Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Fourth sitting)

Alex Norris Excerpts

Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Cat Smith]

Thank you, Ms Dorries. I will bring my remarks to a close. I believe that this is my one opportunity to put on the record my thoughts on the Bill, so I thank the Committee for indulging me slightly, and I apologise for any offence that may have been caused to the Chair.

Although this is the last sitting that I will attend, I hope that the Committee will continue to meet, because this is an important Bill and many aspects of it are important to our democracy. I believe that Governments should be held to account and that the power of the Executive should not get so strong that Back Benchers have no power. I hope that the Government are listening and that they will, at the earliest opportunity, table a money resolution to allow the Bill to progress. We can then argue about the merits of the Bill and debate its contents, and whoever takes my place on the Committee will be able to have the argument. The Committee has met time and again. I am sure that the Minister does not want to sit here every Wednesday morning, but I can assure her that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton will make sure that she is here every Wednesday until the money resolution is brought before the House.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[The Chair]

I remind the hon. Gentleman to remember the question before the Committee.

[Alex Norris]

Thank you, Ms Dorries. I will endeavour to stay within the parameters you have set. We would not be considering whether to adjourn if we had had a money resolution before Parliament following Second Reading. [Interruption.] We talked about this matter on Monday and it is in the context of whether we should adjourn. Arguments can be made about finance and the practicalities of having another boundary review, but the key point is that those things were known when we discussed this on Second Reading, because none of these things is new or revelatory—they have not been on the front pages of The Sunday Times, having been discovered by forensic journalists. These things were all known. The House divided and overwhelmingly chose to give the Bill a Second Reading on the reasonable grounds that a money resolution would follow, in which case we would not be adjourning now. That is the first point.

Secondly, we asked for a money resolution, not support for a money resolution. We can divide again. We can have a replay. We won in the first match and we will have another go next week. I cannot say what the parliamentary maths is. I suspect that the Government know that more than I do, but we should let the House make the decision, in full knowledge of all the facts. That is why people send us here. They do not send us to come here at 9.30 to spend 20 minutes discussing whether to not have a meeting. Of course, that is a little bit silly, so I will conclude by saying that this comes with a stink.

The Government have lost the argument and so are now sticking us on the process, and I do not think that reflects well. It is in the same vein as losing votes in the other place and then creating more peers and being wary of losing votes in the Commons Chamber and then relying on secondary legislation. When hon. Members stay in their offices for this Opposition day debate, rather than contesting it, I hope that they think of the things slowly being whittled away from our Parliament and its functions. I know it is difficult to stay together even to get to the end of each week. There must come a point at which it is not worth it to keep trampling on our Parliament.

Question put and agreed to.