Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill: Committee Stage

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Andrea Leadsom)]

I welcome the chance to respond, yet again, on the subject of the Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill. The House will be aware that I have already responded to both an urgent question and an emergency debate about the Government’s approach to the private Member’s Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan), in addition to responding to questions at business questions. Nevertheless, I am more than happy to outline, once again, our approach to private Members’ Bills, and to the hon. Gentleman’s Bill in particular, before turning to the specific terms of the motion.

The boundary commissions began the 2018 parliamentary boundary review in 2016 and are due to report the final recommendations to the Government later this year—within just a few sitting weeks. This Government have made a commitment to continue with that boundary review, which was voted for by this House, and it would be inappropriate to proceed with the Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill at this time by providing it with a money resolution. The Government have committed to keeping this private Member’s Bill under review, but it is right that we allow the boundary commissions to report their recommendations before carefully considering how to proceed.

As I said in the emergency debate on 21 May, progressing with this particular PMB would place a potential financial burden of £8 million on taxpayers. Given that Parliament —this House—has already committed to the 2018 boundary review, it would not be responsible for the Government to support such extra cost to the taxpayer at this point.

[Mr Khalid Mahmood]

To follow the Leader of the House’s reasoning about what this Bill will cost the public purse, what other Bills is she considering dropping to save money?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I will repeat it if the hon. Gentleman did not hear it, but I just carefully explained that the Government bring forward money resolutions for private Members’ Bill on a case-by-case basis. It is precisely because this House voted for the 2018 boundary review that we must wait until that work is finished before deciding how to progress with this private Member’s Bill.

With one review under way, plus an incomplete review from a previous Parliament, the review proposed by the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton would be the third review of boundaries and would push the total cost of reviewing boundaries towards £18 million. The Opposition may not have a problem with unnecessarily spending £18 million of taxpayers’ money, but the Government certainly do. That is our position, and we look forward to seeing the boundary commissions’ recommendations in the coming months.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

The Leader of the House seems to be saying that one of the reasons why the Government will not table a money resolution is the amount of money the Bill would cost. I do not know whether she is inadvertently misleading the House, but the reality is that tabling a money resolution does not mean the law will pass. What then happens is that the Bill can be considered in Committee, on Report and by their lordships. The issue here is that the Government are running scared because they know a majority of Members of this House support the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan), so they are trying to kill it in Committee. This is not about money; it is about parliamentary procedure being subverted.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I will come on to procedure, but the hon. Gentleman simply is not right. The Government are not killing this private Member’s Bill; we are saying that, until the boundary commissions have completed their work, which will be in a matter of a few weeks—the House voted for the review to take place—the Government will not take further action on a money resolution.

For the clarification of all hon. Members, this is not without precedent. During the 2014-15 Session, the coalition Government did not table money resolutions on two private Members’ Bills. At the time, the then Leader of the House said:

“it is unusual but not unprecedented for the Government not to move a money resolution. There have been previous instances of that under Governments of different parties.”—[Official Report, 30 October 2014; Vol. 587, c. 417.]

[Mr Harper]

On procedure, there is a wider point than just the money. The boundary commissions, as part of their review, have carried out a very democratic process. They have listened to thousands of responses, not just from Members of this House and political parties but from thousands of members of the public. Would it not be an abuse just to throw all that away and start all over again?

[Andrea Leadsom]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. That is the whole point. The Government are saying we will not table a money resolution until we have had a chance to consider the review, which is currently under way and due to report soon. However, this debate is not about the merits of the Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill, and it is not even about the merits of the Government tabling a money resolution on the Bill. This debate is about whether a Committee may have leave to disregard the rules and conventions of this House. This motion seeks to undermine a fundamental principle that is a cornerstone of our constitutional settlement.

The financial initiative of the Crown is a long-standing constitutional principle that allows the Government of the day to initiate financial resolutions. Chapter 32 of “Erskine May” explains:

“It was a central factor in the historical development of parliamentary influence and power that the Sovereign was obliged to obtain the consent of Parliament…to the levying of taxes to meet the expenditure of the State. But the role of Parliament in respect of…expenditure and taxation has never been one of initiation… The development of responsible government and the assumption by the Government of the day of the traditional role and powers of the Crown in relation to public finance have not altered this basic constitutional principle”.

Either the Government of the day have the right to initiate financial proceedings or they do not. The Crown initiative is a binary issue, and this motion seeks to overturn it.

[Nigel Dodds]

There have been references to the boundary commission review as though there is just one review, but of course there are reviews in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. On a point of process, does the Leader of the House intend to table separate resolutions on each of those Boundary Commission reviews, or will they be taken together?

[Andrea Leadsom]

That is to be confirmed, but the right hon. Gentleman is correct that the boundary commissions of all four nations will be reporting imminently. It has been a huge and very expensive undertaking that absolutely upholds the principles of democracy.

Let us get back to what is under discussion today. The motion seeks to erode the fundamental principle that it is the Crown, through its Ministers, that has the exclusive right of demanding money and of defining the purposes for which that money is required. The core responsibility of the Government is accountability to the taxpayer. The Opposition may not understand that, but we on this side of the House most certainly do.

The motion would allow the Bill Committee to consider the substantive clauses of the Bill, amend the Bill and potentially introduce new material into the Bill. The conventions of the House are very clearly set out in “Erskine May”, which states that

“any financial provisions which”—

a Bill—

“may contain must be authorised by a resolution of the House, i.e. a money resolution, before they can be considered by the committee on the bill.”

The financial provisions contained in a Bill—in this case the money clause, which is clause 5—are there on First Reading to indicate that the Crown initiative is needed. The existence of these money clauses, or in other cases the existence of italicised provisions, is the practice by which it is indicated that Second Reading is contingent on a financial recommendation from the Government. This financial recommendation must come before the House or its Committees can proceed with detailed consideration of the Bill’s contents.

If a Committee is allowed to consider the substance of the Bill in the absence of a money resolution, the Crown, through its Ministers, loses its centuries-old right to initiate and define the purposes for which that money is required; putting the power of the Executive into the hands of the legislature.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Leader of the House is trying to blow this issue out of proportion slightly by making it sound as though we are trying to overturn a years-old, decades-old, centuries-old convention. Is this motion not merely asking to allow a Committee to consider a Bill? If the money resolution did not come by the end of it, the Bill would not be passed. We are seeking to allow Parliament to get on with it. Is the point of an unwritten constitution not to allow flexibility and to understand that in times of need we can change procedure?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman walked in late and did not hear the start of the debate. If he read his own motion, he would realise that it seeks to overturn not years or decades but centuries of a very clear convention: that the Government initiate financial resolutions. It could not be clearer, and this Opposition motion, for purely party political reasons, is utterly irresponsible. May I ask: where are the previous Cabinet members from the Opposition? Clearly, they are not in this place because they, having been in government, recognise the constitutional settlement, where Governments decide on the money and Parliament consents to it and scrutinises it.

As I was saying, if a Committee is allowed to consider the substance of the Bill in the absence of a money resolution, the Crown, through its Ministers, loses its centuries-old right to initiate and define the purposes for which that money is required, putting the power of the Executive into the hands of the legislature. This questions the role of the Executive, whichever party is in power. The fundamentals of having a Government—of having any Government—are that they are there to take decisions and to be accountable for those decisions. Taxpayers want and require the Government to be accountable for the way in which public money is spent. That is what it means to be a responsible Government.

[Rachel Maclean]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is about a fundamental principle upon which our general elections are run: we set out our manifesto and the public vote on how they want their money spent? The attempt to change that is a fundamental undermining of our democracy in this country.

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend is exactly right on that. This Government are responsible for initiating financial transaction resolutions, and the Opposition and Parliament are responsible for scrutinising, amending and reviewing; they are not responsible for initiating resolutions. It is disappointing to waste parliamentary time today explaining this point to an Opposition who really should know better and who, in their actions today, are showing no signs that they would act as a responsible Government.

The motion would set a dangerous precedent, but there would also be further potential consequences of allowing it to pass. First, the scope of any money resolution is one of the factors in determining whether amendments are within the scope of a Bill. The change in practice that the motion seeks to introduce would remove that restriction on what can be considered and voted on in Committee. The Committee would be pointlessly wandering through the Bill, agreeing to clauses —with or without amendments—that may not actually be permitted by any money resolution that may or may not be forthcoming in future. Why should the House foot the bill for whatever the Committee decides?

The House must first provide financial authorisation, if and when the Government are ready to initiate it, and the Committee must then work to agree or amend the Bill in the light of that authorisation. The Committee should not be asking for the House’s retrospective forgiveness; it has to wait for the House’s permission for its money resolution. Ultimately, I would be very concerned with the situation in which the approval of this motion would leave the Bill Committee itself. It would make discussions in Committee theoretical at best, and at worst it would make the whole process farcical.

Secondly, it is worth remembering that once the Committee has been through the Bill, agreeing its provisions clause by clause, the Committee cannot refine those decisions. The motion would not empower the Committee, as the Opposition might seek to argue; it would actually disempower the Committee, giving it a false sense of making progress while in fact damaging its ability to amend the Bill in the light of any developing circumstances that may in future give rise to a money resolution. I question whether all the members of the Bill Committee are fully aware of the terrible damage that the Opposition Front-Bench team are trying to impose on them.

This House runs on its conventions and on the assurance that centuries-old practice and procedure is there to protect the rights of all parliamentarians. The Government absolutely respect the right of the House to establish its own practices and procedures, but that respect must work both ways. A responsible Parliament must also respect the constitutional settlement, the relationship between Government and Parliament and the conventions that underpin the Crown initiative. By undermining all that for party political reasons by tabling this motion, the Opposition show how poorly they understand what it means to be responsible parliamentarians, let alone a responsible Government.

Financial responsibility is at the core of responsible government. Taxpayers have the right to see their Government held to account for how public money is handled, and it is Parliament’s legitimate right to hold the Government to account on that. However, Parliament —in the form of the Opposition or Back Benchers—does not have the right to undermine the Crown initiative on financial matters. Parliament does not have the right to propose taxation; that is a matter for the Government. Nor does Parliament have the right to bypass the need for the Government initiation of tax measures through, for example, Ways and Means resolutions. Parliament does not have the right to impose public spending; it is the Crown’s exclusive right, through Ministers, to propose increases in expenditure in a fiscally responsible way for which the Government are then held to account.

I am gravely concerned about the motion’s longer-term unintended consequences for the separation of powers between the Government and Parliament. Once the lines are blurred on decision making, the role of Parliament in scrutinising and holding the Government to account is put into jeopardy. Ultimately, a line does have to be drawn, and it is drawn under the historic practices of this House, under the constitutional rights of the Crown and under the long-established relationship between Government and Parliament. The line is there whether Opposition Members like it or not.

The Government are elected by the people, and the Government alone have the constitutional right and duty to initiate financial proceedings that are in the taxpayers’ interests, because it is the Government who are accountable to the taxpayer for their decisions and for defining the use of public money. Today, the Opposition are doing nothing more than abusing long-standing constitutional principles and seeking to manipulate the procedures of the House for political ends. At last year’s general election, the people of this great country had the opportunity to give the Leader of the Opposition the chance to be in charge of public spending. They did not take that opportunity. This Government will not allow the Opposition to take that opportunity by stealth, which is what is being attempted through this motion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

That is right. I am trying to be helpful to the House, as always. You know me, Madam Deputy Speaker; if I can think of a way in which to bring the House together so that we can try to make satisfactory process, I will offer it to the House. I see it as part of my job, obligation and responsibility as a Member of Parliament to see whether we can broker a solution. I suggest to the Leader of the House that the system is not working. I think that she and I would agree on that. She can nod her head if she wants.

[Andrea Leadsom]

indicated dissent.