Alex Salmond
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Alex Salmond Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)
I welcome your ascent once again to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. Your popularity is almost unrivalled in the House. I have to say, however, that popularity is not exclusive to the Chair these days. With this system of secret ballots for the election of Select Committee Chairs across the parties, I can report that I have never been more popular in this House with Conservative and Labour Members. I am approached in all precincts of the House and asked for my views on a whole variety of things. Never before have I been in a position of being able to dispense such wisdom. Members whose names I do not know are approaching me. People I did not even know were Members are approaching me.
I just say to the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) that I hope he is not standing as Chair of a Select Committee.
Alex Salmond
That is good, because that means he is a man of independent mind, although unfortunately it is a wayward independent mind. The reason why the Health Committee considers matters that affect Scotland is the Barnett formula. Through the Barnett formula, what happens in finance for the health service in England has knock-on effects for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Perhaps I did not catch the hon. Gentleman correctly, but did he say that he served on the previous Health Committee?
Alex Salmond
I find it very strange, then, that he did not realise that, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out, issues debated in the Health Committee had implications for Northern Ireland. He must have been taken absent without leave during the proceedings, otherwise he would have known that.
Andrew Percy
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for calling me wayward—although I do not know whether it is a compliment. My point was that matters discussed in the Health Committee affect other parts of the United Kingdom, although our business is primarily English. For the same reason, English Members of Parliament have an absolute right to sit on the Scottish Affairs Committee, because the matters it considers affect my constituents in the same way.
Alex Salmond
I once heard the Barnett formula described as being like the Schleswig-Holstein question in European politics, in that only three people ever understood it: one is mad, one is dead and I have forgotten it, but I will try to remember enough of it to allow the hon. Gentleman to understand how it works. For example, additional public spending on health in England has a knock-on effect in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The reverse does not apply—it is not a question of allocating for Northern Ireland and then reverse-allocating England.
Alex Salmond
Move on where? Luckily the right hon. Lady is on the Front Bench, so will not be standing to be a Chair of one of these Select Committees, otherwise she would have done her chances no good whatever. Members on the Treasury Bench should behave better in these debates. She should be setting an example to her new Members, not cavorting about like some demented junior Minister. Behave yourself, woman!
My hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) asked me to say a few words in support of his argument. I happen to think it is necessary in this sense. He has put the argument very forcefully indeed: at a time when the Government are tinkering with the idea of EVEL—of having English votes for English MPs—and it is suggested that they will manipulate the Standing Orders of this House, perhaps to create English MP-only Committees, it will damage their argument, perhaps irreparably, if they stuff the Scottish Affairs Committee with a majority of English Conservative MPs. I say to the Conservative party that if it wanted to have Conservative MPs on the Scottish Affairs Committee, it should have gone to the trouble of getting more than one elected in Scotland in the recent general election. Alternatively, the Tories could immediately demote the Secretary of State for Scotland, make him a Back Bencher and exile him to the Scottish Affairs Committee.
Alex Salmond
I am strongly tempted, but those on the hon. Gentleman’s Front Bench want me to move on. I say to the Government Whips: just think of all the problems that will be avoided—of having to exile hapless Members and put them on the Scottish Affairs Committee —if they accept the advice of my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire and do not try to gerrymander the Scottish Affairs Committee with a majority of English Conservative Members of Parliament. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Laing)
Order. I know that the right hon. Gentleman is used to being heard and has a voice that is normally heard, but he must not be drowned out.
Alex Salmond
There is only a remote chance of the Conservative party drowning out the Scottish National party in this Parliament, Madam Deputy Speaker. I know the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) is keen, so I will extend to him the same courtesy that generations of Conservative Front Benchers have extended to me by not giving way to him on this occasion.
My argument is that the Scottish Affairs Committee should have at least a majority of Scottish MPs, and preferably should be completely made up of Scottish MPs, as it has been for some substantial time. If we reform or reconvene the Scottish Grand Committee, that should also be composed of Scottish MPs. If that is not to happen—the Leader of the House will give us an indication—and if the Conservatives are not prepared the extend the same courtesy to Scotland, I say to them that any argument whatever for their plan to have English-only votes on English-only Committees will be fatally undermined. An indication from the Leader of the House that that will happen will be greatly appreciated. I was going to say that that perhaps would do something to restore the Conservative party in Scotland, but it will not—it will take a lot more than that. At least it will stop the Conservative party from declining any further from the historical low it reached in Scotland three weeks ago.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
I should take this opportunity to welcome the hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) to his place—
Mark Menzies
I am sorry—he is the right hon. Member for Gordon and a former First Minister. As a former First Minister, he should appreciate that, in this Chamber and this House, we debate and take interventions. It is not like the Scottish Parliament, where Members stand up and speak and nobody is allowed to intervene. That is not how we do things in this House.
The point I want to make is a valid one. I served on the Scottish Affairs Committee in the last Parliament—it was a great privilege to do so.
Mark Menzies
The right hon. Gentleman cannot control his actions from his sedentary position.
I served on the Scottish Affairs Committee. We dealt with matters relating both to Scotland and to Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom. The one person who was not there was the SNP Member. He did not take up his seat on the Committee.
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
It is very nice to see you, Madam Deputy Speaker, in the Chair. I believe it is the first such occasion since your election. Even though we are to witness the death of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, your decision, as a former member of that Committee, to dress entirely in black was unnecessary but very welcome, and the message will have been received by many in the House.
The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee had a magnificent record in serving this House over five years. I do not know whether that is why its tenure has not been renewed. It is for the usual channels and the Leader of the House’s Office to make it clear why the Committee’s tenure has not been renewed. I will list one or two of our reports that may have caused some embarrassment to the then coalition Government. However, all of them were done and approved by an all-party Select Committee, which was elected by this House. The Chair, which was me, was one of the first to be elected by the whole House, because of the Wright Committee reforms. All the members of the Select Committee were, for the first time ever, elected by the individual parties in a secret ballot.
My anxiety, which I am sure the Leader of the House will allay, is that this could be the first of the changes—the rolling back—that will leave the Government completely in control without even a nod in the direction of parliamentary accountability, because I believe that parliamentary accountability will be lessened.
This was not a Committee packed by one party or another. In fact, it had a Conservative majority, but anyone attending the Committee would not have got that impression. The members of the Committee, including you, Madam Deputy Speaker, when you were in a less distinguished role, are among the most awkward bunch of people whom one could ever get together in one Select Committee. Perhaps that is another reason the Select Committee is being abolished tonight by the Government.
I should mention here some of the colleagues on the Committee: the hon. Members for Christchurch (Mr Chope), for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), and for Foyle (Mark Durkan), my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), the then Member for Chippenham, Duncan Hames, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton), the hon. Members for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris), and for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), the then Member for Vale of Clwyd, Chris Ruane, and the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner). Many of those distinguished Members from all parts of the House are in the Chamber this evening.
There are also Members who were on the Committee who are very keen to be named, and quite rightly, for the great work that they did, including the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths), who served so well. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) was in the House just a moment ago, and has left. Then there was the then Members for Taunton Deane, Jeremy Browne, for Edinburgh East, Sheila Gilmore, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing)—of course, Madam Deputy Speaker—my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), and the then Member for Bristol West, Stephen Williams. Like you, Madam Deputy Speaker, they are people who, from this modest training ground of a Select Committee, have gone on to higher things.
Unlike some Select Committees, the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee took its job very, very seriously, and it never missed a quorum. New colleagues coming to the House may understand that as we get towards the end of a five-year Parliament, it is quite easy to want to drift off and go to our constituencies on a Thursday morning, which is when we used to meet. But we never missed a quorum.
Another interesting fact is that my Select Committee never went on a foreign trip. I do not know whether there is any other Select Committee that can say that. Perhaps that is another reason why we were abolished. Perhaps we were stepping out of line. [Interruption] I do not know whether our frequent visits to Scotland should be regarded as a foreign trip. We certainly did not see it that way. We also made frequent visits to the Senedd in Cardiff and to our good friends in Belfast.
As Members will gather from that roll call of Committee members, we were very serious about our work; indeed we could be nothing else. As I read my own obituary as the Chair of the Select Committee—certainly the Select Committee’s obituary if not my own—I can say, I guess, that it leaves me free to operate in other means. I wish to commend Martyn Atkins, Steven Mark, Joanna Dodd and others who were part of the team. Any Select Committee lives or dies by the capability of its Clerks and those who assist it, and those individuals did a most magnificent job.
If anyone cares to read not even the reports but the list of reports that the Select Committee produced, they will see that it was at the sharp end of so many of the debates that will continue in the new Parliament and that it is perhaps rather strange that it is not enabled to continue its life to pursue some of those issues. We have heard some of them tonight. We have issues such as English votes for English laws—not disappeared and still requiring scrutiny—and human rights.
The Government may welcome a little assistance with their human rights legislation, which does not seem to be progressing smoothly. That is exactly the sort of thing on which, with a five-year Parliament, the Chief Whip does not have to ram everything through or hold every Second Reading in the next couple of weeks. That is the old days; things have changed. We now have a five-year fixed term. He could get the board in Mr Roy Stone’s office—he runs the House of Commons—and plan proper scrutiny. One of our reports was on legislative scrutiny. Why on earth can we not have a steady, clear rolling forward of Bills to include pre-legislative scrutiny of every Bill? Is that not one of the roles of the House? Should that not apply to every Bill, wherever practical?
Have other issues—for example, parliamentary boundaries—gone away? I think not, and I suspect that with an impartial, all-party view, with serious scrutiny, not done on the basis of the whim of the Chair or the majority of members but by a difficult, independent-minded bunch of people getting under the skin of some of these issues, the House could do the Government a great service, if only they realised that they should have a partnership with the House, rather than a relationship of domination and subordination, and it is a great pity that they do that.
We looked at devolution throughout our five years as a Select Committee, not to interfere with the Scottish and Welsh Affairs Committees and the Communities and Local Government Committee—they were doing very well—but in an overarching way to look at the constitutional implications and not just how this affects, say, Wales but how it affects the Union, how other nations in the Union could learn, as we learned when we visited the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Executive, and how things can be done better than they have been done here, often for many hundreds of years without reform.
We certainly need effective scrutiny of things such as English devolution. Can that possibly be given the focus that a dedicated Select Committee on political reform could give it? Had the House completed its consideration of all those democratic reforms, I would be the first to say that the House no longer needed such a Select Committee. That patently is not true; those issues still require scrutiny. I have great respect for the Chairs whom I have served with on the Liaison Committee—the Chairs of the Public Administration and Justice Committees and the Scottish and Welsh Affairs Committees and the Communities and Local Government Committee and others, all of whom were very capable—but they all had very full agendas. Unless they do not have a full agenda, how on earth can they give the sort of scrutiny to things that we gave focus to in the last Parliament?
Sadly, on some occasions, there was not always a relationship of joy. I am surprised that the Chief Whip smiles. He should bow his head in shame for the fact that his Government presented, for example, the gagging Bill, as it became known, one day before the rise of the House and gave it a Second Reading on one day when the House returned. That is not allowing Parliament to scrutinise effectively. Sadly, that is a Government who feel a lack of confidence in their ability to trust Parliament and an all-party committee to give a fair deal, hear witnesses and take evidence. I hope that the Leader of the House changes that tone and style over the next five years and gets the best out of the House of Commons, rather than treating it as a potential enemy to be suppressed, kept down and not talked to.
I said that my Select Committee members were an awkward and difficult bunch. When they were told that the Government were going to put the Bill before the House one day before the recess and have Second Reading one day after the recess, they obviously rolled over and went on their summer holidays—I don’t think so. They insisted that we took evidence in the recess, before the House came back. We did our duty by the House. I do not know whether the House wishes to do its duty by our Select Committee tonight. That is another matter, but we did our duty by the House by reconvening and calling witnesses so that we could do a thorough job for the House. Anyone who witnessed the proceedings of the gagging Bill as it went through the House of Commons can do nothing but say that the Select Committee did its job thoroughly. For possibly three or four days on the Floor of the House, we made sure that the Bill was properly scrutinised.
To give credit where it is due, the Government adopted many of the Select Committee’s proposals. It was not done in a partisan or partial way. There were things that we discovered and could help the Government with to produce a better Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) called it a dog’s breakfast. I think that through its work the Select Committee made that dog’s breakfast slightly more palatable.
There were occasions when the Government were rather slow to respond to the Select Committee’s proposals. As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, it is traditional for a Select Committee to produce a report and for the Government then to respond. Even after the general election, there are still outstanding matters, where the House has not received through its Select Committee a response from Government.
I will write to the Leader of the House listing the items that still need a reply. I should tell him that, on one occasion, the Government took a year to reply to a Select Committee report. But it was worth waiting for—the response was one page long and it did not address any of the detailed points made by your Select Committee, on your behalf, whichever part of the House you sit in.
Mr Allen
Rather like the Women and Equalities Committee, which will I hope be established today, the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee was not in the Standing Orders, as departmental Select Committees are. I ask colleagues who have fought hard to get their Select Committees to remember the difficulties that can be put in their way and what can happen if it is a Select Committee that fulfils its duty to the House and in some cases over-fulfils it, but is not in the Standing Orders. It is much more difficult for a Government who feel they can run roughshod over the House of Commons to repeal the Select Committee if it is in the Standing Orders.
I see you, Madam Deputy Speaker, are shuffling in your place. I do not know whether that is because I am coming to the end of my remarks or whether you are moving in anticipation of the list of reports that the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee produced in the previous Parliament on behalf of the House. I will touch briefly on those and bring my remarks to a close before the hour is up.
For example, we did an extensive report on voter engagement. At the general election before last, 16 million voters did not vote; 7.5 million did not even register. That figure is higher than that for those who voted for both the major parties. We carefully examined a lot of evidence on what we could do about the situation, and more than 16,000 consultations were returned—a record for the Select Committee.
One of the features of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform was that it involved people outside the bubble. It went not only to the Assemblies and Parliament outside Westminster, but discussed through social media and other means the implications of some of the things we were proposing. That is why we reported on votes at 16 and 17 at future general elections and on why online voting should be taken seriously. That is why before the last election we led, not least by portraying a ballot box on Big Ben, on the effort to encourage people to register to vote. We did many other things as well.
Unfortunately, we were not taken seriously on our proposals on political parties and their funding; that issue still needs proper scrutiny and it requires the House to come to a final settlement. There is still no formal process for the House to be consulted about going to war. A convention has arisen in recent years. I remember trying to get the House to sit to consider the Iraq war, and it took a great deal of effort for that to happen. The then Foreign Secretary stated that the Government would enshrine in law for the future the necessity of consulting Parliament on military action. That has not yet happened, and the Government have yet to respond to the report—even before the demise of the Select Committee, the Government had failed to respond to that report.