometriosis, and ensuring that clinical guidance is being followed and that therefore diagnosis is earlier. It is essential that all of us—Government, Parliament, employers, the NHS and wider society—do what we can to improve the diagnosis, and more generally get rid of old-fashioned taboos relating to women’s health to ensure that people are treated fairly in the workplace and have their rights in law upheld and enforced. A debate on the Adjournment or in Westminster Hall would be a good way of giving this important issue further attention.

National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Friday 4th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alec Shelbrooke]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which is that there is a difference between people advertising for unpaid internships and people coming in on a voluntary basis because they have taken the initiative to see whether they could do something. However, that still removes opportunity for others, because there may not then be the need to advertise for a paid role. I will address that issue later, because I have specific points to make about the voluntary side of this and the charity sector.

Many of the interns in this place, much like those who work in private businesses, are undertaking day-to-day activities similar to those that many of us employ staff members to help us with in our offices. The fact of the matter is that, despite your commendable efforts, Mr Speaker, working in Parliament has often been a matter of “Who you know, not what you know,” and young people who are eager to work here and with the financial means to do so for free will find that there are Members taking on interns and refusing to pay at least the minimum wage for their labour.

I remember an exchange of views in this Chamber with the former Member for Bolton West. When I pushed her during an Opposition day debate on the national minimum wage on whether she would accept unpaid internships, her response was

“I have volunteers—I do not call them interns—and I have no money in my budget to pay them.”—[Official Report, 15 October 2014; Vol. 586, c. 350.]

When Members have access to a staffing budget of more than £140,000 a year, it beggars belief that a Labour Member would stand in this place and defend a practice of workplace exploitation with a claim that she could not afford to pay her staff. Imagine the outcry if large multinational firms across the UK stopped paying their workforces because of similar arguments. It is the exploitation of this “volunteer” loophole that means young people are not being paid for their labour.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Is this not a very important point? What about those people who work for charities on a voluntary basis, sometimes doing so for decades?

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend, who has pre-empted another section of my speech. If he will bear with me, I will address that issue specifically.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend; I must admit that I have not looked into that. Perhaps he would like to elaborate on that later, when he comes to speak—at length, I am sure.

As I said at the start of my speech, this practice takes place in the House, and that sends the message to businesses across the country that we think that it is acceptable. I do not think it is, which is why I introduced the Bill. The broader societal issue is that interning is becoming a prerequisite for graduates looking to access their chosen profession. As was reported by the Social Mobility Commission, over 30% of newly hired graduates had previously interned for their employer. That rises to 50% in some sectors. According to the Sutton Trust, 31% of graduate interns are unpaid. Most of them are unable to claim jobseeker’s allowance or universal credit, as they are unable to accept offers of work by virtue of their internship.

That point about the ability to claim welfare is important and goes to the heart of the problem. The IoD’s model internship agreement establishes that companies expect their interns to be present during office hours; how can interns then be expected to look for work, let alone attend interviews? Although legally and technically an intern is able to leave, in reality the threat of a poor reference or the perception that leaving would create a bad impression and lead to the intern not being hired by the company at the end of the internship make that worthless. Even those who go on to work for a company are often unwilling to speak out, for obvious reasons, but when young people have taken employers to employment tribunals they have been successful: companies such as Sony and Harrods have been required to pay their former interns’ unpaid wages. However, is it right that the issue should have to go before an employment tribunal before people are paid?

I would describe myself as a trade unionist. Indeed, I was a member of the Unite union before it became more interested in internal Labour party politics than representing the interests of working people. The ordinary man or woman in the workplace is the reason I believe that representation is vital. We forget that a lot of people do not have the courage to put their head above the parapet. They may well fear for their livelihood and not want to be a target.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Alec Shelbrooke]

If my hon. Friend bears with me one moment, I will come to him. I just want to build on this important point about representation in this place. All of us in this Chamber forget that we are very thick-skinned people. We have to be, given the nature of the job. We take abuse from many directions, all the time.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Indeed. We have to stand up for our convictions and put our case, as I hope I am doing today. Many people in this country do not have the ability to do that, and that is why representation is important. As MPs, we should stand up for people. We can argue in this Chamber about the value of a Bill, but it is important to introduce this kind of Bill and to look at how we can change the law, because many people out there simply cannot find the courage to stand up and do so. That is why we have trade unions and Members of Parliament.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I make the rather pedantic point that unpaid interns cannot be fearful about their livelihood, because they are not earning their living.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

But they can well be fearful about their future livelihood.

The campaign group Intern Aware has long campaigned to encourage those who have had internships and experienced this problem to speak out. It remains the UK’s leading campaign group against unpaid internships, and I thank it for its support over the past three years.

It is right that we today attempt to give people the protection they need against hugely wealthy organisations such as Harrods and Sony. We must not forget that this is about young people submitting themselves to a process to increase their social mobility, and that their entire future is reliant on its success. It is fundamentally a Conservative principle that the state should encourage, and do all that it can to allow, people to better their lives. Successive Conservative Governments have used their time in office to allow people the social mobility to move forward, whether it be through the 1819 cotton mills and factories Act, the Factory and Workshop Act 1901, the Factories Act 1961, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, policies such as right to buy and Help to Buy, universal credit or the national living wage. The key to social mobility is ensuring that everyone, regardless of background or affluence, has the same opportunities in the working world. The driver of many of our reforms and policies is, and has been, the idea that hard work should always be rewarded.

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[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am keen to make progress because in the course of my speech some of my hon. Friends’ points will be answered. I will come to the statistics that I have.

The young man who had worked as an unpaid intern was, for the most part, a spare pair of hands, and he noticed that there were several other interns and a high turnover rate. He called it “a conveyor belt of interns”. Working unpaid meant that he had to undertake extra paid work to support himself, as my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) said she had done during her pupillage. The young man often worked a seven-day week, daytime and evenings, in order to make ends meet. Although he says it was an invaluable experience, he feels that the industry believes that interns should be delighted and grateful that they are there, and that the privilege of being among wealthy and successful people negates the need for pay. That is an appalling abuse.

I raise these examples to align this Bill not with the politics of envy, but with the basic principles of fairness and equal opportunity. There are many former interns who recognise that their wealthier backgrounds gave them interning opportunities that were not available to their less fortunate peers. One former intern in the arts told me that she took a year out in her third year of study at a London art college to take some internships to improve her CV and therefore her chances of securing a job after her studies. In one year she interned for five different businesses, none of which paid her. She felt that she had enough financial support through her parents and that she was able to take this year out unpaid. She admits, however, that some of her peers missed out on this opportunity through fear of not being able to fund it. She notes that there was a stark difference in the ability of those who had taken a year to intern and those who went straight into their final year of study. It is almost a pre-requisite to succeed in the art world.

Of course, in words at least, professional organisations representing the industries that I have commented on so far say that they are opposed to unpaid internships. The Arts Council, UK Music, Creative Skillset and the Royal Institute of British Architects all support a four-week limit on unpaid work experience but, as we have seen from the case studies that I have described, these are just statements, not policies.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is being very generous. He mentions the four-week time limit that some consider justifiable. Unfortunately, his Bill does not set any time limit. That is one of its flaws.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am exceptionally grateful for that intervention from my hon. Friend, who has identified what I initially wanted to do with this Bill. However, my advice from the Clerks and from people who understand legal matters far better than I do was that it would be full of so many legal loopholes that it would be worthless. We therefore moved to the current position. I hope that is a matter that we could explore in much greater depth in Committee and reach a simpler and more robust legal definition. My hon. Friend has touched on an important aspect. I am a mechanical engineer, not a lawyer, so I have to take advice from those who are more learned.

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[Alec Shelbrooke]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for your advice. Indeed, I am merely painting the landscape in which the Bill is meant to encourage change. The Bill makes an important argument: we in the House today cannot ignore the fact that some people, who can come from the poorest backgrounds academically and who can work their way up to be on a level pegging, can then see their opportunities cut off because others are getting around an Act that was brought in specifically to protect them.

That is what the first clause of the Bill addresses. It describes what a workplace internship is:

“For the purpose of this Act, a workplace internship is an employment practice in which a person…undertakes regular work or provides regular services in the United Kingdom for…another person…a company…a limited liability partnership…or a public authority; and…the purpose of the employment practice is…that the intern meets learning objectives or gains experience of working for the employer listed in section 1(a); and…to provide practical experience in an occupation or profession.”

What I hope I have done so far this morning is highlight how some companies are getting round that and how the existing National Minimum Wage Act allows that.

I think we would agree that defining the “volunteer” unpaid internship at Vivienne Westwood as involving working regular hours from Monday to Friday would mean it fell within the scope of the Bill, which would protect somebody who

“undertakes regular work or provides regular services in the United Kingdom”.

I think that gets to what I hope to achieve in the Bill. I am simply trying to close down loopholes in legislation that has been very useful in protecting people in the United Kingdom.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Does clause 1(b) not create a loophole in the Bill? If somebody took on a person to do unpaid work for the purpose of being a harmless drudge, to quote Dr Johnson on lexicographers, they would be entitled to do so, because it would not be for the purposes set out in subsection (b).

[Alec Shelbrooke]

The important distinction that needs to be drawn is that we are talking about deliberate, advertised, unpaid internships. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) made an important distinction between people who come along, volunteer and want to work, and people who advertise for somebody to come and work for them for six months. When we see the perversion of the two words put together—“advertising” for “volunteers” to come and work—it is a bit like saying, “You need to go on a suicide mission, men. Who will volunteer?” and then telling them, “You’ve volunteered.” That makes a mockery of things.

I want the Bill to really bring these issues to the fore. I have heard the interventions from my hon. Friends, and some very reasonable points have been made, but that does not mean that we should turn away from doing anything, and I hope the Bill will start us on the route of trying to address this issue.

Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

That is a good point.

I had not intended to speak until we heard so eloquently from the shadow Minister about the virtues of reckless spending—it is tremendously important to stop that view of the world. We have to get back to some of the debate we had yesterday, which is why it is worth supporting the Government’s financial outlook position and policy. The reason for that is that the situation will be increasingly difficult. The economy was left to us in a terrible mess, in terms of not only the public finances, but private sector debt. The idea that this will easily be recovered by getting people to borrow again or banks to lend again is simply wrong.

The hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), who is an hon. Friend on European matters but an hon. Gentleman on other matters, talked about getting more people to spend and taking money off the rich so that it can be spent by poorer people, who have a greater propensity to spend. That might be fine when the banks have money to lend, but we need to get the loans-to-deposit ratio for the banks as a whole in the United Kingdom below 100%, so that the banks have the liquidity to lend. Until we are able to do that, the idea that we can have debt-fuelled re-growth is simply mistaken.

On Government debt, I wish to return to a point made yesterday by the shadow Chief Secretary on Ricardian equivalence. She does not believe in Ricardian equivalence and I do not think that many people do in exactly the terms that Ricardo spelt it out. None the less, his underlying point was completely sound: the debt of Governments will ultimately have to be paid back through tax income raised. Intelligent electors realise that and know that if the economy is growing on the basis of Government debt, that will eventually be a charge to them. It might not affect their behaviour over one or two months, but over one, two or five years it certainly does. Economies that run indefinitely on debt find that their growth levels are neutered, and anybody who doubts that should look at the Japanese economy.

If we look at what has been going on in Japan since 1990, we see that the Japanese have increased their public sector debt from next to nothing to 200% of their GDP and that in that period they have had absolutely no growth—their economy has been stagnant. Their tax revenues were lower in 2010 than in 1985, because the level of growth in the Japanese economy has been so low.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Would my hon. Friend like to bring things up to date and comment on the US economy and the fact that the Americans decided to pour a lot of money in, found that that did not work and are now considering very strong austerity measures?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

It is relevant to look at the United States economy and at the gold price, which is up at $1,500 and not because more people are getting married and want wedding rings—although I congratulate my hon. Friend on his forthcoming nuptials and I am sure he is buying a large piece of gold for his future wife. The gold price has been so strong because the financial markets have lost confidence in the US dollar and because the American political forces—the President and Congress—have not been willing to tackle the deficit in the way that Her Majesty’s Government have done. The gold price in sterling terms has not risen by anything like so much, because people have confidence in what the Government are doing.

Normally, I take the view that there are two people in this world who should be obeyed. One is the Holy Father and the other is my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash). When my hon. Friend speaks on European matters, he does so with a degree of infallibility that belongs to only one other living person, although I hasten to add that the remit of the Holy Father does not cover European matters. My views diverge slightly from those of my hon. Friend on one point: I think we should be proud of the document that Her Majesty’s Government are sending because of what the Government have got right. The situation they faced a year ago was desperately serious, needed urgent attention and had to be brought under control by their taking measures that are not necessarily popular.

It is important to emphasise that point because all Governments, when they take tough decisions, face gentlemen such as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie). Over the next year or two, as people see the cuts coming through, it will be very tempting to listen to such voices and to think that perhaps there is an easier way and a land flowing with milk and honey that we have not yet found where we can borrow more money, where the financial markets will turn a blind eye, where we can spend money we do not have and not worry about our children and our grandchildren and where the banks will suddenly miraculously lend to bankrupt people to keep inefficient systems going. That is when those on the Treasury Bench must stiffen their sinews and summon the blood and not give way to those voices. At the moment, that is still relatively easy, because there has not been much coming through in the way of cuts. We have not seen the pain that will come from those difficult decisions. Now, however, we are sending our plan abroad. We are telling people not just in this country but in foreign countries of what we are doing and we should be proud of it because it is right. If we do what is right, the economy will begin to recover.

We on the Back Benches, in particular, must support those on the Front Benches when they do such things and when the critics from the other side appear to be doing well in the opinion polls. That is the point of maximum difficulty. Let us think of the great lady in 1981, when 360-odd economists wrote to The Times—a great newspaper with very fine editors—to suggest that the economic policy was wrong. That was two years in and it was the hardest point and that Government stuck to their guns, which led to the recovery we then had.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The fundamental flaw in the hon. Gentleman’s argument is to think that there is a painless way out of a major crisis. It is simply a question of whether we deal with it now and ensure that the problem is resolved and that the economy can grow again or whether we delay it and have a much worse crisis later. The pain I was talking about was political pain for the Government as people notice the cuts. Our approach will reduce the pain for individuals because it will ensure that the economy is rebalanced sooner rather than later. That is the way to minimise pain—not thinking that there is a never-never land with no pain after we have lived on debt and incompetent Government policies for the past 13 years.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

We hear about fairness from the Opposition, but which does my hon. Friend feel is more unfair: bringing in higher taxes to get us out of this problem or letting the economy run away and allowing interest rates to rocket, thereby leaving thousands of people’s homes to be repossessed?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on. This is one of the great virtues of the Government’s policy, which is being welcomed by the gilt market.

It is also worth noting what the late John Maynard Keynes said on such matters. Everyone in opposition quotes him and says that we should follow his policies but one of his policies, to quote the Chancellor, was that Governments should mend the roof while the sun shines and should build up reserves in the good times. My godfather interviewed John Maynard Keynes late in life and asked him, “What happens if Governments do not do this? What happens if they spend money in the good times?” to which Keynes replied, “If they do that I shall make a speech in the House of Lords and that will put them off.” Sadly, he was not here between 1997 and 2010 to make a speech in the other House to tell the other side of the policy failures when the economy was booming, so there was no money when the economy went wrong.

Time is short and I have a point to make about the presentation of the document to Europe. I hope that we have a Division because it will be delayed until after the deadline for sending in the papers. I hope that Her Majesty’s Government will show their independent-mindedness and ensure that the House’s approval comes before the requirements of a foreign international body. It would be a great discourtesy to the House if the document were presented to the European Commission before the deferred Division that we are likely to have on Wednesday.

Question put.

The Deputy Speaker’s opinion as to the decision of the Question being challenged, the Division was deferred until Wednesday 5 May (Standing Order No. 41A).

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

May I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) on his excellent maiden speech? I agreed with every bit of it other than, I am afraid to say, his conclusion.

There are three things that I would like to look at briefly: first, the broad constitutional issues; then some of the detail of the debate; finally, the process. I hope that I can do that in the time allowed.

On the broad constitutional issue, I think that fixed-term Parliaments are a mistake. It is unfortunate to undermine a constitutional monarchy. A constitutional monarchy needs to preserve some role for the sovereign within it—some purpose in having that final arbiter of the system that is above and beyond politics. I am very nervous about giving that role to the Speaker, as this Bill proposes, because, first, it is a bad idea to have a Head of State and a quasi-Head of State—one is quite enough for me, and a hereditary Head of State, which we have had for the best part of 1,000 years, seems a pretty good one to have. Such an approach would also bring the Speaker, who will not be advised by the Prime Minister in this area, into the murky part of party politics. There is a risk that the Speaker could give his certificate for a general election—the most important part of our democratic process—as a matter of political controversy, and that cannot be wise. Let us consider the recent discussion on whether or not something is a money Bill, because that is already putting the Speaker in the political spotlight. A money Bill is an obscure procedural measure, whereas a general election is at the heart of everything that we do. So bringing the Speaker, you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and your colleagues into this murky business will be a mistake.

That leads to the issue of where the courts come in—a matter that has been discussed in this debate. I am not a lawyer, but I can say that the thing to bear in mind about Bradlaugh’s case is that the House of Lords ruled that it should not intervene in the procedure of the House of Commons, because at that point the highest court in the land was, of course, one of the Houses of Parliament. That is no longer the case, and with the Supreme Court outside Parliament, the constraint does not apply, so the courts may be willing to be more enthusiastic in their interpretation of statute than they were when the House of Lords was our supreme court. Those are the broad constitutional issues that give rise to concern.

We must then consider the Bill itself and what it contains. The problem with the Bill is that perhaps the best reason for voting for it is that it is pointless. The Whips have certain powers, authority and wise influence that they bring to bear and they could say to me and to other hon. Members that it might be best if we were absent when another hon. Member had tabled a motion of no confidence—they might suggest that we went on a nice trip, to the Seychelles or some such place. That motion would then pass, the Speaker would have no choice but to issue his certificate and, hey presto, we would have a general election at the time of the Prime Minister’s choosing. That is a rather foolish approach to legislation.

I doubt whether the 65% hurdle would ever come into effect, but it would be objectionable if it did get into law because it would set a requirement for more than a simple majority, for the first time in the history of this Parliament. That would be a procedural mistake; one vote ought always to be enough. It would also require a percentage of 66 and two thirds of those who are available to vote—not of those who actually vote. Interestingly, a Government who are introducing that into legislation are reluctant, so I hear, to have a turnout threshold in a referendum on the alternative vote. One may see some implicit contradiction in those two suggestions. So, the Bill is rather a hollow shell.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

It would be an honour.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I want to pick up on that point about the alternative vote and what the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) said about spoiled ballots in Scotland. Does this not further the case that a first-past-the-post election is by far the most effective?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am in entire agreement with my hon. Friend, and I am glad that he did not take us back to the local elections in Leeds—I thought that we were at risk of that.

I come to the process of the Bill and how we have reached this point. How did we come to consider a fixed-term Parliament? I am not aware that many of my hon. Friends put this proposal in their election addresses—they may have done if they were Liberal Democrats, but not if they were Conservative. It is not a Conservative proposal in any sense. It got into the coalition agreement late at night, in what would have been a smoke-filled room had not the previous Government banned smoking in office spaces. This therefore took place in a smoke-free environment—a healthy and politically correct room—and late at night it was decided that it would be a good idea to shore up the coalition for five years.

The political arguments for this Bill are first class, but it changes the constitution—a constitution that has evolved. Pitt the Elder, a Whig Prime Minister—it is always nice in the spirit of coalition to quote the Whigs—talked of the “genius of the constitution”. Let us invoke that genius, which has let our constitutional processes evolve and develop. This has not been done because the coalition needed some quick fix to make sure that the next election would clash with elections in Scotland and Wales—that is, of course, an inadvertent result of what has happened. The coalition did not come to this agreement with the possibility of extending the life of a Parliament beyond five years. I am sure that all hon. Members have read the note from the Library pointing out that this legislation will not be subject to the Parliament Act if the other place disagrees, because it extends the life of a Parliament by another two months should the Prime Minister, by order, so wish to do. This is an accidental Bill, thought up in the late hours of the night. It takes away that wonderful flexibility that our constitution has had to meet the needs of circumstances and to evolve.

One way in which the constitution was beginning to evolve, which the electorate seemed to want, was that a Prime Minister’s resignation part way through a Parliament should lead to a general election. When I knocked on doors in my constituency, people did not tell me that they wanted fixed-term Parliaments, the alternative vote or any of that. However, they did ask who had voted for the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). People in North East Somerset of course knew his constituency, because they are a knowledgeable lot. They asked who had elected him to be Prime Minister. Although the constitution is clear that we can change Prime Minister as often as Her Majesty sees fit, the mood of the country is for that constitutional evolution. That is how our constitution works and how it has done for hundreds of years—at least since the Glorious Revolution. Let us hope that it continues to work like that and that this Bill is amended on the Floor of the House out of all recognition.